Brown's Daily Word 6-4-07

The Lord gave the Holy Spirit to the believer and to the Church at large, not for private enjoyment, but to be used to bring others to Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit is given to minister to the least, the last, and lost of the world. The Holy Spirit came upon the believers on Pentecost so they can could come out of their closets of hiding and be propelled into the main street, onto the market place, and become the instruments of His grace and His healing. We are praying and anticipating that the Lord of the Pentecost will give us a fresh move of the spirit so that we can be His instruments of love and compassion to the world around us during the upcoming Franklin Graham festival in our region . The Festival is going start the Friday at 7 p.m. at the Event Center of Binghamton University , the epicenter of the university.
Chuck Swindoll tells about a man who went to see a psychiatrist because he was extremely depressed. The psychiatrist just could not get him to snap out of it. So he said to the man, “Tonight I want you to go to the circus in town because they have a clown named the Great Rinaldi, he is the funniest clown I have ever seen. Whenever I go to see the Great Rinaldi it always lifts my spirits.” The man responded. “You don’t understand doctor, I am the Great Rinaldi.” This world is full of Great Rinaldis, who are empty. They are desperate and can find no relief, not even in the comedy of a clown. They may put on masks of happiness, to appear fine to everyone, but when they return to their homes at night they cry themselves to sleep because their life is pointless and they long to find something in life to make them happy and give them a sense of meaning. They look at their lives and wonder what it is all about. Life must have more to offer me than this, they say. God has given us the responsibility as Christians and as churches to reach these hurting people. The church, above all else, is a place for people who have problems. The church was designed for the single mother who works two jobs to support her kids. Church is for the drug addict who can’t stop his habit. Church is for the man who can’t stay away from pornography on the internet. Church is for the young person who struggles with self esteem. The church is for the alcoholic who is ready to admit he needs help. Ezekiel 34:16 instructs, “Search for the lost, bring back those that stray away, put bandages on those that are hurt, and make the weak strong." But the problem with so many of our churches is that we often pass by the hurting souls in our world and ignore them and in doing so we miss an amazing opportunity to lead them to Christ. It is often hurting souls that make the best converts to Christ. They are broken and they have nowhere to turn and Jesus is the visible answer to their predicament. We need to be perceptive enough as Christians to notice the hurt in people and give them what they need and that is Jesus. In Acts chapter 3 we read of a hurting soul that was brought into the church. Acts 3 is an account of a crippled beggar who Peter and John, two disciples met one day outside the temple in Jerusalem. This beggar was hurting deeply. He had sat near the temple everyday and no one noticed him sitting there? To me this crippled beggar represents exactly the kind of person the church is trying to reach. Those who have been crippled by life’s circumstances. From this story I think we can learn some valuable lessons about how to minister to those people around our churches who are hurting like this crippled beggar. Acts 3:1. Verse 1, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.” Let’s stop here and keep in mind that this is at the beginning of the church and so believers in Christ were still attached to the temple. In fact, Acts 2:46 says that the believers were meeting in the temple area on a daily basis. So it is not uncommon to see Peter and John going to the temple to pray , “Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.” The temple gate called beautiful was one of the favored entrances into the temple and thousands passed through it on a daily basis. That is why we see this crippled man being put there. He knew exactly where the most people would enter the temple at one time. And the more people who entered, the more money he could mooch off them. Verse 3, “When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter, said, ‘Look at us!’ So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.” The Bible says the beggar expected to get something from Peter and John. Most likely, his immediate desire was money. People often think money is the answer to their problem. But Verse 6 records Peter’s words. “silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” And verse 7 says, “Taking him by the right hand, Peter helped him up and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk.” Peter had no money for this man, but he had something much better. He had healing. This says Peter healed this man in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. What that means was that he was doing the miracle “by the authority and power of Jesus Christ.” Peter wanted to let this man know that it was not him, who was doing this. It was Jesus. Peter would take no credit for it. Jesus was working this miracle. It was Jesus alone who had the power to change lives. Verse 8, “Then he (the crippled man) went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple and they were filled with wonderment and amazement at what had happened to him.” This man no longer was confined to stand outside the temple, he now entered the holy place and gave due praise to the Lord. Those around him took note that he was the same man, who just seconds before was confined to begging. There was no mistake, a miracle had taken place. Jesus had made the lame to walk. We notice that PETER AND JOHN GOT OUT INTO THE COMMUNITY AND MET LOST PEOPLE. Peter and John went as a team out to where the people were.Peter and John were not hiding themselves away from the world. They weren’t content to sit around the church and discuss the Bible with the other ten apostles they got out into the culture of Jerusalem. We could learn a very valuable lesson from Peter and John. They weren’t satisfied to just associate with Christians and those like them. They got outside the church walls and were intentional about mingling with the crowds in Jerusalem. That’s why they went at three in afternoon because that was the hour of prayer and they knew people would be flocking to the temple. Peter and John had probably met this crippled man before, they knew who he was. They had probably talked with him before. They had built a relationship with him. They probably walked by him everyday, deliberately just to greet him. PETER AND JOHN WERE PERCEPTIVE AND RESPONDED TO HIS HURT. Peter and John were not too busy or too much in a hurry to notice this hurting man. The Bible says that Peter looked at him attentively. Thousands of religious people walked by this man everyday oblivious to his condition but Peter and John two Christians noticed. They were perceptive. Jim Cymbala in his book Fresh Power writes, “Peter responded exactly the opposite to how most people respond to beggars. Most of us try not to make eye contact with them. But by the spirit Peter perceived that God was about to do something for this individual. Peter did not feel drawn to everybody at the gate but only to this particular man.” Too often we are not like Peter and John. We are too distracted by the routine of life, to notice a hurting soul. There are people we come in contact with on a daily basis who are hurting and crying out but we never notice. I mean, here were Peter and John, two hotshots of the church whom thousands of people were flocking to hear preach each day and yet they noticed one single little beggar. Do you notice the needs of people? Have you looked around, have you seen the pain and suffering of people? In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus tells of a man who had been beaten and robbed and left alone to die on the roadside. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, the Bible says he passed by on the other side. And so too a Levite, a religious man, when he came to the place and saw him, he too passed by on the other side. We are too often like the priest and the Levite, we pass by a hurting soul. We are too busy or too numb to notice a need. Peter and John did not pass by on the other side. They stopped and noticed this man’s condition. PETER AND JOHN WERE WILLING TO TOUCH THE UNWANTED. Verse 7 says that Peter took this man by the right hand and helped him up. Peter was the only one among thousands of people that day who was willing to touch the untouchable. Would you be willing to reach down and touch a filthy homeless crippled beggar on the street? That is, this man was an irritant to society, harassing people as they entered to worship! No one wanted anything to do with him, except these two disciples of Jesus Christ. The world had kicked him to the curb. But Peter and John wanted to bring him into the church. As churches we need to be willing to help people like this man who the world has kicked and dragged through the mud. . . The single mother who has been abandoned by her husband, The widower whose wife committed suicide, The drug addict, whose pusher still calls him everyday trying to hook him again, The homosexual who has HIV, The teenager whose parents kicked her out after she told them she was pregnant, The guy who is covered with tattoos and is pierced in all kinds of places. Sadly, most churches are not willing to deal with the untouchable. Instead, we want perfect people who come dressed in a suit and tie and come carrying a leather bound Bible. They don’t dance, don’t play cards, don’t drink. We have an idealized person who belongs in church and it is certainly not someone with AIDS or with tatoos. Sadly many of our churches are certainly not wanting to touch the stripper or the prostitute or the teenager with blue hair. But Peter and John show us who as Christians we need to be trying to reach. . . Those who are crippled by circumstances,Those who are hurting, Those who are untouchable and who the world passes by. If we as Christian churches say we really want to reach lost souls then we had better be willing to touch some “beggars.” PETER AND JOHN GAVE THE MAN WHAT HE TRULY NEEDED. What he truly needed was Jesus! He didn’t need money though that was what he was begging for. He needed divine intervention. He needed Jesus. That is precisely what Peter gave him. Silver and gold I have none, but I have Jesus, he told him. And that is what he gave him. We must keep in mind that what people really need from us as churches is Jesus. It does very little good to bring people to our churches if they aren’t a place where non-believers can encounter Christ. Len Sweet tells about one Gen –X church planter in Chicago who began a new church that attempted to reach younger people. One of his younger members admitted to him, “Pastor, I hope you know that if it weren’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be a Christian.” There is a dying, hurting world out there and we must look around and we must give them Jesus. Warren Wiersbe, a commentator sums up this story for us. He writes, “It is easy to see in this man an illustration of what salvation is like. He was born lame and all of us are born unable to walk so as to please God. The man was also poor, and we as sinners are bankrupt before God, unable to pay the tremendous debt we owe Him. He was “outside the temple” and all sinners are separated from God. The man was healed wholly by the power of Christ, and the healing was immediate.” Lord, help us to reach out the hurting and the dying. Help us love people enough to notice their pain. Help us to love you enough to want to bring people to you