Signs and wonders…

Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. (Acts 5:12-16, ESV)

No one else but the apostles dared to join the gathering in Solomon’s Portico… Because they held them in high esteem…

Is this the reason people are shying away from our gatherings now? Because they are holding believers in such high esteem? Is that what we think? Is that what we want?

The believers in Acts did signs and wonders like Jesus told them they would. Jesus told us that we would do greater miracles than He did if we remained in His word, and followed Him. Are we still doing signs and wonders? Or have we stopped following Him or abiding in His word?

Many would say we have gone astray from what God told us to do because we are abandoning tradition and doing things against His word. But did not Jesus come to show us that living in fellowship with God was not following the rules, but living love out loud?

So what signs and wonders are you doing to help people see God?

Dance before the Lord…

And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn. (2 Samuel 6:5-15, ESV)

Here in this passage a man is truck down dead by God for his reaching out his hand to touch the Ark of the Covenant because the oxen stumbled and he obviously did not want the Ark to fall to the ground, but… Uzzah should still not have touched the Ark of the Covenant…

But even more in this passage we have David who has to deal with the death of one of his men, and come to an understanding why the Ark has come to him. And when he figures this our he dances in the streets…

Our text says he was wearing a linen ephod. There are mixed reviews on what this was or meant. Some say that David was exposing himself in ways he should not have. Others say as in 1 Chronicles 15:27 that David was wearing a robe as all of those carrying the Ark and he was also wearing a ephod… So was he indecent and dancing in the streets naked?

I like the picture above’s depiction of the event… David was so moved with joy that he was moved to dance in the streets in his underwear… Have you ever been so moved with joy that you would dance in the street in your underwear?

God has done great things for you and David realized that. What is keeping us from expressing that joy the way  David did?

Hope!

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Revelation 12:7-12, ESV)

Satan the dragon will be defeated and thrown out of Heaven by Whom?

Not by Jesus or the Father, but by Michael the Arch Angel. God sens a messenger to dispatch Satan…

Yes evil is all around us and has it’s day with us… I believe on some part this is because we give into it…

But the hope is that God does not have to lift a finger in the end and sends a messenger to handle His lite work thanks to what Jesus did on the cross…

So hope in the angels to finish off the evil one, and live in the mercy and grace that Jesus gave you at the cross.

Leaven…

Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 NRSV)

A little bit of yeast works it way through all of the dough…

That means a little bit of your actual self works into all of your life. You can not hide the thoughts and actions of your heart…

Christ did not want to do what He did in His humanness. He asked the Father 3 times to remove the cup from Him, to find a different way, to make His plan work without His death. Yet finally He said “Not my will but yours be done…”

Can you say “Not my will but yours be done” and mean it? Do you do things that on the outside look like they are for the kingdom but are really for you? Then your yeast will work it’s way to the top and it will be known.

Give your treasure to God, give your life to God and do everything for Him. That way others will see Him, and be drawn to Him.

Do we get it?

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb,taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. (Luke 24:1-12, ESV)

The end of the story goes that the women went to the tomb to complete the work that needed to be done on Jesus’ body that was interrupted because of the Sabbath, and when they get there they discover that the end of the story is not the end at all…

They discover that He is not there. He was raised up from the dead. So even in the end, God through Jesus is throwing societal norms away. He is using women as the first witnesses to the resurrection.  Property, in that time period, are the first to witness the resurrection of Jesus. They go and tell the disciples and they find it to be an idol tale… They do not believe. I do not find this hard to believe, if you read the gospels, the disciples are not the sharpest or brightest crayons in the box, but really? The women come back and tell them that Jesus who was dead, has been raised, and didn’t He tell us this was going to happen, several times? And they don’t get it… They tell the women it is just an idol tale.

But something clicks with Peter… He gets up and goes to the tomb to see for himself. And when he looks in and sees the linen clothes by themselves, what does he do? He does not go running to tell the others it is real. He goes away marveling at these things…

I wonder does Peter really get it? Is he worried about denying Jesus three times? Why would he not be running in the streets shouting the wonders that God has done for him and for all of creation?

But then, why are we not running in the streets shouting about what God has done for us and for all of creation?

Are we not like Peter and the disciples, marveling, or saying it is an idol tale?

Do we really believe the story we say is true and the basis of our faith?

And if we say yes, what are we doing about it?

Is the truth unbelievable? And inconceivable?

If you really believe the story, why are you not telling everyone you know?

So I wonder if we are not a lot like Peter…

Do we really get it?

 

Do you not know…

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:3-11 NRSV)

It is easy today when Jesus is in the tomb to get caught in the downside of our lives…

To see all of the bad that is happening all around us…

We can easily get caught in the bad and darkness that is all around us. We get a glimpse of the evil all around us and the darkness just closes in. Like in the clip here of the movie Rise of the Guardians, where it seems Pitch Black, or the Boogie Man, has finally won, and the guardians are about to be defeated.

You see it is easy to see that there is no way out and that darkness is all around us. It is easy to get caught in the trials of life and just get worn down. See my earlier post for today on this, Worn. It is so easy to not see the light that is streaming all around us.

But in the clip you will see the guardians who are worn, and beaten down, standing up for the children, to protect them, as we can stand against evil and know that Jesus, even in the tomb, is defending us in our faith…

And as in the clip Jamie, the last child who believes, stands up in his fear against the boogie man, we to can claim his words as we stand against the darkness in this life…

The scene is about 1 minute in where Pitch black asks, “Still think there’s no such thing as the boogie man?”

And Jamie replies, “I do believe in you, I’m just not afraid of you.”

So do you not know that you are a new creation and the trials and weights of this life do not have to get you down. Stand up to the darkness and proclaim loudly to evil, “I do believe in you, I’m just not afraid of you. Because in Jesus I am a new creation and I will be reborn!”