Sermon Starters: The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Title: The Wisdom to Know the Difference
Text: Acts 5:27-42
Context: Asbury Orlando Chapel, October 19, 2018
Video: https://vimeo.com/296894949

Introduction
1. The Facebook wars

• The last two and a half years have been brutal.
• People in families have stopped talking to and visiting each other.
• I know a professor whose doctoral adviser told him never to contact him again.
• Reminds me of the Thirty Years War... finally the Protestants and Catholics decided to agree to disagree.
• Deeply troubling! It would be one thing if it were external persecution.
• But Christians are deeply divided. Both sides can't understand how the other side can be Christian and think the way they do.
• I suggested on Facebook that the truth was somewhere in the middle and was basically deChristianized.

2. The Serenity Prayer (H. Richard Niebuhr)

• Lord, grant me the calm (serenity) to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
• I'm pretty good about accepting the things I cannot change. Some aren't. They keep running into the wall saying, "This wall shouldn't be here." Give example.
• [Quite bizarrely, a duck banged into a slide glass door at exactly this point in the sermon. It kept trying to get in and kept running into the glass door.]
• I have a slightly different question--Lord, when should I stay and pray and when should I jump into the fray? I come from a line of "talkers." I want to say something. I like Facebook. 
• "Lord, grant me the discipline to stay quiet and not do anything when I should. Then grant me the courage to speak up and act when you want me to. And, indeed, give me the wisdom to know the difference!"

3. Acts 5, Gamaliel, and Peter/John

• Give background. 
• Gamaliel is a "don't act" kind of guy. Peter is a speak up/act kind of guy. Each action has its time, but how do we know when to do which?
• At this point in sermon preparation I said to the Lord. OK, I've got the right question but could you please help me with the answer?!
• It can be a little annoying when someone who likes how things are going tells you, "You should just pray." Sometimes God wants us to act. There are Joshua and Peter times, prophetic times when God wants us to speak up and act. But there are also Gamaliel times to let God take care of it.

Some Guidelines
1. Pray no matter what!

• By all means pray, even if you believe God wants you to act too. Put yourself in the path of the means of grace. Worship. Mediate on Scripture. You'll be more likely to know what God wants you to do.

2. Do what God tells you to do.

• The problem is that we can be wrong.
• So "know thyself." Sometimes God wants us to act in accordance with our personalities (e.g., Gamaliel and Peter). 
• But it is very likely to be God when you feel led to do something the opposite of your natural inclination (e.g., when a talker feels led to be silent or a normally silent person feels led to talk).

3. Submit to authority.

• Of course not always... Peter doesn't here... but often we are not on our own authority to speak or act. Unless you are very certain, submit to those in authority over you with regard to speaking/acting.

4. Speak/act out especially for the powerless, the marginalized, the oppressed.

• This is what Jesus modeled (inaugural address in Luke 4).
• God doesn't as often call us to speak out to defend the powerful--they generally don't need defended.
• King Ahab and Queen Jezebel might have felt like Elijah was abusing them or bullying them, but they were the abusers. They were the powerful. The prophetic voice usually speaks truth to power, not power to powerless.

5. Speak/act with an eye on the redemption of your "enemy."

• Even when your enemy is something more like someone you disagree with
• We are to love our enemies. We can speak into their lives without denying that they are created in the image of God.
• "A soft answer turns away wrath."

6. You can be strong and nice.

• A recent tweet suggested that Christians need to stop being "nice guys." But you can be strong and nice.
• "Wise as a serpent; harmless as a dove." A strange statement, but it is clear that while the person is acting prudently in relation to evil and being "worldly wise," they also are doing good for others. Even when we are as wise as a serpent, we shouldn't do it with a hateful or vindictive spirit.
• The strong don't need to become insecure or power up because they are strong enough not to be intimidated by opposition.

7. The cross is a pretty good option.

• Was reading Greg Boyd recently. He's an Anabaptist, almost a pacifist, perhaps not quite.
• He addresses the old, "What do you do if someone breaks into your house and is going to harm your wife and kids. Would you be a pacifist then?"
• He wasn't entirely sure. But he suggested that a person with a heart like Jesus might find themselves coming up with another option than violence.
• After all, Jesus died on the cross. If we suffer loss for calmly, lovingly, and strongly speaking or doing what we believe is right, a little suffering might not be such a big deal.