SERMON 499
EASTER 5, MAY 13, 14, 2006
ACTS
MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS TO ALL GENERATIONS!
Beloved in the Lord, grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and from the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.
Our theme for the meditation
this week comes from the Psalm for the day, Psalm 22. The one speaking in the
Psalm is the suffering servant. And he tells us that his descendants, referring
to us who know the Lord Jesus, shall serve him and live forever. We shall in
his words come and continue to make known to every generation the saving deeds
of our God. Our theme then is MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS TO ALL GENERATIONS.
This is also Mother’s Day so
it is appropriate to begin our meditation with a story about a Mother’s love.
John Keith came of age during
the late 1930’s He was younger than most of the boys in his class and still
wore knickers and knee socks. The older boys wore pants.
For graduation, all boys were
expected to wear pants. And since Keith would receive a medal during the
ceremony, he knew that he would need to adhere to the dress code. But the
Depression still had a grip on the economy and Keith was aware that money for
pants would be an issue.
A week before graduation,
Keith finally told his mother he could participate in the ceremony only if he
wore pants. When his mother told him there was no money for such a purchase,
Keith had a tantrum and threatened to run away. His mother remained calm; she
told Keith she’d figure something out.
The next day she took Keith
shopping. They made a stop at a storefront that looked like a bank. Keith’s
mother asked him to wait outside as she went in. She emerged several minutes
later and took Keith to a clothing store where he was fitted for a pair of
woolen trousers.
His mother pulled four crisp
one-dollar bills from an envelope in her purse to purchase the pants and
received 50 cents in change. On the trolley ride home, Keith noticed that his
mother was no longer wearing her wedding ring.
We may never know all the
sacrifices our parents made for us. But it is certainly humbling when you
discover the endless depths of their love.
In our lesson from the first
letter of John we are told of the depths of the love of our Father in heaven
for us. He tells us quite plainly, “God’s love was revealed among us in this
way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In
this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to
be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” It was more than a wedding ring; it was
his life in the person of his Son, that was given away.
And we are called upon to
love one another just as he has loved us. And that is one of the ways, in the
words of our theme, of MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS OF GOD TO ALL
GENERATIONS! Love, when it is given
without price and without qualification is the most powerful testimony that can
ever be given about God and the saving deeds of God. And those who love as God
has loved us speak ever so eloquently about the love of God in Christ.
The very nature of God, we
are told, is love, and those who abide in love are also those who abide in God.
Abiding in love is abiding in love. It was said of Christians in the early
church by the people of the world, “See how they love one another.” And it was
that very love that attracted the women and men of the world to put on Christ,
and to walk in the way of the cross and Christ. It was a powerful testimony to
be sure.
But in our lesson we are also
faced with some startling realities. John gives us a measuring stick to test
the reality of the love we have been given in Christ Jesus by our God. John
puts it plainly. If we hate our brother and sister and try and tell the world
that we love God, we are liars; pure and simple liars. If we prattle about and
point our fingers in false testimony about our brothers and sisters, without
trying to understand and love them to the end, we are liars if we say that we
love God. If our brothers and sisters in the faith have offended us and we have
started to try and undermine them without speaking to them directly, and
following the pattern of settling disputes that our Lord left us in the Gospel
of Matthew, we are liars, pure and simple and the love of God does not reside
in us. How we deal with our brothers and sisters very clearly defines what we
think of God.
The devil will do his or her
very best to tear down our witness to the world about the God we confess and
love by giving us permission to hate our brothers and sisters and carry that
bitterness and anger and resentment in our hearts. God gives us no such
permission. He and she who abide in God abide in love, and in love and truth
only.
MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS
OF GOD TO ALL GENERATIONS! Our lessons tell us that we make known the deeds of
our God, generation after generation, by not only loving as God has loved us,
but also by speaking to one another the word of truth of Christ; sometimes not
an easy task.
We have in the lesson from
Acts this remarkable story about Phillip. There are several Phillips in the New
Testament, one being one of the twelve disciples. The Phillip of our story was
not Phillip the disciple. Rather this Phillip was one of the seven deacons
chosen by the early church to take over some of the administrative tasks in the
community to allow the disciples to spend their time teaching and preaching.
One of the first tasks of these deacons, Phillip included, was to help in the
distribution of food to widows and to those in need, in
But as we see in our lesson,
it was not only disciples who were called upon to speak the Word about Christ
Jesus. This deacon, Phillip, was sent on a most remarkable journey to bear
witness to and speak the Gospel to the minister of finance from
God wanted the word about
Christ to be told to the highest levels of government in
Phillip was well versed in
scripture and so when the Ethiopian asked him about what the passage that he
was reading from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah meant, Phillip was ready
to tell him about how it referred to Christ and his suffering and death and
resurrection. Phillip had the privilege of baptizing the man on the spot.
Then something rather
dramatic happened. Phillip was actually caught up and carried away by the
Spirit of the Lord and suddenly found himself in Azotus, a town several miles
away. One of our guest speakers at our men’s breakfast told us the story of
crossing the street during his college days, after a modest drinking bout. As
he stepped on the road, he saw a car barreling down upon him at fair speed. He
told us that some how he had been lifted up over the vehicle and set down on
the other side, completely unharmed.
Some of us have had
experiences where we were suddenly removed from threatening danger by one means
or another, all quite miraculous. Phillip was obviously led by the Spirit in a
dramatic and miraculous fashion. But Phillip, being the earnest and devout soul
that he was, remained simply faithful to his calling. He was sent to preach the
good news and so he did, until he came to Ceasarea. He settled in that region
and we hear stories of him and his daughters later on in the book of Acts,
still being led by the same Spirit.
Now we may not have seen
angels. We may never have been lifted up physically by the Spirit and found our
self in another region. We may not have had the privilege of baptizing a new
believer on the spot. But we are nevertheless all led by that very same Spirit.
It is the Spirit that has brought us to faith. It is the Spirit who leads us in
paths of righteousness. It is the same Spirit who gives us the gifts that we
have for service in the kingdom.
And it is this same Spirit
who will provide opportunities for us to speak the word of love and forgiveness
to others. And there is not one of here who has not been led by this same
Spirit to go and speak to someone.
We have all had and we will
continue to have wonderful opportunities for MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS OF
GOD TO ALL GENERATIONS! We will have to
wait until the end to speak to the generations of Adam and Noah and Abraham.
But we have already had the privilege of speaking to generations already past,
and God willing, to generations yet unborn, or just born. Indeed, the same
Spirit is actually calling you now to speak, in love, to some one here in this
place, and some outside this fellowship who you may or may not yet know. Let us
always be prepared to listen and follow the bidding of that same Spirit. He
does call you. Listen to the Spirit and go where he leads you, wherever that
road may lead.
We are told in our Gospel
lesson by Jesus himself that he is the true vine and that we are to abide in
him. As we continue to abide in him we will bear fruit. You know the fruits of
the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness,
Gentleness, and Self Control. As we abide in Christ and in his word, we will be
led by the Spirit in deeds of love and in words of grace and power MAKING KNOWN
THE SAVING DEEDS OF GOD TO ALL GENERATIONS!
You never know what journey
lies ahead, where the voice of the Spirit will lead, to whom we may called to
speak the word, who the person is whom we are called to love in a total self
giving manner. We never know what God has in mind until God comes in the Spirit
or with an angel and sends us on our way. We only know that we must be prepared
to love, to speak and to be lifted up in one way or another. All that we know
is that we are called to be MAKING KNOWN THE SAVING DEEDS OF GOD TO ALL
GENERATIONS! AMEN!