Mission Unstoppable: Why We Share the Gospel without Prejudice (Acts 11:1-18)

Why We Preach the Gospel without Prejudice

Acts 10:1-11:18

Introduction

This is the third week now that we have looked at Acts chapter 10-11.

The first week, we looked primarily at man named Cornelius in this passage. We saw that though Cornelius was a good man, that he was doing everything right with the simple knowledge of God that he had, how he was even trying to keep the Law God has given, he still wasn’t saved.  God sovereignly arranged for him to meet the apostle Peter and, through Peter’s message about Jesus Christ, he called him to salvation by faith in Christ.

We made the point that just as it was then, so it is today – if anyone is going to be saved from God’s wrath against their sin, it will be by embracing Christ as their savior and Lord.  Simply being a good person, or believing in some kind of god is not enough. You must trust in Christ. For the Bible says there is ‘no other name given among men by which men may be saved.’

That is why we cannot ever stop sending missionaries to new places and new people groups to share the gospel – the message of good news about how Jesus Christ saves sinners.  And how we ourselves should be serving the same good news with our own friends and relatives so that they too might be saved.

Then last week we looked more closely at the message itself. The message Peter proclaimed to Cornelius and his household of family and friends. There we saw why Jesus Christ is worthy to be worshipped.

Because Christ lived a perfect life, unstained by sin, because died in place of sinners taking upon himself the punishment they deserve for their sin, and because he did not stay dead but was raised back to life as Lord of all things – he alone is worthy to receive the worship of our lives.

And now today, we come to our third and final week in this important section of the Bible. Today, in many ways, we come to the heart of the passage. The previous three weeks have been building up to this morning’s message.

We have been laying a foundation for what we need to see from God’s Word today. Because today, we not only get to the heart of the passage, but the primary point of application.

The apostle Peter has gone to Cornelius – a Gentile, not a Jew – and preached Christ. Cornelius and many of his friends and relatives have trusted in Christ as their Savior. And word has got back to the other Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. And there is a problem. They want to see Peter and hear for themselves what happened.

Peter basically summarizes all of what we just read chapter 10. And if the Bible repeats something more than once, you can take it on good authority that it’s important.

So, let’s see what Peter tells his fellow Christians and what we should learn from it for today.

Acts 11:1-18

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. [2] So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, [3] “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” [4] But Peter began and explained it to them in order: [5] “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. [6] Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. [7] And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ [8] But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ [9] But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ [10] This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. [11] And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. [12] And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. [13] And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; [14] he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ [15] As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. [16] And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ [17] If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” [18] When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Peter had to learn two lessons. It took nothing less than a vision from God himself to get it into his head. Even then, it had to be demonstrated visibly in through his encounter with Cornelius.

And even then, he still had to convince the other Christians that the lessons he learned were really from God. These are hard lessons that we need to understand and learn as well.

First, we must see that –

1. God Requires Separation from Sin, Not Food

In the Old Testament, God had laid down some pretty strict food laws for his people. He had given them directions for what they could eat and could not eat. God tells Moses

“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these: [and his lists] the camel . . . the rock badger . . . the hare . . . and the pig” (Lev 11:1-7)

God goes to say, “These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat. But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you. You shall regard them as detestable; you shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. Everything in the waters that has not fins and scales is detestable to you” (Lev 11:9-12).

We’ll not look at all of these things – God gives similar instructions about what kind of birds, insects, and creatures they could and could not eat – but I think you get the point.

Now, many today look at a list like that they want to understand why God would give laws like that. That’s good – we should try, as best we can to understand what God does.  But many fail to understand because they set their horizons too low. They think there was actually something wrong with the animals themselves.

So, you can into a Christian bookstore today and go to that horrible section of books that is usually called ‘self-help’ of ‘wellness’ and find diet books and cook books that are based on the Old Testament food laws.

They have all of these arguments for why you shouldn’t eat this or that. Some even go so far as to argue that we should all be vegetarian because that’s the way Adam and Eve eat before the Fall when nothing had yet been killed.

Others want to argue practically that since the Israelites didn’t have refrigeration it would have been dangerous for them to try and keep certain foods. So God said just stay away from them because you won’t know how to preserve them properly and you might get sick and die.

And with all kindness, to both of those groups I just want to say all of that is complete rot! It’s wrong from a scientific standpoint as well as a biblical understanding of what the food laws were all about.

Those food laws had nothing to do with health concerns – they everything to spiritual concerns.

You see, food divides. Think about the concerns we expressed – along with tons of other people – who go on mission trips. What’s the food going to be like? It is going to be gross? Is it going to be something that will make me sick?

The very first day we are there, we were at a Tamashek home and had eaten a great meal but then we were served this yogurt, milk drink as dessert. And it didn’t sound all that great, but to be polite I started drinking.

But then one of the missionaries said something like ‘I don’t think that was made with purified water.’ And for second I stopped drinking.  My mind began remembering the other times I had been overseas and gotten sick and was making the mental calculation as to whether going through all of that was worth not offending our hosts.

In the end, I drank. Because I knew to not drink might have caused hurt feelings or even offended them. At the very least it would have made it harder for them to hear me speak a message of God’s love for all people, where all are equal at the foot of the cross. Food divides.

Even with out the ministry implications, people have preferences when it comes to food. People say things like, ‘I don’t eat meat, I don’t eat dairy, I only like Russet potatoes, not Yukon Golds,’ and on and on.

And sometimes to try to sit and eat with a group is a nightmare. You can’t find anything everyone is happy with, so you end up with just a glass of water and eat a carrot or something! Even in everyday life sometimes, food divides.

God knows this – and that was point. When God calls his people out of Egypt through Moses, they have not been his people for several generations. They think and act like pagans.  So, part of the design of the law he gave was to not only teach them how to live holy lives, it was to keep them separated from other pagan peoples in the world.

He wanted to put up natural barriers that would keep them from being to chummy, chummy with people that worshipped false gods and might lead his people into doing the same.  One of the easiest ways to mark his people out as different was to make what and how they ate different.

There was nothing inherently wrong with pork or lobster or all the other non-kosher foods. Why do we know that? Because beginning after the flood and lasting for thousands of years God said eat whatever you want (Genesis 9).

And then when Jesus came what did he tell his people – the Jewish people who had the food laws?
Jesus said, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matt 15:11). And in case we didn’t get, Mark explicitly tells us in an aside, “Thus he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19).

Peter was there when Jesus said this, but he hasn’t gotten yet. So, God gives him a vision of what we would say is Animal Planet or something – a large sheet with all kinds of clean and unclean animals running around together.

And according to the law, just because the unclean animals had touched the cleans, Peter couldn’t even eat the clean ones. But what does God say – “Rise Peter, kill and eat!”

And what does Peter say? If you’ve read the gospels you know that Peter has this bad habit of using the words no and lord in the same sentence – he says, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (10:14).

I have always kept the food laws, God! So God has to tell him three times – “Kill and eat. What I have made clean, do not call common.” God is saying, ‘Peter the law is done. Those food regulations were good for a specific purpose and period of time. But now, the fulfillment of the law has come in Christ. And I want the barrier down because I want the gospel to go forwards to all people.’

This brings us right up to the second thing we need to see from our passage this morning –

2. God Requires Rejection of Prejudice, Not People

The Jewish laws regarding clean and unclean foods, and the laws regarding things like what they should, how they should worship, and more were essentially God’s “visual aids” to show that people are sinful and God is holy, and so we cannot come to God any way they chose.

However, over time those laws became something they were not intended to become – a means of works-righteousness and a source of hostile division between God’s people and the rest of the world.

Though through a chosen people, God planned from the beginning to bless all the nations of the earth. It was part of the very promise given to Abraham upon which the identity of the Jewish people was built.  In the Old Testament, we even see hints of the larger picture that is to come – a Canaanite prostitute, a Syrian military commander, the entire city of Ninevah, and more are all saved by trusting in the God of Israel.

Nevertheless, the laws which were designed to keep Israel from the sinful ways of life from her neighbors became distorted into a prejudice against those neighbors themselves.

In his commentary on Acts, John Stott explains, “It is difficult for us to grasp the impassable gulf which yawned in those days between the Jews on the one hand and the Gentiles on the other. Not that the Old Testament countenanced such a divide… it affirmed that God had a purpose for [the Gentiles]. By choosing and blessing [the Jews] he intended to bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-4)… The tragedy was that Israel twisted this doctrine of election into one of favoritism, became filled with racial pride and hatred, despised the Gentiles as ‘dogs’, and developed traditions that kept them apart. No orthodox Jew would ever enter the home of a Gentile…all familiar intercourse with Gentiles was forbidden…” (Stott, p.185)

This is the real problem that Jewish Christians in Jerusalem have with Peter. Notice the complaint at the beginning of chapter 11 –

“Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.’”

They didn’t say, ‘Oi! You took the gospel to the Gentiles; we can’t believe it!’ No, that was fine. It’s great if Gentiles get saved.  But you ate with them. You had table fellowship with Gentiles and even let them into your house – Peter have you gone nuts?!’

Even Peter says to the men sent by Cornelius, ‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation,’ (10:28).

But it wasn’t against God’s law to do this. No, this was a human prejudice that had built up around the law. There was nothing in the Old Testament forbidding Peter to associate with Gentiles the way he did.

But it was a problem for the bigoted ideas of his fellow countrymen. And the problem was not seeing Gentiles saved, it was treating them like equals.

The Tamashek that I am closest to in Niger is a Christian man named Mohammed. He is one of the red Tamashek – one of the ruling class. The other class is the black Tamashek, or worker class. Now, the classes today are not as distinct as they once were – especially in the cities.

However, Mohammed told me that the distinction was so ingrained in his culture and thinking that he had a difficult time accepting black Tamashek as equals, even when they were Christians.

In fact, on one occasion he was with the Hesslings and a couple young men – black Tamashek – and dinner was served.  In their culture everyone eats out of the same bowl, but he had never eaten out of the same bowl as a black Tamashek before. You just didn’t do it. The black and red had their own bowl. But here there was no bowl.

Intellectually, Mohammed knew they were all Christians and that in Christ there was no distinctions like red and black anymore.  Nevertheless, such was the ingrained prejudice that after he ate out of the same bowl with the other men, he was physically sick for days. Every time he would eat he would think of what he had done and it made him sick again.

Some of us have ingrained prejudices as well. It may prevent us from sharing the gospel from some people. But more than likely, the real problem comes in seeing those people as equal in worth and dignity as ourselves.

It could be anything. We could be prejudiced against fat people, rich people, people who don’t speak English or have the same skin color as us.  It could be people who worship in a different denomination or have a different level of schooling than we do – the possibilities are endless.

But wherever the prejudice lies, we have to work at putting it death like any other sin in our lives. We must say like Peter says, “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (10:28).

When someone gets saved we should not expect them to become like us before we like them or love or accept them as equals in Christ. Should they begin to put away their sinful lifestyle? Absolutely!

They should pursue holiness like every other Christian. But should they suddenly like everything we do, live the way we do, forget their culture or family heritage? No, not all.  It can be easy for those of us who have been Christians for a long time to begin to feel superior to those that are not Christians, or even those that are immature in their faith.

