SermonStudio

What does Easter mean to you? In the secular world, it means fluffy bunnies, brightly colored eggs, hidden baskets, and lots of lush chocolate candy. If you are a child, there is nothing wrong with this. Easter is a happy day, and God loves to hear the laughter of little children; but, if you are an adult and this is all that Easter means to you, then there is something tragically missing in your faith-life.

Interestingly enough, the word "Easter" appears nowhere in the Bible. The word "Easter" was originally a pagan term. It was the name of a spring festival in honor of the goddess of light and spring whose name in Anglo-Saxon was Eastre. Sometime, about the Eighth Century, the name was transformed by the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian festival that was designated to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

However, for you as a Christian, what does Easter mean? Or, perhaps, more appropriately stated, as a Christian what does the resurrection of Christ mean personally to you? Most of you would probably say, "The resurrection of Christ means that I and my loved ones will be resurrected with Christ," or "The resurrection means eternal life - everlasting life." The more theologically oriented among you might say, "The resurrection is God's vindication of Christ's victory on the cross over sin, death, and the Devil." Now, all of these are good answers. Easter means all of this - and more!

Saint Peter, in the First Lesson this morning, gives a very unusual and different answer to the meaning of the resurrection of our Lord. The text of the First Lesson comes from the Book of Acts. It is really a sermon which was preached by Saint Peter in the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, who was a Gentile. The sermon is short but tightly packed. Peter proclaims who the Christ is, and what he did. Peter also proclaims the power of the Holy Spirit.

The introduction and the conclusion of this sermon are pure Gospel gems. In the introduction, Peter makes the point that "God shows no partiality." Now, this statement is not as shocking to us as it was to those who first heard Peter preach it. This is true because there was, in those early days of the church, a strong group who believed that in order to become a Christian, a person first had to become a Jew. They followed the laws of purity to the letter. They also considered the Gentiles, and even the food they ate, as unclean. So, typical of impetuous old Saint Peter, in his sermon, he hit the heresy head-on, and he hit it hard. "God," he said, "shows no partiality." Christ is the Lord of all - both Jew and Gentile. Every person is clean because that person has been washed by the blood of the cross. Christ rose from the dead to give life to everyone.

However, it is the conclusion of Peter's sermon that is so provocative for the expansion of our concept of the meaning of Easter. Peter says, "He (Christ) commands us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be the judge of the living and the dead." Literally, what Peter is saying is that the resurrection means that we are to bear witness - to proclaim Jesus as the living Christ. When Peter uses the word "preach" here, he does not have in mind the image of a pastor, perched like a boiled egg in an egg cup that we call a pulpit. No. What he means is that we, who hear the message of Christ the Lord and his resurrection, are not only given the gift of the new redeemed life - we are also given the task of responsible witnessing. We are called by the Gospel to go out into the work-a-day world, and we are to testify to Christ as the Risen Lord.

When we take the statement "God shows no partiality" and the call to "preach Christ," the message of Saint Peter comes through loud and clear to us. The resurrection of Christ is to be proclaimed to all the people who are outside our church this morning and who have not heard the Gospel - the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his victory over death and his lordship over life. The people of the secular world, of the Easter Bunny and the colored eggs, are all included among those for whom Christ died and to whom Christ desires to give new life. The world needs to hear that it also is included. "God shows no partiality."

In the body of his sermon, Saint Peter points out that God raised Jesus from the dead and showed him openly, not to all people - but only to his chosen witnesses. Now, these witnesses of the living Christ are to preach and to testify to all the world that Jesus Christ is Lord. Today, we are witnesses of the living Lord. We possess a message of good news that cries out to be shared.

If we were to publish in the church bulletin this morning the names of those who had won a million dollar lottery, and in the coming week you saw one of these people at the supermarket, or at the mall, or at work, would you hesitate to tell them the good news? Of course not! You would not be able to keep your mouth shut. You would shout out, "Hey, did you hear that you've won a million dollars?" Now, this is not to say that eternal life is a lottery, but the Gospel is good news about winners. The theology of the Gospel is that all people are winners. "God shows no partiality." He gives the first prize of salvation and of eternal life to all people.

The implications of what Saint Peter is preaching to us this morning is that the best evidence of the resurrection of the living and the life-giving Lord is to be found in our daily witness to Jesus Christ. This says to us that the resurrection means that God, not only desires to give eternal life to us; God also desires to give the gift of eternal life through us! The Risen
Lord actually lives, is alive, and is present today in our witness and in our testimony of his Gospel. As the Word became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, so the Gospel becomes incarnate in our words of witness and testimony. In a very real sense, our lives can be a "fifth gospel." There are four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - and, there is a "fifth gospel" according to us! As we witness and testify to Christ, the Gospel becomes alive in us, and Christ lives through us.

This does not mean that the Gospel is dependent upon us; nor does it mean that the Gospel would be silent without our testimony. Rather, it means that God desires to use us as the means by which Christ is to live today. If we fail to serve God, rest assured that God will find other means of making that presence of the Living Lord a life-giving force in our world. This truly means that God has granted us the privilege of witnessing. He has honored us with this responsibility.

It is not easy to witness. It is not easy to preach Christ to an indifferent and an unconcerned world. Most of us are too self-conscious, too timid, and even to embarrassed to make a public witness. However, God does not ask us to witness with our own strength. He gives us help. If you would take your Bible and read what follows in the Book of Acts, after our First Lesson, you would discover that the very next verse states, "While Peter was speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on those who heard the word." This morning you have not only heard the message that you are to proclaim, you have also received the power of the Holy Spirit which enables you to pass that word on to others. God never asks us to do anything that he does not, at the same time, give us the power to achieve. The living Lord is alive in you. He will enlighten and enliven you to proclaim his Gospel to the world.

In the novel, Green Street, the story is told of a lady who spent most of her youth taking care of her father. She was in love with a sea captain. Again and again, when he asked her to marry him, she would have to refuse because of the responsibility she had looking after her father.

Then, one day the captain told her that he was about to change his home port. Therefore, he would be leaving, and that this was the last chance for them to be married. If she wanted to marry him, she had to let him know before his ship sailed the next day. All afternoon and early into the evening she struggled with this proposal. Her father was a wealthy man. He could be well cared for without her. He had lived his life; now, she was going to live hers. She sat down and wrote a note accepting the sea captain's proposal. She knew that her brother would pass the captain's house on the way to work; so, she asked him to deliver her letter accepting the marriage proposal.

The morning came. She dressed, packed, and waited. The hours passed slowly by. Still, she waited. She rushed up to the second floor and ran to the window. To her horror, she saw the captain's ship sailing out of the harbor.

For the rest of her life she lived a lonely and a bitter existence. Her father and her brother died. She closed up the house, and she lived in it as if it were a tomb. Then, one day, when she was gathering her brother's clothes to store them in the attic, she came across the coat that her brother had worn on that fateful night - the night that had ruined her life. There, in the pocket of the coat, was her love note - still undelivered.

Today, there are many people all around you - in this community, perhaps living on your street - living lonely, bitter lives - lives spent in tombs of despair and depression because they have never heard the love note of the Gospel that God loved them so much that he sent his only son to die for them, and that he raised his son from the grave that they might be raised from their tombs of loneliness, bitterness, despair, and doom. Do not keep God's love note in your pocket. With the help of God, deliver it.

On this Easter day there is nothing wrong with hunting colored eggs or with eating chocolate candy. There is nothing wrong about coming here to church this morning and celebrating the resurrection of our Lord with hymns, prayers, and listening, once again, to the Easter story of the empty tomb. However, if that is all there is - if our celebration ends when we leave church this morning - then, Easter will have come and gone without any lasting meaning for our lives. On the other hand, if the end of this worship service is the beginning of your service of witnessing in the world to the presence of the living Lord; then, this Easter Sunday will not only be the first day of a new week - it will be the first day of an exhilarating new Easter-life - a life of never-ending joy.


Acts 5:27-32
The Second Sunday of Easter

The Symphony of God

This sermon is not for heroes. It is for the hesitant and the timid. This sermon is not for the militant who march in demonstrations of protest. It is for the meek who are afraid to act out their faith in public. This sermon is not for the players on the field who "suitup" and carry the ball; it is for the spectators who sit in the stadium. This sermon is for those who are not leaders, and who never will be. This is a sermon for ordinary people. Particularly, it is for the ordinary people who, because they cannot do something outstanding for the Lord, do nothing.

We begin, where we are - the Second Sunday of Easter. Traditionally, this is known as "Low Sunday," when church attendance hits a yearly all-time low, and the pastor's energy level is on "empty" after the rigorous demands of Lent and Holy Week. In most of our minds, the big event is over. We have celebrated the open tomb, the resurrection, and the living Lord. What could possibly top that? Our text this morning does not try to top the drama of the resurrection; rather, it stresses that the drama of the resurrection is far from over. It has just begun.

