Sermon for April 10th, 2016 - Revision history

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Iraneal at 23:39, 9 April 2016

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← Older revision		Revision as of 01:53, 10 April 2016
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	Imagine if you only excersised twice a year. Would it do any good? Imagine if you only ate food once a week. Imagine if you were going to school but only showed up to class when something interesting happened. Imagine painting a picture, or writing a novel, or composing a piece of music, but just giving up when you get stuck, or when things don't work out the way you planned. Imagine getting married, and hearing your beloeved say, "I mostly take you, to have and to hold sometimes, for better, but not for worse, for richer, but not for poorer, in health but not sickness, until I get bored."		Imagine if you only excersised twice a year. Would it do any good? Imagine if you only ate food once a week. Imagine if you were going to school but only showed up to class when something interesting happened. Imagine painting a picture, or writing a novel, or composing a piece of music, but just giving up when you get stuck, or when things don't work out the way you planned. Imagine getting married, and hearing your beloeved say, "I mostly take you, to have and to hold sometimes, for better, but not for worse, for richer, but not for poorer, in health but not sickness, until I get bored."

−	The best things we can accomplish in life, the very best things we can be, for ourselves and for each other, all require devotion. The people of the "First Church" knew this, and so they devoted themselves to all the right things. May the people of First Presbyterian Church do likewise, "with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people."	+	The best things we can accomplish in life, the very best things we can do and be, for ourselves and for each other, all require devotion. The people of the "First Church" knew this, and so what did they do? They devoted themselves to all the right things. May the people of the First Presbyterian Church do likewise, "with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people."

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 Worship puts us in a different frame of mind--it's where heaven and earth touch on another, where human and divine meet for just a little while, and where we allow the sacred to come into our lives.  Why wouldn't we want just a little bit more of that?  I suspect the answer is, "Because I'm too busy."  I've seen what "too busy" does to a person over the course of a lifetime.  But the solution to "too busy" isn't getting more things done, more quickly.  The  solution is letting things go, making room in your life for what's truly important.  Making space in your life for peace, for contemplation, for prayer, for music, for worship, for God.
-Two more quick comments, and we'll close:  First is the word "devotion."  It's not another leg of the stool, we already have three, but you might think of it as the round seat at the top that holds the three legs together. They *devoted* themselves to all three things:  To the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Devoted. In Greek, it's προσκαρτερέω (proskartereo).  Strong's dictionary defines it as "to continue to do something with intense effort, despite difficulty, to keep on, to persist in.  Devoted is a good translation.  Devotion is discipline.  Devotion is consistency.  Not something we do just when we can squeeze it in, or when there's a special reason to.
+One more thing, and I'll close:  It's not another leg of the stool, since we already have three, but you might think of it as the round seat at the top that holds the three legs together. They *devoted* themselves to all three things:  To the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Devoted. In Greek, it's προσκαρτερέω (proskartereo).  Strong's dictionary defines it as "to continue to do something with intense effort, despite difficulty, to keep on, to persist in.  Devoted is a good translation.  Devotion is discipline.  Devotion is consistency.  Not something we do just when we can squeeze it in, or when we feel like it.
-Imagine if you only excersised twice a year.  Would it do any good?  Imagine if you only ate food once a week.  Would you be healthy?  Imagine if you were going to school or college and only showed up to class when something interesting happened.  Would you ever graduate?  Imagine painting a picture, or writing a novel, or composing a piece of music, but you
+Imagine if you only excersised twice a year.  Would it do any good?  Imagine if you only ate food once a week.  Imagine if you were going to school but only showed up to class when something interesting happened.  Imagine painting a picture, or writing a novel, or composing a piece of music, but just giving up when you get stuck, or when things don't work out the way you planned.  Imagine getting married, and hearing your beloeved say, "I mostly take you, to have and to hold sometimes, for better, but not for worse, for richer, but not for poorer, in health but not sickness, until I get bored."

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 If you have children, and you want them to be lifelong learners, especially lifelong spiritual learners, the best way to teach them that habit is by your own example. That's why we have Sunday school classes for children AND adults, and seasonal Bible studies, and Wednesday night study groups.  And I'd love to see even more opportunities like that spring up...so if you have something to teach us, then teach.  All of us still have a lot to learn.
-The second leg of the stool is fellowship.  They devoted themselves to fellowship.
+The second leg of the stool is fellowship.  They devoted themselves to fellowship. The Greek word here is κοινωνία, which is a powerful concept in Greek and Roman culture: A community of equals, built on personal relationships.  κοινωνία also means common, and in Jewish culture was the word that meant the opposite of sacred.  In other words, passing the peace for a few minutes in the worship service is not really κοινωνία, not really fellowship.  We need to get to know each other outside of our sacred spaces.  When's the last time you invited someone from church to your home?  We read in verse 46 that the early church broke bread from "home to home" and "ate their food with glad and generous hearts."  Incidentally, if you have your calendars handy, you are all invited to the Locke family home next month on Sunday afternoon, May 22nd.
-Three legged stool: teaching, fellowship (koinonia?), and bread-breaking/prayers (worship).  Everything else (including serving, giving, sharing, miracles, growth) flow from this.
+Sometimes, as a church, we do things together just for fun, like go to baseball games, or to the movies, or UTEP operas.  Our primary fellowship time is Wednesday nights, when (weather permitting) we grill outdoors, while the kids play, and basically just enjoy each others' company.  If you come to Worship and Sunday School every Sunday morning, but leave right after the benediction, without taking the time to fellowship with the community be careful: Your two-legged stool is about to fall over.  And if we, as a church, don't make space for fun, for fellowship, for non-sacred time together building relationships with each other, then we aren't being the church.
-Our fellowship is Wednesday nights.
+The third and last leg of the stool is worship.  They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  This is not just any bread-breaking like that mentioned later from home to home, but "the" breaking of bread, or observance of the Lord's supper, the earliest ritual in the church.  And these are not just any prayers, but "the prayers,"  most likely a set of liturgical, communal prayers, like the the Lord's prayer.  In other words, worship.  We do this every Sunday morning, but notice that in the first church, they did it every day.  Verse 46: "Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple."  It's no accident that one verse later we see the same wording, "And day by day the Lord added to their number..."  If we want to grow more (as a church or as individuals), we need to worship more.
-Historic notes or marks of the church in Reformed Theology.
+Worship puts us in a different frame of mind--it's where heaven and earth touch on another, where human and divine meet for just a little while, and where we allow the sacred to come into our lives.  Why wouldn't we want just a little bit more of that?  I suspect the answer is, "Because I'm too busy."  I've seen what "too busy" does to a person over the course of a lifetime.  But the solution to "too busy" isn't getting more things done, more quickly.  The  solution is letting things go, making room in your life for what's truly important.  Making space in your life for peace, for contemplation, for prayer, for music, for worship, for God.
-They "devoted" themselves. This implies consistency and discipline. Talk about workout conversations with Luis.
+Two more quick comments, and we'll close:  First is the word "devotion."  It's not another leg of the stool, we already have three, but you might think of it as the round seat at the top that holds the three legs together. They *devoted* themselves to all three things:  To the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Devoted. In Greek, it's προσκαρτερέω (proskartereo).  Strong's dictionary defines it as "to continue to do something with intense effort, despite difficulty, to keep on, to persist in.  Devoted is a good translation.  Devotion is discipline.  Devotion is consistency.  Not something we do just when we can squeeze it in, or when there's a special reason to.
-Frequency is not monthly or even weekly, but "day by day."
+Imagine if you only excersised twice a year.  Would it do any good?  Imagine if you only ate food once a week.  Would you be healthy?  Imagine if you were going to school or college and only showed up to class when something interesting happened.  Would you ever graduate?  Imagine painting a picture, or writing a novel, or composing a piece of music, but you

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 If in your spiritual life, you are not actively studying the great sacred texts that are part of our heritage (namely the Bible, but there are others as well), if you are not actively studying the world God created and the people who inhabit it, and if you are not connecting these things together...then in your individual spiritual life, you probably aren't growing much.  Likewise, if we as a church are not studying these things together, exploring together, and learning together, then we as a church probably aren't growing together much, either.  And while I hope my sermons are always helpful and educational, it takes more than a 20 minute sermon once a week to grow.  If you went to the gym for just 20 minutes once a week, you probably wouldn't accomplish much there, either, would you?
-That's why we have Sunday school classes, and fall and summer Bible studies, and Wednesday night study groups.  And I'd love to see even more opportunities like that spring up...so if you have something to teach us, then teach.  And all of us still have a lot to learn.
+If you have children, and you want them to be lifelong learners, especially lifelong spiritual learners, the best way to teach them that habit is by your own example. That's why we have Sunday school classes for children AND adults, and seasonal Bible studies, and Wednesday night study groups.  And I'd love to see even more opportunities like that spring up...so if you have something to teach us, then teach.  All of us still have a lot to learn.
 The second leg of the stool is fellowship.  They devoted themselves to fellowship.

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:37, 10 April 2016
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	Later, Peter tells the crowd, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." That's not a very good translation of γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς. σκολιᾶς means bent or twisted--it's where the medical term "scoliosis" (a bent spine) comes from. And while γενεᾶς is root for generation, it's also the root for genetic, something inherited. I don't think Peter is telling them that baptism will save them from a corrupt world. He's telling them that in baptism, we leave behind our bent and broken inheritance, and join a new family, with a new inheritance.		Later, Peter tells the crowd, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." That's not a very good translation of γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς. σκολιᾶς means bent or twisted--it's where the medical term "scoliosis" (a bent spine) comes from. And while γενεᾶς is root for generation, it's also the root for genetic, something inherited. I don't think Peter is telling them that baptism will save them from a corrupt world. He's telling them that in baptism, we leave behind our bent and broken inheritance, and join a new family, with a new inheritance.

		+	Baptism, however, whether you are baptized as a child or as an adult, only marks the beginning. Baptism alone, or even baptism accompanied by sincere repentence, sincere inward change, does not create a cohesive community. It might create a profound spiritual experience, but those tend to be fleeting, and pretty soon we find ourselves back to our usual habits, back to our broken inheritance.

		+	That's why I think verse 42 is the pivotal moment, and perhaps the most important verse in the entire book of Acts. After 3,000 people repent and are baptized, we read that "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Everything that happens in the next paragraph, all the signs and wonders and miracles, all the giving, sharing, serving and generosity, and all the continued growth, hinge on this one verse.
		+
		+	They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
		+
		+	This is what I call the three-legged stool upon which a faith community is built. Think of a three-legged stool. If you take away any one of the legs, even with the other two intact, the stool cannot stand. Without any of these three things, the church is not the church. And unless each one of us is fully engaged in each of these three things, we're not really part of the community.
		+
		+	All three are, once again, actions and not beliefs.
		+
		+	The first leg of the stool is education. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. Now, I've spent a lot of time (most of my life) thinking about education. I have a Master's degree in education. Before I was a Pastor, I was a high school teacher. And now that I'm a Pastor, I still consider myself first and foremost, a teacher. All this is to say that I know the value of education, of good teaching. A good teacher does NOT tell you what to believe, what to think, or what is true. A good teacher helps you to explore these things for yourself, giving guidance and direction where needed. And a good student, pursues all of these things, not just for a season, but for a lifetime.
		+
		+	If in your spiritual life, you are not actively studying the great sacred texts that are part of our heritage (namely the Bible, but there are others as well), if you are not actively studying the world God created and the people who inhabit it, and if you are not connecting these things together...then in your individual spiritual life, you probably aren't growing much. Likewise, if we as a church are not studying these things together, exploring together, and learning together, then we as a church probably aren't growing together much, either. And while I hope my sermons are always helpful and educational, it takes more than a 20 minute sermon once a week to grow. If you went to the gym for just 20 minutes once a week, you probably wouldn't accomplish much there, either, would you?
		+
		+	That's why we have Sunday school classes, and fall and summer Bible studies, and Wednesday night study groups. And I'd love to see even more opportunities like that spring up...so if you have something to teach us, then teach. And all of us still have a lot to learn.
		+
		+	The second leg of the stool is fellowship. They devoted themselves to fellowship.

	Three legged stool: teaching, fellowship (koinonia?), and bread-breaking/prayers (worship). Everything else (including serving, giving, sharing, miracles, growth) flow from this.		Three legged stool: teaching, fellowship (koinonia?), and bread-breaking/prayers (worship). Everything else (including serving, giving, sharing, miracles, growth) flow from this.

← Older revision	Revision as of 18:24, 14 April 2016
(No difference)

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 Repenting is something inward, something invisible between just you and God.  Baptism is something outward, visible, something the community can see and remember.  Sometimes, as was likely the case with all the adults that day, the repentance or inward change comes before the outward sign of baptism.  But later, Peter says that this "promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."  Sometimes the outward sign of baptism comes first, when we are only infants and before we have the ability to even understand it, while the inward change, the repentance comes years afterwards when we are older.  In any case, both pieces--internal and external--are essential to forming a cohesive community.
-Later, Peter tells the crowd, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."  That's not a very good translation of γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς.  σκολιᾶς means bent or twisted--it's where the medical term "scoliosis" (a bent spine) comes from. And while γενεᾶς is root for generation, it's also the root for genetic, something inherited. I don't think Peter is talking about the corrupt world around them.  I think he's telling them to leave behind
+Later, Peter tells the crowd, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."  That's not a very good translation of γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς.  σκολιᾶς means bent or twisted--it's where the medical term "scoliosis" (a bent spine) comes from. And while γενεᾶς is root for generation, it's also the root for genetic, something inherited. I don't think Peter is telling them that baptism will save them from a corrupt world.  He's telling them that in baptism, we leave behind our bent and broken inheritance, and join a new family, with a new inheritance.
-−
-We must read acts through a lens of moving from individual to community, which is what they were trying to do. This is hard for us...because we are an individualistic society (like Jerusalem and Rome).
-−
-Repentance = admitting in a self-centric, try-harder, individualistic culture (Pharisees and Americans) that we can't do it on our own.

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 What should we DO?  Interestingly, they don't ask, "what should we BELIEVE?"  Somehow, 2,000 years later, we have made belief, and not action, the primary criteria for acceptance into the church community.  You want to be a Christian?  Ok, first you have to believe what we believe, accept all of these doctrines and ideas about who Jesus was and what the Bible *really* means, and then once you believe all these things, then you can belong to our community.
-Peter and the apostles don't seem to be too worried about uniformity of belief.  The crowd asks what they should do, and Peter tells them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven."
+Peter and the apostles don't seem to be too worried about uniformity of belief.  Most of the doctrines and creeds of the church won't even be formulated for another few hundred years, and as we'll see later in Acts, even Jesus' earliest followers didn't always agree on who he was and what they were all supposed to believe about him.
-−
 We must read acts through a lens of moving from individual to community, which is what they were trying to do. This is hard for us...because we are an individualistic society (like Jerusalem and Rome).
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 Repentance = admitting in a self-centric, try-harder, individualistic culture (Pharisees and Americans) that we can't do it on our own.
 Three legged stool: teaching, fellowship (koinonia?), and bread-breaking/prayers (worship).  Everything else (including serving, giving, sharing, miracles, growth) flow from this.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:39, 9 April 2016
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	Well. I'm so glad you asked.		Well. I'm so glad you asked.
		+
		+	I think it's easy with passages like this one to see the big things, like 3,000 people, amazing wonders and signs, and radical acts of generosity. But it's also easy to miss the little, but important things, the persistent things that created that kind of environment. They're all there as well, and that's what I want to focus on today.
		+
		+	Right before today's scripture passage, Peter preaches a sermon. It's always tempting (especially for a preacher) to think that the sermon was what did the trick. But as I said earlier, it was just three minutes long. Peter quotes a few passages from the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament), tells them about this guy named Jesus of Nazareth, about his death and resurrection, and that's pretty much it. It's a message you've heard many times, and one I imagine most people in our community (believers and non-believers alike) are pretty well acquainted with. No, I don't think it was the sermon, and in any case, that's not today's focus.
		+
		+	Our passage begins with the response of the crowd, which, for whatever reason (let's just call it the movement of the Spirit) is "cut to the heart." Listen to their response, the first words out of their mouths: They "said to Peter and to the other apostles, 'Brothers, what should we do?'"
		+
		+	What should we DO? Interestingly, they don't ask, "what should we BELIEVE?" Somehow, 2,000 years later, we have made belief, and not action, the primary criteria for acceptance into the church community. You want to be a Christian? Ok, first you have to believe what we believe, accept all of these doctrines and ideas about who Jesus was and what the Bible really means, and then once you believe all these things, then you can belong to our community.
		+
		+	Peter and the apostles don't seem to be too worried about uniformity of belief. The crowd asks what they should do, and Peter tells them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven."
		+
		+