Today's Sermon: Acts 10:24-35 - No Favorites with God

Acts 10:24       The following day Peter arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.

The more I read about the centurion Cornelius, the more I like him. He’s had an amazing spiritual experience. He’s been sought by God and given a special vision. He’s a man who’s used to power and authority. He understands the need for structure, command, and hierarchy. No one else in Caesarea has been given this divine vision. No one else has been approached by God in such a holy, sacred and powerful manner.

The reason that I really like Cornelius is because of his response to all of this. He could have let it all go to his head. He could have lorded it over the people around him by declaring that he was specially chosen by God. Cornelius could also have kept this deeply personal and profound spiritual experience to himself. The centurion could have convinced himself that he was highly favored by God and kept himself aloof from those around him. But Cornelius didn’t make any of those choices. Instead, he sent for Simon Peter as he was instructed and while he was waiting, he gathered together his relatives and close friends.

His family and friends must have been really important in Cornelius’ life. He goes through this remarkable life changing event. He knows that it comes from God and he feels that something new, something wonderful, something important is about to happen. He wants to share these blessings with the people who are closest to his heart. He doesn’t want all of God’s goodness for himself. He wants his loved ones to experience these blessings too.

So, even before Cornelius hears the Gospel from Peter, he has already begun the process of evangelization. He has reached out to his family and friends so that they may also be attracted to and blessed by God.

This is something that we should all take note of today. We all come to church on Sunday mornings to be forgiven by God for all of our sins; to be cheered and challenged by His word; to be blessed by the presence of His Holy Spirit and to be deeply loved by Jesus Christ. We receive all of these blessings of grace and goodness, holiness and healing, but what about the family members that we’ve left at home? What about the good friends that we love dearly? If we had a heart like Cornelius, we would be inviting them to fellowship and faith all of the time. Why should we be the only ones in our families and circle of friends to be offered salvation? Why are we so fixed upon getting everlasting life for ourselves, that we forget or neglect or reject the opportunities to invite our loved ones to be with us?

Cornelius wanted to get his life absolutely right with God, but he just didn’t want for himself. He wanted all of his loved ones to receive the bounty of blessings that were coming his way. He didn’t see himself as being one of God’s personal favorites. He saw himself as one of God’s joyful servants and he sought to bring his loved ones to that bliss.

Acts 10: 28 He said to them: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. 

Simon Peter has also had an epiphany. God has changed his heart about who can be chosen by God for salvation. When Peter sees the crowd of folks gathered in Cornelius’ house, he immediately tells them that he is breaking with the traditions of his people. Jews were not supposed to enter into the home of a Gentile. So many impure and unclean objects, people, and practices inside a Gentile home would have polluted any God-fearing Jew for a long time.

But Peter’s vision from God has opened up his heart and mind to new possibilities with God. He is no longer bound to the kosher laws or Jewish ways. Peter is beginning a new ministry to the Gentiles which God has initiated. The Gospel is not just meant to be heard by back-sliding Jews; Christ’s message, which has been laid in Peter’s heart, is for everyone who is willing to hear it whether they be Jewish, Greek, or Roman.

Sometimes I have to drive my daughter Lauren’s car. You know that she’s in Boston studying for her Master’s degree in international social Work at Boston College. Anyway, she couldn’t take her car, so it’s left at our house and every couple of weeks or so, I have to drive it in order to keep it running and the batteries charged. I must admit, I’m really embarrassed to do it because of the hippy type bumper stickers that she has on the car. But there is one that really impresses me, which simply reads: “God Bless every nation.” Lauren is such a global person and a world citizen that she does not say “God Bless America” like her Daddy does. She believes that God’s blessing is not exclusive to our nation and so she prays for the whole world to be blessed.

This is what Peter had to learn from God so long ago. As a Jew, Simon Peter his people and nation were specially chosen, blessed, and embraced by God. He believed in their exclusive access to God and that because they were His Chosen people, they were His favorites on Earth. But through the rooftop vision, Peter was told by God that all people on earth were His. As Peter expressed it to the crowd in Cornelius’ home: God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.

