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Preached in Markham Baptist Church,
May 14, 2006
DARE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE:
PART 4 - DARE IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION
Acts 5:17-32
Acts 5:20 - “Go stand in the temple and tell
the people the whole message about this life.” This is a great mission
text!
It also happens to be one of my father’s favorite texts.
When he was a young man he would travel with a small group and lead worship
and preach in small churches across the greater Toronto area and the text
that he often would preach from is this one. I grew up with dad quoting
this text at the dinner table, pretending to launch into a sermon.
But it is a great mission text and as we think during our
mission month about daring to make a difference, this text is instructive.
The disciples are experiencing the first wave of persecution. Peter and
John have been imprisoned once already – then released after being warned to
no longer preach in the name of Jesus. But here they are again, in the same
city, in the same temple, preaching in the same great name of Jesus Christ –
and once again they are imprisoned. And this time an angel of the Lord
comes and miraculously frees them and gives them this encouraging message, “Go
stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message of this life.”
Let’s think of about this word from God for a moment.
Consider the first part of that sentence. The first word
is “GO!” I think this is one of three great words that God gives to His
people. One of these words is, “Come”.
Isaiah 1:8 - “Come now let us reason together, says
the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Matthew 11:28 – “Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened and I will give you rest.”
Always the invitation from God is to come. We need to
come to God, we need to turn to Him in repentance and faith and come to Him,
knowing that He is the one who issued the invitation and therefore will not
turn us away.
The other great word that God gives to us is,
“Wait.” We looked at this word two weeks ago – Jesus told His disciples, “Do
not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised,” the
promised Holy Spirit. And we learned that waiting means to depend on God,
to lean on Him in prayer. And so after we come to God, we are called to wait
on God, to depend on Him, to trust Him and look to Him.
The third great word that God has given to us is, “Go”.
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19 - “Go and make disciples of all nations
…”
In Mark 16:15 - “Go into all the world and preach the
good news to all creation.” And in our text, “Go stand in the temple
and tell the people the whole message about this life.” Come, wait and
go.
Don’t get the order wrong. You will notice that title of
the sermon today is, “Daring in Spite of Opposition”. You cannot go to
witness on God’s behalf if you haven’t first come to Him and waited on Him.
If you have not first come to God, if you have not first waited on God
before going, then as soon as opposition comes you will retreat. If you are
not sure about who God is and what God will do through you and what God is
calling you to do, if you don’t see any results, you will quit.
But if you have first come to God, and tasted His grace;
if you have waited on God and are sure of His goodness and His strength at
work in you, then you can go. Let the opposition come, let the persecution
come – if you have come to God and waited on God, you can go for God.
Many Christians and churches and missionaries have made
the mistake of not first coming to God and waiting on God before they went
for God and they have burned out in their Christian witness in a very short
time. But get the order right – come, wait, then go.
I would suggest that if you have come to God and waited
on God, you cannot do any other but go for God. If you have truly met God,
if you have truly tasted His grace, can you do any other than go and tell
others of the God that you serve?
Turn over the page of your Bible to Acts 4 and there we
read Peter’s defense before the religious leaders. And they say to him,
stop preaching in Jesus’ name. And Peter says, at verse 20 - “We cannot
keep from speaking about what we have seen and what we have heard.”
He came to God, he waited on God and then he could not
help but GO for God. We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen
and heard.
Get the order right and you will be able to stand in the
midst of opposition and persecution.
Then, don’t drop off that last word. By all means come,
by all means wait, but don’t fail to go. You know those people and those
churches who do something significant for God and His Kingdom are those who
do not fail to respond to the word go. Over here we have portraits
of Christian people who have dared to make a difference for Jesus Christ.
Here is a portrait of Joni Erickson. As a teenager she enjoyed all that
life had to offer. She enjoyed riding horses and she loved to swim. In the
summer of 1967 however all that changed. While swimming with some friends
on a hot afternoon, Joni dived into the lake, not knowing how shallow it
was. She broke her neck and was paralyzed from the neck down.
In her own words she said, “I begged friends to assist me
in suicide. Slit my wrists, dump pills down my throat, anything to end my
misery! And questions! I had so many. I believed in God, but I was angry
with Him.”
