- One of the
objectionable, irrational, easy to criticize
things about our faith as Christians is this, you've experienced this. We actually turn to God
when bad things happen, believing he could have
kept them from happening in the first place,
isn't this true? Don't we all do this in fact, we encourage
other people to do this. We actually turned to God
when something bad happens and we turn to God with
this crazy confidence that well God, you
could have kept this from happening in
the first place, but now that it's happened, I'm gonna turn to the very one who could have kept
this from happening. But at the same time, most of us feel like we
really don't have any choice, but to do that. I mean, where else
are we gonna turn? Or maybe you've
been here before, you find yourself asking
God to comfort someone else in the aftermath of a loss, a loss that you are confident
God could have prevented in the first place, but didn't. So are we crazy? Are we naive? I mean, some would argue, yes. In fact, for you, this dynamic may be the
reason you finally gave up on faith altogether and I'll just tell you
just between the two of us, I understand that. In August, this past August, I participated video
in a Memorial service for two teenage boys. They were brothers who
passed away on the same day in circumstances that, in circumstances
that are so horrific, that I'm not gonna
tell you their story, primarily because it's
not my story to tell. But if I were to
tell you their story, you may not be able to pay
attention to anything else I say in the next few minutes. Weeks, I did not know
this family weeks after the incident weeks, which took place in March. The parents actually, the
husband sent me an email, a long email and told me
the entire story in detail of what happened. There was a statement in
his email where he said, it doesn't really
matter what God does now because of what he
did not do then. The story was so difficult
to even begin to imagine that I didn't even wanna
respond to the email and I have since
told the family that. When I called, I found
myself in a conversation with a mom fighting, fighting
to maintain her sanity and her faith, in fact,
the entire family was. Her husband and
their two daughters. And I was not sure their
faith would survive, I even said that to her. I tried not to say
anything patronizing. They already knew
all the Bible verses and all the Bible stories and in a later conversation, she actually said
to me, she said, "Andy, the most helpful
thing you said," and when she said
that, I thought, I can't imagine that I
said anything helpful, but she said, "the
most helpful thing that you said was that, that if our faith did
not survive this," but that was understandable. "You said that it may take
years for our faith to recover, assuming that it
recovers it all." And that is what I
said and I meant it. And through the weeks that
ensued, we texted several times and then in June, remember
this event happened in March, in June she texted me to say, "Hey, we're planning
a Memorial service for our sons at a church." One of our partner churches. "It'll be an August and we would love for
you to send a short video that could be part
of the service." And honestly, I was stunned
not that they asked me to send a video, I was stunned that their
faith had begun to recover, that they were
rediscovering faith, but not their old
version of faith. They would be quick to tell you if they ever tell their story. A much better faith,
a deeper faith, a faith that wasn't propped
up by everything is up into the right, a faith
that wasn't propped up by will God will make sure that you get back
to normal eventually because they will never get
back to normal eventually. And what they recovered
was faith in God, not the promises of God, not the blessings
of God, just God. Because all the other stuff, all the other fluff had
been torn away in a day. Now you may know
someone like that and perhaps you're hoping
for a recovery like that. And it may help to know, it
certainly helps me to know, it may help to know that
the men and the women who brought us the
message of Jesus walked through similar valleys, valleys filled with
random acts of violence, unnecessary suffering,
and unanswered prayer. And yet, somehow some
way they believed and they persevered. Now, last time we were together and I hope you were with us
last time we were together. Last time we were together, we looked at an episode from
the life of the early church where food was about
to become scarce throughout the
entire Roman empire. And most people in ancient
times were already hungry most of the time. So when a famine struck
people didn't just eat less, in many parts of the world, there was literally
nothing to eat. And as we discovered
the church in Antioch, instead of turning inward and
focusing on their own needs, they actually stop to consider who would be most negatively
impacted by the famine. And then they
asked the question, "What can we do about it?" And in an unprecedented move
and an unprecedented move, they began collecting funds
for a group of people, they had never met in a
part of the world most of them would never visit whose culture was
nothing like there's. In fact, this is so important
and it was so unprecedented, I wanna give you a visual to help you understand the
magnitude of their decision and what they did. Here's a map of what we
generally consider the Holy land with Galilee in
the North, Sumeria, Judea and the city of
Jerusalem in the South. Now these gentile
Jesus followers were
located in Antioch, which doesn't even
show up on the map, it is 300 miles
away from Jerusalem. And in terms of ancient travel, these two cities, take a look, these two cities were, they
were any eternity apart. And culturally
speaking, as I said, they were half a world
apart as well, never before, never before in recorded history had a local multicultural
group felt responsibility for a group of people with whom they had
virtually nothing in common. Now here's the
question, where did, where did this politically and socially incorrect
behavior come from? Well, it came from their
recognition that for God so loved the entire