But the gospel of grace means that no saved person can feel superior to any other saved person — because we are all saved by grace alone.

The result is an unyielding acceptance not of sin, but of people – both people in need of grace and people who have experienced grace.

Conclusion

At one time, Ghandi considered becoming a Christian. He had read the New Testament and was particularly gripped by what he saw of Jesus in gospels. He went to a church one Sunday intending to speak with the pastor afterwards and ask him more about Christ.

When he got to the door, however, one of the church members – a white man – stopped him at the door and told him it would be better if he went to the other side of town and worshipped God with his own people.

Ghandi would later say to a Christian missionary in India, “I like the New Testament, I like Christianity, but I do not like your Christians.” “If Christianity has the caste system I should just remain a Hindu!”

As Christians, we have to open our eyes to the harvest field – to see all people are equal at the foot of the cross and needing to hear the gospel to receive salvation.

But more than that, we need to see one another – despite all our earthly differences – as objects of God’s love and so deserving of our own love.

This is what makes the gospel so powerful and makes the world stand up and take notice – when people who have nothing in common and shouldn’t even be friends by the world’s standards, live as brothers and sisters in Christ, loving one another even God first loved them.

Mission Unstoppable: Why We Worship Jesus Christ (Acts 10:34-43)

Why We Worship Jesus Christ

Acts 10:1-11:18

Easter Sunday

Introduction

Whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, all of us worship something. Today there is a growing interest in atheism, but the truth is – regardless of whether or not you believe in God – you still worship something.

Consider one pastor’s observation about going to a Seattle Seahawks game. He says, “As I sat among nearly seventy thousand fans, I wondered what the impression of Old Testament Hebrew worshipers would be if they could have been teleported to the game. My guess is that they would have assumed they were at the worship service of an enormous cult. While zoning laws in our city essentially forbid us from building a large church, the football stadium was built at a cost of 450 million dollars (with roughly 300 million dollars of that money coming from public monies such as taxes). Every ticket for the entire season is expensive yet sold out. Our seats at the game I attended were in what Paul calls the “third heaven” and cost about forty dollars each. In addition, parking, a hot dog, and a [drink] cost about the same as a year’s tuition at a state college. The help of a Sherpa was required to haul it all to the high altitude where the seats were.

People walked many blocks in a driving rain that was so [intense] that parts of the city were flooded, rivers had spilled over their banks, and mudslides were leading the nightly newscasts. Nonetheless, seemingly every seat in the stadium was filled, and fans stood in the rain for the entire game—not even using the seat they paid for—wearing the team colors and screaming, while music blared through the sound system and half-naked young women provided the eye candy. In short, I was at a worship service with a congregation that was larger, more devoted, more generous, and more vocal than any church in America. . . . [I] was surrounded by people no less religiously zealous who had painted their faces to gather together and cheer on their gods who happened to play quarterback, tailback, and such, while wearing replica jerseys in tribute and giving one another high-fives in celebration whenever one of their gods made a great play.”

People worship all kinds of things. So what is worship anyway? The Bible says that “worship is living our life individually and corporately as continuous living sacrifices to the glory of a person or thing.” To glorify something is to make much of it – to exalt it and show its greatness.

‘Glory’ means weightiness, importance, preeminence, priority, or that which is our greatest treasure, deepest longing, and fountain of hope. Functionally, what we hold in the place of glory is in effect our real god. It’s the thing we worship.

Furthermore, the biblical word for worship is sometimes translated as ‘sacrifice.’ People can and do hold all kinds of people and things in a position of glory and then worship them by making sacrifices.

Because we have limited resources – limited amounts of time, energy, and money – we must distribute those resources to those things that we consider most important or glorious to us and in so doing make sacrifices for our functional god. Whatever we hold in the position of highest glory is by definition our god(s). Practically speaking, worship is making sacrifices for what we are living to glorify.

So, for example, if we eat and drink in excess, we are worshiping our stomach and sacrificing our health. If we sacrifice relationships with God and people for a hobby (e.g., sport, music, craft), then we are worshiping that hobby.

If we are giving our bodies to sexual sin, we are worshiping sex and/or another person whose glory is our highest aim, sacrificing holiness and intimacy with God in the process.

In the end, we give our time, energy, body, money, focus, devotion, and passion to that which we glorify most, and we make sacrifices to worship that person or thing. And this isn’t abnormal. God has created us as human beings to worship Him.

We simply distort that purpose with sinful hearts. Everyone is a worshiper. The only difference is who or what we worship. As one philosopher has rightly observed, “the alternative to theism is not atheism but idolatry.”

The human heart is an idol factory for everything from political causes to hobbies, recreation, sports, and crafts. As a result, some men worship old cars and houses and spend all of their time and money to renovate them while neglecting time with God and the people he has called them to love, such as their wife and children.

Some women worship their beauty and spend so much of their time, energy, and money on their looks that they are prone to neglect God and others such as their husband, children, and friends.

Others are prone to worship their favorite band and even spend hours every day online gathering the latest news, downloading the latest songs, tuning in to the latest interviews, buying the latest merchandise, and even traveling around the country and world to catch the latest concert.

If you want to know what you worship, ask yourself question like this –

· Who or what do you make sacrifices for?

· Who or what is most important to you?

· If you could have any thing or experience you wanted, what would that be?

· Who or what makes you the most happy?

· What is the one person or thing you could not live without?

· What do you spend your money on?

· Who or what do you devote your spare time to?

As a Christian, my answer to all those questions should be the same things – Jesus Christ. And that should be true for all Christians. But why? What makes Christ do significant that we would worship him? Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t just say we worship Christ, it tells us why we should worship him.

For the past several weeks, we have been studying the book of Acts – the history of the beginning and growth of God’s Church. We’ve come to a passage that tells us of a man named Cornelius. He was a man who earnestly desired God, but was not a Christian. God sent Peter – one of Jesus’ first disciples to tell him how to experience salvation. In Acts 10, we see the message he brought.

[34] So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, [35] but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. [36] As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), [37] you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: [38] how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. [39] And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, [40]but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, [41] not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. [42] And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. [43] To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

As is typical in the New Testament, the author of Acts is most likely summarizing Peter’s sermon. And what Peter taught about Christ can be summarized in three statements. Three statements that show why Jesus Christ is worthy of our worship.

1. Jesus Christ is the Fulfillment of God’s Promise and Plan (10:36-38, 43)

Begins by explaining how Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promises. That his life and ministry was the culmination of God’s plan for his people. Specifically, that he came as the long-awaited Messiah.

[36] As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), [37] you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: [38] how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Later in 43 he says, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

The people of Israel – God’s people in Jesus day – were eagerly looking God’s promised Messiah. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned and all humanity was separated from God by sin, God promised to provide a special son who would set things right and restore peace between a holy God and sinful humanity.

And over decades and centuries, God kept telling people what this Messiah would be like. In Isaiah 42, God says, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (42:1).

And then at the outset of Jesus’ ministry we read in Matthew: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (3:16-17).

All the God had promised – the coming of the Messiah clothed with the Spirit’s power to do God’s work of saving his people – was fulfilled in Christ. And Peter says he and other disciples were around to see evidence of that fact. During his earthly ministry, Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.”

In very practical and powerful ways – feeding thousands of people at a time, calming a raging storm at sea, healing people of blindness and diseases, showing mercy to repentant sinners – Jesus demonstrated that God was faithful to keep his promises of sending a Savior. And the evidence of that fulfillment was seen in the powerful working Jesus did for the benefit of sinful people.

2. Jesus Christ is the Savior of All Humanity (10:34-35, 39, 43)

Many people like Jesus. You can go into certain stores and online and even find t-shirts that say ‘Jesus is my Homeboy’ – the same shirt you see on people like Madonna, Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher, and Pamela Anderson.

I think they – like so many others – think Jesus is cool because they don’t really know him. They’ve never really read the New Testament. They simply believe the old lie of liberal scholarship – that the Jesus preached by the Church is the not the hip Jesus who really lived. That he may have been a great guy – a moral, philosophical teacher who told people to love one another. But that’s it.

Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t give us that option. Jesus did not just come as the promised Messiah. He also came to win salvation for sinners in need of a Savior.

Notice what Peter says in v. 39. He has talked about Jesus’ earthly ministry. And then he says, all of that came to an end when, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.” Notice he doesn’t just say they killed him, or even that they crucified him. No, he very specifically says he was put to death on a tree.

When Peter says Jesus was killed by hanging on a tree, he isn’t denying the fact that Jesus was crucified. Crosses were made of wood, which meant on a very basic level that when Jesus was hung up on a cross, he was hanging on a tree.

Even though most people in Jesus’ day were simply stoned to death by zealous Jews, Jesus was killed by the Romans – through crucifixion, hanging a tree. In his providence, God ensured this would happen because it said something about what Jesus’ death accomplished.

Back in the Law – in Deut 21:23 – he had declared “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”

Remember that when the very first people – Adam and Eve sinned and rebelled against God, God issued a curse upon all of creation. Since we are born into this world as sinners, we also stand under that curse.

But, Jesus was born without a sin nature. Symbolically, he was not born with Adam as his representative before God because he didn’t have a human father. Rather, God supernaturally impregnated his virgin mother. This is why the Bible can say and we can affirm that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary.

And so by dying on the cross, Jesus willingly places himself under a curse. Specifically, he takes upon himself our curse. This is why in Galatians 3 Paul says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—“ (3:13).

Later, Peter would write a letter to the Christians and say, “[Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24).

Jesus was not simply a good teacher. No, he was a savior. Jesus offered himself as an atoning sacrifice. He took the punishment we deserve for our sins, fully satisfying God’s wrath against us so that we might have forgiveness and life.

That’s why in v. 36, Peter can say that his message he is “good news of peace through Jesus Christ.” Through his death, Christ made it possible for sinners to have peace with God.

And the really good news comes in v. 35 – “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Peter says, its not just God’s people Israel, but people from all over the world that is calling to believe in Christ and receive salvation.

It doesn’t who you are or what you’ve done, today, you can be saved from God’s wrath against your sin by trusting in Jesus as Savior. By turning away from your life of sin in repentance and trusting in the work of Christ to make you right before God.

3. Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord (10:40-42)

Notice in v. 39, that while “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, God raised him on the third day.”

Today is the most important celebration of the Church. Anyone can celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas – what a cute little scene with a baby in a manger, angels all around, and a little child who grow up to be a good man, who tried to bring peace and love to the world. Jesus was a good, moral man and we should celebrate his birth!

Anyone can even celebrate Good Friday – it’s too bad about Jesus; he was such a good guy, he did so much good, and yet the evil people of this world killed him. He tried to do the right thing and it got him murdered like so many other good martyrs in so many other good causes (Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr.)

But not everyone can celebrate Easter! Easter separates the men from the boys, so to speak. It separates the nice people of this world, from those who have truly believed in Christ;

It separates those playing the game and those trying to be genuine disciples. It separates the Christian from the non-Christian. It separates the damned from the forgiven.

