The Acts of the Apostles 56

Subtitle: Pressing on with Jesus

Acts 14:1-20.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 24, 2023.

It is generally a given in any great work that hasn't been done before that there will be difficulties, obstacles, and resistance.  Learning to press on is an important skill (we could say), but it should never be separated from the Lord Jesus.

The story of the Church is just as much about the price that had to be paid by believers to spread the Gospel, as it is about the miracles and powerful moves of God.  Both were working together.  This interesting mix is demonstrated in the book of Acts.  God is moving, and yet, men like Peter, James, John, Stephen, Paul, Barnabas, and many others, pay a price in difficulties in order to spread the Gospel.

Most people would say to a man like Paul, "What are you doing here in the middle of Asia Minor?"  Of course, when we face difficulties and obstacles, we might ask this of ourselves.  What am I doing here?

Pressing on always has to be about Jesus.  We first do this with and for Jesus.  And then second, anything that is done is only done by His strength, His sustenance, and His power.  If Jesus doesn't go with us, then how will they know that God's favor rests on us? 

So, we want to be pressing on in the thing that Jesus is doing.  May God strengthen us and give us courage in this great mission that we are doing with Him!

Let's look at our passage.

They press on to Iconium (v. 1-7)

Though Paul and Barnabas ran into resistance, they continue on to another town.  We cannot let ourselves obsess on resistance.  If you are doing something with God, there is always going to be some resistance.

Even people who are working for the devil run into resistance in life.  Of course, I don't advise that. Yet, note that sinners and saints alike have to deal with resistance.  We can think that everything should miraculously go without a hitch if God is really with us, or at least, that it would be much easier.  However, if you have read your Bible for more than 5 minutes, then you know that this is not the case.

The problem is not that Christians don't know this, but that our "feeler" doesn't always check-in with the brain first.  Thus, we need to take possession of our inner life and not let our feelings push us in the wrong direction.

What matters in the end is that the work of Jesus is being done and that he is pleased.  Yes, they ran into resistance in Pisidian Antioch.  However, there was a group of believers in that town now!  The resistance moves them to a town called Iconium that is about 100 miles east of Pisidian Antioch.

In Iconium, a "great multitude" of Jews and Greeks believe.  Luke doesn't hand out this phrase generously.  "Great multitude is only used in one other place in the book of Acts.  Chapter 17 describes such a multitude in the Greek city of Thessalonica.  Now we should be careful of thinking that God is not moving if only a few people are saved.

They end up staying a long time in this city, preaching boldly, and discipling the new believers.  It also mentions that "signs and wonders" were being done by Paul and Barnabas.  Luke doesn't give us a particular example here like he does elsewhere. 

Yet, notice that it is Lord who "grants" signs and wonders as a witness to the word that is being preached.  When we are dealing with miracles, there are different issues involved.  It does involve the person who is speaking and being used of God.  But, there is also the place where you are and what God is doing there.  Miracles are ultimately an aid to faith, a help, a grace of God that He grants to us from time to time for His reasons. 

Thus, it shouldn't shock us that some places that have seen many miracles in the past are often not seeing those signs any more today.  People there might wonder where God is.  Or, they may think that "it doesn't work any more."  Some are inclined to think that it wasn't even real.  They are just stories by people who are easily tricked by charlatans.

God is faithful to move in powerful ways, but then He waits to see what we are going to do with that grace.  We need to walk those things out in faithful service to Jesus, whether he continues to grant miracles, or allows us to be tested in this area.

In the midst of signs and wonders, unbelieving Jews stir up the Gentiles of the city against Paul and Barnabas.  This creates a division within the city.  Verse 4 states that the division is between the Jews and the apostles, but in the context, Luke has emphasized belief.  This really is a division between unbelieving Jews and believing Jews.  This has always been the case from Cain and Abel on down to the modern era.  Some believe and many do not. 

Here, it is a hostile few who stir up and motivate the great middle, those who are unsure.  Be careful who you are stirred up by.  When God moves, it can divide not only people within a city, but it can also divide a denomination, a church.  You can find yourself in that strange place where sinners are believing you, and the "believers" are resisting and kicking you out of their church.

We are then told that a plot developed to stone Paul and Barnabas.  This causes them to flee to another city.  We are not told how, but God caused the plot to come to their attention.

It may seem strange that they "flee."  However, they are merely following the instructions of Jesus.  In Matthew 10:16, 23, Jesus told his disciples that he was sending them out among wolves.  They would need to be "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."  He then told them that if they are persecuted in one city, then they should flee to another.

We can misinterpret what is meant when Jesus says that "the gates of hell will not prevail against [his Church].  This doesn't mean that we as individuals are untouchable or invincible.  As an individual, or even as a whole, God may allow His people to be persecuted, and even martyred.  Our blood will only become the fertilizer to the growth of faith in the hearts of those who see it.

Yes, they flee to another city, but they are also pressing on in the mission of sharing the gospel with Jews and Gentiles.

They press on to Lystra (v. 8-20)

There is a lot in this passage, but it all involves pressing on with Jesus, and in the face of tough circumstances.  It involves keeping our eyes upon Jesus, but also, keeping focused on what part we want to do in that great work that Jesus is doing.

There is an aspect to this in which God has spoken some personal things to Paul.  But, there is also a sense in which we should want to do great things for God.  He laid his life down for me.  The least I can do is let go of my life for him and only live for his purpose.

The call of God is always challenging.  Some of that challenge we know about up front and some we do not know.  Yet, we can say "yes" to the Lord.  Mary was only a young teenager when she said to the angel, "Let it be unto me as you have said."  She is really saying this to God.

We can be guilty of over romanticizing the call of God.  It was great news that Mary would give birth to the Messiah.  Yet, the bad news is that it would be a miraculous birth, which few if any would believe.  Even Joseph thought that she had been ungodly, immoral, and was ready to put her away.  This is a tough ask, and yet Mary embraces it.

