Too Small a Thing?

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, now it's time for the sermon. And our sermon text is from Acts chapter 10, verses 34 through 43. But we're not going to read it just yet. And here's what I have to say. If you haven't been here, we've had a six-week book study on lament, which is good because that balances out. Sometimes we're too celebratory and we don't pay attention to the fact that we need to lament. But the book study is over, okay? And today is not lament day. Today is celebration day, okay? So you can lament some other day and you can lament today to keep things in balance. So in that spirit, I want everyone to stand up and I'm going to yell really loud, He is risen. And you say, He is risen indeed. And I still got another glove here. And we're going to celebrate. So I'm going to run down the aisle and I'm going to give a high five to anyone who wants because we're celebrating and I want you all to clap. So start clapping right now.

[1:10] I wish you could all greet each other. We're still not at the point where we're shaking hands during the service, but I think we'll get there someday. Have a seat. We've got the celebration day, Resurrection Sunday. It's Easter Sunday. We love it.

[1:24] So a little bit of background. I'm winded. I'm excited though. I'll catch up. The background of our reading today from Acts, and just a reminder, Acts, if you ever want to like, somebody says, well, what's Acts about? You know, what's 1 Corinthians about? Whatever. You could say Acts is a historical narrative of the lives of the apostles. But what it really does is it's a historical narrative that connects together several sermons about the resurrection.

[1:55] That's what Acts is. Is there stories of things? Happening? And then there's a sermon. Stories of things happening. And then there's a sermon. And who's preaching these sermons? Peter, Paul. The theme of every one of these sermons is the resurrection. That's Acts. So we're reading from Acts today, and this is one of Peter's sermons. Not necessarily, it's about the resurrection, but there's some background to it. Okay. So before this passage happens, there's this kind of really cool parallel message. That God sends to two people. One is a Roman centurion named Cornelius. He's not a believer in Jesus yet, but he's God-fearing. He's called a God-fearing Gentile. And then Peter, the apostle, right? And they're both sort of told the same story. And then Peter shows up at Cornelius's house and they kind of compare notes. And this must be from God because he told us to do the same thing. So Peter goes to Cornelius's house and then he does something really kind of shocking. Which is he goes into his house. That's only shocking if you know the background is that a Jewish person was forbidden from going into a Gentile person's house. Because what's happening in the Gentile person's house? They're eating foods that are unclean.

[3:14] And thus by extension, those people are unclean. The house is unclean. Anything that has been touched is there is unclean. And if you make yourself unclean, there's a lot of things you have to do to kind of get back out of that. So there's no table fellowship.

[3:29] Between Jews and Gentiles because they eat different foods. And this is a problem for God's people because the church is growing and is composed of Jewish people and non-Jewish people. And so the church has to get to a place where they can all eat together because you know what? Everything, almost everything that's super important in the Bible happens at the table, happens at a meal. All right. So God has to make sure that they can have table fellowship together. And so Peter gets up and he says, a vision of all these animals that he had never touched in his entire life because they were on the list of unclean things. So you could imagine there was a pig in there, maybe a shellfish, you know, things that they wouldn't eat but other people did eat, okay? And God says, now you can eat these things. And he's like, uh, okay. So he comes to Cornelius' house and says, I can come in your house. I can eat your food. We can have table fellowship together. And they're so amazed that God has sent this same message to both of them to come and meet at this place, that it's kind of validation that God's behind it. So after that happens, now Peter begins to preach, right? So Acts 10.34, we'll begin there. Then Peter replied, I see very clearly that God shows

[4:48] no favoritism. In every nation, he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. This is the way that God will show favoritism to his people. And he will show favoritism to his people. This is the message of good news for the people of Israel, that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after John began preaching his message of baptism. And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. Now the part that we really want to focus on, and we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all, the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins

[6:13] forgiven through his name. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this word. Thank you for the news. Of the death and the resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ. And we ask that you would add your blessing to the reading of your word in Jesus name. Amen. So like I said, so much happens at a shared meal in the Bible. And I'm going to give you a list of, I started making a list and it was like 20 things long. And I was like, you can't, you're not supposed to do that. You're only supposed to have three things, but I got so excited. I'm gonna, there's gonna be four things. So just, you know, hold onto your attention, attention, attentiveness there. God came to Abraham's tent, God came to Abraham's tent and Abraham served him the meal and the covenant grows out of things like that the last supper was a meal together, right? Jesus ate food with his disciples at the sea of Galilee in John chapter 21, he ate a meal with them after the resurrection. There's a feast in heaven. That's the really big meal, the heaven is ascribed as a feast, not everything in the Bible, but a lot of the Spicy super important things happen at meals, and a lot of relationships are cemented at meals. And in the culture of that time, a meal is how you would finalize a contract between people. And so they

[7:35] were super important things. And as I said, the problem that the world was facing, the new Christian church was facing, was Jews who had grown up Jewish still thought they couldn't go into a Gentile's home and share a meal with them because they would become unclean. So it was super important for Jesus to clarify to Peter and all the rest that the kosher laws have been set aside so that the church could have unity and people could share a meal together. Super important. And it just makes me think how much I love potlucks. We used to have a potluck every month and then COVID hit, and someday we'll get back to potlucks. But potlucks are great. When we share a meal together, some great things happen. We're not just feeding our body, we're building community, we're feeding the soul, okay? So important things happen at these shared meals. The other thing I want you to listen to or go back to, and we can go back to the second to the last slide, Steve, verse 41, where Peter says, we were those who ate and drank with him, when? After he rose from the dead. Verse 41, after he rose from the dead. So John 21, we see that Jesus meets his disciples, up at the Sea of Galilee, and they go fishing, they catch some fish, and then what? They eat them

[8:56] together. So there's some people in the world who are like, the risen Jesus is just kind of a, he's a pretty good hologram. He was just a disembodied spirit floating around. But what happens when he, then how does this thing eat food? Right? Don't you have to have a body to like chew on food, swallow food? So Jesus had a real actual body, and he was a real actual body. He was a real actual physical resurrection. It wasn't just sort of an image. Now there are all, pardon me, there are alternative views on the resurrection, even among people who are Christian scholars. These are scholars who have a hard time believing in miracles, as it turns out. So one of them would be Rudolf Bultmann, I won't go into others, and Bultmann redeems himself in all sorts of other ways. But ultimately, Rudolf Bultmann said, belief in the physical resurrection for him wasn't necessary. He would say things like, well, Jesus made me have been raised in the collective consciousness of all his disciples, even if he wasn't physically raised, even if he didn't actually show it to them. They all kind of told themselves a story enough times, and they all kind of started believing it. And his resurrected presence was really among them in the way they remembered him.

[10:10] It's beginning to sound like a bad funeral sermon, isn't it? You know, like, he's always with us. Okay, well, he's not actually, because when somebody dies, they're actually gone, right? And they've gone somewhere else. And so, you know, there's a lot of people who are like, somewhere else. So Jesus, for some theologians, and I think it's because they want the respect of their secular counterparts in some of these institutions that they work at, they say, well, it's just kind of a collective sort of group psychosis. He didn't actually raise from the dead. That's just kind of too hard to believe, right? Well, what do we think? We're going to get into what we think, all right? What do we believe about this? Here's what I think, okay?

[10:50] I think God has the power. It's a question of God's power. I think God has the power to raise Jesus and all the other people who were raised in the scriptures. There are more stories of resurrection than just Jesus in the scripture. There's Lazarus. There's a young man who's carried out of a city. There's all sorts of other people, even the apostle Peter, or the apostle Paul raises somebody from dead, a young man who falls out a window, right? So all those, I think God has the power to do. And here's how I would look at it. If God made the universe, if you believe God made the universe, we'll start there. If you believe that God made the universe, is it too small a thing for him to raise his son to a new life? Is that too small a thing for him to, for somebody who, so I can't imagine a person saying, well, yes, I believe God is a supreme being who can say to the unformed void and the chaos, let there be light. And suddenly billions of galaxies were flung into existence. And they say, I think God could do that, but I'm not sure he can raise his son, Jesus from the dead. I mean, which is the bigger miracle? I think they're both, I mean, you know, sort of the, the spoiler is I think they're both amazing miracles, but if you can do the one thing, I think you can

[12:07] do the other thing, right? That's just logic, right? If you can, if you can create the universe out of almost nothing, right? Then you can make somebody come back from the dead, right? So, but don't take my word for it. This is what Paul says. And for first Corinthians 15, and this is after the section that Brian read first Corinthians chapter 15, Paul says this, if there is no resurrection of the dead, if God can't do this, if Jesus isn't raised from the dead, then we don't, we can't expect to be raised from the dead either because it's all the same kind of miracle, right? If there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, right? And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless.

[12:50] And you are still guilty of your sins, right? If Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, this whole thing is off. Like the whole enterprise is all goofed up and a waste of your time. And I'm sorry to be wasting your time right now. You could be at Starbucks. You could be riding your bike. You could be posting kitten pictures on Facebook. You could be doing anything else, but being here right now. But if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless. And you're still guilty of your sin. You're wasting your time. In that case, Paul writes, all who have died believing in Christ are lost. And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, then we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. We're ridiculous. We're ridiculous. If the resurrection didn't happen, then we are ridiculous. We are to be pitied, right? It'd be better for us to say, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Might as well get the most out of life that you can right now. But in fact, and this is how it continues verse 20, but in fact, but in fact, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. This is what Paul writes, verse 20. Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died,

[14:04] or some other versions of the Bible say he is the first fruits. He is the first fruits. So we put it plainly, we believe that Christ was raised from the dead in the physical world, not some elaborate hologram, or apparition, or anything like that, right? And this is foundational to our faith, not just Christianity, but to people outside. I'm going to read you something, and I've read this before, but I want to see if anyone remembers it.

[14:31] Here's a quote from a novel. Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity. That's Christmas, right? Any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event. If you don't believe in the resurrection, you're not a believer.

[14:51] If you don't believe in Easter, don't kid yourself. Don't call yourself a Christian. Now that's from a novel. I'm not saying it's the Bible. It's not. That's from a prayer of Owen Meany by John Irving. That's that little kind of small boy, you know, he's the center of the book, but he says, and he's not really a Christian himself quite, I mean in a way he is, but he's like, don't call yourself a Christian if you don't believe in the resurrection. It's all about Easter. And John Irving who wrote it, he's not a believer. He describes himself as a kind of average, run-of-the-mill agnostic. He has no use for religion. But even a non-religious person can look into Christianity and say, it's quite obvious to me that the resurrection is really the center of what you all believe. So even somebody outside the faith gets that the resurrection is core to Christianity. The resurrection is core to Christianity, okay?

[15:49] We have a lot of documents. One of them is the Apostles' Creed. It says, on the third day he rose from the dead. It's a statement of faith. The Nicene Creed says he suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. So we have some creeds that say we believe that he was raised from the dead. We have our own denominations. You're in a church of the Evangelical Covenant Church. It has a set of sort of six foundational beliefs. They're not creeds, but they're just kind of guidelines. But this is one of them that says the church is a fellowship of believers, right? It's characterized by mutual participation in and sharing of the new life in Christ. Membership is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It is open to all believers. And I like this. Considerations of class or race, education or pedigree, wealth or prestige do not enter. You don't have to be of any particular class. You don't have to be of any particular class, group, wealth, or anything else to be a member of the church.

[16:53] Uniformity in certain details is not expected. We don't have to agree on what baptism, how baptism should be practiced or how Holy Communion should be practiced. We don't have to agree on that, right? What is required is that one be born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's a quote from 1 Peter 1, verse 3. What is required? What is required is that one be born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The doors of the church, and I'm not talking about the doors for anyone to walk in. We want anyone to walk in and listen. We want anyone to walk in and have fellowship with us. But when we're talking about the doors here, it means membership in the church. It means undergoing the rite of baptism to become a member. The doors of the church are wide enough to admit all who believe and narrow enough to exclude all those who believe. Some of the authentic on today of all days to recenter for ourselves how important the resurrection is for our faith.

[18:22] So, we believe in the actual, physical, real resurrection of Jesus Christ. Good. And this is important because as Paul says, if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless and your faith is useless. Because if Christ is not raised, we will not be raised. If Christ is not raised, we will not be raised. And we're wasting our time. So, if this is just a group that meets from time to time and we make friends and share meals and do good things for the world, but it's not anchored in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, right? And the new life that flows from that, then there's a lot more convenient ways to do all those things. You know, there's a bird watching club in town. They're really nice people. They get almost all, they share meals, they even share an adult beverage. You know, they talk about birds. They do other things. You know, there's other, like, non-profits that are doing good in the community. And I'm not saying they're not good things. They are all great things. But if all we do here is just do good things for the world and we just have fellowship with each other, you could do, it's just more convenient to do it some other time than Sunday morning. You should be in bed right now. I should be in bed right now. Why are

[19:34] we doing here? There's a lot more convenient times. Spicy Spicy now, the new life that God has for you. So we do this because we believe in the resurrection, and we believe that when Jesus died on the cross and was raised again, it matters for us. And get this part, it matters for the world. Whether the world knows it or not, the world depends on the resurrection of Jesus being a real thing. So here's the last word. We're almost done.

[20:37] If God can create the universe with a word, right, let there be light. He might have even whispered it into the chaos, let there be light. Or maybe it was a booming voice, you know, let there be light. I'm trying to do like, you know, Charlton Heston in Moses, you know. It doesn't matter how he said it. He said four little words, fewer in the middle. Some other languages. Let there be light. And the universe came into existence.

[21:12] So is it too small a thing for him to raise his son to new life? Is that too small for him? I don't think so. And if he can do that, is it too small a thing for him to raise you from the dead? To be united with him and with the saints that have gone on before us, is it too small a thing then that he would raise you from the dead after you die? And that you be reunited with the ones have gone before you? It's not too small for him. Is it too small a thing for you to experience resurrection even before you die? I'm talking about a resurrected life now, a new life, a new hope, a new beginning, forgiveness of your sins, your conscience cleared, set free to go into the world.

[21:51] Is there a new life to be had even before we die and are raised? It's not too small a thing for God to do that. Is it too small a thing for a dying marriage to be brought back to life? Is it too small a thing for a child who has wandered away from faith and family to return? Is it too small a thing for the prodigal to come back? Is it too small a thing to be healed from a sickness we thought was terminal? It has happened. I'm not going to promise it to you right now, but it has happened. God has power. Is it too small a thing for justice to come to our cities? Is it too small a thing for the world to come to Jesus? Is it too small a thing for the world to be made new? Not for God, not in the power of the resurrection. It's not. It's not too small a thing. Without the resurrection, we are to be pitied and we are wasting our time. But with the resurrection, we are full of life and purpose and energy and joy. God is making the world new. And you know what? You may not believe me because it doesn't really look like it. It doesn't look to me like the world is being made new. It may be hard to see. You know, sometimes it's darkest before the dawn, they say. I'm not sure I really believe that, but it's catchy.

[23:02] Right? Maybe darkest before dawn. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but God's doing it. He's doing it. God is making the world new. God is resurrecting the world. Someday he will ultimately resurrect it. But even in our lifetimes or a bit beyond, I think he will make the world new. And the resurrection means we answer his call and we do the work that we can do to help him bring it about. But it's his work. We are just faithful to follow in his footsteps in it. So the resurrection means you work as God directs you in his grand venture of resurrecting the world and making things new. So I'm going to say it one more time. Now we're done because this is the thing that gives the whole Christian faith its meaning and its purpose to redeem the entire world. And I'm going to ask you to reply as I think I know you will. He is risen.

[24:02] Amen.