Sermon Tone Analysis

Facing reality gets the job done

READING: Acts 9:1–19

“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.

He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.

6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.

8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.

So they led him by the hand into Damascus.

9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias.

The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”

“Yes, Lord,” he answered.

11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.

12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

13 “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.

14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go!

This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.

16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it.

Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.

He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.”

SERMON

I have to say, though I’m sure you won’t all agree with me, that I think you are very fortunate to have me here this morning!

I’ve recently had one of life’s traumatic experiences.

Well, it was a few weeks ago now, but it remains starkly vivid in my memory.

It began when I quite innocently visited one of those photo-booths because the time had come to renew my passport.

You know the procedure.

You pull aside the curtain and settle on the rotary seat.

You close the curtain to give you the privacy you need at such intimate moments, and you read the instructions.

You put in your money.

You adjust your seat height by spinning this way and that.

You try leaning forward and backward, until at last your chin and the crown of your head fits neatly between the red lines.

Finally, you ensure that your face is not showing even a hint of a smile and that your arms and your eyes are uncrossed, and then you fire the button that takes your picture.

Alighting from the booth you then stand and wait somewhat sheepishly, for your photos to clunk into the tray outside.

I should, of course have remembered from previous occasions, but nothing quite prepares you for what happens when you pick up those photos and take a look.

Aaaaagh!

That can’t be me, you think, as you examine the full horror of this so-called “likeness”.

But Margaret, my wife, who dutifully accompanies me on such challenging occasions to lend moral support – rather too quickly for my liking, tells me that it is true.

I DO in fact look like that!

So I’m already mentally planning my escape to some remote mountain monastery where I can live out the balance of my miserable life in the privacy and solitude that now appears essential if I’m to spare the world the trauma of catching sight of such a nightmare.

But knees wobbling from the onset of shock, and steered along by Margaret, I make my way to the Post Office counter, clutching my photos to begin the “Check and Send” passport process.

I feel obliged to warn the ill-fated and unfortunate girl whose job it is to handle my passport application form, of the spectacle she is about to endure as she begins the checking process.

But she, having had to endure countless such experiences, like a casualty nurse, is now completely desensitised to all such appalling moments and just gets on with the job - like it was nothing at all.

This girl, I instantly realise, is used to facing realities, ugly realities, and just getting on with the task in hand.

She is, in fact, the perfect model for the approach we all, I want to suggest, should take as we come face to face with our own SPIRITUAL short-comings.

There is a real danger I think for many of us as Christians that we simply drift through our lives and never really face up to our issues.

We just accept somehow that that is how things are.

Occasionally though, our frustrations may SO get to us, that we may come to God with what amounts to almost an angry prayer or outburst.

Or, is that only me?

As I was doing some preparation for this message I actually came across something I had put into words on one of those occasions some time ago.

Addressed to God, this is what I wrote:

“Question: What makes your power flow through us?

What is the switch that when turned on allows the power of God to energise and equip us to do the job that we are intended to be doing . . .

which is to live the life you want us to live?

To live out your purpose for and through us – the only purpose that will genuinely bless and support others as part of the body of Christ?

What is that switch?”

Now that question was followed by some written thoughts about aspects of a possible answer.

But interestingly, I now realise that my message this morning actually focusses on a key aspect of the answer to that question.

So do your best to follow along with me this morning, because it might just mean that in facing up to the ugly reality of any spiritual deficiencies in our lives, we may find the solution, so that we, like the girl in the post office, learn to BRACE ourselves and get on with the job we have been given.

The book of Acts is a startling book.

We sometimes refer to it as the Acts of the Apostles and it is true that it does have quite a strong focus on certain key players like Peter, John, James, Barnabas and, of course, in the latter half particularly, it has a focus on the great Apostle Paul.

Now, I’ve obviously led quite a sheltered spiritual life because it was only recently that I heard the view that Luke’s narrative, first of Christ’s ministry in his Gospel, and then of the birth and early days of the church in what we often refer to the Acts of the Apostles, both written to a mystery man called Theophilus, may have been what amounts to case documents for use in preparing the legal defence of Paul in the courts of Rome, and was providing the background information to demonstrate Paul’s story, his character and his motivation.

But, whatever the truth of that, which I’ll have to leave to the academics, it is clear that Acts is NOT just about the Apostles.

I mentioned, for example, in a recent message that in Acts 11:20-21 we read of “men from Cyprus and Cyrene” who quote: “went to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.”.

These were ordinary, newly born again Christian men, about whom the Scripture records: “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a GREAT NUMBER OF PEOPLE believed and turned to the Lord.”

So clearly a Holy Spirit anointed ministry was NOT confined just to Apostles like Paul or even to deacons like Stephen or Philip in the early days of the church.

So could it be, that we are wrong to think that fruitful, Holy Spirit led and prompted, evangelism and healing is confined in TODAY’S church to just those favoured few with one or more of the five-fold ministry gifts that Paul describes in Ephesians 4:11?

Or, are we in fact just making an excuse for ourselves so that we can opt out of Jesus’s great commission in Matthew 28:18–20 where we read:”18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19 Therefore go and MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations, BAPTIZING THEM in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and TEACHING THEM TO OBEY EVERYTHING I HAVE COMMANDED YOU.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

But if we feel we can ignore this apparently UNIVERSAL injunction on ALL Christians given in the Great Commission, perhaps we should look to the gospels for further guidance.

In Luke 9:1–2 we read “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out TO PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD and to HEAL THE SICK.”

So ALL these DISCIPLES - and that’s what they were at the time, went out and preached and healed the sick suggesting perhaps that THIS in fact is a model for all of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus.

Perhaps we too should be going out to preach the gospel and to heal the sick?

Now okay, most of these guys went on to be Apostles, so perhaps the passage doesn’t prove conclusively that this applies to all of US today.

But, and here’s the killer blow, look what we read in Luke 10:1–3, (NIV84) “After this the Lord appointed SEVENTY-TWO OTHERS and sent THEM two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Go!

I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”

And in verse 10 he then commands them: “HEAL THE SICK who are there and tell them, ‘THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NEAR YOU.’”

So here then were 72 guys.

They were DISCIPLES, yes, but it is pretty certain that they did not ALL go on to be Apostles.

And these 72 went out and they preached the gospel and they healed the sick.

So maybe HERE we ARE seeing the model for ALL disciples.

Maybe we are ALL meant to be doing this – GOING WITH THE GOSPEL and HEALING THE SICK.

But for the moment, let’s just return to our reading – Acts 9, verses 1-19, where we read amazing events in Paul’s life as he was called and commissioned to an unsurpassed ministry among the fledgling church.

But I want us to focus NOT on the familiar Saul or Paul, but on the brief appearance of a man called Ananias.

So who is this man?

Remember first of all, that here we are NOT looking at an Apostle.

We read nothing elsewhere about other exploits of this man in planting or leading churches or indeed, doing anything else.

He was NOT the man we read of in Acts 5:1-11 that Peter had rebuked along with his wife Sapphira for deceptively withholding part of a gift to the church, and as a consequence was carried out from Peter’s presence to keep an appointment with a funeral director.

And, he was certainly NOT the rather unpleasant High Priest, of the same name, who described Paul as a troublemaker and ordered him to be slapped across his mouth when facing the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

We know that this Ananias was a “DISCIPLE”, because that is how he is described in Acts 9, verse 10.

We know too from Paul’s description of him in a later testimony recorded in Acts 22:12 that “He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living“ in Damascus.