A Transformed Community

SERMON: 2009-11-15--ac0935--a-transformed-community SOURCE DURATION: 00:43:09.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: All provided candidates constitute a continuous devotional prayer/benediction (a form of pastoral application/prayer) concluding the sermon. Since there is no clear transition to music or announcements within the visible material, the final candidate must be selected. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:38:51.280-00:43:07.540 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- So, what happens when God's people, like the early church, devote themselves to the Apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers? In other words, what happens when we celebrate our union with Christ, when we leave out this union in the context of community, when we learn from week to week and from day to day to avail ourselves of the means of grace that God has established, and when in response to His grace we worship Him with our prayers, with our singing, and with our offerings? Well, I'll tell you what will happen, such a people will become both a transformed community and they will also be a transforming community. Listen again to these verses we read a few moments ago. As Luke goes on to describe the early church now in Acts 2, 43 to 45, "Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the Apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need." Three things in those three verses that I want us to try to cover this morning. Point number one, the early church was filled with awe. Listen again to verse 43, "Everyone was filled with awe." Now the word awe, if you look it up in the dictionary, is defined as a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder. In fact, the word translated awe is the Greek word phobos, and what English word do you recognize almost immediately in that? Phobia. And phobia means fear, terror, fright, or dismay. And so awe is this feeling that we all have periodically when you feel desperately small in the face of something big and miraculous. And all of us at one point or another, I'm sure, have experienced awe, perhaps at the birth of a child or when you see a grand picture in nature, a glorious sunset, or when you survive some strange accident without a scratch. I don't know how many of you read the story that happened a week ago Saturday in Toronto. There was this lady, she was drunk as a skunk, got herself involved in road rage, tried to bump this other guy off the road. They ended up going down a dead end road in front of the Humber River. She forgot to hit the brakes, went through the fence, and tumbled, if you can believe it, 25 meters into the Humber River, six feet of water. Not only did she survive the crash and did she swim to shore, but half ways in that journey, she remembered she forgot something, went back to the car to get it, and then swam to shore once again. Only the drunk can do this. Nobody else would be dead. You stand in awe at those kinds of moments and wonder, "Oh, Lord God, how can those things happen?" One of the most awe-inspiring things that I remember was years back, we lived in Alberta, we had never been to the Rocky Mountains, we went on vacation to Jasper Park. It was a very cloudy, foggy, misty day, almost like this morning when we got up, couldn't see a thing, we're well into the park when suddenly the clouds lifted. The sun came through and there we were in the midst of the Rockies. And I'll tell you that no picture, no video can capture the dramatic impact of being face to face with what's got to be one of the greatest scenes in nature. I remember we pulled the car over and we stood in awe as we watched the mountain goats on the cliffs in Jasper National Park. Awe is how scripture describes the experience of the early church. And so the question for us this morning is what was it about being the early church that filled everyone, notice it says everyone, not just the occasional person, everyone with awe. And the answer is, of course, the living Jesus was in their midst. And there you have the genius of New Testament Christianity when God's people gather for corporate worship. I don't know if you think about this very often, but when we come together as we do Sunday after Sunday or in meetings during the week, we're not just a like-minded bunch of people liking to engage in a common activity and perhaps even liking to hang around with each other. No, no, no, there's a lot more involved in this. We are meeting with God and as we meet with God, God comes and meets with us. In Old Testament language, we become the dwelling place of God in the spirit. Here's how Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 6.16. He says, "We are the temple of the living God, as God has said, 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.'" He says, "We are the temple of the living God." Now when you and I come to faith in Christ, not only do our bodies become the temple of the living God, when we gather together in His name, we become the temple of the living God. The image there, of course, is the Old Testament, where God chose to dwell among the children of Israel, first in the tabernacle, later on in the temple, the presence of God made manifest among His people. In the New Testament, we read that Jesus came in the flesh and He dwelt, or the Word is tabernacled among us, and when you get to the end of the book of Revelation, you discover that God makes His dwelling place eternally with His people. Jesus, of course, put it this way in that verse we know so well, Matthew 18 verse 20, "Where two or three come together in My name, there I am in the midst of them." And here is an amazing mystery in Scripture, just for the record, because on the one hand, Scripture teaches that God is all night present. He is everywhere all the time. The psalmist says in 1.39, "If I go to heaven, you're