While The Road Ahead is sometimes rocky for us, God has a view from the high road.  Therefore, He can lead us safely through all opposition.  God’s truth acts as a wedge.  As such it causes not only a separation of truth from lie, but it can also divide Christians along the lines of their personal callings.  But God’s truth is never relative.  God’s truth stands firm forever. In God’s amazing plan, even division at a fork in the road like we see with Barnabas and Paul serves God’s greater purposes from the high road.  God multiplies the harvest potential and adds harvesters.  In the end, both paths reflect God’s grace and truth and produce evidence of God’s blessing of spiritual fruit.

What a week! Back last August, I planned out the series of Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles and this week’s message was set as Acts 15:1-29. The topic concerns council matters or as I titled it almost a year ago, Court Decisions. As I was working on my message this week, the Supreme Court of the United States came down with a few rulings of its own. It’s been all over the news. One can hardly avoid it even if one wished to avoid seeing anything about it.

If you’ve been hiding under a rock with earplugs in, sleeping your life away like Rip Van Winkle, found yourself stranded alone without technology on an island in the Pacific, or have been held in solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world, the US Supreme Court decided about the Obamacare subsidies and also made a ruling about “gay marriage”. Landmark decisions both.

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, I think we can all agree that the Supreme Court of the United States is supposed to uphold the US Constitution and is mandated with applying the legal code fairly using both logic and precedent.

Theirs is a legal and governmental job description: to make decisions with regard to the US Constitution and other laws.

Theirs is not a theological job description. Therefore, they do not consult God for His view on things. That is not their job as a Court, although the justices on an individual-by-individual basis may think theologically about these matters. (Or maybe not…)

Celebrations have been massive in front of courthouses, for the press consumption, and all over TV. Yet, for many others, the grief is palpable. They see the decisions through a different lens. To them, these decisions undermine very religious freedoms our nation has held dear since its founding. A pledge of allegiance to the flag once included One Nation Under God… but now would appear to be changed, proclaimed instead as One Nation above God or instead of God.

I have spent the past 48 hours consoling people. They are frustrated, angry, and depressed. Primal screams of distress at a culture rotting in its core with the lovely rainbow promise of God… corrupted… to celebrate the very type of thing that caused the Great Flood to begin with. As it says in Genesis 6:5 “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” So came the Flood never to be repeated.

Why have people reached out to me?

Certainly not because I have magic answers or wisdom beyond my years.  It’s this: While the Supreme Court may not be in the habit of consulting God, I am. And I would encourage you to do the same. We read our Bibles to find out what God has to say.  It is how we stand firm for the Truth…though the culture around us has shifting sands.  Truth of what God says…just as it outlines in today’s passage of Acts that I’ve entitled Court Decisions.

A sharp dispute arose between our dream team of Barnabas and Paul vs. some men who came down from Judea to Antioch. They’d come down from the Holy City believing themselves to have great authority and pretending to be bigger than they were. They began to insist that salvation comes only through the Jews so therefore, every Gentile has to first become Jewish and then be saved. It’s like a 2 stage process. First be circumcised and follow the customs of Moses like every other real Jew…and then you can be saved. Basically they were asserting that salvation is Jesus plus a bunch of laws.

Let’s listen: Acts 15:1 Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.

This was not an insignificant theological point!

It wasn’t going to be resolved by “lower court rulings.”

They needed to check it out with the apostles and the elders and to get a theological ruling from the highest court available.

Why was it significant? Let’s look at several reasons:

First, the Court Decision was significant because it goes to the very heart of the Gospel. It answers the question of whether Christ’s sacrifice is really sufficient to save sinners. Is it all done by Jesus or do we have to earn it? Is it grace or is it by works? Is salvation only for the Jews and those who become Jewish…or is it available to the whole world?

If a person has to work really hard and perfect his life, clean up his act, do this, do that, in order to be acceptable to be saved…then was Christ’s sacrifice really sufficient to save sinners? This point of dispute appears at the central point of the Book of Acts and forms the very center of early theology.

Not an insignificant point at all…and one I might add that we continually see in churches today. It’s a major dividing point between Protestants and Catholics, for example…the role of works and faith, Word and traditions, and the sufficiency of Christ by grace alone.

So back to our story: 3 The church [at Antioch] sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the brothers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

Testimony is fundamental to the Gospel. We don’t put the Light of Christ under a bowl. We tell people about it! It doesn’t, however, mean that all Christians even agree. Sometimes the higher court, if you will, must consider questions and disputes. Their decision would be a landmark decision—one that would have implications for the rest of human history.

There are two sides. This Court Case might be titled Gospel Grace v. Obey Moses.

5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question.

