May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer
 
It’s virtually a cliché in Anglicanism that Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday in the Church calendar named after a doctrine. But that doctrine, the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is central to the Christian faith, so central that, according to the Athanasian Creed that we will recite after this sermon, those whose do not accept this doctrine “will perish eternally.” The Creed actually ends with these words: “One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.” That alone should motivate you to listen carefully this morning!    

At the very same time we acknowledge this to be among the most inscrutable doctrines of the Church, one that certainly ranks alongside the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist and the doctrine of the two natures of Christ as being beyond our full comprehension. Countless analogies have been put forward to help us understand the Holy Trinity, and all of them fall short in one way or another. Not even St. Patrick’s three-leaf clover works for everyone.

To what does it come down in the end? It comes down to faith. It was a doctrine that set the early Church into a great turmoil that was not really resolved until the emergence of what we call the Athanasian Creed, probably formulated early in the 5th century a.d. and, not by Athanasius himself but by a far less well-known cleric named St. Vincent of Lérins, who lived on a Mediterranean island off the southern coast of France. You may not have heard of him, but his importance in Church history cannot be overestimated. It was he who wrote that the catholic faith is solely that which “has been believed everywhere, always and by all.” That’s a rather good definition of orthodoxy, even if we struggle to define precisely what is included or excluded by it.

This morning I would like to present to you a clear and irrefutable statement as to what the Holy Trinity is, what it means, how it functions, how we relate to each of the three Person in one Being, and how we can believe firmly in monotheism and, at the same time, believe in a God Who manifests Himself in three distinct Persons. But I sincerely hope that you’re not holding your breath or harboring unrealistic expectations. As self-confident as I may occasionally appear to be, I’m no more capable than any of you at explaining the Holy Trinity. Here, we are dealing with God Himself and how He has chosen to manifest Himself to us, His finite creatures. I will not resort to any of the usual analogies, all of which have been shot down by persons of greater perspicacity than any of us.  

So what can I say to you this morning about the Holy Trinity that will have meaning, value, theological veracity and practical significance? Not much, really. Should I just say the Trinitarian concluding formula and leave you to say “amen” or “thanks be to God?” Perhaps, but there are some things I would like to add that are drawn from two great sources: first and foremost from the Word of God and secondarily from our Anglican liturgy.

If as Anglicans we believe in the absolute authority of Scripture, then that’s where we must start. Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures may not have gotten all of your Trinitarian wheels turning, but it should have! What did the seraphim gathered around the throne of God sing over and over? They sang, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I will add that according to Revelation 4:8 it will continue to be their song day and night for all eternity. Why didn’t they sing just one “Holy?” Why didn’t they sing four “Holies?”

Simple: it’s because they were singing to a Triune God who has manifested Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That requires three “Holies.” And have you noticed that this is precisely what we preserve in every celebration of the Holy Eucharist? We could get by with singing “Holy” an arbitrary number of times. But instead we, too, sing “Holy,” “Sanctus,” three times in every Eucharist. There may be a few settings of the Sanctus that are not tripartite, but you may be certain that they never will appear in our liturgy.

Today’s Psalm, Psalm 29, does not contain an explicit reference to God in three Persons; but we concluded our reading, as we do with every psalm and canticle without exception, with the Trinitarian doxology, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.” And we further affirm that this is just as it was in the beginning, as it is now, and as it will be forever and ever, world without end! This is not some liturgical formula that we mindlessly append to every psalm and canticle; rather, it’s a statement of what we believe about our Three-in-One God. We affirm that He is and will be blessed and glorified in that Tripartite form for all eternity: “forever and ever, world without end.”

Why are we so bold as to affirm something as a pillar of our faith when, at the very same time, we must admit that the very concept of God in three Persons is beyond our comprehension? That’s precisely what Paul addresses head-on in our epistle reading for this morning. Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

Paul sees the entire Trinity at work in this process. The Holy Spirit initiates it by fulfilling the promise of Jesus to His disciples in the Upper Room, the promise that the Holy Spirit would come to lead them into all TRUTH. Paul says that this Holy Spirit is communicating directly with our own spirits to assure us that we are God’s own children. As Isaiah wrote, we are those who are called by God’s Own Name (Isaiah 43:1-5). And further, the Holy Spirit assures us that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. There is the beautiful if mysterious symbiotic operation of the Trinity on our behalves, with all three Persons at work to make a reality out of our relationship with a Triune God.

