The God Who Saves

SERMON: 2017-08-27--ac17178--the-god-who-saves-part-3 SOURCE DURATION: 00:49:09.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The entire sequence from candidate 0 through candidate 15 constitutes a continuous closing address, including theological reflection, prayer, and benediction. Candidate 15 is the final concluding phrase ('amen'), making it the last part of the sermon content before any potential non-sermon material (like music or applause). Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:46:31.940-00:46:38.680 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 --- I want to pick up this morning again where we left off last week the God Who Saves part three reading together from Acts chapter 20 verse 7 to 12 which is the story of Eutychus falling to his death out the window in the city of Troas. On the first day of the week we, and remember whenever you find we in the book of Acts it means Luke, the writer of the book of Acts is present with Paul and his party. On the first day of the week we came together to break bread, Paul spoke to the people and because he intended to leave the next day he kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where they were meeting, seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him, don't be alarmed he said, he's alive. Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight he left. The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted. Pray with me. Lord we're so grateful that you are a God who saves and that even death does not have the final answer because Jesus has conquered death and throughout the course of history you give us those glimpses of that life and of that victory. So Lord help us in our own lives to believe that you care about the places where we have died or where we have struggled or where sin has overtaken us. Help us to believe that in Christ we're more than conquerors and then Father having tasted and experienced the first fruits of that salvation in our own lives give us hearts of compassion and hearts of faith to look into the lives of those around us who struggle like we have struggled and sometimes still do and may we be the hands and the feet of Jesus filled with his spirit committed to his cause. So bless us in these moments together, give me the words that I need to share your word, help all of us to receive it. And may we in every way both individually and as a community bear a lot of fruit for your glory in Jesus' name, amen. Well last week we looked together at two of four very practical lessons that I think we can draw from this story of Eudicus falling out of the window and being raised back to life by the Apostle Paul. Lesson number one that we looked at is that accidents happen and they will happen even sometimes to God's people. As I pointed out last week when accidents happen to God's people it often produces a struggle of faith whereas God, could he not have stopped it, why didn't he, did the devil get his lick in, was there a chink in our armor and so on and those questions persist even when accidents are caused by human error. I told you the story last week of Keith Green's death in July of 1982, he and his two sons and friends of his and their six children plus the pilot all died when the aircraft they were trying to fly in was unable to clear the treetops, crashed, burned and killed everybody on board. In addition the cause as determined by investigators later on was that the plane was overloaded by more than 400 pounds and the center of gravity was off by some dimension as well. And so the cause of the crash was ruled as pilot error but it was a combination of errors if you think about it, the pilot was a former military pilot and in the military the pilot is not responsible for the load on the airplane that is the job of the load master. Now he had been trained to fly this kind of airplane but the person who trained him was inadequate, was subsequently decertified and so that little oversight, 400 pounds overweight caused the deaths of 12 people and utterly altered many many lives. Accidents happen, they even happen to God's people and they often raise many questions about God, where are you? The second thing that we looked at last week is that accidents can serve as a backdrop for God's glory and that is clearly the case here in this story of Utica's being raised from the dead, the congregation of Troas would have never seen or experienced the power of God over the force of death if Utica's hadn't fallen out of the window, hadn't been picked up dead and hadn't been raised back to life and you can say well you know he should have never been sitting in the window in the third story and probably true but fact of the matter is he did and God still turned it around and used it for good and that brings us this morning then to a third, a very practical lesson that I think that we can draw from this story and that is that God uses people, God often uses people to extend his saving grace and again that's very clear in the story that is before us, how does Utica's come back to life? Well the whole congregation rushes down to see what has happened, the apostle Paul goes down, throws himself on the boy, we'll talk more about that later because there's some significance there, embraces him and says his life is in him and he raises him back from the dead. Now I should tell you that there are commentators who question whether the boy was really dead, maybe he was just knocked out and Paul just discovered he was still alive and raised him up and I suppose that's a possibility, in fact it's a possibility that I entertained for some time until I searched into it a little bit more but you got to remember here, remember what I said about the personal pronoun we, who was present at this event, it was Luke, what was Luke's profession? He was a physician, certainly Luke the physician would know if a person was merely knocked out or if he were dead, furthermore the Greek language structure here indicates certainly that he wasn't merely knocked out but that he was in fact dead and he came to life because as Paul embraced him, life from Paul flowed into the boy, restored him back to the land of the living and there's a very important principle here I think and that is this, while God is perfectly capable of performing his saving acts all by himself, he typically uses his people to mediate his saving power, in other words God can do it by himself but he chooses to use his people to make it happen and there's a reason for that, God has created us to be