Then a friend told Joni about Jesus Christ’s suffering on
the cross and she came to God – in a fresh way. She waited on God – and her
spirit was healed, and soon she heard His call to go. And she has – she
preaches a vibrant message of God’s grace and love. She has a vital
ministry to those suffering with handicaps. Through her ministry, 14,000
wheelchairs have been collected and sent to developing nations where they
are fitted for disabled children and adults. Her radio program is heard in
over 850 broadcast outlets across America. 1
She has dared to go in spite of opposition.
Don’t drop off the word go. When the church drops
the word “Go” from their vocabulary they have signed their death
certificate. It is a dead church that fails to go on Christ’s behalf.
Instead of going we sometimes want people to COME to us. And we pray, Lord
send nice people, people like us. But the word to the church is clear – go
– go make disciples – go!
I wonder where God is calling you to go? You know He
is. Where is God calling you to go? To the high school? To Cornell, your
neighborhood, overseas? Where is God calling you to go? Where is He
calling us as a church to go? Are we following His Word or are we wanting
people to come to us?
Then think about what we are to say and do when we go.
Think about the last part of that sentence. “Go stand in the temple and
tell the people whole message of this life.”
The disciples are charged with telling the people the
whole message of this life. Now in the New Testament Jesus Christ is called
the life. In the gospel of John we read that in Jesus Christ was life and
that life was the light of all people (1:4). And Jesus Himself refers to
Himself as the “Way the Truth and the Life”. He calls Himself the
“Resurrection and the Life.” He is the Bread of life.
Very clearly then the content of our proclamation is to
be Jesus Christ.
Tell of the life you have in Jesus Christ. One of the
guiding stories for my life was given to me while attending an Urbana
Conference on missions when I was 20 years old. I will never forget the
illustration – it speaks of a young divinity student who was called to
preach one night in a local church. He didn’t know what to preach about.
And so he began saying that very thing. I don’t know what to say, I don’t
know what message I should bring to you. And he stammered and he hummed and
he hawed for some time, saying again and again, I don’t know what to say to
you tonight – and finally someone at the back of the church interrupted him
and shouted, “Preach Christ, son. Preach Christ.” And indeed Jesus Christ
is to be the focal point of our proclamation.
We are not to proclaim our programs, we are not to
proclaim ourselves, we do not even proclaim our theories.
We live in a time when people think it doesn’t matter what you believe.
People feel you believe all sorts of false teaching and still be a
Christian. So, many people believe the most outlandish things. They say
things like, “This (the Bible) is not the word of God without error.” Or,
“Jesus Christ was not divine”. Or “Jesus did not physically rise from the
dead.” Or “All religions lead to God.” I ask you - what have you got left
to proclaim?
When the great scientist Michael Faraday lay dying, a
friend of his asked him, “Do you have any speculations?” And Faraday
replied, “Speculations? I have none. I know whom I have believed. I rest
my soul on certainties.” And so it is that the Christian message is based
on certainties, the certainty that this is the word of God that is able to
change lives and bring people to a new and living relationship with God. We
proclaim the certainty that God has come in the flesh in the person of Jesus
Christ, lived and died and risen, reigning forever, bringing life and
immortality to light. Our testimony is what John writes in 1 John: “We
will proclaim that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have
touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” (verse 1)
Go stand in the temple and tell the people the whole
message of this life. It is Jesus Christ who bring hope and healing and
joy and life to the full. He is to be content of our message.
Now of course that word proclaim does not just
mean to verbally proclaim the message of this life. The disciples and
consequently, we, are to live the new life, we are to demonstrate the new
life that we have in Christ. The New Testament is clear that followers of
Christ are to proclaim this new life we have in Him through word and deed.
Then we see from our text how we are to. “Go stand …”
This speaks of steadfastness. Ephesians 6 tells us that our battle is not
against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms. “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when
the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you
have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then ...” (verses 13,14).
Having come to God, having waited on God, we can go boldly, steadfastly.
One of my favorite Old Testament texts is Joshua 1:9 “Be
strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the
Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Go stand.
Some of us fail to be a verbal witness of God because we
are afraid. And we shake and we allow our fears to get the best of us. O,
how we need to realize that when we go to be a witness for Christ we do not
go in our own strength – we go in the power of God and blessing of God. So
we are able to take a stand for God.
Then notice where they are to go. “Go stand in the
temple …” The disciples are sent to where the people are. This is
where the crowds are. And it is the same for us, we are to go where the
people are - in our day it may be parks, or shopping malls, or hockey arenas
or neighbourhoods. Go where were the people are.
Notice too that they are sent back to the very place
where they were arrested. These men are wanted criminals, they had been
arrested, they had escaped from jail, and now they are back in the very spot
where they got arrested in the first place. My father would say, I know
criminals upon escaping from jail to go to the ports, they go to the train
stations, they run for the border but I know no criminal who goes back to
the scene of the crime.
Of course the disciples are not guilty of any crime, but
they go back to the very place where them met opposition. What do you think
enables a person to do that? Again, it must be that the disciples have come
to God, they have waited on God and thus having been strengthened by God,
they are able to go.
But more - look at the text. After the disciples are
found preaching in the temple, they are brought back to the religious
leaders of the day and the high priest of the day says to them at verse 28
-“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have
filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this
man’s blood on us.”
And then Peter, on behalf of the group responds, “We
must obey God rather than any human authority.”
Isn’t that it? Not only is there a sense that God is
with them, that God has equipped them, but there is this overwhelming
feeling that we must obey God. There is not dithering, there is no meeting
about it, there is no committee set up to discuss the issue, we must obey
God and He has called us to go.
It doesn’t matter what the opposition is, it doesn’t
matter what the results are, it doesn’t matter what the risks are – we are
called to go to the people.
Another portrait we have up here is of Andrew van der
Bejl. In 1949 Andrew took a bullet while fighting in Indonesia, a Dutch
colony at the time. And while he recuperated the nuns of the hospital
witnessed to him about the love of Christ and he was set on the track to
Jesus. His love and devotion to Jesus grew so that he attended a mission
college in Glasgow. Then while in Poland, attending a youth festival in
Warsaw he felt a decisive call to the mission field. He adopted the name of
“Brother Andrew” and began to load up his blue Volkswagen Beetle with Bibles
and he courageously started smuggling them into nearly every country in
Communist Europe. Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Hungary, Bulgaria and then Russia itself.
His book, entitled God’s Smuggler sold 10 million copies
in 30 countries and now he leads an international ministry that has been
responsible for distributing millions of bibles to over 60 countries where
Christianity is still either prohibited or severely sanctioned.2
He dared to go in spite of the opposition and made a
difference for the Kingdom of God.
We have got to ask ourselves, are we willing to take a
risk for God and go stand in the temple (wherever that may be for us) and
witness for Jesus Christ.
Perhaps one of the most innovative companies in North
America is Boeing aircraft. Again and again through the last 40 years the
headlines of the financial papers could read, “Boeing Risks the Company –
Again.” Their history is the story of risk-taking. In 1958 they moved
commercial aviation from propeller aircraft to jets by introducing the
Boeing 707. It was a big risk that could have destroyed the company, but it
didn’t. Boeing risked itself again in 1970 with its Boeing 747 and the age
of wide-bodied jet aircraft was born. Then it introduced the 777. And now
recently, the risk-taking has not ended with the introduction of the 7E7. A
jet designed to fly faster, farther, cleaner, quieter, more efficiently than
any other plane in its class.
My friends, this is not an ad for Boeing. It is simply
to say that here is a company that has taken risks and has not only survived
but thrived.
And here we are, with the commands of God, with the
promises of God and we hesitate to go on His behalf, we hesitate to take the
risk? How we need people to take a risk and go in God’s name to share the
love of Christ and speak a word for Christ!
We have so many opportunities for you take a risk. We
are in need of youth leaders and Junior Youth leaders for the coming program
year. We are in need of camp counsellors for our Kids’ Kamp.
Some months ago it was mentioned at a congregational
meeting that we have large number of girls in our Explorers group who have
no church connection. How wonderful it would be if they were called and a
relationship was started so that they would feel comfortable to inquire
about Jesus Christ and worship here. I can’t do that - we need people who
would be willing to do that.
Three weeks ago I shared a desire to pray for the
community of Cornell – is there anyone who is willing to be a part of that?
Are you willing to take a risk and speak to your friends and neighbours
about the truth of Jesus Christ?
Are you willing to take a risk? By all means come - come
and experience the richness of God, the wonder of God, and the peace of
God. By all means wait on God and pray and depend on Him and let Him fill
you with His life in the person of Jesus Christ. But then go. “Go stand
in the temple and tell the people the whole message of this life.”
Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - May 2006
1.
Kevin Desmond, The Least Likely, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Monarch
Books, 2004), 119-120.
2. Ibid., 112.
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