Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
After Easter: What's Next?
Jesus's resurrection marks the beginning of our spiritual journey, not its conclusion. The 40 days following Easter represented the most intensive spiritual teaching course in human history as Jesus appeared to his disciples and taught them about the Kingdom of God.
• Christ's appearances for 40 days demonstrated both the certainty and reality of his resurrection
• Understanding God's timing is crucial—our miracles and spiritual growth happen on his schedule, not ours
• The disciples' transformation came through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not just the Spirit coming upon them
• Jesus expanded the scope of ministry from Jerusalem to "the ends of the earth" after his resurrection
• Like a fire requiring constant attention, our spiritual commitment needs regular nourishment through God's Word
• Sometimes our role is simply to plant seeds of faith that others will water and ultimately harvest
• Don't forget the sacrifice just because Easter has passed—communion reminds us of Christ's ongoing work
Remember to listen to the Holy Spirit's promptings in your heart. When you feel led to speak out, minister to someone, or pray for somebody, be proactive in your response.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
Welcome back everybody. I pray that you had a blessed Easter and an enjoyable time reflecting on the sacrifice that Jesus had made and also spending time in fellowship with your family. I've always found it rather interesting that once Easter is over, everybody goes back to should I say, normal, and you shouldn't be doing that. So I've entitled this message After Easter, what's Next Now? As a pastor and a teacher, there are a lot of educational experiences that I have undertaken and there's a lot that I would have loved to have been part of. Can you just imagine what it would be like if you were able to sit under the teaching of Aristotle when he pointed out all the treasures of the Greek culture and how this infected Alexander and it gave people of that time a love for learning, a love for learning. And you know, everywhere, from Macedonia to the banks of Indus River, he carried Greek culture and Greek learning with him everywhere he went, and I'm not sure whether you would have shared my particular taste in what I was wanting to do, taste in what I was wanting to do.
Speaker 1:William Rainey Harper at Yale. This was 100 years ago. You know, 7 o'clock in the morning, hundreds of people study in Hebrew before the rest of the curriculum began to sit under a master's teaching. Can you just imagine people rocking up that early in the morning just to listen to somebody's teaching? Would you have desired to have been in a classroom in the 13th century with theologians such as Thomas Aquinas or perhaps Karl Barth, whom significantly impacted 20th century religion through his teachings? These are master teachers, but nothing that I have spoken about or could possibly compare with the spiritual teaching that is in the story throughout the scriptures and as we begin this next phase of our journey in Acts number 1.
Speaker 1:The most intensive, crammed course of human history. Jesus was the teacher, teaching as he had done for those three and a half years, but transformed by the glory and the power of the resurrection. The curriculum was the kingdom of God. And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because from the time that John the Baptist opened the door into the history of Jesus and pushed him through and said in Matthew 3, 16 to 17, you know, as soon as Jesus was baptized he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was open and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and aligning on him. The voice from heaven said this is my son, who I love, with him, I am well pleased. Now, this is when the Spirit of God came upon him, and I have spoken briefly about this before. There's a difference to having the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit come upon you in comparison to having him come into you. So I mean, you just imagine it. I mean I'm trying to picture how all of the disciples scattered and went in so many different directions but after realizing Jesus walked amongst them for 40 days before he ascended to heaven and the thing is, you think to yourself what a golden opportunity it would have been.
Speaker 1:Now you look at the parables. One of the parables is all about the nature of the kingdom. One of the parables is all about the nature of the kingdom. One is the Beatitudes, the lessons on the ethics of the kingdom, and one of the miracles of Jesus just demonstrates the power and the renewal of the kingdom. It was all kingdom teaching. So the teacher they were used to here was transformed, the curriculum they knew through somewhat expanded, because now he could interpret these things for them in a better way the meaning of his death and the resurrection and what he had spoken as prophecy at the beginning of his death and the resurrection, and what he had spoken as prophecy at the beginning of his ministry he could now interpret as history at the close of it.
Speaker 1:I sometimes wonder what would have been going through their mind when they finally got to that realization. When they finally got to that realization, oh no, I've missed the purpose of all of this. And so it was a bit like me when I received my miracle and you know that it's not true, but you can't help but thinking it. It's almost like you've got to say well, I've got to pay back God. And I know that we don't need to and we can't, because he gives in such an incredible way and an abundance that we could never repay anything that he did for us, repay anything that he did for us, even the ultimate sacrifice of going through and being crucified. But our mindset, our normal thinking, is always that we want to please him, we want to do better, we want to sort of like I know it sounds silly, but we have to give back. You know, jesus paid forward. A lot of people practice that these days, this pay forward principle Someone's done something good for them and they need to do something good for someone else in the future so that they are actually showing God's love.