People for whom the Law was important, the believers from among the Pharisees, presented their case. Who were the apostles and elders who were considering this? Well, Peter, James (Jesus’ brother), and John were likely there. Perhaps others. But the important thing is that they didn’t brush this disagreement under the rug or shoot from the hip without hearing arguments from both sides. Our Scriptures say “after much discussion”…not just a quick sound byte and then a wave of the hand, “Enough!” or a passive-aggressive yawn of “whatever”. Rather,

7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

Peter, the disciple Jesus set apart as the leader of the newly formed Church back in Acts 2 now addressed the believers on both sides. Listen again to how he pointed to God which brings up a second point about Court Decisions:

This Court Decision would be grounded in and established by God. God made a choice (v.7). God knows the heart. God accepted them. God gave them the Holy Spirit (who is God) and God gave the same to the Jews (v. 8). God made no distinction. God purified their hearts by …(wait for it)……….faith! (v 9)

And then he basically asks, “Who are YOU to test God who has done all this by making the Gentiles do what we couldn’t do as Jews?”

Then Peter’s claim is that it is by GRACE we are saved…both Jew and Gentile…by God’s plan.

Then the group listens to more evidence: 12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.

Paul and Barnabas also point to God! And when we consult God and God gives us answers, we’re wise to obey His answer. James, Jesus’ brother who was a Jew of Jews and also a believer…a Christian…who was presiding over all these arguments arrives at a Court Decision.

13 When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simon [emphasizing Peter’s Jewish heritage] has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written [he’s appealing to precedent of Scripture]: 16 “‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, 17 that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’ 18 that have been known for ages.

Then he states this final conclusion: James’ opinion of the Court: 19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

After all, if God is drawing them and making the Gentiles part of the family of God, who are we to make things difficult for them? As it says in Romans 13:10 “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” We cannot make things more difficult for others to obey God!

But third, and importantly, this Court Decision was significant because it establishes a sense of order and responsibility.

God doesn’t ask that we clean up our act BEFORE coming to faith, but God also doesn’t want His people to reflect poorly on Him by refusing to obey the One they claim to follow. The cleanup isn’t before grace and faith. The cleanup is as a RESPONSE.

Don’t make it difficult for them to find God. But, THIS IS IMPORTANT don’t be an enabler for them to remain every bit the same as they were before.

Regenerated people don’t look and act like degenerates.

20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to

• abstain from food polluted by idols,
• from sexual immorality,
• from the meat of strangled animals and
• from blood.

In other words, accept them as brothers, but hold them to pursuing a standard of morality that would please God. The food things were a matter of sensitivity to their Jewish brothers in the Christian faith. But the non-food one that doesn’t seem to go with the others is sexual immorality. That one James talks about is interesting, especially for us in our culture and in our present day where anything goes. The things James refers to are in the code of sexual conduct from Leviticus 18.

Flash forward to one of our Supreme Court rulings this week. The US legal code may say one thing, but God makes no secret of His view that homosexual expression is part of the broken world, just as are alcoholism, congenital lying, adultery, murder, etc..

Our broken world cannot be blamed on God. NOR can it be used as an excuse to rebel against Him, to redefine love as being nothing more than sex, or marriage as being a legal institution instead of a God-ordained one.

The Bible teaches—completely consistently—that expressing homosexual behavior as a response to brokenness within reproductive function is a sin. That’s what Leviticus 18 clearly states. But it’s not just listed there. Every place in the Bible where homosexuality appears, in 100% of the occurrences, it is described as a social evil, something God finds repugnant, and a temptation over which a person needs to be self-controlled. Just like other sins like adultery, child abuse, deceit, and incest, etc..  Ever since the fall of man, we’ve been sinners–banished from Eden because of our sins.

We can be sympathetic to the difficulties of self-control in areas of sin.

After all, the Bible says we are all sinners by NATURE now and that’s out of our control. But our RESPONSE to that nature, to how one feels…this is a choice.

The response is a choice.

Just as we’re stuck with a sin nature which is not a choice, the tendency or predisposition toward homosexuality or other sexual sins is not a choice.  But what they do with it–their response–is.

Hear me clearly since I know there is great division even in Christian circles about this:

Anyone who puts God first in their lives will want what God wants. They will obey Him.

If they don’t obey Him, then He is not their Lord. They are their own lords, doing what they want and having the audacity to demand God’s blessing on it.

Not just in the same-sex realm but in every area of life. We must honor God because He created us. Our response, our CHOICE, is to obey.  Therefore, we are commanded to master sin, not normalize it. Cain, the first murderer, committed murder because sin sought to master him. God even told him so. But Cain refused to master it.

So, in our passage, James as the leader of the church insists that people honor God by abstaining from things that dishonor God. He didn’t normalize those things and demand that religious sorts just get over it. The food related ones were a matter of sensitivity because Romans 13:10 “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”  The one regarding sexual immorality is different, a timeless truth Genesis to Revelation, and mastering sin is always God’s command for us.

To the gay rights community, all I can say is a victory at the Supreme Court is only enabling them to embrace what God rejects. Normalizing sin isn’t helping anyone. It’s just documenting our godless living and rejection of God as our supreme authority.

I submit to you that the least loving thing a person can do is to let those they care about thumb their noses at the Almighty.

Forgiveness that is offered by Christ comes with the heavy responsibility not to use that freedom as a license to go ahead and sin, thinking that Jesus already covered that so what the hell, go ahead and make the most of the sin while you can.

I’m sad, personally, for the very people who are cheering the most.

I’m sad because their day at real Court is coming and this Decision will be final. God’s standard of holiness will be the measure. Not the 14^th Amendment. I’m sad because forgiveness would have been theirs if they agreed with God.  I’m sad because they been self-deceived and I won’t have been able to convince them to master the temptation to sin, and in the end, all that’s left for them according to the Word of God is Judgment.

Trust me, it won’t be good to have bought “the big lie” that God doesn’t care how one lives. He’s not open minded.

And He’s not tolerant of evil.

He punishes it.

He punished it on Jesus, our sinless Savior.

God’s only Son died for our sins on the Cross.

So in our passage James encourages everyone to a high standard of self-control, integrity, truth, and sensitivity. The Law was important then as it is now for being a mirror to show us how we’re living. That’s what James means when he encourages the Pharisees that the Law isn’t unimportant. The principles contained in it become our holy standard for faith and practice, James says,

21 For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” 22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul—26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

This Court Decision held everyone to a high standard of moral conduct. It encouraged everyone to honor God, respect one another, and to uphold God’s truth. Love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. The Greatest Commandment and the one like it. Furthermore, this Court Decision was not a majority opinion with minority dissent on conduct. It was unanimous. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit…and us. Total unity in calling the Gentile Christians to a high standard of God’s purity and moral conduct, not the impossible standard of keeping the Law of Moses. Grace won. Love won (and not in the sense of the gay rights community).  Why? Because holiness won. Unity won.

So what does this mean for us today?

First, the Court Decision from Acts 15 was significant because it goes to the very heart of the Gospel. The heart of the Gospel is both GRACE and TRUTH. Take a good look at yourself and your life. Are you living in a gracious way that honors your Creator by living in God’s truth? Or are you trampling the grace that saves by dishonoring God’s truth? Are your words both grace-filled and truth-full?

Second, the Court Decision was grounded in and established by God. So, reflect upon your reaction to court decisions and ask yourself if you’re trusting God who is the Judge to beat all judges. The King of kings and the Lord of lords. Or are you placing your hope in 9 unelected lawyers, many of whom don’t give a rip about God? The US Constitution is the authority to which lawyers are supposed to point back to, but Christians, true Christians always look to God and His Word.

Third, the Court Decision of Acts 15 was significant because it established both a sense of order and responsibility. Ask yourself whether you are adding burdens that keep people from coming to Christ.  Ask whether you’re promoting an orderly and responsible society based upon God’s Truth. God doesn’t need your approval on His Truth to make it true. God’s Truth doesn’t get overturned if you don’t agree with Him. He’s right and there’s no debating God. So consider carefully the responsibility associated with calling oneself a Christian. It’s not an easy road and some of you probably don’t like that I’ve spoken without compromise on this topic. But we should stand with God and choose life, choose to preach God’s Truth and not care about winning popularity contests. Cleaning up our act is a response to what He’s done. He shows us mercy and He gives us grace!  We should be willing to master temptations to sin.  He deserves no less from us.

And finally, this Court Decision held everyone to a high standard of moral conduct. Remember we have a responsibility for living like regenerated people if we’re going to call ourselves Christian. Yes, James is right: don’t make it hard for people to come to the Church, but find ways of truly loving people enough to tell them the Truth about God and about what it means to be saved. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Don’t trample God’s grace. But in humility remember that self-control and mastering sin are things we can all be better at doing. And God, the Ultimate Judge, is glorified when we honor His sacrifice with our response of obedience.

Let’s pray.

In Acts 15, important features of court decisions emerge that shed light upon recent Supreme Court decisions, especially the highly politicized “gay marriage” decision.  Click to listen to this message on YouTube.

It’s Father’s Day, which is another day that’s not on the church calendar but we’re wise to recognize it anyway. There’s something I’ve never quite understood.

