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And They Were Filled
With Awe
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May
22, 2005
Reverend Richard
B. Knight
Category - New Testament Overview
Acts 2:43 “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done
by the Apostles.”
This verse sums up the Day of Pentecost, the day the
Holy Spirit empowered the earliest Christians, as what looked like tongues of
fire came down upon them - and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and
spoke in different languages so that all who were gathered from all over the
world could hear the gospel preached in their own language. And Luke says 3000
people received the message and were baptized into the Christian faith.
“Awe came upon everyone.”
This is a common theme in the book of Acts, the book
we’re studying this month. It is a book filled with awe, with wonders, with a
sense of God’s imminence. Webster’s Dictionary defines Awe as, “an overwhelming
feeling of reverence.” I want to highlight awe for us this morning as it’s
found in the book of Acts, because we would do well to put a little awe into
our lives and into our religion.
Let’s look first at Acts 5:1-6 READ IT
And Awe came
upon everyone.
Rabbi Harold Kushner says that we are not very good at awe anymore. We have “lost the capacity for reverence, the sense
of awe that comes from realizing how much greater God is than we are. Religion
begins with a sense of reverence, the recognition of God’s greatness and our
limitations.”
Modern society, science & technology have caused
us to lose our ability to shudder, to stand in wonder, reverence and awe. Kushner says that’s why we like big storms -
a huge storm the size of Texas is moving up the coast.” - Wow!
There’s something bigger than we are! Or at the Zoo we crowd around to see the
wild beasts - the lions, tigers & bears - we stand in awe of their power.
Years ago people built great tall cathedrals to honor a great and awesome God. And you walk in and instantly look
where? Up. The cathedrals were designed
to help people experience awe. Modern churches today are built in the round to
enable a sense of community, which is a very good thing. But perhaps it comes
at the expense of awe?
The book of Acts was an awesome time for the church.
God’s presence was magnified, “an overwhelming sense of reverence.”
I. Take
Ananias & Sapphira for example.
A number of the early Christians were selling some
of their excess land and giving the proceeds to the church to help those in
need. Ananias & Sapphira had some land and they sold it, but they kept back
a portion of the proceeds. This probably wouldn’t have been a problem except
that they lied to the Apostles, to the friends of Jesus. When Ananias realizes
he’s been caught in a lie, he drops dead. Sapphira comes in 3 hours later and
tells the same lie to St. Peter, and when confronted she drops dead too. And
you think our stewardship program is aggressive!
Now why did this happen? It’s because of awe.
Because of a sense that God is here and that God matters - and that God is to
be honor, revered & obeyed. Because they sensed that God was in the house.
And if God is here than our lives matter. “They were filled with awe.”
II. The next awe-filled passage I would call our
attention to is in Chapter 7.
It’s the martyrdom of Stephen, one of the early Christian preachers and the first Christian martyr.
But Stephen was filled with awe!
Acts 7:54 - 8:1
54 When they (the council of religious leaders)
heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.*
55But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of
God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the
heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ 57But
they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.
58Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the
witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they
were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ 60Then he
knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against
them.’ When he had said this, he died.* 8:1And Saul approved of their killing him.
Stephen was filled with awe. And at his moment of
death, he saw Jesus. If God is here, death is just a journey to Christ.
ILL. Ralph Hayward’s Last Words - “Sweet Jesus, take me home,”
That’s awe.
If God is here, death is not an end, it’s a welcome
home.
III. The next awesome thing that happens in the
book of Acts is that non-Jews find the God of Israel.
The early Christians were all Jewish Christians for
quite some time. The Holy Spirit came
upon followers of Jesus and other Jews gathered on the day of Pentecost - which
was a Jewish Festival and all who were
there were Jews. But eventually, a funny thing happens, as the message of
Christ spreads - non-Jews, Gentiles, hear about Jesus the Messiah and they get
filled with the Spirit of God.
Acts 11:15-18
15And as I (Peter) began to speak, the Holy Spirit
fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the
word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 17If then God gave them the same gift that he
gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could
hinder God?’ 18When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God,
saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to
life.’
I would highlight vs. 18 - “And when they heard
this, they were silenced.” What silenced them?
Awe. It was awe-inspiring that Gentile Christians were experiencing God
in the same way that the Jewish Christians were.
Not only were Gentiles coming to God but so was
someone else quite unexpected - Saul. When we read
the martyrdom of Stephen, Luke points out that a man named Saul was there
giving the OK. Saul was known as a fierce persecutor of early Christians. Saul
was a very well-educated, fiery individual who would go from synagogue to
synagogue looking for these Christians, a strange, new and threatening sect
within Judaism, and he would do his best to get rid of them.
Acts 9 says, Saul
breathed “threats and murder against them.”