there. If I go down to hell, you're there, you're everywhere." But the Bible also says that when God's people come to God on God's terms and they join together in the unity of faith, then God makes His presence known among us. That's known as the manifest presence of God. And Scripture describes it this way, the words of Jesus in John chapter 14 verse 23. He says, "If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." Make our home with him, not just individually, but collectively. By the way, that's why a lot of Pentecostal churches call themselves tabernacles or temples. They have historically placed a great deal of emphasis on the fact that God no longer dwells in buildings made with hands, no, He dwells in the corporate community where two or three are gathered, let alone many more. There I am in the midst. Jesus is literally present by the power of His Holy Spirit. That ought to fill anybody with awe, because you'll have noticed in Scripture that whenever the resurrected Jesus showed up, people fall flat on their faces and they acknowledge that God is there in power. So these people were in awe because Jesus was in their midst. And so you say, what happens when Jesus shows up? What happens when Jesus manifests His presence by the power of the Holy Spirit to the children of God? Well, for our purposes this morning, there are at least two things that happen. The first is that He exposes our sin. John 16 verse 8, Jesus speaking, He says, "Concerning the Holy Spirit, when He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." A lot of people think that when the Holy Spirit shows up, you're going to have holy liver shivers and glorious goosebumps, and that it's a great and wonderful experience. And I would be the last to say that there are in times when the Holy Spirit draws near to you and to me and that He comforts us and that He empowers us and that He shows us His love. But you know, biblically, long before you get to that point, you fall flat on your face and you acknowledge your sin. You see a good example of that in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 when the churches gather together in worship. People are speaking prophetically, an unbeliever comes into the assembly, the sins of his heart are exposed. He falls flat on his face and he acknowledges God is really among you. And how many times haven't you come to church? How many times haven't all of us come to church with things deeply hidden in our hearts? And God zeros in and He exposes our sin. Doesn't feel very good, but is absolutely necessary if we're going to have a relationship with a God who is holy. But He does more than just expose our sin. He also demonstrates then His salvation. I love Isaiah 25, 9. In that day they will say, "Surely this is our God. We trusted in Him and He saved us. This is the Lord we trusted in Him. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation." Our God is a saving God. He doesn't just rub our noses in our junk. No, no, if He rubs our noses in our junk, He holds us up to the mirror so that we can receive cleansing and restoration, we can experience the power of His salvation. And the word salvation is a word that I like to define this way, that process, where by God the Father, through faith in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, delivers us from sin at all of its consequences and restores us to our rightful place as the children and the heirs of God. Salvation means God rescues us from sin and all of its consequences, and He restores us to Himself and all the blessings of His grace. And we know that He does that by the cross of Jesus. Jesus died so that our sins could be forgiven, our sinful natures could be nailed to the cross. He rose from the dead, ascended on high, poured out His Holy Spirit so that His life living in us can help us put to death the old, put on the new, and there is coming a day when Jesus comes again and this creation will be totally and completely restored. Every vestige, every shadow that now separates us from God will be fully gone and we will be fully in His presence for the glory of God. And while the full realization of that awaits the age to come, and you've heard me say this so many times, but it's so crucial, through the Holy Spirit, we have the first fruits of that already now. And so whenever Jesus shows up and whenever the Holy Spirit shows up, He walks among us with His work of salvation. That's why we like to quote around here the words of Jesus when He began His public ministry in Luke chapter 4, the verses 18 and 19, when He quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" - the year of the Lord's favor we know is the year of Jubilee when slaves were set free, urban property was restored and previous debts were cancelled. It's the Old Testament imagery of release and redemption. And as I said, while the full realization of that awaits the age to come and death is still very much a part of reality in this day and age, there are times when the Kingdom of God breaks in and when God's people gather collectively and the Holy Spirit is present with His gifts and with His power, then God is at work working His salvation. And you say, "What does that look like?" Well, let me give you a couple of examples of what this might look like. It's like a story this morning. How the Lord moved her from "I never want to have a child" to, you know, "If you really want to see what it's like to have a child, you need to have one" is a demonstration of the presence and the power of God in our midst. And let's suppose that you've had a bad week and you've had a hassle with your spouse, the kids are out of line and circumstances are weighing you down and you come into a place like this on a Sunday morning and worship is maybe the last thing in your mind, your heart is in pain, your shoulders are way down and you don't know where to turn. But then one