Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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Acts 16:16-34 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. 19 When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. 27The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28But Paul shouted, “Don't harm yourself! We are all here!” 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.
(blank) (Special soloist performs) Have you ever seen the inspirational posters that some people have in their offices? Posters that give pithy wisdom about teamwork, perseverance, integrity, etc. These are a few written for those of us who can’t quite live up to the idealism in many of those. Like: (Show inspirational office poster slides)
That’s a goal you could aspire to.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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Think small. Aim low. Reach more goals. This week I read an article in Christianity Today by Christian author Mark Buchanan. Buchan He was writing for something called the Christian Vision Project. The Christian Vision Project is a Christian think tank. They invite creative Christian thinkers pastors, scholars, artists, and activists – to write about one big question a year. cholars, Christian Vision Project's big question for 2008 is: Is our gospel too small? istian ? Is our gospel too small? It’s only the beginning of February and so they only have published 2 articles, but I think I uary know why they ask. I think it’s a response to all the information we have from pollsters like George Barna that say that Christianity is losing ground in America. And that Christians don’t hold to traditional orthodox beliefs and values and aren’t being faithful and obedient to these in our lives as consistently as we used to. se
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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I read something a couple weeks ago that had a lot of data that showed that for percentage of population, the church is shrinking in every state in America except for Hawaii. People migrate from church to church and the low level of actual kingdom growth is embarrassing. Our hunger and thirst for righteousness, the first mark of Christ followers, is for the most part anorexic, and our lust for self-vindication appears as hearty as ever. The willingness, as the apostle Paul put it, to share in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings so that we might attain to the resurrection from the dead is at all time low in most American churches. Domestic problems seem to be as prevalent among Christians as they are among the wider public. Do you know the two biggest problems we face in the church in America today, I think? We don’t know how to love each other in marriage . like we should. And we don’t know how to love each other in the church . like we should. Is all this because our gospel is too small? Is the gospel we preach in America today not all that Jesus preached? Is the gospel we call others to believe and live, not everything that Paul would have called us to believe and live? Is there a stump where an oak once stood? I love the question. I have been thinking about this question for a while now as I have been studying holiness in the Bible. I read a book several weeks ago which suggested something like the idea. The book is called More Than Forgiveness by Steve Deneff. And one of ideas in the book is that the gospel in America has been reduced to: say a prayer, get your sins forgiven, and you’ll go to heaven. But the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus preached is about so much more than just forgiveness. Holiness is, in fact, part of the wonderful full gospel that you don’t have to be just forgiven, you can be delivered from sin and have your life renewed and restored, and you can be changed in ways that make you all God intended and wants you to be. That’s the biblical message of holiness.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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(blank) So, today, I’d like you to look with me at a passage I began looking at this Wednesday night with a small group of people here in the church. Let's go back to the early days in the book of Acts. Let’s go back to when the Good News was new news. Let's go back to a jail in the city of Philippi, to two men sitting in the inner cell, bound in shackles. Paul and Silas. They're bleeding. Their flesh blooms with welts bright as red roses and bruises dark as purple dahlias. And they're singing?! Let’s say they’re singing a Wesley tune—”And Can It Be.” We can say that - but we know that's impossible. So maybe they sang the hymn Paul taught the Philippians: Let your attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus … who became in very nature a servant. The point is, they're singing. And the gospel is doing its subversive, transforming work. Before the day's over (actually, around midnight, so before it's barely begun), the jailer is on his knees, shaking, begging these two men, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their answer is beautiful in its clarity and brevity: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Good News. The gospel! Just like I heard it, and embraced it, over 20 years ago. I never want to make the gospel more complicated than that. I want to keep this gospel's deep simplicity for all time. Saved can never mean less than the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life through faith in Christ. But I wonder if God meant it to be more than forgiveness as well. The question that intrigues me then in this story is this: What did that jailer understand by the word saved? What did he want to convert to? What did he see in Paul and Silas that he himself lacked and now longed for? Or, put another way, how big was the gospel he so desperately wanted to get in on?
