Years ago, while living in Madagascr myself and Fred, the missionary I was working with there, headed to the town of Antsirabe, just south of the capital of Antananarivo for the day.  Our purpose there was to meet with some local government officials to set the dates and location for some basketball clinics I would be leading in the area.  We also met with some leaders from some churches to set up the evangelism and follow up parts of what we were doing. 

On the way out of town Fred wanted to stop for a minute to visit someone he had met on a previous visit and who had played a role in our coming there.  His residence was above a small pharmacy by the side of the road on the way out of town.  We stopped, and he was there and invited us into his home.  My Malagasy was very weak at the time (still is really) and I relied on Fred to translate.  Not long after we arrived I saw the man's wife head out the door with a basket.

She returned about 30 minutes later with the basket full.  Fred and this fellow kept on talking and I began to grow antsy. An hour passed and she came in placed two bottles of Coca Cola and some glasses on the table.  Then in a little while came the bread, and before long a full meal was in front of us.  Much of what they made that day was stuff I would not eat normally, but I partook.  This couple had spent basically two weeks salary to go and get food and feed us and welcome us into their home.  This kind of hospitality was not unusual there. 

We've lost some of that in America.  Our time crunch and busy schedules and large house and fences and so much more keep us from breaking bread and interacting with people. 

Our scripture this weekend is going to show us that fellowship in houses and around the table was a cornerstone of the early church.  As we look at Inception: Steadfast, part 2 we are going to see that time spent with other believers was key to the church becoming the church. 

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.  And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.    Acts 2: 46-47  (NKJV)

While it has been over 30 years since it happened, I can still remember the events like they happened yesterday.  I was blessed to coach an Athletes in Action volleyball team that was touring Bolivia and Peru for six weeks in the summer.  The format was simple, we would travel to a town and play matches against local teams or give clinics, and then we would take the opportunity to share our personal testimonies about how God has touched our lives.  We rotated through who would share at each stop.

Midway through the tour we came to the town of Oruro in Bolivia, a place of over 250,000 people at the time.  As we went there the missionaries we were working with warned us that there was a lot of satanic worship and influence in the area and people who did not want us to be there.  We played our match that night in front of a large crowd that was restless, against us, and loud.  When the post match time came there was an oppression that hung in the air. That night the testimony time was Paula's.  She was the smallest member of the team, standing a tad over 5 feet tall.  If you spent time around her you knew that she was one of the sweetest most gentle people ever.

As she began to speak I just had this impending sense of dread and doom as this young lady faced that crowd.  She started to speak and you could barely hear her over the noise, but it didn't deter her at all, she kept on talking about how God had shaped and changed her life, she was steadfast and relentless despite all that was going on around here. The suddenly there was a moment of quiet that just swept the room and she just kept going, and people started to listen.  This soft spoken girl through the power of God's Spirit delivered a message that day that ended up changing the lives of a number of people who were there. 

This week in Acts 2:14-47 we are going to look at the speech Peter gave in the midst of a crowd that started by mocking him and the other disciples and accusing them of being drunk.  Peter got up and got their attention and started to speak, and despite the commotion around them he just kept going.  By the end of the speech, the 12, plus the women, plus the 120 that began the day as followers of Jesus found their number increased by 3,000, and the church was born.   Verse 42 tells us that after that they all CONTINUED STEADFASTLY in all that the apostles were saying, and in fellowship, and in prayer. 

Years ago I was living in Madagascar and feeling the loneliness of being 11,000 miles from home in a place where I didn't really speak the language and was learning how to live bi-culturally.  This time was a time that pre-dated cell phones, and email, and the internet.   One day I received a letter from a friend from South Africa who was serving as a missionary in another country and in it she said, 

"Tonight more than ever I longed to have my own car my own friends and a place to go to.  I have so
          much energy inside me right now I am capable of exploding...It's Sunday evening, the time is 10:30
          p.m. and it is as light as it would be 3:00 p.m....This makes it impossible for me to sleep.  I would
          love to go out somewhere but I have no friends and no transport so - can you imagine how I am feeling?
          Just give me a moment to pull myself together..."

As I read her words I understood her frustration.  It is hard to not understand, to feel isolated, and sometimes we don't even have to go far away from home to feel that way.  I shared her words and my concurrent frustrations via letter with a friend back in the states and a few weeks later I got a response from her that read:

          I pray that you're not discouraged.  Hold fast to Jesus Christ and His call for you.  You have obeyed
          with a willingness to go.  You have taken the first step that  many never take.  Savor all that He has
          in store, however small or simple it may seem at the time.  After all, you're certainly not missing much
          here at home --  it's still the Kingdom of God here, too.  Many of the same struggles and victories.  I
          don't want to sound preachy; I want to offer you encouragement.  Isn't it wonderful to know that our
          God can be at your house and my house at the same time??!  He is that big and He has the
          sovereign plan.  I miss you, but I know that I will get to see you soon.  For right now you have a job to do.
          Go for it!

She nailed!  God is the God of ALL PEOPLE and ALL NATIONS and is in ALL PLACES.   As I prepare for next Sunday's message from Acts 2:1-13 the followers of Christ are in a position where they will soon be done waiting and going out into the world.  The will go to strange lands and strange places and speak languages they can't imagine, and before they leave something incredible happens to remind them that God is in control. 

