Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon June 22, 2008
Do you know anyone who gets into frequent conflicts with authorities over them? If you’ve been tracking with me for a while going through the book of Acts, you get the sense that Peter and other apostles, and other early Christians were those people who were getting into troubles with the authority; of course, not for committing evil acts, but for faithfully committing to speak about what they knew of Jesus Christ.
Already in Acts 4, Peter and John alarmed and disturbed the Jewish authority in Jerusalem because they were going around doing miracles and teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead (v. 2). For this reason they were put in jail. Along the powerful demonstration of God’s power over sicknesses, the central message was simply this, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The fact that the Old Testament scripture points to Jesus as the true Messiah, the Deliverer, the Savior, was nothing to impossible for these Jewish religious leaders to accept. For this, they warned Peter and John not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus (v. 18).
Where the next time, it wasn’t just a verbal warning that they received, they were thrown into jail (Acts 5:18) for telling the people the full message of the new life in Jesus (v. 20). There, we saw the first prison break out when the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail for them (v. 19). But, instead of fleeting, they went right back to the heart of Jerusalem to proclaim the good news. And, they paid for this insistent effort to spread the good news. This time, they were flogged (v. 40) and again were told not to speak in the name of Jesus.
Then, there was the story of Stephen who was stoned to death for remaining faithful to Jesus.
- The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive to those who don’t believe, and in turn makes the messenger offensive as well, but the reward is God’s happiness.
So, when we come to our text for today, what happened to James and Peter shouldn’t surprise us. What we learn is that the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ was offensive to the Jewish leaders and all others who refused to believe in Jesus. And, in turn the messengers who faithfully spoke of Jesus Christ became offensive to them. But, the truth is that the reward outweighs the risk of offending others with the gospel.
Apostle Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16a, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” What was so evident in the parts of the early Christian life was that they got this truth down. Irrespective of how individuals may respond to the good news of Jesus Christ, what mattered to them was the fact that their faithful witness to Jesus Christ made God delighted because it centered on the Son whom he loved.[1] God loves when we talk about his Son to others so much so that our sharing of Jesus Christ becomes the aroma of Christ.
So, we can always expect two kinds of responses when we share the gospel, one from God and the other from the people who hear us. God is always happy to hear us talk to others about his Son. This is one response that we can always expect from God. One way we can delight God is to talk about his Son with others.
The other thing we can expect is that either people will be offended or take it seriously. Those who are offended by the good news that salvation is only available through Jesus Christ will treat the message as the smell of death, something to be avoided and dismissed as a terribly out of step relic only suited for the intolerant, backward minded people. If we focus on this rejection, negative response, how the message of the gospel might offend others, how we may offend others, of course it doesn’t make sense to go there. What we need to is to cultivate this important truth that it makes God very happy to hear us share the gospel with people irrespective of their positive or negative responses.
The prevailing mind set for the early Christians was delighting God who loved them so much that he gave up his most prized one and only Son to die on the cross, delighting God by sharing Jesus with others.
I pray that we as a church would not be deterred by the fact that some and many might consider us offensive because the message of the gospel is offensive to them. But, that to talk to others about Jesus as truly the way, the truth, the life makes God happy would be the driving force that would have us come out of our shell and begin to actively share the good news.
And, the reward will be, as seen in thus far in the book of Acts, many who will take us seriously because they take the message of Jesus Christ seriously. Taking seriously, many will consider us the fragrance of life in delivering to them the life saving message of Jesus Christ.
- Sharing the message of Jesus Christ is inherently dangerous, but the reward is God’s happiness.
King Herod mentioned in Acts 12 is different from Herod the Great we read about during the time of Jesus. King Herod in our text is actually The Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great of Jesus time.
To this Herod Agrippa I, pleasing the Jews was paramount to ensure his reign over Palestinian, Judea and Samaria area. So, as the anti-Christian sentiment grew stronger among the Jews of his time, he played it right along by arresting prominent Christian leaders.
One of them was James, the brother of John. It may be helpful to clarify that in chapter 12, there are two different James mentioned. James in v. 2 is James, the brother of John, together who were known as the sons of Zebedee. Later in verse 17, when Peter told those who gathered in Mary the mother of Mark’s house to inform James about what happened to him, this James is the half brother of Jesus Christ. This James, the half brother of Jesus became the prominent leader when Peter had to leave for another place as explained in verse 17 to escape the risk of being recaptured.
Now, going back to James, the brother of John in verse 2, Mark 10:35-40 tells the story about him. Here, James, his brother, and his mother approached Jesus with a request. Jesus asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?” They wanted Jesus to have the two sons be seated next to him to his right and to his left. They wanted to be positioned in honor and power. To this Jesus replied, “You don’t know what you are asking… Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” Jesus was referring to his death on the cross. They replied, “We can.” To this Jesus replied, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
James, the brother of John, was the very first apostle to die for the gospel. Who would have thought what Jesus said about sharing in his baptism, which referred to sharing in his physical death would have been fulfilled so early.
To make sense out of martyrdom, we need to go back to the point I already made. For James not to have pulled back when he felt the growing anti-Christian sentiment and hostility and physical threat, but to have pressed on in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, it speaks to where his focus lied. It was on God. That God was pleased, that sharing the gospel made God happy was good enough, that God’s happiness was his reward… this was the driving force behind James’s determination to stand his ground and not give up on sharing the gospel; God’s happiness was his happiness.
So, the profile of Christian that develops from the accounts of Acts is someone who precariously lives through the happiness of God. God’s happiness is the greatest happiness that there is.