Now it could be said by some people that this statement of Peter’s means that everyone is categorically a child of God’s grace, no matter who they are. I would entirely agree with that interpretation. The fact that we are all called by Christ to be part of His worldwide church proves that beyond a doubt. But notice this: this is about who we are as human beings; this is not about what we do as human beings.

God recognizes us as being created beings who are His children; but just because we’re created by God and can claim to be His children does not give us the absolute right to be given salvation. That is not something that we are entitled to because of who we are; that is something sacred that only Christ can give to us when we recognize that we are not just created beings, but also sinful beings who have separated ourselves from God by the wrong choices that we make, the selfish lifestyles that we lead, and the defiant deeds that we do.

Acts 10:34-35 Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.

The recent riots in Britain may be the birth pangs of a whole generation that neither fears God nor does what is right. Humanism, secularism, and universalism – of people believing what they want, doing what they want and getting what they want – have engulfed the hearts and minds of an entitlement generation that turns to savagery and violence, anarchy and defiance when they don’t get what they want, when they follow their own ways instead of God’s, and when they are truly ignorant of what is right and what is wrong because those who raised them gave them no boundaries, no manners, and no faith.

When Peter talks to Cornelius and his people, he states that God does not show favoritism but accepts people from every nation who fear him and do what is right! Peter does not say God accepts people from every nation. He qualifies his statement with two boundaries that need to be kept. To be accepted by God, we need to fear, revere, be in awe of God and then we need to do what is right.

This is the message of the Gospel to the gentiles. This is the message of Christ to us. We cannot live our own way and expect God to turn a blind eye to what we sinfully do. There is no where in scripture that states that God tolerates sin. If that was the case, then Christ need not have gone to the cross because His crucifixion was demanded of God as the price for our sins. Jesus did not die for us; He died for our sins.

The right thing to do with that information is to humbly realize that we have caused the death of Christ. And in that act of humility, we need to turn away from our sinful choices and turn towards God’s righteousness. If we fail to do this, if we think that we can live like those rioters in Britain with no respect and awe for God, if we believe that we can freely live as we like and not as God wants, then we are no better than those stupid rioters in the UK.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous German theologian, who was tortured and executed by the Nazis towards the end of World War II wrote from his secret journal in jail on August 14, 1944 'God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill all His promises ... leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.' 

Peter may not have wanted to give up on his traditional Judaism, but God led him along a new path.

Cornelius may not have wanted to give up on his original Roman beliefs and lifestyle, but God changed everything for him, his family and friends.

We may not want to give up our worldly ways, our cultural choices, and our free and easy lifestyles, but if we want to be saved from our sins, forgiven our mistakes, and granted everlasting life than we must repent in order to be restored, fear God in order to be found, and do what is right by Christ in order to be redeemed by Him. As always, the choice is left to us.

Prayer

Acts 6:8-15 For or Against the Holy Spirit

Acts 6:8-15 Stephen Seized - For or Against the Holy Spirit




8 Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.



There’s an old black and white British movie called “The Man Who could Work Miracles.” It’s based on a short story of the same name which was written by HG Wells, one of the greatest science fiction writers of the 20th century. The plot is a bit like Bruce Almighty because an ordinary man is given almighty powers to do anything he wants by two angels. They want to see what would happen to the world if a man who didn’t believe in miracles was given the power to do anything that he liked.



Through trial and error, the hero of the story begins to realize how much power he has, but instead of using it for the common good of humanity, he ends up satisfying his own needs. He gets everything that he wants and ends up becoming impatient with the whole world. When he has to wait a whole day for something he desires, he decides to stop the entire world; after all, if he has to wait, then the rest of humanity should wait along with him.



Unfortunately, he forgets that the world is revolving at 2000 miles per hour, so when he commands the whole planet to stop, it’s like pulling the brakes on a high speed train. Everything and everyone is shot into the sky and ends up in space. The whole world is destroyed and the angels’ experiment is an epic failure. They decide to go back in time and stop the man from receiving the gift of unlimited divine power.



I wonder what we would do if we were given the gifts of God’s grace and power? Would we perform great miracles and wonders that would bring glory to God, or would we use that power to enrich ourselves and embrace our desires? Would we work for ourselves and go against the work of the holy spirit, or would we remain humble enough to use those gifts for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom by working with the Holy Spirit?



