Worship is not about us

 

The Best Sermon

Obeying God

This icon is from the 14th century and is of Ananias baptizing Saul.

I love the story of Saul’s (Paul’s) conversion.  There are so many different ways someone can focus on this passage and so many different topics on which to preach.

I think one of the most intriguing points to come out of this story is that, if we are going to truly make a difference for God, we need to obey Him no matter what.  This is true of Saul and Ananias.

There are three different points where both of these men have to obey God in this story.  First, Saul has to obey God in continuing to go to Damascus.  This may seem a bit absurd, since he was struck down off his horse with blindness because he was going to Damascus to arrest the Christians there.  Yet, Saul was told to go and he obeyed.

Second, Ananias had to obey God in going to Saul, even though this was extremely dangerous.  Ananias would have been prime candidate number one for being arrested by Saul since he was the leader of the Church in Damascus.  Yet, Ananias is told to go to Straight Street and baptize Saul.

And that is the third instances of obeying God.  Saul gets baptized by Ananias.  This may seem superfluous or even trivial, but God deemed it necessary.  Despite the fact that Saul had a real encounter with Jesus (which no one else could claim at that time who had not been with Jesus during His earthly ministry) and that a true miracle happened when he regained his sight, Saul still had to be baptized.

This is because the ordinary way God has set up for us to receive the Holy Spirit is through baptism.  Of course there can be instances where people are saved and in full fellowship with God without baptism, but those are the extreme cases where baptism was  not possible (think thief on the cross).  The way Christ established for us to follow is to receive baptism in order to be sealed into His body and receive the Holy Spirit.  And Saul’s conversion shows this to us.  Even the great Apostle Paul, with these wonderful experiences of Christ at his conversion, still needed to be baptized.  He needed to obey God.

May we feel the need to obey God just as much!

Church Family Matters

One of the earliest squabbles in the Church is recorded in Acts.  Here one group feels as if it is being slighted by another group in the Church.

What I find amazing about this is precisely that, if the Church is a family, then why are we so shocked when it acts like one with disagreements and fights?  This has obviously been happening since almost the very beginning of the Church, so why is it so outrageous now?

Of course, there was a quick resolution to this problem of food distribution.  Seven new people were chosen by the slighted group and ordained by the Apostles to make sure the problem didn’t arise again.  And everyone was happy with the solution.

The key, it seems, is that all involved, Apostles, newly-ordained Deacons, differing groups in the Church, all were not seeking their own wills or agendas.  They were still united in the Spirit of Christ and seeking the best for the Kingdom of God.  Yes, there was a problem; but it was unintentional and, when brought to light, quickly resolved.

We still have a lot to learn from that first generation of believers in how to solve issues and problems.  Seek first the Kingdom of God, and not our own fiefdoms, and God will make the solution evident.

May it be so!

Life in the Church of Acts

"Arise and Walk"

Over the next two months, we are going to go through several scenes in Acts.  The point is going to be to see how the Church, in its first decades and under the leadership of the original Apostles, Deacons and leaders, functioned and dealt with different situations as they arose.

This week the topic is the first miracle (besides the day of Pentecost) in Acts, the healing of the man at the beautiful gate.  In this episode in the life of the Church a few things are worth pointing out.

First, the Apostles are observing the established times for prayer in their lives.  This will be seen in several other places in Acts as well.  It is important to remember that established times for prayer are not kept and observed by people to show how holy they are, the hours are kept to keep people connected to God and His holiness.

Second, this miracle is blatantly done in the Name of Jesus Christ.  There is not even a hint of pride or of taking credit by Peter or John.  It is done in the power, and for the glory, of Jesus Christ.

And that flows into the third point, that this miracle, as wonderful as it was (especially for the man who received the healing), was not an end in and of itself.  Peter and John used this event to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ and His Good News.  Everything in Acts is done to further the Kingdom of God.  Christians in Acts are constantly using every opportunity to share with other people who Jesus is and what He has done for us all.

While we may never work miracles such as this one, we can take every opportunity we get to tell people about Jesus and our faith and commitment to Him.  Will we look weird?  To some people, yes.  To others, they will see that our faith and our relationship with God is so important to us that we would naturally want to share it with them.

God willing, that is the case!

Laboring for the Kingdom

This is Labor Day Weekend, when we celebrate work by giving people a day off work in order to work at home.  Of course there are many this year who wish they could celebrate work, but are still looking for work.  This is a major need the church needs to address.  How, I don’t know, but something needs to be done on the church’s end, because the government has not shown any aptitude for solving this problem.

Everyone Need Apply!

