Sunday, May 4, 2008: When Worlds Collide

When Worlds Collide
Acts 5: 12 – 42.

I. Introduction.

Most of you know that my family had an unusual opportunity about four years ago. I was invited to come back to Waco to a job I had held six years earlier.

I had been associate pastor and college minister in a church in Waco for about five years. During that time, I felt God calling me to be a pastor. So, we moved from Waco to Mississippi to serve as pastor. While in Mississippi, I started working on a doctor of ministry degree at Truett Seminary. By the end of 2004, I had completely finished all of my course work and was trying to write my final project.

The course work had not been too much of an interruption for my responsibilities. However, the writing was very difficult. I tried to write in my church office, but could not. I tried to get out of the office and write, but could not. I was making very little progress.

At the end of 2004, I got a call from the pastor of the church in Waco, asking me to return to my old position to help them rebuild the college ministry. I immediately said, “No. But I promise to pray about it.”

The same day the pastor from Waco called, we discovered that the obstetrician who had delivered both Collin and Nathan returned to his practice. He had hired another doctor to help him in his practice and take over the responsibility of delivering babies. That doctor had left to start his own practice, so our old doctor started delivering babies again. Since Shauna was expecting JoEllen, we thought this might be a good opportunity for us to use the same doctor and the same hospital for all three babies.

Then, we realized that living in Waco would give me better access to the Baylor library and to my major professor. So, over the next three days, we started thinking God might be calling us to Waco.

Moving back to Waco was unusual. There are not very many ministers who have the opportunity to go back to the same church. (Most churches don’t want a former minister to come back, because they are glad he left in the first place.) But the church made us feel like we were “coming home.” We still had some good friends in that church, and we quickly made new friends.

It wasn’t strange for us at church. It was strange when we were at the grocery store or in a restaurant. We would see people in town, recognize their faces, and wonder “How do I know this person?” Or, this is my favorite…I saw a man named Tom in the grocery store one day, I walked up to him, called him by name and said, “Tom, what are you doing here?” He didn’t know what I was thinking, so he told me he had to go to the store to by milk. That is when I realized, “Oh yeah. We moved back to Waco.”

When I first saw Tom, I thought I was seeing him somewhere where he didn’t belong. I thought I was caught in the Twilight Zone, or that my worlds were colliding.

For six years, my Waco world and my current world had been two separate worlds. By moving back to Waco, my Waco world and my current world had collided.

This is a kind of silly illustration about worlds colliding. But the New Testament does teach us that Christians live in two separate worlds. We are living “in the world, but not of the world.” As long as we are here on earth, other people consider us as “aliens and strangers.” In a sense, we walk around in a world in which we do not really belong. On one hand we are citizens of this world—Lufkin, Texas, the United States of America, planet earth. On the other hand we are citizens of the Kingdom of God—we will never feel “at home” until we leave this earth and experience eternal life in heaven.

Jesus told the disciples they would feel this tension. However, as long as Jesus was with them, they never truly experienced it. But they began to experience the tension of colliding worlds after Jesus ascended into heaven.

Read Acts 5: 12 – 42.

This story ought to remind us of the story of the crippled man who sat outside the temple begging for money. Peter and John reached out to the crippled man and offered him assistance. They did not give him financial assistance. They introduced him to Jesus, and Jesus changed his life.

In much the same way, we see the apostles preaching the Gospel around the city of Jerusalem. It became common knowledge that the new Christian church would meet regularly in a place known as Solomon’s Colonnade. Their meetings were similar to our meetings with only one difference. The Christians worshipped God and preached the Gospel just like we do. They even collected an offering of money just like we do. But they also healed the sick. People with every known illness and disability came to the worship services, and through the power of Jesus they were healed.

I struggle with this reference in the book of Acts. If it had only happened one time, it would be easy to explain. But, the apostles worked miracles on numerous occasions throughout the book of Acts. There were dozens or even hundreds of people healed of sickness as a result of the power of God in the apostles. Does this mean we are doing something wrong? Should we have healing services each week when we gather to worship? Or, should we do as some others have done and say this is a gift from God that has ceased—no longer to be used in contemporary society?

I am not willing to say that the gifts have ceased. But I am also not willing to say that I have this gift. I have never been used of God to heal a sick person. Yet, I believe God is the same “yesterday, today and forever (cf. Hebrews 13: 8).” If God has not changed, then perhaps we are supposed to continue to believe in God’s power to heal through human agents.

Healing the sick was an important part of the spread of the Gospel in the book of Acts. I think Luke is documenting for us the reasons why the Gospel spread so quickly in such a short period of time. It was very difficult for people to deny the death and resurrection of Jesus when they could witness with their own eyes the power of God working in the lives of everyday, ordinary people.

Because of this healing ministry, the early church experienced explosive growth. The church started with 120 people. On the day of Pentecost 3,000 more became converts. When Peter healed the crippled man, another 5,000 people were convinced to become followers of Jesus. And, now Luke tells us that he has lost count. He simply says, “more and more men and women believed in the Lord.”

This was a church that was making a difference in their society. They were using the gifts God had given them to address the needs of real people. If we were to apply this to our own church and our own situation, then we would need to ask ourselves if we are using our gifts to meet the real need of real people.

Again, let me reiterate…I do not have the gift of healing. I don’t know anyone in this church who has the gift of healing. But we do have gifts. We have financial resources, physical resources and compassionate members. How are we using our gifts to meet the real needs of real people in our community?

When a church is known as a community of people who make a difference in their community, people begin to notice. On one hand, Luke tells us that the church was growing as more and more men and women believed in Jesus. On the other hand, Luke tells us that people were also afraid to associate themselves with the new Christians. Why would anyone be afraid of being a Christian?

Jerusalem was an unusual city. The political leaders of Jerusalem were also the religious leaders. Since this was during the period of time when Israel was controlled by the Roman Empire, it probably means that the Roman government had assigned some sort of political power to the Jewish religious leaders. More than likely, this means that the Roman government held the Jewish religious leaders responsible for the political actions of the Jewish people. If a political revolt broke out among the Jewish people, the religious leaders would be held responsible. The religious leaders had two very important things to protect. They had to protect the religious traditions handed down for centuries, and they had to protect the peace. Actually, they were only protecting one thing—themselves. They protected their personal power in the Law, and they protected their own lives by maintaining peace.

So, we are not surprised at the response of the Jewish religious leaders. When the apostles started making a difference in Jerusalem, the religious leaders arrested them and tried to stop the work of the church.

The Jewish leaders placed the apostles in jail, but the jail could not hold them. God opened the jail doors and commanded the apostles to go right back out into the streets and keep preaching the full Gospel.

The Jewish leaders provide us with a little comedy in this story. Nothing they do seems to go right. They arrested Peter and John several days ago but had to release them when they could find no charges to bring against them. They arrest the entire band of apostles and can’t even keep them in the jail. Now these same “criminals” are out on the streets being hailed as heroes by the ordinary citizens of Jerusalem. What is a self-respecting religious leader to do? Well, there is only one thing they could do…Arrest them again.

But there is a catch. In Acts 5: 26, Luke tells us the religious leaders had to be careful in arresting the apostles a third time. The people of Jerusalem loved the apostles so much, that if the authorities used any force the people might revolt. It is ironic here how two groups of people could respond so differently to the same miracles and message. The miracles confirmed the message of the apostles to the people. The miracles and the message caused those in power to feel threatened.

The difference can be found in the kind of lives each group of people had in the “here and now.” In other words, the citizens of Jerusalem knew what it felt like to go to bed hungry and to suffer with diseases that had no known cure. The religious leaders knew what it felt like to be the wealthiest and most powerful men in their culture. The regular folks dreamed of a better life. The religious leaders could not dream of anything better than life as they knew it. Life was already pretty good for them. But faith in Jesus promised something even better for the regular folks of Jerusalem.

If the apostles were allowed to keep preaching their message of forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven, then the religious leaders would not continue to hold power over the people. The people would begin to live as the apostles lived. They were unafraid of anything the authorities could do to them. In fact the apostles stood up to the authorities and declared, “We must obey God rather than human authority.”

The religious leaders were so enraged by this statement that they decided to kill the apostles and put an end to Christianity once and for all. But their plans were stopped by a member of their own group. A wise and well-known Rabbi, named Gamaliel spoke up. He reminded the others that this was not the first time Jerusalem had faced similar circumstances. In fact there were two other such occurrences. In both cases, the people got excited, but the excitement died down when the movement’s leader died.

In verses 38 – 39, Gamaliel said, “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

This statement is significant for several reasons:

1. He is right! The work started by these apostles exploded into a worldwide phenomenon that we now call the Christian church. They did not stop the apostles, and they could not stop the apostles. Even if the religious leaders had chosen to kill the apostles, God would have raised up someone else to carry the message around the world. How do I know this? Because that is what happened. Look at what happened to the original twelve disciples of Jesus: Judas hanged himself after betraying Jesus; Ten of the remaining eleven were martyred for their faith in Jesus; and the only one who was not killed for his faith was persecuted and eventually secluded on a deserted island. In Acts 5, we read about the threat to kill the apostles. They were actually killed later. Their murders did NOT stop the work of God.

2. It shows spiritual insight. Gamaliel was no ordinary man. He was a Jewish Rabbi. He was a FAMOUS Jewish Rabbi. And he was a member of the ruling elite. In fact, he was so well respected that the rest of the leaders actually followed his advice not to kill the apostles. Gamaliel’s insight and speech to the Sanhedrin stand out as unusual in this story. We might have expected Luke to paint a highly negative picture of all the leaders. But he doesn’t. He shows us one man who truly loved God and did not want to fight against something new God was doing in the world. Luke used Gamaliel as an example of the kind of impact the Gospel can have. The message of salvation through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus applies to all classes of people. Salvation is for the common people, and salvation is for the wealthy elite. But no matter who you are, the message is the same. There is “no other name by which we might be saved.”


II. Conclusion.

The apostles had been through quite an ordeal by the time Gamaliel “called off the dogs.” He saved their lives, but he could not prevent the leaders from punishing the apostles. They were beaten and released.

After their release, two very significant things took place. First, they praised God for considering them worthy of suffering. Second, they went right back to preaching the same message of salvation.

The apostles had experienced a collision of worlds. Their world of faith collided with a world that hated the message they preached.

This is the same world we live in today. God has not called us to control the political world. God has called us to two things: Preach the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus; and Make a difference in the world by using our gifts to meet real needs of real people.