Category: acts

The Message of the Cross

.Reading time 7 minutes.

When I was a teenager and really involved in a charismatic church, I was always looking for some miraculous sign from God about this or that. Should I go to this college? Should I date this boy? Should I befriend this person?

I’ve since concluded that God does work through miraculous signs–but mostly when I’m headed down a path I have no business setting my feet to. Now, instead, I see a bit of miraculous in the way circumstances work themselves out.

Let me explain. Since I’ve been on bed rest the last three weeks, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy novels. I always like a good story with a good plot. You know, the kind where the author has thought out the end from the beginning and put little clues throughout the book, shaping the plot, chance meetings and key ideas at crucial times. Then it all comes together at the ending and everything is wrapped up, you step back and can see the entire thing, like a tapestry.

I’m beginning to see themes and plot in my life like this, with God as the author and me a character. This kind of well-thought out road — the way several things will all work together in my life to point to one main thing all at the same time — I’ve begun to see as miraculous. Sure, it’s not the dramatic affair of the healing of blind or lame man, but it’s astonishing when I sit back and think about how this had to lead to that for this other thing to occur.

Not that I’ve seen the tapestry of my life, but I’m beginning to see some patterns here and there.

I say all this because the sermon this Sunday tied into my own devotional time again, and I think God is too big for coincidences, there’s something here for me to learn.

In my devotions, I’m continuing through Acts, seeing Peter and John and Stephen give messages that just shake people up and I’m thinking to myself, like some of the more educated persons who heard the disciples message: these men are ‘simple’ uneducated fishermen. Wow.

Then there’s the opposition. The rulers of the Jewish people wanting to quash the message by imprisoning or killing the disciples — these same disciples who, a year before, had not even the courage to stay and be arrested with Jesus — and the disciples saying, ‘we must obey God rather than men’ and preaching in the streets despite the threat of imprisonment or death. (Acts 5:29).

What was it that inspired these men? What was it that had them running for cover? What was it that powerfully moved the people?

Not clever preaching, not persuasive words, but the message of Jesus Christ crucified. That’s what this week’s sermon was about. When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

The basics. That’s what was moving people and shaking the Jewish leadership. That’s what was changing people’s hearts and making miracles. That’s what caused cowardly men to continue preaching publicly when they knew they would get in trouble.

And, this is the basics: Jesus Christ was God, yet he was born as a little baby in a borrowed barn, to a young family with no prestige. This child grew into a man and never once sinned. When he reached an age, he began his ministry — proclaiming that he was God, that all men are sundered from God the Father by our sins and the only way to heaven, the only way to know God is by accepting that Jesus is the way to God. Because of his message, Jesus was crucified on a cross. He died. Three days later, Jesus was raised to life. He then visited with his friends, preached and taught some more and then, before his disciples’ eyes, he ascended into heaven. And he is coming back again to receive those who believe in him, who claim him as their Lord and to judge those who reject him.

This is the message: Jesus Christ crucified to save humanity from itself. Jesus Christ crucified to save any person from the ultimate outcome of their choices. Jesus Christ crucified to set us free.

And, this message is the powerful thing. Not the way a person tells it. Not the clever arguments or rhetoric a person uses. Not the big, fancy words or short, simple phrases someone may employ. It’s the message itself, the fact that these things happened. So that a believer’s faith does not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

That’s what I’m thinking about of late. That’s another reason why God uses the seemingly foolish to proclaim his message. And I wonder, what application this has in my life today.

I wonder what you’re thinking about today? I would love to hear about it!

Ordinary People

.Reading time 5 minutes.

My last post talked about how Peter was just an ordinary man with some pretty big flaws, but God managed to use him anyway. I am beginning to understand that this is a theme throughout the New Testament. God seems to delight in using our weaknesses for his glory in order that we human beings can focus on his glory, rather than our own efforts.

A little while after Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, he and John were dragged before the Sanhedrin — the Jewish government — for preaching about Jesus. Peter again gives a sermon ending by declaring: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

Well, all the hoity-toity, well educated Jewish leadership didn’t know what to think, “when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13).

This must be a message that the Lord is trying to tell me right now, because, what do you know? I disobeyed the doctor’s orders and went to church yesterday, and a big part of the sermon was on this same idea. Paul says in 1 Corinthians:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For is it written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did nto know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe…For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. … Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’

One of the big points in all this is that, the bigger and more I think I am, the less room there is for God–the more it all depends on me, the less it is that God has done. Which is maybe part of the reason who so many of the people in the Bible were so foolhearty and flawed. And why the Bible doesn’t skate over those flaws. It’s easier for God to use people who know they are flawed. They are more teachable, they are more willing to acknowledge that it was God who did the thing, rather than them. And, like the Jewish leadership, it’s easier for other people to see that it MUST have been God doing the thing because that person could absolutely not do it on their own.