Because Easter says Jesus wasn’t just a good guy – he is the savior of the world; He wasn’t just a man – he is God in the flesh. He wasn’t just the historical Jesus who died 2000 years ago – he is the resurrected, living Lord of all creation.

Peter says, Christ “is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” That at the end of all things when we stand before God in heaven, Christ is the one who will be our judge. He will determine who spends eternity with God with heaven and who perishes in hell.

Why? Because as the risen Christ, the Bible says Jesus has been “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” The fact that all authority had been given to Christ means that God has vindicated him. That God accepted his death as the perfect sacrifice for sins of his people. The resurrection was God’s stamp of approval on all that Christ did for his people.

And now through the resurrection, God has exalted Christ to a place of authority. Paul says in Philippians 2 – “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As the one whom death could not hold, as the risen Christ, as God the Son who reigns as Lord of all things, he deserves our worship. He alone deserves the deepest affection of our hearts, our greatest sacrifices, our most profound devotion.

Conclusion

As human beings, we are made to worship. In fact, we love to worship things. We love to delight and rejoice in things more magnificent and more glorious than ourselves.

Think about how many people visit places like the Grand Canyon or climb mountains or take cruises to exotics and beautiful locations. Think about how many more people love to watch the Olympics and see displays of human ability and skills at their heights, or grow flower gardens for sheer delight of having beautiful flowers to look at in the summer.

It’s because we love to stand back and have our breath taken away as we admire something greater than ourselves. We love and long to worship.

But the great tragedy of the human race is that though we were made to find infinite joy by admiring God, but have become so blind and so foolish that we spend energy and time and money seeking out things in this world to satisfy our insatiable craving to admire greatness and beauty.

He has given us the most glorious person in the world to worship, and we choose to worship something else instead. We exchange a life of perfect satisfaction and joy for simply making the drudgery and pain of life bearable as we worship piddly thing like sports and nature and money.

This morning, we need to see the risen Christ for who he is – the incarnate glory of the living God; the one who lived and died and was raised again so that we might have peace with God and experience his salvation. Therefore, we must turn from our life of sin, from our false worship and worship Christ the Lord.

 

 

*I am greatly indebted to Mark Driscoll’s excellent book, Vintage Jesus for my introduction.

Good Friday Message 2008

 

Good Friday (2008)

Isaiah 53

Introduction

Today is Good Friday. It’s the day we remember Christ’s death on the cross almost two thousand years ago. It’s a moment to pause and consider what the means for our lives today.  But for a few minutes this morning, I want to step back to the night before. And in seeing Christ in the garden as he prays before the cross, the significance of the cross will come into sharper focus.

In Matthew 26, we find Jesus is situation we rarely see him in throughout the gospels. Usually we find him authoritative and joyous. He is confident in his mission and goes about fulfilling it with fearless passion. But then we read this:

Jesus went with [the disciples] to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray. . . . Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” [40] And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? [41] Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” [42] Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” [43] And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. [44] So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. [45] Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. [46] Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

[47] While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. [48] Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” [49] And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. [50] Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. [51] And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. [52] Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. [53] Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? [54] But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” [55] At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. [56] But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled. (Matthew 26:36, 38, 39-56)

Here is a Jesus Christ – fearful unto death. Asking God that if there be any way for this cup to pass, let it happen. What could cause Christ – God in the flesh – to pause in his commitment to the will of God? What is this cup?

Jesus says that his taking of the cup is something that will take place to fulfill what the prophets of Bible spoke about ahead of time. That to take this cup is to fulfill the will of God. So what is this cup?  In the Old Testament, we are given a vivid picture of the cup that Christ is about to take up. In Isaiah 53, the prophet looks forward and speaks of what Christ is considering.

Isaiah 53:3-12

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. [8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? [9] And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. [10] Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. [11] Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. [12] Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This is the cup that awaits Christ. This is what gives him pause in the garden as he looks forward to the day to come. He is to take up the cup of God’s wrath against sin.

As one author explains, “This cup contains the full vehemence and fierceness of God’s holy wrath poured out against sin, and we discover in Scripture that it’s intended for all of sinful humanity to drink. It’s your cup . . . and mine.”

And yet, Christ is about to drink it down like water. He is to stand in place of sinners and offer himself as a sacrifice for their sins. Though he is innocent of all wrong-doing, we are not. Therefore, as the prophet says, “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . . he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities . . . he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” This is what Christ did when he died on the cross.

I have told before, the story of two Korean brothers. One was always getting into trouble, and other trying to get him out of it. One night, the troublesome brother got into an argument in a bar, and he killed a man. Realizing what he had one, the man, and discarded of his bloody clothes and fled into the night.

But he was seen committing the crime. And the police were alerted to what had had taken place and were coming for him.  At the same time, the good brother had heard the other come in. As he came down the stairs, all he saw were the bloody clothes lying in the floor. And he knew what had happened.

As he heard the police searching homes, looking for his brother, he made a choice. He took his brothers bloody clothes, and put them on himself. And when the police came, they immediately took him to prison. Then he stood trial and was convicted of the murder. The brother was innocent, but voluntarily took of the penalty of his brothers crimes.

In many, many ways, this is what Christ did for people. Though innocent of any sin, he stood in the place of sinners and took the punishment they deserved.

Thus, it wasn’t the physical suffering of the cross that Christ was hesitant about. No, it was the agonizing thought of being separated from God the Father. It was knowing that rather than perfect fellowship, he was about to suffer God’s righteous wrath against the sin of humanity.

Even still, notice what Christ says. As he pray to God the Father he says, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (26:39). And again he prays, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (26:42).

And then as Judas betrays him, Peter jumps up to fight off the authorities who have come to arrest Jesus. And Jesus stops him. He says to Peter, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (26:53-54).

My point is, though the thought of being separated from the Father was nearly unbearable, Christ was not forced into the cross. He went willingly, knowing fulfilling God’s will, accomplishing salvation for God’s people.

Remember what Isaiah said, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. This was the eternal plan of God to save a people for himself. To send his Son to do what on one else could. To live a life of perfect righteousness without spot or wrinkle, and to die as a sacrifice that completely satisfied God’s just wrath against rebellion and sin.

And as we think about what Isaiah said we realize that all of us need the cross, even today. For, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

All of us stand before God guilty of a life of sin and rebellion against him. And what we need more than anything else is a Savior.

For those of us who are Christians – those of us who have accepted Christ as our Savior, accepting his saving work on our behalf, and following him as Lord of our lives. For us, this is a time to meditate again on the work of Christ on our behalf. Of the deep love of God the Son and God the Father in securing our salvation and calling to receive it by faith.

For those of you who are not Christian – for those of who have never placed your faith in Christ – this is a time for you to receive what you need. This is a time for you to come to grips with the fact that you cannot save yourself. No matter how hard you try to live a good life, it will never be enough for you to have peace with God. You need the righteousness of Christ.

Furthermore, you can never commit any sin that they blood of Christ cannot cover. His sacrifice was sufficient to atone for any wicked act you’ve done. And God promises that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

This morning, as we consider Christ’s willingness to endure the cross – to take up the cup of God’s wrath – and drink it for us, let’s rejoice in the salvation God himself had provided, and treasure Christ as our savior and Lord.

 

 

Mission: UNSTOPPBALE 25 – Why We Still Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:1-11:18)

Why We Still Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Acts 10:1-11:18

Introduction

This morning we come to a defining moment in Christianity. In the span of just 66 verses, the entire book of Acts changes direction. That change is evidence of the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan to bring salvation to every people group around the world.

What was this massive change? Salvation comes to the Gentiles. Yes, Gentiles have experienced salvation before this chapter in Acts, but it was very much like in the Old Testament, it happened only as a kind of overflow of the grace poured out on Israel.

Now however, God is at work to begin directing his people not just to see Gentiles become Christian occasionally, but to begin directing their mission – making disciples of Jesus Christ – towards the Gentile people, not just the Jews.

We could say more, but there is a man earnestly seeking God in Caesarea, and he is about to hear the gospel for the first time. So let’s hurry to our text . . .

Acts 10:1-11:18

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, [2] a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. [3] About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” [4] And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. [5] And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. [6] He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” [7] When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, [8] and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

[9] The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. [10] And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance [11] and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. [12] In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. [13] And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” [14] But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” [15] And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” [16] This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

[17] Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate [18] and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. [19] And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. [20] Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” [21] And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” [22] And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” [23] So he invited them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. [24] And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. [25] When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. [26] But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” [27] And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. [28] And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. [29] So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

[30] And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing [31] and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. [32] Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ [33] So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

[34] So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, [35] but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. [36] As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ ( he is Lord of all), [37] you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: [38] how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. [39] And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, [40] but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, [41] not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. [42] And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. [43] To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

[44] While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. [45] And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. [46] For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, [47] “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” [48] And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

[11:1] Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. [2] So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, [3] “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” [4] But Peter began and explained it to them in order: [5] “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. [6] Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. [7] And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ [8] But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ [9] But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ [10] This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. [11] And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. [12] And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. [13] And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; [14] he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ [15] As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. [16] And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ [17] If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” [18] When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

This morning, we want to spend our time focusing on one part of this passage to give an answer to one simple, yet profound question – why we still preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. You would think the answer would be obvious to a question like that, but it’s not anymore. Even among some who would call themselves Christians.

In fact, it’s this story of Cornelius that causes some to believe that people can be saved without ever hearing or believing in the name of Jesus Christ. Today some scholars and writers and pastor talk about something called “implicit faith” or people called “anonymous Christians.” They say that people are saved because Jesus died on the cross, even if they haven’t actually placed their faith in Christ.

They base this on Peter’s words in v. 35 – “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

One man – Clark Pinnock – has written a book called, A Wideness to God’s Mercy. In that book he argues that Cornelius is “the pagan saint par excellence of the New Testament.” That is to say that had Cornelius never heard of Peter or Jesus, he still would have been saved because of his pious life – that he earnestly sought God with whatever simple understanding he had.

If that’s true then why do we need to spend millions of dollars on materials, tracts, and Bible to share our faith – to share the gospel? And to send missionaries away from the comforts of home and the love of their families to far-off places to tell people about Jesus?

Our passage today, I think, clearly shows why people like Pinnock are wrong in what they believe. And we want to see two truths that show why we still preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1. Salvation Comes by the Righteousness of Christ, Not Human Goodness

Look at what kind of man Cornelius was – Luke says he was “a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (10:2).

This tells us two things about Cornelius. First, he was a Roman soldier. Specifically, he was a centurion. The cohort or regiment would have consisted of about 480 soldiers, with 6 centurions leading about 80 men each. Furthermore, the centurions were not pencil-pushers. Cornelius would have been right on the front lines leading his men in battle and day-to-today duties.

This also means that he would have been fairly despised by the Jewish people. The Romans ruled over the Jews and that rule would have been enforced by the Romans military.

Nevertheless, Cornelius was also a pious man. This phrase ‘man who feared God’ is probably a technical terms for a person who has essentially chosen to live as a Jew, under the Law, but has not experiencing circumcision, making him a full proselyte.

So he would have worshipped at the temple, and been respected by the Jewish community in Caesarea. (which is exactly what Luke tells us in v. 22). He was a God-fearing man whose beliefs about God led to practical acts that demonstrated his devotion and piety. Look at what characterized his life –

We’re told first that he led his household to fear God. As the father of his family and the master of his house, he would have set an example and actively instructed his household in the faith. In the past, I have tried to show that that is the biblical model – fathers actively instructing their families in the faith.

More than that, Cornelius also gave alms generously. He regularly contributed money to the temple and thus helped support the Jewish people. And he didn’t just give, Luke says he gave generously.

And finally, we are told he prayed. In fact, we are told that it was in the ninth hour of the day (3pm) that he had his vision of the angel of the Lord. This was a time when most pious Jews prayed. So he’s got a fairly consistent prayer life, taking time even out of the middle of the day to commune with God.

When we consider all of that, it pretty much puts most Christians to shame. And yet for all his piety, it wasn’t enough to save him. God still comes to him in a vision pointing out the way of salvation; telling him to send for Peter who will tell him of Christ.

If there was ever a candidate for someone to be saved by their own goodness, it was Cornelius. He was doing everything right with what he knew. And what he did were not just empty works being done to impress people. These things were sincere expressions of his faith.

But God says it’s not enough. And so when Peter says, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

When he says that, he cannot mean that God accepts people regardless of what they believe as long as they have a simple faith in some kind of God and live a good life. He cannot mean that for a couple of reasons.

First, it would fly in the face of the rest of the Bible, which consistently says that even our best works are like filthy rags compared to the perfection required by God. In fact, the underlying imagery of the word sin means ‘missing the mark.’ You can imagine a man with a bow and arrow aiming at a target. And arrow after arrow is launched, but each one misses its mark. And it’s not even as if he is hitting the out rings, getting close. No, the arrows aren’t even making it all the way to the target! They keep falling the short.

Second, Peter can’t mean people are saved because of their own goodness because it wouldn’t make sense of this passage. The whole point is that Cornelius is directed to hear Peter present the gospel – the truth that we cannot save ourselves, but that Jesus provides salvation. If he were good enough in himself, if he could have made it on his own merit, then why would God have even bothered sending Peter? He wouldn’t have.

But the truth is, no one can ever be good enough to earn salvation. Only the perfect righteousness of Christ is sufficient to meet God’s standards. And so we much place our faith – not in ourselves – but in him for our salvation.

2. Salvation Comes by Hearing the Gospel, Not Vague or Pagan Religious Belief

Some will argue that it is not so much someone’s own goodness that saves them apart from Christ, but whether or not they show faith in God with whatever little bit of knowledge they have been given.

So, they look to Romans 1 which says, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. [21] For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom 1:19-21).

And so they will say, ‘See – the existence of God is plain through creation. If you believe in some kind of creator god, then you will be fine. It’s only those who choose not to believe that will be condemned.’

But what do we see in our passage? Notice what the angel tells Cornelius. “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside” (Acts 10:5-6).

And what happens when he finally gets to meet Peter? Peter explains the gospel to Cornelius and his family and friends. He explains how Christ came in fulfillment of God’s promises. How he was God’s anointed Messiah to bring salvation to sinners. And how that salvation was won through his atoning death. And now being raised back to life as Lord of all, anyone who would turn in faith and repentance towards him would be saved.

And then Luke says, “While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” (10:44). Why does the Holy Spirit come?

To apply salvation to those who believe. Luke is telling us – in fact, the entire point of the narrative – is to say that these Gentiles have believed in Christ and have only now experienced God’s salvation.

This is why Peter then says, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. (Acts 10:47-48).

Now, here’s the point I want to make. Cornelius had quite a bit of knowledge about God. Much more than he could have gleaned from just looking at creation. He worshipped at the temple, was taught at the synagogue. He knew something of the Law and the prophets. But all of that wasn’t enough for him to be saved. He didn’t know the complete picture – he didn’t know about Jesus Christ.

More importantly, notice what God but didn’t do. Couldn’t God have just appeared to Cornelius and explained who Jesus was. But he didn’t. He very specifically said, ‘Go listen to this man Peter.’ Saving faith comes only as one hears and believes the gospel. This is what Paul says isn’t? And I quote the verse all the time, but it is so essential that we understand this.

Romans 10:17 – “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Whether it is experiencing saving faith for the first time, or growing in your faith as a Christian, faith only comes as we hear God’s word and experience is life-giving power.

In his book, Eternity in Their Hearts Don Richard­son, tells a similar story to the one we read here in Acts 10. The Gedeo people of south-central Ethiopia were a tribe of a half-million coffee-growing people who believed in a benevolent being called Magano, the omnipotent Creator of all that is.

Though very few of the Gedeo people every prayed to Magano. Because they were more concerned to appease an evil being they called Sheit’an. However, one man – Warrasa Wanga – from the town of Dilla on the edge of Gedeo tribal land, prayed to Magano to reveal himself to the Gedeo people.

Then Warrasa Wanga had a vision of two white-skinned strangers who came and built flimsy shelters for themselves under the shade of a sy­camore tree near Dilla.

Later they built more permanent shiny-roofed structures, which eventually dotted an entire hillside. Warrasa had never seen anything like these structures, since all of the Gedeo dwell­ings were grass-roofed.

Then Warassa heard a voice say, ‘These men will bring you a message from Magano, the God you seek. Wait for them.’ And in the last scene of his vision, Warrasa saw himself remove the center pole from his own house, carry it out of the town, and set it in the ground next to one of the shiny-roofed dwellings of the men. In Gedeo symbol­ism, the center pole of a man’s house stands for his very life.

Eight years later in December 1948, two Canadian missionaries – Albert Brant and Glan Cain – went to Ethiopia to begin a work among the Gedeo people. Originally, they wanted to ask permission from Ethiopian of­ficials to place their new mission in the center of the Gedeo region. However, they were advised by other Ethiopians that their request would be refused because of the current political climate.

Instead, the advisors told them to ask permission to go only as far as Dilla, on the extreme edge of Gedeo tribal land. Permission was granted, and when they reached Dilla, the missionaries set up their tents under an old sycamore tree.

Thirty years later there were more than two hundred churches among the Gedeo people, with almost the entire Gedeo tribe having been influenced by the gospel. Warrasa Wanga was one of the first converts the missionaries saw.

You see it’s not enough to simply say God will save them with whatever simple pagan beliefs they have as long as they are sincere. No, God says, they must hear of my Son, Jesus Christ. They must place their faith in him and in him alone.

Conclusion

There’s more we could say here and we probably will as we continue to look at this crucial section over the next two weeks. But this morning, let me encourage two kinds of people here.

First, there are those of you who have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ. Let me encourage to do that today. The Bible plainly says you can’t make it by being a good person or simply believing there is a God. No, you have know God through his Son, Jesus Christ.

You have to trust in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection as your own. You have to believe that he died satisfying the wrath of God against your sin, and that when you repent of living your life your own way and turn towards God in faith, he will credit to you the righteousness of Christ himself.

Second, most of you here are Christians, but you are sacred to death to share Christ. You pray for people and try to live as a good witness. Some of you even try to give generously to missions.

But that’s just not enough. You have to see that part of your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ is telling others of Jesus Christ. Because there’s no other way for people to be saved from God’s wrath against their sin.

What are you passionate about; what do you love? It is sports? Is it your family? What you talk about with people almost everyday?

It should be the salvation that has come from your glorious and beautiful savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. If it’s not, then pray and ask God to move in your heart as you seek him in your word. Ask him to fan the embers of your love for him into a roaring flame.

Ask him to consume you with a vision of his glory so that you will not only live for his glory in all that you do, but you will treasure him more than anything else. And in treasuring him, you will love to tell others about Christ and the salvation he offers.

Mission: UNSTOPPBALE 24 – Live Expectantly (Acts 9:31-43)

Live Expectantly

Acts 9:31-43

Introduction

I think it probably safe to say that everyone loves the twist in the story. You’re reading a good book and you think you know who the murder is, and suddenly the author give you the literary equivalent of the judo throw and you don’t have a clue who the murderer is anymore.

Or perhaps, you’re watching a movie thinking you’ve got a handle on things, and suddenly the plots twists and turns and suddenly the story is off in a totally different direction: good guys turn bad, or bad guys are redeemed, or the psychiatrist you thought was alive is really dead.

But for some reason, when it comes to living as Christians we have no room for the twists in life. Especially, if it a turn for the better. For some reason, we don’t think about the possibility of change.

There is a real sense in which we can be apathetic and even pessimistic about life. We can live our lives without any expectation of anything changing, or anything being different from the way things are now. There is a kind of fatalism that can set in.

I can remember hearing about one guy at another church offering a prayer that went something like, ‘God help us to be better husbands, but remember we’re guys so don’t expect much.’ He had already resolved – a in a prayer to an Almighty God no less – that there was little hope for him to change or be changed.

That kind of ‘this is the way it is and will always be’ attitude shouldn’t be part of the Christian worldview. It shouldn’t be how we see the world and our own lives. We worship a God of change. Not that he changes himself, but he does change people. In fact, our whole hope as Christians is based on the fact that God changes people.

As sinful people, we need to be changed, and we can’t change ourselves – and this is part of the great hope we have in God. God can change us. God desires to change us. He will change us if we ask him to. And not just us – anything can be changed by the grace of a sovereign God.

Chapter 9 in the book of Acts is a healthy reminded that we live under the rule of a God of change. Earlier in chapter 9, we see the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. If you remember, Saul had been a great persecutor of the Church. With religious zeal he hunted down and arrested, even killed many Christians.

And yet, God dramatically steps in and reverses the course of Saul life. By his grace, he brings a dramatic change in Saul’s life. He changes Saul into a man who no longer despises Christ and his people, but worships Christ and loves his people.

And now, just when we think we know where the story is going, God changes things again. It looks like Paul is the rising star, but suddenly he is gone back to Tarsus and the apostle Peter takes center stage again.

But more than a change in who’s at the front of the growing church, God is about to change how the church grows within a few short days. And to prepare both Peter and the church for his change, God reveals himself in power and grace. As we look at this passage this morning, we need to be reminded to live lives of expectation. We need to live expecting to see God at work in the world and in our own lives.

Acts 9:31-43

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. [32] Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. [33] There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. [34] And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. [35] And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. [36] Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. [37] In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. [38] Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” [39] So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. [40] But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. [41] And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. [42] And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. [43] And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

1. Expect God’s Power to be Revealed

Two amazing, miraculous events take place in this passage. First, there is the healing of the paralyzed man. Luke says, Peter “found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.’ And immediately he rose.”

Then, even more amazing is his healing of Christian woman, Tabitha. She was a dear lady who ministered to the poor by making clothes, and now she’s died. And someone goes the 10 miles or so down to Joppa to get Peter.

It’s unclear what they were expecting. Were they expecting him to raise her from the dead? So far only three people had been brought back – all by Jesus. It’s interesting that they send for him, but more interesting that he goes! Was he planning on comforting the believers there, or what? Who knows what he was planning, but we know what happened when he got there.

Luke says, “Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.”

Part of what’s interesting here is that Peter is performing miracles in an almost identical way that Jesus did. The first is like the time they cut the whole in the roof to get the man to Jesus. Do you remember this? In Mark 2, Jesus is preaching to a packed house and they guys lower this paralyzed man down from the roof.

