I have bad news for you this morning: church is the problem. That's right. According to a new survey by LifeWay Research, that's what most non-church going folks think about church. Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven’t darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is “full of hypocrites,” and even more of them consider Christianity to be more about organized religion than about loving God and people, according to a new survey.
This comes as quite a shock to most of us within the church. We think that the church is the answer. We tell one another about how much the church means to us. We come and hear about how God loves us and how we should love both our neighbors and our enemies. We collect food and give to the needy. For us, we see church as the answer to life's woes. But not so those outside of the church.We don't come off so well in their estimation. Almost half those surveyed — 44 percent — agreed that “Christians get on my nerves.”
Therefore, they don't go to church, for they see no need. 86 percent said they believed they could have a good relationship with God without church involvement.
But the news wasn't all bad. The survey also found that some 78 percent said they would be willing to listen to someone who wanted to tell them about his or her Christian beliefs. This is also a surprise, since we usually think that people will be offended if we talk about faith.
Talking about our faith is what we have been learning about in these first chapters of the book of Acts. Jesus charged his first followers with sharing the good news, first with those in the Jerusalem and then to the surrounding area, and ultimately to the world. In the last chapter, he gave them the key thing they needed -- the Holy Spirit. And as they were empowered by the Spirit they were able to speak and be understood by Jews from all different parts of the Roman Empire, even as they spoke all different languages. It foreshadowed the spread of the gospel which was to come where Christians would speak Latin, Greek, and eventually English, Russian, Chinese, and Spanish. But this is to get ahead of the story a bit. We need to see exactly how the good news spread.
As we read this story, I want you to consider the question, what would make someone follow Christ? What would it take for a non-churchgoer to actually want to go to church?
1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4 Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, "Look at us." 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's Portico, utterly astonished.12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. 17 ... 19 Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus,
How did the gospel spread in this story? It spread through the combination of proclamation and power, as we shall see.
Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. This is highly symbolic. The temple was where God would meet his people and the hour of prayer was when the people should be meeting him. But was that really happening? Not necessarily. There were numbers of Jews who saw the temple as hopelessly compromised. It was lead by the high priests who were cooperating with the Romans. To many they looked like hypocrites. They held that God was their strength and their Lord and their salvation, but then it their behavior they acted like the Roman government was in charge. This caused many to look elsewhere for God to act, away from his traditional place in the temple. I'm sure that there were some that doubted whether God would really act at all.
It is into this temple that Peter and John where walking when a man who had been paralyzed from birth asked for some spare change. Peter gets his full-attention. He has some good and some bad news. The bad news was that he had no money to give him. The good news was that he was going to give him what he had. And with that, he tells the man to stand up and walk. The man must have just been staring at them utterly confounded. What was he talking about? So, Peter reaches out, takes his hand, and helps him to his feet. As he did so, he legs were strengthened and he stood up. Not only did he stand, but he began to go with them into the temple. And he did so the Luke gives us the most wonderful string of adverbs. He went "walking and leaping, and praising God." He must have been quite a sight! How he must have dreamed all of this life to be able to walk. Now, he can not only walk, but also leap. And so he is bounding around like a little boy with too much energy and praising God for what he has done.
The people that were around were understandably astounded. The words that Luke uses for them is wonder, amazement and astonishment. How many times had they seen this poor beggar? They knew that he was a life-long paralytic. Now, he is walking and leaping and he is giving credit to God for healing him.
I want you think think for a minute about Peter's words, for they are astonishing. He said that he had no money, but he would give the man what he had. What was it that he had to give the man? It was none other than the power of God to change this man's life. Imagine yourself making that claim the next time that someone asks you for spare change. I can't think of a more audacious claim -- that you have the power of God to offer to someone else. But you know what? You do as well. For just as Peter and John had received the Holy Spirit in their lives, so every believer has the same Spirit. You really could offer the same thing that Peter did on that day two thousand years ago.
This story demonstrates that God is not confined to a building, but is at work in the world. He is the God who cares about people and wants to make a difference in their lives. It was this demonstration of power that made a difference. In verses that follow we read about how Peter then went on to explain to them about the source of the power. It comes from the name of Jesus. He calls on them to repent, which means to turn from their self-centered lives and to follow Christ. If they do, Jesus promises to forgive their sins. If they do, "times of refreshing will come." If they do, Jesus will come and live and be powerfully present in their lives.
It is by power and proclamation that the gospel is spread. What people today want is power and proclamation. They want to see that faith makes a difference. That it makes life better. And then they need to know how they can get it too.
Could you do what Peter did? Could you offer the power and promise of God to someone else?
Before you answer, consider Tom Yoder. Yoder was frustrated. For six months as a Peace Corps volunteer, he'd worked diligently to earn the trust of an African tribe. He was eager to share with them plans for irrigation ditches, lessons about crop rotation, and new ways to market their surplus fruits and vegetables. But he remained a distrusted outsider. They weren't listening to him and they didn't care what he had to say.One day, a young boy came to Tom's hut. He pointed to the far end of the village and said: "The family that lives in that hut has fallen ill. They've been abandoned to die. But the children are my friends. Can you help?"Tom rushed to the forbidden hut, entered, and immediately realized that the family had contracted yellow-fever. For the next six days, Yoder bathed, fed, and nursed the family until each was strong enough to be transported 90 miles to a hospital. Each family member returned later, completely healed.The villagers then called Yoder the "great fearless one." From then on they listened to him, accepting all his farming ideas. Tom wrote about this amazing turn in his journal: "It's easy to be fearless when you've been vaccinated against a disease."
Dennis Hensley, More than Meets the Eye, found in Men of Integrity (4-1-05), March/April 2005.
Tom Yoder gives us a picture of what we should be like as Christians. He had this great information that he wanted to pass on and the people that he lived around knew it. But he had more than a message. He had a heart of service. The Spirit moves us to serve others. What made them receive the message that he had was that they saw how much he was willing to do for them.
It has been said, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." We are called to love others. Showing we care means lending a listening ear, before offering advice. It means reaching into our pocket to meet a need rather than expecting someone else to do it. It means befriending the friendless, welcoming the stranger and not turning a deaf ear to the needy. This is what speaks love.
It has been a failing of some Christians that they share what they know about the Bible, much like the smartest kid in the class who is smug and proud. No one wants to take that. But it is an equal failing that Christians have this life-changing good news, but fail to share it. Largely, because we are full of fear.
The story ended with that great line, "It's easy to be fearless when you have been vaccinated against the disease." Tom Yoder did not fear the same thing that the tribes-people had, because he was impervious to the danger. That is true for us as well. Too often we are afraid of what others will think of us if we go public with our faith. We are worried that they will reject us or make fun of us. But we don't need to be worried about that. We don't need their acceptance or approval, because we have the total acceptance of God. There is nothing that can separate us from God or his love for us. If we have his approval and acceptance, we don't need to try to win everyone else's. Therefore we can face the risk of rejection, of having people think that we're crazy. I read a quote by a man named Ambrose Redmond which goes,
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
Because we have the Spirit can face fear, because we know that being a witness is more important than our fear.
A Sudanese pastor named Urgessa Biru spoke at a Presbyterian conference last August. He told the attendendees in matter-of-fact tones how as a teenage boy when he became a Christian he was disowned by his Muslim family. He said, “I had to choose family or Jesus. I chose Jesus.” Then he went to the university where he was discriminated against for his faith and finally given an ultimatum: convert to Islam or leave. He said, “I had to choose an education or Jesus. I chose Jesus.” Later, he migrated to Canada and at last received his degree and went on to earn a PhD. Then he sensed God calling him to return to Ethiopia to do ministry among the poor. He went back and before long found that in spite of his service to the poor, local religious leaders had given a fatwa calling for him to be killed. Urgessa went directly to the extremist leaders and said, “I have come back to Ethiopia to love you and to serve you. Please know that if you kill me, you will have done so because of my love and service to you.” Today a number of rural Muslim villages have opened their arms and are welcoming Urgessa’s ministry to their poor and hungry.
This pastor chose Jesus over his fear. And because he has continued to do this, the hope of Christ is spreading. The people in these villages are having the assumptions challenged. Christians might not be the problem. They might just have the answers to their deepest problems. If a Christian would serve them in this way, then maybe God does care about them.
People chose Jesus because they see that he makes a difference in the world. They see the power of his love and they understand what he has done for them in Jesus.
As a church, we should be committed to the task of showing our friends and neighbors that the church is answer and not the problem. We do that by making a difference. By giving away our life, the way that Christ gave away his. And by bearing witness to what God has done in Jesus Christ.