Disturbance

 "There arose a great disturbance about the way." Acts 19:23....."Society rarely gets nervous about the power of our lifestyle. Why? Maybe it's because we don't often live with power or we desperately want to fit into our culture...There are not many disturbances about the Way in our cities." Chris Tiegreen

Here's a clear truth: If we're going to live in the power and witness of the lifestyle Christ saved us for and calls us to, our lives will cause a "disturbance" in the places where we live. This truth is distinctly uncomfortable for many professing believers. We want to be peacekeepers, but it's a peace that comes from compromise, not from the presence of Christ. We don't want to offend, and we don't want to drive anyone off. Our witness and words should never be of the sort that makes personal attacks, or resorts to any kind of violent demonstration. However, we need to realize that if we're going to live in the fullness of His Life, and proclaim and live all of what is involved in that Life, we are going to disturb many. We're going to disturb most. We're going to do so because what we represent is going to be in direct contrast and opposition to the ways and values of the world. Nowhere was this more evident than in the city of Ephesus.

Ephesus was not only a great center of idol worship, particularly of the goddess Artemis, but also of the industry of the crafting of the idols to be worshiped. Great profit was made by the production of these idols by the silver and goldsmiths of the city. Paul, and others had been very active in proclaiming the Gospel and hundreds, even thousands were being converted. They were turning away from their idols and to the Living God. They were proclaiming and living out a New Way. His Way. This hit the makers of idols economically, and their response was violent. Riots broke out.

We don't have any record of all of Paul's sermons here, but the witness of his writing would be that he didn't directly attack the craftsmen or those who worshipped these idols. Neither did he direct the brunt of His message to the hedonistic lifestyle of the majority of the city's residents. He simply proclaimed Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That no one comes unto God but through Him. He also preached a message of holiness, of a coming out of the dirt and captivity of the world, the devil who worked through it, and into the fullness of the Kingdom of God. It was a radical message proclaimed by those who lived radically holy lives. It turned the world upside down. It turned Ephesus upside down. It still will. It still does. Do we proclaim and give witness to such a message? More, do we actually live out the message? Do you? Do I?

Tiegreen writes, "God frequently puts His people in the middle of a storm in order to show the world who we are and who He is." We are seeing God do exactly that right now . What is the world seeing in us? Who will they see that our God is? Great and Mighty? Greater and mightier than all the power of the enemy and the world system he operates through? Will they see a church and people living in the power of a resurrected life? Or will they see a timid church and people afraid to offend, desperate to keep a peace that is no peace at all? All around us are people dying in their sin. Will we dare to live such lives as to disturb their steady journey to destruction, or remain quiet, and then have to account to the Father as to why we did?

For some time now, the western church has preached and lived a costless, crossless faith. That time is ending, and that message has no power. It never did, and it was never a message from His heart. Someone said that as the world around us grows darker, it needs to see a people, a church, grow brighter with His Light and Life. His Light and Life will collide with a world locked in darkness and death. We cannot fear the collision, and we must know that there will be a cost to us in it. In the wonderful "Lord Of The Rings," trilogy, Frodo tells his uncle Bilbo that he has been labeled a "Disturber of the peace." Such a label will be put on His people in these last days as we live lives that expose the false peace of the world and the death it brings by inches. He disturbs the Deceiver and those he holds prisoner in the dark. So must we.

Blessings,

Pastor O