We come again this morning (as we have the past several weeks, if you ve had a

Transcription

1 March 24, 2013 Acts 4:23-41 We come again this morning (as we have the past several weeks, if you ve had a chance to be with us), to our Lenten series on The Church God Longs For and to the Book of Acts--this morning to a moment in Peter and John s story (mostly Peter s). If you follow Peter s deal all the way from his denial of Jesus back in the courtyard just before Jesus was crucified--back there at our Lord s time of greatest need but then follow him through the time just after the resurrection when he made his big, repentant turn and ran to the tomb and found it empty, and then his plunge into the water after a night of miserable fishing when he spotted Jesus on the beach if you follow all that, you know about Jesus calling Peter to a deeper love than he ever thought himself capable. You ve listened as Jesus assigned him the task of being a shepherd, of spiritually feeding the sheep of God. And this morning we come to another leg in that journey, as Peter takes yet another step in his growth from being a sheep to becoming a shepherd. But before we read these verses from Acts, chapter four, we would do well to remember just a couple additional parts of Peter s story, things that also happened before the place we find him in this morning such an astonishing chain of events: In Acts chapter two following the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out and believers found themselves miraculously able to speak in other languages just then we read that Peter stood up and preached a sermon at the end of which three thousand people gave their hearts to Jesus and were baptized. 1 P a g e

2 In Acts chapter three there s the part where Peter and John encounter a man at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem this guy that d been lame and unable to walk since the day he was born. And in the name of Jesus, Peter reached out his hand and lifted this man to his feet, and we read that his feet and his ankles suddenly became strong and he was able to walk (and then to leap, with, like a 43 vertical!) in praise of Almighty God for his healing. Here, in chapter four, Peter is arrested by the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews, on the grounds of insurrection being a troublemaker, a rabble rouser-- told to stop preaching and teaching this nonsense about Jesus making possible resurrection from the dead. But Peter refuses won t be shut up. Instead, and with great boldness, he says, Whether it s right in God s eyes to listen to you rather than to God, well, you decide. But as for us, there is no question--we can t keep quiet about what we ve seen and heard! And Luke tells us that because Peter endured that kind of persecution, five thousand more people came to faith in Christ! All of this amazing stuff happening he s on a roll and we watch and read as Peter takes on one challenge after another, growing beyond his wildest imagination as a leader and a shepherd in this burgeoning spiritual movement, a movement that is about to burst out beyond the confines of Judaism to the whole wide world. So now we pick up the story again the Sanhedrin has decided to let Peter and John go free; they ve seen how wildly enthusiastic the crowds are over their boldness and the way God has been healing people though their ministry, so they relent and set them free from captivity. And Peter and John gathered their friends and told them what 2 P a g e

3 had been happening, which is where we read, beginning in verse 23 of chapter 4: (read text and pray) If I were to ask you why you think people come to church, what would you say? I hear lots of folks talking today about why people don t come that church is boring, that all they want is your money, that it s full of hypocrites, that Christians are full of negativity and homophobia and hypocrisy (I ve certainly heard all of those and more ). But why do people come? Some surveys show that people come because they re afraid not to they ve been scolded into coming--haven t quite shaken the guilt thing... For others it s to find friendship or to network socially maybe it s a place to find others who share our values or interests, a place with kids the same ages as our kids, a place to connect in a disconnected world; all kinds of reasons why people show up But I need to tell you something in the years that I have been a pastor and listened to the yearning of people s hearts, whether they re able to articulate it or not, the number one reason people come to church is to find and experience God. People want to encounter God in worship, want to hear God speaking to them in the sermon, want to meet God in a personal way during Communion. That s why they come We re not told just where the people met that day. We do know that Peter and John were speaking to the gathered church, and that after the people heard what they were told and after they raised their voices in praise to God, three things happened God was revealed to them in three ways: the meeting place was shaken; the people were filled with the Holy Spirit; and they spoke the word of God boldly (verse 31). That s not the only way God gets revealed to people in church, of course sometimes it s quietly, without any shaking of the walls; sometimes it s through our tears tears of 3 P a g e