- Turn you agony into earnestly praying even though you may feel uncertain.
The Herod Agrippa I also arrested Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread followed by Passover. His plan was to put Peter on the trial after the Passover when there would be greatest number of Jews from all over the places still in Jerusalem. He was going to rack up big point with the Jews.
And, 12:5 records the response of the church. It reads, “So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”
Now, it does not say that the church prayed for James when he got arrested earlier and until he was martyred. But, it would be illogical to assume this silence as to mean that the church only prayed for Peter and not for James for some odd reason.
Logically it makes more sense to assume that the church prayed for them both earnestly. Luke happened to focus more on the account involving Peter at this point. Assuming that the church prayed for both James and Peter, the outcomes were completely different.
The word earnestly in Greek is used also to describe how Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives before his suffering and death on the cross. Luke 22:44 says, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Think about the contexts in both cases. Both involve death. For Jesus it was the death on the cross, the baptism he was to undergo. For the church of Jerusalem, they were praying for Peter after James was beheaded by the Herod.
Now, when it says Jesus was in anguish in Luke 22:44, the word anguish is ajgwniva, where we get agony. Agony has a meaning of struggling preceding death. To describe Jesus as feeling cowardly facing his death would not be accurate. The better sense is not to see as fear or struggle over death, but to understand agony in the sense of feeling intense mental grief and anxiety, to anguish and to feel intense sorrow[2] over “concern for victory in the face of the approaching battle on which the fate of the world depends.”[3]
When Jesus felt anguish, agony, that is when he prayed even more earnestly. When the thought of carrying the weigh of the sins of the world, and the concern over victory over the battle awaited him were heavily on him, his prayer turned with such intensity that he sweated like blood was pouring out of an opened wound.
This is precisely the kind of prayer that the church offered to God. They were anguish over the death of James. Now, here was another servant of God imprisoned and waiting for the execution. The church was faced with the choice, either be paralyzed by intense mental grief and anxiety or turn what they were feeling into prayer. They chose the latter.
Another matter about the prayer… Both Jesus and for the church, the matter was about seeking God’s will, praying for God’s will be done. For Jesus, it was about carrying the weigh of the sins of the world to the cross, to gain complete victory over the power of death in his resurrection. For the church of Jerusalem, it was about the message of the Lord Jesus Christ spreading further even under persecution, it was about Peter remaining strong, it was about God doing what only God can do, God-sized supernatural stuffs.
What were the effects to their prayer? We see Peter sleeping so soundly even chained in both arms to the two guards that the bright light didn’t wake him up, but the angel had to strike hi side to wake him up. Even then, he was so groggy and incoherent that the angel had to direct him to get up and to put on clothes and sandals and to follow him. To be able to sleep so soundly like this while waiting for the certain execution following the execution of James, perhaps, Peter was reminded of God’s miraculous rescue from the prison last time. Even to recall the past act of God in the time of great distress is the evidence of God’s grace. And, it wouldn’t be stretching to think that the church’s earnest prayer had something to do with his ability to sleep so soundly.
The obvious effect to their prayer was that God moved to rescue Peter. Their prayer converged into God’s will to deliver Peter. If their prayer wasn’t earnest, sincere, intense, meaning that if they gave up on praying by letting anguish feelings paralyzed them, they would have given up before seeing their prayer converged into God’s will.
Now, here is what’s revealing about the church who so earnestly prayed for Peter. When Peter was rescued from the prison by God’s intervention, he went to the house church, meeting at Mary’s house, the mother of Mark. When he showed up, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. But, when she recognized Peter’s voice, she got so excited that she forgot to open the door for him. Peter trying very hard to be discrete about it kept on knocking hoping that the door would be opened quickly for safety.
In the mean time, those who gathered in the house church thought that Rhoda was out of her mind. When she insisted that it really was Peter out there, they dismissed her thinking that she might have seen an angel. It was only when they actually opened the door and seen him face to face, they believed that Peter was out of the prison.
The irony is that they prayed so earnestly for Peter, yet they prayed in uncertainty. They didn’t have the outstanding perfect faith that their prayer was going to be answered without any doubt. No, the realty was as this episode revealed there was plenty of uncertainty.
The life always has a way of bring us to seasons of uncertainty and anguish when we feel completely out of source. We must make chose either to be paralyze by agony, anguish and uncertainty, or choose to fix our eyes on God who can do the God-sized miracles in his will. We must turn our anguish into earnest prayer. We must pray through confusions and uncertainties, knowing that at the end God will come through, he will have the last word.
- When we are driven by God’s happiness and earnestly praying even in uncertainty, we will see that God has the last word.
The story of Herod reveals that God has the last word. Here was a man who dared to touch God’s two of the faithful servants, believing that he could suppress and stop the spread of the gospel. He thought he could oppose God and be okay. When people praised him and attributed to him a divine quality, he gloried in it. God struck him dead with a terrible death of being eaten by warms from within.
Who has the final say? Verse 24 reads, “But the word of God continued to increase and spread.” God has the final say.
Although the current reality may not look this way filled with uncertainties, heartaches, sorrows, the truth is God will have the final say.
Knowing that God will have the final say, knowing that God’s will cannot be thwarted wouldn’t it make sense to learn to pray earnestly so that our prayer life converges into God’s absolute powerful purpose?
[1] EBCNT, 2 Corinthians 2:15,16a.
[2] Louw & Nida, #2363, ajgwniva
[3] TDNT, 140
No comments:
Post a Comment