Last Sunday's sermon at St Andrew's was on Acts 4:1-21, one of my favourite passages in the Bible. Most of the talk was based on v12 - 'Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,' a verse which reminds us that the way God has provided for us to get to heaven is the name of his Son, knowing Jesus and trusting only in him. And there's 'no other name', no other way.
That's not a very popular message these days; it wasn't a popular message when Peter and John told the religious leaders in Acts 4 either. They arrested these two Christians, they threatened them, they 'commanded them not to speak or teach at all to anyone in this name.' But Peter and John won't stop telling people about Jesus; v20 - 'We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'
That's the challenge, isn't it? If we believe v12 in our hearts, that there's no way to heaven except through trusting in Jesus, then we must also say v20 with our lips - 'We cannot help speaking about what we know to be true about Jesus.' When people get cross because we tell them Jesus is the only way, when people ask us firmly to shut up about Jesus, they just don't want to listen, the challenge is to respond as Peter and John did; 'I must keep telling people. I can't help speaking about it.'
It's easy to think 'I can't do that. It's too hard. I don't know many answers. Talking about Jesus to people is best left up to professionals like Peter and John back then, and to vicars and people like that today.' Well, take a look at v13 - the religious leaders 'realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus'.
Peter and John didn't wear dog collars; they hadn't been to university; they were ordinary, untrained guys. And yet here they stood up in front of the most intelligent, intimidating men in the country and said 'Jesus is the only way you can be saved. You need to trust in him.' They knew they were untrained; they knew most people would reject their message; but they knew v12 was true and so they spoke out anyway. They couldn't help it.
What an encouragement for us! If Peter and John can do it, so can we. Acts 4 leaves us no opportunity to say 'I can't do it. I don't know enough/can't speak well enough/am not a vicar..' Acts 4 says you can do it - you can tell someone about Jesus today; and if you remember v12, that Jesus is the only way the people we know can be saved, then you will tell someone about Jesus, you too won't be able to help speaking the truth about Jesus.
When it comes to talking about Jesus, there's no such word as 'can't'.
Thursday 5 July 2007
Verse of the week
'We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts' 1 Thessalonians 2:4
It's very rare to meet someone who doesn't often dress/speak/act in order to win praise or friendship from others. Most of us worry what others think of us; most of us long to be popular. Even people who deliberately kick out against the prevailing fashion are still defining themselves in terms of what men think and expect. And actually as we seek to gain praise from others, we become slaves to that search.
That's why the Christian life is so liberating. The Christian no longer needs to think 'What will they think of me?' or 'How can I become, or stay, popular?' Because the Christian, lik Paul in this verse, is no longer desperately striving to please men; no, the Christian is striving to please God, the God who tests our hearts, who is pleased by inner rather than outer beauty, by motivation more than fashion, by our hearts more than our clothes. How wonderful to be freed from finding our assurance and confidence in what society says, and to be able to know that we can please not just our schoolfriends or our work colleagues or our footballing friends but the Creator God himself!
And that's also why the Christian life is so challenging. Paul writes this verse shortly after being kicked out of Thessaloniki because he refused to say what pleased people; instead he said the message of the gospel, and spoke of Jesus Christ and his death in our place. His words displeased people so much they rioted; the few Christians in the city were now being persecuted.
It often seems so much easier to please people rather than God; to keep quiet rather than speaking out, to do what the crowd wants rather than what you know God wants. Paul didn't care what the crowd wanted him to do, he cared only for what God wanted him to do. The challenge for us as Christians is to remind ourselves every day that as God's people we need be and should be no longer trying to please men, but to please God, the God who knows not just what we choose to show to others, but what is in our hearts.
It's very rare to meet someone who doesn't often dress/speak/act in order to win praise or friendship from others. Most of us worry what others think of us; most of us long to be popular. Even people who deliberately kick out against the prevailing fashion are still defining themselves in terms of what men think and expect. And actually as we seek to gain praise from others, we become slaves to that search.
That's why the Christian life is so liberating. The Christian no longer needs to think 'What will they think of me?' or 'How can I become, or stay, popular?' Because the Christian, lik Paul in this verse, is no longer desperately striving to please men; no, the Christian is striving to please God, the God who tests our hearts, who is pleased by inner rather than outer beauty, by motivation more than fashion, by our hearts more than our clothes. How wonderful to be freed from finding our assurance and confidence in what society says, and to be able to know that we can please not just our schoolfriends or our work colleagues or our footballing friends but the Creator God himself!
And that's also why the Christian life is so challenging. Paul writes this verse shortly after being kicked out of Thessaloniki because he refused to say what pleased people; instead he said the message of the gospel, and spoke of Jesus Christ and his death in our place. His words displeased people so much they rioted; the few Christians in the city were now being persecuted.
It often seems so much easier to please people rather than God; to keep quiet rather than speaking out, to do what the crowd wants rather than what you know God wants. Paul didn't care what the crowd wanted him to do, he cared only for what God wanted him to do. The challenge for us as Christians is to remind ourselves every day that as God's people we need be and should be no longer trying to please men, but to please God, the God who knows not just what we choose to show to others, but what is in our hearts.
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