The Church, Called by God to be Different

Text: Acts 2:36-41

Focus: The work of the Holy Spirit in building the church.

Function: To help us understand that God is calling everyone to live His way.

Form: GOK

Intro:

I love mother, I loved my Grandmothers. My father's mom could play the piano, she knew all the hymns and oftentimes, we would sit in the living room with a good old hymn sing. She brought me close to the Holy Spirit. My mom's mom was a real saint, after her husband died, while she still had a child in High School, she went to college, became an RN, retired and then went on the mission field. She was a prayer warrior.

And my own mother never gave up on me. During my years of rebellion and drug abuse, she prayed earnestly for me. She posted scripture verses all over the house and begged me to come back to God.

Mothers call us to the things we need to value the most.

They call us.

I remember spending a week with my dad's mother and we were playing in the barnyard. She came outside and yelled to us: Soup's On! We thought that was an odd thing to say and kept on playing.

She came back 5 minutes later and repeated her phrase.

“How odd!” I thought. “That soup is taking forever to heat up!” And I was hungry.

Again, five minutes later she came out, and just as calm and kind as she could be asked us why we weren't coming in. I relayed to her that we thought she would tell us when the soup was finished and she explained to us that “Soup's On” means that the meal is ready.

Never got angry. And she was always calling to us. I did a chore for her once, to which she was going to pay one dollar. But she gave me my pay in dimes, and told me: “Now you can give 10 cents, your tithe, to God.”

What great things we learn.

Grandma was always calling us to things better.

And that is not unlike God.

Look again at this scripture: We start with the verse we ended with last week. “God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ.”

Remember, Peter has just preached a stern message to them, pointing a finger at them and exposing the fact that they killed Jesus. And now, He explains how it is God's plan.

Oftentimes, preaching that accuses, or lectures doesn't get very far.

But something different happens here.

Instead of getting upset, they respond with “What should we do?”

God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is calling them into His family.

Jesus said it clearly when He commissioned Peter to begin the Church. He told them that they Holy Spirit is the one who calls people to Jesus. Matthew 16:17-18

This is the work of God. The Work of the Holy Spirit. The Church, without the Holy Spirit drawing people into the family of God cannot exist.

GOD calls the Church. God calls the Church into His Kingdom, His family and those values start now.

All this month, we are looking at the formation of the early Church. Last week we saw how it is God's Kingdom, and it is wrong doctrine to believe that the Kingdom doesn't start until we get to heaven.

God calls the Church to be the Church here and now. And, we saw that the sermon had nothing to do with all the doctrine of what it means to be saved, but the sermon, this sermon being preached by Peter is about Jesus, Lord and Savior of all of humanity.

The good news is that God provides a way for us to join in His family, right now.

The soup is already on, the time is now.

And, again, it isn't just so that we can prove ourselves to be right. We are called now to be His disciples.

Next week we are going to look at the unique aspects of living, loving and caring for each other. We are going to explore how the early Christians understood community (point to banner).

The week after that, we are going to look at what it means to serve one another and the last week, we will look at the sin of trying to market Christianity.

But right now, we are exploring the nature of joining and the way that God wants everyone to join.

Peter has told them: “You are guilty!”

And instead of being angry at his preaching, they say: “What should we do.”

Peter tells them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus.

What do those terms mean? Baptized we understand. But what is he talking about in repentance. When someone is baptized here, the question of repentance comes up. “Do you turn away from sin and evil to follow God?”

I love the way verse 40 is paraphrased in “The Message.”

The author says: ⁴⁰He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, "Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!"

Repentance, to Peter and the early disciples, had a lot to do with changing our primary allegiance to the Kingdom of God. It was adopting “another way of living.”

Get out of this sick and stupid culture!

Remember, these were the common people. They weren't the ones who had Jesus murdered. They weren't the ones who were convicted by Jesus sacrificial love for the poor. They weren't the ones who wanted to stop Jesus preaching because Jesus told them to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies, to give to those who asked of them, to return insults with blessings.

(SHOW PICTURE)

I downloaded this picture from Rev. Greg Boyd, and Evangelical Christian pastor of a mega-church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has come under some criticism for reminding people what Jesus thinks about our enemies.

I am relieved that Osama Bin Laden is dead. But I am not happy about it. Violence begets violence. His death will make leaving Afghanistan easier. President Bush went on a mission to help us save face after the violence of 9/11. Both sides of the aisle can be glad that it is over.

And it is important to remember that God has given governments the burden, the sad task, of the right and the responsibility to do justice, even with violence, on behalf of victims. If governments do not punish evil doers, then governments are not being responsible to God and are not caring for their constituents.

But we remind ourselves to forgive our enemies, to bless those who want to destroy us, to keep on loving no matter how other people respond to us.

