When You've Got Decisions to Make (Church Lessons, Part 6)

[This was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Acts 1:12-26

When I was in school and we neared the end of an academic year or of a quarter, we reviewed all that we’d learned before we took the final test or heard the final bell. Today is the last Sunday of the Easter Season, 2018. Throughout this season, we’ve looked at the New Testament book of Acts. Acts is the history of the early Church, from Jesus’ ascension somewhere between 28 and 33 AD until sometime around 90 AD. We’ve considered how the early Church followed Jesus, lived life, and shared Jesus with others after Jesus had gone back to heaven. Today, we will review the lessons God has been teaching us throughout Acts. 

But there’s a sense in which all of the lessons we’ve derived from Acts this Easter Season are summed up in the sixth one we cull from today’s appointed first Bible lesson, Acts 1:12-26. It's this: Every decision we make as the Church and as individual disciples is to be rooted in God’s Word and in prayer. 

In other words, our every action, our every word, are to be rooted in a relationship of intimacy with God that we share together as sisters and brothers in Christ.

In John 15, Jesus tells His Church, including us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) 

If we do anything in life apart from the life-giving power that only comes to human beings through Jesus Christ, apart from an intimate relationship with the risen and ascended Jesus, we will never accomplish all that we might otherwise. 

Proverbs 16:25 tells us, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” We need to be connected with the God we know in Jesus in order to make the right decisions in life. 

As the Church and as individual disciples of Jesus, our standard isn’t what the world thinks. 

It isn’t what the standards of this or that profession proscribe. 

The only One Whose say-so matters is Jesus. 

That’s why the apostle Paul said, “I can do all this through him [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

A friend recently asked me about a decision I’d made and why I felt so confident about it. 

Above all, I wanted the person to know that I have no confidence in Mark Daniels. Zero. 

There were two very different reasons for my confidence, I explained. 

First, because I had spent time every day with God in His Word and in prayer. 

Second, because the decision I sensed that God was calling me to make was precisely the opposite of what I had wanted to make before I started praying. I’d preferred the easier route; God pointed me to the harder one. 

What, my friend wondered, had God done to make things clear to me. I told him that it was the same way God has always made things clear to me from the day I came to faith in Jesus. No voice from heaven. No flashing lights. No bolt from heaven. Just peace, clarity, and certainty. 

I liken it to the experience of Elijah who sought a word from God. God didn’t make Himself known to Elijah in a mighty wind that cracked open ancient rock formations. God didn’t reveal Himself or His Word to Elijah in an earthquake. God didn’t disclose Himself or His will to Elijah in a raging fire. Elijah only finally perceived God in “a gentle whisper,” or as another translation puts it, “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). 

Elijah experienced “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). 

And that’s what you and I can experience when we seek intimacy with God, when we root everything we do and say in the Word of God and in prayer in Jesus’ name.

We find the early Church acting on that belief in today’s first lesson, Acts 1:12-26. Let’s set the stage: The eleven remaining apostles have just returned from the Mount of Olives from which they had watched the resurrected Jesus ascend back to heaven. Just before that, Jesus told them to wait for the Holy Spirit’s power before they pursued the mission of the Church, making disciples. 

The apostles are to wait. 

And how do they wait? 

Verse 13: “When they [the apostles] arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” 

The apostles and the others with them spent their time waiting by praying. We don’t know the content of their prayers in Jesus’ name. But we do know that they prayed. They waited on God.

After a period of prayer, Acts tells us, starting at verse 15, Peter felt compelled to speak. As he’d been praying, Peter had also been considering the Word of God. 

Listen: Prayer that isn’t rooted in God’s Word can deteriorate into a self-absorption that leads us away from God. Considering God’s Word as we pray can remind us that our primary concerns, in order, need to be: God first, others second, ourselves last. 

But considering God’s Word without prayer can turn Bible-reading into an intellectual exercise, the acquisition of facts untethered from God. You get bragging rights at the next small group or Bible study meeting.

Peter knew that prayer and consideration of God's Word need to go together. So, as he prayed, he remembered or read two passages from the Psalms, Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8. As he prayed, Peter understood the application of these two verses to the life of the Church. Always, as we read Scripture, we need to be asking God, "How does this apply to me today? What does this passage tell me I need to see or do today?" 