In many churches, the pastors take the opportunity of Father’s Day to chew the dads out:

• Be better dads!
• Man up!
• Take responsibility!
• Be the spiritual head of your house!
• Do this! Do that!

Of course, many dads aren’t even there to hear the pep talk from Hades because to them, Father’s Day means something else: the golf course, the fishing tackle, or sleeping in.

Unlike moms who are expert travel agents for “Kingdom of God Travel Agency” and can plan a guilt trip to church with precision and detail, many dads just really don’t like dealing with church a whole lot. A man named David Murrow, who I got to know a bit over the Internet and a few telephone conversations, lives in Alaska. He’s a man’s man and he wrote a book called “Why Men Hate Going to Church.” I love that book! In it, he says about those men who profess to be Christian,

Let me be blunt: today’s church has developed a culture that is driving men away. Almost every man in America has tried church but two-thirds find it unworthy of a couple of hours once a week. A wise Texan once told me, “Men don’t go to church ‘cuz they’ve been.”

He rejects a “chickified” church that women love and men hate.  What is the Church as Jesus meant it to be? Jesus was a carpenter, a stone mason. He worked with his hands. His disciples? They were fishermen for the most part. Murrow writes,

They were lions, not lambs—take-charge men who risked everything in service to God…they were true leaders, tough guys who were feared and respected by the community. All of these men had two things in common: they had an intense commitment to God and they weren’t what you’d call saintly.”

Fast-forward to just this past week when a friend of a friend of mine on the Internet posted a photo of a “Father’s Day card for Mom” among the Hallmark selections under the Mahogany brand. Along with the photo, she posted this comment (She’s a black woman, BTW):

This makes me really sad…

As if we need something else to emasculate the black man. Single mothers can be applauded without diminishing the role and importance of the father and men who act as fathers in our community. A woman can be strong and independent but she can never be or fill what was intended to be filled by a man.

I was raised by a single mother who never sought to be my father nor did she ever speak badly of him. Nor did she ever pretend like her magnificent and job well done as my provider could replace some of things that I did not receive from my dad.

A mother is a mother. A mother will never be a father.

The Real Deal is what this honest woman seeks and craves. In a world of phony baloney pretenders, she wants the real deal: a father who is a father.

The Real Deal. Hold that thought.

To make matters even worse, we live in a world where people will go out and worship just about anything: money, sex, race, the planet and all the things in it, or what I witnessed this past week with the Chicago Blackhawks.

Now don’t get me wrong, I watched and enjoyed the games. Like everyone else in Chicago, I was a Hawks fan.  Better yet, the Tampa Bay Lightning put up a good fight. But in the end, the cheers for “Bring the Cup Home!” won out and the great big silver idol, the Stanley Cup, came to Chicago again. “It’s time to call this a dynasty!”…all the sportscasters were saying. Dynasty and a hockey team is their king.

Look at these photos in the paper. The Stanley Cup behind glass as people wait in line to take its photo. The whole team piled photographically into the top of the cup. A special 24 page section in the newspaper. Every store and then some has Blackhawks gear to hawk. The parade filling the streets with cheering fans in red and black! The Stanley Cup with more protection than the Pope had!

All I can say is be thankful it wasn’t the Cubs which has become synonymous with Completely Useless By September.   If the Cubs won something big, we’d be insufferable on a scale you don’t want to see.

So the whole Blackhawks team, holding the big silver cup above their heads and kissing it and parading it around, I couldn’t help but think theological thoughts. I can’t help it. It’s who I am.

I wonder if God wonders why people don’t treat Him that way

or recognize that He is THE capstone on THE REAL DYNASTY.

Jesus Christ is the Real Deal for all eternity.

Imagine if people spent a ton of money on tickets to go to the stadium to worship God. Or maybe because they couldn’t get in to see such a big event, they dressed up in their God-jerseys and went out to the bars to worship God on TV. They had God-parties at home where they tuned in—because no stadium could hold such a crowd of those who wanted the Real Deal—and they sat on their couches and were glued to the entire time of worship. Because it wasn’t just a game. It was real…and eternal! And God is the Real Deal…our real Father in heaven and definitely worthy of worship.

We’re in the Book of Acts in our series Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles and today we’re looking at the Real Deal as it is presented in Acts 14 and we’ll see 6 things about the Real Deal.

First, the real deal unites …and it divides. The Gospel cuts both ways!

Acts 14:1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed.  2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.  4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. (italics mine)

The people of Iconium were divided along party lines. Rivalries are fierce and jealousies can consume us if we’re not careful. Paul and Barnabas were so effective at what they were doing that some people wanted them taken out.

Kind of like what happened to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not that you’d know it in Chicago that the Cavs lost to the Golden State Warriors who are now parading around their little god of gold. In Chicago, the big silver cup is everywhere, enough that you’d have to dig deep in the sports section to hear that LeBron James, the king maker, the ring maker, said five words that encapsulated what happened to James and the Cavaliers: “We ran out of talent.” They were exposed by all the injuries—especially the notable take-down of Kevin Love—that they were not the real deal.

The real deal unites …and it divides. So it did with Paul and Barnabas whose dream team was under attack in Iconium. What do they do? They flee before they’re killed. This wouldn’t have been simply a game /season-ending injury, theirs was a threat against their very lives.

6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the good news. 8 In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

The real deal unites …and it divides. But secondly, the real deal has power.

This is not like Paul had some self-chosen superpower to be able to choose to see people’s hearts. God gave him the understanding that this man had faith to be healed. Paul said, “Stand up on your feet”, and the guy didn’t just crawl or climb to a standing position…he jumped up and began to walk. The power was God’s power, the very same power that was present in the Good News Paul had been preaching. Gospel Power is unlike any other power out there.

11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

The real deal unites …and it divides.

It has power.

And third, the real deal is grounded in the truth.

Barnabas and Paul didn’t want to get credit for something that men cannot do apart from God.

They knew that Jesus is the Real Deal.

Barnabas and Paul? They’re not gods.  They are not king makers or ring makers.  They didn’t perform the miracle. God did.  Had it been up to them alone, they would have been like LeBron. They would have run out of talent and failed.

That’s one of the big problems with idols of our own making, kings of our own making, hopes and dreams grounded in people we make into messiahs when they’re just regular people. Life has a way of exposing that these man-made messiahs are like that red truck in the Ally Bank ad. Loaded with fine print and a limited time offer and not the real deal at all. We don’t want a close facsimile, a fake, a knock-off, or a pretender when eternity is in the balance. When our own salvation is at stake, only the Real Deal will do.

14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them

So, the real deal unites…and it divides; it has power; and the real deal is grounded in the truth. But the real deal…you know what? It exposes both love and hatred.

I think of Jesus’ words, Matthew 10: 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

In the Gospel, Jesus confronts our hearts with Truth and reveals who and what we worship. Love and hatred are exposed in our passage. Paul and Barnabas didn’t want to take credit for the miracles. They pointed to God. Had they taken credit themselves, the crowd would have been content with just another group of pretenders, fakes, and fine print. Little-g gods made in our own image are perfectly fine. Little silver gods of Blackhawks hockey. Little golden gods of Golden State. What and who do we love… and in what and whom do we place our trust?

The Real Deal has a way of exposing our love and our hatred and moreover, it exposes what we worship. Jesus is the Real Deal to beat all real deals.

So Paul and Barnabas aren’t able to soothe the crowds who wanted to worship them—a crowd’s love gone wrong! And the ones who hated the truth that Barnabas and Paul were speaking about Jesus who deserves to be worshiped. The haters go wrong too, and decided to take action:

19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.

They wouldn’t have found Paul a threat if he’d been a girly man. If his words were just nice and he sang pretty little songs about loving a man named Jesus. His words had power and that’s why he was hated.

The real deal unites…and it divides; it has power; it is grounded in the truth; and it exposes love, hatred, and what we worship, but finally…and this is Good News.

The Real Deal of Jesus Christ inspires perseverance.

Because Jesus is the Real Deal and Paul is a man’s man, Paul doesn’t give up!   He’s kind of like Indiana Jones where he keeps on going!  You can almost hear the theme song playing in the background.

20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city.  The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. 21 They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, 22 strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith.

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. 24 After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, 25 and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. 26 From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. 27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. 28 And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

So where are you placing your faith today? In some fake, some fraud, some knock-off…maybe some person, place or thing? Is your faith in some sports team with king makers and ring makers? Maybe in some manmade messiah?

Or are you on the lookout for the Real Deal? The One who unites and divides, because He has the power of God, and He is the truth of God—the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Are you on the lookout for the Real Deal? Because He is the One who is worthy of worship, and can keep us from falling and inspire us by His Holy Spirit to persevere. Eternity is in the balance. It’s not just a game. No fake, no fraud, no pretender is going to do the trick for eternity. But the Good News is that if you seek Jesus Christ, you will find Him. He’s faithful in that way, because He is…the Real Deal.

Jesus Christ is the Real Deal to beat all Real Deals. This Father’s Day message was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on June 21, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.

When we last left off with the adventures of the early disciples known as the Book of Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles, James (the one who was the brother of John the beloved disciple) had just been put to death by the sword. Herod, the evil king, wanted to do the same thing to the apostle Peter. But God intervened and Peter did a Houdini, and escaped from prison because God sent an angel to free him. God is not done with Peter yet.

