Acts 1:6-9
In society today…we make appointments with the “important” people we need to see. We make appointments for doctors when we are sick, we make appointments for hairdressers and barbers, we make appointments for lunch with friends, and we even make appointments to see our pastor. It seems if without appointments we would never get to see some of the people in our lives. It can drive you crazy sometimes just trying to make an appointment with someone. But I think the most important appointment I have made in my life was the one that I made with Jesus…the one where I gave my heart, my mind, my body, my service to Him. But in that appointment….something else happened to me…something I never thought would happen. In that appointment, I was also appointed to be in His service.
The disciples in this morning’s message from Acts had an “appointment” with Jesus. They met together with Him and asked Him a question that was on their hearts. They wanted to know if He was going to return the kingdom to Israel. Jesus told them not to worry about that right now; it was not for them to know. Jesus also told them that they would soon receive the power of the Holy Spirit and they would be His witnesses where they were and to the ends of the earth. Jesus appointed them to be His witness...to spread the gospel…to tell about Him to the ends of the earth.
In thinking about this story….I realized that…being a disciple of Christ…I…we are also appointed to spread the Gospel of Christ. At our baptism, we were adopted…we joined the royal priesthood…and that we are commissioned, like the first disciples, to go and do likewise. But how are we to spread the gospel…what can we, here in Suncook, do to help the gospel be heard to the ends of the earth?
Earlier in my sermon…I was taking about appointments. I think that one way that we here in Suncook help spread the gospel is because we make ourselves available for another kind of appointment. We make our selves open for “Divine Appointments.” Have you ever talked with someone and they say “thanks that is just what I needed to hear.” Or maybe…this is one that really freaks me out sometimes…you are talking with someone and all of the sudden all these things start coming out of your mouth…things like pertinent scripture or this wisdom that came from “out of the blue”…and it is exactly what that person needed to hear? Or how about being in the right placed at the right time in order to share your faith with someone who needed to be lifted up? Or many other situations that you can think of that have happened to you in your life? Well…you have had one of those Divine Appointments for God…a time that God uses us to spread the gospel to the least, last and forgotten. A time that God used ordinary you and me to witness to the ends of the earth.
When we open our doors and have a church dinner or Our Families Table and even to AA and NA…we open ourselves up to these Divine Appointments. People from all over the community come to our church to have a meal and fellowship and it is within this fellowship time that God uses us to share our faith with those around us. But sadly…there are times when we miss those divine appointments.
Have you ever walked away from someone and realized that you have missed a Divine Appointment? I know I have. (I may have told you this story before so if I have please bear with me) I remember a time that I was in the grocery store and the bag boy was asking about a rubrics cube I used to have. It was an evangelism tool. It told the story of Jesus. I just kind of told him what it was but never showed him how it worked. Well…I got as far as my car when I felt that
I missed that Divine Appointment. When I turned around and went back into the store I couldn’t find the bag boy to show him. I vowed that day to never miss another appointment like that. You see…not only are we to be open for them but we also must be on the lookout for them. They usually come when we least expect them.
Appointments…we all make them and some are made for us by the Author of our lives. We are appointed to go out and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. We are not left to our own devices to fulfill this call in our lives. We are given the Holy Spirit to help us and guide us in this appointment. We must be forever on guard to see these appointments…these opportunities…to share our faith. I would like to share a poem written by our resident poet Ray. It is called appointed and I feel it sums up our appointment well:
Like Peter, Paul
We are appointed
commissioned by the same Spirit
the Holy Spirit of God
living, growing within us
to spread the same message of love
commissioned, appointed
witnesses of Christ’s love
sacrificial love of the servant
humble king, fulfilling still
scriptures, law, promises of God
Grace, living, flowing from our hands
our hearts, our feet
walking in his pathways
reaching out his hands
sharing God’s love,
imprinted on our lives
May we always be the hands and feet that bring the Good News of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Where ever and whenever He calls. AMEN
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