Mark says, “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

And then again in Mark 5, a man named Jairus comes to Jesus whose daughter is sick to the point of death. Jesus goes with him but when he arrives, the family and friends come and say, “it’s too late, she’s dead.”

Then Mark tells us that, “Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.

Here only one letter is different from what Peter says to this Christian woman. Instead of ‘Talitha cumi’ he says ‘Tabitha cumi.’ And just as Jesus resuscitated the little girl, so now through Peter Jesus resuscitates Tabitha.

I’ve said that from this we are to live expectantly; specifically, that we should expect God’s power to be revealed. So what does that mean? Does it mean that we should go down to Bay Med and start telling people to ‘be healed in the name of Jesus’?

The answer is no. Does God still heal people? Absolutely! Does he use doctors and medicine and surgery? Yes. Does he heal miraculously? Yes.

In fact, when I was in high school, one of our church’s drummers – Byron – developed cancer in his hand. They were thinking they were going to have to completely remove his thumb and part of the hand below it to get rid of the cancer.

And I can remember one Sunday during the response time, feeling a strong desire to pray for this man. So, I did. I went down to the front and kneeled and prayed for Byron to be healed. And when I got up I saw that on the other side of the stage, this was man was himself knelt down with about 20 men surrounding him in prayer. About a couple weeks later, he had his final doctor’s visit before surgery. Byron said as the doctor came in with the x-ray, he looked downcast.

And he was expecting to have even more of his hand removed. But the doctor said, ‘we must have made a mistake – because there is no cancer in your hand.’ We want to do more tests to make sure, but we can’t find anything there!

God can and does still heal people like in this passage. But also like in this passage, it is the exception not the rule. We sometimes have the mistaken belief that during the biblical times miracles were happening all the time and it was no big deal. But that’s simply not true. In fact, if we look closely at the Bible, miraculous events like this are really confined to three periods of time in the Bible.

The first is with Moses and Joshua as God redeems Israel out from Egypt and calls hem to be his people and enables them to take the promised land.

Then, during the time of Elijah and Elisha as the wickedness of Israel was confronted and the people were called back to faithfulness to the Lord alone.

Than finally, we see miracles during this period of Jesus’ first coming and the establishment of the Church by his apostles. And while there are others here and there, that’s just about it. In fact, even the apostles did not perform miracles like this all the time.

Twice Paul writes about people that are sick – people he could have healed, but didn’t. He has to leave Trophimus behind on the island of Miletas because he’s sick.

And he writes to Timothy to tell him to take some wine to help with a stomach problem he was having. Certainly it would have been easier to simply say like Peter here – ‘be healed.’ But he doesn’t do it.

I would argue that he can’t do it because it’s not the apostles who are doing the healing, but God. Notice again, Peter even says, ‘Jesus heals you.’

God can use doctors as well as apostles as the prayers of his people to heal whomever he wants. Or he can choose not to heal at all.

My point to all of this then is this – live expectantly. Don’t assume God’s won’t work. But more than just physical healing, think about all of the other ways at which God is at work that we cannot see.

Think about all the so-called divine appointments and providential coincidences that turn out to protect God’s people and advance God’s kingdom.

Healings like this is simply the tip of the iceberg. The outcropping of God’s power in a dramatic and beautiful way that point to even deeper, more powerful workings that are hidden beneath the surface of that we can only see hindsight. Live expecting God to work in those ways as well.

Furthermore, let me remind us of one very important fact brought out in our passage. God’s doesn’t act to reveal his power and grace through miraculous events without purpose.

It’s not as if we simply cause him to act because we prayed enough or had enough faith. And he kinds of says, ‘Yeah, that’s seems like a good idea, I’ll do what you ask.’ No, it’s far different from that. In fact, God always acts in a powerful and even miraculous ways for a very simple reason – to bring about faith in himself. Sometimes it’s the deepening of the faith of his people, but many times it’s to bring about saving faith in the lost.

This brings us to the second of our two expectations –

2. Expect God’s Grace to be Given

Notice what happens after these healings – [32] Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. [33] There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. [34] And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. [35] And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

[40] Peter . . . knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. [41] And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. [42] And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

After Peter heals these two individuals by the power of the risen Christ, word gets out. And it’s not just news about the healings. No, word spreads through Peter and the Christians in these places about how it was a dead, buried, risen, and exalted Christ who brought healing. And as many heard the gospel, many believed and were saved.

What we should expect, more than anything else, is for God to be at work in our lives for the purpose of spreading the gospel and bringing his lost sheep to faith in Christ.

I think part of the reason many Christians are not more serious about sharing their faith is that they think it won’t work.

They have somehow forgotten the power of the gospel in their own lives. Or perhaps think that the real power was their own ability to believe. I hear people all the time say things like, ‘that person is so sinful and so far gone, only God can help that person now.’ Of course, only God can help that person!

The Bible teaches over and over again that we can’t talk, argue, or berate anyone into salvation. We can’t overwhelm with evidence of the Bible’s reliability or convince them Christianity is worthy something based on our own experience.

In the mystery of God’s providence he may chose to use those things as part of a process – like the in healings in this passage, or some incident in your own life. But at the end of the day the salvation of anyone and everyone is wholly dependent on God and God alone. He is the one who opens eyes to see and eyes to hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and grants the gift of salvation by grace alone.

The apostle John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whomever has been born of him” (1 John 5:1).

Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? Are you a Christian? Then it’s because you have been born of God – God has given you spiritual life so that you may believe.

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (2:14).

Have you embraced the spiritual truths of the gospel? It’s because God was at work in you, giving you spiritual life so that you could understand the things of the Spirit.

We could go one and on, but what’s my point? My point is we should be hopeful about sharing the gospel. We should be expecting to see God save people. Why? Because the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16).

When we preach Christ, as Peter did, as the early Christians did, people will be saved. Not because we are great at presenting the gospel, but because God is a great savior who calls sinful people out of spiritual darkness and saves them from the wrath to come.

Years ago, newspapers around the world used to print Spurgeon’s sermons. Spurgeon was a famous preacher of the Metropolitan chapel in London during the late 1800’s. And people would write down every word he said on Sunday morning during the sermon. And amazingly, newspapers – including the New York Times – would print those sermons during the week. In fact, it is said that the sales of the paper would be better if they had a Spurgeon sermon in them.

In the autobiography of Spurgeon, there is the story of a convict in Australia who had escaped from prison and was slowly making his way across the desert. Like a rolling tumbleweed from an old western came a crumpled piece of newspapers. This convict picked up the papers and started to read it. On the backside was a part of Spurgeon sermon. Sitting alone in the desert, this man read Spurgeon explain the gospel. God moved in his heart and he was saved.

Who would ever have thought such a thing was possible? A hardened, escaped criminal on the run from the police in the desert and he gets saved reading a printed sermon out of a newspaper that was several weeks old tumbled like trash through the desert.

If we would never have imagined such a thing was possible, it’s because we have failed to come to grips with the power and grace of our God. A story like this is vintage God.

The kind of God who is working behind every roll of the dice, every cloud in the sky, every decision meant for evil – working to bring about good for his people and glory for his name, as he saves sinners from the wrath they deserve for their sins.

Conclusion

Therefore, as God’s people, we must live expectantly. We must live expecting God to work in bold and wonderful and unexpected ways. Whether it’s healing the sick or deposing kings or putting next to a lost person willing to hear the gospel on a plane.

Part of that expectant lifestyle means that we will take opportunity to share the gospel. When something happens in our life or around the world; something that will generates conversation and get people talking, we should share the gospel – the redeeming work of Christ.

When something happens in our life or around the world; but perhaps in a way that doesn’t directly effect us and we cannot see how we can use it as opportunity to share Christ, then we should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in a position to share – that they will be bold in sharing the gospel.

Even when nothing seems to be happening; even when life seems to going along like it always does, share the gospel! Because we can never know what work God is doing in the hearts of men, and he may have placed at just the right place and time to bring the saving message of Christ into a person’s life.

Expect God to work and live accordingly with confidence and joy!

Mission: UNSTOPPBALE 23 – The Mission So Far (Acts 1-9)

The Mission So Far

Acts 1-9

Introduction

This morning we return to our series in Acts which we left last November.  You will remember that the book of Acts shows us the unfolding of God’s plan to build his church. This is seen through the church’s obedience to fulfill his great commission.

Our series is named Mission: Unstoppable because of the unyielding progress that is made. People – many people – are brought to faith in Christ.  The great commission – making disciples of all nations – given by Christ is seen being fulfilled a mere handful (70) of Jesus’ first disciples.  This was only possible because Christ has been given lordship of all things and his people are empowered by his Spirit.

Acts 1:7-8

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. [8] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

In order to reorient ourselves to the book of Acts, we want to review what we saw int he first nine and half chapters of the book. As we look back over these first chapters we see lots of things. But we can summarize the lessons learned into three directives for our own lives today.

1. Proclaim the Gospel of Christ

1.1. Christ is the only way of salvation

Everything in the mission of the early church – their driving desire to take the gospel to all nations in fulfillment of Jesus’ command to do so – rests on this one premise. Christ is the only way of salvation.

Just like back then, even today, that’s not a popular message. There are so-called evangelicals that don’t want to admit that in public. I find that very ironic, since the word ‘evangelical’ is based on the word evangel – the gospel. And yet they deny the gospel!

They share Christ and people get mad, ‘So you say I’m going to hell for not believing in Jesus?!’ ‘What about all those faithful Hindus and Muslims? Are they going to hell too!?’ And we shrink back – ‘well, of course only, uhh, God knows the heart and I suppose it could be possible …’

People try to interpret passages in the Bible to prove that Jesus isn’t the only way. But the consistent message presented over and over get is what Peter himself proclaims in Acts 4 – “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

If that’s not true then the apostles’ mission was nothing more than a fool’s errand, missionaries everywhere are wasting their lives, enduring hardship for nothing, our own efforts at evangelism are worthless.

But the whole of the Bible rises up and proclaims Peter’s assertion is true! And all of our lives and the salvation of all men everywhere hangs on that truth. And so, like the early Christians – apostles, deacons, pastors and lay people alike – all of us must proclaim Christ and the salvation that only comes through faith in him.

1.2. Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament

After Christ rose from the dead, the scales as it were fell from the disciples’ eyes and they began to see with clarity that plan of God being worked out around them. Part of this was the fulfilling of what God has promised in the Old Testament scriptures and now had fulfilled in Christ.

In fulfillment of Joel 2, God poured out his Spirit on all people at Pentecost.

In fulfillment of Isaiah 53, Jesus would come as a lamb led to the slaughter as a sacrifice for his people.

In fulfillment of Psalm 16, Jesus came as the Messianic Son of David, and God raised him back to life after his crucifixion.

In fulfillment of Psalm 118, Jesus’ own people would reject him as Messiah, though he was the chief cornerstone of their salvation.

In fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15, Gentiles would turn to Jesus as Savior.

This reality of the fulfillment of the promises of God was a consistent part of their teaching. These truths not only encouraged God’s people, but also revealed God to be a powerful, sovereign, and gracious Lord.

1.3. Christ is exalted by the Holy Spirit

Before Jesus went to the cross, he promised that when we left, he and Father would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in and empower God’s people in a special way.

Jesus said, “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. . . . When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, (John 15:26; 16:13-14).

And then after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension to heaven, he send the Holy Spirit as promised. And Spirit does as Christ said he would – he exalts the risen Christ.

How does he do this? By empowering his people to understand the Scriptures that bear witness to Christ, to live according to the teaching of Christ, and to proclaim the message about Christ.

There is a real sense in which the Holy Spirit is the driving force behind the Acts of the Apostles in this book. So much so that some commentators have opted for making that the title of the book – the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 4, Peter is said to be filled with the Spirit when he begins to preach Christ. Later in the same chapter, the people are gathered in prayer when Luke says, “the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (4:34).

Even Stephen could face martyrdom for the sake of Christ because of the Spirit’s help. He has just preached to the religious leaders and Luke says, “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. [55] But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. [56] And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” [57] But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. [58] Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. [59] And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” [60] And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

If we are to follow the example of the early church, then we will seek to be filled with God’s Spirit as well. We should seek to bear the fruit of righteous he provides and live in the way he directs us.

2. Live as a Witness

Something else that we have seen is the way that the early Christians lived their lives. All of them were ready and eager to speak of Christ. But the witness of their lips was made for indelible by the witness of their lives.

2.1. Live with hardship

As we read through Acts, just in the first nine chapters, we see the early Christians getting threatened, beat up, mocked, jailed, and kicked out of the temple and synagogues. Basically, they are mistreated in just about every way you can think of.

Peter and John are arrested and beaten for preaching about Jesus. Stephen is stoned to death for preaching about Jesus. Paul has to sneak out of town under the threat of death for preaching Jesus.

It’s important to realize that the hardship and suffering of the early Christians in Acts is not simply random. They suffer for sharing Christ. If they were not obedient to God’s calling to preach the gospel, they might have had it easier. But it was their faithfulness to continually tell others of Christ that caused others to desire their harm.

And what we see throughout the Bible, from the prophets of the Old Testament to the apostles and disciples of the New, is that those who proclaim God’s truth endure suffering and persecution from those who do not like the truth.

Jesus himself said this would happen – “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

And so it shouldn’t surprise us even when it happens today. In fact, Paul tells Timothy – “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Tim 3:12). Suffering is a basic ingredient of the Christian life. Partly because we live in a fallen world – a world tainted and marred by sin – so like everyone else we will experience suffering.

One of the great leaders in the early years of the church was a man from North Africa, named Tertullian. To give you some idea of when he is living, he died around 230AD. And in one of his many writings, as he is defending Christianity, he ends by speaking about the persecution of the church during his day. Then Christians were imprisoned, killed, some were thrown into Roman amphitheaters and fed to wild animals.

And he kind of says, ‘Do you really think this will stop us? Do you really believe that all of this will cause to stop worshipping and telling other of Jesus Christ?’ He writes, “You sacrifice the Christians at their wish. Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust. The oftener we are mown down by you the more in number we grow. For the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Though physical pain and persecution for faithfulness to Christ may not come to us in this country, we still need to endure hardship and difficulty with continuing faith in God and a joyful heart as a testimony to the sufficiency of Christ.

2.2. Live in holiness

In chapter 5, we see the shocking story of Ananias and Sapphira. Here is a Christian couple who lies to the apostles and the church about giving all of their money to the church from the sale of some of their land.

The sin wasn’t not giving all of the money. The sin was lying about how much they gave. The result of their sin was that God struck them dead before the apostles. Many shake their heads at the story.

But think about what is going on here. The Church is just beginning. Satan has tried to stop it by leading external forces against it. That didn’t work. So, now he is trying to bring it down from the inside by the sins of God’s people.

And God says, ‘No.’ From the very beginning, God wants to make it clear to his people that they are to be different from the world. His people are called to be holy. He says, ‘I have put my Holy Spirit put within you and you will not defile my presence by embracing sin. I will not be trifled with – I am a Lord to be feared.’

And so, in perfect justice towards two saved sinners, and in an act of fatherly mercy to his church, God strikes dead Ananias and Sapphira.

On the more positive side, we see those who do live holy lives serving as a witness. Luke says when the men of the Sanhedrin hear Peter and John speak they “recognized that they had been with Jesus.” I hope one day someone will be able to look at me and say that!

People may have a difficult time believing Jesus was the Son of God, but it will be much easier for them if they see you living like Jesus. If someone is prideful and arrogant and given to sin, it’s easy to dismiss them and what they say. But if you’re living a holy life, it forces them to take what you say seriously.

Though the disciples had been with Jesus during his earthly ministry, the same effect can come upon us if we will seek to spend time with Christ through his word. If we seek to learn from his example, hear from his teaching, rejoice in his greatness – all with a prayerful spirit of asking God to open our eyes and hearts – we will be transformed.

3. Fellowship with God’s People

Though we call many things ‘fellowship’ – usually social events that involve food – the Bible is clear that Christian fellowship is really about unity in serving Christ. That kind of fellowship is at the heart of God’s plan for his people.

I do not mean some organizational unity that comes from the right structures and programs and personalities. I mean a unity that is grounded in the saving work of Christ and is expressed in deep, compassion love for God and other Christians.

You see, lost people can have organizational fellowship. Christians can have social fellowship with anyone – non-Christians included. But only those who have been justified by the blood of Christ, adopted as God’s children, and live empowered by the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit can have true, biblical fellowship.

This involved at least three things.

3.1. Worship with God’s people

Luke says that these early Christians not only gathered in the synagogues, but met together for worship on Sundays and during the week in each others homes.

Much of that time was given over to learning. In chapter 2, Luke says the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” The early Christians longed to be taught about their Lord and Savior.

In many ways, worship has fallen on hard time today. Church’s still meet, but very often the focus isn’t worship – it’s entertainment. It’s not about experiencing joy by praising God and hearing from his word.

Make no mistake, worship should never be boring. But it should never resort to cheep thrills to manufacture something later called a ‘worship experience.’ Instead, our worship should be driven by the truths of God’s word.

The truths of who God is and what he has done through his Son, Jesus Christ, should penetrate our minds through God’s word and the lyrics of the songs we sing, so that we are moved to joy in our affections – our emotions.

In this way, our worship exalts Christ by its truth, and is expressed in humble joy. Moreover, we are reminded of God’s promises and taught his ways so that we leave times of gathered worship transformed from the inside out, and over time look more and more like Christ.

3.2. Pray with God’s people

All but two chapters so far has shown the importance of prayer in the life of the church. In fact, the book begins with the church gathered in prayer. As soon as Jesus ascended to heaven we read that,

“they returned to Jerusalem … and … Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (1:12-14).

Moreover at every major turning point in what we’ve read so far as come as God’s people were in prayer.

- They pray for wisdom as they choose Matthias to replace Judas (1:24);

- the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost while 120 disciples are in prayer (1:14);

- the gospel moves forward among the Samaritans with prayer (8:14);

One of the lessons we should learn from Acts is of the importance of prayer. Many year ago, John Newton would write many hymns about prayer. In one he says,

Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw;

Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,

Gives exercise to faith and love,

Brings every blessing from above.

Forsaking prayer, we cease the fight;

Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright,

And Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest Christian on his knees.

And more than just praying as individuals, we should be praying together as a church. Sunday mornings, in our small groups, at other events – we should be seeking God’s face in prayer together as God’s people.

3.3. Love for God’s people

This is one of the most amazing things we have already seen and will continue to see in the books of Acts. They really loved each other. One example comes in Acts 4:32 – “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”

Part of the love of the early church, I believe, came from a clear understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. They knew that to be united together with others in Christ was unique relationship unlike anything else.

This led the early Christians to not only want to be around other Christians all the time, but to pray for them, to care for them, to forsake their own needs to ensure that the needs of their brothers and sisters were met. In short, there was a deep, genuine love for one another that was rooted in God’s love for them.

Conclusion

Passion for God 6 :: Let the Nations Be Glad! (Ps 67:1-7)

Let the Nations Be Glad!

Psalm 67:1-7

Introduction

For the past five weeks, I have been laboring to show that the most necessary and effective weapon against sin and temptation is the glory of God.

Specifically, I have tried to show from the Bible that insofar as we seek to better see and understand the glorious, all-satisfying nature of God, we will transformed in our affections – our desire, and develop a deep longing for him and at the same time, lose our desire for sin.

This morning, my aims for this message are high – perhaps too high for my meager preaching abilities.

My aim is to not only bring together all that we have said about pursuing a passion for God – all that we have said since the first week of this year – but to also show why such a pursuit is not only good for us, but good for all people everywhere, and good in that that very pursuit itself brings glory to God.

And if that wasn’t enough, I also want us to see how those truths – all that we have been saying for past 5 weeks – lies at the heart of why we are sending four people across the world this week to support the ministry of our missionaries in Niger.

As with all of my preaching and teaching, I want you to see that these things have not come from the overactive imagination of mere person, but are teaching God himself has given us in his word.

So, in order to see these things, we want to look at Psalm 67. This psalm is really a prayer. A pray that was eventually set to music and sung – as a prayer – as part of the worship of God’s people in the Old Testament.

And in looking at this prayer this morning, we want to understand it well so that it come serve as a prayer for our own lives as well.

Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, [2] that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. [3] Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! [4] Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. [5] Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! [6] The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. [7] God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!

1. Pray that the Nations would Receive God’s Saving Grace (67:1-3)

Because of the comments the psalmist makes in verses 1 and 6, most scholars believe this psalm was written at the time of a harvest festival celebration. Part of the harvest festival would have been the pronouncement of a blessing on God’s people.

We have first part of the blessing in verse 1 – “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.” This is the famous Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6. There we are told that God told Moses to instruct Aaron and the other priests to bless the people of Israel with these words:

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (6:24-26).

And so, whoever this psalmist was, he has those words still lingering in his mind and heart. And let me say, as a side note – this is a great way to begin in prayer, having heard the words of Scripture, and having meditated on them, having let them work in your soul.

The psalmist has done that, and now he’s looking around at the giving of the first fruits of the harvest, perhaps even considering his own fields at home, and he realizes how abundantly God has blessed him. He is acknowledging that all that he has – all the nation has – has come in from God’s hand of blessing. And so he begins his prayer with praise and thanksgiving to God.

But then notice, his prayer does not terminate on the blessing. Though he begins with praise and adoration of God for his faithfulness to his people, he quickly moves to petition.

He understands the implications of the blessings of God and prays towards that end – May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, [why?] that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!

Especially in this year of politics, it is easy to think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ The world loves to separate Christians out from the rest of the world and categorize according to who they think we are – which, by the way, is usually wrong.

And it’s easy sometimes to buy into that mindset and see ourselves as set against the world. But the reality expressed in this psalm and all through-out the Bible is that though the world is sinful and we are to resist its sinful influence, we are none the less to have a desire to see the peoples of the world turned away from their sin to experience the salvation of God.

