When did God last surprise you? When did God last answer your prayers even though you weren’t really expecting Him to? When did you last learn something really new and exciting in a sermon, or at Home Group, or in your daily Bible reading? When did you last get transported into the presence of God in worship? When did God last overwhelm you by His love, or joy, or peace? When did God last surprise you?
We all enjoy surprises. The unexpected letter or telephone call from an old friend. The unusual birthday gift. The person we were hoping to see who we happen to bump into. The delicious new recipe we discover. The film or book with the unexpected twist in the ending. Surprises bring interest and excitement into the routines and the chores of life.
It is as well that people enjoy being surprised, because God is certainly the God Who surprises! Nobody expected the events of the Christmas story, a virgin pregnant, angels appearing, God born as a human being.
Jesus’s ministry too was full of surprises. Think of all His miracles. Sight for the blind. Deaf hearing. Dumb speaking. Lame walking. Lepers cured. The dead raised! Storms calmed. 5000 families fed with 5 loaves and 2 fishes! Then think too about the amazing claims Jesus made: `I am the light of the world’; `I am the way, the truth and the life’.
The only reason we are not surprised by the parables Jesus told is that we have heard them before – we know the punch-lines. But who could have expected the loving Father to welcome back the Prodigal Son? How incredible that the example of a loving neighbour is not the religious leader but the hated racial enemy, the Samaritan. And how ridiculous that God should forgive, not the goody-goody Pharisee, but instead the lowest of the low, the professional thief, the tax collector, because he is the one who repents.
The first Easter was astonishing – the Son of God was not crowned as King but crucified for blasphemy! But then the greatest surprise of all, the triple whammy, the tomb is empty, the body has gone, and Jesus is risen from the dead!! Nobody expected THAT happy ending!!
And the Resurrection of Jesus Christ wasn’t the end of the story but just the beginning. Because very soon after that on the Day of Pentecost God’s surprises began to break into the lives of all kinds of ordinary disciples everywhere.
Acts 2:1 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 ¶ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
And the surprises continued! 2:42 ¶ They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
Acts 5:12 ¶ The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. … 14 , more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.
16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.
If you look through the book of Acts at how they did evangelism in the Early Church what you find is that the outreach of the first Christians was not primarily due to their powerful preaching nor even to pastoral care in the love which the Christians showed to one another. Their evangelism stemmed from the fact that God was visibly present and manifested in power amongst those first Christians.
We see the same kinds of surprises in the church around the world even today as the Holy Spirit continues His work. We Western Christians often rely on “good deeds”, loving our neighbours and serving the community, to back up the preaching of the gospel. There is a great hunger for “spiritual things” in the world around. But people are turning to the New Age and the Occult for spiritual experiences rather than to the churches. In contrast, Pentecostal Christians expecially in the Third World expect God to act in “signs and wonders”. Most Western churches are slowly declining but Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches around the world are growing.
The book we call the Acts of the Apostles should really be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It contains more than 30 passages talking about supernatural events which demonstrated God’s presence and saving power. God working miracles and acts of deliverance. God guiding by prophesies and words of knowledge. These were the foundation for the apostles’ preaching. WE should expect to SEE and HEAR and EXPERIENCE God’s presence in our church much more than we do!! Because the Christian God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Church, our God, is truly the `God of surprises’.
The Risen Christ promised that healing and miracles were to be signs of the growing church. Mark 16:15-20. Jesus said “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons … they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” … Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
All this should leave us in no doubt that our own Christian lives and our church life together will have plenty of surprises. We should expect the unexpected. If God has not surprised us recently something is missing, something is wrong. Looking back over the last few months, if God has not said something new to us, or touched our lives powerfully, or met with us in some unexpected way in worship, we have to ask, `why not?’
Sometimes, without ever meaning to be or wanting to be, we can be closed to God so that he cannot surprise us! Some people like to have their religion all sown up so there are no surprises. Some people try to keep God in a box so that He can never break out and disturb their lives. But that is not the Christian God. One book about the Holy Spirit has a very appropriate title, `God the Disturber’. There is a folk song about Pentecost and God the Holy Spirit which begins like this.
`Catch the bird of heaven. Lock Him in a cage of gold.
Look again tomorrow. And He will be gone.
Ah the bird of heaven. Follow where the bird has gone.
Ah, the bird of heaven. Keeps on travelling on.’
We can’t keep God in a box! Some people dislike surprises because they are afraid of change. This can happen as we grow older. But we are never too old for God to surprise us. Abraham was 75 years old when God called him to leave his home and receive new and wonderful blessings. Moses was 80 when he met God at the Burning Bush and God called him lead the people of Israel to freedom and the promised land.
Some people are scared of God’s surprises because they can sometimes be overwhelming. But the Bible stories of when people met with God in remarkable ways are not written to terrify us so much as to excite us and inspire us. Yes, meeting with Almighty Eternal God is going to be scary! But God only reveals Himself to us to bless us, not to harm us. Just one example is the overwhelming experience Daniel had which we heard about in this morning’s reading.
Daniel; 10:5 I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold round his waist. 6 His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude. 8 I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. 9 Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground. 10 ¶ A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.
Some Christians believe that they have met with God in way’s similar to Daniel. It’s been happening in Pentecostal Churches for a century and they’ve called the experience “being slain in the Spirit!” It spread to mainstream churches in the Charismatic Renewal of the 1970s and was a feature of what was called the Toronto Blessing in the 1990s. I think I prefer the term, “resting in the Spirit”. I know many Christians who have had such an experience (and usually not once but many times) and who testify that it has been a great blessing to them. What happened to them sounds very similar to what happened to Daniel.
15 … I bowed with my face towards the ground and was speechless. 16 Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak. … “I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I am helpless. 17 How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe.” 18 Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. 19 “Do not be afraid, O man highly esteemed,” he said. “Peace! Be strong now; be strong.” When he spoke to me, I was strengthened.”
I wonder how you react when you hear of people who claim to have had similar experiences of falling down or “resting in the Spirit”? Would you welcome God or would you resist God if He wanted to touch your lives in such ways?
The apostle John had a similar overwhelming encounter with God in Revelation 1.
Rev 1:17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid.
We need never be afraid of God’s surprises. God loves us so much that His surprises, however unexpected and disturbing, always lead us on to greater blessing. We’ve been singing recently.
`He longs to do much more than our faith has yet allowed,
To thrill us and surprise us with His sovereign power.’
God is able, and indeed longs `to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.’ (Ephesians 3:20). So let us all invite God to surprise us – and see what happens!
But you may be saying, I would love God to surprise me, but it doesn’t seem to happen? How can I open my life up to God so that He will thrill and surprise me with His love and power. Nothing complicated here, no surprises, just some simple truths.
We need obedience. Conscientiously doing what God has already told us he wants us to do.
We need faith. Trusting God to work in our lives, stepping out in faith and inviting God to surprise us. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus – but to trust and obey.
We need worship in Spirit and in Truth. Offering God the first and the best in our worship to Him and inviting Him to break in and surprise us.
And we need prayer. Not so much a shopping list of asking prayers as time spent seeking God’s face in listening prayer. If we want God to surprise us, we need to spend time seeking Him in prayer. Remember the experience of Elijah the worn-out prophet on Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.
1 Kings 19:11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
Not for Elijah the earthquake, the wind and the fire, but the still small voice of calm.
Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” God speaks in a quiet voice. He will not raise His voice to be heard by us. He requires us to be quiet if we wish to hear Him. But so often our busyness gets in the way of us hearing God. Firstly, we are too busy to make time to listen to God. But secondly, our busyness (even in Christian activities!) can leave us complacent so that we feel that we do not need to listen to God. We must “be still”!
The God of surprises is longing to surprise us.
`He longs to do much more than our faith has yet allowed,
To thrill us and surprise us with His sovereign power.’
Here is God’s gracious invitation in Jeremiah 29:11-13
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Spirit of the Living God – fall afresh on me.
