Tag: Acts

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Leading in a vacuum.

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.” Acts ‭7:51-53‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​What in the world makes us so weird and trippy about religion? These men, and they were all men btw, who murdered Stephen for his mouthy truth telling were nothing more than elevated scribes from Ezra’s day, some 400 years earlier.

Ezra was a “scribe and a high priest” in the Old Testament, which was a well respected position and important place of honor in Israel.

Ezra did something extraordinary. He started a school, a school for “ready scribes.” These were writers, translators and keepers of the written laws of God.

Interestingly enough, it was the Persian king, “King Artaxerxes, King of Kings,” who appointed Ezra to this task. “This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the Law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.”

Artaxerxes speaking, “And you, Ezra, are to use the wisdom your God has given you to appoint magistrates and judges who know your God’s laws to govern all the people in the province west of the Euphrates River. Teach the law to anyone who does not know it. Anyone who refuses to obey the law of your God and the law of the king will be punished immediately, either by death, banishment, confiscation of goods, or imprisonment.” Ezra‬ ‭7:10, 25-26‬ ‭NLT‬‬.

God was certainly with Ezra, and I am sure he was a great guy for the job. However, it’s worth noting that God never told Ezra to create this special class of scribes who would eventually become the religious leaders of Jesus day (Pharisees and Sadducees). They were like a religious council both controlling the high priest and the people of God. And no doubt these religious council leaders still operated under the authority of the school of scribes started by Ezra.

Just remember it was Artaxerxes who charged Ezra and his appointees to punish, with death, anyone who would refused to obey the law of God. Plus, Artaxerxes was the first guy to finance their newfound positions, “Any silver and gold that is left over may be used in whatever way you and your colleagues feel is the will of your God.” Ezra‬ ‭7:15-20.

Whoa. This was still in place when the religious leaders used temple funds to pay Judas to betray Christ! All that power, all that wealth, used just to force the New Testament people to obey their massive rules attached to the law of God! So when they didn’t like what Stephen was saying, they were in their Artaxerxes given rights to stone him to death. Wild huh? Do you think keeping the priestly, scribe-like position is a good thing for the Church today? I am not a fan.

Prayer

Dad,
It is so disturbing to think of what we are capable of being and doing in a vacuum of godly leadership. I’m sure that Ezra’s motives were pure. Maybe his actions were a little off, but wow it started a very long line of spiritual abuses of excess and misappropriation of justice. It’s a good thing we don’t run the Church like that today… or do we? Christ’s example of servant leadership was supposed to be the preferred model, right? It seems hard to lead without power and money. Yet, this is how it should be done, if we are to lead under the authority of Jesus – right?

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Mob-brain Mentality

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“About that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the Way. It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis. He kept many craftsmen busy.”
‭‭Acts 19:23-24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​Luke’s writing sounds like it came right out the the Ephesus Times newspaper. It seems that Paul’s preaching about Jesus actually DID effect the idol businesses of that day or it just gave Demetrius the excuse of “handcrafted idols” taking a downturn.

Diana, or the goddess Artemis, mentioned here was THE prominent and well known and loved idol of the city. Right in front of the massive library, they had built a gigantic statue of her standing, overlooking the main road filled with multi-level houses and lined with street vendors selling their goods. Ephesus was a bustling port city until later, the inlet body of water itself dried up and city became an abandoned wasteland. Diana couldn’t and didn’t stop that natural disaster from happening.

Demetrius called all the smaller business owners (idol-makers) together and designed a city-wide protest against Paul. Demetrius played to their livelihood and their religious beliefs, “Of course, I’m not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business. I’m also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence and that Artemis—this magnificent goddess worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world—will be robbed of her great prestige!” Ah, yes, Demetrius was so “concerned” about their great mascot. Ah, maybe he was a true cult believer.

It got the whole city angry and it spilled into a riot, as Demetrius knew it would. After the crowd found and dragged two of Paul’s friends into the amphitheater, listen to what Luke commentates about this riot, “Inside, the people were all shouting, some one thing and some another. Everything was in confusion. In fact, most of them didn’t even know why they were there.” Most of them didn’t even know why they were there! Classic mob-brain mentality. Angry, frustrated and ready to do some serious protest-able damage – yet having no idea what it’s about. This #sohuman!

The crowd yelled, chanted and shouted the fury-filled phrase for hours, “great is Artemis!” Until the mayor of the town (Alexander) could finally calm them down, reason with them and then threaten that the Roman government hated riots because of damage it did to the empire. Rome wanted citizens to feel safe, be at peace and spend money (more money equals more taxes). We are well aware of what protests and public riots do – nothing but bad outcomes. It makes people feel unsafe, aggravated and they spend less money! Plus, the business owners have to pickup the cost of repairs after the looting, fires and destruction. Mobs don’t care about a cause, they only care about destruction and violence. Mobs love riots, protests and marches because they take advantage of the cover it provides to steal, kill and destroy!