It is always easier said than done when the Lord calls us to something.  Later, she would be told by Simeon that a sword would pierce her own heart as the thoughts of many were revealed.  Further down the road, she would understand this meaning better as she watched her son being tortured to death in crucifixion.

There are some things that are a part of the call of God that He doesn't tell us about, as a grace to us.  Instead, He walks us up to the moment and prepares us spiritually for it.  He then enables us with His Holy Spirit to go through things that would seem to be unthinkable and more than we can handle.  There will be tears, but there will be the bonding that happens from joining Christ in his sufferings.

So, Paul and Barnabas press on to Lystra.  If there was a synagogue, they would have preached there, but Luke jumps right to a lame man who is in the crowd listening to Paul preach.  This was a man who had never walked from birth.  We are told that Paul saw that he had faith to be healed.  Most likely he is believing in the message about Jesus, though it is possible that Paul was also preaching about the healings that Jesus had done.  Yet, this is this lame man's day!  The Lord is going to heal him.

When Luke describes Paul seeing that the man has faith to be healed, we should be careful of seeing this as a theological statement, or the sum total of the theology of divine healing.  Paul could have gone over and whispered into his ear.  However, Paul publicly, loudly, (even rudely?), tells the man to stand up straight on his feet.  So we have two people here who have faith: Paul who is being used to administer the healing, and the man who is receiving it.

 At this point, it is probably not remarkable that Paul has faith.  However, this man is a different story.  Like I said earlier, he didn't get up that morning and see that being healed of his condition was on the schedule for the day.  It was just another day when he woke up. 

How many times do we wake up thinking that it is just another day, ho hum, until it isn't?  God can step in and change things in a moment.  We have need of endurance.  We should not become weary in the work of God, or at least, we should put our weariness on the altar before God in prayer and ask for strength.  We just don't know what a day may hold, and being faithful between such days is important.  It is the lion's-share of what we do in Christ, being faithful to what we know.

We have this man's faith and Paul's faith meeting up with the "granting" (verse 3) of God.  We could boil this down to the idea that God will do this every time if He really loves us.  However, too many saints, and even Paul himself, had things that were not healed, even when God was moving.  Paul prayed three times for God to heal him, but God said "no."  "My grace is sufficient for you."

We don't always know why God allows certain things like this.  It is part of a fallen world in the middle of being redeemed.  Yet, the grace of God is still with us!

At Paul's command, the man quickly stands up and realizes that he is able to walk.  Everyone there would hear the command and then see a man they absolutely know cannot walk get up and walk.  This is one of those jaw-dropping moments.

In their shock, the people think that Paul and Barnabas are gods.  They begin excitedly calling them gods, but in their local language, which it seems Paul and Barnabas do not understand.  To them a great hubbub breaks out, which would be normal under the circumstances.  Meanwhile, this people think that Zeus and Hermes are standing in front of them.

This is not really a shocker.  They are idolaters and have worshipped these gods and have stories of them coming down and looking like men, but being far more powerful.  The gods are also very immoral, but we will let that go by for today.  They are being careful to offer a sacrifice because you do not want the gods to be angry with you.

Once Paul and Barnabas figure out that the people intend to sacrifice to them, they begin talking the people out of such a blasphemous act.  When Paul tells them that God wants them to turn from these "useless things," he is referring to the idols and the gods they represent.  In Hebrew the term for idol basically means worthless, useless. 

These people have been steeped in ignorance and don't know any better.  The apostles assure them that they are only men, just like them.  The Living God wants them to turn away from these idols and towards Him.  This is the God who created the heavens and the earth.  God had turned away from the nations after the tower of Babel.  From then until the moment that day, God had overlooked the sinfulness and wickedness of these nations.  Yet, He was also working to bring the Gospel to them.  There time serving useless idols would be preparatory to them receiving the word of the Gospel.

Let me just say, it is incumbent upon any Christian minister to stop people from treating you like a god.  This is a real temptation.  When you are far from home, and the people are treating you such, you are tempted by your flesh to take advantage of it.

It is not just a temptation for missionaries.  It is a temptation when your ministry leads people to salvation.  They can have a tendency to look up to ministers and leaders as if they are something great.  We see this when large ministries have a huge moral failure, whether sexual, financial, or something else.  There are groups of people who will never believe the obvious truth, and others who are spiritually devastated to the point of walking away from Christ.  The problem is that they had put this person on a pedestal.  It may be good to honor and respect a person who brings you to the Lord and ministers to you.  However, only Jesus should sit on the throne of our heart.  He alone never fails!

Paul and Barnabas are barely able to restrain the crowd from sacrificing to them.

It is not clear when the Jews from Antioch and Iconium show up.  It was probably at least several days.  Yet, it ends up with the apostle Paul being stoned by the people of the city, dragged out of town, and left for dead. 

There are many questions about this we could ask.  Why would God help Paul escape a stoning in one town, only to turn around and let him be stoned in another?  Did Paul actually die, and God brought him back to life?  Or, did God protect him just enough for him to become unconscious, but not die?  Ultimately, it doesn't matter how God does what He does.

Most of us would call this a bad day.  Yet, let me point out some of the things that the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches that he had started.

Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

2 Corinthians 5-7, "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. ⁷ And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation."

Philippians 3:10, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,..."

Colossians 1:24, "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, ..."

2 Timothy 1:8, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,..."

Lastly, Hebrew 2:10, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. "

If Jesus went through suffering to be perfected, will I do anything less?  Will we?

There is a glory that we share with Christ even in the midst of suffering.  However, this time of bonding will burst forth in an even more glorious unveiling when Christ comes back to the earth with his resurrected saints.  May God help us to be faithful to glorify him, and to do the work that he has for us, no matter what we face!

