Wednesday, July 29, 2015

In Love With The World


(Audio version; Music: "God Of Wonders" by: Third Day and "All Of Creation" by: MercyMe)








Introduction

            Creation is one God’s greatest and most amazing wonders. I happen to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world right here in Colorado with more than three hundred days of sunshine every year. We have a saying here that if you don’t like the weather, just wait thirty minutes. However, some people have taken their love for creation to level that can only be described as devotional. As Paul says, they have exchanged the truth for a lie and have begun to worship and serve created things instead of the Creator. These people seem to think that humanity’s salvation is dependent on saving the planet from humanity’s evil influence. Even the Pope has fallen prey to this sinful devotion to creation. God created the world for our benefit not the other way around. We have a duty to care for God’s creation, not worship it.

However, this seems typical for humanity. Every time some new shiny object captures our attention we turn our devotion to that and away from God. For example, God gave us the gift of work to be co-creators with Him and many people have managed to turn it into an obsession that has led to their own destruction, as well as the destruction of their marriages and families. God gave us the ability to earn a living and acquire things; nice things; maybe even lots of nice things, but many people have turned it into an obsession to earn more money so they can buy and own more things and surround themselves in luxury. God gave us the beautiful gift of sex to be shared between a husband and wife. However, many people have turned it into nothing more than personal physical satisfaction with anyone who is available and willing. And in many cases married couples use God’s gift of sex as leverage against their spouse to get what they want. God has blessed people with tremendous athletic or theatrical talent or business acumen or the gift of healing yet instead of praising God, some people elevate these athletes, actors and actress, business people and medical professionals as though they are gods themselves. Everywhere we look we see people devote themselves to worshiping the things created by God instead of worshiping God. Instead of being in love with the God who gave us the things of this world, people are In Love With The World.

Subject Text

1 John 2:15-17

            15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Context

            This, John’s first pastoral letter, was written sometime between 85 A. D. and 95 A. D. Most people think of John as being exiled to the Isle of Patmos late in his life but he wrote this letter while still in Ephesus. John is a very old man at this point and is writing this letter to encourage Christians everywhere and to warn them against false teachings and against false teachers. John is the one who coined the term, “antichrist.” We’ve become somewhat accustomed to the belief that the idea of the antichrist originated in the Book of Daniel and continued in the Book of Revelation. However, the actual word, “antichrist,” occurs only four times in the Bible and in all four cases it occurs in John’s first and second letter. Many people associate the antichrist with one particular person but John makes it clear that the antichrist is basically:

1.     Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ (Jesus is the Anointed One sent to save us), or
2.     Every spirit who does not confess that Jesus is from God (Jesus is not fully God), or
3.     Anyone who teaches that Jesus did not come in the flesh (Jesus is not fully man).

This is the backdrop for everything John teaches in his letters. Anyone who denies Jesus, who He is in His divinity or His humanity or what He accomplished by His sacrificial death and resurrection is an antichrist. And anything that sets itself up as a kind of false god to compete with Jesus, the true God, for our devotion and loyalty is likewise an antichrist.

Text Analysis

15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

            Many years ago I had a good friend who was also a pastor and he taught me the value of memorizing Scriptures. V. 15 was one of the first verses I memorized and honestly it is one of the verses that I have so often struggled with living in my particular era and culture. I am surrounded by so many “people” and “things” that are constantly screaming for my affection and allegiance that it is so easy at times to get lost and lose sight of the One who made all the blessings I enjoy possible. The difficulty for humanity is now the same as it was for people during John’s day—living in the reality of the world and culture that surrounds us that is filled with the powerful allure of money, sex, and power without diluting or diverting our complete allegiance and devotion to Jesus. Some believe that the only way to do this is to divest ourselves of all worldly possessions. Others believe that we should abstain from all sexual pleasures and become completely celibate. And still others believe we should never aspire to be served but only to serve. Historically, all these things have been attempted without much lasting success. The more people attempted these things, the more prominent and celebrated they became. At various points throughout humanity’s history, austerity, celibacy, and piety became the cause-celebre that people devoted their lives to. The people who were the best at perfecting these lifestyles were then and are now virtual celebrities. Ironically, by focusing entirely on eliminating the elements from life that distract from devotion to Jesus, these people were distracted from their devotion to Jesus and distracted others along the way.

