Six Irishmen were playing poker in O'Leary's basement when Paddy Murphy loses £500 on a single hand. He clutches his chest and dies of shock. O'Connor looks around and says, "Someone’s got to tell Paddy's wife." They draw straws and Fergal Riordan picks the shortest. So over he goes to Murphy's and knocks on the door. Mrs. Murphy answers and asks what he wants. Riordan says: "Paddy just lost £500 and is afraid to come home." "Tell him to drop dead!" says Murphy's wife. "OK, I'll go and tell him" says Riordan.
And the moral of the story? Words can be life giving or life sapping. And life can be short. In a week where international leaders have talked about a threat to world peace as a result of the ill-considered words and actions of one man in Florida I do not need to convince you how urgent it is for us as Christians to speak words and take actions that bring life.
Our mission statement says, amongst other things, that this church exists to share the good news of Jesus. We didn’t just make that up. We didn’t just pick that idea out of thin air and say to ourselves, “that would be nice.” It is our obedient response to the mandate Christ has given to his church “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16.15).
I think there are four things that God wants us to grasp this morning about what you might expect when you communicate the good news about Jesus to people. And it all comes from our reading in Acts. In this chapter (16) Paul, Timothy, Silas and Luke, have arrived in Philippi which is significant. It was the very first time the good news about Jesus had been heard in Europe. This was breaking new ground. This was an incursion of the gospel into completely new territory. And as we break new ground by reconnecting with our parish there are four things I believe God wants to say.
1) Expect Spiritual Resistance (v16-18)
Number one: whenever the gospel advances you always get spiritual resistance. So expect it. Spiritual warfare is real. Bishop Tom in his book on Acts talks about “strange spiritual forces which seem to be stirred up by a new gospel work.” If you intentionally set out to talk to people about a relationship with God through Jesus, about how the human heart needs to be changed by grace, you will be spiritually opposed. In v16-18 Paul, Timothy, Silas and Luke attract the attention of a demon possessed woman. Notice two things here.
Firstly they were going to the place of prayer. (You find exactly the same phrase in v13 by the way). That tells you something about their priorities as they set about telling Philippi about Jesus. Without continuous prayer, all Christian ministry is ineffective. “When I work, I work. When I pray… God works.”
Secondly, notice carefully that it says “we were met by a female slave who had a spirit.” Not “we met” but “we were met by…” The sense is that she made a bee line for them and began to harass them. Some people find it strange that this woman, influenced by an occult spirit, was basically telling everyone the truth about Paul and his team. Why would she want to do that? That’s not the point. The point is that she spent days, we’re told, shouting around these men. She must have come across as a bit of a nutter. Paul got cross in v18 for one very good reason. She was really annoying. She was odd.
People are never attracted to weirdness and eccentricity. When you see a loud religious weirdo in the street making a commotion do you think to yourself, “Ah, this looks interesting, I think I’ll go up to him and see what he’s got to say.”? No. If you’re like me you cringe and cross the road. She was scaring away his audience. So they dealt with the situation spiritually, taking authority in the name of Jesus.
Spiritual opposition to the gospel is absolutely real and it comes in many different forms. Unwelcome publicity is one. More common are doubts, temptations, discouragement, sudden lack of assurance, fears… We’ve had our fair share this week. On Monday, the first invitations to Alpha were delivered. I was expecting something to happen – and, right on time, the next day it did. My church e-mail was hacked into and the church Facebook group page was hijacked. As of this morning neither is working which is inconvenient and time consuming. Coincidence? This sort of coincidence always seems to occur in times of spiritual advance.
“Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood… (We’re not against people however annoying, bothersome or dangerous they are. We love our enemies and we pray for those who hate us). No, our struggle is against the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Smith Wigglesworth once said “Great faith comes only from great fights, great testimonies come only from great tests, and great triumphs come only from great trials.”
So don’t be surprised when there is spiritual resistance and associated trouble when the church shares the good news of Jesus. It’s a nuisance but Jesus is bigger, stronger and mightier. If we stand in his authority we share in his ultimate victory.
2) Expect Impossible Odds (v19-24)
Secondly, there are times, living as a Christian, and especially when you tell others about Jesus, when it seems you face an overwhelming challenge and everything is hopeless.
That’s what I might feel like if I was dragged into a public square, falsely accused of a crime, attacked by a vigilante mob, stripped to my underwear, beaten with sticks and thrown into a secure cell with my feet in stocks.
