How's That Working Out For You?

Text: Mark 4:35-41
Focus: Trusting God
Function: To help people rely on God instead of themselves.
Form: Story Telling

Intro:

In this story, the great power of the Lord is evident as Jesus calms a storm.

Storms in life are inevitable.

The worse thing about the storm is that we have no control. Nature works beyond our ability to stop it.

(SHOW) Life is out of control but… …Jesus is in Control!

In this story, it was obvious to the apostles that their lives were in peril.
When our lives are in peril, and we can see the danger, we oftentimes think about how much we need the Lord.

But we often forget that we need Him all the time.

We are not aware of how much he cares for us.
I spent my week of vacation with my son and his wife. They just bought their first home, and decided to get a puppy the same week.

They got a tenacious German-shepherd pup.

Dogs have this instinct to bring down prey much larger than them by biting the prey’s Achilles tendon, crippling it and then going for the throat.

This puppy, acting on instinct, was always under our feet trying to bring us down. I can’t tell you how funny that was, but also, the dog, in its naiveté got stepped on several times.

One time, Kathy said, it cried quite a while after Kathy stepped on it.

Sooner or later, it is going to learn.

And since it was too small to be kept in the fence, they tied it up in the backyard. They have a fish pond, with rocks around it. The leash gets tangled in the rocks and the dog gets stuck in the water and in its innocence, it could easily drown.

It needs constant attention.

It needed its master to protect it from harm and most the time, it didn’t even know when it was in trouble.

We have this same relationship with God.

That is why Jesus, in the Lord ’s Prayer said: deliver us from the evil one.
(SHOW) We need Jesus all the time, not just during the times of trouble.

How do we act toward Him in times of trouble?

I think it is very important in our relationship with God to be honest with Him.

When we are happy and at peace, we praise and worship Him.

What happens when we are upset, or bothered about the way the direction of our life is going?

And why do we have problems?

Most often, the problems are problems we have created for ourselves, and it isn’t fair to God to blame Him.

But sometimes, on top of the problems we created for ourselves, circumstances just go all the way wrong and you are thinking, Lord just give me a break!

In this story, the problem the disciples were facing had nothing to do with something they did themselves.

God wanted to teach them He could be trusted. And to do that, He allowed them to be at great risk.

As I said, those who are willing to serve Him don’t do so from the comfort of their living rooms giving money to others to do the work. Serving God can involve genuine risk.

And when they were in trouble, they got upset with God.

I have found this in prayer, it is important to be honest with God about what we are feeling. Some people are afraid to do that because they think it might be irreverent. Just as a child addresses a parent, it should be respectful, but God knows better how we are feeling and knows if we are lying to either Him or ourselves.

So the disciples are angry with the Lord for sleeping in the midst of this storm.

Now think about it, they should have taken their clue about their safety from the way that Jesus wasn’t concerned about the storm.

But instead, they allowed fear to dominate their thinking.

Healthy fear is important in order to protect us from real danger. I wish that puppy feared getting stepped on more than its instinct to bite my ankle. It had sharp teeth!

But this fear is the kind of fear that denies the possibility of faith and what God can do.

So, what did the disciples do when the boat was sinking?

What we all would have done, they started bailing out the boat.

And here they are, more and more water is pouring into the boat and they keep bailing harder and harder.

Let me break down the nature of a crisis. The problem causes a certain reaction. Although it doesn’t solve the problem, they keep trying harder at what doesn’t work.

I counseled one couple several years ago, she smoked and he drank. They both said, “as long as the other either drinks or smokes, I am going to keep up my behavior.”

So, in order to “fix” their marriage, he was destroying his liver, she was destroying her lungs.

I wanted to ask them: “How’s that working out for you?”

Back to the disciples: One could commend them for doing something.

But what they did wasn’t the right thing.

Isn’t that the way we live our own lives?

(SHOW) We keep facing the same problem, time and time again and we keep reacting the same way, even though it doesn’t work.

They needed to change their action. At this time, it meant they needed to wake up the Lord and ask Him for help.

They needed to place their lives into the care and protection of God.

(SHOW) If you keep having the same problem, and your solution doesn’t work, it is time to consider a different response… …It is time to call on the Lord for help!

So here they are bailing out the boat, and they are upset that Jesus isn’t bailing with them.
Imagine their thinking: “Okay, we got 12 people bailing and that isn’t working, maybe if we add a 13th person it’ll be enough!”

It didn’t occur to them that maybe Jesus had a better plan.

(SHOW) Jesus has a better plan.

In the boat, Jesus was asleep, because no matter how it looked, He was in control

(SHOW) No matter how it looks, Jesus is in control.

Go back to Abraham for a minute.

God told him that he would have descendants as numerous as the sands on the seashore.

And yet, his wife was barren.
So, he did his own thing, took on a second wife because he figured God needed help with God’s promises.

He invested his hope and future in that boy and when that boy was 12 years old, God told him that another child was coming, through his wife Sarah.
Sarah was 89 years old, had been through the change and it would take a miracle for him to get her pregnant.

But God, when we are in line with His plans, is the God of miracles.

Sure enough, Isaac was born.

13 years after that, God told him to sacrifice Isaac on the altar.

By this time, Abraham had finally learned the lesson of faith that nothing is impossible for God.

Even if Isaac was dead, he knew God could give him grandchildren through Isaac.

Death is a pretty absolute thing, but his hope was in the genuine and real power of God.

Abraham rested in God, not in the circumstances.

(SHOW) Rest in God, not the circumstances.

God may be calling us to do something different.
A pastor friend of mine was having marriage difficulties.

He went to a marriage retreat where the speaker told them, if what you are doing isn’t working, then try doing something different.

For the Seinfeld fans, it was kind of like “opposite George.”

There was a particular event that recurred a few times in their marriage that was pretty drastic. It was big enough to end most marriages.

And this friend of mine decided to do something different. When this event occurred, instead of reacting himself in anger, he choose to embrace her and give her unconditional love.

And it worked! She melted, repented and now they are have a strong marriage with a story to tell about the power of unconditional love.
Now, it doesn’t’ always work because God doesn’t’ violate the free will of anyone.

So why mention it? The Pastor’s choice to be obedient to Christ no matter what she did opened the door for the work of the Holy Spirit in her and she choose to obey God.

He told us this: “as long has he kept reacting the same way, he was getting nowhere.”

The disciples kept bailing the boat and wanted Jesus to bail with them instead of looking for another solution.

(SHOW) If you are doing something in your own strength and it isn’t working out for you, will doing it harder make it work out?

It is the same in the Church as it is in life.

Did you hear about the 3 bear hunters?
• They were flown into a remote lake in Alaska for a week of hunting.
• They each bagged a bear.
• The pilot returned to take them out and they wanted to take their bears with them.
• There wasn’t room, or lift enough on the plane but they convinced the pilot to let them tie the bears to the wings.
• They told the pilot they did it the year before by going to a certain spot on the lake the provided the longest stretch of water for the plane to build up speed.
• And they justified it by telling him that the year before there were 4 of them instead of 3.
• They were traveling across the lake and got a little lift, just enough to clear the trees on the edge of the lake, but after 200 yards, they hit some taller trees and crashed into the woods.
• The pilot was furious and started yelling at them.
• And they said, “well, we got 100 yards farther than last year.”

You want to ask those guys, “How’s that working out for you?”

Why keep doing what doesn’t work?

I know that changing the way we do things is unsettling. The older I get, the more I hate change. I hate having things out of control. My reaction more often is: “I like it just the way it was, thank you.”

But the Lord was showing the disciples a new way, and He was inviting them to walk with Him in new ways.

(SHOW) God is always making things new for us… … and He is always protecting us.

These battles we face are spiritual, not physical.

I don’t know what it means exactly that when Jesus did wake up, He rebuked the winds and seas.

It is the same word used when He talked of rebuking Satan Himself.

Brothers and sisters, we are not without an enemy to our souls.

Satan will do everything he can to bring us down and destroy us.

We need to resist him just as Jesus did.

He keeps us in bondage to bitterness, resentment, revengefulness, gossip, unforgiveness and shame.

What would happen if we let those things go?

What would happen, if instead of reacting with bitterness, pettiness, gossip and unforgiveness we choose to love and forgive?

Those things don’t work, but sometimes we keep doing it harder and harder, don’t we?

Now I want to end with a story about how it is a spiritual battle and how if we choose to be obedient to Christ, regardless of the other person, we open the door for God to move on our behalf.

I got permission from one of my former deacons to tell you this story.

He was raised as a plain-dressed Mennonite. They weren’t horse and buggy, but they were black-bumper Mennonites.

He married a Methodist. When he married her, his own brother condemned him for marrying outside the faith. His brother called him a sinner for doing that.

He told me he quit loving his brother and carried terrible bitterness toward him for over 12 years.

Then, we had a ceremony at the church, where we asked people to write the name of someone they were carrying unforgiveness for on a slip of paper and nail it to the cross as a symbol of giving it up.

He forgave his brother and wouldn’t you know it? Two weeks later, after 12 years his brother came to him and asked for his forgiveness.

He knew that the Holy Spirit worked on his behalf after he forgave his brother.

(SHOW) When we choose to do things God’s way, we open up the possibility for a miracle to happen.

If we refuse to do it God’s way, then we are stuck bailing out the boat ourselves.

And it is spiritual warfare we are fighting. Satan wants you bound in unforgiveness, pettiness, bitterness and revenge.

Satan wants you bound by fear, or bound by tradition so much that you refuse to trust God to build a new future for you.

And if you feel bound that way, it is time to let it go and let God quiet the storm. It is time to surrender control back to Him.

CONCL:

Will you come to Jesus to be free?

Daddy, Fix it!

Text: Romans 8:12-17
Focus: Overcoming Sin
Function: The Holy Spirit gives us real power to be free from sin.
Form: expository

Intro:

It is great when your children are young and dad is their hero. I had a dad who could fix anything. He used to say, “it was designed and engineered by men, and I am a man, so I guess that means I can fix it.”

Of course, the wise man also realizes the limits of his potential, tools and experience and knows when to read the directions or hire a professional.

I remember every time one of the kids’ toys would break, they would bring it to me for daddy to fix.

My son was playing with this large blow-up balloon that was fairly heavy for a balloon, but was sold as a ball. But it proved to be as fragile as a balloon. As it wore out, it burst. He brought the pieces to me to fix. And I learned that there are some things that only God can fix.
The neat thing about growing up is when your children are more adept, agile and better at fixing things than you are.

But I got to tell you, the joy in being able to fix the toy was great. It was great to see the light come back on in the children’s eyes when you saved the day.

It was great when my dad did that for me, and it was great when I could do it for my children.

Daddy, fix it. It was a common cry.

And, it is the cry of this scripture.

He talks about living either led by the Spirit of God, where God is in control, or being led by our own desires and will.

(SHOW) Living by the flesh is living in such a way that we have to fight sin all by ourselves…
…The Holy Spirit is at work in us to set us free.

Sometimes it is hard to be free, because we have to surrender.

Listen, sin is SIN. It destroys both us, our relationships with others and more importantly, our relationship with God.

The world will tell you that we are merely animals, with an animal nature that cannot be controlled and we are victims of it, caught up and controlled by our passions.

The world will tell us that we are slaves to our own lusts.

But we aren’t. Look at the first part of our text: (SHOW) So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh

We are debtors to God who purchased our lives with His own blood.

And living for our own desires is death. Look again: (SHOW) — for if you live according to the flesh, you will die;

That thinking that we have to follow our temptations to do the wrong thing is death to us. We are not enslaved by sin anymore.

There is freedom in Christ: (SHOW) …but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live

We are not under any obligation to have to obey our sinful desires

As a matter of fact, it is impossible for us to even manage them.

We can’t do it.

Think of the symbolization when we are baptized.

(SHOW) Baptism symbolizes the overcoming power of God.

When we go under the water, we symbolize burial. We symbolize a death to living merely for ourselves.

But no minister of God ever drowns a victim. Immediately, they bring that person back out of the water.

The coming out of the water symbolizes our resurrection. It symbolizes a new, more powerful, more authentic life. It symbolizes a life lived as a son or daughter of God with a whole new purpose for being.

And I think about the faith in that.

(SHOW a crucifix and a cross without an icon of Jesus on it)

This is my “dress cross” for Sunday morning. I have an everyday cross. It is a cross, but the silhouette of where Jesus hung on the cross is there. I don’t know if the artist decided it was a modern form of a crucifix. A crucifix is a cross with an image of Jesus still on the cross.

Many believers refuse to wear one because Jesus is no longer on the cross.

He rose from the dead.

It could be a modern art crucifix, or it could symbolize that He was there, which is a very important concept in our faith. And it also symbolizes that He is no longer there.

I like crucifixes because they remind me of the terrible price Jesus paid. When we have bread and cup communion, we are also remembering the crucifixion.

But the one, the crucifixion is meaningless without the resurrection.

If Jesus merely died for our sins, and didn’t rise from the dead, then the only real meaning of our faith is that we are shameful people whom God really must hate.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we are still stuck in shame.

And (SHOW) Shame is not from God.

Shame is that sense of worthlessness. I am not talking about humility, but hopelessness.

Shame is demonic –straight from the pit of hell because it crushes the spirit and keeps us from hope.

God is not the author of shame.

I mentioned on Easter about my minister friend who refuses to believe that Jesus died for him because it wouldn’t be fair that one man should die on behalf of another.

Never mind the fact that you are good people and would probably give your life to save someone else.

My friend would be correct if Jesus was just a man. He would be correct of Jesus wasn’t God. He would be correct of Jesus hadn’t raised Himself from the dead.

If Jesus was merely a man, then the noble thing for us to do would be to take our own punishment.
But He wasn’t just a man.

(SHOW) The fact is, a miracle happened when Jesus rose from the dead.

So, here is the thing. The man side of Jesus, the GOD/MAN died for us. We have faith in that. In one sense, we believe in noble character and could picture ourselves risking our lives to save another. We could picture ourselves pushing a child out of the path of an oncoming bus. So, we can picture Jesus’ self-sacrifice.

That part is easyto understand. But here is the mystery if this scripture, the second part is hard for us to understand:

When He rose from the Dead, the Holy Spirit delivered Him from death. God did a miracle.

When I studied theology I learned that because of Jesus death for me, I shouldn’t sin because He did so much to set me free. Because He died to overcome sin, I shouldn’t treat His sacrifice lightly by continuing to sin and making a mockery. I learned that every time I sinned, it was just like I was driving extra nails into His hands and feet.

We don't stop sinning to save ourselves -Jesus already did that. Repentance is turning our lives over to God.

I believe in that. But I always had this terrible fear that the second part of my faith wasn’t working.

He died to forgive us, He rose to set us free from sin.

If He rose to set us free from sin, and I believe in it, just as I believe He died to forgive us. Then why do I still sin?

IS my faith only half of what it should be?

But consider this, my friends. Everyone of us could die for our own sins. In this state, if one commits a capital crime and with malice and deliberate planning murders another, that person could very well get the death penalty.

But listen, not one of us can raise ourselves from the dead.

It is impossible. You can’t do it. God did the impossible. And it is the same with deliverance from sinful behavior.

That is thy mystery of this passage: Only God could raise Himself from the dead, only God can deliver us from sin.

It takes a miracle to be free.

If it were possible to put to death the deeds of the flesh by our own will, then Jesus would not have died for us.