The story of our text is similar, at many points, to the Easter story. There is an imprisonment, guards, an angel, an open door, and a miraculous escape. Peter and the other apostles have been preaching about the risen Christ. They are arrested and thrown into jail. Suddenly, an angel appears and leads them past the guards through an opened iron gate to freedom. Then the angel says to them, "Go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life."

When the Sanhedrin - the full assembly of the elders of Israel - heard that the apostles had broken out of jail and were preaching to the people in the temple, they were at first puzzled, and then they became furious. Immediately, the captain, with his officers, was sent to arrest them. "But," the high priest adds, "arrest them without violence." This was said because, not only were the elders of Israel furious, they were afraid. Our text points out that the captain and his officers did not use force because they "were afraid of being stoned by the people."

For the second time, Peter and the apostles were arrested and brought, again, before the council of the temple. The high priest pointed an accusing finger at them and shouted, "We strictly charged you not to teach in his name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching!" Then, Peter stood defiantly before the Sanhedrin and uttered some of the greatest words recorded in the New Testament: "We must obey God, rather than men." This is a story of raw courage. At the same time, it is a drama of daring determination.

The star players in this drama are Saint Peter and the high priest. They stood as provocative antagonists in the cloisters of the temple. Gathered about Saint Peter were a few of the apostles. Surrounding the high priest were the influential leaders of the elders of Israel. These two groups stood face to face, eye to eye, and toe to toe. The high priest and his supporters were angry, jealous, and fearful. Saint Peter and his followers were daring, dedicated, and determined. There was no compromise proposed. There was no treaty of peace possible. It was a duel to the death.

Now, as we picture this scene in our minds, there is an important and a most decisive element missing. It is missing because we have failed to hear all that the author of Acts is telling us. He records the conflict, which the early church encountered, as it embarked upon its mission of proclaiming Christ to the world. We hear the general outline of the history of the church; but, that is all. However, when we read this passage of Scripture carefully, we will notice that, again and again, the writer speaks about "the people." They are not presented as props, nor are they used as parts of the scenery to enhance the drama; rather, the people are the real focal point of the whole drama.

When Peter and the apostles are miraculously rescued from prison, the angel tells them why they have been released. The angel says to them, "Preach to the people." When the apostles preached in the temple, the Sanhedrin, the high priest, and the Sadducees were furious; and, at the same time, they were afraid. Why? Why were these religious leaders afraid? Were they afraid because the message that was being proclaimed in the name of God was contrary to their beliefs? Perhaps. However, the heart and the core of the Sanhedrin's response of fury and fear revolved around one focal point - the potential power of the people. The leaders of Israel couldn't have cared less about an ignorant fisherman telling his tales about a carpenter's son, one who claimed to be the Messiah and was found guilty of treason; thereby, ending up on a criminal's cross. The Sanhedrin did care, however, that Peter and the apostles were spreading the rumor that the crucified one had risen and was still alive. The high priest, in particular, cared to the point of deep personal concern, that the people in the streets, in the synagogues, and in the temple were listening to this "fish-tale" about a risen Lord. The people were not only listening to it; they were believing it. And, the greatest concern of all was that the number of those listening and believing was growing by leaps and bounds each day.

The key to understanding the power, which the early church possessed, is the presence of the Holy Spirit. He was present; however, not in the form of a Casper-like ghost, hovering above the heads of the apostles. The Holy Spirit was present within the apostles and within those who listened and believed. The Holy Spirit was present in the people, and that gave them a power which threatened the very structure of society.

The history of the early church, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, seems at first reading, to focus only on the heroes. At first, Peter is the center of attention; then, Paul and his missionary journeys take center stage. They are the giants of the Book of Acts. They are the ones who spearheaded the expansion of the Christian faith around the world. But our fascination with the giants of the faith must not blind us to the fact that the decisive element in the history of the church was and is the people - the Spirit-filled people - the unknown, the unnamed, the common, and the ordinary people who were filled with the Holy Spirit. Thus, possessed with the power of the Holy Spirit, they not only heard, but they believed - and they followed. The people are the heart that beats beneath the skin and within the body of the recorded history of the church. Ordinary people, like you and like me, who do not make history - but who are enlivened by the Holy Spirit - make the history of the church possible.

This sermon began by saying that it was not a sermon for heroes, or for the militant, or for the quarterbacks who carry the ball; rather, it is a word for the hesitant, the timid, and the spectators of life. It is a word to those of us who recognize that we do not have the courage, the talent, or the skills to assume leadership in the church and to do something spectacular for the Lord - which, more than likely, includes most of us here this morning. We are ordinary people who live ordinary lives. We go to work at the office, or at the factory, or at the mill, or at the store, or we stay at home and work. We clean house and cook meals. We raise our children. We try to live as decent and as useful lives as possible. However, we are not leaders. We are petrified to speak in public. We believe in Christ. We love God. But, when we pray, we pray in private. Just as soon as the spotlight of attention moves our way, we head for the nearest exit and find somewhere to hide. If this describes you; then our text this morning has a message especially for you. It says to you, "Do not hide. You are important. You are an essential element of all history. Even greater, you in particular, are an important part of the history of the church." The church has been built, not only with the mighty rocks of faith such as a Saint Peter or a Saint Paul; but, it has also been built with thousands of pebbles and millions of grains of sand - the spirit-filled ordinary, "little" people who form and make possible the mighty structures of the church. You are the people - you are the people of God, and when God fills you with his Holy Spirit, little people - ordinary people can do big things and can accomplish extraordinary tasks. Never say to yourself, "Because I cannot do something spectacular and outstanding for the Lord, I might as well do nothing." Do something. No matter how small or insignificant the deed, do it! You are the people of God. The whole revelation of God is to you the people, and for you the people.

You may think that your effort would be only a "drop in the bucket." However, place a bucket under a dripping faucet. In no time at all, it will be filled. Or, consider a tiny snowflake that is hardly noticed when it falls on the back of your hand. Multiply those snowflakes, and they can become a power-packed avalanche capable of burying an entire city. The multiplication of those snowflakes can form a tremendous storm that can paralyze a mighty metropolis, like New York City.

What potential power that we, the people, possess when the Holy Spirit works in us and through us! God knows this. This is why every story of the Bible is without question grounded on the call of God to his people and their response. God continually calls his people to be faithful, not just in great deeds of courage and daring, but in the little day-by-day acts of faithful living that, when added all together, can create a mighty movement of faith.

Our text says that the Sanhedrin and the high priest feared the people. They knew that a word spoken possesses no power in and by itself; but, a word spoken by God and heard by his people - a people who are filled with the Holy Spirit - can change the whole world. And it did!

Did you ever stop to think about what the difference is between a grand piano and a pile of junk? Take some wires and pegs, some white keys and some black keys. Then, take some wood and some metal. Throw all of this in a pile, and you have junk. However, if you have a piano builder with a set of plans, that person can take that pile of junk and arrange its pieces into a grand piano. Then, if you add a composer, who can write a composition of music; and finally, if you add a musician, who can play the piano, you can have a thrilling concert, instead of silently staring at a soundless pile of junk.

The Bible tells us about a master builder, one who formed and fashioned all that exists out of a cosmic pile of junk. That junk the Bible refers to as "nothingness" or "void." The Bible also tells us of a composer, Christ the Lord, who wrote the music of mercy with the ink of his own blood and brought the sounds of a sinful humanity into harmony with a loving and a forgiving God. The Bible also tells us about an artist-performer, the Holy Spirit, who can bring the composition of Christ and the created instruments of God to life. And, if you add to this metaphor, violins and horns, kettle drums, brass and reed instruments, you can have an entire orchestra that can produce a glorious symphony of sounds.

Do you sometimes think that your life is more like a silent pile of useless junk rather than it is like a symphony? If so, listen to the Word of God. It is a story of a creator, a composer, and a conductor. But more - it is the story of simple ordinary things like a string, or a peg, or a white key, or a black key that are all part of the grand plan for producing the symphony of God. If you are a part of the whole, you are important. Your life does have meaning and value, if you have a part to play in God's symphony.

Rejoice. You are the people of God. You are the people whom God loves because you are a part of his whole creation plan. You are the people for whom and through whom a kingdom symphony is being created by God. Listen. The conductor is tapping his baton. Get ready. God is about to use you to produce a symphony of glorious sounds that will not only fill the halls of heaven, but will also change the very rhythmic pattern of history and determine the dominant tempo and the tune of eternity.


Acts 9:1-20
The Third Sunday of Easter

God is About to Strike

A brilliant light flashes. It strikes like lightning. Paul is shocked by a charge from heaven, and he is knocked from his horse. A voice vibrates about Paul which holds his attention in a vice-like grip. Paul is converted. The persecutor becomes the preacher.

