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IF YOU can plan evangelism,
plan it; if you can't plan it, still do it. God uses us as we
are, as long as we are willing to be used. The power of Pentecost
is available regardless of your skills.
Martin Luther didn’t
have a plan to reform the Church. He didn’t even discover
the idea of grace and faith. In fact, he learnt that from the
head of the Augustinian Order long before he became Professor
of Theology in Wittenberg. His studies of the Bible confirmed
that what he had been privately taught was public knowledge to
the Apostles.
Luther got upset when a Dominican monk named Tetzel began promising
people full release from purgatory, guaranteed by the Pope, if
they would make a good donation to the building program.
Tetzel said,
Sobald die Münz’
ins Koffer ringt
Die Seele aus Fegefeuer springt.
(As soon as the coin in the tin doth ring
From purgatory fire the soul doth spring.)
Luther was a nit-picker who found
95 reasons why Tetzel shouldn’t do it.
If someone had said, “Martin, you're basically right, we’ll
get Tetzel to cool it,” I think Martin Luther would have
been happy. Instead they tried to force him to be silent. And
the more they pressured him, the firmer he stood.
That’s how it all started. The more they pushed, the more
he asked questions, too. And the more he asked questions, the
unhappier he was with the answers.
I know there’s a lot more to the story, but my point is
this. Luther didn’t plan to be a Reformer, it happened when
he responded to a specific issue.
History is full of people who went out with no plan, and found
what they didn’t know was there.
Christopher Columbus left his maps in a café in Seville,
and decided to sail anyway. Well, I’m kidding a bit about
the maps. But it’s true that he thought he was off to India,
and bumped into America instead. A bit different. When Native
Americans came to see who had arrived, Columbus thought they
were Indians. That’s why little kids still play Cowboys
and Indians — because Christopher Columbus thought he'd
found India when he had found America instead!
Florey didn’t set out to discover penicillin. He was culturing
bacteria for an experiment, and nothing grew in one of the dishes,
so he decided to investigate. He looked through his microscope
and saw the sign, “This space sponsored by Amoxil,
available in capsules, powders and regular tablets.” Well,
you know what I mean. He set out to do one thing and ended up
in an entirely different place.
Our passage today is about evangelism
when you don't have a plan.
Through the years, we've sometimes had conflict between the people
who plan and the people who don’t plan. I’ve even seen
people who normally plan arguing that Christians shouldn’t,
and then changing their mind when failure to plan causes too
many problems.
The main players in the story are Peter, John and the crippled
man begging on the Temple steps.
Peter and John weren’t real planners. They were schedulers,
but not planners.
Every day they followed the same routines that fishermen had
followed for centuries up there around Galilee. Every now and
then, they'd schedule a day for maintenance and repairs, of for
paying their taxes and buing the provisions they needed. But
they didn’t do any big picture stuff, deciding where their
fishing business would be in 20 years, or how many employees
they would need if there was a 15% increase in the average yearly
haul.
In other words, with the possible exception of Simon the Zealot,
the disciples were not planners. They responded and they reacted,
but they didn’t have to plan.
And now Jesus, their Lord and Master, had given them a very clear
instruction. He wanted them to be witnesses from where they were
in ever expanding circles until the whole world knew that Jesus
is Lord.
That takes planning.
You know, you can go to the meetings of half a dozen groups which
have a goal of changing the world, and every one of them is pretty
good at planning a campaign.
Let’s think of an imaginary organisation. We’ll call
it The Revolutionary People’s Council of NSW. We
can refer to it as the RPC.
Today they probably are doing something to revolutionise Australia.
They want people to know who they are. So they are producing
leaflets, just a brief introduction to the RPC. If anyone wants
to know about them, they’ve got that leaflet to give out.
They want to know who is interested in them, so they have arranged
a barbecue lunch up at the old St Peters Brickpits. It’s
a “Free the Detainees” Barbecue, and the RPC President
and a local representative of Amnesty International are the scheduled
speakers.
The RPC puts out a newspaper every week. It's only four pages,
and about the same size as The Telegraph, but it gets their message
across. $2.00 donation, free if you can't afford to donate.
They have a website, where you can read their criticisms of the
Government and their calls for a new Constitution.
That's planning. And, if the Revolutionary People's Council can
do it, or if some real organisation like The Greens or the Young
Liberals or the Socialist Alliance can do it, why aren’t
Christians doing it?
But God can work despite us.
I said that we have had our conlicts over whether or not we should
plan. The one thing I believe we have lacked is a willingness
to make oursevles available to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, that’s the key thing. If we want to be effective,
we will be available.
Look at Peter and John. What were they doing? They weren’t
on their way to sell the Christian World Liberation Front Advocate.
They weren’t the advance party to run a barbecue outreach.
They hadn’t run off a pocket full of tracts. They weren’t
even on their way to a Spirit–filled, fire–setting
prayer meeting. They weren’t even going to a Christian Bible
study. They were on their way to worship in the Temple.
Picture it! This was Jewish worship, and they were Christians.
But that didn’t stop them. This was ritual worship, not
worship in Spirit and in truth, but that didn’t dampen their
hearts. This wasn’t even a place where Jesus would be mentioned,
yet they were on their way to be there so that they could serve
God.
Furthermore, the Temple was still
under the control of the very people who had conspired with the
Romans to crucify their Lord! It was still run by Annas and Caiaphas.
I’ve been to church when it was the last thing I wanted
to do. I’ve come and I’ve known that the place would
be nearly empty. I come when I would far rather be in bed at
home, having another hour’s sleep, when I know the music
isn’t going to work, when I don’t want to see anyone,
no matter how much I like you all.
Sometimes I attend seminars where I’ve got to pray on my
way in that God will overrule the speaker, because I don’t
expect to hear anything good there.
But I can tell you: when I go with the intention of being available
to the Holy Spirit, there's nearly always something worthwhile
there, and when I just go and feel grumpy because it’s not
what I want, then I get nothing, and I put a damper on the people
around me.
And that’s what Peter and
John did. They went with the intention of being available to
their Lord in the power of His Spirit. When you go in that way,
you can go just about anywhere!
How do I know about Peter and John’s attitude?
The other day I was on Town Hall station, and a bloke came up
to cadge a few dollars off me, a "Blue Heeler", trying
to put the bite on everyone he saw. My first reaction was, “Oh,
no! Not another one! Get away!” My second reaction was,
“How much is he after? I’d better find him something.”
My third reaction was to breathe a bit more easily because he
was going away again.
Well, I talked to him a little bit about agencies in his area
which might be able to help him, but I was glad when he was going
again. And I did nothing for him to find Christ, or to discover
the saving power of faith.
But when Peter and John were in the same situation, what did
they think of? Not how much to give, not how to get away from
him quickly. The first thing they thought of was, “How do
we bring this poor man into contact with Jesus?”
Then Peter said, “Look at us! We don’t have any money.
We aren’t rich businessmen and politicians. Look at us:
we're poor fishermen.”
If I’d been that crippled man, I’d have given up right
then. But Peter went on: “I’ll give you what I have,
though... in Jesus’ name, get up and walk!”
And the man who hadn’t walked for years not only got to
his feet, he was so glad, so filled with joy, that he walked
and he jumped and he just couldn’t stop praising God!
Isn’t it great when someone is so excited about what God
has done that he can’t stand still! There used to be a girl
who worked in one of the local coffee shops and she was like
that with customers she liked. She gave a little jump of excitement
when she saw them coming. People would have come back there for
watered–down International Roast, because they enjoyed seeing
someone excited about the people who came.
How much more excited should we be when God changes our lives
through the power of Christ!
Peter and John couldn’t shut up about Jesus because his
power had entered their lives in a way they’d never before
experienced. And now the healed beggar couldn’t stop jumping,
because of God’s goodness to him in delivering him from
shame and poverty.
In Revelation it talks about those who overcome by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
We have learnt to suppress our
responses to Christ, and then we wonder why we have no excitement
about him.
When Jesus excites us, we want
to talk about him, and we want to jump and sing and praise. Let
it go! let it out! You’ll reap a benefit!
But my main point is that, when Peter and John went there ready
to be used by the Spirit, they didn’t need a plan, all they
needed was to be ready for opportunities as they came.
Do you see what happened next? Within minutes, a crowd came to
see why the man was jumping around and shouting. So Peter and
John explained what had happened.
As they said,
“Men of Israel, why does
this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power
or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant
Jesus... By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see
and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith
that comes through him that has given this complete healing to
him, as you can all see."
In other words, as soon as a
crowd arrived and wanted to know what was going on, Peter preached
Jesus to them.
Then, because they arrested Peter and John, and dragged them
in front of the Council, Peter saw another chance, and spoke
up again,
Then Peter, filled with the Holy
Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people!
If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness
shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know
this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised
from the dead, that this man stands before you healed... ”
He took the opportunities as
they came, and God looked after the consequences. Whether they
were on the mountain top because of the power of Jesus, or whether
they were down in the valley with prison before them and even
death breathing down their necks, they still used the chance
to tell about Jesus.
The conclusion I want us to draw
today is very simple.
First, whatever you do, wherever you go, make yourself
available to the Lord to be used. Confess your sins, submit to
God and hand yourself into his hands to use you.
Second, share your testimony if the opportunity comes.
Third, celebrate what he does in and through you,
Finally, report back here next Sunday to tell us what
the Lord has done through you, and
I’ll tell you something.
If you begin ministering this week, you’ll be wanting to
begin planning next week, so you can do it better. If you go
out unplanned this week, you’ll go out with your testimony
written down and memorised next week, because you know you want
to get to the point quickly.
And, if you come back next week
wth a story, you'll be overjoyed, because you'll finally have
begun to discover that the Lord is truly risen!
May it be so,
AMEN |