What did Paul and Silas say to each other in that cell? Silas to Paul: “That’s the last time I go on one of these Oak Hall Christian holidays to Greece!” Paul to Silas: “Really? I think that went quite well.”
Hudson Taylor arrived in Shanghai in March 1854. The voyage from England took five months and he narrowly avoided shipwreck. When he finally got to China there was a civil war. He was usually badly received by the people, often leading to a public disturbance. Wherever he went he was referred to as a devil because of the coat he wore. Three of his children died in infancy. His wife died of cholera in her thirties. Their mission premises were attacked, looted and burned during the Yangzhou riot. I could go on...
Hudson Taylor once said, “In any work for God there are three stages. First it is impossible, then it is difficult, and then it is done.”
Despite the impossible situations he found himself in, in his lifetime he was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to China who opened 125 schools. Under his ministry there were 18,000 conversions to Christ in all eighteen provinces of that land. Any work for God, is impossible, then difficult, then done. So expect things to be humanly impossible from time to time. It’s why we worship Christ – because nothing is impossible for him and if we are in him – everything is possible for us.
3) Expect Praise to Change the Spiritual Atmosphere (v25-29)
Thirdly, the greatest secret of turning a setback into a comeback is praise.
In v25, in the middle of the night, at the darkest hour, at the lowest ebb Paul and Silas were lifting sung praise to God. With keyboard accompaniment or hymn book /data projector or worship band. It was praise from an overflowing and grateful soul, it was a spontaneous eruption of heartfelt worship.
This is a biblical imperative for us. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5.18).
In all circumstances! Praise God even when your employment contract expires. Praise God even when your bank account is empty. Praise God even when a project fails, when a colleague lets you down, when your heart is troubled… enter into the courts of praise and worship God in spirit and in truth. Bow down before his great majesty and watch your setback become a comeback.
“Christ is supreme in every admirable way over everything: over galaxies and endless reaches of space; over the earth from the summit of Mount Everest 29,000 feet up, to the bottom of the Mariana Trench 36,000 feet under the Pacific Ocean. If there is anything worthy of praise anywhere in the universe, it is summed up supremely in Jesus Christ.”
4) Expect the Gospel to Change Lives (v27-34)
Fourthly, expect the gospel to change lives. There is no power on earth like the power of grace. By grace a despairing prison officer on the verge of suicide in v27 becomes a converted father of a Christian family in v34. In v29 he is trembling with fear and in total anguish. By v34 he is the father of a happy, harmonious and hospitable home and he is so full of joy. That’s what the gospel does. That’s why it’s good news.
It is good news. Let me tell you something. I don’t just preach it; I really believe the saving message of Jesus Christ. I honestly think that every person I know outside the family of faith would live a vastly better, more fulfilled, life if God’s grace and redemption were operating in their hearts.
That’s why our ambition is that every household in our parish should know that we are a vibrant Christian community ready to invite them to encounter Jesus Christ. It’s not like we want to go around adding religious burdens on people. That’s bad news. I’m not interested in religion, we’re about Jesus, the one they called a friend of sinners.
And notice how simple the gospel is. Bishop Tom’s translation of v30: “Gentlemen, can you please tell me how I can get out of this mess?”
It doesn’t say “Paul told him to get in touch with his inner spiritual self.” Or “You need to commit yourself to a life of prayer and good works.” He says “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
In v14 it says “the Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to believe.” Here, in v34 it says that the jailer “had come to believe.” Faith is a gift of God and it’s his work. You don’t have to push it or force it; God graciously gives faith to some when they hear the good news about Jesus.
It’s about putting your trust in the sufficiency of Christ to salvage the old you and make you new again. Jesus has turned me round and cleaned me up. He’s set me right again and given me a new heart. If anyone says “Lord, I want you to do that for me, I’m sorry for the old me, please give me a new heart,” he will and there’s a party in heaven every time it happens.
Ending
About a year after Kathie and I got married, we had a young student to stay with us for a few months. She was the first person I had a hand in leading to faith in Christ. The day she told us near the end of her stay “I’ve given my life to Christ and I’m so, so happy!” we just overflowed with joy. Seeing someone make a new start with Jesus is one of the greatest thrills of being a Christian. Several of our young people made that step this summer. I just delighted in seeing the happiness and satisfaction and pleasure on the faces of their leaders.
I believe over the next four years God wants to release that to us over and over again as we see men, women and children come to believe in God and trust in Christ.
Let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 11th September 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment