Pioneers
Acts 4
George Washington Bush was born in Pennsylvania in 1778 and was a veteran of the War of 1812 fighting in the battle of New Orleans. In 1830, he moved to Missouri where he met and married Isabella, a young German American. One of the first African Americans to head out West, Bush purchased six wagons for the journey, four of which were for white families including his friend Michael Simmons and together they set out. George hoped to put the racism of Missouri behind him but by the time they reached the Oregon Country four months later, the Oregon government had passed laws preventing Black Americans from owning land. As a result, they moved northward into what today is the state of Washington. There, all 30 settlers in their party had to share a single cabin during the first winter. In 1846, two years after setting out from Missouri, they finally set about clearing their own land and building their own cabins. The winter of 1852 was a particularly hard one, and grain supplies had run low. Bush had enjoyed a fine harvest that year. His neighbors had not. He had plenty of grain in storage which instead of selling, he gave to his neighbors to live on and have enough for seeding their fields in the spring. These pioneers are credited as having been in large part responsible for bringing the land of the state of Washington into the United States because they’re established presence attracted other settlers and strengthened the American claim to the area.
Being a pioneer was fraught with difficulty. First and foremost were the Indians, many of whom would attack the pioneers and try to steal everything they had, even people. Then there were the blizzards. The snow would make it very hard for the wagons to travel which would just sink in the snow. It was even harder to walk in the snow. In addition, the pioneers were in danger of freezing to death and the wagons didn't offer much shelter against the snow and wind. If that wasn’t enough, there were prairie fires, started either from lightning strikes or from unattended campfires or from careless workers that burned the grass after clearing the land to plant crops. If the wind was very strong and in the wrong direction it could start the pioneers' homes on fire, threatening their lives. Finally were the heavy rains which made the rivers overflow. It flooded the land and made it hard to travel in the mud. Winds from a storm could blow over a wagon. Contrary to that, the hot, dry weather caused the wagon wheels to crack in two or even shrink. Iron rims would loosen and fall off, making repairs difficult at best.
The Book of Acts should be called the Book of the Holy Spirit chronicling the lives of spirit filled missionaries, ordinary, everyday people who are possessed by the spirit of Jesus. It describes their “Pioneer Adventures” because it’s about the in-breaking of the kingdom of God and the move of the Holy Spirit in the frontier of a pagan world.
There are four recurring themes in the Book of Acts which reflect the pioneer spirit. These themes help us to understand what it really means to be a follower of Jesus. Now every person is filled with the Spirit when they surrender their life to Jesus Christ. That makes them like a pioneer because they are called to leave comfortable places. Imagine what it must have been like to leave a civilized territory or city, with clean paved streets, street lamps, jobs, plenty of food and water and established homes as well as safety. How hard that must have been to go into the wilderness but that’s exactly what the pioneers did. The repetitive mandate in the Book of Acts is “Go!” “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem ( that’s the the WestBank), and in all Judea (that’s Orleans, St. Tammany, St. Bernard and St. John the Baptist) and Samaria (throughout Louisiana), and to the ends of the earth." In Acts 1:8 What’s interesting is that up to Jesus’ death, the call of Jesus was to follow Him. After Jesus’ resurrection, the call of Jesus is to “Go!”. “Go and make disciples.” So the reoccurring mandate in the Book of Acts for every follower of Jesus is to leave their comfortable places for the sake of the Gospel and go into the wilderness with the Gospel. The consequence of being possessed is to be compelled by the presence of Jesus in you to take risks and leave your comfort zone. If you don’t then you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you can’t help but give up control and move out of the comfortable places of your life.
Danny Wuerffel did that. He attended high school in Ft. Walton Beach, FL and played at the University of Florida, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1996. He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints and then played for several NFL teams. He was offered to rejoin to the Washington Redskins and his former college coach, but he said no thanks. Instead he retired from the NFL and returned to New Orleans to work with Desire Street Ministries, in the lower Ninth Ward. He went from making millions to serving in one of New Orleans most dangerous neighborhoods with some of its roughest kids. Some will call that living recklessly or foolishly but Danny calls it following the Spirit and living out God’s will for His life.
When you’re led by the Spirit, your decisions defy the norm, people begin to question you. They’ll look at your life and your decisions and say that you’re living recklessly or foolishly. Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC, tells of flying overseas to speak at a Conference and a woman sitting next to him. They began to talk and she asked where he had traveled. He began to list the countries he had visited and one of those was the Sudan. That caught her attention because it is such a war torn, violent country. When she asked why he went, he said, “It was god thing.” He told her of reading the newspaper and seeing an advertisement that caught his eye: a new BMW sedan for a lease of just $650 a month. He admitted that the luxury sedan gripped his heart. He wanted one. But on the opposite side of the page was a picture of a starving child and an article of a land immersed in hunger. It talked about a million people on the verge of starvation and without fresh drinking water in Sudan. It was at that moment God opened his eyes to the Sudan rather than the sedan. That picture would not go away and compelled him to get involved.” She asked if it was dangerous for him. “Of course it’s dangerous for me!” And you trust God to take care of you and if he doesn’t, you trust God? And Mike said, “Exactly.” The woman just couldn’t believe it because it defied all logic. You can’t help it if the Spirit in you leads you into leaving comfortable places. When you surrender yourself to Jesus Christ, that Spirit of Jesus will compel you to do things and go places that others won’t.
The second characteristic is that spirit filled pioneers are visionaries. John of Patmas describes his vision this way: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:15
God’s pioneers are never satisfied with the way things are because they have God’s dream with the way things can be. George Washington Bush dreamed of a land where there was no racism. Danny Wuerffel dreamed of taking kids who were destined to a life filled with drugs and crime and giving them an opportunity to have a completely different future. Mike Slaughter dreamed of a Sudan that was not filled with hunger or thirst. The pilgrims had a vision of a land filled with religious freedom. Martin Luther King dreamed of a land where all men are created equal, where the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood, an oasis of freedom and justice, where his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. And it is God’s vision through the power and filling of the Holy Spirit which propels pioneers forward, leaving their comfortable lives and into a dangerous land.
The third characteristic is that spirit filled pioneers create a controversial presence. Wherever pioneers went they drew attention from indigenous cultures. In Acts 4:2 it says, “they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.” The moment you give your life to Jesus, you will seem like an alien because now the greatest authority in your life is a man who resurrected from the dead. And his authority in your life is greater than the authority of your boss, your allegiance to your country and even the word of your spouse. There is no higher authority. So your values are countercultural to the values around you.
Too many Christians are in a church which has domesticated Jesus and as a result they have castrated his message, taking all of the power out of it. Wherever the presence of Jesus is, it will create a prophetic tension. The disciples began to make claims which upset the status quo of their lives and cultures of people around them. Muslims around you won’t like this claim. Atheists around you won’t like this claim. Even Christians who are not filled with the Holy Spirit and have not owned the radical message of Good News and the call of Jesus will not like this claim: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 That’s controversial right there. And the city of New Orleans and the world will never know peace until every person has come on bended knee and proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Pioneers create this controversial presence because of the way they live and the message they proclaim. Jesus was dangerous, more dangerous than Barabbas, a murderer and terrorist, whom the religious leaders released. So when they thought they had killed Jesus and his revolution by nailing him to the cross and making sure he died, they thrust a spear through his chest and buried him in a tomb even posting a guard to make sure no one stole the body to make it lookm like he had resurrected. Look at verse 13-14: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took recognized in them the presence of Jesus.” But now these religious leaders are looking at these ordinary, uneducated men, and they’re seeing Jesus in them. When was the last time people of the world saw the presence of Jesus in you?
When Jesus is in you, you’re speaking the Gospel and living like Jesus, and it will upset the status quo. Principalities and powers of this world will be turned upside down. Everywhere these pioneers of the faith went, it created havoc and riots. In the 17th chapter it says, “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have come here also.” God loves it when men and women stand up and are the pioneers of God for the dangerous message ministry of Jesus Christ. When you are a pioneer for Jesus, you are courageous and demonstrate the power of the resurrection and the courage of Jesus to fulfill the purpose of Jesus in the world.
The fourth characteristic is that spirit filled pioneers choose a sacrificial lifestyle. A year after Jim Elliot graduated from Wheaton College, he heard of the remote tribe of Ecuador known as the Aucas. He knew immediately that he wanted to be part of the effort to reach them with the gospel, and after a couple of years of preparation, he was in Ecuador. Jim Elliot and the four other men began making flights over the village, dropping gifts and broadcasting a message of friendship in the Huaorani language. When the response from the villagers seemed to be friendly, the decision was made to begin landing the plane in hopes of making further contact. On Sunday, January 8, 1956, the men expected some sort of contact to be made in the mid-afternoon, and they radioed to their wives that they would report back by 4:30 pm. That time came without a radio message, and a search began. The bodies of the five murdered men were found on January 13, 1956. They gave their lives so that these Indians might be saved. Only sixty days before his death, Jim Elliot explained why he had decided to go to the mission field to bring the message gospel to the Huaorani: I'll tell you why I left. Because those and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever (to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language)….. I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Amazingly, these men’s wives and children went back to live among the Auca’s, the men who had killed their husbands and daddy’s, and won them to Christ. And today, those men are ministers and Christians to the grandparents to the children of the daddy’s they murdered. Today, God wants to know where the pioneers of God are who are willing to stand up and live recklessly and dangerously in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
