"47praising God and having favor with all the people."
Last week we talked much of the importance of gathering together in love, and when you read further in Acts you realize that their love was visible to the everyone. They were engaged with the people around them.
Acts 5:12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. 13None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.
I’m going to talk about why they were so scared in the next point, but at least we can see that people knew about what they did.
Matt 5:14-15 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
These four walls, for a lot of us, have become that basket. Many find their entire spiritual existence inside the church organization, inside the two hour service even.
We as leaders used to feel obliged to find everyone a place in this big church machine, to ask people to come in and be used by God. It was more comfortable for them, and meant more manpower for the organization, everyone wins right?
What does the great commission say though? Jesus said go and make disciples.
You find people missing the point in Acts as well:
Acts 11:19-21 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
Jesus told them to go out and be His witnesses to the ends of the earth, but they just bunched together and didn’t go anywhere beyond Jerusalem, never mind the gentiles. So this persecution broke loose, the one that stoned Stephen, and scattered them, and got the snowball rolling that allows Gentiles like us to be follow Christ today.
I realized that the person who God used to start this scattering was Saul, who in next chapters in Acts, as Apostle Paul, will continue the scattering, the spreading of Christ to the gentiles, only now for a completely different cause. I’m inclined to think that was God’s whimsical plan all along.
We talked last week about how we gather weekly to love and support, and celebrate what God has been doing, but just as the church was scattered to Antioch and beyond, we also are scattered weekly. There is just as much purpose in our scattering as our gathering.
We had a chance to lead encounter night, a night of praise and prayer for all campuses a couple of weeks ago. As you’ve noticed in Hamilton, praise is really simple, but we enjoy it just as much this way.
I do remember someone cautioning us that doing the same thing there will not have the same results. The comment was that in Hamilton most people come ready to praise God, that for laughter or for tears we’ve met God during the week, and we come looking to pour our hearts out and debrief with God, where as most other people are looking at that praise time as their main avenue to connect with God, and it takes them a while to restart their connection that was broken during the week.
That got me thinking about why our scattering is important. God called us to live lives that loved on others not because he needs us to, but because he wants to take His love, His promises, His ways off of the letters on the page, and into your everyday reality. As any proud father would, He wants His kids to see him at work. He wants us to see Him and meet Him and connect with Him every moment of everyday, to have us see what would happen if we poured out, repeatedly and unconditionally, His supernatural love.
That does requires us to get out of our seats, get out from underneath this basket, to more than just roam the world between services, but to engage it. Our friends, family, school, city.
We’ve already started some first steps, our Weds prayer meetings now on campus, many of us volunteer (CityKidz, teach ESL, working with the broken homes, etc.) Karen recently started to gather funds to buy more nutritious food for one of a homeless ministry downtown. I want Westside Hamilton to have a meaningful scattering when we’re not gathered, salt of the earth, light of the world.
But as we head out there, what do we engage them with?
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