Kemsing with Woodlands

Immigration is one of the biggest challenges for our nation. What kind of welcome do we give those from other lands? How many can we welcome? And the big question: How do they fit in? How do they integrate into life here?

One option is to form a ghetto. They don’t integrate. You get a section of a town or city where the majority are from a particular cultural background.

Here’s the question: Have Jon and Hannah just done something marvellous, or something mad, in having Eben baptised?

He will grow up in a very different world from the one I grew up in. Christians are less welcome in modern Britain than they used to be. Well, it’s fine to be a Christian, provided you keep your views to yourself. But insist on speaking about Jesus — even more, if you insist on seeking to influence society based on the teaching of Jesus — you’ll find you’re less and less welcome.

How do you keep speaking about Jesus when you’re persecuted for doing so?

Assume for the moment that you want to share the good news about Jesus, how do you keep doing so if you’re threatened, or silenced in other ways?

That may not be the question some of you are asking. Some of you may be wondering: “Why would I want to tell other people about Jesus at all?” We’ll answer that question as well. If we come up with some good reasons to keep talking about him when it’s costly, those will also be good reasons to start talking about him.

Sadly, we live in a world that is full of pain and suffering.

It’s easy to feel powerless to help. Even if we wanted to alleviate everyone’s pain, we just don’t have the resources to help more than a few people. We resonate with Peter’s words from that reading: “Silver and gold I do not have.”

The government also does not have the resource to help everyone who is in need. You could print Acts chapter 3 verse 6 and display it above every hospital reception desk: “Silver and gold have I none”.

You only have to look at the news to see ways in which society is broken.

There are deep levels of mistrust, hatred, resentment and racism. People are lost, unsure of their purpose in life. Many are angry. Many are bored. Many are lonely.

Jesus did not just come to mend broken people. He came to mend broken society, to build a new society, one which functions in a healthy way, one which is deeply attractive, one which we’d all like to be a part of.

Heaven and earth revolve around Jesus. Life and death revolve around Jesus.

If you were here last time, we looked at these same verses in Acts, and I said two really quite shocking things about how central Jesus needs to be to life.

Number 1: Jesus does not call us to have him as a hobby or an interest, but to have our entire lives revolve around him, his priorities and his purposes.

Number 2: Not one us does this. We all treat Jesus as less important than he really is. And this is the number one thing wrong with the world today.

We’ve just baptized Finlay. I don’t know what you make of baptism.

The Bible reading we had told the story of one of the biggest baptisms in history. About 3000 people,  baptised on a single day. 3000. That’s most of the population of Kemsing. What could possibly make that number of people decide to be baptized on a single day?

We live in a broken society. A fragmented society. A scattered society.

Our relationships with each other are broken. Our relationship with God is broken.

Let me illustrate by listening in on the questions people have been asking since Tuesday’s bomb attack in Manchester.

“How could someone do that to their fellow human beings?” Our relationships with one another are broken.

“Why does God not stop something like that from happening?” Our relationship with God is broken.

How do we know anything about Jesus? We weren’t there when he fed the 5000, or when he rose from the dead? So how do we know these things happened? How do we know what they mean for today?

This morning, we’re continuing our journey through the book of Acts. Last week, I showed us how Acts is the second volume of Luke’s gospel. It picks up the story where Luke left off. 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus returned to heaven. But his story doesn’t stop just because he’s gone home. And Acts is all about the things that Jesus did and taught next.

Do you ever wish you could live in the time of Jesus. There are great events in the 4 gospels that we only get to read about. Wouldn’t it be good to have seen them for yourself? To have heard Jesus deliver the original Sermon on the Mount, first-hand. To have shaken the hand of the paralysed man who’d been healed. To have eaten some of the foot Jesus produced for the crowd of 5000.