world that he gave. And so they gave, they gave because that's
what love required of them. So picking up where
we left off last week, the folks in Antioch, the Gentile believers
in Antioch are beginning to take up a collection, they're concerned about
the believers in Jerusalem who are already suffering because they're being
persecuted for their faith and then there's a famine that's about to make
things even worse. So anyway, back in Jerusalem,
something terrible happens. I mean, something
terrible is coming, but something terrible happens. Something random, something
seemingly unnecessary, something dark, something that would leave
Jesus followers scratching their heads and wondering
where in the world was God? Here's what happened. The text says that it
was about this time, and again, just to put
this into perspective, this is about 15 years
after the resurrection. "It was about this time that
King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church,
intending to torture them." Now this King Herod is
actually the grandson, this is Herod Agrippa, who is the grandson
of Herod the great who murdered the
babies in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. So violence clearly
ran in their family. And the some, the
son that he intended to arrest were actually
Jesus' original apostles and his first victim was
a high profile target. In fact, his first victim was
one of Jesus first apostles. Here's what Luke tells us, He said, "He had James,
the brother of John," not James, the brother of Jesus, "he had James, the
brother of John, put to death with the sword." He had James, the
brother of John beheaded. Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Now this was a
huge blow to morale for the Jesus
followers in Jerusalem, but it won Herod political
points with his constituency. In fact, here's
what the text says, "When he saw, when
he saw that is met with approval among the Judeans Herod proceeded to
seize Peter also." Now Peter is a really big
fish in next to Jesus, this is the biggest fish, and this would keep
the taxpayers happy and perhaps it would quell some
of the anti-Roman sentiment that was usually very high
during Passover season. So Herod followed
through with his threat, "After arresting him," after arresting Peter,
so he arrested him, "he puts him in prison, handed him over to be
guarded by four squads of four soldiers each." So Peter is being guarded by
four soldiers at all times and this happened at the
beginning of Passover, inherit intended
to bring him out for public trial after Passover, Luke continues, he says, "So Peter, Peter
was kept in prison," but here it is, "but the church was earnestly
praying to God for Peter." They were praying specifically
for Peter's release. And there it is. This is one of the many places where the experience of
first-generation believers intersects with ours. Think about it. The Jesus followers in
Jerusalem, think about it. The Jesus followers in
Jerusalem are asking God to deliver Peter days after
God did not deliver James. Again, the Jesus followers, they're asking God,
they're praying, they're asking God
to deliver Peter from prison just days after
God did not deliver James. I mean, why bother if God
was concerned about Peter, he wouldn't have allowed
Peter to be arrested in the first place, right? So if God didn't stop
Peter from being arrested, why turn to God
after he's arrested? And if God didn't protect James, why should they expect
him to protect Peter? I mean, they were
as crazy as we are. Actually, we are as
crazy as they were because apart from their crazy, we would not be having
this conversation. Apart from their crazy, the message of Jesus
would have never survived the first century. In fact, it turns out
they weren't crazy and their faith was not
misplaced and neither is yours. So for me, narratives like
this one are comforting on two levels. First, the people
closest to the action, think about this. The people closest
to the action, the men and women who
actually knew Jesus personally and chose to follow him
because of the resurrection, they were not immune to random inexplicable
tragedy and loss. And in spite of believing that God could have kept these
bad things from happening, they turned to him for
comfort and help anyway right after they happened. So we may be crazy, but we are in good company. We are not the first. And they didn't continue
trusting and turning to God because it all made sense. They continued trusting
it and turning to God because the thing that made
the least sense of all, the crucifixion of
God's Messiah resulted in the greatest
possible good for all, the salvation of the world, forgiveness of sin and on-ramp to our
relationship with God. And here's the thing, to the degree, to the degree that
our faith is anchored to those same ancient events, our confidence in
God will sustain us through the random, inexplicable God where
are you valleys of life. So when you find yourself
praying to the very God who did not come through
for you to begin with, the way you wanted it to,
the way you expected him to, the way he came through
for the person next to you, you are in good company. Peter, Andrew, James,
John, Mary, Martha, the men and women whose
faith laid the groundwork for the evangelization
of the entire world. They're irrational in spite of where are you God
faith is why the message of Jesus made its way
into the 21st century. In fact, spoiler alert, Herod doesn't execute Peter, but we'll get back to
that in just a minute. Now, several years after Peter
was arrested in Jerusalem, he actually sits down and he dictates a letter
to Christians living in a variety of regions, scattered around
the Roman empire. Christians who like himself and his friends in
Jerusalem were suffering because of their faith. Now, before I read you what
he writes, keep in mind, by the time he's
writing this letter, he's been arrested
multiple times, he's been living as
a fugitive for years. In fact, he kept his
whereabouts so concealed, nobody even knows for
sure where Peter was between his arrest in Jerusalem
and his execution in Rome, maybe nine or 10 years later. Yet in spite of this, in spite of this, in spite of the fact that
he's living on the run, here's what he says. He writes to Christians
who are experiencing some of the same things he is. He says, "Praise,
praise be to the God and father of our
Lord Jesus Christ." It's like, wait, wait,
wait, Peter, Peter, you've been arrested
multiple times, you've been flogged, you are scarred for life and the God and father of our
Lord, Jesus Christ did nothing to stop it. I mean, you have a
price on your head. Stephen is dead, James is dead, the apostles are all scattered. What are you talking about? And he would say, here's
what I'm talking about, "In his great mercy, he has given us a new birth, a different kind of
relationship with God. He has given us a new
birth into a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance
that can never perish, spoil or fade." In other words, your prayers may
not all get answered and you may never understand
the randomness of life, but you have hope and your hope
is an anchored to theology, it's not anchored to belief and it's not anchored to a book. Peter says that our hope
is anchored to an event, an event that rekindled his
hope, the resurrection of Jesus. And then he says this, "In all of this, all
of this suffering and all of this you
greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer
grief of all kinds of trials in all kinds of trials." In other words, he says in light of all
that God has done for you, you can find joy and you can
rejoice in the middle of it. There's not joy because
of their trials, there's joy in
spite of the trials because of what God
has done for you. And Peter, again, who has suffered in ways we
can't even begin to imagine says that this suffering is
just for a little while and he could have added
on all kinds of trials like I have. To which we say, so
wait again Peter, grief, trials, suffering,
randomness are not evidence that God's not listening, that God's not involved. They don't indicate that things
are spinning out of control that we need a revival that
Jesus is returning soon, or maybe we've done
something wrong and Peter would say, "No, not at all." "These, these trials have come. These have come so that
the proven genuineness of your faith, the proven
genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes even though
refined by fire may result," in other words, there's
gonna be a result, "may result in praise,
glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." Again, to which we
would say, so Peter, we should expect this to
which Peter would say, "Yes." And people are watching,
people who are suffering as you suffer are
watching, people suffering without hope will be drawn
to your hope, your peace. In fact, they may be drawn
to the object of your faith because the darker it gets,
the brighter your hope, the brighter your
response shines. And then he would say,
perhaps, as Jesus said, "So as you suffer, and as you try to
explain the inexplicable, as you navigate yourself and navigate your
way through things, you never anticipated and for which there
are no answers, let your light
shine in such a way, in such a way that
people see your response and they look up." Then he continues, he says,
"Though you have not seen him," And I love this
because remember, he's writing to people who
had never actually seen Jesus, the way that Peter
had seen Jesus. He said, "Though
you never met him, though you've never seen him, you love him based on
my testimony about him, you love him. And even though you
do not see him now, you believe in him and you are filled
with an inexpressible and glorious joy because you are receiving
the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls." So once again, we
pushed back, so Peter, so what you're saying is this, that the inconsistency and
the randomness of life, it doesn't throw you off, It doesn't undermine
your confidence. I mean, come on, they got James, they came for you and Peter would say, "No, my faith, my faith
doesn't depend on consistency or certainty or my
ability to explain things. My faith is not shaken by
the randomness of life. Come on, I saw the best
possible person suffered the worst possible death, it made no sense at all, none. And God brought
him back to life. So while there's a
lot, I can't explain, there's a lot I don't understand I just got to tell you. After the resurrection,
the rest is just detail." And then in the same letter, Peter gives his audience and gives us the
strangest to do list, but we're gonna talk
about that next time. Now I want to get back to
the storyline real quick, so to catch this us up. So God allows Herod
to execute James, he allows Herod to arrest
Peter and put him in jail, the Jesus followers in
Jerusalem are praying, asking God to facilitate
Peter's release, knowing that Herod may
be coming for them next. And then for reasons that
made absolutely no sense to them at the time, but would become clearer
later, "The night before," check this out, "The night
before Herod was to bring Peter to trial and then
have him executed, Peter was sleeping
between two soldiers bound with two chains and sentries
stood guard at the entrance. And then suddenly an
angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell and the angel struck
Peter on the side and woke him up. 'Quick, get up!' He said, and the chains fell
off of Peter's wrist. Then the angel said to him, 'Put on your clothes
and sandals.' And Peter did so. 'Wrap your cloak around
you and follow me.' The angel told him. And so of course, Peter
followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing
was really happening. He thought he was seeing a
vision or maybe having a dream. And then they pass the
first and the second guards and they came to the iron
gate, leading to the city. It opened for them by itself and they went through it. And then when they had walked
the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him." Now I know what you're thinking, because I think the same thing, really, really. And why doesn't God do
that kind of thing anymore? And why doesn't God do that
kind of thing for me anymore? But let me tell you what Peter and his friends were wondering, why didn't God do that