Alexander, after a few tense hours, was able to appeal to their good senses, “Since this is an undeniable fact, you should stay calm and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, but they have stolen nothing from the temple and have not spoken against our goddess.” He told them to settle the matter in the courts where real arguments and facts could be presented, where both sides could present their case. Novel idea right? Riots, mobs and protests don’t want court cases, those are driven mostly by reason. Mobs want emotionally driven outcomes that do not lead to change, they just do damage.

Prayer

Dad,
Wow, weren’t not just selfish and full of sin, we’re some fickle and a fragile non-thinking bunch. When we get worked up about something, it’s hard to see truth, hard to see right and wrong. And, certainly hard to make the necessary changes to create a good outcome for all. We are so influenced by each other’s emotions and behaviors. This is still true today. Isn’t it possible that the opposite is true? Wouldn’t our good behavior, our peaceful emotions be as viral as the bad? Like the mayor in this story, it seems that someone needs to address the situation and speak peace before things go to far.

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The Church responding in crisis

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.)” Acts‬ ‭11:27-28‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Go Agabus! We’ve often talked about a prophetic word being an encouragement or an exhortation, keeping things uplifting or giving poignant reminders. I’ve heard it said that prophecy is more forth-telling than it is foretelling. Yet, Luke’s words attest to the fact that God still speaks to warn believers of what’s ahead. Luke also let’s us know the famine did indeed come while Claudius was in power.

What should believers do when given this kind of warning? This group started raising money to get it to Jerusalem BEFORE the need became a reality. This wasn’t some “whoa is us” kind of warning. This wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario. It was a now-that-we-know, let’s get busy response. This is a picture of how and what the modern Church should look like! A Church, led by the Spirit of God, getting future tips of what will happen and then making plans to meet the crisis head on. In their case, it was sending money.

It could have been a lot of things – sending money is great for buying, and storing ahead of time then distributing supplies afterwards.

However, the Church needs a few things for this kind of scenario to happen today: We’ve got to be people of the Spirit. We’ve got to listen to our gifted men and women whom God will speak to. We’ve got to tear down our denominational divides and be willing to come together for action. And, we’ve got to quit worrying about who gets the credit for best response and see ourselves as ONE! Basically, we must fulfill the prayer Jesus prayed in John 17 – we must be in unity!

Looking back at the Church’s response in a global pandemic, individual churches did some spectacular work and responded by collecting and distributing millions of pounds of food with a government program called farmers to families. The first round of purchases occurred from May 15 through June 30, 2020 and saw more than 35.5 million boxes delivered in the first 45 days. In total, USDA has distributed more than 167 million food boxes in support of American farmers and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and spent about $5 billion. Churches linked arms with nonprofits and had weekly distributions on their own property. The church I served on staff with, Mesa Church, had a weekly food distribution that went from May through to August in 2020. One nonprofit in Costa Mesa, called Trellis, headed up a massive, multi-nonprofit, multi-week distribution in an Ikea parking lot. It was a perfect picture of unity! We were also able to pray with families as their trunks were being filled with fresh groceries.

Yet, even in the midst of great opportunities to serve, we (the Church) still struggled with being horribly distracted by politics, conspiracy theories, and internal infighting over race, masks, vaccines and meeting indoors. Churches NEVER did shut down, never closed! Yet we squabbled over indoor services, creating unnecessary tension between being a super-spreader event and our “religious” rights to gather in a building.

This was ridiculously embarrassing on the Church! Many rallied behind churches that proudly never stopped meeting inside the building. Others stayed home and participated in church online. Still others just took the church out to meet in parks and parking lots. I thought parking lot church was the most exciting thing I’ve seen happen since the 70’s! Bottom line – we divided when we should of and could of been united! And even worse, we took our griefs and gripes to the public forum of social media and made ourselves look like fools!

As Pastors, we were not prepared to mitigate between two vocal, almost militant groups of Christians. Next time I hope, I pray that we get our love-act together and behave and serve as one.

PRAYER

Dad,
I don’t know what grieves your heart more, our sin or our inability to be united? We have done so much better in the past. We need to be better in the future. I believe the last time we had a global pandemic, the church did a better job both in serving and in coming together in agreement on what we should be doing in crisis. I think that may be some of the reasons folks aren’t returning to gather together. It may take awhile to forgive us for acting so poorly.

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Finding God’s purpose for your life is not a linear process!

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“All who heard him were amazed. “Isn’t this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem?” they asked. “And didn’t he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests?” Saul’s preaching became more and more powerful, and the Jews in Damascus couldn’t refute his proofs that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. After a while some of the Jews plotted together to kill him.” Acts‬ ‭9:21-23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Well, you know what they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em, kill them!”

For awhile back then Saul/Paul found himself despised by all and feared by believers. After, he comes in from his desert experience, Saul immediately starts preaching Jesus is the Son of God.