Then one day, Saul was on the road to the town of Damascus. He was going
there to persecute the Christians there. His plan was to capture them, tie ‘em
up and take them to Jerusalem. That’ll teach ‘em. Well as Saul is walking along the road, a great
light from heaven flashes around him, blinding him, and a voice calls out,
“Saul, Saul, why do persecute me?” “Who
are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
The rest of chapter 9 is kind of funny because it’s
so human. God tells a Christian guy named Ananias to go take care this Saul who
is now blind. Ananias says back to God - “I’ve heard about that guy and all the
evil he’s done to Christians. I’m not going.” But God said to Ananias, “Go.”
And he went. Ananias tells Saul about Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes and fills
Saul, and his eyes are opened and he gets baptized. This one who breathed
murderous threats against the church and carried them out, is now a Christian.
Ananias was awestruck. So were the disciples when they met him. And they were filled with awe.
If you’ve been in church for a while you probably
know that this Saul, now converted becomes the greatest Christian leader who
ever lived, aside from Jesus. He changed so much that they started calling him
by another name - Paul. St. Paul. The Apostle Paul. Only an awesome God can
change someone that dramatically.
If God is here, then no one is out of reach. No one
is unreachable to God - after all, God found us.
His name was John and he was born in 1725. He had a
harsh life growing up. He became a seaman, worked on merchant ships and slave
boats. Eventually he became captain of his very own slave ship. One night
John’s ship was in an awful storm. He feared he and everyone on board would be
killed. And so even though he had not been a man of faith, John prayed, “Lord,
have mercy upon us.” John felt that God actually heard his prayer and sent
forth a “great deliverance” within his heart. He was astounded that even he
could pray to God and be heard. He was so touched and changed that one day John
Newton would write those famous words,
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
If God is here, no one is out of reach.
IV. Here’s
another verse that tells you what awe-inspiring times they were living in.
Acts 19:11-12 11 God did extraordinary miracles
through Paul, 12so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his
skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits
came out of them.
Paul is now a miracle-worker, just like Jesus, he
healed people as a sign of God’s love. And people were so captivated by Paul
& Paul’s God that anything they could get their hands on that had been
touched by Paul produced healings. This included his handkerchief and his
apron.
- this meant of course that he cooked. - that’s
partly why they called him a saint!
But if you think about it, there’s such a beauty to
this verse - wherever Paul went, God went. And whoever came into contact with
Paul came into contact with God. “And awe came upon everyone.”
Author Rita Snowden tells the story of one day having tea at an outdoor cafe in the late
afternoon when she smelled a beautiful scent in the air. She asked the waiter
what it was, and he said it was the people who were passing by. They worked in
a perfume factory down the street and they were on their way home after work.
As they left the factory they carried with them the fragrance of the perfume
they had worked with all day. Rita Snowden says that a pretty good image for
what they church can be at its best. In worship we allow ourselves to be
“permeated with the love of God and the sweetness of his presence.” Then as we
leave this place and go into the world the fragrance of Christ goes with us.
And the people we come into contact with will hopefully “experience something
of the God’s fragrance through us.” That’s what the Apostle Paul was all about.
“And everyone was filled with awe.”
V. One
other awesome thing about the book of Acts is how it ends.
Paul has been arrested, imprisoned, and he appeals
his case to Rome, to Caesar. Luke takes us all the trials, the hearings, and then through
the entire journey to Rome for the appeal. Along the way they’re shipwrecked, they swim ashore on
pieces of the boat floating in the water.
They end up on the island of Malta where they’re
welcomed by the people and they stay for 3 months.
Finally they get to Rome. Paul is under
house arrest, and the book of Acts ends this way: Paul
“lived there for two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came
to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord
Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”
We
never find out what happens to Paul.
Does
he ever get his hearing before Caesar?
Does
he get set free? Is he executed?
Does
he die under house arrest?
We never find out what happens to Paul.
But we do find out what happens to the Gospel.
The Good News of Jesus is now being proclaimed in Rome, the center of
the world back then. And that’s the big story, the awe-inspiring story. The
early church was so captivated by the Spirit, that Paul wasn’t the focus, God
was.
If God is here, then God is the focus, the center.
It’s not about Paul. It’s about God.
When we have awe in our hearts we realize that.
Jewish theologian, Rudolf Otto said, “Modern day people have forgotten how to shudder.” We forgotten how to
do awe.
The early church was in awe of God’s presence, of
God’s grace - grace that included even the Gentiles, and even a guy named
Saul. They were in awe of God’s eternal
life, that Stephen saw with his own eyes
And they were in awe of God’s fragrance, God’s
influence and the work of the Spirit.
They were captivated by an awesome God. Let it be so for us. Think about it. Let’s pray about it.
Awesome God, we dare
to speak with you only because of your grace and love. We come confidently only
because you have invited us. We come knowing that it is our calling to honor
you, to serve you, to love you forever. Teach us awe that we might honor and
love you more. In the strong and precious name of Jesus. Amen.