Peter, in prayer, considering God's Word, and considering the life of the infant Church, saw an application in those two passages from the Psalms.
Let me explain: Jesus was the fulfillment of the mission of salvation and new life God had started Israel, with its twelve patriarchs, the great-grandsons of Abraham and Sarah. 

Israel’s entire purpose for being was to bring God’s salvation to the world through the birth of the Messiah, the Christ, God's Anointed King.

When Jesus called apostles, He called twelve of them. That was no accident! Through the apostles' proclamation of new and everlasting life for all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus, a greater Israel, one made up of Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus, was to come into being. 

Judas had been called to be an apostle. But he had betrayed Jesus and defected to Satan, the Evil One. The psalms told Peter that someone who, like the other apostles, had witnessed Jesus’ resurrection had to take Judas’ place as an apostle, a patriarch of God’s enlarged Israel so that the mission of the Church could proceed as God intended.

Now, if Peter and the others were Americans like us, he might have said, “Let’s take a vote for a replacement apostle.” 

Instead, the group came up with the names of two men who had been with Jesus from the day that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan until they saw Him risen from the grave, then asked God to show which of the two--Justus called Barsabbas or Matthias--it should be. 

They cast lots to figure out who God chose. We don’t know exactly what the Bible meant when it spoke of “casting lots”: It could have been tossing dice, drawing straws, or something else. But the point is, when God’s people “cast lots,” they weren’t putting their faith in dice or straws. They were trusting God to show them what to do after they had prayed and considered God’s Word. 

The lot fell to Matthias and, at that moment, having a full complement of twelve apostles, the Church was ready for the coming the Holy Spirit. 

I wonder whether after the lots had been cast if there wasn’t someone in that room who wasn’t sure about Matthias and was tempted to suggest, “How about if we make it two out of three?” 

However tempted any of them may have felt, all accepted that, because they were people rooted in prayer and God’s Word, Matthias was the apostle God had chosen.

The New Testament book of Acts can help us to answer the question: After we have been baptized and can say that we believe in Jesus as our God and Savior, now what? How do we live as the Church? How do we live as Christian disciples? (It's interesting to note that when Luke set out to give us a clue about the answers to these questions from the experience of the first-century Church, he didn't write the Book of Just Hanging Around. He wrote the Book of Acts!)

The lessons the book of Acts has taught us this Easter Season have included: 

• (1) In all ways, we are to seek to take care of the needs of our fellow believers so that together, we can be authentic witnesses for the new life God is establishing in all who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. 
• (2) Share Jesus, knowing what to share about Jesus, sharing what we have personally experienced of Jesus, and looking for opportunities to share Jesus. 
• (3) The only power to overcome the sin, death, and futility of this world is the risen Jesus Christ. The true, eternal Church is made up of those who trustingly live as though they believe that’s true...because it is! 
• (4) Every disciple in Christ’s Church is a witness for Christ. 
• (5) God has no favorites. 
• (6) Every decision we make as the Church and as individual disciples is to be rooted in God’s Word and in prayer.

And honestly, as I've said, if we can remember this last one, God will empower us to do the rest. 

We who make up Christ’s Church need each other. The New Testament describes the Church as Christ’s body. When any part of its body gives up on mutual care, sharing Jesus with others, trusting in Christ’s power over sin and death, being witnesses, accepting that God loves and Jesus died and rose for all people, or regularly praying and considering God’s Word, the body can’t function as Jesus intends for it to function. 

But it must all be rooted in a daily time with God in prayer and consideration of Scripture. It’s in these quiet times that God can 

• assure us of His love for us, 
• listen to our confession and grant us His forgiveness, and 
• empower us to live the life that our Church Lessons show us are meant to be normal for everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord.

Look, I know how busy life can be. I’m right there with you. 

But I also find that the more time I spend in God’s Word and in prayer, the more time God seems to manufacture for me to get the things I need to get done accomplished. 

And I am assured through this regular interaction with the God I meet in Jesus that maybe the things I think I need to get done don’t need doing at all. 

In the end, the Christian life is simple: To stay close to Jesus and to share Jesus with others. Spending intimate time with the God we know in Jesus will help us to live that life.

Martin Luther, whose life was filled with busy-ness, including preaching, teaching, pastoring, leading, raising a family, and welcoming all sorts of people to his home, once said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours [of every day] in prayer.” Never try to face the frenzy of daily living before spending time with the One Who can conquer any storm!

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus tells us, “and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). When we come to Jesus, He will also give us the power to live faithfully for Him. 

Be ready for all that God has called you to do and be in life: Soak up His Word and pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Before We Act

[This was shared with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, during worship on May 17.]

Acts 1:12-26

Everyone knows what it’s like to have to say goodbye to people we care about--friends, family members--even when we’re certain that we will be seeing each other again. In the days and times that follow our goodbyes, we wonder things like: 

• “Will our relationships remain strong?” 
• “Will God help us to remain true to each other?” 
• “Will I forget what makes my friend so special?” 
• “Why can’t we just stay together?”

These questions and ones like them must have been rolling through the minds of the apostles, the twelve disciples Jesus had set aside to lead His Church, as they walked to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. 

They had just come from saying goodbye to the risen Jesus. He had ascended to heaven after telling them that they would be His witnesses and that they were to go back to Jerusalem, the city that had seen Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and wait for the power of the Holy Spirit to come to them to enable them to be His witnesses. 

As the eleven surviving disciples gathered in an upper room, along with Jesus’ mother and other followers, they must have all felt a bit like we do when we pass the empty guest room or the empty house of friends now gone.

But the disciples knew that they couldn’t afford to long indulge such feelings. 

They had a job to do, a mission from Jesus. Just like we do. 

The same mission we have. 

To be witnesses for Christ. 

To make disciples. 

But before they began pursuing that mission...before they went off like half-cocked guns...before they had the first church potluck, church picnic, guest musicians, or any other first, they had to do what Jesus told them to do. 

They had to wait. 

As we begin this final message in our Easter season series on How to Be the Church, that, it seems, is the first and most important instruction we should draw from our first lesson for this morning, Acts 1:12-26: 

Before we do anything as a Church, we need to wait. 

And we need to do what the 120 followers of Jesus did in that Upper Room. Verse 14 says: “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

The disciples seemed to know that if they were going to be effective in their mission, they needed to stop. 

They needed to take the exit ramp off the rat race and intentionally be with God. 

The English Standard Version translation of Isaiah 40:31 renders God’s word on this subject: “...they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

There are a lot of busy people in this congregation. 

And this is a busy congregation. 

Maybe sometimes too busy. 

The authors of the book Simple Church, which we retreated around in February, suggest that most churches are too busy. And much of their busy-ness has nothing to do with Jesus’ commands that we be His witnesses, that we make disciples. 

Maybe before we take on the next project or the next new mission, we need to collectively stop and pray and ask God what He wants us to do. 

Is there anything we’re doing right now that God wants us to stop doing? 

Is there anything we need to do to become more faithful in being witnesses and making disciples?

And how about in our personal lives and in our family lives? 

Do our daily activities align with our Sunday morning confessions? 

Are we just too busy? 

Are there things that need to be taken out of our lives? 

Things we need to add? 

Do we need more time to rest, relax, and chill? 

Do we need to be more intentional about serving God and others?

To find the answers to those questions, we need to wait on the Lord. 

We need to dig into a book of the Bible like John or Romans or Acts and, at a chapter at a time, reformulate what God is saying to us and how what He's saying might apply to our lives, then pray about it. 

Mark 6:31 tells us about a frenzied time in Jesus’ and the disciples’ time together when, “...because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’” 

And Proverbs 3:5 tells us to get over thinking we have to do everything or really, do anything on our own steam: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart [it says] and lean not on your own understanding.”

If we’re ever going to conform to God’s design for our lives and fulfill the mission Christ has given to us, we must learn this lesson. 

We must learn how to go away with Him and His Word, rest in His grace, and be empowered for what He wants us to do. 

We need sabbath days. God built it into us to need them. That's why He commanded them.