line in a song that we sing or one word that is spoken or a message that is shared has your name all over it. And you know that God sees you and that God knows you. That is the salvation of Jesus. Or let's suppose you've had one of those weeks where you're so desperately alone and you wonder, "Does anybody see me?" In fact, you wonder, "God, where are you? Have you forsaken me?" And you come to church and somebody greets you with a smile, not only, but somebody comes over to you and says, "You know what? You've really been on my mind this past week and I felt that I've really had to pray for you. Is there something specific going on?" And at that moment you stand in awe because you know God has not forgotten me. Or you come to church and you struggle with a habit, you struggle with a deep-seated pattern of sin, or you find yourself in circumstances that there is no way that you're ever going to get out of it and God speaks, speaks into the deep recesses of your heart and suddenly you get an insight that you never had before. Or somebody prays with you and a new surge of energy flows into your heart so that now you can get up and take the next step knowing that in the long run everything is going to be okay because God is bigger than all of that. That's what happens when Jesus shows up in the midst of community. And sometimes we get the mistaken notion that unless, you know, the dead are raised or something supernatural or miraculous happens, then God's not here. That's not true. God's everywhere and God is far more present among us and within us than often we are prepared to recognize we need eyes to see it. And when we have eyes to see it and He pulls back the veil, then sometimes we stand in awe. I remember so clearly, years ago, after a very dark night of the soul, I had read a book that addressed that particular issue, talked about what it was to be crucified and raised with Christ, and for five years I prayed, "Lord, what does that really mean and what are the implications of it?" And as the years went on, I would learn a little bit here and I would learn a little bit there, and none of it clicked until five years later I sat in my study one day and all of a sudden it was like the Holy Spirit poured His light into my heart and the thing that He was showing me, and it was a verse from Matthew chapter 1 where the Bible says that Jesus was the son of David who was the son of Abraham, all of a sudden the light went on and I knew that this was the answer to that. All of a sudden I saw that when I thought God had not heard my prayer, He had been at work for all those five years lining up all the dominoes so that when the time was right He could push the first one over and all of a sudden there they all went. You see, we need to expect Jesus to be here and to do things. Nobody in Scripture is ever criticized by God for having too much faith or too much expectancy. If anything, it's our lack of faith and expectancy that often keeps the Holy Spirit at bay, and that's a whole big subject in and of itself. The early church stood in awe because they knew the living Jesus was really there. And because the living Jesus was really there, and this is the second thing that I want us to note in this passage then, is they experienced signs and wonders. Verse 43 goes on to say, "Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." And if you want to see what Luke means by miraculous signs and wonders, then read on in the book of Acts, because already in the next chapter we have that story of the man born crippled, he sits daily at the beautiful gate to the temple, begging, looks hopefully to Peter for a coin, and I love these words of Peter when he says, "Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk." That's a sign, that's a wonder. Later on in chapter 5, we read that the presence of the Lord God was so strong among the apostles that people from all over the countryside came with her sick, and if they only caught a shadow of the apostle Peter, the Bible says they all were healed. Now here's the thing, if you're at all like me, then what's the most logical question that comes up in your mind? Why don't we see a lot more of that happening today? I mean, couldn't Jesus do a lot better PR work if he answered a few more prayers and did a few more miracles? And there isn't a one of us who hasn't, if not publicly, then secretly prayed and said, "Lord, this would really give you glory if you would just do a miracle in this situation." And yet, more often than not, not always, but more often than not, the miracles go missing, don't they? Why? Well, it has to do with the nature of signs and wonders in Scripture. And we don't have time to do an extensive and an exhaustive study on that this morning, but let me quickly point out three things about signs and wonders. First of all, they are, in Scripture, a signpost of the Kingdom. And they happen, therefore, most commonly when there is a conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. If you look at Scripture, you will notice that most signs and wonders happen within a fairly limited timeframe for a very specific purpose. One of the first places where you really see signs and wonders in the Old Testament is with the Exodus out of Egypt, where God hardens Pharaoh's heart and he sets his people free. You have there a clash of kingdoms. Who's going to be the boss, Pharaoh or the Lord God? The next place where you see a whole bunch of miracles and signs happening is in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, when there is a huge conflict between the Kingdom of Darkness and the worship of Baal and the worship of the Lord God. The next place where you see this happening is in the ministry of Jesus and then in the ministry of the early church, and today the place where you see it happen most commonly is out on the mission field rather than in Christianized countries. Now