Looking Forward

Acts 1.4-11

                Imagine a ministry that seemed quite popular. It is a ministry that was making inroads, serving the people, getting to the heart of the matter. It was a different way of looking, a different way of doing. The people were excited and coming to listen to this preacher and his disciples. They even a few times went out on individual tours, not too different than the Billy Graham Association does today. (Have one of our representatives speak at your community revival.) For years, this was good. And then tragedy struck. The preacher was killed.

                But here is where it became weird. Months prior, the preacher was telling his disciples that this was coming. And when it came, they still were caught off guard. What would they do? They had an option, to cower in fear. They were good at that. I wonder how many replayed the previous years in their minds to see if there was any way that this could have been avoided. They also were dealing with the fear of would they be next.

                But alas, the grave only held him for a mere few hours, a few days worth. He rose. He kept appearing to the disciples. They were not as afraid as before, but Jesus had this habit of not staying around, and now he’s not as bound by his corporal limitations. They couldn’t follow. Was this to be the new norm?

                Then He told them that soon, though John baptized with water, they would be baptized with fire from the Father. Now they couldn’t understand this. The Holy Spirit, briefly mentioned as the coming Comforter. But their minds were still on the past. “Now is the time for our nation? Will we be once again the mighty nation of God?”

                You can hear the words of gentleness and patience. “No, do not worry about those times, they are not of your concern. There is something more important that you need to be about. You will receive the Holy Spirit and then you will be my witnesses, not just in Jerusalem and Judea, but also to the Samaritans and the Gentile world. Tell them what you know, make disciples baptizing and teaching them all you have learned. You will soon be ready.”

                Those were His last words to them. For upon saying them, He went home. He was lifted beyond the clouds. And while they watched, I wondered if they were longing for him to come back, to spend just a bit more time, answer a few more questions. I wonder how much gazing was really day dreaming, doubting what they were called to do. So God sent a couple of messengers, a final comfort. “Stop looking up into the clouds. He’s will return, and by the same manner in which you have seen Him leave.”

                The disciples were in a new place. They had a new mission, but not really a new mission. Jesus’ words never became irrelevant. Jesus is still coming, and that day of glory is closer now than in the past. No longer would they be entering the presence of Jesus for orders, for encouragement. No longer will Jesus be there to answer the really tough questions, questions that arise from tragedy and hurt.

                Yet from this, they will learn that there is a time to draw on the past. Sure their ministry was great. But now it will be different. Today, many have the hindsight longing. Churches all over remember the good old days. I once had a lady tell me often about the times, when her kids were my kids ages, that the church had a thriving young adult ministry. I kept asking why it ceased to continue. Our kids grew up. Some churches have been shakers and movers and now sit shaking and barely moving. We don’t need to dwell here other than to point out that this is rather depressing. Jesus encouraged the disciples to move forward. The angels came along and reminded them.

                There is a time to remember the past. Jesus’ focus on the past was to teach what has been taught. The past can also be useful for inspiring us to ideas of how to be now. If we once did a weekly fellowship, what if we were to try that again? Invite a few friends over for some good old fashion grilling. Well bad example with the nights cooling and the skeeters seemingly on the war path. But we have football. What if we were to have a fun tailgate party in the afternoon, a Christian based, clean, fun prior to the game and then retire to the living room and watch our team win. Right now, they are ranked 24 with a 3-0 record, lastly beating South Carolina: 56-0. It has been a while since I’ve seen such an impressive start with the U of A.

                Just like talking about the Wildcats can be a distraction, when we consider the time Jesus has been away, or the history that is gone away, we risk becoming distracted. Our mind ceases, our actions cease being on the mission. Consider Jesus’ words that whoever puts his hand to the plow but looks back is unfit. (Luke 9.62)

                This leaves us the option to look forward. We are to carry the mission, the message. It is not enough just to have it, but we must share it by living it out before others as well as telling them this message, that Jesus came to restore our fellowship with God.  We find this encouragement in the Word. The next encouragement comes just two verses past the last one. Luke 10.2. We need to see the world around us as being  ready to hear the good news. Then let’s consider the words to the disciples, to be witnesses in Jerusalem, closest circle, then to the rest of Judea, a bit bigger, then to Samaria, bigger still, and then to the ends of the world. How are we taking the message out to the world?  How are we impacting our family? How are we impacting Stuttgart? How are we impacting Arkansas? Do we realize that the world is ready to hear the good news from us? But we need to be open to being used by God. This is encouragement from the Word.

                There is another source to help us to move forward. Look at verse 4. There is fellowship. Too often in our American culture, we see that we can do it ourselves. Radio stations downplay the Church’s role. Yet meeting together allows us to encourage one another because our time in fellowship with one another is so minute compared to our time in the world.  Paul told the church in Corinth that is why we meet, to build one another up, to encourage. This is not the main place for people to hear the good news and make a decision. They need to hear it in their world from you and I taking time to care for them. We come here so we can pray together and encourage, build one another up.