And we need mini-sabbaths every day. 

Otherwise, we will chase after every new thing that pops into our heads, wear ourselves out, and render ourselves less than useful to God and the people He has brought into our lives: our families, our friends, our unchurched acquaintances.

You should know that I am preaching to myself as much as I am to you this morning. This isn’t my standard operating procedure, but in the past two weeks, I haven’t taken an entire day off. 

My time with God has been largely catch-as-catch-can. 

And like many of you here this morning, I am exhausted. 

I have been a poor Christian and a poor example to this congregation, for which I repent. 

I ask God to help me do better today and in the week to come. 

And I think that all of us should hold each other accountable not only for what we do to honor God in our daily lives, but also for the time we spend with Him quietly, reading His Word, waiting on the sense of His direction and empowerment for our days. 

As we develop a disciple-making culture at Living Water with the help of Navigators and as we implement Simple Church, waiting and studying God’s Word and praying and doing only that which is necessary for our mission, will be central to our life as a congregation.

After the disciples spent their time in prayer, Peter felt moved by God to stand up and suggest the next thing they needed to do. They prayed and discerned who God wanted to take Judas’ place as an apostle. Later still, God sent His Holy Spirit and because the Church had prayed, they were ready for action. 

In the Church, every action should be preceded by sustained and submissive prayer. 

Jesus tells us in John 15:5, ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

When the Church prays before it acts, when individual Christians pray before they act, amazing things happen. 

Last month, you know, we welcomed Pastor Jean Marie from Haiti. After the Q-and-A we had with this amazing man, who, with his wife, pastors a congregation, oversees a number of other churches, and has a hand in the work of an orphanage, I spoke with Jeff Dahl, a board member of SMI Haiti (Sundouloi Mininstries, sundouloi being a Greek compound word that means, servants with). SMI is the stateside agency that works with Pastor Jean Marie and with Living Water and other congregations in Haiti. 

Jeff told me about Jean Marie’s prayer life. “With all due respect, Pastor,” he said, “I doubt that you spend nearly the time in prayer that he does. His daughter has told me about finding him praying for hours at a time, often with tears, seeking God’s direction. And sometimes, when there’s a big issue, he’ll call a prayer meeting and the church will pray all night long.” 

Can you imagine that? 

Often, folks, it takes having nothing in this world for us to realize that the only thing we can have that matters is a solid, uninterrupted relationship with the King of the universe, the God Who can only be approached through Jesus Christ. 

I can’t help but conclude that what God is accomplishing through Pastor Jean Marie and his becoming what Jeff Dahl calls “the go to guy” in his region of Haiti, directly correlates with the time He spends studying God’s Word and praying for God’s help.

May we who seek to be faithful to Christ be unencumbered by our things and our agendas, and instead, learn to bend to the will of God. 

May we take the time to learn the wisdom of the apostles and the other disciples. 

May we take time to delve into God’s amazing Word and time in prayer. 

May we be like Martin Luther, who once told a friend, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours [each day] in prayer.”

Living Water is a great church. 

I’m stunned by this congregation’s commitment to Jesus, to the Bible as God’s Word, to the mission of the Church, to loving one another. 

But we will never be the greater Church that God intends for us to be, no matter how much we may grow numerically, until we learn to consistently separate the urgent from the critical, and then only do the critical. 

We will never be what God intends us to be until we take the time to ask God, “Lord, what do You want us to do?” 

We will never begin to truly fulfill our mission until we take the time to stop and let God power up our living.

We can be so much more and we can do such more if we will just do less out of our own thinking and power and let the God we know in Christ take the lead.

God’s Word tells us that to be the Church, to be a Christian, we must, like the first Christians, strive to put away everything from our lives that might prevent us from completely depending on Christ. 

We need to stop, wait on the Lord, and pray. 

We need to realize that to be the people God has redeemed us to be in Christ, Jesus Christ is all we need. 

To live with complete dependence on Christ is how we are to live until that day when the risen Lord to Whom the first disciples said, “Goodbye,” greets us in eternity with the "Hello" that never ends. 

This is how we are to be the Church. Amen