hear me well, I fully believe the miracles and signs and wonders continue to this day and age, and they have to one degree or another taken place repeatedly. But I am saying that in Scripture, the power demonstration of the Kingdom of God happens when God is raising up his Kingdom, when there is an infusion of life and light from God, and the power of darkness rises up to try to squelch it, and God demonstrates his superior power so that his power will lead believing, hungry, seeking people to faith. And that's why, as we'll go on in the book of Acts, we'll see that in every one of those power encounters, the apostles use the opportunity to proclaim the name of Jesus and that Jesus alone is Lord. Miracles and signs and wonders are signposts of the coming of the Kingdom. Not only that, but signs and wonders do not of themselves lead people to faith. I said earlier, each of us I suspect has the tendency to think, "Well, Lord, if only you would do a little miracle here, that would give some credibility to my message, and people would believe you better." And to a certain point, that's true if people's hearts are honestly seeking for truth. And that's what miracles and signs and wonders are geared for. To the doubter, to the struggler, the Lord will gladly answer prayer, and he will gladly demonstrate his power to help people across the line of faith. But you know, as I do, that there are many who are skeptical in their hearts, who want God to prove themselves before they will yield to his authority, and to those, God has no patience for even one moment. Because Scripture says that if your heart is set in that direction, it doesn't matter if God does a miracle or raises somebody from the dead in front of you, you still will not believe. Jesus, in John 12 verse 37, puts it this way, "Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in the presence, they would still not believe in him." And the reason is, you see, no matter what the miracle is, you can always find an alternate explanation. I love that verse again in John chapter 12, where God the Father speaks to Jesus. Jesus prays for the Father to glorify his name, and there is this voice from heaven that comes, "And I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." And what's people's response in that passage, do you remember? They said, "It thundered." It's God speaking to Jesus in an audible voice, and what do people hear? It's thunder, because you see, that's all they're geared to think. If your heart's not in the right place, God can do a miracle right in front of your nose, and you will find an alternate explanation. I want to show you just a very short video clip of Richard Dawkins in conversation with Ben Stein in Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed. Richard Dawkins is a biological theorist and is one of the foremost atheists in the world today. Wrote a book a number of years ago called The God Delusion, in which he says some very nasty things about God. If I were to quote them to you, you'd be scandalized. And his most recent book, published just this year, is called The Greatest Story Ever. And no, it's not the story of the Bible, it's the story of evolution. And so Ben Stein gets him to admit that he doesn't believe in any God, and then he asks him this very interesting question. What if after you died you ran into God, he said, "What have you been doing, Richard? I mean, what have you been doing? I've been trying to be nice to you. I gave you a multi-million dollar paycheck over and over again with your book, and look what you did." Bertrand Russell had that point put to him, and he said something like, "Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?" Do you get that, what does Jesus say to the question, "Why does God hide himself?" I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding, but you have revealed them to babes. Here is one of the foremost biologists in the world today, a man who studies the amazing marvel of how all of creation is put together. And the Bible says that even a child looking at creation should be able to see that there is a God with great power and majesty who created all of this. But Richard Dawkins and his kin don't believe that God is in that at all. In fact, do you want to know his theory about how life came to be? Intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe. And that of course raises the question, where did these other intelligent beings in the universe come from? And so here is the foolishness of the natural mind that cannot receive God's revelation because you can only receive God's revelation when you come humbly as a child. So signs and wonders are signposts to the kingdom. Signs and wonders will not make you believe. When I was a youngster, I said, "Lord God, if you could only show me an angel, I'd come to faith and I'd follow you." Well, I'm still waiting for the angel. And I discovered that the angel wasn't going to do it. What did it was to come humbly as a child and say, "Lord, I receive your word by faith." And I'll tell you, I've seen more miracles than you can shake a stick at since then. Not because the miracles would lead me to faith, but because faith led to miracles. Do you understand the distinction? Signs and wonders, thirdly, can deceive you. One of the greatest mistakes that people make in the world today is that when something is supernatural in nature, it's got to be of God. And so if I have a supernatural dream, it's got to be of God. If I have a supernatural experience, if I have a supernatural miracle happen to me, it's got to be God who is doing it. And yes, sometimes it is God. But not everything that parades is God, is God. Because Satan is the great deceiver. And if he can come along and find in your heart and in my heart a place where he can deceive you, he is like a drug dealer. He will happily give you the first batch for nothing, as long as