This Message Of Salvation

 

9.00 am and 10.30 am Sunday 9^th July 2006

 

ACTS 13:13-52

 

The death of the Kahui twins raises the question, how can someone like you or I do such a thing? This tragedy, so very close to where we live, highlights what each one of us as human beings are capable of. What is so very sobering is the observation of a retired detective who I understand was interviewed on radio or TV. His comment was that what happened in this home is happening in other homes, too. What we have seen is only the tip of the iceberg so far as the reality of life is concerned for thousands of New Zealand families.

 

How could God allow such things to happen? Why didn't he do something about it? Couldn't he have prevented this tragedy? The answer is that he has done something, all he could possibly do to bring peace and love to a deeply troubled world. In our reading from Acts this morning we find the words " ... God has brought ... a saviour, Jesus, has he promised ..." (Acts 13:23 TNIV) God has provided exactly what is needed, not only for our time, but throughout all human history. We know that we are living in challenging times, but our current situation is always in some measure the providence of God. As is so often said, "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." This is the message that comes through in all the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles. God has acted in Jesus Christ to fulfil his saving purpose for the world. Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, " ... everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. ... God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah." (Acts 2:21,36 TNIV) And a short time later when addressing the household of Cornelius, "You know the message God sent ... announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ ... Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." (Acts 10:36,43 TNIV).

 

How is this message for our time, nearly two thousand years later? We need to understand that there are two sets of conditions that influence life, those that are permanent and those to do with our social environment: [1]

 

1. Those that are PERMANENT are such things as:

        death, bereavement, pain. No one is exempt from these. Death is the ultimate statistic, and we all experience pain to varying degrees;

        frustration and disappointment, particularly relating to our ambitions and desires;

        struggles and insecurities, even to the extent of making ends meet;

        the strains and tensions in personal relationships which is so much part of daily life;

        issues of conscience that puzzle us; and

        the downward pull of evil. We can readily identify with Paul's words in Romans 7 for they are part of our daily experience, too:

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:18-19 TNIV)

 

2. The second set of conditions have to do with our SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT, our external setting of life. These include such things as:

        the 'spirit of the times' which we absorb even if we are not aware of it;

        conditions that change from century to century, generation to generation, nation to nation;

        they lack permanence and universality; and

        the dominant problem is seen as problems associated with the community. People are not so much asking "What must I do to be saved? but rather 'What must we do to be saved?"

 

To communicate effectively the Good News about Jesus, we need to understand 'the spirit of our time'. The following are five elements characteristic of our time:

• the hollow sense of futility and meaninglessness. People don't have things to 'live' for, let alone 'die' for. This is the outcome of the loss of an awareness of God and the eternal dimension to life; an awareness that this life in not all there is. Therefore people do not have a perspective on life which gives it meaning and purpose.
• the sense of their own personal insignificance. This could be described as an inferiority complex. It comes from the deep impersonalisation in human relationships which makes people feel like a cog in a wheel. People have a hunger for love and justice in a world that shows little of either. Only love can give a person a right sense of significance and when people don't find it in God, they seek it in perverted ways as we saw during the last World War in exaggerated nationalism and anti-Semitism.
• a yearning for security. People want risk and adventure in life, but they want it in the context of stable circumstances. This yearning for security is shown in parents' concern for their children, and also in an obsessive desire to acquire material possessions as if they can provide the security people are looking for.
• an awareness of evil and unreason. People have become increasingly aware of the frightening prospects of what human beings are capable of doing to one another if the restraints of society are lifted or go unchecked. The example of what happened within the Kahui household is an example of this. During our time in Europe we visited Dachau Concentration Camp. Nothing of what happened within its fences has been covered over. It is there for all to read. It was a sobering reminder of what can happen when evil goes unchecked.
• the need for absolutes for conduct. We cannot live safely in a world which does not have guidelines to live by. A simple example is to imagine what it would be like driving on the roads in New Zealand if there were no road rules. We need guideline to live by if we and others are to enjoy life.

 

To each of these there is a Christian response:.

 

1. To the sense of futility and meaninglessness, the Christian response is that history has a divine purpose. God is working his purposes out within human history and nothing, absolutely nothing will prevent its ultimate consummation and fulfilment. We are called to serve God here and now, just and David did. Acts 13 says, "For David ... served the purpose of God in his own generation ..." (Acts 13:36 TNIV) This brings to our present life an eternal dimension, yet not in the sense that it robs this life of its significance. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He (God) has also set eternity in the human heart." This is universal. God has created us with this longing that goes beyond physical life as we know it. And God wants our present life to be a preparation for eternity with him. This was his plan all along which we can see in Jesus' words in the parable of Matthew 25: "Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." (verse 34 TNIV). Knowing that makes all the difference as to how we live our lives here.

 

2. To the sense of personal insignificance, the Christian response is that God loves every individual. Every person needs to know they are loved and wanted. This is graphically portrayed in this Word for Today in May of this year.

'The phone rang in a high society Boston home. A son who'd just returned from Vietnam was calling from California. His parents were the cocktail-circuit, party kind. The boy said, "I just called to tell you that I want to bring a buddy home with me." His mother said, "Sure, bring him along for a few days." "But mother, there's something you need to know about him. One leg's gone, one arm's gone, one eye's gone, and his face is disfigured." His mother said, "It's okay, bring him home for a few days anyway." The son said, "You don't understand. I want to bring him home to live with us." After a long pause the mother began to make excuses. "What would people think?" How could we take care of him given our busy lives?" And the phone clicked. A few hours later the California Police Department called. Again the mother picked up the phone; a voice said, "We have found a boy with one arm, one leg, one eye and a mangled face. he just committed suicide. His identification papers say he's your son."

What this young man needed to know was that there was someone who loved, who cared, and when he could not find it, he took his life.

 

However, in this next story we see the difference it made when a person was willing to let God take over. In March 2004 Ashley Smith was held hostage for seven hours by Brian Nichols, the alleged Atlanta courthouse killer who murdered four people. Ashley Smith experienced the love of God through that time of ordeal. She had been struggling with a drug problem for some time. She had become a Christian when she was 7 but had wandered away from it in her teen years and become involved in the drugs scene. At the time Brian Nichols held her hostage she was struggling to get her life back on track with God. She said, I could sense God telling me, "Choose the drugs or choose me," Ashley remembers. I heard him loud him clear - and I chose him. Immediately I heard him say, "I am here. It's okay. I'll get you out of here if you just trust me." Seven hours later she walked out unharmed. She still can't believe Brian let her go. Ashley believes God allowed her to survive the ordeal in order to fulfil a purpose of her own - sharing with others that the Lord never gives up on those he loves. "I want people to know that God has a plan for their lives if they will let him work," Ashley says. "None of us is perfect. But it's never too late to turn your life around." God loves every individual.

 

3. To the yearning for security, the Christian response is the providence of God. Knowing that God is in control and that he screens what he allows to come across our path in life is part of his providential care. It can enable us to see that our challenges are also opportunities. Our extremity is God's opportunity. God knows what is for the best, what is for our long-term good.

 

4. To the awareness of evil and unreason, listen to these words written on the Wall of Memory at the Dachau Concentration Camp in French, English, German and Russian.

"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."

These people resisted evil although it cost them their lives. But there was another who gave his life so that evil would be conquered. The Christian response to this awareness of evil and unreason is that God's love overcame evil through the cross. This is at the heart of the Christian doctrine of the love of God. The best evidence of God's presence and action in history is not seen in the good and pleasant things of life, but in an event in which were operative the worst of human actions. God's love won its victory through the horror of suffering and sin. Through his death on the cross God secured our forgiveness. This is the message Paul proclaimed in Acts 13, "... through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to men ..." (verse 38 TNIV).

 

5. To the need for absolutes the Christian response is the call to loyal discipleship to Christ. In following Christ there is satisfaction for the deep ineradicable need for a fixed point, an absolute, in the realm of conduct. Jesus said, "Come, follow me ...." (Mark 1:17 TNIV)

 

The good news of the gospel is tailor-made for our generation's deepest needs. It brings purpose and meaning to life, because we know that there is Someone who really cares, who cared enough to die so that we might live. The mighty power of God's transforming love has been released to set you and I free.