People from around the world are gathered in Jerusalem and just as Jesus promised the Holy Spirit comes on them and they begin to speak and people begin to hear in every language imaginable.  God says, "Watch this.  I am the God of all people and all tongues."

That reminder echoes for us today.  No matter our circumstance of location, God is here or there!  God calls to us.   God reminds us.

Still the Kingdom
Night time brings the moments
when I long to run away
back to arms to hold me like a child,
far from all these struggles
and endless probing eyes,
back where lullabies sound soft and mild.
How I miss those moments,
feelings that I belonged,
times spent with family and friends.
If I could have one hour
of simple peace with them
I think that I could find my heart again.
But I hear stronger whispers
the urgent, marching call
to follow Him who has the sovereign plan,
and to leave far behind
the comfort I once knew
and rest all of my life within his hand,
So in each silent struggle
and through nights of loneliness
wanting quiet whispers for my ears
I will hold to truth,
the promise he has made
No matter where I am, He is here.
 
                              June 14, 1994
                             David A. Baillie
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This week is race week in Indiana, and Sunday is race day.  If there is one thing  I have learned through my years living here is that people take race day seriously.  This weekend will see the tiny area of Speedway, Indiana become one of the largest cities in the United States.   To put things into perspective, the state of Wyoming has just over half a million residents, and that 2.5 mile oval on the west side of town can hold 300,000, just a little less than the whole state of Wyoming.

People will come from all over to watch race car drivers cram themselves into tiny cockpits in four wheeled rockets that can hit 240 mph on the front and back straightaways of the famed track.   I was watching some of the qualifying highlights this weekend, and as I watched the drivers get in and out of their cars I could just feel claustrophobia coming over me.

Then today I was reading through the scripture for the upcoming weekend, and I saw the words, "Peter, James, John and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one ACCORD in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his Brothers."

And the only thing I could think was, "That must have been one really big Honda to have all those people in it!"

Of course I know that the writer of Acts was not writing about a Honda.  But let me ask you something, can you even imagine that many people being in one accord on anything?   Notice that the writer tells us that those who were gathered there were both male and female.  Look at the names,  Jew and Greek, and Gentile.   It was a mixture of so many and there was agreement. 

Here in our nation we are so divided.  This past week we were remind how abortion laws in places like New York and Illinois and Alabama can polarize us so greatly.  Partisan bickering and posturing often paralyzes our federal government.  We can't seem to find common ground, and yet these people did.  But, notice something very important, they were a people who "continued in prayer and supplication"  The key to their agreement was found in their humility and their submission to a higher power and their seeking that power for guidance and direction.  

We as a people will never be a people of one accord, until we release all that we hold on to and seek the one who holds on to all.

Acts 1:12-14  English Standard Version (ESV)
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

I'll be honest right off the top, I hate waiting.   I am not a person of great patience in many situations.  When my wife says to me, "Please come to Hobby Lobby (or Joann, or Michael's, or really any store) to me you do not need to know my words, just the look on my face betrays what I am truly thinking.  I know that saying yes means a few hours of standing there, pretending to be interested in all the craft things and saying good things like, "Yes, I think that one is much frillier".   Sometimes I'll say yes and go, other times I'll just say no, and often she'll just look at my face and say, "Never mind, I'll just go by myself. 

It's even worse when it comes to driving for me.  I cannot stand to wait, but I'm not the only one.   Is there a traffic jam up ahead on the interstate?   I'd rather get off and drive back roads and add an hour to my trip than creep along for 20 minutes until we are back up to speed.  I'd rather be moving than sitting on the road. 

In Acts Chapter 1 verse 4 we read "He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to WAIT for the Promise of the Father..."

Jesus has been resurrected. He has appeared to the disciples. He has called them away from fishing one last time.  Now they are together and they are ready to do whatever Jesus tells them to do, and the first thing that he says to them is WAIT!.  Peter had to have been going, "Are you kidding me?"  You expect us to just sit here and wait.

The truth is, however, that sometimes God just wants us to wait. He wants to give us what we need for the journey.  he wants to prepare us.  He wants to empower us.  I've been waiting for a long time for God to show me some direction in life and ministry, and I realized a little while ago that what he is saying to me is, "Wait.  I have you right where I want you right now, and I know the plans that will unfold in the future."

May God always grant us the patience t be where He wants us to be and trust His plan. 

Acts 1:4-8 New King James Version (NKJV)
4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be [a]witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

It is the night before Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States.  In 1621, the colonists and Wapanoag Indiana shared a harvest celebration and in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed it a national holiday to be held each November.  President Roosevelt sign a bill in 1941 stating Thanksgiving would be the 4th Thursday of November each year.  This is just a brief history of this holiday that some cherish and many take for granted. 

We, as Christians do the same with many things in our life.  We take so many things for granted as we trudge along in our daily grind.  As we get up tomorrow and prepare for our own feast, take time to thank God for what we have - our salvation, a nice warm building where we can gather and worship, our families and friends and the means and ability to prepare the feast we are about to enjoy.  

From all of us here at Open Door Fellowship, Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the day, hug your family and friends and don't forget to tell them how much they are loved - not just by you but by God.  

Blessings to all of you.  

  1 Thessalonians 5:18 - In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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