What do we find in today’s Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday? We find Jesus in conversation with an extremely well-educated leader of the Jewish people, a Pharisee and a member of their governing council, the Sanhedrin, who comes under cover of darkness as a serious and earnest seeker after Jesus Christ. He’s bold enough to address Jesus directly as a teacher sent from God, One with Whom God is clearly present. We know from later references in John’s Gospel that Nicodemus ultimately set aside his inhibitions and became a more forthright believer in Jesus, even assisting Joseph of Arimathea in placing Jesus’ body in the tomb.

How does this relate to the Holy Trinity? John tells us, by quoting the very words of Jesus Himself. Jesus first says to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Then He adds that “unless one is born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Finally Jesus says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”

There again we have the operation of the entire Trinity: God Who draws people into His eternal Kingdom, the Spirit Who is instrumental in our rebirth, and the Son of Man, Jesus Himself, Who is to be the object of our faith. Understandably, Nicodemus has trouble unpacking these truths that were not part of his previous understanding. And it’s no less surprising that we still have trouble with them today. But as believers who have come into the Kingdom of God through faith in His Son and through the rebirth of the Holy Spirit, we know these things to be true, to be the truth of the Gospel that we wish above all to share with others.

This is what the Scriptures confirm. These are the bedrock truths on which our personal faith is founded. This is not a matter of coming to Church and reciting a creed, as we will do in a moment. There’s a formula in Anglicanism that is well-known to all clergy and to many lay-persons. It’s this in Latin: “Lex orandi, lex credendi,” translated as “the rule of prayer is the rule of faith,” or, in even simpler terms, “what we pray is what we believe,” or “praying shapes believing.” The reference is to our use of a particular liturgy drawn from a particular Prayer Book tradition, which is why we cling so fiercely to maintaining that tradition with faithfulness and purity.

Liturgy is not an abstraction. It’s not some formulaic muttering that gets us through our Eucharists and other services. It’s indeed first and foremost the foundation of our faith. Nearly every word of our liturgy is drawn directly from the pages of Holy Scripture, which is why our bulletins contain so many Scripture references and, frankly, could contain several more.

Those of you who have faithfully attended our Adult Education and catechism classes know that our entire liturgy is bathed in Trinitarian faith. The very first words I say are either “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” or “Blessed be God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” When we sing the Kyrie, we sing three times, “Lord, have mercy;” three times, “Christ, have mercy,” and three more times, “Lord, have mercy.” When we sing the Gloria, we affirm that “You alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father.”  

When we sing the Gospel acclamation, you and I will each sing “alleluia” three times. Before the Gospel is read, we make the sign of the cross three times. When we recite together the Nicene Creed we begin with “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty;” then we add that “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God;” and finally we add that “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.” We conclude the Prayers of the People saying, “Heavenly Father, grant these our prayers for Jesus Christ’s sake… Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

When we come to our thanksgiving feast at the table of our Lord, we sing together, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord,” the tripartite praise of a God Who manifests Himself in three Persons. When we offer the prayer of consecration to God the Father, it’s in thanks for the sacrificial gift of His only Son as we sanctify the bread, the wine and ourselves in the power of the Holy Spirit. We conclude by praying, “All this we ask through Your Son Jesus Christ. By Him and with Him and in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory is Yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.” And you respond with what we call the Great Amen.

Later we sing the Agnus Dei, repeating three times, “Jesus, Lamb of God.” In our Post-Communion Prayer we thank Almighty God for feeding us with the Body and Blood of His Son and ask that He will send us out in the power of the Holy Spirit. And when I offer the concluding blessing, I ask that “the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.” Our entire liturgy from the first words to the last is bathed in our belief in God as Three-in-One, the cornerstone of our faith, whether or not we fully understand it.

Because today is Trinity Sunday, we will recite what we call the Athanasian Creed for the only time that we do it in the entire Church year. It’s longer than the other creeds. It’s more complicated and densely theological than the others. As with all the creeds, it sprang out of a concern to refute heresies that had threatened the faith of the Early Church. But it expresses more clearly and thoroughly the basis for our belief in a Triune God, and it does so in language that, when pondered thoughtfully, is entirely accessible.
When we recite it this morning, think about what you’re reading. Think about it in relation to the Holy Scriptures we’ve read today. Think about it in terms of the majesty of a God Who has chosen to reveal Himself to us in all His incomparable fullness.

We will say the Creed in a slightly different form from what we have used in the past, one that was compiled by Lisa Sung with some slight emendations from me. I would like to encourage you to take it home with you, read Lisa’s footnotes, study the diagram that I’ve appended, and try to engage yourselves more fully with the vitally important truths that are contained in the creed itself. The recitation of this creed may occur only once a year, yet its truths are absolutely fundamental to our faith and practice. It’s what we believe. It’s how we worship. It’s “Lex orandi, lex credendi” in practice, how what we pray is what we believe. If you begin to do this today, you will be transported into what we call the season of Trinity, from now until the 22nd Sunday after Trinity, October 28, with a special blessing and understanding of why, as you are about to say, “One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

Athanasian Creed  (print version)

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

There’s something absolutely unique about those few verses from Romans that constitute our New Testament reading for this morning: they are the only place in Scripture where words for “groaning” occur 3 times in only 5 verses. And while we often focus on only the third of the groanings mentioned, the one that refers to the unspoken or even inarticulate intercessory groanings of the Holy Spirit, the first two groanings are clearly our own. If we look at the only other times Paul uses the same form of this Greek word, we discover that they, too, have to do with our desire to depart this life and to be with Christ in our resurrection bodies (I Corinthians 5:2, 4).

It struck me in fresh ways that so often we are occupied with groanings over the threats to our lives and the lives of our loved ones, when in fact the only times our own groaning is mentioned by Paul, he has nearly the exact opposite focus: a groaning or longing for the life hereafter. Our own focus tends to be deeply rooted in this life, yet that very focus is so contrary to the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament in general.

The New Testament Christians assumed that their time on earth would not be very long, and they had Jesus Himself for their example. Perhaps one difference in our case is that so many spectacular developments in the medical profession have made it possible for our life expectancy to be extended well beyond that of past generations. Now we cling to this life more than ever before.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that, at least in one sense. The average age in our congregation is a bit older than the national average, and it’s my own hope that all of us will carry on well past the projections of the actuarial tables. I dread the thought of losing a single one of you!

But there’s another sense in which our focus on this life, while physically healthy, may be spiritually unhealthy at the very same time. At least some of the strong emphasis on evangelism in the early church sprang from their presumption that this life was transitory and that the life of the world to come was infinitely more desirable. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “For to me, to live is Christ but to die is gain.” Why did he say that? Did he really mean it? I think he did, and his other writings tend to support that thought.

But Paul also recognized the self-centeredness of such a wish, and immediately added, 22 “if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and so I do not know which to choose. 23 I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; 24 yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake” (Philippians 1: 21-24).

Do you follow Paul’s thought here? His only reason for wishing to live longer was that he might have an extended opportunity to minister to others in the Name of Christ.

Is that why we wish to live longer? Is it any part at all of our wish for longevity? Or are we more obsessed with what we call our “bucket lists,” the self-satisfying pleasures of this life that occupy far more of our time, focus, energies and resources than worshiping God, sharing the Gospel and serving the needs of others? We stand condemned by Paul’s example and by the example of the early church. According to the book of Acts, the early Christians gathered together daily; they prayed together, studied together and broke bread together daily; they shared everything they possessed in common; they took care of the needs of the poor.

Most of you probably heard the sermon yesterday from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church in which he said that if we were harnessing the redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus, poverty would be eliminated. Remember that? That is the way it was in the early church. They took up collections in Macedonia for poor Christians in Jerusalem that they had never met and never would meet. Why did they do it? They were harnessing the redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus.

They occupied themselves with proclaiming the Gospel message even at the cost of their lives. We read not a single word in Acts about what they did in the way of entertainment. Not a word.  Did they go to the Olympic games, did they go to the colosseum to watch the gladiators, did they go have a vacation at the Mediterranean seashore? We don’t read a word about what they did for entertainment. But we read that daily they prayed, studied, broke bread and shared everything that they had in common and took care of the poor. That is not how we live. Our lives are crammed with ways that we entertain ourselves. Again, why is it that we would like to prolong our lives? To what end?