God did what we can’t do.
If you are still trying to overcome sin by your own effort, you will fail. As a matter of fact, you will die trying.

IF we are trying to do it ourselves, we will die.

We do it in faith, in fellowship with God, drawn into His very presence by the Holy Spirit, being held in His arms like a child comforted by Dad or mom, then we are promised a victorious Christian life.

(SHOW) Putting to death the misdeeds of the body is achieved by being “led by the Spirit.”

WE CAN’T DO THIS OURSELVES.
Here is where Christian ministry without faith in, or understanding of, the work of the Holy Spirit fails.
For example, we read the scripture (SHOW) Ephesians 5:18a: “Do not be drunk with wine, for this is excess…”

And we end it there. And, we decide who is and who isn’t a good Christian based on whether or not they drink wine at all, when the scripture clearly points to the sin of excess, and excess in anything is implied, not just the abuse of alcohol. And, (SHOW) We leave out the most important part of the scripture, (Ephesians 5:18b) …but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

You understand that merely trying to stop something by our own effort leads to failure.

But living in relationship with God brings spiritual growth and success.

Notice that there are things that are assumed in this passage:

First: (SHOW) Without the Spirit of Christ in us, sin will control us.
Chapter 7, sin, without the Spirit of Christ in us will control us. We become slaves of our own desires.

Second: (SHOW) The war over sin has been won.
There is NO CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE IN CHRIST JESUS, FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS HAS SET US FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH.

Third: Even though the war is over, (SHOW) the battles are still being fought.
• The ones who give into the struggle will suffer death.
• He is talking of either spiritual or physical death.
• We are under obligation to the law of love, not the law of sin and condemnation.
• We are under the law, not the law of sin and condemnation, but the law of love.
Fourth: (SHOW) The Holy Spirit is our motivating force.
• It motivates us toward Love for God and others.
• It motivates away from sin.
• We are no longer motivated only to sin.
• Yet we still sin, we choose not to forgive, we choose to live in excess, we choose to judge, we choose to gossip and listen to gossip. Too often we choose self over others or God.
• So where is the victory?
• The victory is won when we rest in grace.
• When we consider ourselves dead to sin.

Fifth: The (SHOW) victory comes in relationship with God.
• The Holy Spirit calls us sons and daughters of God.
• It is in relationship with this power that is supernatural and beyond ours that we have victory.

Sixth and most importantly: (SHOW) The Spirit of God puts to death the misdeeds of the body.
• Do you want to be a more spiritual person?
• Then don’t fight sin by your effort.
• Get involved in your Christian duty to be a light and a blessing to the world.
• When God’s Spirit, which is likened to a river of living water flows through you, the problem with temptation and sin fades because you are connected with the Father.

When this scripture says if you are living in the flesh you will die, it includes fighting against sin in our own effort.
If you fight against sin by your own effort, you will fail.

If you work FOR good in the power of the Holy Spirit, you will succeed.

Don’t be afraid of your failures. Learn from them. Next time, make up your mind to do well.

There is truth to the statement that idle minds/hands are the devils’ playground.

Except I put it in the positive, if we are doing good, and enjoying the closeness that brings us to God, we won’t have time or a desire to do wrong.

And it is important to realize that Daddy does fix the sin problem when we are being led by the Holy Spirit.

A Crazy Birthday

Text: Acts 2:1-13
Focus: Pentecost
Function: To celebrate the POWER God has given the Church
Form: Storytelling

Intro:

The evolution of Birthday parties:
• Birthday Cake
• Bought cake not good enough so:
o Dairy Queen Ice Cream
• To “The Birthday experience”
• It is great to be able to indulge our children, but we have to be careful of over stimulating them.
• I was talking with Michael Riley about youth groups and he said: “half the problem is that churches give youth so much excitement, that they don’t prepare youth for the real world and kids find out that life is not always one thrill after another and connect it with Christianity.”
• There is something to be said for times when we are excited and times when we quietly reflect on God’s goodness.

Today is the great birthday party of the Church.

That is what happened here in the text.
And God certainly brings the occasion in with a bang.

This is much better than clowns, rodeos or ponies.

As we saw a few weeks ago, again on this day, the faithful are gathered to pray. Except today it is in the upper room.

I don’t think it is the same upper room where Jesus instituted the Love feast with the disciples.

It may have been, but it was a room large enough to hold 120 people.

They were gathered to pray.

Do you remember that so many things happened that weren’t planned, but when they met to pray, God had a habit of showing up in a powerful way?

They were praying and a sound like a mighty wind came from inside the room and was broadcast into the nearby streets of Jerusalem. The sound was a signal from God for people to come.

This must have been a loud sound, because a crowd heard it and came running to see what it was.

It was the sound of wind with no wind.

As the crowd gathers, a visible sign appears in the sky!

Split tongues of fire fell from heaven and settled on everyone in the room.

Can you imagine what that must have looked like as these people saw these tongues of fire coming down from heaven and settling on to of their heads?

Did you ever sit out in a snowstorm, pick out a particular snowflake and just watch it drop?

These tongues of fire descended like that. Would that be scary or awesome?

When the tongues of fire fell on the people, all 120 of them, they started speaking miraculous speech and every one in the crowd heard someone speaking in their own native language.

What did the tongues say?
(SHOW) The tongues messages were “describing God’s power.”

I never noticed that before. When God starts speaking through these men and women, God tells the people how powerful He is.

And He does it in an awesome way.

The disciples are speaking, but everyone is hearing them speak in their own language.
There were many people in the crowd and the question comes, did the men speak strange tongues without knowing what they were saying? Or did they know what they were saying, speaking in their own language and did the people supernaturally hear them speak their own language?

The scriptures give us many instances where people were filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues. The indication is that they were using either a foreign human tongue or an angelic tongue.

I am not going to preach about the gift of tongues this morning, except to say that I believe in the gift and that I believe the gift is still real for today.

Oftentimes, when I am deep in prayer with a heavy burden about someone or some situation, I break into groans and mutterings that are too deep for words and as Romans 8 says, the Spirit of God fills me, and takes over my prayer so that both the burden of my heart and the will of God are brought together in prayer.

And that is scriptural:
(SHOW) Romans 8:26-27: And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

It breaks my heart that this doctrine has been so divisive. That isn’t God’s intention. The fact is, not everyone has that gift, it is listed as the least of all spiritual gifts and yet it has been one that believers have used to test to see if someone is a real Christian or not.

This first birthday of the Church was exciting.

The Spiritual gifts are real and exciting as well. It was the spiritual gifting taking place here that marks the birthday of the Church.

God showed up in that upper room.

God showed up in power in that upper room.

God showed up in power and talked about His power to everyone who was listening.

Spiritual gifts are real, and are for today. But I want us to keep them in perspective. They are not the proof of our faith, they are a manifestation of God’s power that is intended to be used to build the Church.

(SHOW) The true test of salvation is two fold 1) Do you trust that Jesus died and rose again on your behalf? 2). Has that belief made you a person who now loves God and others as much as yourself?

Spiritual gifts don’t prove salvation, but Spiritual fruit does. The fruit of the Spirit is say it with me: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

One more point till I get back to the text. If you remember the story of Jesus’ trial, recorded in John’s gospel, the text tells us that Caiaphas the High Priest prophesied that someone would die for the nation that year. The Bible tells us that this was an Holy Spirit driven prophecy. But we have a pretty big suspicion that the man most directly responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion wasn’t a Christian.

Another time, God sent His Holy Spirit into a donkey once in order to get a message across.

The gifts of the Spirit are real, but God is trying to produce the peaceful fruit of Jesus Christ in the lives of believers.

However, the gifts, power, and faith are important.

Ultimately, the message about God’s power that He gives to the people listening is that God is able to care for them.

God is powerful, trust in Him. I imagine that is what the disciples were saying.

So how did this work?
If there were 120 of them, then they could have been speaking in tongues and God miraculously placed the right tongue in the right mouth next to the right person who understood that language. Or, God could have made everyone hear the message in their own language. The text clearly says they each heard in their own language.

But I believe that the miracle was more than that. I believe that what they heard was very specific for each one of them.

Like God was saying to the mother who just lost a son, “Maria, I know the name of your boy, and I am in control of his life, Trust me to know how to save your son.”

I imagine that the man who was about to lose his fortune because of bad crops heard something like: “Benjamin, I own the cattle on a thousand hills, I know your circumstance, I am changing your life because I have something much more wonderful for you to be involved in.”

Each person heard a message about God’s power. They heard that God was at work in their own lives. They heard an individual call to know Him and to trust in God’s plan for their lives instead of their own desire.

God was building the Church. This crowd who heard this and believed the message were going to be the same ones who were going to be persecuted, scattered abroad and become some of them great heroes through martyrdom and others to be great saints of the faith.

God called each and every one of them and God called them individually.

The key to the starting of the church is… (SHOW) the key to the Church’s beginning is: THE FILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit comes to each and everyone one of us.

I love the differences in the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. It seems as if the Old Covenant, or Old Testament dealt with the community of people who called themselves the nation Israel.

But the New Covenant deals with the individuals. It extends the covenant of salvation beyond the Jewish people to the whole world, to you and I.

(SHOW) The call of God, to become a believer is an individual and personal call.
I picture this miracle, and the way everyone heard a message that was custom made for him or her to be the way that God is reaching out between the gap of heaven and earth and calling people back into His family.

But the call is not automatically accepted.

The last verse of today’s text is this. (SHOW) Some who heard it said they were filled with cheap wine.

Now the fact was, it was early in the morning, and it was too early for too many people to be so drunk.

I have seen drunk people. When they get drunk their words slur and they are hard to understand.

But this crowd heard very distinct messages about how God cared for each and every one of them. They weren’t drunk, but some people refuse to accept what they heard.

CONCL:

(SHOW) In spite of all that God does to call us to Him, it is still up to us to make the choice to believe. Do you believe?

Where is Jesus?

Text: Acts 1:6-11
Focus: The Power of the Holy Spirit
Function: To get people excited about the Great Commission.
Form: expository

Intro:

Two brothers, about 8 and 10 years old, were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it usually turned out they had a hand in it.
Their parents were at their wits' end trying to control them, so hearing about a priest nearby who worked with delinquent boys, the mother suggested to the father that they ask the priest to talk with the boys.
The father replied, "Sure, do that before I kill them!"
The mother went to the priest and made her request. He agreed, but said he wanted to see the younger boy first and alone. So the mother sent him to the priest.
The priest sat the boy down across a huge, impressive desk he sat behind. For about five minutes they just sat and stared at each other. Finally, the priest pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, "Son, do you know where God is?"
The boy’s mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"
Again the boy looked all around but said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy's nose, and asked, "Where is God?"
The boy panicked and ran all the way home. Finding his older brother, he dragged him upstairs to their room and into the closet, where they usually plotted their mischief.
He finally said, "We are in BIIIIG trouble."
The older boy asked, "What do you mean, BIIIIG trouble?"
His brother replied, "God is missing and they think we had something to do with it!"

Today, we celebrate the ascension of Jesus.

The disciples stood there looking into heaven wondering where Jesus went, and the angels asked: “Why are you wondering… …He will return the same way He left.”

(SHOW) Where is Jesus?

After the miracle of His death and resurrection, He appears to the apostles over a 40 day period. Jesus gathers with them on the mountain and gives them final instructions before He miraculously rises into the clouds.

I wish I was there to witness this scene. To have seen the Lord rise, with the promise from the angels that just as mysteriously as He ascended into heaven, He would return to earth.

The disciples just stood there watching, wondering where He was, until the angel explained it to them.

Where is Jesus?

A lot of people asked that question.

That was a question that the Chief Priests who killed Him kept asking.

Where is Jesus? That was a question answered by Jesus to the faithful, even those who doubted like Thomas. It was answered by His appearances.

Where was Jesus? That has been a question asked many times by people who have been going through difficult circumstances.

People ask: Where was He when a child died? Where was He a loved one was stricken ill? Where was He when people suffered unjustly?

The question is still asked: “Where is Jesus?” Where is He when we have doubts and we want to see something miraculous to prove that He is real? Why doesn’t He just keep on appearing on the face of the earth to prove who He is?

Most often, this is a sincere question. I mean, if He would just show up once in a while and reveal Himself, so many more people would believe in him.

(SHOW) Jesus is right where He needs to be. Trust Him.

I heard a great testimony last weekend from one of our team members. He was raised in a Church with the tradition of a lot of liturgy, ceremony, procedures and etc.

He was a good kid, but something wasn’t connecting with him, so he connected with the bottle instead.

When he became angrier and angrier, he and his wife fell farther and farther apart.
Instead of considering how to respond, he reacted.

His wife divorced him, but they stayed in the same house. His daughter and wife watched TV upstairs, and he possessed the big easy chair downstairs.

A simple thing happened; his daughter innocently lost her flip-flop. He found it, and he was so angry as he was yelling at her about being responsible he got angrier and angrier until he raised up the flip-flop to strike his daughter with, in rage.

Right then, he saw a look of terror in his daughter’s eyes. He threw the flip-flop down, stormed out of the house and made up his mind to kill himself.
He decided he couldn’t trust himself anymore.
He was getting ready to do this deed when Jesus literally spoke to him. The Lord said to him in an audible voice, “you have a purpose.”

His life changed. God set him free. The peace of Christ entered him and now almost 2 years later, his family is back together.

He was set free because he discovered that he has a purpose.

(SHOW) God’s has a purpose for all of us.

I don’t know where Jesus was in the middle of his previous problems. I am pretty sure his wife called out to Jesus when he was abusing her verbally. I can picture her crying in her spirit: “Jesus, help me!”

You all have heard the poem footprints in the sand about a man who gets to look back on his life and he sees two people walking side by side and understands that those footprints represent him and Jesus.

But during the hard places of his life, he sees only one set of prints. Initially he is upset until God tells him those were the times that God was carrying him.

In this scripture, Jesus is promising us that He will be with us; He’ll be in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, giving us a purpose in life.

Just as Jesus mysteriously went up into heaven, (SHOW) He lives inside of us.

He is in our heart, but to experience in a deep personal way, we need to connect with His heart as well.

What is the heart of Christ?

Look at the first verse from our text. (SHOW) Acts 1:6: So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’

They asked Him. It wasn’t just one disciple who had this question. They all asked Him. These guys thought they had signed on to be part of the new political regime that would defeat the Roman enslavement of their people. They still were having a hard time connecting in their hearts to the heart of Jesus.

Jesus is patient with them in His response. He tells them of something much more wonderful, much more powerful than a human kingdom.

They are going to receive Holy Ghost POWER.

(SHOW) You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you and you will be my witnessed to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the ends of the earth.

The whole world is the heart of Christ. He cares for the whole world and His Spirit will give us the power to be His witnesses worldwide.

(SHOW) The word for “witnesses” is MARTYR.

When we see it from this perspective, it changes everything.

I had everything changed for me in that sense last weekend.
When we choose to trust Jesus, we refer to it as giving “our life” to Christ.

It isn’t a simple call. We have always had a statement here that before a person decides to be a believer, they should “count well the cost.”
Dietrich Bonhoffer has a classic Christian book titled “The Cost of Discipleship.”

In it, he details the incredible act of self-less love and suffering the Jesus endured to purchase our salvation. He tells us that grace is more plentiful than we can imagine, but it isn’t cheap. It isn’t something to take advantage of. It cost God more than any one of us would be willing to pay.

The author of the book went on to be martyred for his principles as he stood against Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Living as Christians in our culture can seem easy compared to what believers have to face in other countries.

There were many Arab converts to Christianity at the Bible College I attended. These men, after accepting Christ were disowned by their family, beaten and some of them were even killed by their own family.
It is hard for us to consider what that would be like, since we enjoy the principle of religious freedom here in the United States of America.
A prisoner who was sitting at the table with me last weekend had to face that kind of cost.
Explain story: A gang member told us he had wanted to trust Christ, but if he did, they would kill him. By the end of the weekend, he chose Christ over everything else.

(show) The Power of the Holy Spirit is real; He can even be felt by us.

I understand this statement. I want to try to explain how it works.

When the disciples walking with Jesus to the city of Emmaus, they described the way they felt in their encounter with Christ and said, “weren’t our hearts burning inside us when we were talking with Him?”

There is a real presence there.

Have you ever felt it when someone was praying for you?

On Saturday, we were discussing a problem with some of the prisoners and were seeking a solution. All of a sudden, this really clear solution to the problem became obvious to me.

This clear solution to the problem felt like the disciples described, my heart was burning inside me. When we prayed about it, it seemed very clear to us.

Someone said to me, “wow, you really have a lot of wisdom there.”

I was quick to say, “No I don’t! I don’t know where that came from except that I know that this weekend there are a lot of people praying for us.”

I have to thank you for your support. I felt like we were together in the prison.

The team was amazed at how many of you signed up to keep us in prayer last weekend.

We were there in that prison. We were there with the power of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t me who lead that gang-leader to Christ, it was us through this promise of the Holy Spirit.

We prayed over the cookies. We supported the outreach.

(SHOW) God sends His Spirit into us in order for us to GO out into the world and fulfill His purpose.

How many times have we heard people say, “Well, we have to take care of our own first?”

But the command was “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to all the world.”

None of those escape our responsibility. They started close to him, in their town, then to their county, then their state, their country and into all the world.

That is our mission field as well.

Do you want to sense the moving and power of God at work?

Do you remember the days when things were exciting here at Church?

Do people wonder what has happened to that sense of blessing?

The power of the Spirit was given in order to give us strength to do outreach.

If we decide that we are big enough, we don’t want anyone else with us, we have finished our work and it is someone else’s turn, then we have decided to stop the flow of the Holy Spirit.

(SHOW) The Holy Spirit is given to those who share the heart of Christ to heal the world through the gospel of Jesus.

Shining the Light, or Cursing the Darkness?

Text: Revelation 2:1-5
Focus: The real mission of the Church
Purpose: To help people see what Jesus is all about.
Form: Story telling

Intro:

I was in prison last weekend doing a ministry so I am posting the first sermon I preached here at Bear Creek.

I have to admit that I am resisting temptation today.
I have always said that every preacher, no matter how poor he is, has at least one good sermon in him. My dad was also a pastor, and a pretty good preacher.
We were raised in a hell fire and brimstone setting. But although my dad and me believe in heaven and hell, eternal reward and eternal judgment – permanent separation from God, My dad was a preacher of grace.
When he preached, you wanted to serve Jesus because you could tell that he was close to God. Because of an heart attack, he didn’t care for a specific church from the time I was 10 until I was about 16. So he would travel often on a Sunday to preach, and he always brought me with him. He had this great sermon that I had memorized. He called it: “How Big is our God?” It was so full of faith and encouragement that you wanted to run right out and get busy serving God.
So my temptation is to preach my best. It would be the sermon that I always open up revival services with, when I am called on to go preach revival somewhere.

However, God has a different message for you this morning and I want to be faithful with what He wants me to preach.

So, let us go back to the scripture this morning

"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them [to be] false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. 4 'But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. 'Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place-- unless you repent.

John sees the Lord in the midst of 7 golden lampstands.

John is to write 7 warning letters to 7 churches represented by the lampstands.

As the warning letters are being spoken by the Lord He holds the individual lampstand that represents the individual Church.

Today’s text is the letter to Ephesus.

So remember, John sees Jesus holding this lampstand while he is hearing this warning.

He tells the church that unless they change, He will remove their lampstand.

The problem is that they have left their first love.

They have forgotten what it was like to be young Christians who know what it means to be saved by grace alone.
• It is a warning to this Church to renew their focus on the first things.
• And He makes it clear that change is inevitable and without it, they will be judged.
• To repent means to change direction.

Reggie Joiner, in preaching about this passage says: Maybe the problem is the church has been doing church for so long it has forgotten how to be the church.

Now the lampstand image comes from the OT.

And the lampstand has a very symbolic role in the OT.

(Walk out the space and describe its setting).

Look at where the lampstand sits in this incredibly complex image of how the tabernacle is to be set up.

The tabernacle was very ornate, and everything had to be just right. Just the right distance between the poles, just the right designs on the poles. Just the right dimensions for the different rooms.

Just the right formula for the incense burned. Just the right number of loaves of bread, changed at just the right time.

Inside this holy place, there is only one light:
• The lampstand.
• It is sitting right next to the bread of presence.

The light is there for one purpose, and that is to illuminate the bread.

Consider the symbol: The Bread of Presence represents the provision of God.

In the NT Jesus is the "Bread of life."

The Lampstand of the Church of Ephesus is also there for the specific purpose:
• To shine the light on the provision of God. Jesus Christ.

The Church is the lampstand and our purpose is to illuminate the provision of God.

Our purpose is to illuminate the Messiah, Jesus.

NOW LISTEN:
The Churches potential to influence is directly related to how it is positioned and what it illuminates.

We go back to the scripture in Revelation 2:4: “you have left your first love.”

This is really a very sad image.

A bride who has run off on her husband.

It speaks of pain, separation and longing on the part of the husband.

And here is the problem throughout the ages: The church has a tendency to drift from what it was originally intended to do.

Did God call the Church to light a candle and show the provision of God?

Or did God call the Church to merely curse the darkness?

God has called the Church to light a candle instead of merely cursing the darkness.

It is the gospel. John 3:16 and 17:
Say John 3:16 with me.
Now remember verse 17: For God did not send His Son into the World, to judge the world, but that they world would be saved through Him.

Turn on the TV church today and it seems like a Christian 4-h club
I am going to say this tongue in cheek to help us see how we can be merely cursing the darkness.
The 4h club:
1. Hollywood
2. Homosexuality
3. Halloween
4. Harry Potter.

• What is wrong with Hollywood?
• We didn’t get to go to movies until I was 12.
• When I asked my parents why, I heard something about the lifestyle of the actors and going to movies supported it.
• Or, the theatre was dark, and that symbolized evil.
• Listen, the real problem with Hollywood is not the sex and violence, but it comes from the culture of materialism it creates.
• It is fueled by advertising and the message is that you deserve more and you are incomplete unless you have more.
• But look at Jesus:
• To the woman at the well who craved men and had moved into her 6th relationship:
• Drink from the water I give you and you will never thirst again.
• Move to bread: Here is the Church shining the light on Jesus: “Jesus said, whoever drinks of the water I feed him will never thirst again.”
• The Church is here to point to the meaning in life given to us by knowing Jesus.
• The problem with homosexuality
• Not the sex act.
• It is sin, but Jesus makes it clear that the sin of lust is just as bad.
• The gay agenda does not accept the concept that there is such a thing as sin.
• But that message is far beyond the so called “gay agenda.”
• That message is prevalent in worldly thinking.
• We reject it because Jesus died to save us from sin.
• But when we merely curse the darkness of homosexuality, we actually make it sound like we are good in comparison to them.
• I don’t know any person that doesn’t have to fight the temptation to lust. And sometimes they all fail.
• But the divorce rate is as high in the church as it is in the culture.
• Instead of being against homosexuals, we need to be for wholeness and healing at the foot of the cross.
• Especially for people whose lives are broken sexually.
• How are we going to win people if the message we communicate is that we are “against them?”
• It is at the foot of the cross that people find wholeness from whatever sin is binding them.
• But it is easier for the 4H club to condemn someone else than to look at themselves.
• The problem with Halloween is not so much the fact that it celebrates the devil’s holiday.
• But it isn’t the devils holiday.
• It was originally created as a means to keep safe from the devils pranks.
• But instead of being against Halloween, we need to be for the power and protection afforded the people of God because they belong to Him.
• The Bible says that when we are believers, we are held in the hand of the Father and not one sparrow can fall outside of His sovereignty.
• The problem with Harry Potter isn’t witchcraft.
• I read the books. I couldn’t find anything wrong with them.
• It is simply creative fantasy that teaches good morals while capturing the imagination of children.
• I just read the last book, and it actually does what CS Lewis does with Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia.
• There is death, resurrection, the sacrifice of one for another.
• This 4H thing is the Church thinking somehow that it can prove itself better than the world.
• The only thing we should be proving is the provision of God to the world.
• God wants us to love the world that Jesus died for.
• And we do that by showing the world God’s provision.