Pressing On audio

Such Love—Part V

Subtitle: Let's Be A People of Prayer

Ephesians 6:10-18.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, April 30, 2023.

God has created humanity with the ability to communicate with Him, and it is one of His greatest gifts to us.  Of course, without salvation, we do not experience the fullness of these gifts that He gives.  However, the gift of communicating with God is called prayer, and it is as simple as talking with God.

Think on this.  No matter how subjugated, tortured, and surrounded by enemies you may be, they cannot keep you from talking with God in your heart and your mind.  They can only make your flesh want to stop. 

Yes, man in his ego relishes "breaking" such people, whether by supplanting their faith in God, or by breaking their mind.  However, those who study such things have found that there are people who appear to be essentially unbreakable.  What makes them so?  Those who are unbreakable have something that is so worth living for that nothing, no propaganda, no amount of suffering, can cause them to deny its continued worth to them.  They would rather die than sacrifice its value to them.

Do I really know God and have a relationship with Him that is of such value to me?  Not that I am projecting these things, but, I don't want to wait until I'm being tortured to try and develop a relationship with God and work on my mental strength.

How can Christians all around the world be persecuted for God, die for God, even harder, live for God after their loved ones have been slaughtered for God, without giving up their faith in God?  Prayer is that foundation to our relationship with God.

We can talk about prayer as a duty, but each one of us needs to come to the place where prayer is on the level of breathing.  It becomes a necessary thing to my spiritual life.  In truth, prayer is spiritually breathing in the life of God.  It is a great ability, right, duty, and joy all wrapped up in this one thing.  If we stop at duty, then we miss out on the great joy of becoming close to God and knowing that He is with us.

Let's look at our passage.

We are to be strong in the Lord (v. 10-17)

Verse 10 has a strange command.  It is not just telling us to be strong, but rather to be strong "in the Lord."  It begs the question, "What does that look like?"  On top of this, the verbal phrase "be strong" is speaking of something that is done to us.  It is essentially commanding us, "be made strong, be empowered, in the Lord."  How can I be commanded to be made strong?

It makes perfect strength if you are thinking spiritually.  The Lord wants, is endeavoring every day, to make you strong in Him, but there are things that you need to do in order to cooperate with His strengthening work in you.  This is a command to let the Lord's mighty power be at work in, through, and around you.  This is in contrast to the things that we tend to rely upon.

Thus, verse 11 shows us the first thing we must do in order to have the Lord's strength at work in us.  We need to put on His spiritual armor, all of it.  These are listed in verses 14-17.

It may be good to point out that this contrasts with the story of the emperor's clothes (or lack thereof).  In that story, the emperor has no clothes, the people know this, but they pretend like he does have clothes on.  They refuse to speak the truth because of fear of sticking out and what may happen to them.  However, the Christian may appear to the world to be easy prey, weak, and unprotected.  What they cannot see, because they do not have eyes to see, is that the believer can be armored up more than any warrior throughout history.  This armor is invisible in some respects, but in other respects these things can be seen.  We just don't recognize them as spiritual armor, spiritual protection.

Because we are focusing on prayer this morning, I am going to go through the list of armor quickly.  Yet, make sure that you are putting these things on in your life just as a soldier wouldn't go into battle without their battle attire and battle gear.  Paul spent a lot of time with soldiers around him during house arrests.  He is telling us that we need these things.

We need to put on the Belt of Truth.  Without a belt, a warrior could literally be caught with his pants down (lower protective gear).  It also served to hold weapons and items of utility.  For the believer, walking in truth, and with Jesus the Truth, is a critical protection.

We need to put on the Breastplate of Righteousness.  This is, at its foundation the righteousness of Christ, and yet also living out that righteousness in our lives.  It becomes a protection for our heart and any mortal blow that would seek to strike it.

We need to put on the Shoes of the Readiness of the Gospel of Peace.  The shoes of the Roman soldiers had nails sticking out the bottom to help them be sure-footed across any terrain.  The believer who embraces the Gospel is both readied by that Gospel for battle, but also he is readied to share that Gospel of Peace.

We need to put on the Shield of faith.  This shield is so amazing that it even extinguishes the fiery darts that the devil shoots our way.  I think of David and Goliath in this.  David was unable to wear Saul's heavy armor of the flesh.  It didn't fit him, but God's armor always fits.  To Goliath, David appeared to have no armor, and no shield, but faith in God was his shield.  We are not talking about a mind over matter mentality in which we can actually stop real bullets with our powerful faith.  It is actually walking forward putting our faith in God and letting Him do the protection.

We need to put on the Helmet of Salvation.  Again, our head is a vital area.  The enemy continually seeks to get into your mind and turn your heart against God in bitterness, anger, or apathy.

Lastly, we need the Sword of the Spirit.  We are told that this is the Word of God.  We see Jesus using this effectively when he was in the wilderness and the devil came to tempt him.  He used the Word of God to take his stand against the scheme of the devil, and to send him away in retreat.

Just as David felt uncomfortable in Saul's armor, our flesh can feel uncomfortable in God's armor.  It will perfectly fit, and perfectly protect, but your flesh will continually seek to protect itself with the things of the world.

God's spiritual armor will protect you from your spiritual enemy.  We are enabled to stand against his wiles and schemes when we trust in God.  Some of these schemes are: temptations, fears, worldly "wisdom," even demonic "wisdom," false religion, materialism, and more.  We need to take our stand in the power of God against what the spiritual foes are trying to do in our own soul, in our family, friends, church, even in our enemies.  We are not fighting them.  We are armored up to fight the spiritual enemy that manipulates them in to playing the part of an enemy against us.

This may not be the strength that you want, and it may not be the enemy that you want to fight.  However, it is exactly the strength we need to fight the enemy that we need to defeat.  Israel wanted a military conqueror to destroy Rome.  Guess what, we essentially want the same thing.  We want God to come down and fix all the things around us, but a follower of Jesus knows that the real battle is within their own heart and mind.  The devil has taken hold of many hearts and minds through the schemes I mentioned above.  He manipulates this world for his own agenda, and too many of us love to have it so.

Verse 12 reminds us that our real battle is in this spiritual realm.  He uses various terms to refer to a hierarchy among the dark spiritual powers: principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness.  "Heavenly places" here simply means in the spirit realm.  The key is not to discover the exact terminology used in the spirit realm among these beings, or even to discover their name.  Our power over them does not lie in such detailed knowledge.  It lies in our relationship with Jesus and our knowledge that they are our true enemy.

Though Paul continues his thought uninterrupted, there is a definite change at verse 18.

We need to be praying and watchful  (v. 18)

After such a powerful picture of a Christian who is spiritually armored up with sword in hand, we would not expect Paul's instruction in verse 18, that is unless we are thinking spiritually.  Paul emphasizes that those who are armored up in Christ need to be a praying people, and a watchful people.

Prayer is connected to the visual of watching.  Jesus spoke of this when he asked his disciples to "watch with" him on the night of his arrest.  If you pay attention to this event in Matthew 26, you will see that Jesus begins to pray (v. 38).  He then comes back to find that they have fallen asleep.  Jesus wasn't angry because they weren't watching his back.  He wanted them to pray just as he was doing.  It is in v. 41 of that passage that Jesus directly ties our watchfulness in prayer with our ability to avoid falling into temptation.  The sleepiness, lack of prayer, of the disciples the night before would be their weakness against temptation the next day.  But, this is how we are in our flesh.  We want to be great in God, but do not watch in prayer like we should.  Jesus told them, "Watch and pray, lest you enter temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  If they had spent that night strengthening their spirit and weakening their flesh through prayer, it may have been a different story the next day.

Peter's bragging about his great faithfulness to Jesus could not be backed up because his flesh was too strong.  He had not fought the battle against his own flesh in prayer.  Why is Jesus praying?  I get it.  Jesus is God, and so we tell ourselves that he doesn't really need to pray.  Jesus knows that he will be dead by the end of the next day,  What does he do?  He talks with his Father in heaven, and so much more should we.  He has shown us the way.  Will we walk in it?

Up to this point in Ephesians 6, Paul has been describing what he means by the armor of God.  Verse 18 stops this description and moves to the activity we should do.  We can infer some activity in some of the armor, but here we are told to give ourselves to prayer.  Could it be that the act of putting on the armor is part of what gives us the strength to battle in prayer?  I believe so.

Verse 18 employs the word "all," or "always," four times.  This is not an overemphasis.  Rather, Paul is stressing just how important prayer is in the life of a believer.  The first description of the activity of a spiritual Christian warrior is that they are praying always.

Whatever the excuses that may arise in my heart and mind, Christ is calling me to always be praying.  We are to pray without ceasing.  Of course, the mind of flesh scoffs at the idea that we should always be praying.  The point is not that we never do anything else, but that there is always an open channel of communication between the Lord and me.  Does God get a busy signal when He comes calling for me?  Do I answer God's texts and social media messages?  I am not trying to make communication with God trite, but rather, help us to see that we often have our "coms" down and then scramble in difficult times to get God to talk with us.  We are to be a praying people always.

Next, he mentions that we need to pray with all prayer.  In other words, with all different kinds of prayer.  A good acronym for memorizing the different kinds of prayer is ACTS.  It stands for prayers of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and lastly Supplication.  Supplication is a prayer of petition.  It is helpful to think of this in to forms: petitions for others (Intercession) and petitions for ourselves.  It is probably best to make petitions for ourselves last because we tend to let the prayers we do pray become all about what we need/want. 

He then describes that we should pray with all perseverance, or endurance.  Don't give up on prayer, don't become discouraged and quit.  People can say that they have prayed for years and it didn't work.  They become discouraged and quit.  However, be careful with that phrase, "it didn't work."  We are terrible at defining what it means when prayer works.  In fact, the greatest work of prayer is what is does to you, not for you.  It shapes you into a person who is more like Christ than you were before  you persevered in prayer.

Atheists will sometimes scoff that God must have a big ego because He wants everyone praising and worshipping him.  However, we do not pray prayers of adoration and thanksgiving because God has a big ego.  We worship God because we have an ego that is too big.  Don't let the enemy use tricks and sleight of hand to pull you away from talking with God.  And, don't let prayer just become a duty.  Learn the joy of relationship in prayer, rather than the "joy" of God giving us something we asked for.  In prayer, God gives us Himself, and that is all we need.

There is a passage in Isaiah where the people are crying out to God asking where He is.  They cry out for him to rend the skies and destroy their enemies.  God's answer is basically this.  Where were you when I can knocking all those times before?  If I do come down there, you are not going to like it because I will come down there and give you discipline.

Paul then says that we are to pray for all the saints.  It is not good enough for our prayers to be always centered on ourselves.  We need to pray for all of God's people, all the time, with all endurance, and with all kinds of prayer.

This is a person who is readied for any attack from the enemy.  Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and praying when the devil attacked.  He was ready to use the sword of the Spirit because he had been vigilant with the Lord.  Let us learn this lesson.  In this sense, prayer is a part of our protection, or readiness.

Exhortations in prayer

I want to finish with some exhortations in the area of prayer.

Prayer should be an expression of a relationship with God.  It is not good for a child to refuse to talk with their parents.  If we have put our faith in Jesus, then we are His spiritual children and He is our Father.  Yes, the relationship is different because He is a spiritual being.  This has always been true and understood by all who have gone on before us.  Yet, we need to keep our relationship with God in prayer at the level of a child coming to their Father.  We do this by faith.  Prayer is an act of faith in a loving Father.