The surprising element of this event is the realization that the conversion of Paul was the conversion of a radically religious person. Paul was the best of believers. Paul was a master of morality. He lived out every letter of the law. He was a superior student of the Scriptures. He was a dedicated defender of the demands of the law. Yet - he was converted.

For most of us, this fact undermines the very foundation of our understanding of the concept of conversion. From the social point of view, we associate conversion with rogues, reprobates, prostitutes, and law breakers. From the intellectual point of view, we think that conversion is what happens to unbelievers, agnostics, skeptics, and cynics. From the missionary point of view, we think that conversion is concerned with pagans, heathens, and idol worshipers. Religious conversion, in general, is for the ungodly, the wicked, and - sinners. The character of Paul fits into none of these categories. Paul's conversion was the conversion of an enthusiastic believer who was already totally committed to God. Paul's single ambition in life was to be a dedicated and an obedient servant of God's holy Law. Yet - Paul was converted.

The explanation of this strange fact is that Paul's conversion was not a moral or ethical conversion; it was a theological conversion. It was a conversion from death under the Law to a birth of life in the Gospel. In order to more completely understand the theological dimensions of Paul's conversion, let us review the story of our text.

A man, whose Greek or Roman name was Paul and whose Jewish name was Saul, had dedicated his life to the persecution and the actual killing of Christians in an all-out effort to destroy the church. Paul was on his way to Damascus, one of the oldest cities an the world. His heart was motivated by malice, and his mind was dead-set on murder. Paul was convinced that he was commissioned by God to destroy all the fool-hearted followers of the "Mad Messiah" - that pretentious peasant - that son of a village carpenter - that common "nobody" - who had made the blasphemous claim that he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Paul was just outside the gates of the city when, suddenly, a blinding light flashed like a bolt of lightning from heaven. It enveloped him with a glowing circle of light. It was noonday, but this light was brighter and more brilliant than the sun. Paul was instantly knocked from his horse, and he lay prostrate on the ground. Like thunder, after the lightning, a voice rumbled around him saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" It was not an angry voice; it was the deep and resonant voice of profound and passionate concern. When the voice was silent, Paul broke the stillness with his guilt-induced question: "Who are you, Lord?" And the amazing answer came back, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting."

It is significant that, when our Lord identified himself to Paul, he used his earthly and human name - "Jesus." It is as if our Lord wanted it to be perfectly clear to Paul, that the one who spoke to him was the baby born at Bethlehem, the boy-child of the carpenter of Nazareth, and the young man who had been rejected and crucified in Jerusalem. It was the Jesus of Galilee, who had been raised and exalted by Paul's God, who was speaking to him now.

The tremendous truth and the stark reality of this experience, that engulfed Paul like a tidal wave, was that conversion event which would sweep away all of the lies which had marked and motivated his life. Jesus reprimanded and charged Paul with the full force of the Law. Paul was judged found guilty, and executed. For all intents and purposes, Paul was experiencing a spiritual death that very noonday on the road to Damascus.

It is often said that Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. Strictly speaking, this is not the whole truth. The truth is that his conversion-experience only had its beginning on the road to Damascus. The conversion of Paul, like all true conversions, came in the form of two acts. The first act was his experience of being struck dead by the Law. The second act was his being raised up to a new life by the Gospel. Paul had experienced the gavel of the law, as it hammered his haughtiness to a devastating death. Paul was personally experiencing what he would later proclaim in his preaching, "The law kills; the Spirit alone gives life."

In the first act, the sign of Paul's experience of death was his blindness. Our text states, "... when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing." So, the irony of ironies is that the proud and the boastful conqueror for God, who had set out for Damascus with a mission to kill Christians and to eradicate the church, was led into the city as a poor and blind beggar.

The second act of Paul's conversion occurred in Damascus. Having received the blinding death-blow of the Law, he was then prepared to receive the life-giving blessing of the Gospel. Ananias, directed by God, placed his hands upon Paul's head. He absolved him of all sins. He commanded him to no longer persecute Christians; rather, he commissioned Paul to preach the living Lord, Jesus the Christ. The Holy Spirit entered into Paul. The scales fell from his eyes. His sight was restored. He was baptized. He ate food with the disciples. Therefore, being fully nourished and strengthened by food and by the Spirit of Christ, Paul immediately went to the nearest synagogue, where he began to preach the crucified and risen Lord - the Son of the Holy God.

Paul was converted by the Law and by the Gospel. However one more act needs to be added to this drama of Paul's conversion, and one more step needs to be stressed. It is this final act that points out what Paul's conversion means to us today.