                Finally, we are motivated to look forward by nature itself. Consider the last verse, “in the same manner you saw Jesus go, he will return.” OK there are two here. Nature serves as a reminder. Driving back from the fair, I saw the sun breaking through the clouds and whenever I see that I wonder… is it today? But let’s not just look to nature, for we have a habit of worshipping nature as well. Let us look at the promise the angels have left. Let us then consider the words of how we should be then. We should be dutiful servants who are busy looking to the work before us so that when our Master does return for us, we shall be surprised, but not unaware. That is something that the clouds remind me. Day is coming that we shall no longer be able to do the work of Him who sent me. Remember those words from John?

                This morning marks the official shift in the next chapter of our congregation. The leadership is asking for a shift in thinking, a shift to thinking forward. We are going to be doing some things that are new, and may be uncomfortable at first. The invitation time, for example, will not be open to anyone needing prayer, but to anyone wishing to share a word of encouragement.

                If you like to share such a word, I invite you to after we sing our song. Let’s stand. 

Sharing Your Faith - Step 5 - Creating Opportunities

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at how we can share our faith with our friends and family. To help in that, this past weekend as well as today most of our friends and family and people in general, are watching or planning to watch the opening of the football season. Yesterday, the Razorbacks, today, Green Bay. As excited as people are about their sports and for others, hobbies, work, family, etc. how much more so should we be as excited about our faith in Jesus? Remember, we are not here for ritual or religion. We are here to worship together around the Lord’s Table. We are here to encourage one another to live the Christian walk the rest of the week. We are here to huddle before we run the play of life.

                This week’s playbook is not about seeing opportunities, but creating them. Today, we’ve hopefully have been reflecting on the previous steps. We have been praying, preparing ourselves by setting out our testimony, and even began using notes and tracts to speak a timely word. Hopefully now we are ready for this one, being open with those we do not know. We are going to look at three passages to encourage us and then we will take real look at applying them in our daily lives.

                First, we must remember that we are to rely upon the Holy Spirit to guide us. Matthew 10.19-20 has the context of Jesus sending out the disciples, telling them to be as shrewd as serpents but as innocent as doves. This passage is dealing with a future prophesy for the disciples after Jesus returns to His glory. But let us still consider it. Here is a promise that when we are in need of the right words to say, the Holy Spirit will guide us. Now I am not going into advocating that we do not prepare ourselves. Jesus often went into solitude for a time of prayer, to communicate with our Heavenly Father. God has given us His Word so that we may fully know God’s will for mankind. Remember also that the disciples were in fellowship daily with one another and with Jesus.  The lesson is that in order for us to be able to rely upon the Spirit to guide us, we need to spend time with Him. We need to spend time with one another, and we need to spend time in the Word. I will tell you, when your relationship is right, then you will always have the right words.

                This last week, someone told me, “As intelligent as you are, how can you be religious? Religion is for the weak-minded!” The person who said this has a point. Yet she didn’t understand what makes Christianity superior to religions. It is not about rituals and rites. Christianity is about a relationship with the Creator of the Universe through the work of Christ, taking God’s wrath for us. Jesus in John 4 even told her as much. “A time is coming that you will neither worship the Father here, nor in Jerusalem…the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” John 4.21, 23.  I had these words because I spend time with you, with the Father and with the Word.

                So when you encounter someone, if you’ve been following the steps, don’t worry about what you will say. Ask the cashier at Mayflower how you can make her day better. Ask the waiter if there is something you can pray with him about. When he answers, then pray with him there, immediately.

                Second, we need to remember whose favor we seek. God’s opinion is what matters, or obeying God rather than men. Acts 4.19-20, the disciples are answering the Sanhedrin. They were bold about it as well. Fear, as we considered last time, tends to stop us from working. We fear what others might think. Yet in sports, even at my doctor’s appointment Wednesday, I was bold enough to be a Wildcat in the midst of the hog pen. Yeah, the doctor thought I was saying some fighting words.  But you get my meaning? In the same manner, we need to as courageous to stand for Christ when we are in foreign territory. There are more people out there that say, “You believe in Christ, good for you.” But we need to stand for Christ even when our audience may even be hostile against Christ.  What if your waiter said, “Don’t pray for me. I don’t believe in God.”? As Christians, no, not that he can hear. Wait until your are home. But when he says no, he’s given you the opportunity to go further. Why not? But then as soon as he is done, don’t argue back. Accept it. Heated debates might result in poor service or worse, like spit under the bread.  We need to show love to those who would not accept us. If we really want to make an impact, go the extra mile and see to getting his table time and again. Turn him into a friend. Someday, he might very well take you up on it. Oh, and beware of skeptics. They might say something silly. Pray for my son’s turtle. It’s sick. They may not be joking. Often we get caught up in the minutia of life. God wants to hear about that as well as the bigger issues.

