Becoming Like Christ Through Evangelism (John 20:19-23)                                                  2009.06.14        Pastor Richard Yu

    In this series of messages on growing to become Christ-like, I’ve proposed the idea that we can grow to be like Christ through a four-prong approach that includes Worship, Instruction, Fellowship and Evangelism (W.I.F.E.).  First, we become like what we worship; therefore we become Christ-like when we practice Christ-centered worship, in which we learn to contemplate, to behold the glory of Christ. Second, we become like what we feed our mind with; therefore we become Christ-like when we regularly and properly receive instruction in the Lord, that is, when we allow the word of Christ dwell in us richly and which become the guiding principle of our daily living. Third, we become like the company we keep; therefore we become Christ-like when we engage in genuine fellowship with believers in Christ; i.e., when we regularly engage in Christ-embodied fellowship with fellow believers. More importantly, we become Christ-like when we keep in the fellowship with Christ himself, when we consistently are in his company.

    Fourthly, we grow to become Christ-like through evangelism. The underlying idea is that we become like someone when we actively imitate what he/she does; or when we purposefully engage ourselves in his/her mission/passion/agenda. As in Jesus’ days, disciples were trained to be like their rabbis, not only in knowledge, ideals, values, character, but also in mission and ministry. Disciples were expected to continue and expand the teachings and mission of their rabbis and this is what we see in the commissions that Jesus gave his followers in John 20:19-23. What he taught they were to teach; and what he did they were to do as well. 

    From the text we learn that the disciples met together behind locked doors out of fear after Jesus’ crucifixion. Then in some miraculous way, Jesus enters the room, twice repeated the words, “Peace be with you.” This reminds us of what Jesus had said earlier to these men concerning the peace that comes from him (cf. Jn. 14:24-27). Jesus first comforted his disciples and helped them regain faith in him and courage to move on so that they could be readied to receive their commission next. In a similar way, for us to hear this commission afresh, to engage in the works for which Jesus had sent us to do, we need to know, first and foremost, that there will be “peace” no matter what comes our way, because the peace Christ has to offer is a peace that transcend the understanding of this world.

    Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Together with the words of what is usually referred to as the Great Commission, the disciples were being sent into the world to continue Jesus’ mission in a way that was parallel to the way the Father sent Jesus into the world to redeem it. More than 40 times in the Gospel of John, Jesus taught about his being sent from the Father. Being sent was central to Jesus’ self-understanding, and so we are to understand our own identity as the sent ones. As Christians we are called to serve God's mission by living and proclaiming the good news.

    To have this sense of mission firmly planted in us, we need to go back to the beginning of God’s story, which started out with Abraham and his descendants – the nation of Israel. In Exodus, when God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, he miraculously took them across the Red Sea, established the Mosaic Covenant with them at Mt. Sinai, and formed a people for himself who would both worship him faithfully and witness about him to the world. Israel would demonstrate life under God’s kingship as a picture of what God intended for all the earth. (cf. Ex. 19:1-6)

     However, Israel had failed to live up to her calling. She was not able to faithfully live by the laws given to them by God to express their relationship with God. But while Israel failed to fulfill this God-given mission, Jesus came to fulfill this mission by living up perfectly all the requirement of the law and fulfilling all the promises of the OT. From him come the new people of God, the new humanity in Christ, made up of Jews and Gentiles alike. And this new people of God – all believers, you and I – are being sent into the world to declare the glory of the Lord.

    Jesus’ ministry to announce the nearness of the kingdom of God with power and authority is now given to the church. Immediately after sending the disciples, Jesus breathed into them the Holy Spirit (v. 22), because the mission to which Jesus called the disciples required spiritual power.  Jesus was symbolically bestowing His Holy Spirit on the church; and this symbolic act was literally fulfilled at Pentecost. We need divine enablement in order to accomplish the task given to us. No matter how we witness Christ Jesus to the world around us, we cannot do it without the power of the Spirit.

    “We can become like Christ,” writes Dallas Willard, “by practicing the types of activities he engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities he himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship with his Father.” Christ’s primary activity was to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom, and so we are to engage in order to become like him.

    Speaking for myself, I do not feel that I have in any way “arrived” in the ongoing process of being conformed to the image of Christ; but I know there is a personal hunger for it. I long to offer life-giving water to those who thirst from the well of my soul. Would you join me in this thirst?