So that times of refreshing may come

Read  Acts 3:11-23

Most of you know what it is to put in a hard day’s work or play 4 quarters of a football or basketball game where you really left it all on the field or the court.  You are sweaty and sometimes dirty or even blood stained, but even having expended everything you have in the day’s work or the athletic competition, you feel so much better after a good shower.  You feel refreshed.

Once upon a time I took a company of Marine reservists from Des Moines Iowa to 29 Palms California, which if you didn’t know is in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert.  Our last weekend training with these reservists was in May.  We went to Wisconsin for live fire, something we were limited at doing in Des Moines.  We got snowed on at that last training session.

A couple weeks later, we flew these guys out for two weeks in the Mojave Desert—from freezing to 120 degrees for most days.  After a week, most were exhausted.  There was still a week of training left that included a battalion-sized live-fire exercise.

So, in the middle of the training on a day where we had an afternoon of maintenance, we maintained the Marines.  We took them to the swimming pool for a couple of hours.  It refreshed them enough to continue their training and the grueling exercise that was to come.

I have said before that we are designed with rest in mind.  Rest is not only essential but refreshing and lets us live to the full.

You heard the story read this morning.  Peter and John were heading to the temple.  A beggar in the temple courts wanted money and the two apostles caught this man off guard.  What they said went beyond the beggar’s expectations.

Silver and gold I have none—translation:  I don’t have any money to give you.

But what I do have I will give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.  These two apostles helped him to his feet and the next thing you knew the man was walking and jumping and praising the Lord. 

This caught everyone’s attention.  They all knew that this was the long-time beggar at the gate called Beautiful.  Elsewhere in scripture we see people thinking that the healed man was someone different from the one afflicted.

Not here.  People recognized him and were amazed.

This man continued with Peter and John into the Temple area, and Peter had the awareness to know he had people’s attention.  So, he asked, “Why are you surprised?”

This comes about through God and through the line of people you know—Abraham, Issacs, and Jacob.  We didn’t do this.  God did!

You should have seen it coming but you were blind.  You killed the Messiah.  You had a chance to save his life when he was before Pilate, but you chose to release a murderer instead.

We know that you acted in ignorance and that what happened had to happen to fulfill the prophecy of God and your part in this was that the Christ might suffer.  He did.

He died.

He rose again.

We are witnesses.

By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.

So, Peter caught everyone up on what has transpired, but next came a call to action.  It was a call to repentance.

You might not have known what was happening—the truth be told the apostles were often in the dark until they received the Holy Spirit, but Peter left out that part—there was much done in ignorance, but now that you do know, it is time to repent.

You need to repent of your sin.  You need to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ.  You need to receive him as your Savior and Lord.

This won’t happen because he is still walking the earth.  This will happen because you repent of your sin and know him to be the One promised Messiah.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

You know the truth.  You know the consequences for rejecting the truth.  Now is the time to repent and receive Jesus as your Lord.

This wipes away your sin and does something else that we often overlook.  It brings times of refreshing.  We often think of salvation when we think of the blood of Jesus wiping away our sins.   Our debt is paid.  The Kingdom of Heaven has been given to us.

But let us not forget refreshing.  Like the shower after the hard and dirty days work or the sports contest that left you exhausted, the shower brings a time of refreshing.

Repentance and discipleship bring us times of refreshing.  Rest brings us refreshing. We become refreshed so we can live to the full.

Have you ever seen someone who gets burned out?  Maybe it’s the job or taking care of someone or even serving in the church.  People burn out.

Repentance, confession, and rest bring us to refreshment not burn out. 

As in just about everything we can think of that God has told us, it’s for our own good.

There’s a saying going around that has manifested itself in several memes.  It says:  When you are tired, rest, don’t quit.

Rest and being refreshed help us run our good race.  They help us keep the faith.  They help us when the world is beckoning us to throw in the towel.

Let’s learn to repent, rest, and receive the refreshing of the Lord.

Think about that.  When we sin, let’s confess and repent.  Let’s not only tell God about it, something he is already knows.  He already knows but has directed us to tell him, once again for our own good.

Let’s repent—turn away from and leave behind the thinking, doing, and relationship with the ways of this world that are sinful.  Let’s make that wholesale exchange.

Let’s rest.  Being a disciple is not easy but it is worth it.  If we are going to continue in our race of faith, we need to learn to rest.

And let’s rejoice in being refreshed.  Like a hot shower after a long day’s work or a swim in the pool in the middle of the desert, let’s receive the refreshment that comes with repentance.

We often talk about giving up a burden, but how often do we consider the times of refreshing that await us?

Let’s learn to repent, rest, and receive the refreshing of the Lord.

Amen.

Words and actions, and the gospel

Read 1 John 3:16-24

If you see someone about to step out in front of a moving car, you scream at them at the top of your lungs.  If you are nearby, you pull them out of traffic.

When someone in town is out driving on ice—thankfully that has not been a big deal this year—but when someone is stuck, we stop and help and push and pull.   This is Oklahoma.  You don’t just drive by shouting, “If you can’t drive on ice, then stay home.”

Now after you get them out of wherever they were stuck, you might suggest that they spend the rest of the day at home, but we help first.

Parents, if you catch your kids texting and driving or riding with friends who text and drive, you most likely take away some liberties closely associated with vehicular transportation.  When they complain that you are mean and that’s not the Christian thing to do, you remind them that Jesus walked.

If you see a friend about to try crystal meth for the first time, you might just grab them by the collar and pull them out of whatever mess they are about to get into.  There are no apologies for the abruptness of your actions.

When we find people that are hungry, we feed them.

When we find people who don’t have coats for the winter, we get them a coat.

When people have had their water cut off, we often help with a water bill or gas bill, especially if there are children in the home.  Yes, the parents are sometimes self-centered, financially irresponsible, and are trying harder to stay out of the family of faith than they are to budget their money, but we often help anyway. 

There are so many physical manifestations of being love that you know and do and are a part of while you walk this earth.

You may go buy some food for hungry neighbors or may stop by the church and get some of the food that we keep here just for those purposes.  Your heart leads you.  God’s Spirit that lives inside of you leads you.

You understand that we cannot know the great love that God has for us and do nothing for others in need.  We get that.  We really do.

But sometimes, we forget the most important thing.  Sometimes we forget that we carry not just food and money and love in so many various forms for our neighbor; but we carry the gospel with us.

We always carry the gospel with us!

I’m not talking about the little books that I have dared you to give out so that I have none left.  As I brought that up, I double dog dare you to run me out of those books because you gave them all away.

I am talking about the message of God’s great love for all of humankind, for all of creation.  We have the gospel, the good news of how much God loves us.  It is not something that we throw in at the end of giving someone food or help with a bill or a ride home.   The good news must never play second fiddle.

We must be people of good news first and foremost.  What we forget sometimes is that the delivery of the gospel is action.  It is action that is more powerful than food or money or anything else that we may help others with in this world.  Yes, we help with things that are only temporary but never at the expense of what is eternal.

When we are known as people of good news, not just good people, and then help with food or with a bill or with gas to get granny to the hospital or anything else, the physical things that we do are leveraged.  They become so much more.

When we leave out the good news or truncate it to an afterthought or just throw in a God loves you to check the block that this is a church thing, we have not been faithful to the One who gave his blood to atone for our sins.

We began this year with the topic of love.  We have graduated to love and action.  The latter proceeds from the former.

Peter and John were headed to the temple.  They had been emboldened by the Holy Spirit.  Peter was proclaiming the gospel.  A man who had been lame since birth called out to them asking for money. 

That was what he did.  He was a beggar.  That’s all that he knew.  He was lame and his career choice in those days was beggar.

Peter said, “Look at us.”  That’s an interesting response to please give me some money.  The man complied. 

Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!”

The disciples helped the man up.  His strength returned.  He walked.  He even jumped up and down.  He praised God.

The man asked for money.  These two disciples knew they had more than money.  They ignored the man’s request for money—which would have been enough to eat for a day or to make sure that they added to what he had so he could eat for a day. 

Evidently, the disciples didn’t have any spare change on them.  There’s a message in that all by itself, but today we look at what they gave this man.  They were equipped by the Holy Spirit to heal this man.

This man may have very well given up on healing.  He was likely at the temple in the hope that people might be a little more compassionate.  He would have probably been fine with a donation made out of guilt.  The disciples saw what he needed most.

The man only wanted to be able to eat for a day.  The disciples knew that what they had was so much greater than what the man was seeking.

The gospel author John reminds us that words and speech are not enough by themselves. Read the book of James and you will see these thoughts echoed. Action is the fruit of our love.  If we see someone in need and can help, love compels us to help.  We don’t turn a blind eye, walk on the other side of the road, or dispense condemnation.

We are called to action!

For a brother or sister who have received salvation, knows Jesus as Lord, and is an active part of the family of faith, sometimes all they need is a little help with food or a bill or a budget.  But for the person who does not know Jesus as Lord, or they live as if he is not their Lord; they need the gospel before they need gas money for their car.  They need to know there is a way to abundant life and eternal life through Christ Jesus before they need their electric turned back on.

In our time, we sometimes jump right to paying the bill and skip over the best news this world has ever known.  When we see someone in need, we help.  We help, but sometimes we skip the real help.

But we who have eyes to see know that the greatest need in this broken world is to know the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

Here’s something that you hear a lot, even from longtime Christians. 

“Jesus always met the physical need before attending to the spiritual need.” 

It’s just not so.  Read your Bibles.  Jesus always took care of what was most important.  That most often involved the truth or forgiveness or some manner of teaching and instruction.  Where there was seemingly unprompted healing, Jesus noted that it was faith that was first present.  

He fed the multitudes after he ministered to them by teaching all day long.  He told the man who was lowered through the roof that his sins were forgiven before he told him to get up and walk.

He came to earth on a mission to take care of the most important thing—being the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.

Our most important thing is delivery of the good news.  We know how to deliver food and help with bills or get someone a bus ticket back home.  We know that part.

We must do our very best to make sure that the temporary part is not the only part.  We are vehicles of God’s love that sometimes comes in a box of food but must always be accompanied by the truth.  That truth is that God loves you.

We are uniquely equipped with God’s own Spirit inside of us.  God’s Spirit walks with us.  When we help those in need, we are without excuse not to be God’s messengers.  Love must be fully evident in our physical help.

We don’t beat people over the head with Bible verses.  We bring God’s love with words and deeds that are in harmony.  One without the other is incomplete.

We know God and we must be his love in this world.  We cannot deny that dynamic. 

I don’t ever want to give out a box of food that’s just food.

I don’t ever want to pay a bill that only turns the power back on.

I don’t ever want to put gas in a tank that only fuels the vehicle.

I want to meet the full need and that includes putting God’s love squarely in the middle. 

This should sound familiar.  We need to get out of the business of transactions and into the business of transformation.  We know the One who transforms.

If we only give out food for food’s sake, we miss the mark.  The love of God and witness to his goodness and a desire to bring people into the family of faith where they may know fellowship and abundance are the real sustenance.  Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  We must live the words that proceed from the mouth of God not forgetting the God part.

God’s love, God’s word, God’s abundance in the fellowship of believers must be foremost in all of our acts of compassion and benevolence. 

We get the stuff part.  We do this all of the time.  Let us lead with love and good news.  Let our words and our deeds be in harmony with God’s will.

We are sometimes challenged by the fact that some people only want their physical needs met.  They don’t want the gospel.  They don’t want to hear about God’s love for them.

We are not people of condemnation, but we are faithful to our God.  That means that we are people of good news and our words and our deeds are in harmony.  We never leave out the truth of how much God loves us just because someone doesn’t want to hear it. 

That means that for us, God’s love governs and is central in all that we do.  We are people of good news.  The delivery of good news is action prompted by love.

We are God’s love in action and our action must always includes good news.

Amen.