                Then we have our final passage. Creating opportunities is important because eternity is on the line. James 5.20 addresses this issue that by turning a sinner from his sin, then he covers a multitude of sins. {{Sci-fi Geek Moment: This passage addresses potential, alternate universal theory. Each decision we make can create an infinite number of alternate universes.}} Now for the mind-blower: God is able to see these choices carried to their conclusion.

                Now a caution is in order. We are not saying that someone in a particular sin, say being greedy in business practices to the point of cheating others, must stop before he can become a Christian. No, not at all. God accepts us where we are, as we are. Then through the working of the Holy Spirit by word, by study, by loving discipleship makes the change in the new believer. The change may come quickly. It may not. Remember, our society has no idea of a guideline of Christian behavior. They don’t know that coming to church in your river/swim clothes, makes people uncomfortable with their own thoughts and straying eyes.  Well let me use a different example. It was years before the Campbells and Stone, founders of the Restoration Movement, realized that they should be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of sins and to receive the Holy Spirit. But they came to this through studying apart from their theological bends.

                Perhaps I should use another example. When you cast your pole into the water, do you pull out bass filets? Or do you pull out a fish that needs to be cleaned? No, you take the fist as it is, and then you prepare it, change it.

                But let’s return to the moment of eternity. There is a time that is coming, according to Paul, who quoted the Lord’s words to Isaiah, that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that God is God.  Let us also consider Peter’s words to help excite us from 2 Peter 3.9-10. God doesn’t want anyone to perish. This is why he told the disciples, tells us that we are to make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them in the way they should live. Notice the order. Teach after baptizing. This eternity will come in the blink of an eye. How shall we see the world around us? Luke 10.2, “Look, the world is ready to be harvested, but the workers are few.” You now know how to be a worker.

                Now you might still be nervous. There is another step, from last week, that can help us. Next week we begin a new series about the Kingdom, about reaching people around us. Next week is also the National Invite a Friend to Church Sunday. Next week is also our monthly fellowship dinner. It is really easy just to invite someone. 

The Rest of Your Story

                Imagine a young man sitting in his dorm room listening to a radio station. It is the top of the hour break from the EIB Network show. At this hour, the local ABC News Radio station plays another show, about 5 minutes long. It’s a news show, it’s a commentary, it’s a feel good program. This day, however, the young man hears something that he couldn’t believe. Now to set the next part up, you must know that his last name is a more common Irish name, and the odds of two complete strangers with the same last name meeting being kinfolk. But his name wasn’t as common as Smith or Jones. That said, the commentator related to how he remembers going to his grandfather’s house as a lad. Grandpa was the postmaster of a Central Kansas town that bore the family name.

                The young man takes a double listen and flips over to another station where he knew the same show would be on at the bottom of the very hour. He hears it again. You see, this young man grew up knowing that his great grandfather was a postmaster of a small Central Kansas town that bore the family name. He was kinfolk to fame. For six months, he sold everyone he knew. His own father, however was skeptical. But how? Both men’s grandpas were postmasters of the Central Kansas town bearing the family name. He finally accepted it.

                Then one day, the young man, also a janitor for the college, was asked to fill in for the one who normally cleaned the upstairs part of the library. As he was cleaning, a title caught his eye, and he picked it up. It was by his favorite commentator. Then he read the back cover, looking for confirmation of the claim to fame he had. Paul Harvey, Jr. was born Paul Harvey Ardaunt, Jr… And now you know the rest of the story to my brief moment of being related to the best story teller this side of Louis L’Amour. Even to this day, as I read L’Amour’s stories, I hear it in Paul Harvey’s voice.

                Story One – Let me share another story with you. Joe was a preacher who loved to preach. He loved to share the Word of God with all who would listen. Enjoyed watching them turn their lives around, repenting, striving to live for God, loving God.  But like most preachers, he had a comfort zone. He liked being where he was. He knew the culture. It was his culture. He spoke the language. It was a comfortable tongue, easy on the ears, and sometimes a hoot to repeat. Life was rolling well for this preacher, the icon of the area. Then one day, God startled him.

                I don’t know if in his comfort of doing the same day in and day out, that he wasn’t listening for God’s voice. Perhaps that wasn’t the case. Perhaps he was too comfortable where he was that he started seeing the God of the universe start looking like his neighbors. He was comfortable with the sinners around him. Sinners whose sins were not as tangible. You know, the sins like lying, stealing, being greedy or mean in business. Or any of the other sins that could easily be kept behind closed doors, out of public view. These are the good sinners he was used to dealing with. On Sunday’s, he’d hear the words, “Great sermon, preacher!” That is what Joe is used to.

                Then Joe heard God’s voice. Go to the filthy sinners. Now these sinners are filthy sinners because you can look at them and know instantly that they don’t even come close to holding the same moral compass that Joe, or even you and I hold. One look, you can see their sins. But still God said to preach to them. Leave your comfort zone. They need my love too. Tell them that I am near.

Well, if you know typical preachers, we don’t always like to head a thousand miles away from home to a culture that we are not used to. Now he will have to use a language that sounds harsh on the ears, and to roll the tongue around the vowels? Forget about it! So you know what Joe did? He left. Oh eventually he did go where God wanted him to go. And his ministry was better than ever. He was the first preacher and the response to his message could stir envy even in the heart of Billy Graham. I wonder though: did he stay there? What was the rest of Joe’s story?

Story Two – Henry was a good Christian. He attended church regularly, helped maintain the volleyball courts, taught the high school group and even played in the church leagues, that is when he wasn’t working. He worked a graveyard shift at the nearby E-Z Mart, just down the road from the church. You see, Henry was a lucky man. He loved saying how lucky a person was. He had a routine in his life, almost OCD. He kept a worry stone in his pocket as well.  Then early one morning, he met Jerry. Jerry was a grizzled looking man who came in the darkest hour of Henry’s shift, the point where Henry wants to step inside the cooler and catch a short nap. No one comes in during that hour, until now, until Jerry. Jerry strikes up a conversation about faith. Normally Henry wouldn’t talk about his Christianity while at work, but because Jerry asked, he was free to talk about it.

Jerry then asked him about earlier when he was trimming the lawn along the highway at the church. A grain truck nearly tapped him. Henry, of course said that God saved him. Then Jerry moves on, satisfied with that answer and asked about the game later in the afternoon. You see, Henry hit a softball straight up and out to centerfielder. It was an easy out. It would have been the end of the game. But the fielder dropped the ball. Henry ended up batting two runners in for the win. Henry said he was lucky that the fielder dropped the ball. Oh Jerry did not like that answer.

Nevertheless, Jerry remained composed and questioned Henry. Doesn’t God care of the small things in our lives or just the really big ones? You think that you are honoring God with your attendance, offerings and service, but then you turn around and rob God of the glory due his name. You need to stop. Stop the sin and God will bless you. Give Him the glory. After saying this, Jerry left the store.

What I failed to mention is that Henry was working and serving the church because he was a Bible college graduate. He had spent two years working at a convenience store while he was searching. It seemed no one wanted Henry. But after Jerry’s visit, a church called that following Sunday and invited Henry to come out for an interview. His first interview since he interviewed for an internship now 4 years earlier.

Story Three – Daniel had a little brother named Douglas. And if you have a little brother, you know just the type that Doug was. He was the youngest and therefore, he could do no wrong. I mean if Doug runs his bike into dad’s car and scratches it, it was somehow Dan’s fault. This certainly didn’t help the relationship between the two brothers.  While growing up, Dan didn’t care too much for Doug at school either. If he saw his brother coming, he’d duck out as soon as he could.  Though Doug thought the world of Dan, he always sought approval of his older brother. None would be forthcoming. It was at school that Doug found himself constantly in trouble. He would often get into fights, though he never told Dan it was because some of the kids thought Dan was a nerd and a loser. All Dan could see was the favoritism that Doug was showered with.

After graduation, both men started their careers. Well at least Dan did. He went off to college and was now working as a social worker, helping those in need, giving back. Doug was a drop out. Even though he had his GED, he couldn’t even get into the military. And you know, Dan was at fault for that too. If the day that they fought wasn’t called into the police, Doug wouldn’t have an assault conviction on his record. But what rubbed Dan wrong was that every time Doug was around, he was asking for all sorts of help. If he didn’t need money, he wasn’t there. The family attended church together, except Doug.

Doug’s life continued to spiral downhill. He was caught up in drugs and eventually went to prison because of it. Years would pass before Doug was a free man. But while in prison, Doug changed. He realized how far he strayed from God. It would have been easy to blame his brother Dan for the lack of support growing up, but ultimately, he realized that he still made the choices that have him where he is. After he was released, his dad hosted a huge family celebration. Dad brought in family from other places, put on a spread that Dan didn’t when he graduated college or when he got married, or even for the birth of his son. Dan was furious at Doug once again being showered with love.

                I have given you three stories in which we do not really know the ending. But each story had a point. You see, the Bible is full of unfinished stories. God designed it that way. Now you have to decide what the rest of the story is for each one. Will you go and reach those that God lays upon your heart, even if it means leaving your home? Will you look fully to God and trust him, even in the smallest details of your life? When a person comes to repent, can you, will you shower him with the same love, grace and mercy that God showers upon us? These three stories I used to encourage us in three major areas of our Christian walk.