            The truth is that we maintain our focus on and devotion to Jesus by being focused on and devoted to Jesus right where we are. For example, do our relationships reflect love for all people as equally valuable creations carrying the imprint of God’s image regardless of how obscure that image has become due to sin? Does our work honor God in a way that we can say we are partners with God in our work and that we conduct our affairs in the same way that God would conduct our affairs? Do we acknowledge that all our possessions belong first and foremost to God? Do we use our possessions to demonstrate our love for God and our love for people or only to satisfy our love for self? Does our sexuality reflect God’s design for sex as being between one man and one woman in the context of a marriage relationship? In short, is God the first thought, the middle thought, and the last thought in all aspect of our lives or only an after-thought? “‘The world’ could refer to everything but God; here it means the system in competition with God. Just as Israel in the Old Testament repeatedly had to decide between allegiance to God and allegiance to the pagan nations around them, the Christians scattered among the nations had to choose Christ above whatever in their cultures conflicted with his demands. In the case of John’s readers, refusal to compromise might be a costly proposition.”[1]

16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.

            Ouch! V. 16 casts a pretty wide net and I confess that I have often been caught in that net with my words, attitude and actions. This pretty much covers the entire spectrum of pitfalls that trap humanity. “The cravings of sinful man,” can be understood as the relentless pursuit of money and how humanity seeks to always acquire more money in order to satisfy the cravings of the heart that will never be satiated with more money—a bigger house, a nicer car, extravagant vacations, etc. “The reason we are not to love the world is that the world’s values are in opposition to God. The cravings of sinful man are the sinful interests and desires that draw us away from God.”[2]

“The lust of his eyes,” can be understood as humanity’s obsession with physical beauty and sexuality. There’s a reason that the pornography industry makes more than a half a billion dollars every year. People all over the world are obsessed with sex in real life, sex in books, sex in magazines, sex in movies or sex anywhere else they can find it. “The lust of the eyes refers to sinful desires that corrupt us. The eye is often used as a figure of speech to refer to sinful passions. When Eve looked at the forbidden fruit, it was ‘pleasing to the eye.’ David’s sin with Bathsheba started when he looked on Bathsheba taking a bath. It might be translated, ‘the desires that originate in what we see.”[3]

“The boasting of what he has and does,” can be understood as humanity’s desire for self-promotion and self-aggrandizement in order to maintain power or acquire more power. We see this at play in our modern system of government where political figures will boast about themselves in order to maintain or capture the power that comes with being a political figure—not unlike Caesar during John’s day who boasted of being divine in order to wield his power over those he conquered and those he governed. We saw it on display in the attitudes and actions of the religious leaders in Jerusalem during Jesus’ day when they talked incessantly about how only they were qualified to lead the people into the knowledge and presence of God. We currently have a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who is insufferable when it comes to “boasting of what he has and does.” Let me just give you a taste of Trump’s humility with a few of his quotes {read: sarcasm}:

“I’m really rich.”

“I’m proud of my net worth. I’ve done an amazing job.”

“I’m really proud of my success. I really am.”

“I did a lot of great deals, and I did them early and young.”

“I give a lot of money away to charities and other things. I think I’m actually a very nice person.”

And finally, “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

            It’s easy to point at the ugliness of Trump’s boasting because it is so blatant but there are examples around us all the time that are perhaps less obvious, like how we treat those who work under us or how we talk about people who don’t drive a car as nice as ours or live in a smaller house than we do. Or, perhaps how we look down on those who go to work wearing a cheap, tattered uniform and steel-toed boots while we go to work wearing a $1,500 Giorgio Armani suit with a pair of $600 Salvatore Farragamo shoes. “The boasting of what he has and does refers to the arrogance and pride that can overtake us as we try to ‘get ahead of the Joneses’ and when we rely on ourselves rather than God for our material possessions and worldly positions.

            “These values are foolish for two reasons. First, they do not come from the Father. Therefore, they interfere with our fellowship with the Father. Second, we are all going to die, and what we are living for will come to nothing. The well-known saying of slain missionary Jim Elliot seems appropriate here: ‘He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to get what he cannot lose.’