sons and daughters, when he created Adam and Eve he created them to have dominion over all creation, God wants his people to share in his authority and in his power. In the fall of man we lost a lot of that and all you have to do is watch the news clips of a hurricane sweeping through or a tornado sweeping through or an earthquake happening or a mudslide and you discover the degree to which we have lost the authority over creation and creation has gained its power over us and death of course being the ultimate demonstration of that power but in Christ God restores that authority to his people and so the same spirit that came on Jesus now comes on the church, that's the purpose of Pentecost, so that God by his spirit through the use of spiritual gifts can use you and me to share in the saving acts of God, that's the privilege of being the children of God, I believe that's what Jesus means in that very highly debated verse really in John chapter 14 verse 12 where scripture says I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing, he will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing, he will do even greater things, theologians have argued about the meaning of greater things since those words were first written and I don't know that anybody fully understands or has sufficient faith to do the things that Jesus did let alone the greater things but I think the scriptures are clear that God wants to share the saving acts that Jesus performed by the power of his Holy Spirit, he wants to use you and me in order to do that, we are his hands and his feet and that's what you see happening here where Paul embraces the lad and he raises the lad back up to life. Now that's not to say we can just willy-nilly go around laying hands on everybody and his uncle and expect God to step into the situation and demonstrate his healing power, you'll recall in the previous chapter, next chapter 19, the seven sons of Sceva, they were exorcists, they saw the authority the apostle Paul had in casting out demons, they thought the name of Jesus was a formula they could use and it ended pretty disastrously when the demonized man beat them up and the seven sons fled out of the house naked so to speak because of how badly they had been beat up. You see the name of Jesus and the power of God is never just a formula, it flows out of relationship and it flows out of an awareness of who God is and what God is doing and getting on board with what God is doing and that's even how Jesus did his ministry, John 5 19, very telling verse that we often don't pay enough attention to, Jesus says I tell you the truth, the son can do nothing, get that, can do nothing by himself, he can only do what he sees his father doing because whatever the father does, the son does also, whatever the father does, the son does also, so here's the picture, God's at work, in the world Jesus sees where the father is working, steps into that situation and God demonstrates his power. So very quickly now, six practical steps that you and I need to understand and live by if we are to serve in some small capacity, even in some small capacity, to serve as the hands and the feet of Jesus in extending God's saving grace to those who are so desperately in need and has the world ever been needier than what it is today, I mean really, not only in third world countries but even our own society is coming apart at the seams as we have conflicting values and everybody fighting for their square inch of the turf. Six practical steps just very quickly, if you want to be used of Jesus to extend his saving grace and power, it starts by cultivating intimacy with God, John 15, five verses you know well, Jesus speaking, I am the vine, you are the branches, if a man remains, an older translation, abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing, verse seven, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you, power in the kingdom is never a function of formula as I said a few moments ago, it is a function of relationship and to abide in Jesus is to acknowledge our sin, it's to spend time with God, it's to submit to his word, it is to listen to the voice of his spirit, it is to make relationship with God our highest priority. See a lot of people think that worshipping together on a Sunday morning like this is just a total waste of time, you could be sleeping in, you could be you know reading your newspaper, you could be out on the lake fishing, you could be Lord knows where but God's people know something, they know that the greatest commandment is that you shall have no other gods before me and that if you are seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness out of that relationship everything else in life flows because God's presence and power is there for you, that's why spending time in devotion, spending time in worship, spending time together is not a waste of time it is to make us abide in intimacy with Jesus because he's divine, Old Testament language for the planting of the Lord, oaks of righteousness that he may be glorified. Secondly we need to try to discern where God is at work, there's a very interesting verse in John's Gospel where Jesus says that, let me see if I can find it here for a moment, my father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working, my father is always at work. So the obvious question is what's God working at? I mean didn't he rest on the seventh day because his work was complete? Well God is at work not only keeping the universe running which is probably a pretty major undertaking it's a pretty big outfit but God's at work regaining creation, restoring us back into relationship with me. Second Corinthians 5 19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people sins against them and he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. The message of reconciliation is that God created us perfect and in relationship with him we fell into sin, we're alienated from God, we're subject to Satan's bondage and life in a fallen world even at the best of times is tough and God said instead of letting you stew in your juices I have done everything that needs to be done to win you back out of this fallen world and to bring you back here by the blood of the cross and the power of God's Holy Spirit. So all over the world God is at work every moment looking for men and women boys and girls whose hearts will turn towards him, who need to hear the message of salvation, who need to experience his saving power and who need to become heirs of the kingdom that is to come when the