Do you remember our old cycle: Pure Church, Powerful Church, Growing Church, Persecuted Church?

It’s now being summarized by Growing Church, Persecuted Church. The purity and the power are evident in God’s presence and blessing of their work. Last week’s persecution might have been crowned with verse 24 But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.

I decided also to tie it in with this week’s passage because we see the word of God spreading and flourishing. As the church father, Tertullian, a theologian from 155 – c. 240 AD, famously wrote,

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Luke, the author of Acts, now picks up the story of Barnabas and Saul and will pick up with Peter again soon. Kind of like “Meanwhile back at the ranch”… and we will see how God grows His Church.

The growth process is worship, obedience, and mission by ones set apart, or called to ministry.

The Holy Spirit will show up 3 times in today’s passage “back at the ranch.”

The Holy Spirit speaks, He sends, and He fills His missionaries with words that save.

Way back when I first came here, some of you may remember that I talked about how God was most interested in our purity as a church. Purity before numbers, I said. If we are pure in God’s sight, if we worship Him with a right heart, putting our own human needs and desires aside to put Him first, He will bless us as He did the early Church. He will grow Plymouth, just as He grew the Church in verse 24 But the word of God continued to spread and flourish. Spread and flourish sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

So, back at the ranch:

25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark

What mission was that? Paul and Barnabas had been bringing the alms from Antioch to help the church at Jerusalem because of the persecution. Now they’ve returned back to Antioch from Jerusalem. This time with a guy named John, also called Mark.   He’s Barnabas’ cousin and is widely thought to have been with Peter in Jesus’ final days and the one who was anonymously described in Mark 14:52 as a young man who fled naked when the soldiers arrested Jesus and tried to seize him too, but all they got were his clothes.

This John Mark has been affirmed by the early Church as the author of the Gospel according to Mark which many believe was the source material built upon by the other Gospels. Mark was no slouch when it came to the Gospel and following Jesus during His earthly ministry.

Barnabas and Paul bring him to Antioch and on Paul’s first missionary journey, but Mark will leave the mission trip early. He will abandon Barnabas and Paul in next week’s passage and there will be a significant disagreement among two intellectual and theological powerhouses (Barnabas and Paul) regarding what to do about him. Barnabas always the encourager. Paul says “No Way!” Barnabas and Mark, after the fallout with Paul, will not show up together again the Book of Acts. But Paul will mention them both and eventually come around to the point where he’ll ask for Mark to come to be with him during Paul’s final days on earth. Healed relationship. Mark would be as a son to him.

So we’re still back at the ranch:

25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.

13:1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers:

Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,

“Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Let’s look at these guys. Barnabas we know has been an encourager from the beginning. Simeon called Niger was a Jewish man, and perhaps as many theologians suggest, he had a dark complexion and came to Antioch from what is now northern Africa. Why do I offer this? Well, Lucius the next guy in the series is from Cyrene. Cyrene is the Libyan modern day Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown and where he was found hiding. It is the very same place where ISIS just took over the airport in Libya last week. It was a coastal town near Tripoli and Benghazi. The Coptic Christians who were killed were beheaded on the coast very near there. Manaen is a Jewish name and he was either related-to …or was a close friend of… the very same Herod who had John the Baptist’s head on a platter and was consulted in the trial of Christ. And lastly Saul.

It’s important to note the work that the spiritual leaders of this church, the prophets and the teachers, were doing. They were worshiping the Lord and fasting (which is one of the spiritual disciplines that spiritual leaders can do to focus their minds on the will of God). Worshiping here means ministering in a religious sense, as in prayer.

Note this important principle: God spoke to them through His Holy Spirit while they were worshiping.

The growth process of any God-honoring church or God-honoring mission begins in worship.

Get worship right

and you’ve got the beginnings of growth.

3 So after they had fasted and prayed [more worship], they placed their hands on them [Barnabas and Saul] and sent them off.

4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.

The second activity of the Holy Spirit regarding growth is He sends and we respond with obedience! Barnabas and Saul (the set apart and sent ones) and John as their helper go out in mission. They obey God. They don’t debate it. Form a million different committees to study it. They don’t open it up to a congregational vote. They worship. They hear. They obey, and they go.

They went to the island Cyprus which was Barnabas’ hometown, if you will. It will become known as Paul’s first missionary journey of which he will have 3 major ones and a final partial one from which he will not return. He will go to Rome where he will die.

6 They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.

Our process, we said, involves worship and hearing, obedience and going, and finally the mission of telling the Gospel truth. And the truth is not always well received or easy to speak. Sometimes persecution comes along in all kinds of sneaky ways.