he can hook you and own you for the rest of your life. And so Jesus puts it this way, "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible." And the Bible goes on to say that at the end of history, the Antichrist is going to arise. And Paul writing to the Thessalonians says this, "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. There is coming a day the whole world is going to be deceived." And that deception is going to take place on the basis of where people are susceptible to deception. And I've often thought, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if somewhere along the line in the future, and this is strictly science fiction speculation, it wouldn't surprise me at all if aliens from another planet were to appear and to show up and teach us an other gospel and to try to draw the population of the world away from the true and the living God. Whatever it is that people are prepared to buy into, Satan is more than willing and ready to oblige. And you say, "Well, how do I protect myself from that? How do I discern what is truly a sign and wonder that comes from God and a sign and a wonder that comes from the evil one that is intended to deceive?" Well, listen to the rest of what Paul says in this passage from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Here's what he says, "They perish because they refuse to love the truth, and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion, so that they will believe the lie, and so that all will be condemned to do not believe the truth, but have delighted in wickedness." How do you protect yourself? You must love the truth, the truth about Jesus, the truth about God, the truth about reality. Even when the truth and even when reality hurts and we want to find a way around it so that we don't have to deal with our own sinfulness and be humbled and broken before God, the truth is what sets us free. And if we don't love the truth, if there are secret places where we crave attention, secret places where we are seated on the throne, secret places where we want to be somebody, there will come a time the devil will find it and he will feed us whatever it is that we want. Scripture says that in the last days people will have itching ears and they will gather for themselves teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. We must love the truth more than we love ourselves. While we're at a time, I want to just quickly introduce the third characteristic of a transformed community and that is this. They held all their goods in common. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. Can you picture this? You know the collection plate passes around and some churches actually do this. Those who have put it in the collection plate. Those who have not take it out of the collection plate and so there is equality in the body of Christ. And the interesting thing is the Bible never teaches one economic model over another. The Bible never teaches socialism. The Bible in fact I think teaches personal and individual responsibility but it's inconceivable in the biblical picture of love that one would have too much while another would not have enough. Scripture puts it this way, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." And that is why historically when God's people have been in tune with God, they are also moved with compassion one to another. And the challenge for the Christian church historically is how do you develop economic models whereby we can share with each other the blessings that God has given us for the glory of God. It's a huge topic. I wish we had more time to talk about it but think about it. Think about practical ways in which you can take the material blessings that God has given you and you can share it with people in need. Every so often I'll hear a story of somebody in this congregation who'll come up to somebody who is economically in a difficult and in a deprived place and they'll put a check or they'll put money into their hands. What does it look like? To live in the kind of world that we look like today and have that kind of care and devotion for each other because I'll tell you one thing. When the gospel begins to touch our pocketbook and when our money and our resources get to be yielded to Jesus, then you know the community is transformed by the power of God. And there are few things that will more powerfully bear witness to the world than to have a community [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:38:51.280; remove through 00:43:09.000] who is so ready to share its [CUT] resources with one another for the glory of God. Raise up a chosen generation that will march through the land. All of creation is longing for your unveiling of power. Would you release your anointing? O God, let this be the hour that your glory fall in this world. Let it go forth from here to the nation and your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to sing your fame. Ruler of the nation, the world has yet to see the full release of your promise, the church and victory. Turn to us, Lord and Surtra. Make us strong in your might. Overcome our weakness that we could stand up and fight. Let your glory fall in this room. Let it go forth from here to the nation. Let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to sing your fame. Let your kingdom come. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done. Let your will be done. Let us sing on earth. Let us sing on earth. The glory of your song. Let your kingdom come. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done. Let your will be done. Let us sing on earth. Let us sing on earth. The glory of your song. Let your glory fall in this room. Let it go forth from here to the nation. Let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to sing your fame [CUT]. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:43:09.000; resume after this marked segment]