It’s like trying to teach somebody something when they already think they know it all. Even if they don’t know it all, good luck trying to teach them something when they just aren’t willing to listen. A person has to have a teachable attitude or else you’re just wasting your time and breath.

It’s … true humility.

So, now I have to wonder … in what ways am I not ‘teachable,’ in what ways am I proud? For purely selfish reasons (the answers to these questions are often embarrassing and painful) I’m not sure I want to look this particular question in face. But I’m thinking it bears some thought.

Unexpected

.Reading time 7 minutes.

One thing about the people God chose to use in the Bible is their absolute human imperfection. Even those that God used mightily had warts and the Bible really doesn’t do anything to hide those warts. As a kid, I used to wonder why some of these people were considered giants of the faith, they were stupid a lot and, through ‘happenstance,’ good things sometimes occurred because of them or through them.

Or despite them.

The apostle Peter was one of those guys I secretly thought foolish. Of all the apostles, he was the one who was constantly shooting off his mouth, making promises that he never should have made, looking for applause when no sane person would think he’d done anything that good to begin with.

I mean, there’s Peter, boasting to Jesus that he’s willing to forgive his brother seven whole times. (Matthew 18:21). And Jesus says (in my paraphrase, obviously) “not only seven times, but EVERY time, Peter. You’re not supposed to count the times you forgive.” (Matthew 18:22).

Then, there’s the most classic Peter-foot-in-mouth: his betrayal of Christ. At the last supper, Jesus tells them all that they will all flee when he is betrayed. Ten of the disciples sit there and maybe ponder Jesus’ words.

Peter; however, opens his big mouth, “not me. No way, no how.” (Matthew 26:33). I imagine that he felt he knew himself better than anyone in the room and, being impressed with himself, felt he could say this and make it be true.

Jesus tells Peter that, actually, that very night, Peter will deny he even knows who Jesus is … not once, not twice, but three times before the rooster crows. Peter, still racing with his foot in his mouth, declares in front of everyone, “there’s no way. I’ll die before I disown you.” (Matthew 26:35). Then, in the garden, he actually cuts off someone’s ear.

But, we know what happens. Maybe not even 6 hours later, Peter is huddled among the crowd in the dark while the Jewish leadership accuses Jesus and decides he should hang. Peter’s waiting to see what happens. Somebody recognizes him as a guy who used to hang out with Jesus. Peter denies it. Somebody else says they think they saw Peter with Jesus. Peter denies it. A little while later, somebody else says they’re sure Peter is part of Jesus’ gang. Peter, a fisherman by trade, starts swearing like a sailor, concluding his impromptu string of obscenities by saying, “I don’t even know the man.” (Matthew 26:69-74).

I wonder if the crowing rooster cut off the last syllable of Peter’s denial.

Fast forward to after Jesus’ resurrection. Fast forward to Pentecost. Here we have Peter, betrayer of everything he claimed he would die for, forgiven and reinstated, giving a speech in Acts 2. This man who was obviously non-courageous on the night of the crucifixion, gets up in front of everyone and declares the gospel: Jesus was a man. He worked miracles. He died on a cross. He was raised from the dead. “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.” Acts 2:37.

This speech was pretty simple, really. It’s not lengthy. It doesn’t have a lot of persuasive argument and, coming from a former fisherman from a hick-town in Israel, it probably wasn’t given with the rise and fall of an eloquent politician.

But, God used this speech. “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?” Acts 2:37. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38).

Three thousand people believed in Jesus and were baptized that day. (Acts 2:41).

I’ve shared the gospel a few times with people. I have never had four people decide to follow Jesus as a result of my sharing, let along three thousand. I’m not sure anything I’ve ever said has cut anyone to the heart.

But, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t because of Peter that the people responded the way they did to his sermon. Peter stood up and opened his mouth. It was God who moved the people’s hearts.

Unlike my young self, I don’t look down on Peter anymore. Maybe I’m more honest about my own problems these days … I have my personality warts and I do things I shouldn’t when I know better. I speak when I shouldn’t. I’m pretty good at running around with my own foot in my mouth and eating crow later.

Maybe, if I just get out of the way a little bit, God will use my open mouth for his good purpose. So, I’ve begun to wonder, how can I better get out of the way? How and when shall I stand up and open my mouth to give God room to move?

I’m not sure I have answers yet, but I think these are good questions to ask. And, so, what about you?