July 12-13, 1997 Sermon

July 12-13, 1997

Mike Slaughter

I grew up in a home where my father smoked cigars. My father is a Christian. Some people think that you can’t smoke and go to heaven. You can smoke and go to heaven, you’re just going to smell like hell along the way.
You know how it is when you grow up in it. You get used to it and don’t recognize the smell, but everyone else does. I never realized that until after Carolyn and I were married and I moved away from home. We had gone home to visit for a weekend and we had come back to our apartment and opened up our suitcase. Everything in it smelled terrible. I said, "Carolyn, what happened, this is terrible." She looked at me and said, "When I dated you, you smelled like that!"
I could not hide the fact that I had been with my dad. You recognize the fact because you smelled the smoke. It is costly to follow Jesus Christ. There is a real danger for Christians that we can come into this place and feel real comfortable, and get inspired. It is safe to say things in here, but it becomes controversial as soon as you take it outside those doors.
Peter and John in the 4th chapter of Acts discovered how controversial it was. They had been taking the message of Jesus and the story of the resurrection to the streets. It resulted in their arrest and a night in jail. They were threatened and harassed. But there was an undeniable fact about these followers of Jesus that everyone recognized. Here it is the 13th verse:

Acts 4:13
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were just uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed, (they smelled the smoke) and they recognized them as having been with Jesus, recognized....you smell the smoke.

Recognized!

I. Coming Out of the Closet

A. A Modern Day Story
Coming out of the closet. There has been a recent coming out of the closet story of which many of us are aware. Ellen DeGeneres. When the producers of the show "Rosanne" were writing the final story line for the final episode, ( I don’t know how long "Rosanne" was on TV, 9 or 10 years) they wanted her to do something that would rival the shock value of Ellen coming out of the closet. They thought, "Hey, Ellen really did something that got everybody’s attention and she got a 40% market share that night on TV. What can we do that will shock the American public?" Do you know what they had Rosanne do? PRAY!.....Prayer to the American public is equally as shocking as Ellen. I say Church, if that is the fact, somehow we have gone deeply into the closet!!!!!

B. Cost & Risk
It is costly to come out of the closet. It’s risky. When you expose yourself for what you really are and what you believe it eliminates a lot of other possibilities. I don’t think we’re ever going to see Ellen DeGeneres playing a lead role next to George Clooney in some kind of movie. When you risk coming out of the closet, it eliminates a lot of other possibilities.
Now I have a question. Here’s Peter, who has crossed the threshold of his comfort zone. Arrested, threatened, now where did you find him three months before? He was deep in the closet, BIG TIME in the closet, when someone said, "Hey, don’t you associate with Jesus?" What did he say? "Me? I don’t know the man." Right? Not once, not twice, but three times. Now, three months later he has exceeded his comfort zone. What is the difference?

Acts 4:8
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders,

II. The Difference: "Filled With the Spirit" vs. 8

A. Fire
Here’s the difference...look at Acts 4, verse 8. "Then Peter, FILLED with the Holy Spirit" (you see that...Peter filled with the Holy Spirit....) There are a whole lot of us in the church who have the Holy Spirit but we’re not filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a great image that the Bible uses for being filled with the Holy Spirit or the presence of God. Fire! We have talked about it before. It’s a great image. Anywhere God is, often there is this symbol in scripture of fire. When you’re near a fire, you smell smoke, right? You can’t fake it.
When you’re around a fire people smell smoke and when you are around the presence of God, people around you will smell the smell of God. You can’t fake it. You’re recognized. They smell the smoke.A lot of us suffer from what I call ‘smell in the bottle’ mentality.
Did you know that you can buy fake scents? Carolyn and I swore we would never do this, but it was one of those winters that was rainy, icy, cold and we didn’t get out to get a Christmas tree. So, we went and bought a fake Christmas tree. I’m there in the store saying that we can’t do this, we would always do the real thing. I don’t want a fake Christmas tree. Christmas would never be the same. A guy in the store swore to me that if I used this stuff in a can it would smell like a real tree. It didn’t. It smelled like Clorox bleach to me!
All these smells in a can. You don’t have to get the real thing. You see these little things in the bathroom, these cans of stuff on the back of the toilet that smell like roses -- who are we kidding? "Honey, it smells like you’re arranging roses in there!"
Smell in a bottle!! We were going through the car wash on Monday and I noticed that they had this little thing, this little bottle of scent you could put in your car and its called "a new car smell"....you don’t have to buy a new car you can just.....smell in a bottle...and it just smells like a new car. I’m curious, did anybody ever try that, does it smell like a new car? It does!....you’ve done that....you’ll be in the closet next week!
I just found this out yesterday. Do you know that you can buy Liquid Smoke? I said, "what would you do with Liquid Smoke?" You know what it is used it for? Cooking, right? It gives meat the flavor of smoke -- fake smoke!
God in a bottle! When you are around a real fire, there is real smoke! You can’t fake it. If you are in the midst of the presence of God, you have to be hot! There is nothing lukewarm about being in the presence of God. You can’t be in the middle. You’re recognized, you smell the smoke.
As a matter of fact, being lukewarm ticked Jesus off. He says you’re neither cold nor hot. You’re better to be cold than lukewarm, Jesus said. Everybody you read about in the Bible who was in the midst of the presence of God was on fire. They were hot. They were recognized. You couldn’t hide out.

2 Kings 13:21
Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

There’s a great story about Elisha. When Elisha died (he had been in the grave for sometime), they took some man who had recently died (they didn’t want to dig a hole and bury him) and they just threw him on Elisha’s grave. As soon as his body hit that grave, Elisha had been so hot in his life for God that he had not cooled off in his death, the dead man came alive! When you are burning with the presence of God in your life, even when you are dead, your life will touch people for years to come.

B. Courage
Recognized. People are going to smell the smoke. I love what it says here. Everyone looked at Peter and John, and we read, they were amazed by their courage. Do you know what courage is? Courage is a passionate commitment to God’s truth. If you are filled with the spirit of God you have a passionate commitment to God’s truth.
I want to tell you something. Truth is not in today. Tolerance, is in. If you are committed to truth, you are going to be in trouble. You’re not going to be popular. You’re going to be recognized. People are going to smell the smoke. Being spiritual is in, but getting specific is not in. You can be spiritual just don’t name any names. Don’t say ‘Jesus.’ Say ‘God’ or ‘Cosmos.’ Spiritual is in but specific is out. Do you know that it was really no different in the biblical times in which Peter and John lived? That is what upset these people.

Acts 4:1-2, 18
1: And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sad'ducees came upon them,
2: annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from
the dead.
18: So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

Look with me at Acts 4, verse 1 and 2. What made these people nervous? These followers of Jesus were courageously passionate about truth and specific truth. While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the authorities came because they were teaching that Jesus has resurrected from the grave. You start going out there, that’s controversial folks. Look at verse 18. You can be spiritual but don’t get specific about Jesus Christ being raised from the grave. Be tolerant but don’t get too much into truth. In verse 18 we read they ordered them not to speak or teach in Jesus name.

C. Cost
Now that same rule applies today, did you know that? It makes people nervous when you articulate what you believe. Oppositions may be more civilized and persecutions more subtle, but it costs something to be faithful!

Acts 4:19-20
19: But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you
rather than to God, you must judge;
20: for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard."

Wake up from your summer slumber, Church. Come out come out where ever you are! There’s no such thing as fake smoke where most of the church people hang. It costs something to be faithful. Now I love what they say in verse 19 and 20. Here’s the response. What you do is up to you, but we cannot stop speaking what we have seen or heard.
You know what it means to be courageous? It means to be passionate about God’s truth. You’re going to be recognized! People are going to smell the smoke and you’re going to be dangerous because you can’t keep these people in a closet. They are witnesses. Do you know what it means to be a witness? It means to have a passionate commitment to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God, right? Is that not what it means? I cannot help but tell what I have seen or heard. How can you shut up about this thing?
This week my daughter and I were talking. Sharing. She has been home for half the summer now. She went away to a Christian college this past year. You know, Christian colleges can really be dangerous to a Christian’s health. A lot of Christian colleges have a lot of people living in the closet. They really do.
My daughter was saying, "Dad, you know sometimes we go through the periods in our lives where we kind of struggle and sometimes its hard to be a Christian because Christians are so judgmental and mean." I said, ‘Honey, I know. Christians are some of the meanest people I know. They are. I understand what you mean.’ Then I said, ‘listen to me. We do not do what we do because of Christians.’ Do you know what Gandhi, the leader of the revolution in India, said? "I would have become a Christian but I didn’t because of you Christians, because you Christians are so unlike your Christ."
So I said, ‘honey, don’t look at the Christians, this is not why we do this. Hear me Kristin, Jesus Christ has risen from the grave and he has radically changed your Daddy’s life. Jesus Christ has come from the grave.’ You know, I should have said to her ‘Honey, I don’t even know if your mom and dad would still be married.....I probably wouldn’t even have lived with you growing up, if Jesus Christ hadn’t risen from the grave and radically changed my life."
So I said, ‘honey, I cannot stop telling the truth. You cannot shut me up or stop me. This is the one thing for which I am willing to live and die. For me to live in Christ. You see, because I fell in the fire.’ RECOGNIZED. People smell the smoke. It costs something to follow Jesus Christ. If you follow Jesus you are always going to be living on the edge. Did you know that? There is no middle place here. If you follow Jesus Christ, you are always going to be a little bit in trouble.
Have you ever noticed all the followers of Jesus Christ who were serious about this were always in trouble because they annoyed people? You make people very uncomfortable because of this passionate commitment to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. You are always going to be on the edge, but folks let me tell you, the edge is the only place that’s worth living. Because it’s on the edge that you feel the earth move.

Acts 4:29-30
29: And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all
boldness,
30: while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the
name of thy holy servant Jesus."

I love this chapter. I hope you go home and really look at the 4th chapter of Acts this week. Peter and John were threatened. You can beat these people, threaten these people, call them names and put them in jail, but you cannot shut these people up. So they let Peter and John go after they harassed them some more. They go back to their home group meeting, their home group prays, and they share with their home group that they have been threatened and harassed. Look at verse 29 . Look at this prayer. It is an incredible prayer. You wonder why there was power in the early church. They prayed, ‘Dear God, you hear the murderous threats against your servants, what they will do to us."
Now how would we pray today? Oh, Lord, help me. Don’t let anything happen to us. Keep us safe in this closet. Isn’t that how we pray today? Help me! Save me! You know how they prayed? Read that verse 29. They said, "you hear their murderous threats, but don’t worry about us, God." Do you see that in that scripture? Just keep on keeping on, don’t worry about what they do to us. Just use us and use us to demonstrate your truth and purpose in the world. Don’t you love it? Don’t worry about us God. Don’t worry about the threats. What’s important is that your truth is demonstrated through all the earth.

Acts 4:31
31: And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

Look at the result of that kind of praying. Look at verse 31, 4th chapter. They had prayed, not because they said, "Oh, Lord keep us safe, don’t let me lose my job." I hear people all the time today say that you have to careful at work talking about faith. ‘I could lose my job.’ I hear public school teachers say this all the time. ‘I could lose my job.’ And in this book they are praying, ‘God don’t worry about our jobs, don’t listen to the threats, just keep on keeping on!’ When you pray that kind of prayer, listen to this: When they were done praying, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.
The edge is the only place to live because it is at the edge that you feel the earth move.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.
RECOGNIZED! You smell the smoke. Church, wake up from your summer slumber!
Come out, come out, where ever you are! You cannot stay in the middle. When you have been in the presence of the One who has come from the grave, compromise is not an option. Why? Because when you get in the fire you’re going to smell like smoke!
The edge is the only place to live because it is at the edge that you feel the earth move. I want to ask you to take a moment right now to pray with me in such a way that you are listening to God’s voice, not mine, but the voice of God. Would you, however you best pray, if that’s eyes open or eyes closed - would you get in a position where you are open to the Spirit of God?
The edge is the only place to live because it is at the edge that you feel the earth move. What was the difference from three months earlier? Peter was deep in the closet, three months later he was out. Here’s the difference. Peter was filled with the Spirit. Do you know what it means to be filled with the Spirit? It means all of God and none of me.
The edge is the only place to live because it is at the edge that you feel the earth move. Every day I pray the prayer:

Prayer
Lord Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit. I am not my own. I am yours. For you created me and you bought me back. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
The edge is the only place to live because it is at the edge that you feel the earth move. I love what John the Baptist said about Jesus. John the Baptist said, "He must increase and I must decrease. That’s what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. To say, Lord Jesus, you must increase and I must decrease. This is not about fake smoke or God in a bottle. This is about being totally surrendered and yielded to the presence of God. Lord Jesus, do not worry about us, but use us that your presence and purpose may be felt all throughout the earth.
In Jesus name. Amen.