Therefore, do not let your prayers become rote, scripted, mantras that you say because you think the words themselves have power.  People will try and learn Hebrew, memorize prayers because they have come to believe that such things make our prayers more powerful.  What makes prayer powerful is that you are God's child.  He doesn't need perfect Hebrew, or English from you.  He doesn't need candles and a certain ambiance.  He needs you pouring your heart out to Him. 

This doesn't mean that a written prayer cannot be used.  Praying through Scripture, particularly the Psalms, can be a meaningful experience.  Praying the Lord's Prayer can be a wonderful thing, but it can also turn into a mechanical thing that we do because we think it works.  Or, we may be hurrying to say it so many times, and in such a ritual, that God always answers this prayer.  The power is in the Lord.  It flows into our life when we approach Him by faith.  Such a person will grow in spiritual strength over time.

If you find yourself wandering in prayer, then just stop and tell the Lord that you don't want to be wandering unfocused.  Tell Him that you don't want to be simply doing a ritual, that you really want to connect to Him by His Spirit.  Invite God's Spirit into your mind and heart and ask Him to help you to grow in this relationship.

The next exhortation is to remember that public prayer is only so good as our private prayer.  There are pitfalls on both sides of this issue.  I can be cowardly about praying openly, and I can lust for attention of people in public prayer.

Your public prayer may bless people and encourage them.  However, if you are not praying in private, then you are accomplishing nothing with God in your public prayers.  You are like a clanging cymbal in His ears.

I don't think that God has a formula, or ratio, for comparing private prayer to public prayer.  However, it is safe to say that you should pray more in private than you do in public.  For a new believer, the trial is generally in the fear of people seeing you pray in public.  However, it is important to recognize that many who lust for attention in public prayer are just as cowardly towards private prayer.  Let us avoid both of these pitfalls.

A third exhortation is to understand that private prayer is acid to the ego.  Private prayer is when no one is listening.  It is just God and me.  This is very hard on our flesh.  If you aren't sleepy, just try praying.  You will be amazed at how quickly your mind will feel sleepy.  This is generally because we haven't developed the self-discipline that it takes to pray to God for very long.

When I say it is acid to the ego, I mean that a person, who tries to pray because they know that they should, will run into resistance from their own fleshly pride.  All kinds of thoughts will crop up in the mind of a person trying to pray.  How can this really do anything?  I probably look and sound silly.  I really have a bunch of other things to do.  I don't have time to do this.  Is God really hearing me?  Do I look like I have lost my mind? 

These are all the excellent flesh-reasons why we should not pray.  However, by faith, we take hold of our flesh and say, "No, flesh, I will yet praise the Lord!"  As our ego diminishes, as we diminish the control of our fleshly self, Christ increases in us by His Spirit.  Life will begin to flow as God intended it.  It is only in private prayer that we can wrestle with our flesh and become a person of the Spirit of God.  This is a daily work, a daily joy.

My last exhortation is that some things will only happen through prayer and fasting.  Jesus mentions this in Mark 9:29 in regards to a demon that his disciples could not cast out.  He said, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."  This is interesting because Jesus had given them authority to cast out demons and they had successfully done so (Mark 6).  This demon was powerful enough that only a person of private prayer and fasting would have the spiritual strength to cast it out.  Thus, the disciples had not done the hard work of prayer.  They had not learned the lesson from Jesus.  The point is that times of private prayer and fasting were needed, otherwise, this wouldn't happen.

God in His sovereignty determines that some things will happen regardless of what we do.  Jesus will come back again, cast out the usurpers, and establish His kingdom.  However, there are things that He will only do if we dare to believe for them through prayer.  We are not given a list of what those things are.  We know that we should pray in accordance with the will of God.  Yet, we pray in faith.  Prayer is a relationship in which we discover the purpose and the mind of God in our life.  It changes us, and gains more grace from the Lord for others.

Prayer was never intended to be a kind of cosmic vending machine.  Rather, it is an anvil on which God tempers His people.  It is the place where God teaches us to follow Him! 

Let us be a people of prayer, particularly, private prayer!

People of Prayer

What Are We Doing at Abundant Life? Connect Part 1

Matthew 11:28-30; John 4:23-24; 15:2-4; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 8:14-17.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, April 19, 2020.

In this modern world, there are many who see the Church as an antiquated relic of the past that holds no help for modern man.  Of course, if the Church was only an organization created by humans then that would be true.  However, if what the evidence from history tells us is true then the Creator of the Church was not just a human.  And, that makes all the difference.  Yes, humans were involved, but that doesn’t discount the overall work of God, and we should not be quick to toss it aside.

I want us to stop looking at what people have done in and through the Church, whether when we were kids or even recently as adults.  Instead, I want us to stop and just listen to what the Creator of the Church said that he intended for the Church to accomplish.  When you simply look at what Jesus told his Church to do, you find a revolutionary concept that is timeless, and one that saves us from our own penchant for self-destruction, whether as individuals or as a world.

In some ways, this sermon is about convincing people to connect to Jesus.  If you are a believer, it may come across a bit like a married person watching a wedding.  However, that can be a good thing because it reminds us why we married in the first place; it reminds us of when our love was fresh.  Let this sermon inspire you to a deeper connection and a more intimate relationship with Jesus.

Whole-Life Worship

Years ago, our leadership sat down and worked to develop a model or image that would picture exactly what Jesus said he wanted to accomplish through us and the Church world-wide.  Here is what we developed (figure 1).

figure 1

At the heart of this picture, is the concept of whole-life worship.  Everything that we do should be in worship of God.  Yet, even those things that we do should be instructed and informed by the Spirit of God working in us.  As we focus our whole life upon Jesus, he teaches us and leads us in fulfilling God’s purposes rather than the destructive purposes that our heart and mind draw us towards.

So, what does God want us to be doing as an individual Christian and as a local expression of his Church?  It all begins with connecting to Jesus and moves around this cross through three other facets and back to connect again.  They are all happening at the same time, and yet, they are connected to one another.  They are all different facets of our worship of God through our life.  The more you try to analyze them and break them apart, the more they all sort of dissolve and fall back into worship of God.

I should say that, by worship, I mean living in such a way as to demonstrate that God is worth more to us than anything else.  It is literally all that we do to show that God is worthy of our life.

We connect to Jesus as a declaration that God is worth it.

We grow to become like Jesus as a declaration that God is worth it.

We serve Jesus in the way that he tells us to do as a declaration that God is worth it.

And finally, we share Jesus with others as a declaration that God is worth it.

In short, this image pictures the full, abundant life that God wants you to have on this side of eternity.  However, abundant life doesn’t end at death; it has only just begun.  In fact, Jesus is Abundant Life and the only source of it for all humanity.

We have simplified this whole image into the mission statement: “Connecting people to the Abundant Life found in Jesus Christ.”  Everything begins with connection to Jesus and it ends with connection with Jesus.  Let’s look at some Scriptures about connecting (figure 2).

The Call

Figure 2

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus is calling us to come to him.  There is much in the Scriptures that emphasizes the rebellion of humanity against the Creator, and the judgment that has come upon the whole world because of it.  However, the other side of the coin is that God does not want to leave us under that judgment.  He wants to save us.  Like Adam and Eve, we run from God when we realize that we have broken His ways.  However, God came after them, not to destroy them, but to redeem them.

Have you ever stopped to think that Jesus is inviting you to come to him?  Before we get into the details, just let it sink into your heart and mind that God is calling out to you and inviting you to come to Him.  Why would He do that if He only wanted to judge and destroy you?  He wouldn’t, and He doesn’t.

The Bible tells us that God is patient towards us, not willing that anyone should perish, but that all would come to repentance through faith in Jesus.  He simply says, “Come to me.”  There are many who have written Jesus off as a mythical story like Santa Claus.  Others are simply afraid to get involved with any religious leader.  Don’t just pass him by.  Take a hard look in this passage, and others, and see just who this guy is who is telling you to come to him.

Jesus is describing those whom he is calling, those who are laboring under a heavy burden in their life.  Human governments at any level very rarely actually care about the difficulties of your life.  Jesus is not talking about how bad it is to have to work for a living.  Work is not what makes life heavy.  It is the pressure that we put on ourselves, and the pressure that society puts upon us to live for purposes and goals that God never intended.  It is the lack of true care for your soul that makes life heavy.  Yet, like a loving parent whose child has gone far, far astray, God still cares for you and longs for you to come to Him.  He knows how tough it has been.  He actually has compassion for your predicament.

Thus, He offers you rest.  This is the same kind of rest that God gave to Israel on the seventh day, when all the other nations were out breaking their backs seven days a week.  It was always intended to be much more than a physical rest from work.  It was a rest from the pressure that everything depends upon us.  It is learning to rest, to lean, upon the grace and help of your heavenly Father.

Today, humanity has co-opted God’s plan for rest and added another day for pleasure.  But, what has it become?  For many, the weekend is no rest, but a flurry of activity which leaves us empty.

It is interesting that, after Jesus says that he will give us rest, he offers us a yoke.  The imagery is that of a beast of burden like an ox.  A yoke would be used to harness the ox to a cart, a plough, or a carriage.  Thus, a yoke represents the work and the purpose to which we are connected.  No matter how free you try to be, you cannot grow up in this world without having a multitude of yokes around your neck.  We can get to the point of near suffocation under them.  Some are from yourself, and many others are from the world around you, but Jesus offers a different yoke, a lighter yoke.  Yes, it is a burden; that is, it is a purpose and a task.  However, it is singular and good.  You are exchanging a large number of heavy yokes for a single light yoke.  This yoke does not leave you worn-out, over-burdened, and empty.  It leaves you rested and satisfied.  It is not tyranny.

So, God is calling you to come and connect to Him through Jesus.  Jesus is our point of contact with the Creator.  However, we need to take a closer look at the connection itself.

The Connection

In John 4:23-24, Jesus tells us that God is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.  In short, He is looking for people who will connect to Him in a relationship of faithful worship.  This connection is spiritual, but also real (truth).  It is a spiritual connection that cannot be shut-off, taxed, or infringed upon by this world.  These are not just nice archetypal stories meant to inspire us into performing certain roles.  This is a real offer from our heavenly Father saying that we can connect to Him by connecting to Jesus.

Jesus came into this world to do many things, but one of the greatest of them was to create a real point of connection between us and God.  Later in John 15:1-4, Jesus gives us the image of a vine that has branches connected to it.  He tells us that he is the vine and that we are the branches.  God intends us to be branches that have a living connection to Jesus, a connection through which we can draw life.

This spiritual and real connection to Jesus is able to make our lives fruitful.  We are not talking about being able to build an international business that makes you billions of dollars.  Of course, God could bless you with that, but it alone is not the fruit that He is looking for.  He is looking for a life that is itself life-giving, no matter what station or level of ability you find yourself.

Jesus tells us that he will pour into us when we connect to him.  That life will work inside of us until it produces external evidence of its internal existence, that is fruit.  Everyone in the world bears some kind of fruit, but most of it is deadly.  Only the fruit that Christ produces in us can truly give life.  He mentions that when we are fruitful, there will be times of pruning (John 15:2-3).  Pruning is part of becoming more fruitful.  Sometimes, perfectly good things in my life need to be cut off in order to focus more energy on doing what has eternal value, as opposed to temporary and transient value.

The fruit of my life comes from what is at the center of my heart.  So, what is at the center of our hearts?  Is my heart connected to Jesus, or is it connected to the desires of my flesh and the hopes of this world?

The third thing about this connection is that it needs to continue or persevere (vs. 4).  You can’t connect for a while in order to get a little bit of religion; you know, just enough to do a person good.  This is about much more than an ethical framework for life.  Jesus tells us to “Abide,” or “Remain” in him.  The word has the idea of taking up residence in him, making him your home for life, i.e. like a marriage.

If we don’t have a real and living connection that is healthy and fruitful then the perseverance of our connection can be threatened more easily.  There is a spiritual enemy called the devil who is looking for people to devour.  He devours us spiritually to the point that we see no hope in God, and especially in Jesus.  We have to guard our hearts from the temptations and philosophies of this world that would draw us away from continuing to trust in Jesus.

Now, the imagery of a vine and branches is very informative, but it does come across as kind of cold, when you think about human relationships.  This is because the analogy points to something much bigger than itself.  We are not connecting to a religion, but to a relationship with the Lord of Life!  The more noble image is that of a family relationship.

A New Creation

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, it says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  When we connect to Jesus, we become a new creation, a new person.  There is a difference in us that is new, and yet needs to grow, like a newborn baby.  This creates a tension between the “old me” and the “new me.”  This verse says that the “old things have passed away.”  Another way to say this is that we have moved past our old way of living.  It doesn’t mean it no longer tries to tempt us back.  Rather, I have reached a place where I am moving past the old selfish life and choosing to live for God and His purposes.  I am now spiritually alive and responding to the Holy Spirit within this fallen world.  Of course, we are not mind-swiped.  The old me is there struggling to regain control.  However, its way of living produced very little, if anything, that was truly living and full of life.  Even that which seemed to have life at first, very quickly loses its flavor and becomes a mouth full of gravel in the end.  The new creation has come to see that Jesus is the source of life itself, not just a source of a life.

Let's finish this with looking at Romans 8:14-17.  Here the Apostle Paul uses the same family terms that Jesus and others used of our relationship with God.  The Holy Spirit is working all the time to draw people to Jesus, and we must never forget this.  Those who put their faith in Jesus are responding to His drawing.  When that happens, they are adopted into the family of God.  They are “sons of God” (vs 14) and “children of God” (vs 16).

Have you ever thought about the fact that life on this world is just the nursery of eternity?  As we trust Jesus and maintain a living connection to him, we will grow up to become adult sons of God in eternity.

Jesus is much more than a static vine that can do nothing about our connection to Him.  He is a being with a heart that loves you so much that he has come down after you into the muck and filth of this world.  He wants to have a relationship with you.  Sure, at first it may seem strange to have a relationship with a spiritual being.  It may seem strange to pray “into the air” and fear that someone might see you and think that you have lost your mind.  However, it is what you were created for, relationship with your Father in heaven.  When we go through this life without having a living relationship with our creator, we are empty, and the things of this world are vain and unsatisfactory.  The entropy of this world seems to squeeze the life out of even that which is good.

Yet, God loved you.  He was not content to be separated from you.  He paid the price so that you could join His family.

This brings us to the last part of the Romans 8 portion we are viewing.  We will inherit all things with Jesus, if we keep connected to Him.  God’s plan is that He will resurrect all those who belonged to Him at the end of this age in immortal bodies without a bent towards sin.  He will then fix this world and hand it over to Jesus.

The doors are still open.  God is still calling to people to come to Him through Jesus.  So, what must I do to connect to Jesus?  It is simple.  First, we are embracing Jesus through repentance from our old life and faith in his new life for us.  This relationship with God is described as a whole-life worship.  This makes us the children of God with a destiny that is more amazing than fiction.

Don’t delay.  Make today the day that you surrender to the calling of the Holy Spirit.  Join the Lord Jesus today by Admitting that you are a sinner who is under God’s judgment, and then Believing in your heart and mind that God raised Jesus from the dead as a covering for your sins.  Lastly, Confess Jesus as your Savior and Lord with your words and your deeds.  In so doing, you become a new creation, and a child of God!

Connect part 1 audio

The True Jesus: Our Preparation

During this Autumn we will be looking at the character and work of Jesus of Nazareth.  It is easy to let the stories become just that, stories with a sort of unreal sense to them.  However, we want to not just have a general sense of who Jesus is, but rather truly let God’s Word challenge us through the words and actions of this man we call the Christ, the Anointed One of God who would come to save mankind.  It may look to you today that he failed.  But that is how you feel about the statement.  We must let God’s Word challenge those suppositions and feelings that we have built up over time and see that God is calling us to Him in Trust, Faith, and Love.

The Apostle Paul spoke to this problem in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 when he wrote, “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. ⁴ For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you” have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!”  With all the conspiracy theories swirling around these days regarding this man Jesus, it is imperative that we return to the simplicity of what the Gospel tells us about Jesus and ourselves.  There are many who have a vested interest in co-opting the message of Christ for their own ends and have invested much time in effort in doing just that.  Some of them are “Christian” people, some of them are merely religious, and some of them are secular.  But all of them twist the person of Jesus and His message to their own purposes.

Mainly I will be using the Gospel of Luke as our path this Fall and we will skip over the birth narratives for now and revisit them later in December.  So let’ begin in Luke 3:3-4.

The Need For Repentance

The book of Malachi ends with a reference to the prophet Elijah coming before the messiah to turn the hearts of people back to each other.  So we are going to start with the ministry of John the Baptist.  Jesus himself said that John ministered in the power and the spirit of Elijah.  In verses 3-4 of Luke 3, John is pictured as a man out in the desert crying out for people to repent.  Now in the natural there were large crowds listening to John and many people responding, but the spiritual truth of the matter is that he was in a desert place and precious few had enough spiritual life within them to even hear him.  They were as dead as the desert sand in many cases.   Why would a ministry, which was telling people the Messiah was coming, fall on deaf ears?  It wasn’t just because they no longer believed the prophecy.  It was because John defined preparation as repentance.

Now the word “remission” in verse 3 is not just our sins going into a silent period only to break out later.  But, rather it points to the removing of our sins from us.  Apparently this was something that could not be done without us first repenting.  You see, our sins are so intricately linked with our fleshly desires that even when we like the message of the coming messiah, we are not really ready for Him.  First we need the desire to be set free from our sins and then we can receive the messiah into our lives.

There is a sort of inner coalition that happens between our hearts and our minds.  The heart desires certain sinful things and then the mind employs its powers to justify, and acquire those pleasures.  This stronghold of sin within our mind is challenged by the Word of the prophet.  John warned the people that Messiah was coming.  He was coming to clean house and rescue his faithful.  Most were not being faithful.  Thus our need for repentance is the need to change how the messiah sees us when he comes.  Is it possible for a change of mind and a change of heart to happen?  Typically when people see the hold that sin has on them and the destructive paths it has led them down, they are open for change.  John comes after a long silent period from God’s prophets.  People were at the end of themselves and looking for hope.  John comes to them saying, “Repent!  The Messiah is coming!”  This starts in the mind.  The mind is able to see the captivity of the heart and see the need to turn to something better.  The heart will not like it, but it is possible to turn from a path of destruction and walk a different way, even as our heart begs to go back.  However, there is a side of this that we must note.  Without the help of God’s Spirit we would neither hear the Message of Repentance nor see the Truth to its warning.  Thus we can repent but only with the Spirit’s help.

Lastly, John challenged those following him on what real repentance was.  In Luke 3:7-14, he lists out the ways in which we demonstrate true repentance.  He uses the picture of a fruit tree and says that if we are truly repentant inside (i.e. we are a Repentance Tree) then we will grow repentance fruit, which are actions that show repentance.  The first example of repentance “fruit” is for everyone in general: If you have extra share it with those who have none.  For tax collectors, collect only what you have been appointed to collect.  For soldiers, do not abuse your power and be content with your wages.  Is John preaching salvation by works?  No.  He is talking about the preparation of our heart to receive Jesus, i.e. repentance.  If repentance is real within us then it will be demonstrated in our actions.  If we really believe that Jesus is coming then our lives will begin to reflect that belief.  If we really see that our sins are separating us from God then we will truly begin to hate the hold they have on us and begin turning from them.  Yet, without Jesus actually coming into our lives and freeing us from our sins, even repentance would end in futility.  Even when we are saved by Jesus we will still need repentance as 1 John 1:9 reminds us.  If we are faithful to confess our sins then Jesus will be faithful to cleanse us from all our sins, internally and externally.

The Need For The Holy Spirit

In verse 16 John tells them that his water baptism is lesser than the baptism Jesus will bring: a baptism of the Holy Spirit.  John’s ministry had impressed the people and they felt that he must be the messiah.  This verse speaks to the greater work of Christ.  He not only helps us repent and clean our lives, but he also places the Spirit of God within us in order to empower us in it.  Thus our preparation is in order to receive the Spirit of God from Jesus.  John’s water baptism was a symbol of the cleansing of repentance.  But it also was a symbol of what Jesus was coming to do.  He would immerse them in the Spirit of God.  This was something that even John the Baptist himself would have needed.  He definitely was moved upon by the Spirit, but immersion within the Spirit was an unthinkable thought, till now.

Now God’s Word tells us that those who believe on Jesus are given the right to be called the Sons of God and that the Spirit of God takes up residence within them so that they might cry out to God as His children.  Like the temple in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would move into them and make a totally different atmosphere in the place.  Yet, as we open ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit, the Bible speaks of a further need of being filled with the Spirit.  This is a continual process of us surrendering and the Spirit filling.  We are to keep being filled with the Spirit.  Don’t be content to just believe Jesus can deal with your sins.  Move on to surrendering to the Holy Spirit’s direction through the Word and counsel, that He might fill your life with power to be a witness of His loving salvation.

 John had said that the Messiah would baptize in the Holy Spirit and Fire.  Now some refer to this as a feeling of fire within our heart when we are baptized.  However, the context rather points to a choice we have.  God Himself is a consuming fire.  If we are not repentant that fire is a fire of judgment.  If we are repentant then it is a fire of cleansing.  So this is more a warning of judgment than anything else.

The Need For Perseverance

Lastly, I would point us to Luke 3:20.  Here we see that John’s message of repentance was not received well by those who had great earthly power.  Jesus promised his disciples in John 16:33 that they would experience tribulation in this world.  He clearly expected this to continue throughout the Church Age.  Because we live in the West, it is easy for us to believe that persecution is rare or that it is a sign that we don’t have enough faith.  John the Baptist clearly didn’t expect to die in prison.  The Messiah was coming!  Yet, we see him later in prison asking his disciples to double check with Jesus and see if he truly was the Messiah (i.e. was I wrong?). 

No one likes to be told their actions are sinful.  Thus if we are going to be faithful to Jesus and warn the world to repent because the Messiah is coming, then we had better expect some flak coming back at us.  Herod the Tetrarch had basically seduced his half-brother’s wife, and divorced his own wife so that he could marry her.  He eventually has John beheaded for daring to call him to repentance.  How tragic for Herod and how hard for John this was.  Yet John was soon comforted and Herod continued down to destruction.  We also need perseverance if we are the one who needs to repent.  Our heart and mind will revolt against such treasonous ideas.  If we are not truly in need of help then the “Good News” of Jesus ceases to be good news.  Somewhere somehow, no matter where you live, if you tell people that they actually NEED Jesus because of a sin problem you will face negative responses.

Perseverance or patience is actually the choice to remain under the heavy load that we want to drop.  Perseverance doesn’t demand anything of God.  It only says, “I won’t quit, even if it crushes me.”  Perhaps John felt like he was being crushed.  But He went on to His reward.  If we demand anything of God before obedience then we will eventually throw in the towel and quit.  And in our minds will be the words, He asks too much, He abandoned me, He doesn’t care.  Which, of course, we know these things are not true.

The True Jesus audio