cup a joe

I'm finding myself really wrestling with this week's passage.  This is a transitional passage between two major stories.  Last week we looked at Saul's conversion, next week we will be looking at Peter and Cornelius.  The stories here about Peter performing miracles with Aeneas and Dorcas are acting as a bridge between those two major events.  Because of that at first glance there does not seem to be much here.  The temptation is to go over this section briefly and then jump right into Acts 10.

But as I was reading through this I noticed something.  It seems like Peter is the focus here but in reality it is the Holy Spirit.  Verse 31 tells us that the church was "encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in fear of the Lord."  The remaining verses of the chapter then show us how the Holy Spirit did it - in the lives of Aeneas and Dorcas - and then how those around them responded.

I think we are looking at a picture of what a Spirit Filled church looks like and what is interesting here is how the Holy Spirit is at work.  We don't see a large event.  We don't see miracles preformed before crowds or even in the church (Peter put everyone out of the room when Dorcas was raised from the dead).  Instead we see the Holy Spirit working in the lives of two people by transforming them.  Word spread, people got saved.  No big event.  No show.  Just two people getting affected.

So what is here for us, today?  That is what I'm wrestling with....

Labels: Sermon Prep

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I'm contemplating Acts 9 for this weeks sermon (Saul's conversion) and I have two interesting thoughts.

First, it's interesting what happens when someone encounters Jesus.  Saul thinks he is honoring God but in reality is persecuting Him (Acts 9:5).  After he encounters Jesus he does an immediate turn around.  The same passion that he had originally now gets refocused by Jesus and is used the way that God intended it.  What happens to us when we meet Jesus?  I don't think we are surprised when the rough edges are sanded off of us or we loose our bad habits but are we willing to allow Jesus to completely transform our lives.  For Paul, Jesus wasn't just an upgrade, it was a complete revision (from Saul 1.0 to Paul 2.0).  His entire identity got changed. Who he was, what he did - everything.  Shouldn't we expect the same when we encounter Jesus - the idea that everything that we thought we were Jesus might just revise.

Another observation is how the church responded to Saul.  Ananias is not overly happy about it (Acts 9:13-14).  The apostles are hesitant (Acts 9:26).  It is so easy for us to preach about changed lives but sometimes we have a hard time accepting them.  I don't believe that Saul was on anyone's "target list" for potential converts.  He was the enemy who not only hated the church, but he did everything in his power to destroy it - even to the point murder.  Yet Jesus had plans for him (isn't that just like Jesus!).

Sometimes I think we look at people and predetermine who is "saveable" and who is not.  We are selective on who actually hears the gospel.  And when they come to the church some people are given a pass and others are put under higher scrutiny.  This has been a stumbling block for the church for centuries.  Recently, a good friend of mine was explaining to me where the terms "soul food" and "soul music" came from.  It seems that at one time, the church believed that those of African decent did not have souls (thus the justification for slavery).  The use of the word "soul" in the African American culture was to counter the belief that they were soulless.

How many people do we believe are soulless?  Who is beyond Jesus?  We all know the answer is no one but how do our actions answer this question?  Who are the Sauls, Samaritans, Barbarians or Slaves of our day?  Who can't you ever imagine coming to Jesus?

I'm pretty sure Jesus can imagine them coming to Him.  Perhaps we should ask Him how we can help.

Labels: Sermon Prep

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Emily turned eighteen yesterday.  Like every birthday since the kids were little, I took her out for breakfast.  It has become a tradition with all the kids (and Cindy) that dad takes them to breakfast on their birthday morning.  They plan, sometime weeks in advance, for where we are going to go.  When they were little we went to McDonald's.  Then one of the local dinners.  Now Emily is growing up - she wanted a good breakfast so we went to Egg Haven - a classy (and expensive) joint.

The realization of having an eighteen year old is starting to hit home.  Breakfast conversations when they were little were always tricky.  Talking sports, or friends, or plans for the day.  The silly smirks from the kids because there were with dad without their siblings being there with them.  But this time it was different.  We talked about school, friends and relationships.  By early next year, she will probably be moving away from home and heading to school.  The plans she made last winter / spring now have to be reconsidered (dance and soccer.)  She is learning to juggle much and beginning to figure out what she wants in life.  In some ways, she seems ahead of her friends in her thinking.  And that really doesn't surprise me.

Cindy was eighteen (and a half!) when I met her (I just turned nineteen).  In truth, that reality is what it hitting me the hardest.  I felt so old and mature when I met Cindy.  I knew what I wanted, I knew where I wanted to go, and I knew that I wanted Cindy to come with me.  I was in a relationship with someone else when I met this red-headed girl on the steps of the Scalabrini Retreat Center in Stone Park, IL in the fall of 1987.  There was a group of us waiting to get in.  We were going to be leaders in an upcoming TEC retreat and we were waiting of the guy with the keys to show up so that we could have our first meeting.  My friends Dave and Gabe were there - and we were trying to be cool in an uncool, nonconformist kinda way.  But there was something about this girl...I could not get my eyes off of her.  She was wearing a dark jacket, kinda surplus looking.  And she had short red hair, kinda new wave-ish.  And her eyes, I kept looking at her eyes.  There was something about her - I thought I knew her from somewhere, but where?  I just couldn't get my eyes off of her...

That's the bit that is hitting me the hardest with Emily.  She is at that age now. 

We went to Six Flags yesterday for her birthday.  As we were leaving for the park, we passed a house in our neighborhood where a man who appeared to be in his mid twenty's was sitting on the front porch.  He was sitting very compactly, hands in in his lap, legs pressed together, stooped down, looking intensely at an object he was holding in the palms of his hands.  Over the top of his hands I could see a tiny head.  There seemed to be a sense of joy and wonder in the man's face as he starred into this little ones face.  I'm pretty sure he did not notice us drive by, but I noticed him.  Eighteen years ago that was me.  Emily was so tiny that she could fit in the palm of my hand.  I remember the first time that I held her, sitting in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Rockford Memorial Hospital, staring at the tiny life.  I was twenty-four.  It had been five and a half years since that night on the steps of the retreat center.  And here was this tiny life.  I thought I had it all planed out.  I thought I knew what I wanted and where I wanted to go.  And now there was this tiny life in the palm of my hands.  And at that point I realized how little I actually knew.

Emily came too early and had to stay at the hospital so the Doctors showed compassion to Cindy and extended her stay so that she could be with the baby.  They didn't show me the same compassion - I had to go home.  Because Emily came so early, she had to go to a specialized hospital about forty minutes from our home.  The drive home was excruciating.  I remember feeling joyful and terrified at the same time.  Joyful that everyone was fine.  Terrified that Emily was so tiny and sick.  Joyful at being a new dad.  Terrified at being a new father.  I wasn't a block away from the hospital when I broke down in the car and cried.  I remember pleading with God - asking for Him to give Emily health.  I remember pleading with Him for help because I didn't know what I was doing.  I felt so grown up at nineteen, but now I felt so young at twenty-four.  Life is funny that way.

We were leaving the water park portion of Six Flags yesterday when I was joking with Emily about what Cindy and I were going to do once we got old.  I told her that we were going to move away and that she could take the church over and pastor it.  She looked at me and said no way!  She knew what she wanted to do and what she felt God was calling her to and it wasn't that!  We laughed but deep down inside I realized that my little girl was growing up.  She knows what she wants and she knows where she wants to go.  She is like her dad in that way.  The reality of that is still hitting home...