Seek His Face: Application from Acts
For those of you who don’t know me well, I recently got married to the amazing Connor Elizabeth Muolo. On June 27, the day after our wedding, Pastor Brandon preached an amazing message. I must admit, I’m perfectly happy having missed hearing it in person (I was chilling with the love of my earthly life on our first full day together as one flesh). That being said, I was able to catch the message on YouTube after the fact, and I’m super thankful I did.
“...busyness and increased responsibility are not tantamount to spiritual growth and fruitfulness.”
For starters, it’s an interesting story. Paul has a deep, sorrowful longing in his heart for his Jewish brethren. The longing proves to be so great that he finds himself unable to be persuaded by either the Spirit (Acts 21:4) or a multitude of counselors (v11 & 14). Instead, he insists on a journey to see the subjects of his longing face-to-face in Jerusalem.
As Paul was warned, Jerusalem proves to be a difficult field, and things get hairy. The elders at Jerusalem end up accusing him of commanding Jewish believers to abandon their customs and tell him to demonstrate his allegiance to the law through a purification rite. While there’s quite a lot to unpack there, Pastor Brandon extracted some great application by demonstrating that, between the elders of Jerusalem and Paul, we get a clear picture of what it looks like to be a “lifeless church” and what happens when a well-meaning saint is nonetheless a “misguided saint.”
It was through this teaching that I was able to see some parallels between the elders of Jerusalem, Paul, and myself. In the midst of starting a new relationship and then getting married, pursuing a new career field and then starting a new job as a web developer, moving four times, and countless other transitions in the last year, I wasn’t getting desperate and allowing the word of God to challenge me and push me forward. As with the elders at Jerusalem, I have missed opportunities for spiritual growth. And as with Paul, I’ve also failed to reap the blessings of heeding wise counsel from God and his people due to my failure to submit myself to him.
The first point Pastor Brandon hit was about the “lifeless church.” The elders of the Jerusalem church had seen many Jews come to believe. The problem was that, culturally, they had retained an inward focus and were more zealous for the law than the mission God had called them to. Instead of going from Jerusalem, to Samaria, and then to the uttermost, they grew stagnant in their faith and, as a result, became fruitless in their ministries.
This hits home for me. The elders failed to experience the life of Christ and to bear fruit in Christ because they were focused on the wrong things. Though they were very busy tending to their religious meetings and duties, and though they were very zealous of the law, the word of God, they failed to truly experience peace that passes understanding, joy unspeakable, and love which passes knowledge. Like you and I, they were hearing the words of God, going to church, and doing ministry, but since they were not truly meeting with and following after Christ, they failed to be fruitful IN Christ.
In the past year, I’ve been faithful to Bible study. I do my devotional time. I come to church. I serve on Temple Worship. I discipled Kyle Stoutenborough with Coriden Bryant (two amazing dudes). I come to prayer on Tuesdays. All of these things expose me to the word of God, for which I am very zealous. What God has shown me, however, is that busyness and increased responsibility are not tantamount to spiritual growth and fruitfulness.
2 Peter 1 says that, giving all diligence, we are to add to our faith virtue. Later in the passage, Peter promises that those who do these things will not be barren or unfruitful in Christ. I’m not saying that there has been no fruit in my walk with Christ in the last year, but what God showed me is that there is a great danger in hearing the word and failing to separate ourselves unto the work of receiving it to do it. The work of hearing, receiving, and doing the word begins with a sincere desire to know and to please Christ. Failing to separate ourselves unto this work puts us in the same dangerous position that the elders at Jerusalem found themselves in: having a fruitless walk with Christ that bears the illusion of victory and fruitfulness without the reality. From this position, we forget who we are in Christ and deceive ourselves.
Proverbs 18:1 Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.
“If I don’t position myself to be challenged by the word when I’m hearing it, I will fall into the same pattern of the elders”
In the last year, I have often failed to purpose to foster the desire to truly separate myself unto the work of knowing Christ. I get that that phrase is a mouthful, but God showed me that this whole business starts with being diligent to desire him above all others. Then, when I meet with the Lord alone or come to church, I need to be diligent to apply my heart unto the wisdom of his word that I’m hearing. To simply hear it is not enough. To mindlessly scribble notes on a notepad or fill in the blanks is not enough. I need to set my affection on him, hear him, receive him, and then walk it out with him.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, so I need to come ready to hear the word when I come to church—I need to apply my heart unto wisdom. If I don’t position myself to be challenged by the word when I’m hearing it, I will fall into the same pattern of the elders: the comfort of my flesh. I will simply stiffen my neck and let the words bounce off of my ears; I will let the words of God fall to the ground. Put simply: God forbid that I be content to fall into a pattern of showing up to church without a heart that is ready to meet with Christ and be challenged in my faith to do what God is showing our congregation.
On a somewhat different note, what about Paul? What about the man of God who wrote the letters to the church that we know and love? I don’t typically think of Paul as a man who is defensive (Acts 21:13), rejects the leading of the Spirit (v. 4), and refuses the wisdom of a multitude of counselors (v. 4, 11, 14). But Paul had within him such a deep and sorrowful longing for the salvation of his Jewish brethren that not only would he travel to Jerusalem in spite of red flags, he even says in Romans 9 that he could wish himself accursed from Christ for their souls.
Ok, so, a confession. I don’t have nearly as spiritual a reason as Paul to be as stubborn as I am, but my last name does mean “mule” (this is actually true), so there’s that. But in all seriousness, my flesh is contrary to the Spirit—it doesn’t want to be led by the Spirit of God. My flesh wants to defend itself and rationalize its selfishness rather than to submit to the revealed will of God. And speaking of a “multitude of counsellors,” every word of God is pure. Remember that bit about me going to church and Bible study and this and that? Every time I hear the word of God, I’m hearing perfect, godly counsel.
And if that weren’t good enough, every time my wife or Bible study leader or godly friends or pastor shares with me, I’m getting invaluable insight to take into prayerful consideration and compare with the word of God and with other counsel. Like Paul in this story, I tend to take the long way to get where God has me headed by failing to submit myself unto God. Rather than simply hearing and receiving the counsel of God’s word or of my brethren, I often opt to defend myself (internally or verbally), refuse to be persuaded for a time, or simply go my own way. As in Paul’s case, I’ve found myself on unnecessary detours that were simply not the best God had for me or for those he was seeking to minister to through me.
Proverbs 11:14 Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
“God is so faithful to work these things out of us as we simply choose to be with him”
I don’t know whether to be encouraged or discouraged by the fact that Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles and writer of our ministry handbook, was just as stubborn as me sometimes. But I do know that God is at work in my life and that, at the risk of contradicting what I said earlier, I have seen tremendous growth in this area over the years by simply showing up.
God is so faithful to work these things out of us as we simply choose to be with him and his people. We’re not always going to show up with a right heart, and we’re not always going to submit and obey the first time. Thankfully God is both willing and able to meet us where we’re at and launch us into a fruitful walk with him wherever we find ourselves. All we have to do is recognize our need for him and seek his face.
James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
David Muolo is a member at Midtown Baptist Temple and is a part of C&YA. He serves in Temple Worship and is a part of one of the UMKC Men’s Bible Studies.