Speaker 1:So as we look at this story and understand the meaning of the kingdom, you'll better understand that his resurrection was the beginning, not the end. And starting in the book of Acts we see the certainty of the kingdom, the power of the kingdom and the scope of the kingdom. You know, timing made all the difference. When Jesus demonstrated the certainty of the kingdom, think of the before. The disciples were frightened, anxious, even puzzled, also guilty. How they would have been had the opportunity be replayed the scene of the Last Supper and their walk with Jesus when he was captured, and their walk with Jesus when he was captured, them sleeping in the garden of Gethsemane, their failure to own up to the moment of truth. If they could have replayed that and understood then what was going to happen, it would have made all the difference from their mindset and everything. You can imagine how they would have been riddled with ambivalence at their response to the crucifixion event.
Speaker 1:But then came the Easter shout, the shout that echoed in the empty tomb. If we look at Luke 24, 6-7, it says he is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee the Son of man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and on the third day he will be raised. And it's almost like you go on there. Oh my gosh, I missed it. He told me I didn't believe him. I got it all wrong. Can we do take two? Well, it's not a movie, it's not something you can look at and replay what happened, believing that you could make a difference and make different decisions.
Speaker 1:It amazes me that, even now, as I'm trying to educate you and give you a better understanding of the word, that I am also teaching myself, and I'll tell you what I mean by that. You see, it's all to do with his timing. If you're waiting for a miracle, for healing, restoration of a family member Perhaps it's a new job, a car or a change in your finances, it doesn't matter. It's all to do with timing, but not our timing, something you can put on the calendar or you think, oh, this is when God is going to do this. No, it's not your timing and it's not perceived to be your timing. It's always been, always about his Christ's presence. He showed himself alive. And he showed himself alive not once where they could think. Was it an illusion? Was I dreaming? Did I think I saw him? Did I want so much to see him that I conjured him up in my imagination and that was the vision of him? No, all this needs to be put into perspective.
Speaker 1:We've all had that experience with people that we've lost and we've been close to. We've lost them in death and we think we hear their voices or their footsteps. I remember once, ages ago, when we were very first married, my wife had to go to the UK with her mother because her grandmother had passed away. And even to this day I remember her speaking to my son and his wife, which have just flowed out to the UK for the Alpha Leaders meeting. But she remembers that they got there after her grandmother had passed away and she was sitting on the end of the bed and she swears black and blue that she felt someone sit next to her and a hand put on her shoulder. Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know. But we don't understand so much. But we need to think about this. Have we believed this? Did it really happen? Or what, we wonder? Are they dreams? But was it possible? But not with Jesus.
Speaker 1:Jesus, he kept appearing for 40 days and in those appearances, testified to the certainty of the resurrection. He ate with them, gathered with them, and demonstrated that he was alive, but also demonstrated that he was living as well. That certainty was based, then, not only on Christ's presence, as this story tells us, but on Christ's promise and his conclusion. Jesus did not slip out of the side gate and just leave a note behind saying hey, by the way, guys, this is what's happened. He did not disappear and leave them wondering what would happen next. When he left, there was this majestic scene of the clouds of heaven and the voices of the witnesses saying this in Mark 16, 19 to 20 after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. And just remember, he's going to come again the same way that they had seen him go. Not we, we didn't get to see it, only the disciples did. And all of that anxiousness, that puzzlement about the kingdom disappeared under the impact of the certainty of it.
Speaker 1:Jesus spoke of the certainty of the kingdom. He spoke of it after Easter, and the timing made all the difference. He also spoke of the power of the kingdom as well as its certainty. Here again, it was the timing that made the difference. Think of it before. Yes, they were baptized into John's baptism. Their commitment was ratified, their loyalty was sealed, they left what they had been doing and followed him. But they doubted, they were selfish, they quarreledled, they arm wrestled for the left hand and the right hand seat of the kingdom.
Speaker 1:And then came Easter, and then came the teaching of the kingdom, and even that they didn't get it right the first time, because they read it in terms of political power. And they said are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel At this time? Are you going to wipe from the shores the polluting footprints of those Romans who arrived a century under Pompeii and have held us in check ever since? Their understanding of what God was going to do and the timing in which it was going to be done were of an earthly nature, not of a kingdom nature. Done were of an earthly nature, not of a kingdom nature. They asked him are you going to set up the throne of David in Jerusalem and mount yourself to the tune of the great corrugation trumpet? And Jesus said.
Speaker 1:That's not what this curriculum is all about and that's how he crashes the seminar. The father's in charge of all of this stuff. He's about power and he wants to talk to you, not the times and the seasons. It's about witnessing that I want to speak. It's about the baptism of the Holy Spirit with power. It's about the presence and the vitality beyond everything that John ever knew and how they were changed before. They panicked in the storm while Jesus slept, and they slept in the crisis while Jesus prayed. They had life all backwards before the power of the Holy Spirit came and transformed me and you and them.
Speaker 1:And then it came a new baptism and the indwelling of the Spirit, and those whom Jesus had referred to as O ye of little faith became martyrs, faithful unto death. You know, I think, how the Greek word for witness flowed into the second meaning of martyr, because the faithfulness was the apostolic company. And you see now the difference between having the Holy Spirit come upon you and the Holy Spirit coming to dwell within you. Jesus had taught them about the Spirit. If you go to John 14 through to 16, he had told them. If you are sorry, I'll read that again. If you, as earthly parents respond kindly to your kids when they ask you for something? Isn't the Heavenly Father going to give you the Holy Spirit if you ask him? And yet none of that they had caught at that particular time. None of that had grasped them until after Easter, when the certainty of the kingdom was ratified and the promise of the power of the kingdom, and they were willing to wait in Jerusalem until it happened. See, it's the timing that made the difference. When you talk about the spirit, it was after Easter, and after Easter is kingdom time.
Speaker 1:Now we've got to look at the scope of kingdom as well. The certainty of the kingdom, the power of the kingdom the story talks about those two. The power of the kingdom the story talks about those two, but it moves on to deal with the scope of the kingdom. And here again, it's all to do with the timing. The timing makes all the difference. I cannot emphasize that any stronger than saying don't look at this from your timeline, okay, irrespective of what's going on, what you're seeing in the Word of God, or anything like that, it's all to do with God's timing, you know, and how he has put things in place for you and for me. For you and for me. We need to be ready to make sure that we are set in his place.
Speaker 1:Let me put it another way. Can you picture that scene in John 4 when the disciples began to feel a little light-hearted, light-headed? More to the point, they were faint, sick to their stomach on the trek to Samaria? Ought we be here? Are these the kinds of people that we ought to deal with? They're not our kind. Their religion is corrupt, their ethics are perverted. They're not of a pure stock of Jewism as we are.
Speaker 1:And even Jesus himself said I don't come at this stage in my ministry to deal with people from the ends of the earth. Remember what he told the woman at the well I come to minister to the lost sheep in the house of Israel. That was before. But then came Easter. Then came the resurrection and the completion of the ministry of Jesus, those preparations for the work of the ministry of Jesus, those preparations for the work of the Spirit which would take the gospel worldwide in its scope. And Jesus said, starting here in Jerusalem, where the trial was triggered and the trial against him was rigged, there were witnesses who were bribed man. This actually sounds like some political sensations today, but I'm keeping it out of that. But basically the trial was rigged. But it had to be rigged because they had to make sure that it did actually happen. You know, they bribed witnesses, combined with the power of the Romans and the Jews, conspiring to make sure that he definitely went to the cross, make sure that he definitely went to the cross there too.
Speaker 1:And then into Samaria with its corruption and its perversion, where Philip went and talked about the kingdom in Acts 8, and beyond that to the end of the earth. This is where it all started. You've got to look at it from this perspective. Before the book of Acts it's thought to show us the trial of Paul going to Ephesus in chapter 20 and doing kingdom talk there. In Chapter 20 and doing Kingdom Talk there, the curriculum of the seminar had taken and Paul took the message to Ephesus. In that city, straight Roman roads, precision collaboration, pagan temples, paul said the kingdom of God was there. And then on to Rome, where the light of the kingdom, paul said, out, dazzled with the light of imperial majesticness, where nothing that the Senate of the Roman people could say would muster up any terms that could stop the movement of the kingdom of God. See, this is what it was all about Matthew, mark, luke and John are basically the stories from a different perspective. The stories from a different perspective about the birth, the life, the teachings, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But now we get into Romans and the Acts and the continue into the New Testament and that is all about what Jesus had said. It's all to do with.
Speaker 1:The message had to be like a great tidal wave of response. That makes the wave of Krakatoa look like a bubble in a pond. The gospel went out and it reached your pagan ancestors and mine. You know, when we see those slides of people from New Guinea, the slopes of the Andes, the tribal peoples, the hill countries of India, we feel that somehow we must have come from different stock than what we have I don't know what family portraits that you have and your ancestors from Germanian tribes in 3000 AD, scandinavia, the Britons, old Viking founders of the Hubbard clan, of the Hubbard clan. He wore no Brooke Brothers suits, carried no Samsonite briefcase and despite all of that paganism, the certainty of the kingdom and the power of the kingdom reinforced that movement into a full scope of the kingdom and the power of the kingdom came to a little town in Northern Ireland where a revival meeting was being held and so many people were at that. The same with the Azusa Street movement.
Speaker 1:There have been waves and waves of pastoral preaching that has touched thousands, hundreds of thousands, but the scope of the kingdom has reached us all, as Jesus promised that it would, when the church goes out and relies on witnessing, was carried onto and into every nation around the world, and it comes to me that it could come to you. This is after Easter, this is the mission, it's witness time and it's kingdom time. We need to have that fire rekindled. It's almost like yeah, I'm probably getting this wrong to a lot of degrees, from different aspects and everything, but just try and picture it this way when Jesus was walking around preaching the word of God, bringing people to Christ, healing, those miracle signs and wonders were taking place. Those miracle signs and wonders were taking place. And then he ascended into heaven and he sent the comfort of the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and we were to go into all parts of the world preaching the gospel.
Speaker 1:It says in Luke 4, 4, 18 and 19 the spirit of the lord is upon us, because he has anointed us to preach the gospel, to set those that are in captivity free to declare the acceptable year of the lord. It is our responsibility. And it's almost like throughout the year, from Christmas through to Easter, we haven't really stacked the fire, and so there's just been this little fire burning within us. And then, when easter comes along, all of a sudden people stoke the fire and and, uh, fill it with oxygen and we get this roaring fire taking place. So there's a burning desire for us to do what needs to be done, but after a while that will start to burn down again, and we've got this constant. You know it's like the stock exchange. You know, with our walk with God it goes up, it goes down, it plateaus for a while, then it would peak for a little bit and then it would drop off for a little bit. We all need to be doing our part. Sometimes.
Speaker 1:That is just making sure that you as an individual keep the word alive in you and you keep feeding it. And how do you feed that fire in your belly? That is the Holy Spirit. You just keep feeding it. The word Spending time in the word of God is a very, very good way to keep stoking the fire and then, if you feel led out of your comfort zone and into the world. Do not be ashamed of the gospel. If you're led by the Holy Spirit, you will preach to anybody, anytime, anywhere. I'm not saying to be a walking, talking bible bashing person, but you know, pick your battles, you know. Know which ones that you can bring to fulfillment and which ones you can't. And sometimes it's only your job to plant a seed. Someone else will come along and water it and someone else will reap the rewards of that by harvesting it.
Speaker 1:So don't forget about what happened at the cross, because there's other, more important things taking place in your life. Always remember that ultimate sacrifice that was done for you and me and everybody before now and in the future. And so remember always, and that's why we do communion. We do communion to remind us constantly of what the sacrifice that was made. And so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to start going through different subject matters and different things, but I want you to remember what happened at the cross.
Speaker 1:Don't forget it just because Easter's passed, all right, because he did it so that you could live the life that you live today and have the opportunity to change someone else's life as well, all right, we can't go back and walk with Jesus. That can't happen. Okay, but we've got to know that whatever takes place in our life from our Christian perspective, it's all to do with his timing, not ours. Don't try and make things happen. Allow things to happen and if you get that niggling in your heart or deep down in your belly to do something, to speak out, to change someone's life, to go and minister to someone or even pray for somebody, listen to the Holy Spirit and be proactive, because that's what we're here to do. Love you guys. Talk to you soon. Bye for now.