This is what is happening in the heart of the psalmist and be expressed in his prayer. He sees the great blessing that God has poured out on Israel. That God has been gracious to them, calling them out from among the world to be his people.

He has lifted up his countenance to them, entering into covenant with them, giving them his law that they might live according to his will, and showing them his glory that they might delight in doing in it.

And in all of this, he has given them peace – he has brought a sinful people to himself and instead of wiping them out in his holiness, he has established the sacrificial system and the temple so that as they worship God in faith, God holds back his wrath until the temple and the sacrifices can be fulfilled in Christ where his wrath is poured out. Thus, the Lord can live in peace among a sinful people.

The physical blessing God has given the psalmist is simply one small indicator of the greater spiritual blessings – salvation – that God has given him. And instead of being prideful about it, instead of looking down at those who do not have salvation, he prays that they might have salvation as well.

This is why in John 4 Jesus says to his disciples, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest” (4:35). God’s plan for us doesn’t end with those of us sitting in this room – look out the window, look out of your cars on the way home, look at the person across from you in the restaurant at lunch, and in cubicle next to you at work – God’s plan is to draw all kinds of people to himself, and to keep drawing them until he returns.

Pastor Ligon Duncan says, “when we see the bounty that God has heaped on us, [our eyes] can never be focused simply upon our enjoyment of the bounty that God has given to us nor even in our thanksgiving to God for that bounty that He has given to us…but our eyes must turn to the nations.”

Therefore, like the psalmist, we must pray that the nations would receive God’s saving grace.

2. Pray that the Nations would Rejoice in God’s Sovereign Rule (67:4-5)

Today, we live in a culture of spirituality. Everyone wants to be and claims to be spiritual in some way. But it’s a vague spirituality. Business and secular leadership books talk about making time and planning for spiritual development.

But this can mean anything – sitting by a lake, meditating, praying to the god of your choosing, thinking good thoughts and sending out positive energy into the universe. Whatever! The point is unfocused. It doesn’t matter what you do, or want you are centered on, as long as you do something, then it’s believed you’re achieving a certain level of spirituality.

Despite how popular this is in our culture, it’s not enough for God. God is not interested in vague and hazy thoughts about himself, or some other cheap imitation of himself. God wants us to know him and his ways.

And this isn’t something new, but something very ancient – what the prophet Jeremiah calls the “old paths.” The psalmist who is writing this walks these paths. And now – in a very striking way, he prays that the nations will as well.

He prays, Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!

The psalmist is praying that the nations – all of the pagan peoples of the world – would come to understand God’s judgment and his rule. That they would not just know like facts, but know them so well that they would take delight in them; that they would rejoice in God!

What’s so striking about this prayer is that the psalmist asks that the nations rejoice over two of the very things they hate about God – his judgment and his rule.

Think about it for a minute. Sometimes even Christians, but definitely non-Christians – when you explain Christianity to them what are two things that they are almost immediately turned off by? The fact that one day God will judge the world. That all people everywhere from every when will stand before his throne and give an accounting for their life. That doesn’t sit well with people.

And secondly, they don’t like the idea of God’s lordship over their life. The Bible clearly teaches that our response to God’s redemption of our lives is humble, sacrificial, total service to him. God is our Lord and King and we are to follow his commands and allow ourselves to be led by him. Again, people don’t like that! They want to be king of their lives. They don’t want someone else calling the shots, or telling them what to do.

These are things pagans do not naturally rejoice over. Why? Because they have never seen in humanity in a picture of a King who is both wise and just; sovereign yet good and merciful. And so they cannot comprehend how willing serving a King who is totally sovereign – yielding total control of yourself to another could ever be bring joy and satisfaction to our souls.

At the end of the Lord of the Rings books when evil has been defeated a new king – Aragorn – is crowned. And soon after this long conflict he sits in the great hall and pronounces his judgment.

And before him comes a man by the name of Beregond to be judged. Beregond had been guard in the city of Gondor. In the midst of a great battle, he was to stand guard in the hallowed place and serve as a final defense against the enemy who might kill the royal family.

While he was standing guard, the prince of Gondor, Faramir had been injured and brought to the palace. Though he was still alive, his insane father tried to burn him on a funeral pyre as if he were dead. Seeing this, Beregond left his post and killed other guards in the sacred hall trying to fight his way through to save Faramir – who was saved in the end.

And now he stands before the King and the King says, “Beregond, by your sword blood was spilt in the Hallows where that is forbidden. Also you left your post without leave of lord or of captain. For these things, of old, death was the penalty. Now, therefore, I must pronounce your doom. All penalty is remitted for your valor in battle and still more, because all you did was for the love of the Lord Faramir. Nonetheless, you must leave the Guard of the Citadel and you must go forth from the City of Minas Tirith.” [He was banished because of his crime, and we are told – ] “Then the blood left Beregond’s face and he was stricken to the heart and bowed his head.”

But the King said: “So it must be, for you are appointed to the White Company, the guard of Faramir . . . and you shall be its captain and dwell in Emyn Arnen, for you are appointed to The White Company in honor and peace and in the service of him for whom you risked all to save him from death.”

[And then we are told] “Then Beregond, perceiving the mercy and justice of the king was glad, and kneeling kissed his hand and departed in joy and content.”

Through this work of fiction, we can see what it is like to live with God as our King. We can see how it’s possible to rejoice in his just and merciful judgment. How we can trust him with confidence to leave us and guide us in our lives.

And one day, there will be a judgment – a judgment before God’s eternal throne that cannot be compared to any work of fiction or fact of history. A judgment where all men will stand before God and await his judgment.

And for those who have experienced the salvation of God, there is nothing to fear. Even now we can rejoice in the justice and mercy of the King of kings and follow his leadership trusting in his goodness and care.

And in that rejoicing and trust, we should long for the nations to know God as we do, and pray and work for them to hear the saving news of what Christ has done for sinners. Then they the nations will “be glad and sing for joy!”

3. Pray that the Nations would Experience God’s Spiritual Blessing (67:6-7)

The Psalmist ends his prayer saying, “The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. [7] God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!”

Here he returns to the imagery of the harvest. He stands back, looking out over the offerings that have been given from the first-fruits. He remembers the bounty of his own fields and again knows that God is the one who has made it happen.

Notice he says, “The earth has yielded its increase.” But now he looks forward to the future and expressed his belief that God will bless them again – “God, our God, shall bless us.” But why will God bless them? “God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!”

You see, the psalmist understand why God blesses his people. Why he causes the fields to yield their increase. Why he provide for them beyond their mere needs.

The psalmist doesn’t just end with ‘Thank you, Lord, for this food you’ve provided. Amen.’ No, he says, ‘Thank you, Lord, for blessing me! Thank you for blessing our people. Now let that blessing bring about its intended end – let the nations come to fear you.”

Do you get what he’s saying? He’s saying, ‘Lord, you’ve blessed me, now use it to save the nations.’ This is why we give our money, our time, our abilities and talents to God. He has blessed us with these things for the purpose of saving the nations.

So, we should never sit back and simply thank God for being good to us. Yes, we should always be thankful for everything he has given to us – from the smallest to the largest of things. From our families to our abilities to the money in our bank account.

But if we stop at simply thanking him, we aren’t even living up to the standard of the Old Testament, let alone the standard of the New Testament.

No, we say ‘Thank you God for blessings us, now show us how we can use this bring glory to your name among the nations. Lord, thank you for blessing us, now we give some back to you so that others may come to know you and fear your name.’

So, it doesn’t matter how much you have or how little you have. Whether you are wealthy or poor or somewhere in the middle. Whether you have great talent or meager talent or even average talent.

All that you have, has been given to you not because you’ve been good or because you deserve it or so you can use it on yourself. All that you have, has been given to you by God so that it can be used to bring salvation to the world.

It’s a staggering and humbling thought. One that should force us to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing with what God has given to us?’

Paige Patterson tells the story of a young women he met while he was serving as an evangelist in college. Because of a drunken doctor’s mistake, she lay paralyzed in the bed, unable to move any part of her body below her shoulders. Yet her mind was clear and sharp.

She didn’t have much – no source of income, no real talent that could have been cultivated from childhood or her teenage years. But the one thing she did have was time. And so, with the help of others from her church, this dear Christian sister would post prayer lists on the ceiling above her bed. And day after day, hour after hour, she would pray.

All of us have much more than she did – are we using to spread a passion for the glory of God ong the nations? Are we using it to bring joy to sinners in need of salvation?

Conclusion

Why are we going to the nations this week in the name and for the cause of Jesus Christ? Why have we given money and used vacation time on expensive airfare and immunizations? Why are sending out a group away from the comforts of home and the love of their families?

Because God desires the nations to rejoice and be glad in knowing him. God desires the nations to hear of how he has provided salvation by sending Christ to die for the sins of his people. How through faith in him, their sins can be forgiven and they can experience the joy of knowing God.

And we do it because we know that God has blessed us so that other might be blessed. God has prospered us financially so that others might prosper spiritually.

God has been gracious to us and blessed us, and made his face to shine upon us so that his ways might be known on earth, and his saving power might be known among all nations.

And it would be the height of ingratitude, selfishness, and pride to decide to not give back from the bounty God has given us. To decide to waste God’s blessing on ourselves instead of using it to bless the nations. To blind ourselves to the need of the nations to know the joy of God’s just and merciful rule over their lives.

Therefore, we must pray – we must pray like the psalmist that as God has blessed us, and we have given back to him, he will use our blessing to bring saving joy to the world.

 

 

 

Passion for God 5 :: A Transforming Vision of a Holy God (Isaiah 6)

A Transforming Vision of the Holy God

Isaiah 6:1-8

Introduction

Most of us here this morning will know the story of Watergate. The story of bungled breaking and entering that eventually led to the resignation of a President of the United States.

But some of you may not know the story of Charles Colson, one of the President’s men. He served time for his crimes and through the experience came to faith in God. But soon after his conversion, Colson found himself spiritually dry.

A friend suggested to Colson that he watch a video lecture series by R. C. Sproul on the holiness of God. And in one of his books, Colson writes what happened:

“All I knew about Sproul was that he was a theologian, so I wasn’t enthusiastic. After all I reasoned, theology was for people who had time to study, locked in ivory towers far from the battlefield of human need. However, at my friend’s urging I finally agreed to watch Sproul’s series. By the end of the sixth lecture I was on my knees, deep in prayer, in awe of God’s absolute holiness. It was a life-changing experience as I gained a completely new understanding of the holy God I believe in and worship. My spiritual drought ended, but this taste for the majesty of God only made me thirst for more of him.” [Loving God, 14-15]

Though knew God, he was utterly transformed by knowing of God’s holiness. So transformed was he that he developed a taste for God’s majestic holiness and longed for more.

Have you ever been transformed like that? Did you ever think it would be by understanding God’s holiness? Maybe his love, maybe his goodness, but his holiness?

This morning, we want to go to God’s word and see a powerful vision of God’s holiness. And pray that our own lives will be so transformed that like Colson, we will develop a deep hunger for God, that will help us lose our taste for sin.