Nevertheless, one way in which we, as Christians, need to work consistently is for the Kingdom of God.  When we become Christians, it is not a position from which we can retire.  We are employed by the King to work in His Kingdom until either He comes back, or we meet Him in death (whichever comes first).

And we have been given certain talents to use in working for the Kingdom.  We are not given them equally.  Actually, the idea of equality is an American concept.  Even God knows we are not all equal, so He treats us according to our capabilities.  That is one of the points in the parable of the talents.  The servants are given different amounts according to their abilities.

Despite that difference, though, God expects the same results from each: to use what He has given them to grow His Kingdom.

As individuals, we need to seriously ask ourselves if we are using what God has given us to build His Kingdom, or are we using it for our own purposes (or not at all!).  As a congregation we need to ask the same question: Are we using what God has given us to further His Kingdom?

God has given us a facility.  Is it being used for His purposes?  God has given us older adults.  Are we furthering their commitment to the Kingdom?  God has given us children.  Are we investing ourselves in their lives to grow the Kingdom?

I would hate to be before the throne on Judgement Day and have to explain why I did not use what He had given me to grow His Kingdom.  Somehow I think the excuses of “I’m tired,” or “I was busy,” or “I really didn’t feel like it” won’t be acceptable.

And I don’t know about you, but I want to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” instead of “Throw this useless servant into outer darkness.”  Think about it.

The Breaking of the Bread

This is the last installment to the series on The Four Essentials of the Christian Faith and it is the most objective of the four.

The Teaching of the Apostles will have its emphasis change from week to week and season to season (and based upon whether or not the one transmitting that teaching knows about it or understands it).  The Fellowship can be contingent upon who is present and how they relate to one another.  The Prayers can change like the Teaching, and sometimes people simply do not feel connected through prayer.

The Breaking of the Bread is an encounter with the Living God precisely because Jesus has promised that, when we meet together in faith, we will encounter Him.

And that is precisely why The Breaking of the Bread (or Holy Communion or Eucharist or Sacrament) was always a part of worship.  By the time Paul is headed back to Jerusalem after his missionary journeys, it is already established that the Christians get together on Sunday and celebrate the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20.7).  This is seen in non-biblical sources as well.  Especially enlightening is Pliny’s letter to Trajan that states the Christians gather together on the first day of the week and eat common food (bread and wine), as this is from a non-Christian source.

Remember, by the time Paul wrote to the Corinthians about Communion, it was already an established part of regular, weekly worship, which is why Paul was so upset that the Corinthians were not following the tradition he handed down to them!

This is an icon of the Last Supper, or Mystical Supper.

In the Eucharist, we pray the prayer given to us by the Church.  We have fellowship with Christ Himself.  And we remind ourselves of the teaching of the Apostles concerning our faith.  All of the essentials of the faith are brought together in this sacrament.

And yet, there is even more to this than that.  When Christ instituted the sacrament, He made some amazing claims.  First, He told those present that this is His body that is broken for them.  That would not happen until the next day.  Then He told them to take and eat.  This they did.  Then He told them to do this in remembrance of Me.  So, essentially, Christ told the disciples in the Upper Room to presently do something in order to remember something that had not yet happened.

Confused?

Time does not matter with respect to Holy Communion.  This is how we can say that Christ is truly present in the sacrament and not make the claim that it is a re-sacrafice.  When we receive Communion, we receive Christ Himself.  God.  The One who created not only space but time.  The One who exists outside of time.

When we receive Communion, we touch God and, for that moment, we step outside of time as well.  We are present in the Upper Room.  We are at the foot of the Cross.  We are with the two disciples in Emmaus.  We are with the Christians Pliny tortured.  We are with Justin Martyr and John Chrysostom and Benedict and Maximus the Confessor.  We are with our saintly grandparents.  We are with all who have ever received Communion and all who ever will.  All of time collapses down into that one moment, and the whole Church, all who are a part of the Body of Christ, are present together worshiping and receiving the Lord.

It is the point where heaven and earth meet, and God comes to us.

And that is why The Breaking of the Bread is absolutely essential for the Christian life.

The Prayers

These clergy are praying the prayers of the church

This is the third installment of the Four Essentials of the Christian Life, and honestly, this is probably the one out of the four to which people take the most offense.

Many Bible translations have this as prayer, but in the original Greek, it actually says the prayers.  This ought to lead to the logical question, which prayers?  And that, in turn, leads to the objection of why people need to pray others’ prayers and not just “talk to God from the heart”?

The interesting thing about this idea that prayer is just talking to God is what Jesus says about prayer.  When his disciples came to him and asked him to teach them to pray, Jesus did not say, “Well, since I’m God, just talk to me!”  Nor did he say, “Just speak to God from your heart and tell him what is on your mind.”  No, Jesus gave his disciples an actual, formal prayer; one he expected them to repeat, and which we have repeated ever since.

