It is a Prayer

A Lukewarm coffee sits beside my computer in the bagel shop.

Cars pass by the window, driven by people I only glimpse.

A smell of burnt toast wafts through the air.

A running man passes the shop window.

There’s a quick bang of a pan or two behind me in the kitchen.

A customer in nursing attire stirs creamer into her coffee at the counter. She has a black headband.

The coffee equipment is making an electrical, rattling noise.

An elderly couple graze over their food. They have careful hair; she with thick make up, and him with a shirt buttoned to his neck.

The workers are bantering at the end of their shift.

I have a message and a mandate of which to tell them.  Where do I begin?

It is a prayer.

Visible Grace

Acts 11:23 “When he (Barnabas) came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.”

Grace is like air, gravity, coldness, or amoebas.  You don’t readily see these things, but they certainly exist.

There are aspects of God and other theological terms we don’t expect to be visible.  Grace is one of them.  However, when Barnabas came to Antioch it says he “saw the Grace of God.”  It is the only place in Scripture where this phrase is used.  What did he see at Antioch which made grace appear from the shadows? What was it that enthused him to go back and get Paul?

Before we answer that, I had an intriguing thought while reading the passage.  What if Barnabus came to the church I worship with?  Would he see the Grace of God?  What if he came to your church -  would he see the Grace of God?  Just what is it about a church that make’s God’s grace become visible: the name on the sign – Grace Fellowship Church?  The type of music or the clothes people wear?  How about the “associations” it cooperates with?  Just what is it about a church that would make someone say, “I saw the Grace of God in that place”?

I believe the passage makes it clear. We see four characteristics of a church with visible grace:

1 – Jesus’ name was being lifted up.  The passage says they were, “…preaching the Lord Jesus.”  The name of Jesus Christ was being communicated to everyone: Jews and Greeks.  He was being spoken about out in the open, regardless of the crowd. They were bold and direct about sharing the name of Christ.

2 – Faith: people were being converted.  The passage says, “…and a great number believed and turned to the Lord (v21).” People were being saved by the message being communicated.  The Holy Spirit was moving and people were believing on Christ.  It was obvious to all who were in the proximity.

3 – Teaching of the Word of God.  After Barnabus came, the first thing he did was to send for a “teacher”, namely Paul.  It says, “…they assembled with the church and taught a great many people (v26).”  The teaching, studying, and learning of the Scriptures were important in this place of visible grace.

4 – Testimony.  Verse 26 makes an important statement, “And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”  The community saw these followers living for Christ and called them “Christians”.  This was a label given to them by outsiders not themselves.  The people watching what was going on gave them the most appropriate term they could imagine, Christians, which in essence meant: little Christs.

I recently shared with our church that I would like us to be known as “living out loud!”   That is, living our “faith” out loud.  Not “out weird”; but OUT LOUD.  This is what comes to mind when I read about the church at Antioch.  They were known for what was happening in their midst.  People were attracted to it; hearing the message; getting saved and joining the work.

If a church lifts up Jesus, helps people come to faith, studies the Word, and has a bold testimony – I think they will experience “visible Grace.”  May God raise up churches in our community, including ours, that are “living out loud” for Christ.

Classic Conversion Stories: A.W. Tozer

“We had a neighbor by the name of Holman.  I do not know his first name or initials.  He was just Mr. Holman.  He lived next door to us. I had heard that he was a Christian, but he never talked to me about Christ.”

“Then one day I was walking up the street with this friendly neighbor.  Suddenly, he put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I have been wondering about you.  I have been wondering if you are a Christian, if you are converted.  I just wanted the chance to talk it over with you.’”

“‘No, Mr. Holman,’ I answered, ‘I am not converted, but I thank you for saying this to me.  I am going to give it some serious thought.’”

Late one afternoon in 1915 – three years after arriving in Akron-as he walked home from work, Aiden noticed a small crowd of people gathered on the opposite side of the street.  They were clustered around an older man who seemed to be talking to them.  Not being able to hear what the man was saying, Aiden crossed the street to satisfy his curiosity.

At first, the man’s speech did not make any sense to Aiden.  He spoke with a strong German accent, and Aiden had to listen carefully to catch what the man was saying.  Finally, it dawned on Aiden. The man was preaching!  Preaching, right out on the street corner!  ‘Doesn’t this man have a church to preach in?’ Aiden thought to himself. ‘And it isn’t even Sunday! Why is he so excited?’ But as Aiden listened, the words of the elderly street preacher began to find their mark in his young heart.

The preacher startled Aiden. “If you don’t know how to be saved, just call on God, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner,’ and God will hear you.”

Those words burned in Aiden’s heart. He could not get the voice of the preacher out of his mind.  As he slowly walked home, he thought over what the man had said.  Never before had he heard words like those.  They troubled him.  They awakened within him a gnawing hunger for God.

Saved. If you don’t know how to be saved…just call on God…’God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’

When Aiden arrived home, he went straight to the attic, where he could be alone to think this out for himself and to wrestle with God.  No one knows all that transpired in the Tozer attic that afternoon in 1915. But Aiden Wilson Tozer emerged a new creation in Christ Jesus.  His pursuit of God had begun.

Aiden’s conversion to Christ was a transforming experience in every way.  Inclined to be cynical, he thought nothing of turning to agnostics or even to atheists for counsel.  Suddenly, his entire life as radically and wonderfully redirected.  A whole new world had opened up to this youth with unbounded intellectual curiosity.  It was a world that would take him a lifetime and more to explore fully.

In later years he would say of himself that as a young man he was so ignorant it was a wonder the top of his head did not cave in from sheer emptiness.  From the moment of his conversion, however, Aiden had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a ravenous hunger for God.

The Tozer household was crowded with eight family members plus boarders. Aiden had to find the time and place to get alone with God, time for prayer and Bible reading and study.  In the basement there was a small unused space behind the furnace. Aiden claimed it, cleaned it and made it comfortable.  It was a refuge where he could get away from everything and everyone and literally spend hours in prayer, study and meditation.

Long years later Essie remembered how at first, when she would go down the cellar stairs for canned goods, she could hear frightful groaning coming from behind the furnace.  Soon she came to recognize the sound as that of her younger brother wrestling with God in prayer.  For Aiden, it became a lifetime habit. Nothing would take the place of knowing God firsthand.

Excerpted from, “In Pursuit of God, The Life of A.W. Tozer”, by James L. Snyder, pp 35-38, Christian Publications: Camp Hill, PA, 1991 (with permission)