Called to Opportunity and Opposition

Last month in Tokyo, there was an exhibition.

It was an exhibition that was put on for anybody who worked in,

if I can use the phrase, the funeral industry.

And at the exhibition, there was a particular thing that was launched.

In Japan, apparently there is a shortage of human resources

when it comes to people who can lead funerals.

And so, a new robot has been designed.

Hey, can we have a picture, please?

This is Pepper, the robot, principally designed to lead Buddhist funerals,

but I guess, bearing in mind he's a robot, you can program him to do whatever you want.

But Pepper hasn't actually been hired yet to preside, funnily enough.

But there it is. Watch this space.

Clive, I was just wondering if we could get them to chair meetings for us

and attend synods and stuff like that.

In the reading that we had this morning,

I want to focus in on one particular phrase that they said,

which is what Paul and Barnabas, this comes from the book of Acts,

which tells the story of the early church.

So Jesus has been among his disciples, he's died, he's come back to life,

he's gone back to heaven.

He sends his Holy Spirit and we see the church in action at this time.

And as this happens in this story, we see a healing take place.

We see people are healed and the crowds begin to go around

because they can't believe that someone has been healed miraculously.

And they go nuts over it.

And to the extent that they start actually bowing down to Paul and Barnabas,

who have prayed just as this healing has happened.

And they respond to this saying, no, look, we too are human.

We're human.

Now, robots didn't exist in those days, so they're not trying to say we're not robots.

They're saying we're not divine.

But yet, the point is, is that sometimes we can think that, you know,

that the stories we read of in the scriptures that are mind-blowing,

whether it's people healed or whatever it may be,

these extraordinary signs and wonders of God,

and they can be so removed from our own human experience,

we can think, where's the humanity in this?

These can't be human beings.

These people must be robots, or must be divine themselves,

but there's something that isn't human in it.

What I actually love about not just this story,

and not just the whole of the book of Acts,

which tells the story of the earliest Christians,

but the whole of scripture is that it actually talks,

the stories that are there are stories about real human beings

who experience an extraordinary God.

And so they were made of flesh.

They weren't robots.

They weren't themselves divine.

They were ordinary people like you and me,

but experienced extraordinary things.

They experienced the mix of the good and the bad and the ugly.

stories of real people that experience both joy and suffering,

who experience opportunity and opposition,

who experience blessing and sorrow.

And in just these few verses,

we see people who are, on the one hand,

coming to faith, and it's really exciting,

and the early church is growing,

and yet at the same time we hear of people

who start to resent that

and begin to plot against the early Christians.

We see stories of healing and miracles,

and yet we also see them trying to stone Paul to death.

And that theme, that juxtaposition of the amazingly exciting

and the horrific going hand in hand

is something that runs right through the Bible,

and we see it compacted in these few verses

that we have read to us this morning.

Now, whatever our own lives might look like,

I think we can relate to all of that

by the reality, the simple but very, very great reality,

that life is a mix of the good and the bad.

Whatever we have going on in our lives right now,

whatever you have going on in your life right now,

my guess is that it's going to be a mix of good stuff

and the not so good.

Sure, we might have a particular day,

a week or a month or even a year,

that is absolutely awful,

where everything seems to be going wrong.

On the other hand, we might be having a really good day.

But most of the time,

most of life is a bit of a mix of the good and the not good.

And that is where this reading can really speak to us.

Because we can ask ourselves the question,

how was it then that these two people,

Paul and Barnabas,

dealt with that reality of the good and the ugly going on at the same time?

And I think the hint lies in the verse,

which wasn't read to us,

but lies at the very end of the chapter,

right before this story from the book of Acts,

where we're told simply that the disciples,

that is the followers of Jesus,

were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

See, the reason why I think that is the insight,

it's how they actually went through life and lived life like this,

is because for them,

they knew where their focus was.

Even though there was the mix of the good and the painful in their lives,

they knew where their focus needed to be.

There's a saying, a phrase,

and I don't know who first came up with it,

but it's been around a few years,

and it goes like this,

glance at your problems,

but gaze upon God.

Glance at your problems,

but gaze on God.

And I think that's what we find in Paul and Barnabas

and those early followers of Jesus.

That is what they did,

and that is how they survived.

That is not only how they survived,

but how they flourished,

because they knew that that is the way to deal

with the mix of the good and the not so good in life.

Glance at your problems,

but gaze upon God.

Let's just think about what that might mean.

When you're driving a car,

if you're sat behind the wheel,

and you're going along the road,

my guess is,

you're going to be gazing through the windscreen.

Now, when I say gaze,

I don't mean in a trance.

I mean gazing as in focused.

You're going to be looking at what's going on,

hopefully immediately in front of you.

You're also going to be,

hopefully, looking ahead at what's further ahead of you.

That's what I mean by gazing.

But also,

you're going to be taking the occasional glance

in your mirrors,

either side and in your rear view mirror.

What would happen

if you did it the other way around?

In other words,

your gaze was in your mirrors,

and you took the occasional glance in front.

And yet, that's exactly what happens,

I think,

with us in the way we live our lives

when it comes to the relationship

between the mess and the problems that we have,

and we all have it going on in our lives,

and God.

That we instinctively

gaze upon what's going wrong

and take the occasional glance at God.

You might even send up the occasional prayer.

These people in Scripture,

in the Bible,

Paul, Barnabas,

and all the rest,

they were ordinary human beings,

but they grasped

the importance of getting it the other way around.

To glance

at your problems,

but to gaze upon God.

Now,

let's see what

that doesn't mean.

It doesn't mean

burying your head in the sand.

It doesn't mean denying

the reality of problems.

It just means

the way in which

we allow ourselves

to become preoccupied.

A few years ago,

when I used to live in Devon,

I was going to buy

a laptop one day,

I went into

this shop,

and

a sales assistant

came over

and asked

what I was looking for.

We got about

a minute or so

into a conversation,

and his phone rang,

and he said to me,

sorry,

do you mind if I just take that?

Fair enough.

And he said,

sorry,

it's just that I'm trying

to sell my car right now,

and I think this could be

an important call.

And off he went.

Now,

call me old-fashioned,

but my understanding

of a sales assistant

in a shop

is that their primary purpose,

their role,

is to sell

the stuff

that is in the shop.

Now,

let's just say

this particular sales assistant

didn't succeed

in assisting

a sale with me

on that particular occasion.

I've no idea

if he sold his car.

The thing is,

you see,

his mind was in the wrong place.

His preoccupation

was elsewhere.

And sometimes people

might think

that Christians,

when they talk about prayer,

and particularly

if they come out

with a phrase

like the one

I'm using right now,

you know,

glance at your problems

but gaze upon God,

that it's that.

It's kind of like

being away with the fairies.

It's just like,

you know,

you ignore,

pretend that reality

doesn't exist

because you're

preoccupied

with this idea

of a God

in a distant heaven.

No,

it's not that at all.

It really isn't.

To gaze upon God

means,

yes,

we glance upon our problems.

We know they're there.

Think of the car.

You're driving along.

You know what's going on

in the mirror

because you're glancing at it.

But you're preoccupied

by what's in front.

Why?

Because you need

to keep moving.

Gaze upon your problems.

Gaze upon God

but glance upon problems.

It's not denying the problems.

It does involve

a shift of focus.

Now,

I'm not going to pretend

that's easy.

It's not.

I'm,

like anybody else,

instinctively

tend to gravitate

towards what's going wrong.

It's something I know

takes effort.

It's hard

and it's

counterintuitive.

But I believe

it's what we see

Paul and Barnabas do.

So let's just

quickly go back

to that reading

and see

what it is

that they do

because I think

there's two things

that stand out

that gives us

a little bit

of practical advice

as to what that

actually might mean

in real life terms.

To glance at your problems

but to gaze upon God.

The first is this.

They keep going.

You know,

when trouble

comes their way

and there's a fair dose

of it in just

these few verses

of scripture,

Paul nearly gets

stoned to death.

But they keep going.

Verse 3 tells us

Paul and Barnabas

spent considerable time

there.

Then in verse 7

it says

they continued

to preach.

In other words,

they didn't stop.

They didn't give up

the first hurdle.

They carried on.

They kept on

keeping on.

I've just had

that amazing privilege

of being on sabbatical

for three months.

I'm smiling.

I'm happy.

Even though it's September.

But whilst I was

on sabbatical

one of the things

I was able to do

was go to a few churches

where I'm not the minister

and where I just pitched up.

And a few churches

not in the immediate vicinity

but within the region.

And it was a wonderful experience.

One particular Sunday

I was sat in a church

in Bristol

and somebody was telling

a story.

A story about how

they were going through

a really, really tough time.

And because they were

going through a tough time

they were crying out

to God in prayer.

They were convinced

and the phrase

that they used was this

that they were at the end

of their tether.

I don't know if you've ever

used that phrase before.

I know I have.

They felt that they were

at the end of their tether

and that they made their prayer.

And they cried out to God

in their prayer

Lord I am at the end

of my tether.

Now they said they felt

a very, very real answer back.

Not an audible voice

but they sensed

an overwhelming feeling

that God was actually saying

you're telling me

that you're at the end

of your tether.

You're not.

Now as another human being

I would not ever say that

to another human being.

I wouldn't say to somebody else

no you're not.

Because that would

that would seem like

I'm not human.

It would seem like

I don't take them seriously.

But I think God's entitled

to talk like that

to people when he wants to.

Now this person

they couldn't prove

that it was God

speaking to them

but it was this overwhelming

sense of liberation

came over them.

This sense of peace

that actually God

was saying to them

no your perception

your perception

is that you've got

no more left to give.

That you're at the end

of that tether.

That you cannot go any further

no matter how far

you dig deep.

There is nothing left.

But no.

You're wrong.

There is far more there

and I'm going to help you.

And I think that is a basic

simple reality

that is there

that often our perception

is that we've hitched the end

and we've got nothing left

inside of us.

I want to say to you

that if you ever feel that way

just remember that story

I've just shared

because God's view of you

is different from your view of you.

Paul and Barnabas

kept on keeping on

because they knew

that the God

upon whom they gazed

was so much bigger

upon the problems

upon which they glanced.

The second thing

that we can put out of this

and I want to come back

to where we started

is when they said

to the crowds

we too are only human.

As the crowd started going

absolute bananas

over the response

to the prayer

that they just made

when somebody had been healed

they said no no

there's nothing special about us

we too are human.

Translated into a practical strategy

in terms of

what it means to

glance at your problems

but to gaze upon God

it tells us this

quite simply

they pointed away

from themselves

and to God.

They pointed away

from themselves.

See that's what it means

to gaze upon God

means not to gaze

inwardly on yourself

not to become

preoccupied

with what you've got

going on

in yourself.

Notice

not only did they

glance at their problems

but they only glanced

at the miracle as well.

Somebody had just

been healed.

If you or I

were in that situation

that's where our attention

would be

but not theirs.

You see it applied

to everything

both the good

and the exciting

and the amazing

as well as the bad.

They just glanced on it

because their focus

their preoccupation

was on God.