Easter 5
Acts 13:44-52
In the 1930s, there was a woman who was baking cookies. She was using a recipe that dated back to colonial times for butter cookies, but she wanted to do a twist on the recipe. Wanting to make chocolate-flavored cookies, she cut up a Nestlé chocolate bar and put the chunks in the batter, expecting them to melt. 20 minutes later she figured that the chocolate would have melted and she’d be taking chocolate cookies out of the oven. Instead, what she got were butter cookies studded with gooey chocolate chips. This was a failure, but her mistake became one of the most favorite cookies of all time.
This would qualify as a successful failure. Things didn’t turn out the way she was expecting, but the end result was even better than anticipated.
Our text today is about successful failure as well. We see failures: Gentiles who didn’t quite belong in the Jewish synagogue. A missionary who was run out of town in disgrace. And yet we see success. People, who despite their failures, are called into the kingdom of God. A church that looked weak on the outside but was flourishing in the things that are most important. And from this story, we can take a lot of application to our lives as individuals, as well as we as a church. We are failures, but because of the Lord, we are successful failures.
Part I
The city of Antioch is the scene of our text. And we see something about Paul’s mission-work strategy: how it was smart; how it was planned. Paul didn’t just start preaching a sermon on Antioch’s street corners. His plan was to go first to the Jews in their synagogues. Go first to the people that should know the Savior, and who should have been waiting for him. Then, he would work with the contacts he made there.
This was not Paul’s first Sabbath in that house of worship. He had been there the week earlier, and had raised some eyebrows with his sermon. And so we find on this day not just Jews in the synagogue that second Sabbath, but: “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”
It’s understandable that the place would be filled with curious Jews wanting to hear a traveling rabbi. But why were Gentiles flocking to a Jewish place of worship? I don’t fully understand. But perhaps there were so many non-Jews searching for spiritual truth that days because:
Maybe they already had a measure of respect for the laws and customs of the Jews? Jews seemed like good, law-abiding people. And their outward obedience to laws made their religion attractive.
Maybe some Gentiles in that crowd were looking for a structured, religious way to raise their children?
But probably many of those people there in a Jewish church on the Sabbath were simply looking for answers to life’s questions. Looking for answers that they weren’t finding in their own religion of Greek and Roman mythology. “How do you know which god is the right God? What happens after we die? What is the meaning of life?” And this traveling preacher named Paul was giving some good answers to these questions!
But these searching Gentiles were failures when it came to coming to God and knowing him. Whatever good that they saw in the Jewish religion, they weren’t able to copy it. They couldn’t follow all the laws. They couldn’t become Jewish. They were always going to be second-class followers of Judaism because they would never be accepted as full-fledged Jews.
And it’s to these failures that Paul preached a message of success. They might have failed to live up to God’s standards, but somehow God still wanted them as part of his family. Paul quoted the Old Testament when he said how Jesus felt about these failures, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”
And look what happens, “when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” Notice that this appointing to eternal life was not something that they did for themselves…it was something that was done for them. In his love, the Lord chose these miserable failures to be his children and heirs of heaven.
You sang about that concept a few minutes ago when you said, “Lord, tis not that I did choose you, that I know could never be. For my heart would still refuse you, had your grace not chosen me.” Basically what you just confessed was that you are a miserable failure. You were saying that:
Even thought you know God’s laws, have a good idea of what is right and wrong, you have done a rotten job at following God’s laws.
As you examine our hearts, you see a whole lot of evil. Failures to win over sin. Failures to even want to win over some sins.
And if you carry that failure out to its logical conclusion, you really must confess that you are a failure who has earned nothing but hell for yourself.
And because you are so corrupted with sin, as we sang, you couldn’t even choose to be with God. You could not even choose to ask Jesus to be your Savior.
Damnable failures, all of us! But somehow…SUCCESSFUL failures, because like those Gentiles, we have come to realize that we need help. We know that we cannot rely on our own faulty works to creak open the door to heaven. We look to the Savior, and cling soley to the works of Jesus Christ for salvation from our sins and failures. Recall again the words of the hymn where we placed our salvation totally into the realm of Jesus when we sang, “YOU removed the sin that stained me, cleansing me to be your own. For this purpose YOU ordained me, that I live for you alone.” Like those Gentiles who were believers only by the grace of God, you also are God’s forgiven child, entirely based on his doing.
The Lord has done two things for you: 1. He sent his Son to die for you. See your failure nailed to Calvary’s cross and done away with! And 2. He sent his Spirit to convert you. Jesus’ work would have done you no good if you had continued to throw it away like a sack of rotten potatoes. But God has appointed you to eternal life. The Holy Spirit has worked through his Word and Precious Sacraments to create faith in your stubborn, failed heart.
And so all praise and credit belongs to God for turning us all around…for changing us from spiritual failures ripe for hell, to spiritual successes sure of heaven.
Part II
But Christians don’t always look like successes. Sometimes individuals as well as the church still looks like a failure. Take what happened in the text, “But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and they leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.” Not all in attendance that Sabbath were happy that God was making salvation so easy for everyone. The Jews were jealous: envious at the success of Paul’s preaching, and worried that maybe all this work that they had done to achieve their own salvation was really in vain.
I’m sure almost all of you saw the disturbing pictures this past week of the Iraqi prisoners mistreated. The humiliation. Maybe even torture done by Americans. There is quite a bit of outcry these days looking for a scapegoat. But I don’t believe there was much of an uproar in Antioch when much of the same things happened to Paul and Barnabus. The writer of Acts does not tell us exactly what happened to Paul, he simply passes over it quickly with the words, “they stirred up persecution…and expelled them from their region.” But if we look elsewhere, Paul mentions things that happened to him on missionary journeys just like this, "I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashed minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned” (and actually this stoning would take place just a short time after this story in a town called Lystra). The point is look at the humiliation of the Iraqi soldiers, and multiply that by about 10, and you get an idea of that happened to Paul in Antioch.
Now I don’t believe that this was part of Paul’s mission strategy. I don’t think Paul said to Barnabas, “ok, Barnabus, I know this sounds a little off-the-wall, but just hear me out. Let’s go to Antioch, we’ll preach, we’ll get laughed at, we’ll get beat up, and then we will get booted out of the city. Sound like a plan?” In a worldly sense, Paul’s work in Antioch was a failure. He didn’t establish a church that built a huge worship area that rivaled that mean old Jewish synagogue. He left behind a few followers who probably also had some fear for their own lives. Sounds a lot more like a failure than a success.
But again, the Lord made this a success. Our text does not close with these words, “and Paul was disappointed that he had wasted so much time in Antioch with such poor results.” Instead, after all this persecution takes place and Paul is run out of town on a rail, the last verse reads, “and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” They might not have had outward success, spectacular success, in fact, it might have looked like this sputtering church was a failure, but the Word was working behind the scenes, making it a success. They had planted the message of Christ, and therein was the success. There were souls in the city of Antioch that were given forgiveness of sins and eternal peace.
And here we are at Crown of Glory, over 20 years into our existence…are we a success? We might look around at the thousands of people in our immediate area and compare that to the handful of churchgoers here this morning and think, “no, I guess not. I guess we are a failure.”
We might take a hard look at the membership and ask that question, “are we a failure?” There was once a church of 100 voting members held a vote about the Word of God. The first vote was “All in favor of God’s Word, raise your hand.” And 100% of the voters agreed that God’s Word is the most important thing in the world. Then it was time for the second vote. “All in favor of hearing this important Word each and every Sunday in regular worship, raise your hand.” And out of 100 voters, 45 of them agreed that God’s Word was worth hearing every Sunday. The final vote that meeting went like this, “All those in favor of studying God’s Word in a weekly Bible class, raise your hand.” 13 of the voters agreed that God’s Word was worth studying in regular Bible classes.
This church didn’t exist, but it does reflect the statistics of our church body. And these numbers are not much far off here in our local congregation. And so we ask: are we failing? In many ways, that question could be answered with an honest, “yes.” We fail when we lack the enthusiasm we should have for God’s word. We fail when we lack the initiative to go out and work for God without being prodded to do so. And so is it any wonder that we lack the outward results that we think we should have?
So is our church a failure? Only by the grace of God, no! The Church throughout the centuries has been made up of failures, but the Church has flourished despite them. The Church has always been made up of schizophrenic people: Sinner-Saints. And sometimes we mope around just looking at the failures because we are all sinners. But we forget to look at the success that forgiven children of God accomplish through the Holy Spirit. And let’s take a look right here.
Last Friday 18 preschoolers had an end of the year closing devotion where they heard the word of God they have been learning all year. Now I know there isn’t any one of us against Christian education for the youth, but sometimes it’s easy to chart success only by adult confirmations. Because our church is not financially supported by 3-4-5 year olds. 3-4-5 year olds don’t do much of the ministry of our congregation. But I think we can chalk this one up as a success. I just planted some tomato plants a couple of months ago. And I did a wise thing this time (unlike last time). I put those cages around the tomatoes when they were little. Last year I waited until they were full grown, and had a dickens of a time getting those cages placed without damaging the plant and breaking off some of the branches. Isn’t it a success when we train young hearers of the word in the truths of the Gospel before Satan fully sinks his claws into them? Don’t these same little lights shine the saving Gospel message to family members who might have given up on that years ago? We will never in this life see all the visible results of the Preschool, but they are there, and God makes it a success.
When we look of the numbers of people who don’t come to worship or Bible hour, sometimes we forget to thank the Lord for the ones whose heart he has moved to be dedicated to the praise and worship of the Lord on a regular basis. There we see God giving us success.
Our Thru-The-Bible study is nearing its 2-year end, and it has been a success as a handful of dedicated members have grown in their knowledge of the Bible and their faithfulness to living the Christian life. And to those who haven’t made it through, we will have plenty of more opportunities and ways to study and apply God’s precious Word!
There is success here as lay members are slowly but surely being trained to do things that previously only the pastor did: shut-in calls, outreach calls, Bible study leaders. God is granting us success there!
And I am convinced that there is constant individual growth. We might not see it as fast or as visible as we would like, but it’s there. We know it is there because the Lord promises that his Word will always have an effect and accomplish its purpose.
And do you know what that makes me think? If God is able to do so much with our current efforts, how much more would he do not just for us, but for the souls of people within a few miles of here…people who are just getting out of bed right now and didn’t even consider coming to church this morning…if we acknowledge our failures, ask for God’s forgiveness, and then and then joyously redouble our efforts?
We have the greatest thing in the world: eternal life. Free eternal life! Where else can you find that in Orlando? You can buy just about anything at the Super Wal-Mart, but I don’t recall ever seeing eternal life for sale there. I’ve been to Disney and the other parks dozens of times, but I never found the eternal life exhibit or went on the eternal life ride. The Mall at Millenia has all sorts of high-end merchandise. But you can drop $30,000 in those shops and not come out with the greatest treasure: eternal life. God has made the church a success because he has given us that which is found in no other place.
Conclusion
Today is Mother’s Day, what did you do for your mom? When you were younger, you may have made a homemade card for mom, and maybe even drew a picture of her on it. Now that picture looked nothing like mom. Her head was enormous compared to her stick body. Her eyes were purple and her nose was just a circle. As far as capturing what mom really looks like, that card is a failure. But how much does a parent treasure a card like that? They love it! They adore it! They proudly place that imperfect work onto the refrigerator, because it is an expression of their child’s love.
In the same way God receives imperfect work from us, but he loves it. He cherishes it. He accepts it. Because he sees it as a reflection of his love for us, a love that caused him to have Jesus turn us all from spiritual failures to spiritual successes.
sdg