In today’s passage, we continue the gospel of the Holy Spirit and get to read about the man called Stephen. He has been chosen by the church’s leaders, the Apostles, as a deacon. But he has also been given great gifts by God which he doesn’t use for himself. Instead he performs great wonders and miraculous signs among his people, showing them that God is powerfully present with them through Jesus Christ His Only Son.



I wonder if Stephen was tempted to do otherwise. The people and authorities would have loved him to use those gifts to kick out their Roman oppressors and liberate the Jewish people forever. The mobs would have loved that and the religious clerics would have been ecstatic. If they could get rid of the Roman tyranny and emperor’s dictatorship, the Jewish people would all have been in seventh heaven. But Stephen didn’t use God’s gifts for himself or even for his people; he used them to advance God’s Kingdom and Christ’s ministry. He was not about to go against the Word, way, and work of the Holy Spirit in order to appease the people, his culture, or those who felt victimized. Stephen was chosen by God through the apostles to do Christ’s work. Nothing or no one would convince him to set that aside.



History follows some fairly predictable paths. Because Stephen, like Christ before him, would not use his God given powers for the people, he made enemies of the authorities. They even went so far as to begin rumors, spread misinformation, and openly confront Stephen. Traditional Jews grew hostile towards him and tried to diminish his ministry by attacking him and his message in public. Stephen became a target of the reactionary forces in Jerusalem, but no matter when, where or how they confronted him, they could not stand up against him because the wisdom of the Holy Spirit spoke through him.



A recent survey of church groups across America is showing a large decline in mainstream denominations. Even some large mega churches are beginning to feel the pinch of Christians leaving their humongous campuses. It seems that America is rejecting the old traditional religious comfort zones that we have built amongst us for the last one hundred years. As denominations like the PCUSA scramble to appease the culture and try to be relevant, there is one large group of churches that is still growing: the Pentecostals.



Is it just mere coincidence that those churches which place a higher emphasis on the presence and works of the Holy Spirit in worship, ministry, and mission are still growing? Has both the grace of God and His power been transferred from traditional church groups to those churches who honor Christ’s teachings and dynamically express their faith in the Living and active presence of the Holy Spirit?



If the current trends continue then by the end of this century mainstream denominations will be read about in the history books and not experienced in our present form. The Church will be missional and spiritual, dynamic and powerful in ways that we cannot even begin to comprehend. Our seminaries will become secular centers where people can research and study all manner of religions. And if you think that will never happen, let me tell you this: I graduated from the Divinity Faculty of Glasgow University in Scotland. The faculty had been in existence for more than seven hundred years. There is now no Divinity Faculty at Glasgow which was exclusively used to train people to become ministers; it is now the Department of Religious Studies which is part of the Faculty of Arts and the dean of the department is an Islamic woman.



It won’t happen here? Seven hundred years of history was cast aside in Scotland – most of our seminaries here are less than 200 years old.



But let’s get back to Stephen. When the forces against him couldn’t contradict his wisdom, they resorted to lies, deceit, and false accusations. They had, after all, managed to silence Jesus of Nazareth in this way, so why not try the same tactic with one of his pain-in-the-neck followers. They persuaded some people to turn up and say bad things about Stephen. I guess if those biblical events were happening today, they would have bussed them in from all over the country to shout and protest – it’s amazing how many loud voices can be bought even today with money. They accused Stephen of blasphemy which was a quick way of stirring up the people and bringing about a stoning or a lynching.

They accused him of going against the Law of Moses which was standard practice for setting up a show trial. If enough people took up the chant of blasphemer, then things would get out of control very quickly and Stephen would end up dead. It’s the oldest reactionary move in history: destroy the opposition by continually telling lies. If enough lies are told over and over again, then the people buy into it. The ring leaders are rounded up or slaughtered on the spot. History repeats this again and again and again. Sadly, we’re seeing it take place all over the world right now. Heaven knows what kind of state we’ll all be in by the end of this year.

So what if Stephen was brought up on trumped up charges of blasphemy almost 2000 years ago? What has that to do with us, our faith, and our world? Two words: Said Musa.

What? What’s a Said Musa? Said Musa is a Christian in Afghanistan who is being tried for blasphemy in an Islamic Court under the authority of the Afghan government which we are propping up with our own soldiers and service people.

Musa was one of about 25 Christians arrested on May 31, 2010, after a May 27 Noorin TV program showed video of a worship service held by indigenous Afghan Christians; he was arrested as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy. He converted to Christianity eight years ago, is the father of six young children, had a leg amputated after he stepped on a landmine while serving in the Afghan Army, and now has a prosthetic leg. His oldest child is eight and one is disabled (she cannot speak). He worked for the Red Cross/Red Crescent as an adviser to other amputees.

He was forced to appear before a judge without any legal counsel and without knowledge of the charges against him. “Nobody [wanted to be my] defender before the court. When I said ‘I am a Christian man,’ he [a potential lawyer] immediately spat on me and abused me and mocked me. . . . I am alone between 400 [people with] terrible values in the jail, like a sheep.” He has been beaten, mocked, and subjected to sleep deprivation and sexual abuse while in prison. No Afghan lawyer will defend him and authorities denied him access to a foreign lawyer.

Any and every human being who is imprisoned, abused, or tortured for the free and peaceful expression of their faith deserves our support, but Musa is also a remarkable person and Christian. In a letter smuggled to the West, he says, “The authority and prisoners in jail did many bad behaviour with me about my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, they did sexual things with me, beat me by wood, by hands, by legs, put some things on my head.”

He added a thing much more important to him, that they “mocked me ‘he’s Jesus Christ,’ spat on me, nobody let me for sleep night and day. . . . Please, please, for the sake of Lord Jesus Christ help me.

He has not, in fact, even appealed to be released, only to be transferred to another prison. He has also stated that he is willing to give his life for his faith. “Please, please you should transfer me from this jail to a jail that supervises the believers. . . . I also agree . . . to sacrifice my life in public [where] I will tell [about my] faith in Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, [so] other believers will take courage and be strong in their faith.”

That, my dear friends, is a real Christian. Like Stephen, Said Musa is field with the Holy Spirit and will not surrender to his peers, his surrounding culture, his Afghan society.

The questions that we should all be asking this morning are these: Are we dying to appease our culture or are we giving our lives to Christ? Are we Christians in the world or are we a church of the world? Are we for or against the Holy Spirit?

Acts 5:1-11 To Whom Does It Belong?

A Podcast of this sermon can be heard at the following link:


http://traffic.libsyn.com/stushie/Acts_05-01-11.mp3



Acts 5:1-11


1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. 3 Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" "Yes," she said, "that is the price." 9 Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.



Of all the passages in the New Testament, this is the one that I like the least. In fact, I don’t like it at all. It seems so judgmental, unjust, and completely over the top. It comes under the category of using religion to destroy other people. It just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Jesus, His Joy, or even the Gospel.

But then I look at it closer and I realize that this event has everything to do with Christ and in particular His views on greed, insecurity, and money. Poor Ananias and Sapphira suffer from the same character flaw: they don’t trust God with their needs. They want to squirrel away some of their resources to look after themselves, which normally isn’t a bad thing. The trouble is they also want to appear as very generous, charitable, and saintly people to the faith community.

It was Sir Walter Scott who once wrote these famous words:

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we set out to deceive.

Ananias and Sapphira have seen Barnabas give over to the Jerusalem church all of the money he received from some land that he sold. He gave it for the benefit of the faithful community to feed the thousands of people who had become Christian converts in Jerusalem. They had nowhere to stay; they had no work to do; they were separated from their families, but every one of them had needs of food, shelter, and clothing. If the Young Church was going to survive, it had to meet the needs of the faithful. The ministry came from Christ, but the Church and its people were the mission to be supported, financed, and cared for.

Those who had extra resources were counted upon to help the rest. Barnabas sold his land because it was surplus to what he needed. He was praised in front of the whole Christian community for his benevolence, his kindness, and his generosity. He did not seek this attention or blessing from the Church. He just wanted to help others in the community, so he helped by giving away what was surplus to his requirements and giving the proceeds to the Church.