            “We might paraphrase this whole passage: ‘Do not embrace the world’s ways or goods. When you do, it squeezes out your love for God. When you live for ‘getting your own way,’ and for ‘getting everything you want,’ and for ‘looking good compared to others,’ you are not living for God but for the world. This is foolish because it suffocates your relationship with God.”[4]

17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

            We have a choice when we are faced with the things of this world with respect to v. 17. Knowing that this life and the world are passing away, some insist this is exactly why we should pursue these things—because life is short and we need to acquire everything we desire and indulge in everything that brings us satisfaction. Normally it would be hard to argue with this thinking unless we realize that the text doesn’t say that we are passing away. It says that the world and its desires are passing away. Humanity has an eternal destiny and that destiny is that we spend eternity with God or we spend eternity separated from God. This life is an extremely short segment our lives in the context of eternity. Contrary to what people believe, the winners of this life are not the ones who die with the most toys. The winners of this life are the one who get to spend eternity with God. And how does that happen? By doing the will of God. What exactly does that mean though? Does that mean there is something we need to do in order to earn our way to spending eternity with God? What is the will of God? It is a very good question and it can be answered on a number of levels—on a micro level, believers have a duty to determine God’s will for their lives in every area of their lives—private and personal, sacred and secular, vocational and avocational. However, there is a more important macro level of doing God’s will and I believe that is what is in view here. So what is God’s will for humanity on a macro level? Jesus gives us the answer to this question and John records it for us in his gospel: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (Jn 6:39-40).”

            That leaves us with one final question: Why can’t we have both? Why can’t we be devoted to God and love the world? Because we were created to choose between one or the other but not both. Once Adam and Eve began to pursue their own personal desires to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, they were no longer able to be fully devoted to God. And we are no different when we allow the shiny things of this world to distract us from our devotion to God. Jesus explained this principle with respect to money but it applies to everything else as well when he said that we cannot love both God and money because we will ultimately wind up loving one and hating the other or being devoted to one and despising the other (Mt 6:24). What John is trying to say in our Subject Text is that we can’t have it both ways. We can either be in love with God and spend eternity with Him or we can be In Love With The World and be eternally separated from Him. But we can’t be in love with both because we can’t spend eternity with Him and without Him at the same time. “Many people are tempted to live for the moment, to conform to the way of life of a material world, and either to question the temporary character of material life or to hope that there will be no judgment. It is a natural tendency to make oneself comfortable here in the present real world rather than to deny oneself here in the hope of a better life hereafter.”[5]

Application

            If you’ve spent any time in Christian circles then you’ve probably heard that Christians are called to be in the world but not of the world. On paper or in abstract terms that makes perfect sense, but what does that look like in real-life application? What’s our purpose for being in the world in the first place? If we’re not supposed to be of the world, why didn’t Jesus take us with Him? If you’re asking these questions then you’re asking the right questions. What you’re really asking is, what does Jesus expect me to do now that He’s gone and I’m left in the world. Very simply, the answer to that question is: To know God and to make God known. In other words: To be in relationship with God and to help others be in relationship with God. In practical terms it means that in all things we must ask ourselves if our actions, words, and attitudes nurture our own relationship with God and provide others with a roadmap toward a relationship with God. Being in the world doesn’t mean we can’t engage the world around us. What it does mean, however, is that we are to engage the world on God’s terms not the world’s terms.

When we engage in business, people should know that it is different from the way the world engages in business. It means we deliver what we sell. It means we provide the very best product or service even if it means lower profits. It means treating employees with dignity regardless of their position. It means the quality of what we do or make and how we treat our employees, customers, and shareholders is just as important as profits.

            When we engage in sexual activity it should only be in the context of a marriage relationship between one man and one woman. It means a husband and wife defer to the sexual needs of the other as a demonstration of selfless love that makes the other’s needs a priority. It shows the world that sex is not primarily a mechanism for self-satisfaction but a wife’s gift to her husband and a husband’s gift to his wife.

            When we engage a materialistic world, it is next to impossible to avoid its materials. Nevertheless, the same principle applies to our possessions. Does the use of our money and the possessions and services it procures nurture our relationship with God and are those things used to move others toward a relationship with God? Do we own our possessions or do they own us?

            When people look at your life; your personal and professional life; your private and public life, what would they say? Would people consider you and your life to be different or pretty much the same as the rest of the world? Our lives tell a story. A story of what we think of ourselves, the role of work in our lives, how we use our possessions, how we wield the power we have, how we use our talents, how we engage in sexual activity, how we treat our students, teachers, bosses, employees, and co-workers, how we treat strangers, how we treat our neighbors, and how we treat our children and our spouse. If people could read the story of your life, would they say you are in love with God or would they say that you are In Love With The World?







[1] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 739.
[2] David Walls and Max Anders, I & II Peter, I, II, III John, Jude—Holman New Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1999), p. 175.
[3] Ibid, pp. 175-176.
[4] Ibid., p. 176.
[5] I. Howard Marshall, The Epistle of John—The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978), pp. 146-147.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

When Obedience Is Hard (Conclusion)

(Audio version; Music: "Worn" by: Tenth Avenue North and "Shoulders" by: for KING & COUNTRY)








Introduction

            Boian was a pastor in Communist Romania in 1964. “The day the Adventist pastor Boian of Ploiesti was released from prison, a Communist officer asked him, ‘What will you do now?’
Boian replied, ‘I will begin my Christian work, with or without your permission, exactly where I left off when you arrested me.’
He kept his word and eventually appeared before the court again. The Communist judge asked him, ‘Do you regret having preached illegally?’
[Boian answered,] ‘Why do you have stupid laws that forbid what is pleasing to the Lord? If you apply them, God will punish you here and in eternity.’
[The judge ordered,] ‘You were not allowed by us to preach.’
[Boian insisted,] ‘God not only allowed me to preach, but commanded me to do so. Read the order yourself in the Bible. You will find it in Matthew 28:19, 20.’
He was sentenced to eight years in prison. He already had three years of jail behind him.”[1]

            I have a handful of books in my library with literally hundreds of stories just like this one. Throughout all of Christian history, there have always been various governments who have sought to destroy the witness of Christ’s followers. In the first century it was the Roman government that tried to exterminate Christianity through intimidation, torture, and executions—they failed. Since then, countless groups have tried to succeed where the Romans failed. Hindus, Communists, and Muslims all over the world have gone to extreme measures to put an end to Christianity. Yet despite their sometimes gruesome efforts to purge their region of Christians, they too have failed. There are stories of Christian persecution and martyrdom all over the world except one particular place where Christians have been especially free from persecution—right here in America. As I said last week, of all the places where obedience to God should be the easiest, it should be here in America because, until recently, we have been free to be completely obedient to the word of God without opposition. However, it is right here in America where Christians appear to be the least faithful and obedient to God’s Word. And it is here in America where Christianity has experienced its greatest decline. It is right here in America where the gospel could be preached without opposition that we have allowed unbelievers to purge our public school systems of Christianity. American Christians have allowed unbelievers and some “believers” to legalize murdering unborn children. And now American Christians have allowed unbelievers and some “believers” to legalize homosexual marriage. As a result, faithful American Christians are left with a choice—capitulate to a sinful culture and not cause any trouble or stand up for the truth of God’s word and pay the consequences.

            Last week I wondered if perhaps God is testing American Christians to see if we can be faithful without religious freedom since we haven’t been all that faithful and obedient while we had complete and unobstructed religious freedom. Some people have been put to the test already.

            Unless you reside in Rusk County Texas, you probably don’t know Joyce Lewis-Kugle. Joyce was the clerk for Rusk County until just recently. You see, Joyce is a Christian and she had a deep commitment to be obedient to God’s Word when it came to homosexuality. When the United States Supreme Court ruled that homosexual marriage was now legal throughout the United States, Joyce had to make a decision since she was the one tasked with issuing marriage licenses as the county clerk. She was told by the Attorney General of Texas that she wouldn’t be forced to comply with the law based on her religious conviction. However, the District Attorney told Joyce that homosexual marriage was now the law of the land and she would either have to comply or resign. She resigned. It would have been so easy for her to say, ‘I didn’t have a choice.’ But she did have a choice—it was a hard choice, but a choice nonetheless. I’m sure Joyce will tell you that obedience is easy when your job doesn’t conflict with God’s word. However, when it does, I’ll bet Joyce would readily confess that that’s When Obedience Is Hard.

Subject Text

Acts 4:13-22

            13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. 17But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.” 18Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 21After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.

Context

            We left of last week with Peter and John being questioned before the Sanhedrin. The day before their appearance before the religious ruling party, Peter and John had been preaching in Jerusalem where they witnessed as many as 5,000 men repent and put their faith in Jesus. When they had finished, they made there way to the temple along with the other people where they encountered a crippled man who was strategically positioned at the main gate leading to the temple. Here the crippled man could beg from those who were going to the temple to worship and bring their offerings to God. It was here that the crippled man’s life would change forever when Peter and John happened by. Peter told the man he had no silver or gold to give him but something even greater—Peter gave him back his legs. The man jumped to his feet and danced around worshipping God. Of course none of these things went unnoticed under the watchful eyes of the religious leaders. It wasn’t sixty days before this that they had to deal with Jesus and the crowds of people who followed Him witnessing His many miracles. By having Jesus put to death, I’m sure they were again confident that they had the people back under their control. They weren’t about to lose control of the people again to someone else performing miracles. So the religious leaders had Peter and John put in jail until they could get around to questioning them.

            The stage is set when the religious leaders convene a hearing and have Peter and John brought in for questioning. When they were asked by whose name they were able to heal the crippled man, Peter had the opportunity to preach the message of Jesus Christ in front of the most powerful people in the city—the same people who had Jesus put to death. Courageous and articulate, Peter informs the religious leaders that it was by the power of the name of Jesus Christ that the crippled man was healed and that salvation is found in no other name but the name of Jesus Christ. Having answered their questions, it is time for the religious leaders to render their verdict against Peter and John.

Text Analysis

            13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

            Before I go too much farther let me just tell you what v. 13 is not saying. I can’t tell you how many people have used this verse to “prove” that seminary-trained pastors are unnecessary because Peter and John were unschooled and ordinary men yet they were articulate and knowledgeable. Some have used this verse to show that if God calls someone to a life of ministry, then He will also equip that person to perform that ministry without the need for any formal training. While I agree that God can fully equip a person to perform ministry without any formal training, couldn’t He also fully equip a person to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant, or an airline pilot without any formal training? The answer is obviously, yes! God can do anything He chooses. However, how many of you would trust your child to someone who simply said they were a doctor but never went to medical school? How many of you would trust your legal affairs to someone who called herself a lawyer but never went to law school? How about your money, would you trust your complex financial accounting to someone who wasn’t actually trained as an accountant? How many of you would get on an airplane with your family if the pilot had never gone through any kind of flight schooling? Yet many Christians seem to have no problem being taught by someone who has absolutely no Seminary training. Think about that for just a minute—we want the best doctors taking care of our health, the best lawyers defending our legal rights, the best accountants looking after our money, and the best pilots when it comes to our flight safety—yet our health, our legal rights, our finances, and our safety in this life are all things that are passing away. But in eternal matters—just give us somebody who is charismatic and entertaining and that’ll be good enough—how backwards is that? I fully acknowledge that there are places in the world where the gospel must be preached by people who have no formal Seminary training and I believe God equips those people to do that work. For example, I am aware that there are pastors around the world who do not have access to or resources for formal Seminary training who access my lesson in order to educate themselves to teach those God has given to their care. Nevertheless, in places where Seminary training is available, anyone who is called to a vocation of ministry should pursue a Seminary education.

All that v. 13 is attempting to convey is that the religious leaders recognized Peter and John only as simple fishermen so they were astonished by their knowledge and boldness in a subject and field for which they didn’t appear to have any formal training. Religious leaders were highly trained by other religious leaders who they followed around day and night and who they learned to emulate. They read the Scriptures, the memorized the Scriptures, and they debated the Scriptures. The religious leaders went through rigorous training and earned their place as teachers of the Law. But Peter and John, where did they get their training? Well let me remind all those who point to this verse to “prove” that anyone can be qualified to preach the gospel without any formal training as long as they are called by God to do so—Peter and John spent three years following Jesus around day and night listening to His teachings. The disciples, in particular Peter, James, and John who part of Jesus’ inner circle among the disciples, were personally trained by God incarnate in Jesus Christ and then filled with God the Spirit at Pentecost. I think it’s safe to say that no amount of theological training could possibly replace spending three years of being taught by God Himself. The only reason the religious leaders couldn’t understand where Peter and John received their formal theological training was because they didn’t recognize Jesus as a divine teacher. Peter and John as well as the other apostles were perfectly qualified to preach about Jesus because they were first hand witness to His words and His works. Add to that they were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and they became an unstoppable force used by God to spread the gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ. “Again and again Acts reports how fearlessly Peter, Paul and others stood before the Jews or the Gentiles and proclaimed the works of God…This boldness which provokes astonishment, division and persecution is not something that man has under his own control. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that has to be sought again and again.”[2]

14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.

There’s something about a changed life that makes people take notice. The easiest thing that the religious leaders could have done was to deny Peter’s claims but as we see in v. 14, there’s that pesky problem of a former cripple dancing around the temple courts praising God. A changed life is a powerful witness to the power of God to change lives. I heard a woman by the name of Star Parker speak this past week about how her entire worldview changed when she accepted Christ. Parker is a beautiful, successful and extremely articulate black business woman and political activist who at one time was a drug addict, dependent on America’s welfare system, hated white people, and had four abortions by the time she was 23, and worst of all she rejected Christianity. Nevertheless, there were some Christians in her life that didn’t give up on her and she eventually became a born-again Christian. Once she became a follower of Christ, she put away the drugs, became highly educated and self-sufficient, stopped judging people by the color of their skin, and abstained from any further sex until after her marriage. She is now married to a pastor. She is a business owner, an activist that seeks to promote the value of hard work and self-sufficiency as opposed to government dependence. Parker, once a woman who didn’t think twice about aborting unwanted pregnancies, is now a staunch pro-life advocate. You can dispute the power of her beliefs if you want, but you cannot dispute the evidence that her life was completely changed by the power of the One she believes in.

            “The second reality the leadership has to cope with is the healed man, now standing among them and beside the apostles. No magic has been used. The apostolic claim is that this is the work of the God of the fathers through Jesus. The healed man’s regular begging made him will known to the community. Everyone knew him as a cripple, and now he is healed, standing with the apostles like exhibit A in a law court! There is nothing the leaders can say in opposition to the man’s improved condition…The leadership needs to confer about how to respond. What the apostles have done is obvious. Why it has happened is troublesome. Who did it was being proclaimed. Given that the leaders are not going to embrace the claim, what can and should they do to stop it?”[3]

15So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. 17But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.” 18Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

            Well the scene in vv. 15-18 should look familiar. This wasn’t the first time the religious leaders gathered to figure out how to put a stop to the spread of the gospel. The last time we saw this group gathered, the subject of their meeting wasn’t one of Jesus’ followers but Jesus Himself. Once Jesus arrived, the religious leaders where obsessed with creating obstacles to keep the people away from Jesus; away from God. Imagine that! How can pastors, and that’s really what the religious leaders were, become so preoccupied with keeping people away from God when their primary task is supposed to be to bring people into the presence of God? When their power over the people is threatened. Let me replay the scene for you the first time it happened:

            Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation (Jn 11:45-48).”

            The very people God entrusted to be shepherds of His sheep have in essence become like the despotic rulers they feared would take away their power and authority if the people continued to follow after Jesus. Having Jesus killed didn’t solve the problem because they were having the same meeting in vv. 15-18 to deal with Peter and John. Their options seemed to be limited since having Jesus killed only managed to make things worse. But they had to keep the message from spreading even farther. “The stone the builders of the nation rejected as an unworthy foundation for national aspirations has become the cornerstone of hope in the future. Now the authorities have a real problem on their hands. They are backed into a corner by two uneducated men. A miraculous work of healing has occurred. If they clamp down upon these two troublesome commoners, there could be trouble among the people. After all, the establishment must appear to exist for the benefit of the people. So the authorities take what is always the first step by any authoritarian leadership—they order Peter and John to keep quiet. Suppression of the press, control of the media, banning of books—the rulers always hope that there is some way to keep this sort of thing quite, some way to control the people’s access to information. Unfortunately for the rulers, trying to keep spirit-filled apostles quiet is like trying to hold back a breaking wave. These witnesses are not primarily trying to stir up trouble, they simply want the freedom to ‘speak of what we have seen and heard.”[4]

19But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

            The disciples and by extension all of us got our marching orders directly from Jesus. We are to go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and to teach them to obey everything He commanded (Mt 28:19-20). Yet now the authorities are telling them to disobey Jesus and keep quite. They have to decide who to obey—the men who are in authority over them or God who is in authority over all people. The choice is simple but not easy. By being obedient to the earthy rulers, Peter and John could have saved themselves from so many problems. Their lives would have been so much easier. They knew that. They weren’t stupid. They didn’t even have to deny the truth, they just had to keep quiet. But they wouldn’t keep quiet; they couldn’t keep quiet. There was too much at stake and they weighed the cost of being obedient to human authority against the cost of being obedient to God’s authority and decided that disobeying God was too expensive even if it meant that obeying God cost them their lives. This is When Obedience Is Hard.

Honestly, sometimes I think it would be easier to die for what we believe. At least then the struggle would be over. Instead, most of us are called to live out what we believe. It seems so harmless to just go along with the culture when we are faced with the decision to do something so easy as just keeping our mouths shut; just get along; just compromise a little. But that wasn’t an option for Peter and John and it isn’t an option for us either. It is far better for us to live out what we believe everyday of our lives than it is to simply die for what we believe even though some will, in fact, die for their faith just like Peter and most of the other apostles died for theirs. “The New Testament makes it clear that believers are to obey government authority (Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17), but not when the authority requires believers to sin. It would have been sinful for these apostles to obey the leaders’ mandate not to speak when they had been clearly commanded by God himself to speak. God is the highest authority and rules in the highest court anywhere. Our first obedience is always to him. In that case, they had to obey God rather than human authority.”[5]

21After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.

            The text doesn’t tell us exactly how else the religious leaders threatened Peter and John in vv. 21-22, but it wouldn’t really be that hard to believe that they reminded the apostles what happened to Jesus when He crossed them—it is, after all, the same group of leaders. I want you to picture the scene for a moment. A man who was crippled from birth; more than 40 years, has been miraculously healed. It’s obviously a big deal because the text says that “all the people were praising God” for his healing. However, there’s something terribly ironical about this scene. Do you see it? The religious leaders had some very specific major responsibilities. They were responsible to teach the people the appropriate way to worship and praise God. In general, the people were called to worship God as the Creator of all things and praise Him for His miracles and wonders. And here they are praising God for His miracles and wonders and look who is trying to figure out how to put a stop to it—the very people who are supposed to be leading the people to praise God for exactly what He did by healing the man crippled from birth! They weren’t about to concede an inch to this Jesus movement and so thereby failed to do exactly what they were called to do. How often have you seen this in our own day? Religious leaders who are connected to powerful political figures and would sooner turn their backs on their own Christian community than possibly jeopardize their cozy and self-serving relationship with this world’s power brokers if it means exposing the ungodly actions and attitudes of a sinful world. The attraction of the fame and fortune was too great for the religious leaders. Every time the religious leaders were faced with the Truth, they just closed their eyes and turned away and they expected everyone else to do the same.

            “The court had no alternative but to threaten them and release them. They could find no grounds for punishing them at this point, and they feared the apostles’ popularity with the populace. The man, born lame, was over forty years old so the miracle was particularly striking; and the people took it for what it was, an act of God, a sign. The little word ‘sign’ should not be overlooked in the Greek text of v.22. That is what the man’s healing had been—a sign to the temple crowd…that attracted them to the gospel and ultimately to faith. It had been a sign to the Sanhedrin as well, a pointer to the sole name in which salvation (ultimate ‘healing’) is to be found. There is no record of the response for Peter’s appeal to the Sanhedrin, as there was for his temple sermon. Here for the first time is found a theme that will recur throughout Acts—the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews. For many of them, particularly their official leadership, he was, and continued to be, the stone rejected by the builders.”[6]

Application

            I know this is a hard lesson. I know it is so much easier to pretend the evil in the world around us just doesn’t exist. I know it is so much easier for some of us to stay behind the walls of our nice suburban homes and keep to ourselves. I know it is easier to make a private profession of faith than a public profession of faith. I know it’s easier to go along to get along than it is to stand up and fight for biblical truth. I also know that the easy way is almost never the right way when it comes to being a follower of Christ. Jesus told his disciples that the gate through which a true disciple must pass in order to follow Him is narrow and few will have the courage to pass through it. Passing through that narrow gate necessary implies that life as a follower of Christ will not be easy; obedience will not be easy. There will be times when we will have to stand up to those who are in authority over us, whether it is the state, our employer, our teacher, or maybe even our pastor. I know that some of you do this every day and it has already cost you dearly. I pray the God will give you the strength and courage to continue to be faithful and obedient. However, many of you have been asleep for too long now as a sinful and unbelieving world has grown stronger and taken more ground everyday—unfortunately with the help of some people who claim to be followers of Christ. Don’t be deceived, you can bet that if the world says we should be turning to the left we should probably be turning to the right.

When the President of the Unites States or anyone else for that matter says that Christians need to begin to change their long held religious beliefs about the sinful practice of homosexuality to reflect the more progressive culture that surrounds them, Christians have to make a choice—obey the authorities of this world and fit in with a sinful culture like a hand in a glove or obey God’s authority and be hated by the world. This is When Obedience Is Hard. When someone uses the argument that no one has the right to tell a woman what she can do with her body as justification for killing an innocent baby and laws are passed to allow a woman to do just that, Christians again have to make a choice—either side with the woman who chose, in most cases, to be sexually active with the chance of becoming pregnant or side with the unborn baby who has absolutely no choice in anything whatsoever. Which of the two is more likely to be abused? Isn’t the one with the least power the one most likely to be abused and isn’t it exactly that person Christians are called to protect—those who are the least among us? The choice seems easy enough until the world starts screaming that because you want to protect the unborn that you obviously hate women. This is When Obedience Is Hard.

            Being a follower of Christ is hard—there are no two ways around it. It is hard to oppose those who are in authority over us. Most of us have a lot to lose when it comes to standing up and fighting for biblical truth. For many of us, obedience is expensive. Some Christians are unwilling to pay the price so they capitulate to a sinful culture and live life without much conflict with those in authority over them. Some of you, however, have considered the cost and have decided that you will pay the price. Some of you have paid a very high price. You’ve lost your job, you’ve lost your money, you’ve lost your reputation, you’ve lost your possessions, and you’ve lost your families. And some have even paid with their lives. Every time we stand up for biblical truth, the stakes are raised; the cost continues to go up. Every time the cost goes up, it gets harder to be obedient until it feels like the cost is just too much to pay. That’s When Obedience Is Hard.

            Last week I used Hitler as an example of how people can get tangled up with evil because it can make life easier. I also mentioned the Confessing Church; an underground church, who were some of the only people who openly opposed Hitler and his murderous plan of world domination. And one of the founding members of the Confessing Church in Germany was Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a vocal anti-Nazi dissident. Bonhoeffer is best known for his book The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer stood up for what was right and true in the face of one of the world’s cruelest despots in modern history. And it cost him everything. Let me share with you the story of the end of his life and you’ll realize that Bonhoeffer understood the life of being a disciple of Christ When Obedience Is Hard.

The July 20 Plot (aka “Operation Valkyrie”)

It is important to note, without going into substantial historical detail, that Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached. Therefore, a bit of context might be helpful in understanding what The Cost of Discipleship looked like for Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer was a minister in Germany during the Nazi occupation of the country. In 1944, an assassination plan was developed by some high-ranking Nazi officers. In short, the plan was to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich. When asked to participate in the effort, Bonhoeffer was at first horrified at the idea of murder. However, he realized that as a Christian he could not stand by and watch the annihilation of the Jews. The “July 20 Plot,” also known as “Operation Valkyrie,” was the culmination of years of meticulous planning.

However, before the assassination plans were implemented, money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to Bonhoeffer. He was summarily arrested and sent to jail. His life was spared because he had a relative in the German high command. Finally, on July 20th, the assassination plot was put into action. Everything worked exactly as planned until the very last moment. Shortly before the bomb was set to go off, someone unknowingly moved it away from where Hitler was sitting. Three officers were killed when the bomb went off but Hitler survived the attack. The German high command immediately began to track down members of the resistance who had been involved in the plot. The investigation eventually led to Bonhoeffer as one of several conspirators.

Hitler personally ordered Bonhoeffer’s execution. On the morning of April 8, 1945, Bonhoeffer was led naked into the execution yard while the prison guards mocked him. At the foot of the scaffold, Bonhoeffer paused to kneel and pray. He then got up and climbed the steps to the gallows. Using a meat hook, Bonhoeffer was slowly hoisted using a noose around his neck formed from piano wire. Asphyxiation is thought to have taken around thirty minutes. For thirty minutes Bonhoeffer knew exactly what it feels like When Obedience Is Hard.







[1] dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus Freaks, (Tulsa, OK: Albury Publishing, 1999), p. 304.
[2] Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Commentary, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Co., 1986), p. 736.
[3] Darrell L. Bock, Acts—Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academics, 2007), p. 196.
[4] William H. Willimon, Acts—Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 49.
[5] Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 491.
[6] John B. Polhill, Acts—The New American Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1992), pp. 146-147.