curtain falls in history God will have his people and you and I having tasted some of that salvation in our own lives as I said are his hands and feet and so what God wants us to do is he wants us to look around, he wants us to look around. Who is there in whose life God is at work? Who is there who God is preparing for salvation? You say how in the world will I know? Well there are some clues because in order to come to salvation there are two conditions that need to be met. There needs to be an awareness of our need that is to say a dissatisfaction with the status quo and there has to be a realization that there is nothing and nobody else in all the universe that is going to solve my problem. Somehow the answer has got to lie with God. Listen to how scripture puts it in Psalm 51 verse 17 the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart oh God you will not despise and then Matthew 5 verse 3 blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God is at work wherever there is an awareness of need not only but where there is a realization that all the human things that we look to they are not going to fix me up and that can range anywhere from you know the addict who bottoms out and his whole life has fallen apart to the man in the boardroom who has reached the epitome of his life's career and performance and who walks away from that saying I thought there would be more to life than that. Look for people who are at the end of themselves that's where you'll find God because he's near to the broken hearted and he is close to those who are contrite in spirit. Now when you experience that and see that then you ask the Lord what is my place in that person's life? There are some who say the need is the call and sometimes that is true if you see somebody who's hungry and you've got food to give him you better give it to him but that said there is more than need before we step into a situation with the message of God saving grace there has to be a measure of faith there has to be an awareness of as I said a moment ago I'm at the end of my rope like the woman with the issue of blood I have spent everything that I have on doctors nobody can fix me maybe just maybe if I touch the hem of his garment I will be healed and so we need to be sensitive and say Lord what is it that you want me to do in that person's life I love this passage in Luke chapter 4 the verses 25 to 27 Jesus speaking and this is in the context of Israel's rejection of him I assure you there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon and there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet yet not one of them was cleansed only Naaman the Syrian what's Jesus saying can't find faith in Israel but in those Old Testament stories God's grace produced faith in people outside of Israel outside of the covenant because God is looking for hungry people everywhere and don't ever be surprised at where you will find it because I have discovered over the years that some of the most you know how we get we get we get our own idea of who would make a good Christian don't we don't you say to yourself sometimes oh if only that person or that person would come to faith that would be a great testimony to God and we overlook the people right in front of our noses because we look at them and we say well you know that hairdo that piercing that behavior that person will never make it it don't kid yourself you don't know you don't know and God's grace will extend itself sometimes to the most unlikeliest of candidates so be alert to hunger ask the Lord is that a person that you want me to be involved in and if the answer to that is yes however tentatively then the next thing that you do is you step into it wisely and by wisely I mean you don't develop a Messiah complex that says I'm gonna fix you up I'm gonna tell you what's wrong with you and I'm gonna tell you what you need to do and if only you would do what I tell you to do have you ever noticed and this is a besetting sin of God's people somebody will share a problem share a difficulty and instead of just listening showing empathy and compassion have you ever noticed how ready we are to give advice and fix people up ever notice that ever been in the receiving end of that never say to yourself I wish you would just shut up because I know the answers are but that's not what I'm looking for right now sometimes people just need to know that somebody cares somebody understands understand too that stepping wisely into somebody's life doesn't mean you take over their lives your job is to empower them to live not to disempower because at the end of history everybody's going to stand before the judgment seat of God and everybody is going to have to give account of what they have done with what God has given them Jesus says be wise as serpents innocent as doves then if you've stepped into it and you are using whatever gifts God has given you because that determines in part what you step into it then be sure to count the cost and I referred earlier to an interesting phrase in this story verse 10 of chapter 20 where Paul went down through himself on the young man and put his arms around him very interesting language because it is a close parallel to what the father does to the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15 verse 20 of that chapter says while he was still a long way off that is the prodigal son now on his way back home his father saw him and was filled with compassion he ran to his son through his arms around him literally the Greek says fell on his neck and kissed him Paul went down through himself on the young man and embraced him the verb is most typically used in the New Testament of the Holy Spirit falling upon God's people and I think it implies a level of intimacy and an investment in that person's life that is costly and can be difficult I don't know if you thought about this but if the boy was dead and Paul touched a dead body what would happen to Paul under Jewish law he would now be richly unclean there is a price to pay for getting involved in people's messes I trust you understand that that's why so many Christians start so ambitiously trying to help somebody then when they get their hands dirty and it's starting to cost them time effort energy and money they back off and they just reinforce the notions of uncleanness that makes people draw back to begin with that's why Jesus says count the cost count the cost means what do you have faith for what are your gifts what is your ability what can you and your family step into so that long term you can commit yourself spiritually emotionally psychologically or physically in a way that is redemptive you see Paul wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and he wasn't afraid to touch the boy even if he was dead because it became an opportunity for God's saving grace to be made manifest does that make sense ask yourself the question what am I gifted in what am I qualified for what am I able to do that's why it's so important to listen to the Lord so important to ask Lord what do you give me faith for what do you give me love for I've discovered in my own life you know any size congregation the needs are overwhelming and there is no way that any given individual can just be there for everybody equally all the time and I've discovered over the years one of the ways in which I learned that God wants to use me in somebody's life the first thing that he does is he gives me love for that person and then he gives me the gift of faith and then gives me the gift of perseverance so that we can walk that out in a redemptive fashion do you know that if each of us here had one or two other people that we were walking with in a God given redemptive fashion we'd have twice the number of people here overnight because God would be using us and we would have the satisfaction of being used of God because you have those moments when you know that you stand in the presence of God and you have just seen God do a miracle and that's you know the next thing then the final practical step is to leave the results to the Lord the temptation of course when we step into somebody's life is to look for results and we ought to be looking for results but that can also become very counterproductive and it can become very discouraging we've prayed for somebody nothing seems to happen we've invested ourselves in somebody's life and they just turned their backs upon us and what was that all about you know did I hear from the Lord all the kind of things that come up in the middle of those kind of situations and it's very hard easy to beat yourself up and say well see can't do it not my job here I am Lord St. George you know here's a lesson that I learned from John Wimber years and years ago one of the founding fathers of the vineyard family of churches really felt called to a healing ministry I've told you this story before first 10 or 12 people they prayed for all died and after that they had a hard time finding candidates for prayer as you can imagine but eventually one got better and he had a hurray come moment where he says we finally prevailed in this area and that became a foundation stone for that movement that swept many people into the kingdom but here's the lesson that I learned from him he says our job is to be obedient to the Lord the Lord's job is to bring about the fruit and the healing virtue and power of God and that is incredibly liberating not to mention biblical here's how the Apostle Paul puts it at 1 Corinthians 3 7 there was a church that was picking between Apollos and Paul and Cephas and they were dividing the community into you know this one's got it and this one hasn't and this one's a better preacher and this one is a better healer and I'm going to listen to him but I'm not going to listen to him puts it all in perspective neither he who plans nor he who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow do you think Sandor van Berkel had any idea that praying for Susan Tapp with her multiple sclerosis would get healed on account of that prayer all she could do was be obedient to God and in being obedient the results beyond anybody's expectations were of God this past Monday Michelle and I were at Planet Fitness working out and who do we run into but Susan Tapp and we said hi and she said hi and she said I'm here because I want to get my muscles back into a better condition that is watching the power of God at work. Accidents happen to God's people God can redeem even accidents of our own making and stupidity God wants to use us as vehicles of his saving power and one final point God's saving grace provides great comfort for God's people have you noticed how this story ends the people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted why do you think they were greatly comforted well no small matter to take your kid home alive well after you know he was dead but more than that I think I suspect they understood that they might never see the Apostle Paul again he was their spiritual father he was he was the visible manifestation of the love of Jesus in their midst and and like little children about to lose their daddy that would be scary business and they were comforted I believe because they knew that with or without the Apostle Paul Jesus was on his throne able to do far more abundantly than all that they asked could ask or think and they could face the future with courage because they knew Jesus was present and alive that's why they were comforted and that's why it is so important for God's people to share stories of God's redemptive power doesn't always have to be dramatic it doesn't always have to be you know the big story is the only story that counts it could just be I was stuck in a difficult situation and I cried out to God and somebody prayed with me and and suddenly I had clarity of thought in mind and I knew what the next step was that I needed to take or I was stuck in a difficult financial situation and I cried out to the Lord and I shared my need with somebody and and wouldn't you know it out of nowhere came the resources of God that enabled me to take the next step and to discover that God is really here the faith doesn't just spread by preaching preaching is important I do it for a living I have for a good many years I would never minimize that but preaching alone only has power when the preaching results in changed lives and changed lives that can tell their stories to each other that's why in the Old Testament the saints of God were to gather their families around them and tell them repeatedly of the redemptive and the mighty acts of God and that's why the psalmist says what he does in Psalms 40 the verses one two and three he said I waited patiently for the Lord he turned to me and heard my cry he lifted me out of the slimy pit out of the mud and mire he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand he put a new song in my mouth a hymn of praise to our God many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord you know often we think ourselves inadequate I could never lead somebody to faith I could you know we leave that to the professionals every one of us has a story we could we could take a survey of a congregation like this and I could ask you where in your life did you meet up with the presence of the power of God and every last one of you young and old will have stories that pop into your mind where you knew that you knew that you stood in the presence of God isn't that true how many of those stories have you ever shared with your children or with your grandchildren anyone talking about getting on your high horse and you know preaching high and mighty but using a teachable moment to demonstrate that in the good times and in the bad times of life and you cry out to God and you were sharing your needs with people around you God either stepped into that situation reversed it powerfully and enabled you to go on living in the land of the living or he gave you the inner strength to take the next step knowing that in the Lord the journey will lead to glory isn't that true what in this morning by calling your attention to a little book of poems that Natasha Roblin of our congregation has just published she self-published it Natasha if you remember her profession of faith testimony two years ago was raised in a very broken dysfunctional family her parents divorced at when she was 13 and in all her life struggled between being seen and not being seen and and how the Lord brought her to faith and then brought her to this community and now she's been walking out that journey trying to to roll back those years of pain and coming into the freedom that the Lord has for her and so she's a poetess is that the right word poetess poet she's a poet and this little booklet is full of a number of her poets poem poems and we're making that available to you for a suggested donation of fifteen dollars to help support her publication and it's it's her version of the Psalms some of them are I'm up here some of them are I'm down here but they are an expression of her journey before God and it would be tremendously encouraging for her for us to stand beside her and with her and to support her in this journey let me read you one poem here this one is called explain explain can you explain explain blue sky to the colorblind explain earth's sun to the cold ones explain free gift to those that paid explain real love to the broken ones explain being known to those alone explain gentleness to the battered souls explain freedom to those in chains explain hope to those in pain explain Christ to all that are lost explain no you are the message and that will explain all that remains going to end with an abbreviated video of her profession of faith testimony two years ago I'll come back up after that and we'll close off the surface watch this I was born and raised in Picton and I'm the oldest of three children I'm 18 months older my brother and sister who are twins and I was raised in a non-Christian family as a child they felt very out of place and like I wasn't really needed or wanted and I was verbally and physically abused as a child and I remember how words that are me lingered and they stayed and they stuck and I started to believe them I started to believe that I really wasn't worth anything I really wasn't someone to be loved and it's hard thing to be ashamed of who you are and not to be loved for who you are and as a child it's all you want I spent a lot of time trying to fix myself and make myself something that could be loved and could be appreciated and it could be seen and then that didn't work I kind of hid who I really was and became quiet and didn't really say anything because that was easier than not being loved for who you are fast forward to 2007 I was 20 years old and I had come home from dropping out of college and I had a small New Testament I got in grade five and I started reading that and I read it for weeks and weeks and I remember sitting out on outside I climbed out my window and just sat outside and was praying to God and saying that I loved him and that I was sorry for my sin it was really just him and me he really just pulled me out of all of that I mean it's a process I was definitely had my brokenness and all my other things but it was him the past few years it's been a lot of God tenderizing my heart and calling me to live it's been the many little choices in the everyday choosing life choosing to let people in choosing to be seen and for who I am which is hard for me and feeling all the feelings I hadn't felt before because when you shut down you have to kind of go back and live again and feel the things you hadn't felt before and there were times where it was hard and I wanted to stop and just be done and not be alive anymore I am thankful that I'm alive today I'm thankful for Jesus and I love him with all my heart I command stand before you and say that I am not a ghost I am not a rock [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:46:31.940; remove through 00:49:09.000] I am not an island I am Natasha I belong to Jesus and I [CUT] belong here. Lord we've said this a lot in the last couple of weeks but thank you that you are the God who saves that you don't leave us in a mess even when often that mess is of our own making but that you came into the world in the person of Jesus that he took upon himself our flesh and blood that he threw himself on us embraced us was willing to get dirty so that by his poverty we might become rich thank you for the places in our own lives where we have experienced that to be sure there are many places more that we'd like to experience it Lord but you've not abandoned us and I pray this morning that in moments of despair or doubt you will bring to mind as you did for the psalmist those places where you were present and we knew that you cared and we knew that you loved and then having experienced that Lord help us to keep our eyes open toward children and our grandchildren and friends and neighbors help us to discern where you are at work help us to hear the nudging of your Holy Spirit give us the courage and the faith to gently step into those situations to pray and to speak as you lead and then Lord give us faith to believe that in Jesus Christ even the dead can be raised thank you that you are our God and our father and may this church be filled with the compassion of Jesus and the courage and the faith to say as Valerie says so often nothing is bigger than Jesus thank you thank you thank you in his name we pray amen and amen [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:49:09.000; resume after this marked segment]