Today's 'thought' is actually the concluding section of my sermon from this past Sunday, a significant portion of which I backed up with quotes from three men: J. B. Phillips, David Platt, and Roger Ellsworth.
I simply wove their thoughts together to drive home the point I was trying to make about our need, as the Church of Jesus Christ, to have His power and presence actively manifest itself in and through us. It's the idea that we should, to some degree, reflect the nature, passion, power, experience and priorities that were evident in the ministry of Jesus, and the early church, if we are truly to claim a direct connection to Him and them. The selection speaks for itself. Enjoy.
“Given what we see of the ministry of Jesus or the life of the early church in the book of Acts, it is more than legitimate for people to ask: 'If we never see the power of God moving among you who claim to be the people of God, can we not justifiably ask where is the Christian faith we see in the Bible? Because in the beginning it was attended with a very noticeable sense of the presence and miraculous power of God.'
J. B. Phillips points out regarding the book of Acts:
‘No one can read this book without being convinced there is Someone at work
here besides mere human beings.’ Yet, the question is: Can that be said
of us? Can it be said of the vast majority of other churches in America
today? Are people convinced that in the church they will discover
‘Someone is at work there besides mere human beings’? Or do they simply
see nice people [not always, but for the most part :) ] doing things that any
other human beings could do?
David Platt brings attention to the need for a power
greater than our own when he says: ‘Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the gospel
spreading today, is the people of God trying to do the work of God apart from
the power of God.’ It’s true. Without the power of God at work in
and through the Church, the world has little reason to pay any more attention
to us than any other religious group. For, no matter how one reads their
New Testament, one this is incontestably true: One of the things that
caught the attention of people when the early Christians came on the scene was
the way that God's miraculous power was at work through them. And because of
it, many came to believe.
Speaking to this issue Roger Ellsworth also wrote:
‘The people of God have often heard the world
tauntingly ask: ‘Where is your God?’ (Ps. 42:3 & 10, Ps. 79:10, Ps.
115:2). But it is a sad thing when the people of God have to ask
themselves that question… The church, in order to maintain credibility in
the world, has to have the power of God! She is involved in a great
spiritual warfare, and only God’s power will enable her to prevail. Human
ingenuity and wisdom are simply not equal to the task. Trying to do this kind
of work without the power of God is like trying to break huge granite boulders
with our bare hands.
The problem is that the church is trying to subsist on
her own power. She is relying on her own abilities. Human wisdom can produce
many things, and the church is trying to pass them off as the hand of God at
work, but the world is not buying it. They still bombard us (and rightly so)
with the disturbing question: ‘Where is your God?’ And if we will get alone and
examine our hearts, we will be driven to admit that the many things we are
producing are shabby substitutes for the real power of God… If we are not
careful, we can think that pushing all the right buttons will produce lasting
spiritual results.
We can reduce the work of the church to shrewd
maneuvering with statistical probabilities and psychological jargon. We
can be guilty of doing the very thing David refused to do – fight in Saul’s
armour. We can have polish without power. We need to realize that God can
do more in one minute with His power than we can do in a lifetime with our
‘strategies.’ ’
He’s right To maintain credibility in the world we
must have the power of God! And how does that power come? It comes
only as we plead in earnest, continual and dependent prayer for the LORD to
manifest Himself in our midst for His glory and the health and growth His
church. We need to mimic the heartfelt cry of Isaiah who pleaded with God
-- "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that
the mountains would tremble before you" (Is. 64:1).
Will you join me in praying for just that?
Earnestly and consistently praying that His presence and power might be
manifest in and through His Church, lest our hands be bruised and bleeding
from, 'trying to break huge granite boulders with our bare hands'? ”
The sermon was based on John 4:43-54. The quote
by Roger Ellsworth can be found in his superb little book "Come
Down, Lord," a series of messages on the concluding chapters of
Isaiah and dealing with the church's need for revival. And the quote from
J. B. Phillips (which is much more extensive) was taken from his book, "The
Young Church in Action - A Translation of the Acts of the Apostles."
Each book deals with what the church was, what it has come to be, and the need
to regain much of what has been lost.
Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff
