Sermon in LLC Summer Services in Marquette, Michigan 03.07.2011

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, we yet continue our services with this prayer that our Heavenly Father would yet bless our gathering with His Word.

And before we read this text, we have several prayers of intercession from the hearts of God's children, which we will now petition to our Heavenly Father. Please pray for a loved one who is sincerely believing but is struggling with the sins of this world. We need the help and the prayers of the believers to help us reach our home in Heaven.

I am requesting a prayer for my wife and children, that God would call my wife back into His Kingdom, that our home would be a believing home where faith, hope, and love prevails. A believing mother and father request prayers on behalf of a son stationed overseas in the military and for an unbelieving daughter.

We would like to send a prayer to the servicemen of our country, those who aren't able to be here, and those that can, all retired, vets, and active. We would like to thank Him and pray for those who protect us. Thanks also to God.

Pray for our son who is an unbeliever, and also others of our family. The believing parents and family request prayers for unbelieving children and siblings.

And in these prayers, we again approach our Heavenly Father in the name of His Son, our Lord Jesus, and through the mutual petition of the Holy Spirit.

Before reading the text, I do want to remember specifically the greetings of my wife, who could not be here, and also the rest of my family, and also the believers there in my home congregation of Seattle, Washington, who remembered you with love.

For the text, this afternoon we'll read three verses. This being from the 13th chapter of Acts: the 26th verse, and then the 37th and 38th verses. And we read this in Jesus' name.

"Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is sent the word of this salvation. But he whom God raised again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Amen."

Having been here now for several days of services, I think that you with me, dear fellow travelers, have experienced a very special and a very uplifting thing, and I think that you also have closely felt that this is the work of the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Godhead, which we have so closely felt and with the human mind cannot comprehend.

But nonetheless, we would have to say, as Jesus taught even in the final hours of his life where he gathered with his own and explained a few of the things that would soon come to pass, Jesus used a very special word for that third part of the Godhead, and the word that he used was Comforter.

And I think that in considering myself and perhaps you're much the same as me, I lament over my own shallow understanding, my own poorness on the journey, and I lament my slowness to believe. But would have to say that Jesus, in choosing that very special word, knew that that Holy Spirit would bring even to such a poor one great comfort; that one, through the eyes of that Spirit, can see the beauty of God's kingdom and see the Son and in that simple way of a child comprehend the love of the Father.

The text that we read, the few verses, do relate to a special time in living Christianity which in many ways is not far removed or very different at all from the time that we live in.

This God gave during those times of the book of Acts a very special time of gospel work, mission work, many times a difficult journey and calling for those that served during that time. Apostle Paul being one of them, he was involved in this.

In the text that we read and some of the events leading up to this text that we read, I think in many ways clearly show that God's hand was behind the mission work, the gospel work of their day, and we would have to say the similarities are, to the human mind, shocking to the heart of a child of God in which the Holy Spirit lives; they're comforting.

There was a time a little earlier than this text occurred where it was actually a time of great tribulation for the believing people. Many of the believing people lived in and around Jerusalem; that's where this gospel work that Jesus assigned to his own to begin, that's where they lived.

Somewhat suddenly, with the stoning of Stephen who lost his life because of his faith, there began at that time, how the book of Acts describes, a time of great persecution. The children of God were under attack; many in some cases were severely punished, some lost their lives.

Then the book of Acts relates in this way that all of the believing people except the apostles were forced to flee from the city of Jerusalem.

Where did they go? We know from what Luke recorded in the book of Acts that many began the journey north. Some of the books relate some of the incidents about Philip. Philip happened to end up at that time in Samaria, which was not very far north of Jerusalem but it was north.

The others worked their way up the coast; we learned from the book of Acts, and they went to what would be modern-day Lebanon to flee from this persecution and these tribulations that they faced.

The Bible relates these were Jewish people who had believed in Jesus; no significant number at all from the Gentiles had been converted. But these fleeing believing people had fled to Cyprus. I'm sure that many of you know the island Cyprus.

Then along the borders there was a city named Antioch, and there were some believers in Cyprus, some people in Cyprus that received the grace of repentance, and these were Jewish people of Hebrew heritage.

They then moved to the mainland, and a very surprising thing happened that there in that city of Antioch there were some of the Bible called the Greeks, non-Jewish people, Gentiles, who were interested in hearing this word.

Lo and behold, they heard the living word preached through the power of the Holy Spirit, believed that gospel word, you can imagine, quickly went back to Jerusalem, and the Bible relates that now Gentiles are eager to hear this word; they're begging to hear the gospel.

The apostles there in Jerusalem then begin to organize what we would characterize as mission work and sent out workers. Paul happened to be one of them; we know as Apostle Paul, Saul, and Barnabas.