for James, our friend. And they never got a good
answer to their question. And we may never get satisfying
answers to ours either. "Now, when Peter realized
that this was not a dream, that he really was safe
and outside the city walls, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John
also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying
for his release. So Peter runs down the street." He knows he doesn't
have much time. He certainly doesn't want
to incriminate his friends. So he runs to the door of a
home he'd been to many times. "And Peter knocked
on the outer entrance and a servant named Rhoda
came to answer the door. And when she recognized
Peter's voice, because he had been in
their home many times, she was so overjoyed, she ran back to the
people who were praying without opening the
door and exclaimed, 'Peter is at the door.'" Now, remember they're
praying for his release, but apparently they did
not really expect God to answer their prayer. In fact, listen
to their response and this is important, this is just more
evidence that the writers of the new Testament did not
write the main characters in as heroes or even people
with more than average faith, they didn't experience
miracles every day and they did not expect
a miracle this day. Now when Rhoda tells the prayers
that Peter is at the door, here's what they said. They said, "Rhoda, you
are out of your mind," which would say, wait,
weren't you just praying for this to which
they would say, "Yeah, but we didn't really
expect anything to happen." "When she kept insisting, when she kept insisting
that it was so they said, 'Well, then it
must be his angel, it must be his
spirit counterpart. He must already be dead
and it's, it's his ghost.' But Peter, but Peter
kept on knocking. And when they opened
the door and saw him, they were astonished." Imagined that an actual answer
to prayer, imagine that. Now at this point
they are so delighted, they're celebrating and
they're making so much noise in the middle of the
night that Peter motions to them with his
hand to be quiet and then he says this, "Tell James, James
the brother of Jesus, tell James and the other
brothers and sisters about this, let them know that I've
been, I've been released that I'm free. He said, and then he
left for another place." Now this is so interesting and we're gonna come
back to this next time, Luke doesn't say
where Peter went. Now, remember when
he wrote this, Peter was still alive and
was still a wanted man. If Luke knew where Peter was, he didn't document it
lest his document fall into the wrong hands. So Peter went underground, in fact, he went underground so successfully
that to this day, no one has discovered for
certain where he went. And then Luke gives
us even more detail. As you might imagine, "In the morning, there was no small
commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. And after Herod had a
thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross examined the guards and ordered that
they be executed." Now, Herod is
publicly humiliated because he had
promised the people that they were gonna
see the trial of Peter, Jesus number one follower. He's so humiliated,
he leaves town, he goes to his beach house
down by the Mediterranean sea and while he's there a group from the neighboring city asked
to have an audience with him to show their support because
they depended on Herod and his favor for
their food supply. And Luke tells us about this. Here's what he says, "He says on the appointed day, when Herod was having
this public meeting, he was wearing his royal
robes and he sat on his throne and he delivered a public
address to the people." Now Jewish historian
Josephus says that heritage robe on this particular day was
actually made of silver. And that when the
afternoon sun reflected off of the silver robe, that the crowd erupted
and declared him a God. Luke says it this way, "The crowd shouted, this is the voice
of a God, not a man. And immediately because Herod
did not give praise to God an angel of the
Lord struck him down and he was eaten
by worms and died." And again, Josephus confirms
this here's his version, he says, that Herod was
seized by a severe pain in his bowels. He was rushed off the stage and several days later he died. Now, what do you think? What do you think Peter
thought when he got the news? I mean, he was probably relieved that Herod was out of the way, but he may have thought, "God, if you had just
taken him a month earlier, James would still be alive as well as four
unfortunate prison guards." And then Luke wraps up this
account with this statement, "But, in other words, in
spite of all of this drama, in spite of all
this inconsistency, in spite of all of these
unanswered questions, but the word of God continued
to spread and flourish." In fact, we know that it did because it's why these texts
were created and preserved, it's why the name
and the message of Jesus would eventually
circle the globe. But on a personal level, these events and
events like these and the response of our
first century brothers and sisters is why
to borrow a phrase from the apostle Paul, it's why we don't grieve, it's why we don't mourn
as those who have no hope, for we believe that
Jesus died and rose. Again, it's why to borrow
from Peter's words, it's why we can cast
our cares on him, because we know he cares for us. You can know that
he cares for you in spite of what
you see around you, in spite of what's
happening to you, it's why to borrow a phrase
from the author of Hebrews, "We can approach God's throne
of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in our time of need." It's why we have hope even
when we half explanations. If Peter is correct
and he would know, if Peter is correct, what
strikes us as random, unfair, unnecessary, may
in fact be random, it's certainly unfair
and perhaps unnecessary but in spite of that,
if Peter is correct, he assures us our
hope is not misplaced, our hope, your
hope is not in vain because we have a living hope that is anchored not to
our ability to predict and interpret circumstances, we have a living
hope that is anchored to the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.
