Sermon: "The Church and Christian Home." Ac.12:1-12.
As most of you know, this chapter[, chapter 12 of the book of Acts,] is about Peter, who was rescued by God's hands. It might appear to you, that each time you read the same chapter, you find a new thing. In this chapter, my eyes always stop on verse 5, which says that the church was earnestly praying for Peter. However, this morning, verse 12 struck me to be particularly significant. The King Herod, in this chapter, is the son of the Herod who killed all the babies who were under two years old around the time that Jesus' birth was heralded. This king also followed his father in bad deeds. He persecuted both the followers of John and the followers of Jesus, and he killed John the Baptist. This morning, verse 12 has such a strong appeal to me. This verse shows, I think, what a Christian home really is. Reading this verse, I know a Christian home supplies help to people in need. After being freed, Peter remembered Mary's home. He went directly to her house for help. Do you Christians show your love to people who are in need? It should be good for people to remember Christian homes and visit you. In Japan, quite a few people go to shrines or temples or other people for help. We need to try to prepare ourselves for people who are in need or in trouble. Also, Mary's home was a place of prayer. There was a peace of God there all of the time. A great evangelist once said that the prayer of a Christian home is the strongest kind in the world! Ac.12:25. In this verse, we know that Mark(John) returned home after the mission with Saul and Barnabas. Here we can tell that a Christian home produces missionaries. Out of Christian homes we send out to the world our missionaries. There is a well-used pastor who wrote a book. In this book, he says Christians or Christian homes lie in the center of a circle that becomes bigger and bigger in society. Again this morning we are to consider why we are Christian, and why we were called by God into this time of history, and into this place in the world. Two weeks ago, we had a special speaker, Rev. Orita, who always says "we are running out of time!" We are loved by God, and we are allowed to do many things, but how much do we offer to God? It should be wonderful if we could offer the greatest and strongest prayer to God all the time.