8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

Wow.

You are a child of the devil.”

It’s strange to think of such harsh words as being spoken in a spiritual, religious, or evangelistic setting. Especially by someone godly like Paul. Aren’t you at all worried, Paul? That you’re going to blow it? That your words will be offensive to the listeners? They’ll tune you out because you’re saying stuff that’s hard to hear and could be interpreted as nasty? In case we’re tempted to view this as Paul having simply lost his cool, Luke takes great pains to state that this was a Holy Spirit deal. Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit…before he spoke a word.

People who are gifted as prophets and evangelists like Paul sometimes communicate truth in a strong way because the outcome is so important. God is really serious about His Word, His Church, and salvation that cost Him the earthly lifeblood of His Only Son Jesus!

Can God be in such harsh words as “You are a child of the devil?” Absolutely! Those same words are in 1 John 3:10. Jesus, in speaking with the Pharisees, was even more emphatic in saying that same thing. And God was with Jesus. Jesus spoke some of the most offensive words ever spoken on this planet, yet none of it was sin. It had salvation as its goal. And sometimes those standing in the way of salvation need to have a harsh reality check like Paul gave this sorcerer. The salvation of Sergius Paulus was important to God. We’re told this proconsul was intelligent and he wanted to hear the Word of God. And Elymas was being the uninvited housefly at the picnic, the mosquito swarm, or hive of mean-bees trying to get in the way of the work of God. He had to be dealt with. So Paul did.

Missions—if a little opposition can somehow thwart it—will never produce growth. A miracle like what Sergius Paulus witnessed results in faith. It did with him.

So, if a church wants to grow, it will worship God and its spiritual leadership will take great pains to do worship well. That’s how a church hears from God!

If a church wants to grow, it will be obedient to what it hears from God.

And if a church wants to grow, it will not let the truth or the purity of the Gospel become sidelined, distracted, polluted, compromised, or taken captive by a little opposition.

In today’s passage, the Holy Spirit spoke. He sent. And He filled Paul with words that save. Where are you? Are you worshiping God with a whole heart? Are you listening for His voice? When He calls, are you willing to obey? And are you willing to take His salvation to the world outside our walls?

Let’s pray.

This message on being “Set Apart” for ministry describes the growth process for any church.  It was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on June 7, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.

Knock, Knock jokes have been part of American culture since the 1920s/30s. It started off as a children’s game and became a favorite parlor game. In 1934, the standard knock-knock joke format was used in a newspaper humor column.  That joke was:

• Knock, knock!
• Who’s there?
• Rufus.
• Rufus who?
• Rufus the most important part of your house.

Laughter at knock-knock jokes is something children develop and carry into adulthood with increasing complexity. As adults, knock knock jokes are groaners, but we still enjoy clever language twists. But for kids, humor actually reflects a child’s increasing intellectual grasp of language and the world around him/her. The same type of thing that would elicit much laughter from a 1-year-old child (a game like peekaboo) would not be comprehended at all by a 6-month-old and a 6-year-old would find it really stupid. Knock-knock jokes, likewise, go from not being perceived to being funny to becoming “corny” humor, not meriting an LOL but maybe a temporary smile and then moving on.

• Knock knock!
• Who’s there?
• Wendy.
• Wendy who?
• Wendy wind blows de cradle will rock.

Knock Knock. Who’s there?  Today’s Message. There are several different Who’s There? parts to today’s passage, but none of them are really a laughing matter.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s there?
• Percy.
• Percy, who?

Percy-cution is ongoing and now it’s happened to James, the brother of John, who was put to death by the sword. He’s the second identified Christian martyr (you’ll remember that Stephen was the first back in Acts 7).  When Herod and his soldiers, come knocking, you can be sure that if you’re a Christian, persecution is at the door.

Acts 12:1 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When [Herod] saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Peter’s good friend James, one of the original disciples, the brother of the beloved disciple John…the sons of Zebedee, the sons of Thunder was put to death with the sword. Now, it seemed inescapable that after the Passover, Peter was next in line.

4 After arresting him, [Herod] put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

The suspense in our story builds. Locked up with 4×4 soldiers to guard him.  Could death be imminent?

Kind of like with the Vaudeville star, Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini was born as Erik Weisz in Budapest and arrived in the United States as a 4-year old with his mother.  The family changed the Hungarian spelling of their surname to Weiss (the German spelling) and Erik’s name was changed to Ehrich. Friends called him “Ehrie” or “Harry”.

The family moved to Milwaukee when Ehrich was eight years old and they settled in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father served as Rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. For the rest of his life, Houdini (aka Erich) would consider Appleton his hometown.

During his early years, Ehrich sold newspapers and shined shoes to help support the family. At the age of nine he appeared for the first time on stage, performing a trapeze act as “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air.” When he was 12, he hopped a freight car and ran away from home. A year later he returned to New York and continued to help support his family. What happened during his year away from his family, no one knows, and apparently, DCFS hasn’t investigated.

Houdini initially relied on traditional card tricks but his big break came when he began experimenting with escape acts and became a household name.

By the age of 39, Houdini began performing his signature act which required that he hold his breath for more than three minutes under water. This escape from the Chinese Water Torture Cell would be performed for the remainder of his professional career.

These escapes from seemingly impossible predicaments were popular with the public. Why? Because they formed an interesting metaphor for the lives of people in his audience, giving encouragement regarding the innate human capacity, desire, and drive to overcome adversity. To get out of bad situations.   People saw his escapes and felt their own sense of escape from their problems.

In the 2014 History Channel mini-series about Houdini’s life, Houdini—having refused early medical treatment for his appendix after being punched in the abdomen by a university student—comes to the end of his human escapes. At the age of 52, he sorrowfully realizes that he is finally in a situation in which no magic trick or death-defying skill can help him. His fate—mortality—is one from which even The Great Houdini will not escape.

Houdini was punched in the abdomen and died. Peter, in today’s passage on the other hand, would be punched in the abdomen and live because there would be a Great Escape!

• Knock Knock
• Who’s There?
• D’Angelo Rex
• D’Angelo Rex, who?
• D’Angelo Rex Herod’s plans by freeing Peter.

5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. 6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists. 8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

This reminds me of that scene in Star Wars “These are not the droids we’re looking for” and “Move along” and so the heroes just keep moving along.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s there?
• Wyatt.
• Wyatt, who?
• Wyatt happened, Peter understands now.

11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.” 12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s There?
• Rhea.
• Rhea, who?
• Rhealize it’s actually Peter.

 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” 15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” 16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James [Jesus’ brother, not the one who was put to death] and the brothers about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s There?
• Frank Lee.
• Frank Lee, who?
• Frank Lee, the soldiers have no idea how Peter got away, but Frank Lee, it doesn’t matter to Herod.

18 In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. 19 After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s There?
• Gloria.
• Gloria, who?
• Gloria belongs to God and no one else.

Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there a while. 20 He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply. 21 On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22 They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.”

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s There?
• Andy.
• Andy, who?
• Andy died

Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that his “royal robes” were actually solid silver so Herod shone in the sunlight and people would shield their eyes from the brilliant glare.

23 Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

What a way to go. The Jewish historian Josephus even tells us that’s how Herod died. Ugh. Shiny silver on the outside.  Eaten by worms at the core.  That’s bad.

Even worse than the song by Paul McCartney and Wings, Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door. There’s a stand-up comedian who makes a habit of making fun of bad songs, and claimed that McCartney was listening to a metronome ticking one day and said to himself, “Wow! That thing’s got a really good beat!” Then he threw in the names of some relatives and the rest is history.  (There are a million theories out there about these names.)

• Someone’s knockin’ at the door
• Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
• Someone’s knockin’ at the door
• Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
• Do me a favor,
• Open the door and let ’em in
•  
• Sister Suzie, Brother John,
• Martin Luther, Phil and Don,
• Brother Michael, Auntie Gin,
• Open the door and let ’em in.
• Someone’s knockin’ at the door
• Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
• Someone’s knockin’ at the door
• Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
•  
• Do me a favor,
• Open the door and let ’em in.

What does that mean? One astute person said the lyrics are about a really lazy person who refuses to get off his rear and answer his own door. Laziness was not the case with Rhoda and all the people at Mary’s house, though . They were afraid for what was behind the door and who was coming to get them. Candy Gram or Herod’s soldiers. The dangers were very real.

So what kinds of things can we take home from today’s message about who comes knocking?

1. Persecution is very real.  James died.  Peter escaped.  Yet both were the will of God.
2. But God can miraculously deliver and is not thwarted by anything humans dish out.
3. Prayer …earnest prayer….is always a good thing. A church that prays is a church that lives.  The Gospel goes forward.
4. God takes His church and His holiness seriously.
5. No one gets the glory but God.

• Knock Knock.
• Who’s There.
• Theodore.
• Theodore, who?
• Theodore stands before you.  And in Revelation 3, we are told that Jesus is at that door.  He is knocking.  Give him the glory and do yourself a favor.  Open the door.  And let Him in.

• Knock, Knock.
• Who’s there?
• Percy.
• Percy who?
• Persecution is at the door when Herod comes knocking.

This message on Acts 12:1-23 was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI (May 31, 2015)