The third act, the final step of Paul's conversion, was the conversion of the word, that he had heard, into the energetic life of faith, that he lived. After, as well as before, his conversion, Paul was a student of the Word. It was the Word that was the driving force of his life. Paul was an energetic, an enthusiastic, and a dedicated "doer" of the Word. His conversion simply redirected his energies and transformed his enthusiasm from persecution to proclamation. The Word heard was a generator of energy that electrified his life and moved him into immediate action - both before and after his conversion.

Now this third act of Paul's conversion - the conversion of the Word that he heard into his energetic life, which he then lived - is the conversion that we do desperately need. We all need the conversion of our convictions into actions - dedication into deeds. We need to let the power of the Word, the word that we hear, radiate through us into the energetic lives of faith that we live. It is like harnessing the gravity pull of a great waterfall into electrical power in order to light our homes. It is like harnessing the sunlight as solar energy to heat our homes. The power is there; it only needs to be transformed. It needs to be converted from one form of power to another.

The tragedy of our lives is that, somewhere along the powerline, the energy of the Word gets short-circuited, and the conversion of energy never takes place. As transformers of the Word, we fail; and most likely, the fuse-blowing point of our failure is our pride. We are afraid of what others w1ll think about us or what they will say about us if we become too enthusiastic about our faith. Nobody wants to be labeled a "do-gooder," or a "fanatic," or a "religious nut." We do not want to be labeled or laughed at. So, we play it cool. We adopt an air of sophistication. We become blase; this causes us never to get excited about anything. Far too often, we go through life anxiously looking in the rear-view mirror to see what others are thinking about us; thus, all the while, we stay in second gear and never shift into high. No danger here! Only dullness.

The power of the Word of God never converts into enthusiastic actions in our lives. Far too quickly, we short-circuit it into carefully worded, well-guarded, and conservative expressions of our faith. We never risk radical involvement or commitment. We avoid all overstatements and spontaneous expressions of emotion. We play it safe.

This tragic short-circuiting of the power of the Word of God prohibits us from ever being converted into energetic believers, and it robs us, not only of knowing the full joy of a dynamic faith, but also of experiencing a truly Christian style of life. For example, take forgiveness, and love, and service to others - actions which characterize the active will of God in our lives. Without enthusiasm, these actions never quite measure up to what the New Testament is talking about when it uses these words. Forgiveness, without enthusiasm, becomes a duty that is grudgingly done. Love becomes just another law to be obeyed. Service becomes a slavish demand, which we practice like a dull discipline - rather than it being a deed we are delighted to do.

Without enthusiasm, God's will becomes a series of tasks that we must do. We actually exhaust ourselves trying to do them. In reality, they are things that we can do joyfully, because we are plugged into a potential powerhouse of unlimited energy which constantly flows from the Word of God.

Before this sermon ends, let there be no conclusions drawn that this sermon is a "you should" or a "you must" kind of sermon which makes an appeal - even a demand - for you to "do something." The intention of this sermon is to place no demands upon you as a listener - whatsoever. The intent of this sermon is to confront you with a "you will" message. The theme of this sermon is not a demand; instead, it is a declaration. It is a promise from God that he will not rest until the current is restored to our lives and until his Word flows through us and moves us to expressive actions of faith.

In our text, Paul did not go to Damascus to be converted. Our text is not primarily about what Paul did; rather, it is about what God did to Paul. God is the aggressive actor in the drama of salvation. God writes, directs, produces, and stars in the drama of conversion. It was God who knocked Paul from his horse to the ground. It was God who blinded Paul with the judgmental word of the Law. It was God who restored Paul's sight with the gift of the Gospel. It was God who forgave, and blessed, and commissioned Paul. And, God is determined to do the same thing to you and to me. God will strike us, again and again, with his Word, until that Word makes contact and becomes active in our lives.

The Word of God is like lightning. It does not strike when we want it to. We cannot, by any power of our own will or self-determination, cause lightning to occur. Lightning strikes when the conditions are right. So it is with the Word of God. In God's good time, we will experience the striking surge of the power of his Word in our lives; and, we will express our faith in action.

Look up. The dark clouds are gathering. The wind is changing, and there is a refreshing scent in the air. The heavens are charged with power. Any moment now, there will be a bolt from the blue, and our lives will be radically changed. The Word of God that we hear will be electrified into new energies for the lives that we live.

Warning! God is about to strike!