Now, please don’t get the impression that I’m trying to make us all feel guilty about what we give to the church and what we keep for ourselves. That’s not the point of this passage. We give to the Church because we cheerfully want to support the work of Christ that is going on here at Erin. We don’t do it out of duty, obligation, or coercion. We give because we are glad to do so. We give because we are thankful for our salvation. We give because the work of Christ is being done in many different ways at our church.

So this passage isn’t about donor guilt or controlling our charity. It’s much deeper than that because it causes the instant death of two people. It’s a matter of Life and faith, as opposed to lies and death.

You see Ananias and Sapphira commit the unforgiveable sin of lying to and grieving the Holy Spirit. They give their gifts and make a public show of themselves, telling everyone that just like Barnabas, they have also sold some land and they are giving all the proceeds to the church.

But this is not true. Instead of giving it all, they kept some back from themselves. Rather than giving all, they want all the glory given to themselves. They conspire together before the gifts are made. They decide to go through with this deceit and this causes their tragic downfall.

Initially, Ananias makes the gift. He doesn’t do it quietly or secretly. We are told from the scripture that he lays his gift at the feet of the apostles. This doesn’t mean much to us today, but in those days laying your gifts at the feet of someone in authority, also meant that you were giving over your life to their service. So when Ananias is giving over his wealth to the apostles, he’s also making a very public gesture to those around him, that he’s giving his whole self to God, to Christ, and to the church. In other words, he’s making a solemn vow to God through the way in which he is actually making the presentation.

Outwardly, he’s making a public promise to follow and serve Christ and the church fully. Inwardly, he’s letting his pride ruin his promise and he is disrespecting God with his deceit. Publicly, everything looks perfect; personally, Ananias is deluding himself but he is not fooling God at all.

Like everyone I know, I love the Charlie Brown cartoons that Schulz drew years ago. I can remember one cartoon where Lucy and her brother Linus are holding hands and cheerfully smiling at each other. Normally, they would be fighting and arguing with each other. When Charlie Brown encounters them, he soon realizes that they are only being nice to each other because Christmas is coming and they want to get on Santa Claus’s good list. When Charlie Brown confronts their hypocrisy, all that they have to say is this: “Santa Claus is an old goofy man; we’re a couple of smart young kids. He’s no match for us.” To which Charlie Brown just shakes his head and says: “Good grief!”



Perhaps Ananias thought that he was looking out for himself and providing for his wife in a good way. Perhaps both of them believed that God would understand and forgive their debts. Whatever the case, the chief apostle Peter gave both of them an opportunity to repent of their lies and seek God’s grace. Sadly, they both opted for deceit and because of this, they dishonored the Holy Spirit which led to their untimely sudden deaths.

They were guilty of selfishly putting themselves first and seeking to be honored for being selfless. They wanted to wallow in their sin and yet still be treated as saints. They wanted to be glorified whilst at the same time they greedily fed themselves. They wanted Christ’s cake and to eat it all at the same time.

We all do this. We are guilty of putting ourselves, our needs, our opinions and ideas ahead of God and others. I saw an example of this the other day. A driver in front of me had a bumper sticker with an American flag and a yellow ribbon to remember our troops. This is not a bad thing to have, in my opinion, but it was what was written underneath that bothered me. You see the words “Faith, Hope, and Victory” were written under the flag. It was an alternative to the Apostle Paul’s words – Faith, Hope, and Charity. Charity, the gift of God and the blessing of grace to others through the Holy Spirit, was being replaced with a military attitude of winning. In other words, God’s grace was being displaced for a jingoistic partisan belief in Victory – at all costs.

Now I’m sure that the person who had this sticker didn’t think of it as a displacement of God, but that’s what was taking place. Even although supporting our troops is very important, as Christians we cannot let our partisan beliefs displace God and diminish the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The whole Ananias and Sapphira event is so tragic because they had forgotten one crucial thing: everything belongs to God. We never really own anything, we just possess things for a while. Whether its land or property, possessions or collectables, the one true reality is this: when we died, we can’t take any of it with us. Ananias and Sapphira thought that they could set aside a little something for themselves to keep themselves secure, but like the Big Barn Builder of Christ’s parable, they died that tragic day and everything was completely taken from them. Whatever future plans or rainy days that they kept the money for, none of it was ever going to be spent in their lifetimes.

(Prayer)