@ Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 22/5/16

Acts 1:12-26  

How do you go about making a choice? Time magazine back in September 2012 put it this way:

“Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave. “Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.”[1]

This research would have us think our choices are just about biology, the firing off a part of the brain.  What I think this report reveals is something we are already aware of, as we follow Jesus, that every choice we make is part of who we are in our day by day walk with Jesus, we are embodied souls.

 Every big and small decision is part of God revealing, or reminding us, of his mercy to forgive, or his glory to shape and change us.  What we see is God riveted our souls onto the guardrail of providence.  God’s gracious love is that he cares for us.  So what I would like to do this morning is see where the Bible lands us here with how we go at approaching change and decisions, or even talking about the will of God for our lives, which we know can be really confusing.

Today we meet how practical theology guides us in our ; that is does our decision making match up with what we say we believe, with then how we live our lives.  As the gospel is the story of the life, death, resurrection, ascension present intercession and promised return of Jesus.  It is also what anchors us to how God wants us to run at life.  In Jesus we are called to develop a practical theology that brings God and people together, transforming how we think, react, love, decide, and choose.[2]  What we profess we believe is shown by how we go about practically living as followers of Jesus.  What might surprise is that how we go at making our decisions shows a lot more than we realise, as we read in Acts 1 verses 21-23

 21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us,  22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” 23 So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 

The question was asked, who was going to be chosen to replace Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus? To understand the decision that needed to be made turn back with me to verse 12-14.

12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.  13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

The disciples along with some others had been with Jesus at the Mount of Olives, he had been teaching them for 40 days since his resurrection, and had they had all just witnessed him ascend back to heaven, the words of the angels would have been still ringing in their heads. Acts 1:8  as Jesus told them 8 What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.” (The Message).  Now having seen Jesus ascend into heaven they return home to Jerusalem, and we get read out to us the roll call of names.  All the disciples are there, now minus Judas Iscariot, along with  “the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” All told were told  120 gather there.  It is this 120 who are there at the beginning of the church in Jerusalem.  We're told of what they do when they come together, we’re told they pray.  The early church came seeking God with united and continuous prayer.  For ourselves, like them, prayer is what we know we can do especially when we don’t know what to do.  It is through prayer we come together with one mind, as a community of believers seeking to know God more and be obedient to his commands for our lives.

 Now we need to see ourselves in that room with the 120 believers in it, along with Mary the mother of Jesus and the brothers of Jesus.  The same brothers who six month before had been filled with unbelief about Jesus,  it is obvious the unbelief is now gone; and so here in this room, filled with prayer, we come to a practical decision needing to be made, the need for a replacement, for Judas’ successor.  What we come seeing is Peter viewing Judas’ betrayal of Jesus as the fulfilment of scripture as we read in verses 15-20:

15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty)  16 and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus.  17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.” 18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.  19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20   “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms: “ ‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, “ ‘May another take his place of leadership.’

Peter steps us through Psalms 20, 69, 109 each pointing to what was going to happen with Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.  We see through those passages that what Judas decided to do was nothing other than his own decision. That he alone did what he did, when he betrayed Jesus, and racked with that guilt he couldn’t bear going on living with it, and so ended his life.  It is with this information that we step into the pain of defection.  It is a heart wrenching pain, to have someone who you have shared your life with, or for the disciples who ministered alongside Judas to see them betray our trust.  It’s easy to feel bitter and for it to leave us with a loss of compassion for others.  So here we’re given the window into God’s sovereign will at work, even when what happens looks bad.  Please see where Peter points us, in verse 16.  In response to that verse will we lift up your head to see God’s sovereign perspective.  God wasn’t asleep on the job, he saw this coming, he knew what it was, and the invitation is for us to be going forward trusting in his plans and will for our lives.  Here the decision was made to replace the gap Judas Iscariot left, and put the number of disciples back up to 12.  The account tells us the church had met and prayed and sought God together.  This church had been careful to see what God was saying.  In the end what they had before them was a choice between two men who had both met the requirements.  These two men had both travelled with Jesus and the disciples, and been part of the public ministry team of Jesus, they had both been a witness to the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  In this matter Matthias & Joseph could not be separated.  So we are told the disciples cast lots, it’s something we come across a few times in the Old Testament to make a decision.  Have a look at Provers 16:33

33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

We’re orientated the right way here, even though this practice isn’t something we carry over today, with the choice before the disciples they felt this was the only way left to resolve the choice between 2 equal candidates.  In some way this was going to be an impartial choice, and where the lot fell was who was going to be the replacement.  The lot fell on Matthias.  So let’s come back again to how we go at making a decision, and ask what is your thinking around the choices you and I make?  Someone put it this way…

The plan and purpose of God worked out in providence is a huge, unseen reality—active every minute protecting, guiding, and determining the flow of our destiny. If you are in Christ, you have the right to trust yourself to the eternal, unchangeable will of God, which undergirds your daily life. You are in an invisible harmony with God’s plan for your life. There is no Plan B, C, or D. There is only what God ordained by His plan and our accountable actions. In His mysterious (to us) sovereignty, both of those become one.[3]

 We sit in good company, on the night he was betrayed Jesus is found at prayer seeking God’s will be done, and so when we look ahead in the story of the early church we see them coming together for prayer seeking God’s will and direction.  The question is, will we come to our choices in prayer seeking God to be with us even when they don’t work out as we had expected them to?  Will we  see them as the place God has us to learn more about his sovereign grace and love for us his children?  Just as we set the challenge last week who is it you are praying for God to give you an opportunity to shape the hope you have.  So the question is, how is it going?

Let’s pray…