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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Now it's possible that the jailer, like Nicodemus talking in the night with Jesus about being born again, and like the Samaritan woman at the well talking with Jesus about living water, is just confused. It's possible that his question and Paul's answer are miles apart—that all the jailer means is, “How do I get myself out of this mess?” and Paul seizes the moment to preach salvation. It's possible, but I don't think so. I think the jailer has been listening and watching and contemplating all night long. I think Paul and Silas embody something he is afraid to believe “because of joy and amazement” (Luke 24:41). I think Paul and Silas are to him what all Christians are to be to the world: the fragrance of Christ. (blank) Consider four things with me. First, the jailer saw two men counting it all joy when they faced trials of many kinds, men praying and singing in the face of what would have left most men howling and cursing: bodily affliction and personal injustice. Paul and Silas, without due process, were stripped naked and “severely flogged” in public. The Romans had a special affinity for this kind of thing. Remember the flogging scene in The Passion of the Christ movie? It was brutal torture joined to abject humiliation. History tells us how the magistrates of Philippi had two guys called lictorae who carried bundles of rods with axes as attached a symbol of their authority as whose job it was to carry out the orders of the magistrates. This was a military city. The beating would have scarred or even maimed Paul and Silas for life. They were tossed in prison, locked in the inner cell, and their feet were put in stocks. Roman stocks were designed not just as extra security measures, but as implements of torture themselves. And Paul and silas didn’t just get beat for offend the local officials, but between the lines you can make a case that these were two Jewish boys in a town that didn’t like Jewish boys.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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These boys were getting taught a lesson about comin’ round there. But Paul and Silas were Roman citizens. So they had right to a fair trial –which they didn’t get. They were tortured, humiliated, and it was all illegal, prejudicial, and unjust. How would you respond? I wonder how I would. Here's what they did: About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Listening indeed. Who among them had ever witnessed such . brothers .. such peculiar people, singing and praying in the face of such devastating personal circumstances?
Who had ever heard of a God who, seemingly absent from or indifferent to these men's suffering, nonetheless called forth from them such pure devotion?
(blank) In 2006, five Amish girls, aged 6 to 13, were shot and killed by a man in Lancaster County, who then killed himself. The event stunned the world. But what happened next stunned the world more: a whole community singing and praying. A whole community not bent on retaliation, not shouting with anger or collapsing in despair, but standing with quiet dignity and deep calm. The community was quick to forgive. They even established a charity fund for the killer's family. We saw a people face the worst . who become their best. Such peculiar people. Such holy people. The prisoners and the jailer witnessed two men like that. And he and they must have understood saved to mean, at least, having confidence in a God who is with us and for us even when it looks as though he's abandoned us or is punishing us. Saved seems to mean knowing this God so personally that we have cause to sing even when there is no earthly cause to merit it.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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1. More than just forgiveness, saved includes knowing a God who empowers us to face the worst and become our best. Are you able to sing this morning? What must you do to be saved? Somewhere in there, the jailer falls asleep. Maybe the singing lulls him. But he's awakened abruptly by a mighty shaking. An earthquake rocks the house - powerful enough to fling the prison doors open wide, strong enough to shake all the prisoners' chains loose. The jailer wakes up, sees what's happening, and prepares to do what he knows he must, if he wants his family to have anything left. (blank) A jailbreak was grounds for executing the prison guard regardless of the circumstances of the prisoners escape. If the jailer was executed for that crime – his property went to the state. But, if a man committed suicide – his property went to his family. But Paul shouted, “Don't harm yourself! We are all here!” This moment more than any other elicits the jailer's pleading question: “What must I do to be saved?” This is the point when the jailer might mean by saved something very different from what Paul answers. But it's more likely that he's astonished by what he sees - these men's compassion for him, a stranger, even an enemy. Why should Paul and Silas care? What possible concern is it of theirs if this man perishes? The earthquake looks like a God-thing, It’s reminiscent of Peter's miraculous, angel-escorted escape from prison (where the guards were executed). It’s reminiscent of the earthquake that attended Jesus' escape from death's prison (where the guards were bribed and threatened).
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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So, I’m not sure, if it’s me, that I’m stopping to ask questions before I’m out of there proclaiming how God’s saved me. But Paul and Silas don’t see it as God's intervention on their behalf, and whatever will be will be. Do they? Don't harm yourself. We're all here. Such peculiar men. What power could possibly make anyone behave this way? What power is now at work in the world that could break anyone's addiction to self-protection and self-promotion and make them care, even at great personal cost, about someone they have no reason to like and every reason to hate? 2. More than just forgiveness, saved includes knowing a God who empowers us, even when it costs us dearly, to love others, even enemies. Are you able to love even those who seem to hate you this morning? Are you willing to not walk out on your marriage, even though it seems like there’s an opened door? What must you do to be saved? Then there are the other prisoners, sitting there when nothing external—no chains, no bars— holds them anymore. We're all here. Why don't they flee? What's rivets them to their seats? I propose this: Paul and Silas have astonished the prisoners every bit as much as they've astonished the jailer, and for the same reasons. (blank) Up to this moment, it's unlikely that a single one of these prisoners has ever seen a man get bludgeoned half to death and come up praising God. They're transfixed by it, wondering what strange power this is that causes men to act at complete odds with common sense. They're so transfixed, they start acting that way, too. The jailer sees prisoners going nowhere. He sees prisoners who, hours before, would have seized this opportunity, without a second thought, now sitting still.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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If they’re not as concerned about the jailer's welfare as Paul and Silas are, they at least respect Paul and Silas enough . to follow their example. The guard sees hard men with hard hearts suddenly acting against their most entrenched instincts, and all because they eavesdropped for a few hours on 2 men deeply in love with God. 3. More than just forgiveness, saved includes knowing a God who empowers us to subdue the hardest heart. Are you living a life so transformed that others glimpse in it the possibility of their own transformation? What must you do to be saved? And maybe there's one other thing that the jailer means by saved. Maybe he knows what happened in town that day, the events that led to Paul and Silas being beaten and arrested and imprisoned. Maybe he knows that these two men are no criminals. That their crime is not murder or thievery or sedition, but simply & only . setting a captive free. Paul and Silas are in prison because they had pity on a slave girl, doubly enslaved, held in thrall by her earthly masters and a spirit. She followed Paul and Silas around town, giving them her endorsement: “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” Sound familiar? That’s the name the demons frequently called Jesus by: “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” Mark 5:4 cried the demon possessed man in Mark 5. The girl spoke the truth. And her endorsement would have helped Paul's cause. She was a local “spiritual authority.” The people thought she had the snake spirit of the oracle of Apollo in her belly. She was sought for her clairvoyance, her insight into hidden things. But just as when the demon spirits were subject to Jesus, this unclean spirit in this girl was not a threat to Paul, but still it troubled him. So, in the name of Jesus, he cast the spirit out.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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And just as happened in Mark 5, when Jesus cast the demons and out they went into a herd of pigs and caused great destruction, this girl’s demons seem to disperse into the crowd and a riot breaks out that results in Paul and Silas exchanging their freedom for hers. See that. The girl’s set free from the control of the evil one, and Paul and Silas are taken captive in the prison of the state. 4. More than just forgiveness, saved includes knowing a God who empowers us to be free from the powers that control us. When that jailer said what must I do to be saved, he was asking how can I be set free. To be saved, soteria, meant two different things to the Jews and to the non-Jewish Gentiles. To the Jew in that day saved meant to be delivered from the power of sin. To the Gentile, who didn’t have the Jewish idea of sin, it meant to be released from the powers that govern the fate of man and the material world. (blank) What must I do to be saved the jailor asked? What must I do to be delivered from the powers that control me just like that girl? Believe in Jesus! Yes. Believe in Jesus, so that your sins will be forgiven & your name written in the Book of Life. Never less than this. But what do we mean, what should we mean, by saved? Does it not also include the freedom and power, here and now, to live a life so transformed that others glimpse in it the possibility of their own transformation? Does it not also include the freedom and the power to sing and pray and give thanks to God in the midst devastating personal circumstances? Does it not also include the freedom and the power to face the worst and still to be our best? And does it not also include the freedom and power, to love others, even those who mistreat us, and hate us.
Sermon, 2008-02-03, In the Pursuit of Being Holy, More Than Forgiveness
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And does it not also include freedom and power to delivered from sin and free from the powers of this world that try to control and destroy us? You are set free. Your chains can fall off. You can be delivered. How? Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You will be forgiven, but it also means so much more than that. Let’s pray.