4 joy, tears of repentance, tears of loss; sometimes it s in an aha! moment we encounter God and now the thing that has so confounded us no longer confounds us sometimes that... All kinds of ways God gets revealed and encountered, but the point is that it s the kind of church God longs for one where we and God encounter one another, where we don t just go through the motions, where we leave changed because we came Earlier this week I was at the annual retreat of a board I serve on the board and executive staff of FMSC gets together for a half-day refresher course in what best practices are for us as an organization. I d been asked to lead a faith building exercise for the group a bit of spiritual inspiration for the team, but as sometimes happens, the first part of the meeting took longer than we planned so the time I d been given on the agenda shrunk a bit--not majorly, but enough to make me feel hurried to get through what I d prepared. So in I launched, ironically on the subject of patience. I m going to hurry up and talk about patience (If you ve never tried doing that, you should give it a whirl ) I was looking to explore how a ministry that s committed to reaching out to children in desperate need might also exhibit the kind of patience necessary to be able to hear God s voice and leading in that effort. So I m cutting and pasting what I d planned to say on the fly, becoming less and less coherent as I go that sinking feeling that maybe this isn t really working... Finally, I stopped and asked the group a couple questions asked if there s a place in their lives just now where they find themselves in need of patience. Maybe it s in a relationship--with a spouse, an employee, a coworker, a child, an aging parent; perhaps a job change, a physical ailment, a grief situation Is there something you d let us in on, I asked, that we might pray for one 4 P a g e

5 another (and that in turn we might pray for that same patience and wisdom in the ministry we all share in seeking to feed a hungry world). I asked the question, and immediately one person in the group spoke up told me that I couldn t have known what a timely thing this is in his life. He s somebody who has a big job, but he s struggled with it not being big enough always seems to want more. Well, recently another company has come calling offering him that more more money, more status, more responsibility. It would mean relocating his family at a critical period in his kids lives would mean being taken away from his role on our board, something he feels God has called him to. He said, I know what the right thing to do is to be patient and content and trust that God s got me covered, but it s really hard to do that right now, and I need your prayers. Now, you need to understand we don t do this sort of thing in that group. We have an agenda to get through, decisions to make budgets and staffing and where the best opportunities lie for us as an organization. We don t have time (or should I say, we don t take time) for each other s personal stuff. But here was a moment of such honesty and transparency one of our very own siblings in Jesus speaking with boldness and taking the risk to let us into his life. And while the walls of the room we were meeting in did not shake, our group shook, and the Holy Spirit showed up, and we were caused to speak to one another in such a real and caring way. It didn t matter that the presenter had hurried through his talk and made less sense than he planned, because God showed up anyway showed up and met us in that room in a way we didn t even realize we needed. 5 P a g e

6 Today is Palm Sunday, the day we remember our Lord s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. We remember the ticker tape parade he was given, remember the laud hosannas the people shouted. Had you and I been there that day I m guessing we would have assumed the place was shaking and the Holy Spirit moving and great boldness would follow. But that s not what happened. You see, the people lining the streets that day were looking for the wrong kind of Messiah. Rather than one who would save them from their sins, they wanted someone who would save them from their oppressor, the Romans. But that s not why Jesus came, and so in the space a just a few days the same people who hailed him as king turned around and shouted, Crucify him! And the lesson for us could not be more clear: If we want to get in on what God is up to in our lives and in the world, if we want an encounter with the God who is alive and bringing healing and change to this broken world, who is shaking things up and breaking in and passing out boldness, then we need to begin by meeting God on God s terms, not our own. We begin by saying (as Jesus said in a moment we remember during Holy Week), Not my will but yours, God, be done. We praise not the Messiah who will do our own bidding, but the one who knows way better what the very best is for us, that just like Peter we might allow God to call us to a deeper love than we ever thought possible. 6 P a g e