Sunday 12th May Acts Chapter 2 verses 37 – 47

Sunday 12^th May              Acts Chapter 2 verses 37 – 47

Can any of you remember an occasion and how you felt when someone accused you of doing something wrong or of being complicit in wrong-doing; and you knew it to be true; you just couldn’t deny it? I am sure for all of you here such a memory is in the far distant past! But I bet you felt pretty ghastly at the time, especially if some completely innocent person had been hurt because of you; and even more so, perhaps, if you simply had not realised that your action or, as often can be the case, your inaction had somehow served to create the wrong-doing.   Well, Peter, in our reading from Acts this morning as we continue our journey of discovery through this remarkable record of the first years of the early Church, has just stunned the Jerusalem crowds v36 with just such a revelation: that they were responsible for the death of Jesus.

But this too is the meaning of Easter: this is the part of the Easter message that we and others don’t like to hear or be reminded of. He is saying to them and so to us, very directly, that by not keeping God’s commandments we are complicit in the death of Jesus, God’s Son. No wonder they were ‘cut to the heart when they heard this’; no wonder any sincere person, in any age or generation with a genuine conscience has been ‘cut to the heart’ when they have heard the bad news that by their rejection of God or by their disobedience of his laws they too have caused the suffering and death of his Son. But this is why he came.

Oh, yes, Easter is ‘good news’ indeed: but before we can really appreciate the good news of our redemption through Jesus and the wonderful, liberating gift of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit v38, we need to understand the need for repentance and the reason why. Yet people here have said to me, ’Why do you and Joe keep going on about the need for repentance?’ Well, there certainly are churches you could go to today where this issue of the need for repentance will be played down or avoided altogether because it makes people feel uncomfortable in an age where we are told by so many pundits that the important thing is to feel good about ourselves. But the reason why Joe and I, following Peter – not to mention Jesus and Paul – mention this is that, uncomfortable though it is, not only will we not be able to appreciate it properly and take on board the good news of our rescue, we will also be tempted to allow worldly psychology to overrule heavenly psychology; and we will begin to wonder whether other people who are not Christians yet seem to be very good people actually need Jesus, actually need to be rescued and redeemed, saved at all.    

But just as Israel were God’s chosen people for the sake of the world, so now we are his chosen people for the sake of the world. What people – our families, friends, and colleagues - need to know is this one great truth on which all other spiritual and social truth depends - that Jesus is Lord of all.          

First, though, we need to be honest with ourselves of course. Have we fully acknowledged His lordship in our own lives? Have we explained it to others? Or have we denied it to suit our social situation? Have we not been a good neighbour by short-changing people about Christianity because we are more concerned about what our non-Christian friends will think of us? Or do we think, well, that’s the Vicar’s job, not mine!? But (v20 v39 are quite clear.)

We too need to ask ourselves, what should we do?

Well, let’s remember that because of the resurrection, it is clear not only that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be, but that he has dealt evil, sin, and death a blow from which, while evil struggles to retain some of its power over the gullible, the uninformed, and the resolutely self-absorbed, it will never recover.

 What can we do? Well, we can take a check on where we are today? Have we turned back to God, been baptised, been confirmed, received the Holy Spirit whom Joe was speaking about last Sunday? Bishop James, on Thursday, talked of the drawing closer of heaven to earth because of the Ascension; and in the risen Jesus we see what we shall become if we accept God’s GRACE in the here and now and allow something of heaven, God’s spirit, to touch our lives and the lives of those we meet.

Note the promise of this rescue V39 is for all: and the only way that all are going to be able to hear of it is from us, as V20 of our gospel reminds us.

What prevents people from coming back to God v38? Well, the first reason is ignorance. So, it is clearly our job to make Jesus known to others. Secondly,V40 ‘a corrupt generation’. Our generation is no different from theirs or any others in this respect. Corruption is essentially opposition to God and his ways?           It is a matter then not only of those who are uninformed about God but who actively rebel against him: this is what prevents people from receiving God. Jesus frequently warned his listeners that they had bought into a way of life that is directly opposite to what God wants. The Jews’ refusal to accept Jesus was simply a symptom of their refusal to accept God as God had chosen to reveal himself. It is the same problem today both inside and outside the Church.  People make gods in their own image: they condone those religious activities inside the church that prevent us from being faithful to his call, just as there are those activities outside the Church, religiously followed by people, that have the same affect. For Christians, everything that we do in Church on Sundays and throughout the week must have as its principal aim the making of God’s love and truth known to those outside: people will never appreciate properly God’s truth and his love unless they understand and accept their desperate need to be rescued by Jesus, to be ‘saved’.  

 Yes, we come to our services of worship to be spiritually nourished and to draw - and hopefully feel - closer to God, to be forgiven for our sins, to be able to look at Monday with a clear conscience, and to receive through the hymns, the prayers, the readings, the talks, and our conversations with our fellow Christians, a list of those things that God is placing on our hearts to say and to do that will demonstrate that our faith is sincere and our repentance real.     But unless our spiritual diet – be it high, low, catholic, protestant, or whatever - results in others, through our words and deeds, coming to know God’s truth and love for them, we only delude ourselves as to what ‘church’ has done for our relationship with God – whatever we would like to believe or however we happen to feel. When we know that we are loved by God; when we know that we have been rescued from the consequences of our sin, when we know something to be true, how can we not share these things with others? You see, as in all Christian life and doctrine, we are continually brought back to the two great commandments and to promises such as these in our two passages this morning that remind us of them and of our responsibilities.

We all of us need daily to grasp hold of our Saviour who alone can rescue us not only from death but from those temptations and acts of selfishness that keep us from our calling to share the ‘good news’ with others. Very interestingly, in both Luke’s Gospel and Acts, ‘salvation’ regularly refers to specific acts of rescue within this life, not just after death.

Verses 41 - 47 show the consequence, the result, of what happens when people take the Gospel seriously and begin to live it out together.                   This passage is often regarded as laying down the four ‘landmarks’ of a healthy and effective Church; four elements that together produce fruit: the Apostles’ teaching, the common life or life in common of believers, holy communion, and praying together. All four are vital for a healthy and effective church.    They did not sell their homes. (we know that they met in each others’ homes.) What they sold was the extra property they possessed so that no member was left in need. It was an outworking of the Second  Commandment and, as we discovered at Cafe Church last Sunday when the theme was ‘what does it mean to love your neighbour as yourself?’, it has precious little to do with how we feel about someone but everything to do with what they need.

Of course, once we have realised that everything we have or hold ultimately belongs not to us (we are just stewards) but to God, then this principle of giving and sharing becomes a lot easier to practise. It is one of the reasons why I say very little throughout the year about our finances: I just expect – naively, some have told me! - that when we have a deficit, those with means beyond their reasonable needs will give both responsibly and, if necessary, sacrificially.

But you know, the really positive, wonderful thing about living in this way as the family of God, the Church, is this. First, there is an amazing attractiveness to others – not to the self-absorbed of course - .Then, secondly, there is a real joy that comes from the giving and the sharing – that we have improved another’s lot; and thirdly, we will discover that other aspects of our character will benefit and flourish if we do this.

The Gospel – despite many people’s and even the Church’s attempts to change it, has not changed one iota: people still need to be saved from sin and from themselves. The resurrection proved that Jesus has overcome the old order of sin and death and shown us something of the glory which is to be ours. Don’t let the empty promises of the world’s popular pundits convince you otherwise: repent of your sins every day and welcome the holy spirit into your life everyday; love your neighbour as yourself and you will find yourself loving God, the true God, ever more truly with all your heart, and mind and soul and strength. And then, most importantly, we will find v47 coming true here in Brenchley.