His life, his radical turnaround forces this question, “Isn’t this the guy that…?” Basically, this happens in all well known previously bad-human conversions even today. One’s transformation story is very powerful when people ask about the former life. Saul got his speaking groove down so well, that the Jewish religious elite just couldn’t refute his proof. So, rather than see truth or change their hearts, something more sinister took over their thinking. “Let’s kill him,” they said. What hubris, egregious hypocrites. They couldn’t deal with truth, so they ramp up a riot. Sounds like our modern political climate right now.

Saul continued to start with civil synagogue discussions in every town he visited. Yet, it just got increasingly violent, until finally he had to give up going to the Jews first. He believed he was called to the Jewish people! A little providence and a whole lot of death threats convinced him that maybe his calling wasn’t to the Jewish people.

This seems to happen when discovering God’s will. You think it should go one way but door after door continues to close until you realize- that’s not what God wants you to do! There’s something else out there. Paul shifted his focus solely on the Gentiles (non Jews) and then took that passion all the way to the Church leaders, convincing them that the gospel was ALSO for the rest of the world. Acts 15 was all about a fulfillment of God’s plan for Israel and his own favored people to be the ones who brought salvation to the whole world and not just to keep it for themselves. Israel always had a tough time with that idea.

Saul/Paul would go on to bring the message of Jesus to all the major regions of Gentile populations and plant churches (not synagogues) everywhere he went. Paul would come into town, set up his tent making, tent repair shop. Then he would make friends with all the local businesses leaders in the town through shoptalk. He led highly influential men and women to Jesus, then convinced them to use their nicely sized homes to meet in for church on Sundays. Many of those original business owners became church elders and pastors. Paul also ended up writing a large part (almost half) of what we know as the New Testament with thirteen letters, written to correct and encourage these new churches. I would say, all the death threats and riots resulted in explosive growth in the gospel going out to all nations.

Have you started any riots? Received any death threats? Are you struggling with what you think God has called you to do? Maybe there’s something else God has in mind?

PRAYER:

Dad,
Your calling, your purposes are not always the easiest to discover and even more difficult to accept. I have seen a very non-linear path in my own life, right? It’s seems like more of a scribble than a straight line! Yet, you have been faithful and patient. I am thankful for that. For many years, I never thought I would be any kind of first chair leader. There were hopes dashed and failed possibilities. I just settled into the fact that I would be a great second chair for the rest of my life. Then, SURPRISE, through an extraordinary turn of events, I get a callback to serve in my home church as the lead pastor, or Chief Servant Officer as I say. Who would have thought? So now I need your wisdom and favor more than ever before!

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Peter meets the Greeks

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.” Acts‬ ‭10:28‬ ‭NLT‬‬

All those years in the Old Testament, where God used his spokespersons to get Israel to understand His whole plan of using the Jews to bring God to the whole world.

All those wild interactions Jesus had with Gentiles and Samaritans, many of them women, no less.

And it takes a supernatural and commanding vision to finally begin to fulfill this original plan of redemption offered to all.

Peter blurts out this awkward greeting to Cornelius – “hello, I’m not supposed to talk to you, but God made me.” Such strong words, “You know…” was it that obvious? “It is against OUR laws…” Were these civil or moral laws? No, they were Jewish religious/cultural laws. Talk about some deep-seated, systemic racism! I don’t know, maybe the hatred went both ways.

Peter summarizes his own personal vision, “I should no longer think of ANYONE impure or unclean!” Holy bacon bits – that’s such a huge shift for him. So much had changed and yet God kept pushing Peter into a “Kingdom of God” perspective. God had given both men this twinsy, matching visions. Peter’s vision went against a massive amount of food laws that had been handed down to his people for generations. Levitical laws were clear and strict! Cornelius had just been praying and giving to the poor yet had no idea what or why he was doing. He was without purpose or direction.

God saw him and said, boom, there’s the BRIDGE guy! There’s the guy that will get this religiously racial wall torn down. Angels were dispatched with one mission – let’s get Pete and Cornelius together. Cornelius was curious, Peter confused!

After story-swapping, Peter comes to this conclusion… it just give me goosebumps! “Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.”

God shows NO FAVORITISM! In Christ there is complete and absolute equality across several physical and cultural boundaries – Paul later tells the Church, There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus!

And don’t even get me started in the fact that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Cornelius crowd. With not only a powerful outward indication of an inward change, but also a sign of unity. Peter’s crew was ASTONISHED at what they SAW and HEARD – “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.”

PRAYER:

Dad,
Oh how I long for such reconciliation among the Church today. Unity, bridging the gap in racial and cultural- even denominational divides! These “laws,” this barriers are still causing issues today. It should not be so. There is so much social media trash slinging in the body of Christ, so many theological labels to hide behind and use against a unified church. Help us Lord!