Now, this does not mean that prayer in our own words is bad.  On the contrary, but that is not the prayer that ought to always take primary place in the life of the Church together.  When the community gathers, we pray the prayers of the community, not our individual prayers.  We sing and recite Psalms.  We sing and recite Scripture passages.  We incorporate prayers of others into our services all the time.  It is just quite often we do not recognize or realize we do.

The Prayers that the first converts needed to learn were most likely the reason, in conjunction with the teaching of the Apostles, that the Christian faith spread so uniformly across the Roman Empire and dominions beyond its borders, and without a written New Testament.  It was some measure of uniformity of content that made for the same faith in Spain as in Antioch as in Britain as in Alexandria.  This is not to negate variety in those early years, but there was amazing uniformity of belief as well.

This is because of the age-old adage of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, which means the Law of Prayer is the Law of Belief.  In other words, what we do in worship informs what we believe.  And conversely, what we believe informs what we do in worship.  Common prayers helped ensure the same faith and the same belief as the Church grew and took her form.

The Fellowship

This is the second of the Four Essentials of the Christian Life from Acts 2.42.  Along with the Teaching of the Apostles, the Breaking of the Bread, and the Prayers, the Fellowship is something that the original followers of Jesus thought absolutely necessary for the 3000 converts on Pentecost to know and participate in for the fullness of the faith.

The Greek word here is koinonia, which is translated many different ways often in the same translation of the Bible, which can get confusing (for help choosing a Bible translation look here).  Probably the best way to define koinonia is communion.  It is a communion with one another that is born out of our communion with God.

II Corinthians 13.14 has this, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  In I Corinthians 10 Paul writes about the sacrament of Holy Communion and says that when we partake of the cup and bread it is a koinonia with the body and blood of Christ.

This is a kind of significant love for one another that goes beyond the concept of fellowship or community, especially in our American culture today.  Tolerance is the catch-phrase for our communities today, and as someone once said, you can search throughout the Bible with a fine-toothed comb and never find a commandment for tolerance.  Love, yes.  Tolerance, no.

This is because tolerance just puts up with and tolerates others.  Christians are supposed to have the same kind of love for one another that Christ had for us, which is most certainly not tolerance.

It is no wonder those first converts had to be taught this and persist in it.  They weren’t just getting together and having coffee and donuts.  They were becoming intimately involved in each others’ lives because of the love of Christ within them.

This is a good example of koinonia. They couldn't stand each other at the beginning, but by the end of the story they loved each other

Gimme that Old Time Religion

This video from Sergeant York really sums up the point of the sermon this week.

We started a new series on the Four Essentials of the Christian Life.  This comes from Acts 2.42, which states, “And they persisted in the Teaching of the Apostles, the Fellowship, the Breaking of the Bread, and the Prayers.”  What is interesting in this verse is who persisted in these things.

This was the crowd of 3000 that converted and were baptized after Peter’s sermon on Pentecost.  Now the 120 believers that were together in the upper room just had their membership increase 2500%, and these are the four things that they thought were the most important for these new Christians to have as a part of their new lives in Christ.  Each week for the next four weeks we are going to look at each one of these aspects of the Christian life.

This week we look at the Teaching of the Apostles.  This can also be translated as the Doctrine of the Apostles.  This is the faith handed down to us from the Apostles.  When these events first took place, this was the verbal teaching of the original Christians as they spread out across the Roman Empire.  Only later were these teachings written down into what would become the New Testament.

At the very least we need the Bible for this teaching, this old time religion.  But it cannot end there.  There are over 38,000 different Christian denominations in the world today, and most of those claim to use the Bible as their only rule of belief.  Just having the Bible is not enough.  There needs to be some uniform understanding of interpretation for the Bible as well.  This is not because there ought to be one body that declares what is right or wrong, but because the Holy Spirit is involved in teaching the Scriptures to us.  If God the Spirit is the one that helps us understand the Scriptures, then there ought not be 38,000 different interpretations of what is right.

In order to begin understanding Scripture as the Spirit has guided the Church, one would do well to start reading some of the writers during and just after the Apostolic period to see how those first Christians understood the Gospel message.  Clement of Rome was a traveling companion of Paul and Peter.  Ignatius of Antioch was made the lead pastor of the Church in Antioch after Peter and Paul left and was martyred not long after the Apostle John.  The Didache is literally the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and is dated to the middle of the first century, the same time as the Apostles lived and taught (and some believe that Matthew wrote the majority of it).

This is just a beginning!