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HOW DO you reckon the Apostles
felt when they got back home? They had just had a great victory
over the Sanhedrin. Do you think they really grasped what had
happened?
How do you feel when
you have just gotten away with something by the skin of your
teeth?
Do you remember Elijah on Mt Carmel, when he confronted the prophets
of Ba’al? How did he feel then? He'd just single handedly
confronted a couple of hundred Ba’al worshippers, who had
cut themselves and shouted and danced in the hope that their
god would set fire to their offerings. Then Elijah rebuilt the
altar to God, sacrificed his offering, soaked everything in water
until it was saturated, and called on the Lord Jehovah to accept
the sacrifice and show that he alone is God.
The fire fell from heaven, the sacrifice, the wood, the water
— even the stones themselves — were burnt in the conflagration
which ensued.
The people bowed down, shouting, “Yahweh — he is God!
Yahweh — he is God!” And they killed the prophets of
Ba’al.
Did Elijah feel the conquering hero now?
He ran away. He knew that Queen Jezebel would soon be after him,
would soon want to destroy his life. All Elijah could think was
that he had gone too far, and all the demons of hell would be
pursuing him now. He became so deeply depressed that he wanted
to die. He sat in horror in the desert.
Isn’t that just how Peter and John would have felt?
"We’ve won this time, but they’ll just be after
our blood even more now.”
This morning I want to address some of the concerns we probably
all have.
We have tried things to reach out. Sometimes we have tried, and
failed. Sometimes we have tried and succeeded — but there
was always that fear that things might get worse rather than
better, that the numbers might overwhelm us, or that the success
was just good luck. Sometimes we have just not tried. Or we have
tried and succeeded, but the elements we needed for further success
were gone. The people who made it work moved on. The people who
came that time told us they wouldn’t come this time.
But we keep going. I have to give everyone of us full credit.
If there is anyone of you who hasn’t put in an effort to
keep going and keep reaching out, you’ve hidden it well
from us all.
Yet the end result is that we haven’t developed a culture
of success. We have learnt to fail, to get up, and to fail again.
I want to make three simple points
about our passage.
First, although the believers
would later realise just how far they had come, right now, they
didn’t feel they had come all that far at all. They had
survived, they hadn’t been imprisoned or killed, but they
didn’t know how long it would all last.
While we keep asking ourselves how long it will all last, how
can we really go ahead?
I’m no a fool. We have deadlines. In five years, who will
have died, who will have moved away, who will have married, who
will have backslidden? Don’t dwell on the negatives, but
recognise the facts of life. I’ve buried more people in
the past 20 years than I’ve baptised. It happens. All these
things happen. It’s called life. Life has endings.
One day, the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall
sing.
So I should never have married. I will die, and my kids will
have to sort that mess out. Why did I bother studying? It’s
all vanity in the end. My knowledge will die with me. Preach?
How many words have I preached with no one being won to Christ?
Two or three successes as an evangelist, thousands who have heard
and walked by.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. These are good words for a
preacher.
But never forget: God’s kingdom is eternal, the gospel never
changes, the God’s word stands sure. God has always affirmed
to us that he has a plan for us. Resurrection has always occurred
when we were sure that the earth had been tamped firmly down
on our grave.
Yes, we are tentative and uncertain.
We would be silly not to be. But we are silly to stay that way.
Two years ago, we had 25% of our regular attenders in hospital
with fairly serious illnesses. I’ve never heard of that
in an ordinary suburban church before. Maybe in some war–torn
country where there’s a massacre, but not in South–western
Sydney. We are still not over it. Chris, Divina, John, George...
and then there were the minor things as well.
So here we are. It’s not an easy place to be. Maybe we can
empathise with the Apostles as they wended their quaking way
back to see their friends.
The second thing I want to look
at is how they went straight to their relationship with God.
James tells us,
... submit yourselves to God... resist the devil and he will
flee from you.
This applies to the Apostles, too. The devil was driving the
Sanhedrin’s opposition. And the Apostles submitted themselves
to God and resisted the devil.
They shared their stories, they raised their voices to God, and
they prayed.
They told God exactly what was happening. Already they could
see it was in line with the prophecies of the Bible. They were
not surprised at the ferocity of the anger poured out against
Jesus and against his followers. The Bible had told them it would
occur.
But listen to their prayer!
“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants
to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand
to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the
name of your holy servant Jesus.”
No matter what, they refused to be put off. God had called them
through Jesus Christ. So they were going to resubmit themselves
to his will and begin again, no matter how much the nations rage
and the people imagine a vain thing.
Don’t forget Samson. e started well, he worked mighty works,
he defeated Philistines. But he was a moral failure and a bully.
A prostitute brought about his downfall. He had been a judge
in Israel, but he became a slave in Gaza.
Yet in his blindness and his degradation, he turned his eyes
towards the God of heaven, and acknowledged him once more. He
submitted himself to God. He said, “One more time, Lord!”
And God honoured that prayer, and gave him strength, and Samson
killed more Philistines at his own death than he ever had in
his days of strength.
The Apostles turned fully to God in their distress, and he answered
them.
My final point from this passage
is that the Apostles — in fact, the whole church —
was driven into a new closeness. We read,
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed
that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything
they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon
them all.
Some years ago, a little girl fell down a tube well in her family
back yard in Texas. She lodged about 15m down. Fortunately, she
was little and flexible and had a good loud voice, so she bent
easily into an uncomfortable posture, but one which caused her
to jam rather than fall to the bottom. And her parents heard
her soon after she had fallen.
She was in there for about 2 days. People came from all over
the US. Some came with casseroles, some came with earthmoving
equipment.
In a time of need, everyone shared, everyone pulled together.
There was a real sense of community.
And when the early Christians found themselves in need, the came
closer together. The point is not that they shared, but that
they were totally there for each other.
Our habit, too often, has been to split apart when the going
gets tough. We need to determine to be like the early Christians
and come closer and closer together, until we are truly one in
Christ.
It’s when God’s people are close together that the
oil of the Spirit is poured down on us.
So to conclude, I want to reiterate:
First, the Apostles didn’t feel like successful men: they
felt they had escaped by the skin of their teeth.
Second, they allowed that sense of need to drive them closer
to God — not to be sheltered, but to be able to serve him
confidently in the face of difficulties.
Third, when they were close to God, they also drew close to each
other in really supportive community. And that was where they
could really get the gospel on the road. Power was released,
and blessing followed as many came to saving faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The challenge to us is simple:
When we have no-where else to go but to God, when we have no
one else to rely on but each other, then we will see great blessing
and God will be glorified among us.
Are we willing to seek him and to support each other?
May God bless us as we do.
AMEN |
