Sunday, April 13, 2008: The Power of Story

This sermon is the third of four sermons based on a book by Bill Hybels, Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006). During these four weeks, our church members are meeting in Sunday night small groups in the homes of church members. We are using the Just Walk Across the Room small group curriculum produced by Willow Creek. The small group format includes four components: (1) food / fellowship time; (2) watching the Just Walk Across the Room teaching DVD; (3) group discussion; and (4) each person prays for three specific people they know who are "far from God." The four weeks will conclude with an event to invite the people we have been praying for to come to the church for an informal meeting to receive more information about our church and a brief presentation of the Gospel.

===============



The Power of Story
Acts 4: 1 – 22

I. Introduction.

Last Sunday, I preached a different kind of sermon. I preached a sermon with points. I grew up with preachers who preached points. The joke we often tell about sermons is that they contain three points and a poem. Of course, the pastors I grew up with didn’t read poetry or use poetry in the pulpit. They usually preached three points and a death bed story—a story about a man or woman who finally recognized his or her need for Christ at the very last possible moment.

In my own preaching, I have tried to do something different. I like to say that I preach “pointless sermons.” What I mean by that is that I try to stick with one point, or sometimes two points. If I can communicate one point in a way that you leave here understanding the one point, then I feel like I have been successful.

I do this for a couple of reasons. First, how many times have you heard a pastor preach a three point sermon and walk away thinking you just heard three sermons? Second, how many times have you heard a three point sermon that lasted as long as three sermons?

I believe there is a place for three point sermons. There are some things that are best communicated by listing three or more points. In fact, I think of three point sermons as a kind of list. And everyone needs to keep lists. Some of you are probably making a list right now. You are thinking, “I need to buy eggs, milk, bread, peanut butter…” Or you are thinking, “I need to go to the bank, the grocery store, and then take my taxes to the Post Office.” Lists are important. But, lists are hard to remember.

Last Sunday, I preached a list of ideas about building relationships with people outside the church. I honestly do not believe there is anyone here who can recite the list back to me right now. In fact, you might remember that I had a hard time remembering the list while I was preaching. I had to go back and look at my notes to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.

This is why I like to preach stories. You may not remember the list I gave you last week. But you do remember the story I told you. I told you about a man who had been crippled for his entire life. He sat outside the temple, begging for money. Peter and John saw the man. And, even though they did not have any money, they gave him something. They introduced him to Jesus.

I don’t think I am very different from other people. I go to the grocery store and forget to buy the things on my list. I go through my work day and forget to do things on my “to do” list. But I can remember stories. I am interested in stories and want to listen to people who tell stories about their own lives. This is especially true when someone tells me a story they are passionate about.

Read Acts 4: 1 – 22.

Today’s story begins on the front steps of the temple and moves to the Jerusalem City Jail and then to the courtroom of the Jewish Sanhedrin. This story represents the first resistance the disciples faced since the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It gives us a peek into the future of the Gospel. Wherever the Gospel is preached, people will be divided. Some people will hear the Gospel and respond with repentance and faith. Other people will hear the Gospel and recognize the Gospel as a threat to their way of life and do everything in their power to stop other people from coming to faith.

This story also contains a portion of Peter’s second sermon as well as his testimony before the Jewish authorities.

Peter’s first sermon happened on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the first Christians, and all the people of Jerusalem heard the sound of a roaring wind. The wind attracted the crowd, and Peter preached the Gospel to the gathered crowd. Three thousand people were saved that day.

Peter’s second sermon happened after a 40 year old crippled man had been healed. This man had been crippled from birth. He sat on the front steps of the temple, begging for money from the Jewish people who came to the temple for their daily 3:00 prayer time. When the man asked Peter and John for money, Peter reached out his hand to the crippled man and said, “Silver and gold have I none. But what I do have, I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk!”

When this man was healed, he could not keep it secret. He stood, he walked, he jumped, he yelled, and he gave glory to God. Again, this attracted a crowd, and Peter used this as an occasion to confront the Jewish people with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
Peter’s second sermon contained a very Jewish presentation of the Gospel. He started in the Old Testament, the Bible for the Jews. He quoted from Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and all the prophets. He showed them how Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the fulfillment of every Jewish hope described in their Scriptures. Jesus fulfilled all the hopes of Israel. But, the Jewish people collaborated with the Roman government to crucify Jesus. Of course, that is not the end of the story.

Peter told the Jewish men and women of Jerusalem that they were responsible for killing Jesus, but God was responsible for bringing Jesus back to life. They had killed the Messiah, but they could not kill the hope the Messiah brought for Israel.

This is the beginning of a long New Testament debate about who is the True Israel. The Jewish religious leaders claimed that God would keep the promises of the Old Testament to anyone who was born into the nation of Israel. Peter told his audience—and Paul later takes up the same argument—that True Israel does not describe a race of people related to one another through biological birth. NO! True Israel describes the men and women who place their faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Promised Messiah.

The promises God made in the Old Testament will be fulfilled. God will never break the promises he made. However, these promises will be fulfilled in the lives of True Israel.


II. The Jesus Story.

The story that Peter told that day is the story of the Gospel. I will call it the “Jesus Story.” It is the same story we are supposed to tell in the Twenty-First Century. The story has never changed, because God has never changed.

Every man and woman who has ever lived has the same basic need. We are sinners and are unable to have a relationship with God.

God has demonstrated his moral standard for us in the Law of the Old Testament. God wants us to live moral and righteous lives—lives free from murder, hate, sexual immorality, lies, gossip and slander.

However, we are incapable of living this kind of life. At our basic human level, we are rebellious and do not want to follow God’s plan for our lives. On our best days, we earnestly desire to live moral and righteous lives. But, we cannot do it. We are our own worst enemies. We desire righteousness, but we fail to live up to the standards God set for us. Often, we fail to live up to the standards we set for ourselves.

God recognized our human predicament and provided a way. As Peter said in Acts 4: 12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” God sent his Son Jesus as the only way we might be saved.

No human being is capable of meeting God’s requirements for morality and righteousness. But we can meet God’s requirements for salvation. As Peter preached in Acts 3 and 4, the only way to be saved is to let Jesus do it for us.


III. Our Story.

When we reach a point in life that we realize we cannot meet God’s requirements for morality and righteousness, we can enter into the Jesus Story through faith. We enter into the Jesus Story by praying something like this: “God, I cannot meet your requirements. I need Jesus to forgive me of my past and lead me in a new future.”

At this moment, the Jesus Story becomes My Story as well.

When we tell the Jesus Story to our friends and family members, it is important for us to show how the Jesus Story is also Our Story. And the only way to do that is to talk about the change Jesus brought about in your life.

We see this in the confrontation that followed Peter’s second sermon. The healed man caused a scene. A crowd gathered, and Peter preached the Jesus Story to the crowd. After Peter’s first sermon, 3,000 people were saved! After Peter’s second sermon, 5,000 people were saved! He gets better every time he preaches!

Five thousand new Christians attracted a different kind of crowd. The Jewish religious leaders gathered around Peter and John and tried to get them to stop preaching. They asked the question all authority figures ask when someone is breaking the rules. They asked, “Who gave you the right to do this?”

Their question gave Peter another opportunity to tell the Jesus Story. And as Peter retold the Jesus Story, the religious leaders noticed a change in Peter and John. Peter and John were simple, uneducated men. They had not studied in the Jewish seminaries. They were not trained in rhetoric or in public speaking. They simply told their own personal stories about Jesus, and they told those stories with passion.

Before Peter and John met Jesus, they were fishermen. They did not have an education, because they did not need an education. They had been taught by their own fathers how to make nets, repair a boat, catch fish and sell fish in the marketplace. But after they met Jesus, their lives were changed. They knew the Bible, they understood the promises of God and they communicated salvation to Jewish men and women with passion.

Later in the conversation with the religious leaders, Peter tells us about another change that took place in his life. The religious leaders recognized that Peter and John believed in the message they were preaching. But, they still felt the need to stop them from preaching. So, with all the authority of the Jewish political and religious systems they commanded the disciples to stop preaching. In verse 19, Peter said, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

This is a bold statement. Peter stood face to face with the same people who had crucified Jesus. These people had the political power to crucify Peter also. These people had the religious authority to expel Peter from worshipping in the temple. And Peter looked into their eyes and said, “I will not obey your command.”

Do you realize who this is speaking? This is the same man who only 52 days earlier had been confronted by a slave girl. In the ancient world, women had no power, and slaves could do no harm to people who were not slaves. When a woman with no power whatsoever asked Peter if he were a disciple of Jesus, Peter denied ever knowing who Jesus was! Now, Peter was standing up to the most powerful people in the Jewish political and religious world.

Peter’s story would sound something like this: “I was a simple, uneducated fisherman. I had heard about the Old Testament Law before, but I knew I could not measure up to God’s standards. Then I met Jesus. He told me that God loved me and wanted me to spend eternity in heaven. Jesus changed me from a simple fisherman into preacher who tells other people how they can go to heaven.”

Or, Peter could tell his story like this: “I thought I was so brave. Everyone thought I was the guy who never backed down from a fight. But that wasn’t me. I was afraid to tell a slave girl about my religious beliefs. Jesus changed my life. Now, I not only believe Jesus is the only way to be saved, but I will risk my life for Jesus who died for me.”


IV. Conclusion.

In January 2005, I started working on a project for the church I was serving in Waco. The pastor in Waco had visited a church in Minnesota that used testimonies in their worship services every week. Each week someone would stand behind the pulpit and in less than five minutes tell the story of how they became a Christian. The Minnesota church called these stories “Faith Stories.” We wanted to start doing the same thing in our church in Waco. So, it became my responsibility to develop a way for people to write their stories and tell them in less than five minutes.

The most important part of telling your story is to tell how Jesus changed your life. If you were an adult when you became a Christian, this will be easy to describe. Maybe you were caught up in your career and making more money, but the Jesus Story helped you find something eternal to live for. Maybe you thought you could one day be good enough to meet God’s moral and righteous requirements, but the Jesus Story helped you discover God’s plan for salvation.
But, if you were like me…I became a Christian as a child. I heard the story of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection since I was an infant. It was hard for me to recognize what kind of change took place in my life. But, there was a change. This is my story: “I always believed that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross and rose again. I took it for granted. But one day I realized that Jesus died for me. I realized that God loved me and wanted me to have a relationship with him today and forever in heaven. I always believed that Jesus died for everyone. But it changed my life when I realized that Jesus died for me.”