Today is a major festival in the Church year. It celebrates the giving of the Holy Spirit and often is called “the Birthday of the Church.” In the churches where I grew up, an occasional sermon would be preached about the spectacular occurrences on the Day of Pentecost; but we certainly never set aside a Sunday each year to focus on it and we had little notion of why it was even called Pentecost. Only relatively late in my life did I learn that Pentecost was first of all a Jewish holiday of the same name.

What is the Jewish Feast of Pentecost? Did you know that it’s today and tomorrow? It celebrates the firstfruits of the harvest that were to be set aside for God. It was to show symbolically that all we have is first of all God’s, as we say every Sunday when we receive the gifts of the people. The Hebrew name of the festival is Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks. Traditionally it celebrates the giving of the Torah, the Jewish law, to Moses on Mt. Sinai 49 days plus 1 after Passover (Leviticus 23:16). It also is thought to be the birthday of King David. Put those things together and Shavuot is actually a rather big deal, a great event in the annual cycle for Jewish persons, though not quite on the same level as Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur or Pesach.

So we ask again, what does that have to do with us and our observance of Pentecost as 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus, that is, 50 days after Easter? Far more than you might think. We heard in our familiar Pentecost reading from Acts 2 that there were Jewish persons from all over the Western world gathered in Jerusalem on the very day that the Holy Spirit descended and enabled Christians to speak simultaneously in multiple languages. What were all those people doing in Jerusalem, such a concentration of devoutly observant Jews that 3,000 of them came to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah and were converted to the Christian faith? They were celebrating Shavuot, Jewish Pentecost, and their Pentecost became our Pentecost!

Their devout offering of the firstfruits from their harvest mirrors God’s giving His only Son as the firstfruit of our resurrection, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15 (verse 20). And according to the letter of James, the Church as the body of Christ on earth becomes the firstfruit of all creation (James 1:18). All this was in accordance with God’s great overarching plan from eternity past to eternity future, one grand continuum that unfolds bit by bit according to God’s inscrutable yet perfect timetable. One Pentecost joins with another Pentecost, and today they occur simultaneously. Firstfruits of grain foreshadow the firstfruits of Christ and His Church, uniting us in one never-ending celebration.

Is this what made the apostle Paul groan? He wrote that “we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” In fact, he wrote, “we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth” while, “with perseverance, we wait eagerly” for the fulfillment of everything that the firstfruit of the Holy Spirit promises us, for our transforming vision of Christ in His glory, for the great final harvest.

That’s the Christian message of Pentecost and Shavuot. What we experience in this age and in this life is a tantalizing foretaste of what we will experience in all eternity, minus the inevitable pain and suffering that are part of our earthly existence. And how do we maximize our use of the firstfruits that anticipate an eternal harvest? We do it according to the example of the early Church, occupying ourselves with worship, evangelism, missions, witness, ministry and fellowship. Are those things at the center of our lives? They ought to be, if we are to be living today with a view towards eternity. The pleasures of this life are supposed to be growing strangely dim in the light of Christ’s glory and grace.

Sometimes it takes personal tragedy or loss or disappointment to shake us out of our comfort zones and to give us a perspective that is more like that of those for whom Pentecost was far more than a one-off event that happened on Shavuot. It transformed the followers of Jesus in permanent ways. It inspired the intense refocusing of their lives. Suddenly the central identifying characteristic of their lives came to be living together as the true body of Christ, in regular fellowship with each other and in outreach to those outside their own faith communities.

No wonder they were so greatly hated by unbelievers and so severely persecuted by both the religious and the secular hierarchy. When we’re doing God’s work in God’s way we can expect hatred, opposition, resistance and even persecution. It should be enough to make us groan within ourselves and rely on the intercessory groaning of the Holy Spirit on our behalf.

But that’s not all that Pentecost should mean to us today. Jesus, in our Gospel reading from John, comforted His disciples with these words about the Holy Spirit’s coming: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13).

