Acts 4:23-30 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:“ ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
In the above scriptures we see the disciples after being threatened by the Sanhedrin going back to the believers and relating to them what happened to them at the hands of the authorities. Peter and John had been detained overnight in jail, so the believers were quite anxious to hear the specifics of their arrest and detention. The Christians in Jerusalem knew the horrible crucifixion of Jesus came at the behest of the Sanhedrin, so they knew as followers of Jesus that their lives too were in jeopardy of experiencing trouble from the elite. Peter and John told them that the Sanhedrin did not want the name of Jesus spoken in the Jewish community. They called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. (Acts 4:18) After hearing this news of quelling the name of Jesus, they raised their voices together in prayer to God, beseeching the living, supernatural God to intervene in the land of Israel. In their prayer they proclaimed who the living God is: you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. For them Jesus’ life reflected this Creator God whom they are praying to—Jesus performed a myriad of signs and wonders. He did what no other man who walked the earth had ever done. As Paul said to the Corinthians, the Jews seek after a sign, so the Lord in his ministry satisfied this desire of the Jews by performing many miracles in the midst of them. Jesus’ miraculous deeds confounded his adversaries the Sadducees because they did not believe in anything supernatural, and for the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, Jesus was considered a cult leader for He violated the Sabbath so often. Now, the believers in prayer were affirming that they are followers of the supernatural God who made the heavens and earth. This nascent church believed in the covenant God, the One who brought them out of Egypt, the One who gave them Canaan. He was the One who stamped his approval on Abraham before Abraham was circumcised. This God of theirs was a supernatural God who performed miracles and deeds that were beyond man’s imagination or experiences. Then the Lord said: “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. (Exodus 34:10) The apostles and the early believers had seen this miracle worker. They had seen the hand of God on Jesus, so now their prayers were to that God, not the God of their adversaries who did not believe in miracles or who only thought of God revealing himself in laws and regulations for man to fulfill to please a righteous God. They had forgotten the God of their ancestors who believed in a God who covenanted with them to do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.
Moses knew the God of miracles. He watched God write his commandments on the two tablets. He saw manna fall from heaven. He observed Aaron’s dead staff of wood sprout as if it were a living limb from a tree. These items were so indicative of the supernatural God being with the children of Israel that they were placed in the Ark and carried with them wherever the children of Israel journeyed. In this Ark was the validation that their God was the God of supernatural events. He was the God who made the heavens and earth by speaking existence into being. Now we see the believers in their prayer to God wonder why the people and nations array themselves against this mighty God who knows all things, who even knew the number of hairs on the heads of men and women. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one. The unbelievers have marshaled their strength against Jesus and his church. They are shaking their fists in the face of the living God and his gift to them: Jesus. The believers are asking God to intervene in this attempt by the world to quash the name of Jesus and his deeds. But they also know that God will win out in this struggle to redeem mankind from sin and captivity to the devil. Whatever victory the adversaries believe they have achieved is all in the hands of God; they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. The killing of Jesus and the animosity toward the early church is all in God’s hands. He is always winning out no matter what events seem to be a defeat for the church, his followers. We see this story of victory out of defeat often told in the Old Testament. The children of Israel as with all people were designing their own lives as they wished. The idols they made were conceived out of their own understanding of what they thought a god would be like. These gods of theirs were not ones of enduring love, mercy, and kindness; they were gods of strictness, even asking them to sacrifice their own children to them. But these gods did portend the unwillingness of men and women to fall under the authority of the Creator God. To separate themselves from the Creator God, they conceived of gods that were the opposite of the mercy and goodness of the only true God. By constructing their own gods, they assured themselves they were the masters of their own existence. This self-willedness is what we see in the fall of mankind. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 2:3-5) This deception by the devil led men and women to be free from the control of God. In making humans, God made them in his image with his attributes, one of which is freedom. If humans desired, they could choose to be the masters of their own lives. The devil's deception led to this condition of self-willedness, being one’s own master. Paul struggled with this innate self-willedness. He wanted to do what God desired for him to do as a man made in God’s image, but also within him, he had the POWER of a self-willed master. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another POWER within me that is at war with my mind. This POWER makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. (Romans 7:21-25)
Jesus came to us as THE SACRIFICE to separate us before God’s eyes from our own masterhood to become God’s servants. We are no longer under condemnation because of that DNA spirit within us—the one that starts quarrels, battles, wars, and the like. All of these adverse activities against the nature of the God of unity, goodness and love are part of the human condition. But Jesus paid the price for such sinfulness within us. Literally He has set us free from that bondage of being our own master. We can now be what He designed for us to be: kind, loving, caring, gentle, generous, and everything else that we are not in our fleshly selves. We do not have to defend ourselves anymore; we do not have to decide what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or not just. We are to be comfortable in his likeness, be as He is, a servant to all, sharing Christ Jesus. The Lord, of course, encouraged us to love our enemies, to wash the feet of those who hate us and want us to be destroyed. It is hard to give up our sinful DNA, for it is so deeply embedded within us. Even as Christians for a long time, that cruel and disoriented spirit will come to the forefront of our lives if we do not watch out for it. All of a sudden we will be vicious with our words, hurtful in our action, destructive to people we love. Rather than the fruit of the Spirit ascending in our lives, the master of sin within us will surface. The early church was now being threatened by the secular world. The elite of the Jewish society were warning them not to speak of the name of Jesus. Are they to succumb to this demand? Or, should they speak out in boldness? Are they to retire to the closet, shut their mouths? No, they are to pray to the God who is the true Master of all things. They are to place their trust in the God of the supernatural. Jesus said the day of the Lord is at hand. What does that mean? He says, the poor will be fed, the captives will be freed, the blind will see, the oppressed will be set free. We are to be in the business of implementing the will of God. The day of the Lord is at hand today. We are lights, instruments of God’s goodness and love for all people, even our enemies. We see in the believers’ prayer that they are handing over the work of Jesus to God's power and authority. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. For God to be revealed to the world, they are praying not our will be done, but your will be done. We are asking you to carry the fight to them through your miraculous power. How often are we still carrying the fight for the cause of Jesus by our own master spirit? Maybe too often, not depending on God to stretch out his hand. What does this mean to the church of the living, eternal God in this day? As we read on in Acts, the church will face much persecution. All of the disciples will be flogged unmercifully in the next few verses. Stephen will be stoned to death, and many believers will flee for their lives to other areas in the world, spreading the seed of the gospel everywhere they go. The early church spoke out boldly, depending on God to defend them. In reality they relinquished control of their own lives. Let us around this breakfast table pray as the early church did: "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
No comments:
Post a Comment