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. [2] Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. [3] And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” [4] And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. [5] And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” [6] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. [8] And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

1. The Hope of a Holy God (6:1)

Isaiah begins recounting his vision with the words, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

We may be tempted to glance over the first of these words, thinking them to be unimportant. After all, Isaiah is seeing a vision of the Lord – who cares about King Uzziah, right?

Well, Isaiah cared. Israel cared. You see, for the most part, Uzziah was a pretty good king. He had defeated the Philistines, he had worked hard at building up the nation spiritually and economically. And yet, he got prideful in the end and it was his downfall. He tried to do what only a priest could do – offer incense in the temple.

But before he could do it, God struck him down with leprosy. And so, for the remaining years of his reign, Uzziah had to be put away from the temple, the royal palace, the very people of Israel. Now that king has just died, and a new, powerful king of Assyrian looms dangerously across the border. The entire future of Israel stands in jeopardy.

And it’s in the midst of this shadow of uncertainty that Isaiah has a vision whereby he sees, “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

Notice that Isaiah saw the Lord, seated on a throne. The word ‘Lord’ here in verse is not his name, like it is in verse 3. Notice in v. 3, ‘Lord’ is in small caps. That is the way English translations signify the name of God (Yahweh) – “I am what I am” (in Exodus).

But in verse 1, it’s not the name of God, but a title, meaning the king, the sovereign One. And more than just a title, Isaiah saw the Sovereign sitting on a throne. Why is that important? Well, from where does a king rule his kingdom? – his throne.

More than that, it’s the sovereign Lord that is ‘high and lifted up, and the train of his robe fills the temple.” This is not like the train on a wedding dress; it is the hem of his royal robe. The Lord is pictured, not just as the one whose glory fills the temple but who is exalted high above all of creation.

Even as Uzziah was gone, the Lord was reminding his people of the truth of Psalm 118:8-9 – “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”

Right now, everyone is talking about the elections. As responsible citizens and Christians, we should have an interest in them, but the way some Christians carry one, you’d think the fate of the world hung on those elections. I’ve got news for you – from the view of God’s throne our elections mean nothing.

It doesn’t matter who sits in the Oval Office, God is still on his throne, ruling with sovereign omnipotence. And that is why we can have hope. When human leadership fails, or disaster seems to come to our lives – it’s a vision of the sovereign, holy God who forever reigns over heaven and earth that will give us hope.

2. The Worship of a Holy God (6:2-3)

Isaiah sees the exalted, sovereign Lord and says, “Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. [3] And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’”

When you go to the store, see all kinds of poster, statues, and calendars with angels on them. And invariable, they all get the pictures wrong. The angels in the presence of God are not supermodel women with wings or cute, cubby babies in heavenly diapers strumming harps.

No, these are the seraphim – powerful, glorious angelic beings. They are described as having six wings used to cover their eyes and feet, and to fly. The description here is meant to be symbolic. These mighty begins express humility and give honor to God, all the while hover before the throne, ready to execute God’s will at a moment’s notice.

In the mean time, what do they do? They give worship to God. Isaiah says, “[they] called [one] to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’”

Everything in this text culminates to this worshipful declaration of God’s glory. Just as when you look at a mountain, your gaze does not remain on the base, but is naturally drawn up to its peak, so also in this passage – as Isaiah records for us his vision of God, he wants our eyes to be drawn up to the holiness of God. It is like the peak of a mountain, with the rest of the mountain, pointing to it, holding it up.

The truth is, the word ‘holy’ has a number of different usages, but when predicated on God, it’s as close to an adjective for God himself – it speaks of his God-ness. God is God and he alone in that sense is holy. He is everything he is, and not like us. Everything else that exists is not God. In that sense, only God is holy. And his holiness stands at the foundation for all of his other attributes.

We often think of moral purity when we think of something being holy. And that certainly is part of what the words means – if something is holy, it is morally pure, separated from sin.

But when the word ‘holy’ is used in reference to God, it means more than that. More than anything else in the Bible, God is described as holy. It’s the closest thing we have to an adjective for God in the Bible. For God to be holy is for God to exist in all of his God-ness.

So, what do we make of all this? I think what we should see from the seraphim is that God is holy. He alone is God, and no one else comes close to him in his deity. And in the glory of his deity, the entire earth is full of his presence.

In the Old Testament, it was the temple that signified a place of God’s presence. Above the ark of the covenant, in the most holy place, a visible representation of the glory of God dwelled. Here, the seraphim remind us that God’s presence – his glory – is not restricted to any temple. The whole earth is full of God’s presence!

It’s because of this – the grandeur and majesty and glory of the God’s holiness – it’s because of that, that more than over other being – angelic or human – it is God alone who deserves our worship.

3. The Humility Required by a Holy God (6:4-5)

God’s holiness speaks to his God-ness, but part of his God-ness is a separation of sin. In fact, so pure is God that the Bible tells us where God’s glory is manifested there is judgment on sin, for the two cannot coexist.

Thus, Isaiah’s response to this vision should not surprise us. He says, And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. [5] And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

The foundations of the thresholds are the bottom supports of the doorframe. Why does Isaiah say they shaking? I can only imagine it’s because that’s where his face is! Isaiah is prostrate – face down on the ground.

Isaiah’s physical position represents the heart position – the attitude – we should have when we come before the Lord. With our hearts bowed low, knowing that before the holy King, I am nothing. Isaiah knows this, and it’s why he says Woe is me! After encountering a glorious vision of the Lord, Isaiah suddenly realizes who he is before the king: a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

Isaiah was no peasant. He was part of the royal family. He worked in the palace as the court historian. He walked among kings and princes and was looked up to by others. But before God, he came to understand his true place in life.

We often fool ourselves into thinking we are better than we are by comparing ourselves to others sinners. We look at someone on television or our neighbors or the guy who works with us and think, ‘Man, look how bad they are! That is one wretched sinner. Good thing I’m not like that!’

And suddenly we have become the very Pharisee that Jesus’ speaks about in Luke 18. He says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ [13] But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

What does Jesus say about this? I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

John Calvin says, comparing ourselves to others is like comparing a dingy gray rock to lump of jet black coal and thinking the gray rock looks white. Instead, he says we must hold our lives up the burning, pure glory of God himself and only then we will come to a true knowledge of ourselves. Likewise, when we come face-to-face with the holiness of God, we likewise will be humbled.

But many do not seek to see the glory of God’s holiness, because they fear this humbling. The truth is, such an experience is actually freeing. Because being humbled before prepares us to be cleansed by him.

4. The Cleansing of a Holy God (6:6-7)

I’ve always thought it is revealing that Isaiah makes no plea before God. We are so quick to defend our sin make excuses for it. But here in the burning, glorious presence of God, there is no pretence, no excuses. Isaiah knows that he is guilty of being an unclean sinner.

Isaiah is probably lying here waiting for God’s judgment. Instead, he receives God’s mercy. For out of the smoke comes one of the seraphim with a burning coal. Isaiah says, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’”

The amazing reality that has been true since the beginning until this very day is this – God saves sinners. In fact, God takes the initiative in saving sinners. When God reveals himself it is never to destroy us. After all, he doesn’t need to reveal himself to do that, we are sinners from birth already headed for destruction!

Instead, God reveals himself in order to redeem us. Understand, the burning coal was not what took away Isaiah’s sin. The coal was merely a symbol of the purifying effect of God’s grace upon a person’s heart. Just as the bread and the cup earlier symbolized Christ, so here, the coal vividly pictures God making a sinner to be holy in his sight.

Fire is often an image of God’s holiness; it is a fire of righteousness that consumes all unrighteousness. And it’s by the purifying power of God’s holiness that the repentant are made holy like Him.

And that’s what brings freedom. Because sin is a slave-driver. Sin is a captivating force that will gladly take control of your life if you let it. And you will let it, unless you give control of your life over to God. Paul says, before we are saved by God, we are enslaved to sin.

But when we humble ourselves before God, acknowledging the true nature of our heart, the real need that that we have before him to be cleansed from our sinfulness, God promises he will cleanse us. In fact, the atonement has already been made for his people.

God sent his own Jesus Christ to die like a sinner, in place of sinners. The Bible says Jesus’ death was substitutionary. That he died as a substitute for God’s people. Why? So that could punish your sin without punishing you.

Christ paid the penalty for your sins in the death of Christ, he can do for you what he did for Isaiah – he cleanse you. He can declare you to be innocent and begin actually removing the sin from your life with his own purifying presence. In all of this, then you are made free from the enslaving power of sin.

5. The Service to a Holy God (6:8)

Only now does the Lord speak. It’s almost as if Isaiah wasn’t yet ready to hear his voice. But now, having been cleansed from his sins, he hears the word of the holy God. Isaiah says, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’”

Isaiah’s response is a perfect example of the appropriate response of one who has experienced the grace of God: “here am I – send me!”

Many have pictured Isaiah as boldly announcing his willingness to go. As if he is special, or God should be glad to have him. But I do not think that is how we should read the text. I think it should be more desperate than that: “I’ll go! I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever is needed of me!”

You see Isaiah has experience God’s mercy. God didn’t have to cleanse him. He didn’t have to save him from the punishment that was due his sin. God didn’t owe it to Isaiah. And Isaiah knows all of this. And it’s because he knows all of this that Isaiah is more than willing to do whatever God’s asks of him.

Isaiah has known what it’s like to live with sin in his life. He’s known what’s like to be enslaved to his sinful desires. He’s known the pain and guilt that comes from sin. And he’s knows the judgment that he deserves because of it.

And now he knows something better. He has seen a vision of the glory of the holiness of God. And even in the midst of terror it brought to his heart because of his sin, even in the midst of the humility it created in his heart,

Isaiah knew that day in God’s presence was better than a thousand elsewhere. That he would rather be a doorkeeper in God’s house than the king of a sinful palace. So, it was nothing for Isaiah to offer up himself a servant of God.

What about us? Have we tasted and seen that that Lord is good? Have we come to delight and be transformed by his holiness? Have we come to terms with the great mercy God has shown us in calling us to himself and forgiving our sins? If we have, then no service to him could ever be too great. No sacrifice would ever be too large. No sin would ever be as enjoyable as the experience of knowing and serving God.

Conclusion

In John 12, we see people confronted with the ministry and teaching of Christ, yet are still unwilling to believe. And then the apostle quotes from this very chapter, and makes this remarkable statement – “Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41).

Who is the exalted sovereign over things? It’s Christ who though died, was raised back to life and was exalted as Lord of all creation!

Who is the holy Lord whose glory fills the earth? It’s Christ whom God the Father promised would be high and lifted up that all men might see his glory!

Who is the merciful Lord who calls sinners to himself and cleanse them by the power of his own holiness? It’s Christ who though holy, died in the place of sinners that they might be saved!

Whose glory is so pure and radiant that even the most powerful are humbled in his sight and long to serve him? It’s Christ who commands his people to go and tell others of his glory that they too might experience joy and life and forgiveness from sins!

Oh, that we might worship at his feet where wrath and mercy meet! That we might know by experience that a day in his presence is worth far more than a thousand elsewhere!

Oh, that we might find the deepest longings of our heart fulfilled in him – the most-satisfying source of joy – that we continually thirst and hunger for him, and long to serve him all the days of our life!