And what is it that “is to come?” It’s the harvest. Now we have the firstfruits of resurrection in Christ Jesus. Now, as His Church, we ourselves have become “the firstfruits of all creation.” And now we have the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, sent to us at Pentecost so that we are able to live in eager anticipation of “our adoption as sons” and “the redemption of our body.” May we learn to live in that expectation, and may that expectation truly govern both our priorities and our activities in the time that remains to us on earth as Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church and as witnesses in this needy world.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen
 

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer, Amen
 
I think all of us wonder from time to time what it would have been like to be alive during the ministry of Jesus and then during the first decades of the early Christian Church. Again and again, when we read the Gospels and the book of Acts and some of the New Testament epistles, we read accounts of events that seem not to have any parallel in our experiences or any parallels in recent centuries. What changed? Why has it changed? Should we be challenging the authenticity of the accounts, or should we be asking why it is that these events have ceased? Did something go seriously wrong or is there some other explanation that we’re just missing? Should we anticipate a future time when such happenings will resume? Or do they still occur in some other form and we simply fail to see them?

We read about miracles of healing that seem to eclipse anything we have seen or heard reported even when we include what we call “the miracles of modern medicine.” We read about the casting out of demons and we wonder what that really meant, especially when the demons had voices and the exorcisms had a physically violent impact on the possessed persons. We read about raisings from the dead and discover that the raising of Lazarus was not unique. Today we’ve read about the conversion of Gentiles, specifically from the household of Cornelius. We heard that it was accompanied by a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues and ecstatic praise of God, followed at once by baptism. Last week we read in Acts about an Angel of the Lord sending Deacon Philip to a desert road where he was able to lead an Ethiopian eunuch to faith in Jesus before being whisked off to another city by the Spirit of the Lord. Have you ever seen anything quite like that?

I could go on and some of you could fill in the blanks with other favorite mysterious happenings. The Biblical records are far too detailed and too well substantiated to be dismissed as inauthentic fables devised to prop up a nascent religion. Many of them have parallels in Old Testament accounts that we also would have to dismiss.

If all of these accounts are mythical, then why are we here this morning? We’re here because for thousands of years the Judaeo-Christian faith has embraced these accounts as authentic records of how God has acted in human history to demonstrate His power, His lovingkindness, His grace and mercy and His faithfulness to all who are of the household of faith. And someone has taken time and care to share these truths with us.
Yes, faith is an essential element. This is why John, in today’s epistle reading, writes that faith is “the victory that has overcome the world.” When God’s power is unleashed in ways that we can define only as “miraculous,” faith responds by exalting God, just as the early Gentile converts in Cornelius’ household did. In other words the response is not to be one of doubt or disbelief or rational seeking for alternate and natural explanations; rather it is to be a readiness to see the hand of God at work in ways that are outside our normal range of experiences.

We still have not answered the questions of when and why such experiences seem to have ceased. Was it in some particular historical era in Church history? Was it a gradual process that culminated in our elevation of rational thought beyond our acceptance of things we could no longer explain away? Did the Church in earlier centuries have a different sort of faith from ours? Did it go away during the Renaissance or the Enlightenment? Is God simply accommodating our culture in an era when everyone demands a plausible explanation for everything that happens?

What about faith? Is there still a place for it? Can we still call it “the victory that overcomes the world?” Or should we label it the delusion to which Karl Marx referred when he famously wrote that religion was “the opium of the people,” or Stalin when he claimed that religion retards human development? Less famously, Marx wrote, “Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.”
​
Should we pursue revolving around ourselves? In our day millions of people have opted for that approach. To what end? Did Marxist ideology prove to be the holy grail for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe? History seems to have proved otherwise, and even Vladimir Putin now goes to church! Are miraculous demonstrations of divine power now limited to third-world countries where intellectual sophistication does not block out faith as it does here?

To whom should we turn? Is there some spiritual answer-man out there who can satisfy us? If, instead, we are willing to turn only to Scripture, what answers will we find there? In our epistle reading this morning John asks a question that is of vastly greater importance than any of the ones we’ve been asking. He asks, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:5). And he adds something that’s of great significance in this whole matter: “It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth” (I John 5:6b).

We’re all after the truth. That quest seems perpetually paramount. We’ve had it with fiction, with religious wishful-thinking that fails when put to the test and placed under the scrupulous microscope of human reason. But what about the truth of the Holy Spirit of which John is speaking? Can we put that under our microscopes and hope to discover any higher truth than what God the Holy Spirit offers?

What is it that John says governs “the one who overcomes the world?” He says it’s faith: not superior intellect, but faith. This is so contrary to who were think we are. For us the answers need to be objectively verifiable. They need to be air-tight, incontrovertible, supremely logical. We want them to be impressive, backed up by science, history, philosophy and archaeology. Who wants to stand up to our accusers, the doubters, the self-professed atheists, and say to them, “Listen up: ‘Faith is the victory that overcomes the world!” We already can hear their scoffing.

Every one of us would like to know to where the power of the Holy Spirit has fled. We want to know where all those vivid demonstrations of divine power have gone. We want to know why they’re no longer part of our normal existence or, for that matter, even of our paranormal existence.

I wish that I could give you all those answers this morning. If I could, and if the word got out, I might become the most famous truth-bearer in the world and, at the very least, I would be in demand internationally as a public speaker. But my answer is the one that seems to many people to be hopelessly naïve and simplistic. My answer is John’s answer: “Faith is the victory.” And when and where God wishes to get more demonstrative about His power, and when the Holy Spirit chooses to bestow supernatural gifts on persons who simply believe that “that Jesus is the Son of God,” then and there we may stand in awe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly what Paul said it is: “the power of God to all who believe” (Romans 1:16). “Divine dynamite” is what Paul called it. He saw ample demonstration of that, and he left it to his early converts simply to accept by faith the extraordinary working of God among His people.

God truly is still at work today. He’s still in the business of changing lives. He still is able to perform miracles. He still is able to cast out your demons. He’s able to take you to new heights of praising Him just when you thought your praise life had dried up forever. If you are a person of faith, you’re destined to spend eternity praising God. Why would you not wish to seize the moment every day of your present life practicing up on it? Is there anyone here this morning who could not do much better at praising God? When the Gentile converts in Acts came to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, they burst out in “exalting God” and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Why would we prefer just to sit in our pews and meander through the streets of our daily lives without exalting the Name of Almighty God at the top of our lungs.

What would happen to our questions if our lives were to be New Testament lives, if our praise were to be New Testament praise, if our faith were to be the victory that overcomes the world? Our questions would embarrass us. They would melt away. We would be on our knees, not only spiritually but physically, even if it hurts. The practice of our faith would take over our lives in demonstrative ways, not in contemplative ones.

What if the leaders of the early Church had been just like us? That’s a VERY serious question I’m asking. I’m asking you to ask it of yourselves. I’m asking you to answer it honestly and candidly. If the earliest Christians had been just like us, would there be any Church at all today? Would the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have spread like wildfire throughout the world, OUR world? Would we have suffered and died willingly, even eagerly, so that others would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? If there’s not a chance in the world of our being that sort of Christian now, what might we have been like then?

Now we need to ask ourselves again why there is a power outage in the Church today, why the astonishing happenings of first-century Christianity have virtually ceased. Did the power outage start with us? Does it at least include us? God is the same. The Holy Spirit is the same. According to the author of Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Then what’s different? Christians are. The Church is. We are. Faith is still the victory that overcomes the world. But if our faith is not a New Testament faith, if it’s not a faith that takes action rather than one that merely gives passive assent, then our faith will not change anything or anyone. It certainly will not allow the Holy Spirit to be manifested in miraculous ways.

And there is the answer to every single question we asked at the beginning. We need to stop asking those questions and start living as those who know the answers. And guess what? You could be part of the answers instead of being one who asks the questions.

And what else? Are you praying for the soon return of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to make all things right? In Peter’s very first sermon ever, at Pentecost, he said, “It will be in the last days, God says, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.” That definitely doesn’t sound like us and our families. But why not?
Here’s a thought: stop praying for Messiah to come and start boldly preparing His way. Invite others into the Kingdom through faith in God’s only Son. Then, when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we’ll find ourselves being part of the answer to that prayer. We’ll be living a life that says by our actions, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Until our actions support our prayers, our prayers are empty words, vain repetitions.

If every one of us were committed to preparing the way for Jesus’ return, our lives would be different and we would be making a difference. And who knows, He just might come. Do you know why?

Because He promised.
Because the Spirit Who testifies is the Truth.
Because there’s nothing that this world needs more.

Look deeply inside to see whether that faith is your faith. If it is, then expect amazing things to happen once again, because “faith is the victory that overcomes the world.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen