Sermons Preached In Moody Texas

Moody-Leon United Methodist Church

Acts 2:42-47 (NRSV)

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

My brother and sister-in-law occasionally forward to me e-mails they receive from a daily devotional service called “Mountain Wings.” I want to share the story they shared this week. It is called “The Smell of Realization” and goes like this. Endnote

We are in Scottsdale, Arizona. C. Elijah, James and I are on vacation. We are three brothers in ministry who decided to take a vacation together each year. This year we chose to go to the desert, Phoenix, Arizona.

We arrived on Monday and checked into our hotel. It was a typical day. When we came back to the hotel after dinner, there was a smell in the air like an electrical fire.

“What’s that smell,” asked James, “something’s burning.”

“Maybe it’s someone burning wood in the fireplace,” I said. Our room had a fireplace so it was likely someone was burning logs. The thing was, it didn’t smell like logs burning.

“Maybe it’s coming from California,” C. Elijah answered.

“Do you know how far away that is?” I said, knowing that we were hundreds of miles away and that couldn’t be the source.

When we left the hotel the next morning, the electrical burning smell was still in the air. We went to the other side of the city, the smell was still there.

“That couldn’t be the same fireplace,” someone remarked, “something is burning in the city.”

The next day we moved to a different city, to the The Meridian Condos in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As we got out of the car and walked to the office with the awesome background of the mountains around us, our noses twitched as the same electrical burning smell laced the air.

As the clerk gave us our keys, I asked him, “What’s that burning smell? It was in Phoenix and the same smell is in Scottsdale.”

“That’s from the fires in San Diego.”

My mind reeled.

From San Diego! How in the world could that be? When we got in the car, I punched in route to San Diego in the portable GPS unit that I had to see exactly how far it was to San Diego. After a minute of calculating, the GPS flashed, 371 miles!

Smoke was traveling from 371 miles away. Smoke so strong that it made our noses wrinkle. 371 miles away!

It was a Mountain Wings Moment.

Sure, I knew about the fires in California, I had even published a subscriber’s story about the fires. I knew …but I didn’t know.

Stories in the news are abstract. We intellectually know them, but we don’t know them in our soul. It is distant, abstract, and in the back of our minds perhaps not as bad as the news makes it sound.

My nose wrinkled from the acrid smell of fires 371 miles away.

“What must it be like in San Diego?” I thought.

Many of the things in the world, the agonies, the heartbreaks, the hunger, the war, the fear, the hate, the strife, the injustices, the prejudice, the uncertainty of job future, the fear of a medical diagnosis, the concern for a wayward child, the violent, intoxicated, or unfaithful spouse, the long list of things that for some seem so far away, we don’t realize the full truth, until the smell of realization hits our noses.

Then it becomes real.

As I read this devotional message, I had been dealing with today’s scripture lesson from the book of Acts, and it hit me that there is a real connection here. This passage has been described by many as an ideal picture of worship in the early church. Thomas Long in a sermon he preached at Duke University Chapel some months ago referred to it as the report of a church historian who sees things through rose colored glasses. It is a picture of the church at its best. It is a picture of ideal worship. It is a picture of the ideal church.

The people are DEVOTED to the apostles’ teachings. They are devoted to fellowship, not just getting together but the kind of fellowship with one another that is transforming–the kind of fellowship that weaves our individual lives into a living tapestry. They are devoted to breaking bread together. They are devoted to prayer–the kind of prayer that leads to the Lord adding to their numbers daily.

Get the idea of the ideal? These people are not taking casually what they are taught. Fellowship is not something they do when they feel like it, but includes caring for one another. Breaking bread together is more important to them than satisfying a hunger. Prayer is something that is more than routine or occasional. They DEVOTED themselves. They gave themselves fully to the Lord. They gave themselves fully to each other.

These followers ate together with glad and generous hearts, praising God. Why would Luke describe these people as glad and generous? He is describing a fellowship of believers who eat together, pray together, worship together and learn together not out of a sense of obligation, habit or duty, but out of gratitude. These people came together because of Jesus. They shared a joy that comes with the assurance of living eternally with a Savior. They met a Savior. They were worshiping a Savior.

This week I was told by a woman in our community how she and her husband once believed that “being good” was enough to get to heaven. They were good people. They were raising good children. We too often leave the impression that being good is good enough. There may be someone here today that believes that being good is the important thing.

I first met that woman a couple of years ago because she was doing a good thing. I probably even thought she was doing a Christian thing. I met her before she knew her Savior. I failed to make that introduction. Today she and her husband serve, worship, fellowship, pray, and learn with glad and generous hearts in a place where they were introduced to Jesus.

This couple is a lot like the people Luke describes in the early church. Once they only knew intellectually about a man named Jesus. Then they came to KNOW Him. They were filled with awe! The smell of the realization of the love of God was theirs, and they came together with glad and generous hearts.

I hope and pray that you are here today to dedicate your Lord’s Acre offering with a glad and generous heart because you have smelled the realization of God’s love in your life. If not, we need to talk.

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