"A Dangerous Way to Live"

Pastor Laura Guy

October 12, 2008

Here's an instant replay of what happened in worship:

The youth band opened worship with an updated version of the old hymn, "My Hope is Built", singing "On Christ the Solid Rock I will stand, all other ground is sinking sand..."
We heard what happened to Saul/Paul immediately after his conversion in Acts 9:19-31. Even though Paul knew there were those who wanted to kill these followers of Jesus (because he himself had been one of them), he went around telling his story of meeting the risen Jesus. This made him lots of enemies, and he had to be lowered over the walls of Damascus in a basket in order to escape their death threats.
We wondered what Paul was thinking in the basket - "This is too risky...maybe I'll just keep my faith to myself, etc." But even though he knew what it meant to preach Jesus, he continued to do it when he arrived in Jerusalem, even though he was threatened with death there, too. What would make a person put his life on the line for his beliefs? For Paul and the early Christians, what they knew to be true about Jesus was greater than their fear of what might happen to them.
We asked ourselves, "What do we know to be true about Jesus? Where can we stand on faith, knowing that we are standing on solid rock, even when everything around us is shifting?" We may not know what it means to be persecuted for our faith, but we do what fear and uncertainty feel like, especially in our current economic crisis. The early followers of Jesus can help remind us that we, too, can stand on the solid rock of what we know to be true about Jesus.
We read Acts 9:31 from the New Living Translation where it says that, even though the early church lived in uncertain times, "the believers were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit." What if a future historian could say the same of us, that when the rest of the country allowed fear and panic to rule their lives, the Christians walked in the fear of the Lord (meaning awe and anticipation of what God will do) and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
We prayed for that kind of faith.
We celebrated communion, remembering that we are called to feed the world when people have physical hunger - like giving food to local food pantries. But we are also called to feed the world with the bread of life when people have spiritual hunger.