Kathy woke up Monday before I did and as I came down the stairs and saw the TV and the focus on the news about Osama's death, she said: “How can people rejoice at the death of someone else, even their enemy?”

Jerry Bowen, the pastor at West Milton COB this week told of how he felt like he was an outsider because he too felt criticized because he wasn't rejoicing about the death of someone. He said, people are calling me both unchristian and unpatriotic.

There is the true story of the Chicago preacher who was on a crusade to take a stand against sin. He rallied people into a frenzy to return the death penalty against a man who, in a fit of passion, murdered his wife and when he discovered them. The prosecutor thought that since it wasn't a premeditated murder it didn't warrant the death penalty. And the preacher was full of fame and glory until they made him be the man to pull the lever. The preacher, when he realized the human cost of his crusade, changed his attitude, repented of his anger and started teaching and preaching the love and mercy that Jesus taught.

So, here is Peter calling them, at length, to give up the world's value system and adopt Jesus and His way of responding with grace and mercy.

He is talking about the murder of Jesus and he calls it a corrupt generation.

Think about it.

We turn away from all sin, the sin that Jesus died to save us from when we become believers. But Peter is calling them to repent for taking part in the murder of Jesus.

Do we think about things Jesus' way? Or do we think about things our way?

Do we view things from God's perspective? Or from an human perspective?

Some people would say that to view things from a Christian perspective, is to call Sin as Sin and to take a stand against the sinfulness of immoral people just like the preacher who ran the crusade for the death penalty against that murderer.

Others say, instead of merely cursing the darkness, we, as Christians should shine a light, be a place where we can point the way to God.

Three thousand were saved that day. Peter speaks of repentance, but he doesn't speak about sin, or some of the classic definitions of sin.

What does he mean when he says: “Repent??”

Turn away from the corruption of the world's evil system and live the way Jesus taught us to live. Remember, although this crowd isn't the leaders who silenced Jesus because Jesus' teaching pointed out how they mistreated widows, orphans, the poor, foreigners, lepers and sinners, all in the name of God.

Although Jesus died to give His life for our salvation, they killed Him because they wanted to silence Him.

And this crowd isn't the people who committed that murder, but they were the same crowd who on Palm Sunday cried out Hosanna and then on Good Friday, cried out Crucify.

Peter has just pointed out, “You (the crowd) also killed Him.”

And now, Peter is calling them to repent from a corrupt culture that puts to death the one who cries out “love your neighbor! Love your enemy! Don't strive for more and more things, more riches, remember it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...!”

That is what Peter, who has just spent 3 years listening to all of Jesus' teaching, is talking about when he calls the world's system a corrupt system.

So, what does repentance look like for us?

I don't preach shame. The temptation to rejoice at vengeance last week when Bin Laden died is one that many of us may have fallen victim to.

Don't be ashamed if you did. But remember, Jesus died on the cross for him. He died on the cross for our enemies.

This crowd had been manipulated and they did something terrible when they cried out “crucify.”

It is easy to get caught up in emotion, inside a crowd. It is part of human nature.

Now, I am going to change gears for just a quick moment and go a little deeper into God's word to make sure we understand what Peter is saying.

I remember following a car in Southern Kentucky when I was a traveling salesman. He had a bumper sticker that said: “Acts 2:38. Get it Right. Baptize in the name of Jesus only.”

There is this denomination that I believe sort of “nit picks scripture” and says that it is wrong to follow the baptismal formula from Matthew 28 “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” They say that anyone who is baptized by that formula is going to hell because this passage says “In the name of Jesus.” And this passage was written later. Of course, in order to believe that, one would have to believe that the bible is full of errors.

Now, this passage doesn't say “In the name of Jesus only.” And I don't believe the Bible contradicts itself, so why the difference?

Because this crowd has just rejected Jesus. So, it is important that they understand that all of this is based on Jesus. Look at Jesus. Accept Jesus. Admit that Jesus is the one. Turn away from the whole concept of why they killed Him. Take up your crosses and follow Him.

Brother's and sisters God has called us to the Church, His kingdom here and now, and the main focus of it, as Peter is preaching, is Jesus. We love, honor and worship Jesus. And the Holy Spirit does it. We don't love honor and worship revenge, a nation, or a political party. Jesus' disciples included rich, poor, outcasts and people who were right in the midst of the Jewish hierarchy. They got along even though some of them were bitter political enemies.

All of them were called by God to something greater than homes, retirement accounts, pleasure and etc.

When God calls us, He calls us to a different, a simpler way of living. He calls us to make His kingdom more important than the world's kingdoms and their systems of revenge, materialism. He calls us to live out Jesus peace. He calls us to be transformed by Jesus.

God is calling. The Soup is On. There is a chance for us to live lives that make a difference for God's kingdom here on earth, so that we can join the family of God that has already gone ahead to glory.