This text relates to a situation where Paul had gone to some of those north cities; in this case, it happened to be a different city with the same name of Antioch. There were many which were named after Antioch; the leader probably more than a dozen cities with that name.

This happened to be a little bit further east, but it says, "But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down," the typical way.

It's probably important to mention there was no, at that time, established organization we call a church; that comes later. We can see here from this text at this time they still went to the Jewish gathering house called the synagogue.

As Paul and these others went into this synagogue meeting house, they sat and listened. Normally, as it says here, they read; they pulled a scroll out, they read from that form of the Bible.

It says, "And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, 'Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.'" So in essence, they asked Paul, "Do you have any words to say?"

Paul, I'm sure, felt his own weakness and his own poorness, but Paul nonetheless at this bidding began to speak about God's grace kingdom on earth.

Paul began to speak about the Lord Jesus who suffered and died on behalf of the world, the sinful world, and that those who believe on this Messiah, this promised Savior, would be saved.

Paul here in this verse that we started with, the 26, it's also noteworthy who Paul addressed. He says here, "Men and brethren," and then he adds something else when he began to speak to this group in the synagogue. He said, "Children of the stock of Abraham and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent."

It wasn't just those who were of the stock of Abraham. We can say that this gospel word then, this gospel word today, speaks to all mankind.

And we also know the Bible teaches when the Lord Jesus suffered and died that he had the sins of the entire world on him; he took on our sin, and whosoever believeth on him is saved. That's the gospel word.

It mentions in these other verses that we read how remarkable it is that the gospel that Paul preached there in that synagogue, not through his own power but through the power of the Holy Spirit that he had received as a grace gift when he was able to hear that word, is the same word that he had preached from God's kingdom.

Here's what he said: "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins."

And when we look at how God's mission work, which started from that mission command of Jesus, has progressed now over a couple of thousand years, we begin to see that God was the hand behind in the beginning there, even for example in Jerusalem when a very difficult time of trials happened where the human mind to those that had to flee Jerusalem, leave their homes, would say, "Why? Why is this happening? I believed on this man who was the Savior, the Jesus of Nazareth, and now we're going through these tribulations. Why?"

Sometimes in life we can look back on those kinds of trials and tribulations and we can say, "Now I comprehend, now I see."

And I'm sure that as those apostles and those disciples and followers begin to see over the next number of years what transpired, what happened, they begin to comprehend.

Now we know God's word travels on the feet of man, and isn't it a happy thing that gospel, the gospel living gospel, is brought on those feet? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel and bring that good message.

And no doubt they begin to see, and then we see also when we look at history we can see how this gospel then, starting in Jerusalem, the same gospel that Paul preached in the synagogue, that was preached during the time of Luther and throughout history with different names.

Isn't it remarkable there was no specific name that man assigned to this kingdom? It's not a kingdom that humans can see and behold with their eyes of flesh; it's a hidden God, a hidden kingdom.

But by and through the Comforter, the child of God is able to say, "I behold God's kingdom and it's beautiful."

It had many names, many tongues. The name of our organization here in North America isn't even the same as our sister organizations in Finland or Sweden or Togo.

I was kind of pleasantly surprised in Africa when I saw the abbreviation E-L-L C-A-T-T for Togo. It's a different name but it's the same living gospel word that's preached through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And when we consider the work of God, this mission command, sometimes I think, at least it's been this way with me, we can wonder, even though the Bible teaches us, we can begin to wonder, can God among all the multitudes find the seeking one?

The one where Jesus described this way in a very clear way, he says, and it contains a promise, "Seek and ye shall find."

With the human mind we can doubt, can it really be? But I think through the power of this Holy Spirit we've been comforted and we've been able to see God can find his own.

And then throughout the ages as God's kingdom has moved from people to people, from tongue to tongue, from nation to nation, that living word has been the same.

Have the words of absolution always been exact? Of course we know they haven't.

The key is this, and we've heard about it here at these meetings: through the power of the Holy Spirit the gospel word is preached and it's a comforting, reassuring word that reassures that one who's seeking, maybe even in some isolated remote location where we would think, "How could it ever be that the gospel could spread to such a place and such a person?"

And we've had to say it is marvelous in our eyes what we've been able to see and comprehend through the Holy Spirit.

There was a school-age girl whose unbelieving father, who had actually grown up in a believing home years earlier, but for some reason this unbelieving father did in some ways remember, and he would bring this school-age girl to the Sunday school gathering of the believing people, drop her off.

Then through her Sunday school years she then attended regularly, and then time of confirmation came; she went through the confirmation.

Then the enemy of souls did his work, pulled that daughter away. Her life years passed and she met the man who would be her future spouse. They married.

Some years later this couple began in a kind of a natural way, it seemed, to search for some kind of a church, and they went to many churches, this organization, that organization.

If you went down a list of different church names you probably could find it on. They went to many, but wherever they went the word was not able to touch their heart.

Whatever word that was, the girl, then this wife, little girl who had grown up now did mention to her husband, she said, "You know, I remember this church when I was a little girl that my daddy took me to. I wonder if they're still..."

She knew the name of the church. You can look it up in the phone book if you want, which they did. The name changed.

They looked in the phone book and they found the name of that church that she had gone to, and they decided, "We'll go there."

So they went to that church, they listened, and there was no word to touch the heart, even when the same words of absolution in Jesus' name and blood were used. It meant nothing to her and nothing to her husband.

They became somewhat distraught or disappointed, probably a better word. There was nothing there.

So they started attending some other kind of a regular church, but the husband is the one that said, "What about this church? They're not the same people, it's not the same place."

"I went to the same name that she remembered," and she told her husband, she said, "They don't exist anymore, they're gone where I went as a little girl. They're scattered, they don't..."

He said, "They must exist, they have to exist. We're going to look for them."

She said, "They don't exist, we've looked, they're not there in the building. We went to the one with the name, it's not the same."

What so happened that in their lives a change came where their workplace had to change jobs and so they moved to a location probably an hour or more away from their home.

And it so happened that one day the wife, this little girl, was reading the local newspaper and here was a little advertisement for services, and it was a strange name, something about Lestadian Lutheran, but she did recognize some of the names; it had some of the pastors' names.

She said, "You know, I wonder if that's the people."

"He's got to be," the husband said, "that's got to be there. We're going to go there, we're going to see."

So they did. They drove to that location, of course the address was there and so forth. They drove there, and when they got there the services were already going.

The minister was preaching, and the man said later on he said, "As soon as he walked into the building and he started to listen to the minister, the preacher, he knew he had never heard that word before."

It was the husband who first received the grace of repentance. He heard the voice of the good shepherd; he heard the calling that comes only through the power of God that he reveals through his Holy Spirit.

He knew he found God's kingdom, and it was then some time later, I don't recall how long, that his wife, that little girl who had attended Sunday school, also received the grace of repentance.

Can God find? Can God seek such a lost one? God, it's His work. God's word promises that such a seeking one.

And there may be listeners who have traveled in life with a heavy heart, "Where is God's kingdom? Where is the voice of the good shepherd?"

Word, and it's a comforting word that says it's still here, the same word that Apostle Paul preached in that synagogue where he said, "Men and brethren, through this man the gospel is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins."

Today, dear fellow traveler, you who find yourself sometimes so slow to believe, you can believe that good message of the gospel, the same word that Apostle Paul preached, the same word that husband heard: all sins are forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus, and that peace, freedom, and joy.

That's the comforting word that comes through not the power of man but God in the third person, the comforting word of the Holy Spirit: sins are forgiven.

And it's also not unremarkable; in fact, it's an amazing thing. I think it was probably a couple of years or a little more after that couple was guided and led to God's kingdom that that father, the one who had dropped off his little girl around the corner so she could go to Sunday school, he was elderly, very elderly.

And that man, the husband who had walked into that church and by God's grace had been able to comprehend that word, began to encourage his father-in-law about the faith that he knew had known as a little child.

And it was probably measured in hours, maybe a few days before that old elderly father who had dropped his daughter off also from that son-in-law who was now doing the same mission work, he preached the gospel to that elderly man, he believed.

And not measured in hours later he slept away.

Can God find and seek those who travel with a heavy heart? Seek for the kingdom, seek for a graceful and loving God.

We know from God's word and we comprehend through the Holy Spirit that He can do that work and He has done that work, and it's marvelous in our eyes, dear fellow travelers and also listeners.

I would have to say that having been here gathered at these services, God, I think, has especially wanted to remind us of the comfort that He, that Jesus promised in the hours before He left, that He would not leave us alone but would leave the Comforter.

I think we've been especially, I know I have, I felt the wonderful unity of God's kingdom, which is not a creation of man but is affected only by the power of God.

And we would say we know and feel this and see the beauty of God's great kingdom through the Holy Spirit.

Continue yet believing, dear fellow traveler, and you listener, perhaps one who travels under a burden of sin.

It's the same gospel that Paul said, he said, "Men and brethren, through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins even now in Jesus' name and through the drops of blood that moistened the earth at the foot of the cross all sins are forgiven."

And I need to hear from my many doubts and sins, "Can you yet preach the gospel to me?" I promise to believe with you.

And ask in closing that you, dear fellow travelers, would remember us and my family and our believing congregation there in Seattle, that you remember us in your prayers.

And also many of you know that here in less than three weeks we will be leaving on the group trip to Ecuador, a number of us.

And I know that I speak on behalf of all those involved, and many of you know Helen, she's been very involved.

And we ask also that you would remember us on that trip and that God would bless our journey.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

On we to table and yes.