They need the provision of God.
• Look, it is important to take a stand, but when we lose sight of standing for Jesus, we start merely standing against things.
• Taking a stand “against things” is not preaching the gospel.
• Because the word gospel means “good news.”
• When the only thing we do is curse the darkness, we lose our influence.
• It is a serious problem.
• Did you know that statistics show that %70-80 of students who grow up in church abandon their faith when they graduate from High School?
• This isn't that percentage of all kids, but of the 1/3 of those who grew up in church, 2/3 of them leave their faith.
• It signifies is that the church is losing its influence.

The Lord tells John to tell this Church: “Because you have left your first love, your lampstand has been removed.”

He tells them to change back to the former things.

Jesus does not want us to lose our influence.
He promises to be with us in the process:
 I will never leave you or forsake you.
 You shall have power…

So, it isn't God who has changed, the problem is that too often the church has moved the lampstand to a position where it no longer focuses on the provision of God.

Kathy and I were attending a church in the eighties.
The church had a dynamic youth ministry.
Our kids were not yet in the youth
They led a young woman to the Lord,
Problem was, she had been involved in witchcraft
She dressed in black and had black eyeliners tattooed around her eyes.
She looked scary.
And you can guess what happened in the church.
The phone rings, one mother talks to another, pretty soon, this young girl used to be The Witch from Hansel and Gretel and she was going to devour all our kids.
Parents started taking their kids out of the youth group.
Now don't get me wrong.
This girl was just saved and still had a lot of cleaning up to do, but that poor youth pastor had a real problem.

The church had lost sight of its vision.

They seemed more concerned with themselves than the radical nature of the gospel.
You see, when we move the lampstand, we lose our ability to influence.

I think we get confused that moving the lampstand and shining it on something else proves that we indeed are radically different.

We know that God has called us to come out from among the world and be separate.

But not to merely curse the darkness.

It isn’t measured in the things we don’t do or things we are clever enough to condemn.
Our influence is directly related to how we shine the light on the provision of God.

And the size of the light is nothing compared to the God who gives it its influence.

Look What God Can Do!

Text: Acts 8:26-40
Focus: The Holy Spirit uses anyone
Function: To help people see that God can and wants to use them for His purpose.
Form: Storytelling

Intro: A Poem for Mothers day:

He didn't like the casserole
And he didn't like my cake.
He said my biscuits were too hard...
Not like his mother used to make.

I didn't make the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I smacked him upside his head --
Like his mother used to do.

I don’t know about you, but I got my share of well deserved smacks upside the head.

I thank God for mothers, bless you all, especially mine!

Before I get into today’s text I want to say this: Men, love your wives like Christ loved the Church. He gave his life for her. If you want to be king of your castle, then make her the queen. Children, respect your mothers.

My mother wrestled with my name. When my parents found out they were having twins, the natural name at the time for twin sons, born of a preacher was Peter and Paul. But my mom wanted something more special for my name. So, she choose the name of another apostle, Philip, for me. The name Philip is derived from the Greek word, Philos, the word for brotherly love. Love for the Lord, and for this man certainly characterizes Philips attitude the day the Ethiopian Eunuch gets saved.

Another thing that is obvious is Philip’s great faith and taste for the bizarre in this story. I try to picture how odd this must have seemed to this Foreign Dignitary. Picture a stranger running up beside a string of Chariots escorting a very important man back to his home country.

It may have looked like a Chariot-jacking as Philip gets involved in the life of this man. To set the stage, we need to remember that Paul, the apostle is not yet a Christian. Instead he has decided to start persecuting the Church. So he begins arresting Christians and putting them in jail. And Philip reacts well to the persecution.

(SHOW) We get to choose how we react to any situation.

The Christians could have reacted in different ways.
• They could have quit following God because times were tough.
• They could have whined about it and used that as an excuse to fall back into sin.
• Some of them did nothing different, got arrested and suffered the persecution because they remembered Jesus’ words that there was a special place of blessing for those who were persecuted for their faith.

Others, like Philip felt a leading from God to escape Jerusalem. He didn’t try to escape persecution, but he took it as a sign that God wanted him spread the good news to more places than just Jerusalem.
(SHOW) Some choose to be faithful.

So, he obeys the voice of the Holy Spirit and God starts doing some strange things with him.

Remember, he is already driven from his home, and the Lord tells him to go to a certain road and wait. When he gets there, he sees this entourage of dignitaries. And Philip is told by God to jump into this guy’s chariot and start talking to him.

Well, how do you do that? I mean, if he just jumps into the chariot the guards might kill him in order to defend the important official.

So, Philip starts running beside the chariot and then strikes up a conversation with the man.

(SHOW) Philip begins his sharing with the man by finding out about HIM. He cares enough to get to know him.

“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asks.

And praise God, God is already preparing the heart of this man to hear the gospel.

The man happens to be reading Isaiah 53, the lesson we are going to study tomorrow night in Bible study at our house.

Isaiah 53 is a prophecy about Jesus and His role and how He will be treated.
To the ancient Jews, it was confusing. It predicts the Suffering servant.
The Jewish leaders didn’t understand that the conquering King and Suffering servant were one in the same.

They couldn’t imagine how a man could take away the sins of the world.
A man can’t take away the sins of the world, but the God/Man, who was perfect, Jesus Christ could.

The Jewish leaders imagined Him to be two different people and they argued over which one was the Messiah. Unfortunately, arguing about theology is something theologians do. Doctrine is important, as long as it points us and other to Jesus.
Their argument was in important one. Was the Messiah the one who would save us from our sins, or the one who would save our land from the enemy?

And the Eunuch is thinking about what he is reading and pondering what it could mean and how it could happen.

(SHOW) The Ethiopian Dignitary already has sincere questions in his mind.

He asks Philip, “Is Isaiah talking about himself, or someone else?”

So Philip begins to explain that the conquering King is setting up an eternal Spiritual kingdom that is much greater than any kingdom of men. And to do that, He must die for the sins of the people He came to save.

The debate that was confusing the theologians and this man happened because they were leaving out the mystery of God.

(SHOW) Philip is patient with the man’s questions.

The political powers in Jerusalem wanted a political leader that they could control, so they killed Jesus. Jesus really upset the apple cart for them.

But the foreign dignitary doesn’t care for local politics. Apparently, he is in Jerusalem because he is a truth seeker. And because he is seeking truth, God shows Jesus to him.

And (SHOW) Jesus is faithful to seek out those who are sincerely seeking after Him.

Jesus is faithful enough to miraculously send Philip onto this road.

Philip starts talking to the man and the man invites him into the Chariot.

There is a lesson here. (SHOW) Don’t worry about creating opportunities to share your faith, just listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and be ready.

It’s not like we are sales men and women peddling a product that we call Church and Jesus is a bonus.

No, we are followers and friends of Jesus introducing Him to others.

I had a career in sales for several years. I sold shoes, I sold pest-control. Then I sold big ticket items for a major department store chain, and then I finally moved up to selling wholesale building products, covering a region from Southern Indiana, Kentucky, Southern Ohio, Tennessee and Southern Missouri.

The commissions on that job were a lot higher than selling appliances. But the appliance sales job was easier. Almost everyone who entered the department was looking to buy. Maybe they weren’t going to buy that day, but furnaces and dishwashers aren’t something that you typically window shop for. When I was selling shoes, there were a lot of window shoppers, but not with furnaces and water heaters.

People may be excited to buy a new pair of shoes, or maybe a television, but if they are looking for a furnace or water heater, they are probably upset at having an expense they hadn’t counted on.

The point was, I was invited into their space to help them solve their need.

The traveling job required me to create the need for my product and then convince them that my product would be the best one to meet their need.

I did a lot of cold-calling and I was always looking for different ways to get my foot in the door. There was a lot of wasted effort compared to the time spent on the sales floor.

Philip is invited to share with this man. He is invited first by God, but then by the man himself.

Here is Philip. He doesn’t have to create a need in order to “sell” Jesus.

He was more like the guy on the sales floor. The Dignitary was looking for him. God had already created the need in this man’s heart. The field was already ripe for the harvest, and God sent him along to gather one of God’s precious own into God’s family.

Philip wasn’t “selling Jesus.” Philip became a friend to this man at an opportune time in this man’s life in order to make a difference.

(SHOW –don’t say) God does the same thing today.

I want to conclude with a story of how God is still doing the same thing today. And He is doing it through people like you and me.

When I was a student in Bible College, my wife and I went to visit the people we had helped plant a church with in Atlantic City. I was suffering from some stomach problems and had developed an ulcer and was being treated with a certain medicine.

While on vacation, I caught a cold and I went to the doctor and the medicine he proscribed reacted with my ulcer medication.

It reacted violently. I couldn’t keep anything down. The ulcer ruptured. I couldn’t stop vomiting and I was losing blood and getting dehydrated.
So, they hospitalized me under heavy sedation with nothing to eat or drink for three days.

When I got strong enough to undergo anesthesia, they did an endoscopy. The doctor was warning Kathy and me that if I had been treated with this medicine for 3 months and was still bleeding, they needed to check for cancer.

So, here I was, the young father of 3 children, lying in a hospital bed with the threat of death over my head.

My wife and I were very upset. It seemed to me that every time I started to get caught up with events, and felt a little breathing space, something came along again to knock me down.

Just like the believers in Jerusalem who were being persecuted and forced to flee their homes. I was tempted to question God’s plan.

The people who are merely “selling Jesus” will tell you that God’s plan includes an easy life.

But for the early Christians, it almost immediately began with persecution.
However, the persecution caused the believers to spread out and many, many more people heard the gospel.

(SHOW) God wants us to rest in His plan, not question it.

Now, back to the story: The night before the endoscopy, some believing friends came to visit me in the hospital. They prayed and anointed me with oil in the name of the Lord. I didn’t feel anything, but I knew something happened. After the test, the doctor told me, he found 3 scars in my stomach that were completely healed, but there was nothing to cause the bleeding anymore. He couldn’t explain how, but he told me that now I was better and as soon as I could hold down food I’d be released. I have to tell you, I was so relieved! I was so full of faith at that moment, I could have walked on water! I was ready to do anything the Lord called me to do!

(SHOW) When God touches us, we draw closer to Him.

All of that set the stage for the next events. That day, I got a new roommate in my hospital room. This guy was sick! I mean he was moaning and grunting and you could tell he was really suffering. After the nurses settled him in and he relaxed, he asked the nurse to pull back the curtain. Here I was, a 25 year old kid compared to this man who was in his late 50’s. He could easily have been my father. I wasn’t a preacher yet, I didn’t start wearing a cross until a few years ago. I am sure I had my own study bible there inside the room, but there was a lot of other stuff in that room. There was nothing to mark me as a “preacher in training” or really, even a follower of Christ. The man wasn’t necessarily looking for a “Christian” or a “preacher” to talk to. He just needed someone human.

All of a sudden, he fixes his eyes on me. Not knowing me from Adam, and he says, “Last year (1981) I made several hundred thousand dollars.” Then a long pause: I wondered “was he bragging?” But he was just working up the courage for his next statement. He said: They just took a tumor the size of a grapefruit out of my abdomen. What good does all that money do me now?” You gotta ask yourself: “Why did he ask such a young man compared to him such a profound question?” I believe it was because God had prepared him for salvation. Now I, in contrast, had just experienced a pretty amazing miracle. I was so happy that my kids weren’t going to grow up without a father that I wanted to shout Jesus from the top of a mountain.

Besides the fact that I was named after Philip the apostle, and we share first names, there is a lot of similarity between these stories. Philip, the apostle, would have rather have been safe and secure at home. But because of persecution and unfortunate circumstances, he wasn’t able to be home either. I too, was not home because of a hardship. Philip was faced with the choice to be upset, or to be faithful in the circumstances. I was faced with the same choice. Philip is thrown into an intimate encounter with a total stranger because God knew that this man was seeking and was calling out to God for direction. I was thrown into an intimate encounter with a total stranger with whom God has brought to a point where he recognizes that he needs answers.

Now, I didn’t just look at my roommate and tell him “You better get saved buddy, that is your problem and God is after you. If you pray this simple prayer everything in your life would go back to normal.” I didn’t do that because I don’t know what is happening in the life of this man. I don’t know if the same healing I just received from God was going to be given to this man. I am not God. But I did know this, all of this tragedy that has just happened to me over the last week was ordained by God in order for God to have someone present with this man in his hour of need.

(SHOW) God cares for people, especially in their hour of need. Are YOU in an hour of need?

So, I shared with him that I had no answers to his dilemma. But I believed that I knew the one who did. I talked to him about counting the cost of discipleship because of what Jesus did to save him. And after several hours with this man, he finally asked me, he asked me, “How do I become a Christian?” Before I left the room the next morning, I rejoiced with a new brother in Christ. I have no idea what his name is, but I know I will see him again someday.

CONCL:

(SHOW) Are you ready to become a follower of Jesus Christ?

Acts 4:5-12. There is Power in the Name!

Text: Acts 4:5-12
Focus: Preaching Jesus
Function: To help people see how God helps us share our faith.
Form: Storytelling with observations.

Intro:

This passage is the end of a great story about a fantastic miracle that just kept unfolding and unfolding. It that takes place in the first few weeks of the Church and it happens as the disciples were on the way to a prayer gathering.

And I want to set the stage for this passage before we get into it.

One commentator, while setting the stage for this passage tells us: “There was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit during an evangelistic outreach.”

If you know the story, you’ll get this, if not, hold on, I’ll fill you in. I thought the comment was rather odd. I mean, did the apostles wake up that morning and say to themselves, “Let’s go to the Temple, have a prayer meeting as a way to witness about Jesus and then heal the first lame beggar we see?”
Because what had happened. The apostles were on the way to pray, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit speaks to one of them, they see a man begging and the Bible says he was “lame from birth.”
The text says, “Peter and John saw the man had faith enough to be healed.” So they said to the man: “Silver and gold, we don’t have, but what we do have we give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”

The man immediately stands up, starts walking and when he realizes what has happened he starts leaping and shouting praise to God.

I said it was an odd statement the commentator said. I don’t think that is the kind of event a person plans for.

I mean, how do we plan a miracle? We believe in them. Many of us have seen them, But how do we know if a miracle is going to happen? How can we control God?

And then there is this mystery, what does it mean when it says: “They saw the man had faith to be made well.” (explain from previous chapter)

How could they know? It’s not like people wear signs on their forehead “I’ve got faith.” This is a supernatural thing. The faith, and the apostles ability to recognize it are both miracles from God.

And, the commentator calls it “an evangelistic outreach,” but the apostles didn’t plan it; God planned it.

I get the feeling that the apostles are just as surprised as the man was.

Then, this crowd gathers because they recognize that a genuine miracle has really happened. Peter and John are quick to tell the crowd that they aren’t special people.

They make it clear that “the name of Jesus healed the man.”

There is power in the name of Jesus.

Apparently this is a famous beggar. A huge crowd of people trust Jesus as their savior as a result of this miracle. And that really upsets the authorities.

So, Peter and John are arrested and the story just keeps unfolding as they face the judgment of people who are not happy that Jesus Christ is still not silent. Even though they killed Jesus, their plot didn’t work.

And that is where our text starts today.

Their question is right to the point: “What, or who, gives you the right to do this?”

I am amazed at the question! A miracle has happened, so it is obvious who is behind the action. Why do they need to question them? In questioning them, they are questioning the source, God Himself.

And I love the boldness of Peter’s response. Peter puts it right back on them.

You know, it’s all in the way you say something. I didn’t like the commentator’s observation because it seems to minimize the fact that a miracle was unfolding. I don’t know why people have to play down the supernatural.

But Peter is clever in his defense. Or, I should say the Holy Spirit because the promise from Jesus was that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say when we are called on to testify about what God has done for us. Trust God to let help us speak.

Peter says: “If we are trial for doing a good thing….”

I don’t believe it is Peter’s intent to humiliate them. If that was the case, he could have said: “You hypocrites!” But instead he causes them to consider that the trial is about an act of kindness. He is trying to make them think about what they are actually doing.

He goes on in his boldness. This happened in the name of Jesus whom you crucified!

The power in the name of Jesus gave him boldness to tell it like it is. Don’t you like it when someone is just straight and to the point? He doesn’t answer like a politician.

And then he tells them, God raised Him from the dead.

So, Peter’s on trial for doing something kind, and Peter points out their previous failure at trying to control this Jesus situation.

Peter lets them know that they thought they could stop God, but even death cannot contain Jesus.

And finally, he boldly tells them something that still needs to be preached today: There is salvation in no other name but the name of Jesus.

Okay, that is the story. Now, there are several lessons I want us to learn from his boldness.

First thing: (SHOW) Everything begins with prayer.
• They were on the way to pray
• Prayer places us in proper position.
o It reminds us that it isn’t us, but God at work
 How often to we pray, but then secretly think that it was our cleverness, or planning, or skill that brought success?
 Cleverness, planning and skill also come from God.
 And God is able to confound the wise if He so chooses.
 We need God’s help in everything.
 We have the privilege of asking for it in everything.
 I am not just talking about spiritual things like sharing our faith as the apostles did.
 But God is honored, pleased and blessed by every single prayer we make.
 It places us in the proper context between us and God.
o Success is by God’s grace, not our effort.
• This whole miracle unfolds, I believe, because they were on the way to pray
• On the way to pray, they meet a man
• They look at who he really is
o Do you remember the phrase “They saw he had faith to be made well…?”
o They take time to consider him
o He isn’t an evangelism project, a number to add to the baptismal roles, a statistic to report to the parent denomination, or an item to be given to Church council.
o They see him as a child of God, a person for whom Jesus died.
• By looking at this man, they see faith.
o I don’t understand how
o But I know the truth of it
o When they took time to consider the man, who he really is, God got involved
o (SHOW) God gets involved in our genuine concern for others.
o Kathy and I once began to attend a church.
 The first few weeks, this one couple called on us several times
 They really made us feel welcome and a part of the church
 As soon as we joined, they were always too busy for us
 We felt like their friendship was insincere, we felt manipulated
 God wants genuine concern for people.
• While on the way to pray, they meet a man, and then they heal the man.
o Again, a miracle, but God is involved
• And it isn’t just the lame man who receives Christ
o A multitude of people get saved
o The miracle causes widespread recognition
o Remember, they are merely going to pray, and God gets involved.
• But the events aren’t over:
o Then a twist
o They get arrested
o Persecution and suffering can be part of the plan.
o Their own faith and commitment is tested.
o Jesus said, there are many who quickly respond to God’s call, but then allow themselves to be distracted by the worries and cares of this world
o They may be saved, but they lose their effectiveness.
o The persecution opens the door for more ministry
o It keeps them focused on God’s mission.
• All of this because of their taking time to pray.
• God just kept bringing more and more.

Here’s the second thing, we already hinted at it: (SHOW) The miracle came through “an act of kindness”
• Peter said, “We’re on trial for an act of kindness.”
• The whole sermon focuses on this importance of the act of kindness.
• They weren’t out “to perform a miracle”
• It wasn’t a man-made evangelistic crusade
• The miracle cam when they were giving and showing mercy.
o Not just mercy, but mercy combined with faith
o They weren’t out just to do a good deed.
o They combined their good deeds with faith.
o Not just mercy, but mercy with intentional faith in Christ.
o This is where the Holy Spirit is working today, still
o So often, we do good, and try to do good because we know that good works, for the sake of unbelievers and those less fortunate are what we are saved to.
o But we forget that God gets involved and we can, and should expect a miracle.
o That is why we are praying over the cookies we are making for the Kairos weekend.

Third thing and I am going to get a little deeper and theological here: (SHOW) The question of pluralism is answered by this “act of kindness”
• We get criticized for this verse: There is salvation in NO OTHER NAME.
• Pluralism is the belief that all religions lead to God.
• A popular phrase, all rivers lead to the sea.
• All the spokes on a wheel lead to the center.
• Every religion is a path to God.
• This verse offends some people for many reasons because they say
o It seems unfair when people have never heard
o It seems wrong to assume that only we are right, I mean, isn’t that why radical Moslems become suicide bombers.
o Aren’t they just as convinced?
• I hate having to engage in this argument
o But that doesn’t mean I will shrink back from believing this verse.
o To it I say several things the most important is this: The claim that Jesus is the only way is proven by the fact that Jesus died and rose again! The proof of the resurrection changes everything.
• But there is a whole different perspective when we look at the point, “The question of pluralism is addressed by the act of kindness.”
• For the most part, the people who ridicule, or cannot accept the idea that we are exclusive in our faith have encountered a Christianity that forgot that the Church exists for the good of the world.
• This “act of kindness” is our defense.
• God poured out His Spirit, set the stage for Peter’s bold claim as a result of the “act of kindness” that they were on trial for.
• If the Church’s mission, to care for the needs of the world were forefront in her activity, then the criticism against her would be much less.
• I don’t get involved with the argument with people.
• I refuse to get involved with that argument.
• Instead, I preach the kindness of God that heals, restores and forgives.
• That is what Peter and John were about the day that miracle happened.
• I am convinced it starts out with an attitude of prayer, as they align themselves with the purposes of God.

Fourth, (SHOW) being with Jesus transforms us.
• The next verse tells us this.
• After Peter’s bold speech, the council met to discuss what he said.
• And the bible says, “They took note that these men had been with Jesus.”
• Now, what we know from that statement is that these men were known collaborators, disciples of Jesus.
• If they considered Jesus the enemy, then these men were the enemy as well.
• But there is a spiritual truth behind it.
• Spending time with Christ makes us more like Him.
• Would that be said about you?
• Would your times spent with Christ be obvious to people around you?
• Has His nature rubbed off on you?
• Would you be able to forgive as Jesus did?
• Will you care for others like Jesus did?
• Will you give your life for others like Jesus did?
o The apostles were willing to be persecuted, because they had spent time with Jesus.
o They knew what was the most important things to God.

CONCL:
(SHOW) Is the fact that you know Jesus obvious to the people you meet?