Listen to the Sermon or the Entire Service
April 26:
Call: 1 John 3: 16-18
Reading: W&S #93
Text: Acts 4: 5-22
Closing: Acts 4: 19-22
Can't Stop!
I am convinced that God loves me - and you
I am convinced that God is good to me - and to you
I am convinced that God has a sense of humor.
For when exploring Cooper's question
"What is the longest hymn in the hymnal?"
I thought it would be fun to use the answer
And construct a service around it.
To be honest, it was a bit of a lark
Something unusual that sounded like fun
Larks are, of course, always gambles
But this one was a low risk gamble For me - and for you.
After all, I have only nine Sundays left after today, and thus,
If you don't like it
You don't have to worry about it being repeated
And I don't have to worry about your taking steps to get rid of me.
But God's incredible goodness and God's sense of humor
Combined to create a heavenly chuckle at my mistaken belief
that using this hymn was my own idea
And that I was using it primarily as an attention getter.
God had to have a pretty broad smile
As the Holy Spirit transformed this "lark"
into a message, a lesson, and an instruction
for me, at least - and hopefully for you.
For the hymn provides a look into Peter's thought process
As he responded to the Sanhedrin after his arrest.
For healing a lame man in Christ's name
That arrest and response make up today's text [Acts 4: 5 - 22]
Arrested, threatened, and admonished,
Peter told that powerful and judgmental body
Exactly what they did not want to hear:
That the healing of the lame man
Was because of Jesus Christ the Nazarene
And he added a piercing verbal jab
"The one whom you rejected."
These words amazed, astonished - and irritated -
those before whom Peter and John
had been brought for trial.
However, after recovering from their amazement,
And after admitting to themselves
that they were in a bit of a quandary
because people had seen the powerful and positive results
of what Peter and John had done,
those powerful people demanded, ordered, and decreed
that Peter and John
Stop all speaking and teaching in the name of Jesus.
And again, Peter
The guy who had on the night before the crucifixion,
denied even knowing Christ, spoke boldly
"It is up to you to determine whether it is right ...
To obey you rather than God."
"But as for us
We can't stop speaking
About what we have seen and heard."
And I think that in the poem that is our hymn this morning -
A hymn which I use in full for the first time my 20 years
Charles Wesley captures and introduces to us
Peter's thought process.
With a few direct quotes
And with many altered to prose,
This is what I hear Peter thinking:
We saints on earth
As well as the saints above
We in the church below
As well as the church above
Must ever and always give to God
Glory, praise and love
And we must do that
even when it is difficult or frightening to do so.
"I" (and again this is Peter)
was transformed when Christ the righteous one arose
For the legalistic wrangling of the past expired
And I began to live,
To live my second life,
To live my real and living life
Then with my heart I first believed,
believed with faith divine,
power with the Holy Ghost received
to call the Savior mine. Mine, mine, mine!
I felt my Lord's atoning blood
close to my soul applied;
me, me he loved, the Son of God,
for me, for me he died!
Peter had to have felt just like Wesley
He was no longer the same man he was
When in the courtyard of the high priest,
He had denied having anything to do with Jesus.
But with Christ's resurrection
Peter had started to live a new, better, and more real life
Peter had felt the atonement through Jesus' blood
And Peter had come to understand and be in awe of the fact that
It was for him, him, him, that Jesus had died.
That recognition and understanding transformed Peter
And so as he stood before the Sanhedrin
There was no way he could stop talking about Jesus
There was no way he could stop giving Jesus
Glory, praise and love.
And There was no way he could hide those facts from his judges
Instead of silence, Peter, like Wesley, prayed
That thousands of tongues would sing
His great Redeemer's praise!
As well as singing
The glories of his God and King,
And the triumphs of his grace.
Instead of keeping his thoughts and faith to himself,
Peter, like Wesley, continued to pray.
My gracious Master and my God,
assist me, and help me, and give me strength, to proclaim,
and to spread through all the earth
the honors of thy name.
Peter knew his own failures
He remembered that time in the courtyard
He remembered his loss of faith while walking on the water
And yet by the time he found himself in front of the Sanhedrin,
He had come to recognize that Jesus had "charmed his fears"
And had bid his sorrows cease;
That is why he saw Jesus' name as music in his sinner's ears,
And as life, and as health, and as peace!
Christ had canceled Peter's past sins
And set him free from the prison of control
By human fears and human weaknesses
Christ had done this for him
And can do it for even the worst among us.
Through listening to Christ's voice
The dead, the sad, and the humble can Receive new life
Through listening to Christ's voice
All nations can Receive new life
Through listening to Christ's voice
Even harlots, publicans, murderers, and those
who are sons and daughters of lust and pride can Receive new life
For all can be and all should be
saved through faith alone, and justified by grace!
And so all of us
whatever our sufferings and challenges -
whatever our sins and failures -
should our tongues employ
To give that glory, love, and praise
And to sing and to leap for joy.
All of us should know Our sins forgiven;
And anticipate our heaven below For His love is heaven.
Charles Wesley was born about 1700 years
after Peter stood before the Sanhedrin
And bravely told those people who were judging him
That he would not and could not
stop speaking about what he had seen and heard
But Wesley's poem explains how and why Peter was able to do it.
You and I need to be inspired by Peter's actions
So that we too can adopt this hymn
And find our hearts and our souls
Our faith and our character in it.
Then when we face troubles that require the courage of our faith
We can trust that it will be there for us to draw on.
And too, we need Peter's example and Wesley's hymn
To remind us that in our every days lives
We shouldn't be able to stop speaking about Jesus either.
After all,
That is what we have been commissioned to do
Oh, Oh, Oh that we might be among the thousands of tongues
Singing of glory, love, and praise
Right along beside the apostle Peter and the poet Charles Wesley.