Lord,
as we listen to your holy Word, open our hearts and minds to the power of your Spirit, call us out of darkness, and lead us into your marvelous light. Amen.
Have you ever had a break through? Have you ever had one of those “Aha!” moments in your life when you finally understood an idea that had eluded you or discovered a solution to a problem that you studied and worked through over and over again. Break-throughs are great, reckless, extravagant, and wild. They can turn our world upside down and change us forever. That’s the power of a break through!
The Apostle Peter had a break through as he traveled spreading the Gospel. In his travels, he is led by God to convert and baptize the first Gentiles, the first uncircumcised believers of Jesus Christ. A new day has dawned and the world is changed forever, for God is doing a new thing. God had broken through to the peoples of the world offering them new life in Christ.
Now back in Judea, in Jerusalem, the apostles and believers were not thrilled with what Peter had done. They summon him to Jerusalem for some special “congressional hearings”. With Peter present, the leaders in Jerusalem stick it hard to Peter. They don’t mince words with their questioning. “Peter, what are you doing getting mixed up with the Gentiles? What are you thinking by eating with them?”
The Jerusalem church saw themselves, not as Christians, but as an extension of Judaism, as a new sect of the Jewish faith. They followed the old laws, mandates and instruction of Judaism. They believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but they still saw themselves as part of the Jewish tradition. They had a limited understanding of what God had called them to be. They didn’t and couldn’t see the big picture of God’s plan of salvation of the world which as we know today included the Gentiles.
How often do we as the church of Jesus Christ limit our understanding of God’s calling on our lives? How often do we as the church of Jesus Christ remain in the familiar, in our comfort zone, in the safe, secure places where we live.
We are called by God as Christians to reach out beyond our immediate sphere of influence; to break through the familiar, the old assumptions, the traditions that can tie us down. We are called to carry the Gospel to new places and to new faces; to seek and create a newer world in Jesus’ name.
Methodist Bishop William Willimon told a story about a young, idealistic college student who found himself in the worst housing projects of Houston. This young man was a new Christian. He grew up in a safe, affluent suburban neighborhood and was blessed with a loving family, good schools and lots of opportunities. In college, he had taken several courses on the Bible, church history, and Christian theology. He dreamed that one day he would graduate and go into the world to preach the Gospel to all people converting thousands to the Christian faith. This young man left his comfort zone, his safe, secure place and became an urban missionary without a clue on how to evangelize in the middle of the inner-city. Even though frightened and intimidated, he was excited to share his faith. He approached a large tenement and made his way in down a long, dark, dirty corridor and up a flight of stairs. As he walked he heard a baby crying from one of the apartments. He knocked on the door and was met by a woman holding a naked baby. She was smoking and really was in no mood to hear about Jesus. She cursed at the young man and slammed the door.
The young man was devastated. He left the tenement and sat on the curb. He thought to himself, “Look at me. How in the world could someone like me think I could tell anyone about Jesus?”
Then the young man looked up and saw a dilapidated old store on the corner. It was open, and he went inside and walked around. In the store he remembered the baby in the tenement was naked and the woman was smoking. Do you know what the young man did? He bought a box of diapers and a pack of cigarettes and headed back to the apartment. He knocked on the door. Before the woman could start cursing him out again, he slid the diapers and cigarettes inside the open door.
After a moment, the woman invited him in.
The young man played with the baby. He put a diaper on the baby even though he’d never put a diaper on a baby before. And when the woman asked him to smoke, he smoked – even though he’d never ever smoked before. He spent the whole day playing with the baby, changing diapers and smoking cigarettes.
Late in the afternoon, the woman asked him, “What’s a nice college boy like you doing in a place like this?” He told her all he knew about Jesus. This took about five minutes. When he stopped talking, the woman looked at him and said, “Pray for me and my baby that we make it out of here alive.” He prayed.
This young man experienced a break through! Led by the Holy Spirit and supported by the power of God, he shared the love of God with a downtrodden woman looking for a new way to live, a way out of her current situation, and did so with a box of diapers and a pack of cigarettes. God called this young man to get out of his comfort zone and beyond his immediate sphere of influence. Like this young man, we are called to obey God’s purposes for our lives: to act, to move, and carry the Gospel of Christ out of our familiar spheres of influence and into new places and to new faces to create a newer world in Jesus’ name.
This is the purpose of the church. The Danish theologian Hans Kung describes it this way. He says, “We must entice people from the world to God. We are not to shut ourselves off from the world in a spirit of asceticism, but to live in the everyday world inspired by the radical obedience that is demanded by the love of God. The church must be reformed again and again, converted again and again every day, in order that it may fulfill its task.”[1]
I am convinced that one of the main reasons for the decline of mainline Protestantism is our lack of focus. If we hope for something more, for a new heaven and a new earth, we must know the cost involved and be willing to pay it whatever it may be. We need a break-through!
When we look at the ministry of the church in the United States over the last century or so, we see God break through into the world outside the walls of the church. The faithful members of the old mission boards of the Protestant churches reached out beyond their immediate spheres of influence to reach the world, home and abroad, for Christ. They saw the needs of hunger, poverty, and disease in the new immigrant groups in their communities and with people across the globe. Hearing God’s call upon their lives, they saw the need and tried to fill it. These mission organizations sent missionaries all around the world to bring the Gospel to all nations and peoples of the world. For Presbyterians, the nation where we had a large impact and now a strong presence is in Korea. In fact, the largest Presbyterian Church in the world is in Seoul, South Korea. Churches both Catholic and Protestant sought to help the sick and injured. Hospitals were created to meet the needs of society providing healing and health to all in need. This legacy lives on in the names of hospitals in major cities across the country.
What motivated these Christians to break through and meet the needs of the world around them? What cost are you and I willing to bear? Are we willing to sacrifice to God the familiar, our comfort zone, and the safe, secure places where we live?
We process and experience life differently today than we did twenty, fifty, or a hundred years ago. Smart phones, social media, email, wireless internet access, and text messaging have completely revolutionized how we communicate and relate to one another. As a result, our spheres of influence have grown astronomically. We can talk with someone in China on a mobile phone while riding in a cab through Downtown Dallas on the way to attend a video conference call with clients in Sydney, Australia. How can we, the Christian church, take full advantage of these changes? For example, how can we utilize the internet to share our worship services with a broader audience? How can we use social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to reach out and minister to people of all ages? The possibilities are numerous and within our reach, if we are willing to take the chance.
We have something incredible to offer the world, the Living God of the Universe, the ultimate truth. The world is a very different place today and we can no longer afford a “business as usual” attitude. There are ministries our congregation is involved in that are losing enthusiasm and energy and some we are no longer involved in. We are no longer involved with the Longview Interfaith Hospitality Network and will end our involvement with the Backpack Program at the end of the current school year. Our Saturday Bread ministry is losing steam with participating congregations wanting to drop out. What is God trying to tell us? Is there something new on the horizon? The Session will decide on Wednesday night whether we as a congregation want to commit ourselves to participating in the New Beginnings Assessment Program. Such a commitment will require us to make some tough decisions and choices that will produce short term pain, but yield long term gain. It will require participation from all members of the congregation.
So when you leave here today, pay attention; be watchful! Revelation chapter 3 says that the Lord opens doors no one can shut and shuts doors no one can open. The leaders of the Jerusalem church did not see or understand the new thing God was doing in the world through the Apostle Peter. We need to watch for God at work in our life and in the world around us. So seek after Him with all you’ve got. Get after Him with the best effort you’ve got and leave the results, the outcome, the grades in school, the college acceptances, your financial success, and everything else to God.
God has broken through and offers all people, all of us, new life in Christ. What part will you play as a servant of God to bring this new life to the world?
[1] Kueng,
Hans. The Church (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday & Co., 1976).
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