Home thoughts from abroad.wordpress.com

Acts 3:1-5: A funny thing happened on the way to the prayer meeting.

It is good to pray.

It is good to establish habits of prayer.

It is good to pray with others.

As Peter and John were doing their ‘duty’ (although I’m sure it was more to them than that) they met with opportunity. The plight of the needy man they met is conveyed in two words: ‘’carried’’ and ‘’put’’ (2). Where he was placed he had to stay. He couldn’t move under his own steam. He was a congenital cripple. Begging was the only way he could ‘earn’ a crust. It is possible to be so focussed on what we are doing that we don’t see people – not really see them;

…so busy we don’t see them;

…so distracted we don’t see them. (Have you ever been more preoccupied with the screen on your phone than with the person sat opposite or next to you?)

But ‘’Peter looked straight at him, as did John’’ (4). They gave him their full attention, and they asked for his (4). (As a preacher, I think you are more likely to gain a hearing from your congregation if they know you ‘see’ them; that you love them and care about their real life circumstances). It’s good to ask boldly (3), and with faith (5). But sometimes we set our sights too low. We can think we know what we need most, but God knows best. He did far more than this man asked. As someone said, ‘He asked for alms, but got legs!’ In a sense he did get the money he asked for (because now he could earn it), but he also got something infinitely more precious – his health.

So ‘’One day’’ (1) turned into a wonderful day. Any ordinary day that you go about your business as a Christian can turn into an extraordinary day by God’s leading – and that is ‘’Beautiful’’ (2).

PRAYER: Holy Spirit, lead me today to people you want me to meet, and may I be ready to give them what you have put into my hand to share. Help me to really see the people I come across in the course of this ordinary day.

Acts 2:42-47: Together (click here for the passage)

John Stott called this short passage ‘a beautiful little cameo of the Spirit-filled church.’ All the basics of church life are found here. It’s ‘not rocket science’ as they say. You don’t need a big building, a stage, a band, or PowerPoint! It can all be worked out quite simply in homes. Admittedly, they did use the ‘’temple courts’’ (46) – probably for the larger gatherings of the whole group. But they didn’t own a building. There were no church buildings, as such, for hundreds of years. They lacked many of the attractive features we have come to think are indispensable for success, but they had Bible teaching, fellowship, prayer life, and the breaking of bread. They saw miracles, and they were a ‘’devoted’’ bunch of people (42). They were ‘sold out’. Furthermore, God gave the growth.                                                                                                  At heart, they were a true community. The word ‘’together’’ is repeated three times in (44, 46). I once heard a preacher say that in the church today we have too many meetings and not enough meeting. But that was not the case with the first Christian community. They knew what it was to sacrifice and to share, and such an authentic community will always be a sign and a wonder in itself. In our materialistic, and often quite selfish culture, we need lots of little ‘lighthouses’ such as these dotted all over the landscape. They will always prove effective in saving many from the rocks.

In an age where more and more Christians are attending church less and less, we need to face the challenge of these verses. What is it about togetherness that we want to avoid and why?

Acts 2:37-41: Revival (please click for todays passage)

By any standards, this was a ‘miraculous catch’ (41). Twice during His ministry, Jesus had shown His followers that if they trusted and obeyed Him they would bring in a huge haul of fish. But I believe that in both those cases we see a foretaste of the spectacular growth of the church in ‘Acts’ as they went fishing for men. Here, the church grew from 120 to around 3,120 in a single day. How did they absorb all that growth? We are not told. They clearly did though. Somebody said, ‘We preach three thousand sermons to get one convert, but with one sermon Peter won three thousand.’ That is rather a gross over-simplification, I know, but it helps to see that what we call ‘revival’ is an unusual work of God.

Powerful ‘conviction of sin’ is one mark of all revivals (37). Before Peter got chance to tell the people what they should do about what he was saying, they asked! They were desperate to know. Twice in his sermon, Peter had told his hearers that they bore responsibility for the death of Christ (23, 36). Evidently he got through. The people felt like they were in the dock, with the Judge delivering the guilty verdict. He then puts on his black cap, and they know they are under the sentence of death. What can they do?

How wonderful then to hear about the possibility of forgiveness of sins, and sharing the same experience they had seen and heard that very day (38, 39; see 33) –of receiving the Holy Spirit. But first they had to repent of their sins and be ‘’baptized’’ (38). There were no exceptions to this requirement. Someone wrote that ‘The idea of an unbaptised Christian is totally alien to the thought of the New Testament writers.’ Baptism is mentioned twice in the space of a few short verses (38, 41). If repentance (and faith) are the inward part of conversion, baptism is the outward aspect.Baptism on its own won’t save anyone. It is intended to be linked to repentance. But it is indispensable.

I think verse 41 indicates that not all the people in the crowd ‘’accepted’’ the message, but vast numbers did. Yet although there is a strong emphasis on the human response in these verses, the real reason for any conversion lies in the mystery of God’s sovereignty (39).

PRAYER: I pray, Lord, that you will send revival, for the glory of your Name.

Acts 2:32-36: Who done it?!(please click for todays passage)

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the work of the risen Jesus (33). In itself it points to the truth that Christ is alive.                                                                                                     The emphasis throughout the New Testament is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Although the Lord had the power to lay down His own life and take it up again (John 10:18), the clear message is that God the Father ‘done it’. The resurrection is the divine seal of approval on all the claims of Jesus, and of His saving work on the cross.

Somebody said that the resurrection is God’s reversal of the human verdict on Jesus. Someone put it this way: people said, ‘He’s too bad to live; out of the world with Him.’ God said, ‘He’s too good to stay dead; back into the world with Him.’ Jesus took His case to a higher court, and that court reversed the conviction. Jesus won the appeal.

‘’God has raised this Jesus to life…’’ (32a). Yes, this Jesus I’ve been talking about, says Peter; this Jesus who was in the grave for a very short time; this Jesus you ‘’put…to death’’ (23); ‘’whom you crucified (36)”, this Jesus whose resurrection king David prophesied (and see a further prophecy here in 34, 35 – taken from Psalm 110:1; ‘’God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact’’ (32). When Peter ‘’stood up’’ to preach this sermon, it was ‘’with the Eleven’’ (14). Peter could point to others who had seen the risen Christ. He wasn’t some maverick, going out on his own on this point. He wasn’t a spiritual ‘lone ranger’. He was dealing with a verifiable ‘’fact’’. I once heard a lovely Greek evangelist speaking. Whenever he tried to say ‘the book of Acts’ it sounded like ‘the book of facts!’ I thought his repeated, charming mispronunciation was a proclamation of truth. I was hearing what he didn’t intend to say, but what I heard was true.

We don’t know what 2017 will hold for our world, our nation, or for ourselves. But step into it holding tightly to the fact that Jesus is alive: ‘’…be assured of this’’ (36). And know that even when men do their malevolent worst (and no one will commit a worse atrocity than crucifying Jesus) God has the final say. Man did not have the last word with Jesus; nor did death;  Almighty God did. He always will. The resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of this. He turns the tables, and no-one will thwart His eternal purposes. He is on the throne. Our God reigns.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, it is good to know that you live. Cause me to live with this assurance that death and evil and hell are defeated and you are ‘’both Lord and Christ.’’ Hallelujah.