What about now?

I was recently driving back from Oklahoma City, and just after turning east on Hwy. 82 off of I-35 I noticed a church advertisement... "this is the church that started at Pentecost." Obviously the intent was to say that they are full of the Spirit or they are not caught up in modern day church bureaucracy (or so they say...).

I will admit that the church that exists in 2nd chapter of Acts is appealing and I'm certain a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that we can aspire to. However...what if it stopped there? What if this church on Hwy. 82 really is just exactly like that church...would they know what we know from the Pastoral Epistles? From Romans? Would they have missed out?

So often we idealize the past as "golden ages" or "the good old days" because things seemed so much simpler. Even in the sermon series I did on Acts recently I kept talking about the Apostolic model of church as our goal, but if we stopped somewhere in the journey of Acts, we'd miss out on so much. We might miss out on Peter's vision that God has made all things clean, so we are free from dietary laws of the holiness codes of old. We might have missed out on all of the church conflict in Corinth, so we might not know how to handle our own conflict.

Even further, we would not have experienced the saints who have come before us and gone on who perpetuated the faith and love we know from God.

I believe we look to the past for great stories and examples that guide our wisdom, but who is to say that wisdom stops? In the same vein, who is to say that God stops? I really believe that we think the past is better because we already know what happened and we can find the positive. Even in the Great Depression era we praise the people of America for their spirit of togetherness and never-say-die attitude.

It seems that the present day and even worse the future are unwritten. It seems as though unpredictability and uncertainty are our biggest fears, so we long for the past...even in the Church.

But if we take resurrection seriously, with Christ's final coming, isn't the future more glorious than anything that happened on Pentecost? They both share wonderful things, but this is the final chapter and a life of peace on earth with Jesus is at hand...what's not to love about that?

So what about now? Why can't today be great and why can't God be doing some of His best work in us today? I invite you to listen for it amongst the noise, and if you need help, I'd invite you to listen to it amongst the silence. Today is the day the Lord has made...rejoice and be glad in it.