A son called from out of state to check with his mother to see how she was doing. His mother, a widow, lived alone. So he called regularly to stay in touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you, Mom?\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m fine, but the pipe under the kitchen sink broke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you get it fixed?\u201d \u201cNo, the plumber said it would cost $305.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, I\u2019ll send three hundred dollars right away.\u201d \u201cThanks, son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, bye.\u201d \u201cAnd, son?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, mom?\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t worry about the other five dollars. I\u2019ll find a way to pay for it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

A great cultural prophet once wryly noted that \u201cno good deed goes unpunished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again and again, over and over, it seems that only those who stick their necks out get their heads chopped off.\u00a0 And people wonder that we are cocooning in an increasingly cloistered and anonymous society?<\/p>\n

Technology is making it easier than ever to keep everyone at arm\u2019s length \u2013 for the sake of our own safety, of course.\u00a0 Instead of attending a party or risking a blind date, we meet prospective friends in on-line \u2018chat rooms\u2019 \u2013 where your identity remains as secret as you want it to be.<\/p>\n

Instead of going on shopping excursions where we get out into the real world and deal face to face with actual people, we use Amazon \u2013 never leaving our own living rooms.\u00a0 Even when we are moved to do good for others, to reach out to another, isn\u2019t it far easier to write a check than to volunteer to be actually present?\u00a0 It is safer to offer money than to offer a smile, to offer an opinion, to offer a shoulder to cry on.<\/p>\n

No one knew this more, and yet disregarded it so massively, as did Jesus.\u00a0 Jesus flouted social convention and stuck his neck out when he talked freely with a Samaritan (and a woman Samaritan at that [John 4:7-26]), when he welcomed women of ill-repute and tax collectors to his table (Matthew 11:19), when he reached out to those groups most opposed to him: to Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36) and a member of the ruling elite, Nicodemus (John 3:1).<\/p>\n

Like his Savior before him, Paul\u2019s penchant for proclaiming the truth, for plowing into the middle of prickly fields, for refusing to compromise the claims of the gospel to better suit the whims and wishes of his first-century world, stands out in page after page of the biblical drama.\u00a0 It was Paul\u2019s willingness to stick his neck out that helped establish a worldwide church from out of a handful of confused Jewish and Gentile believers.\u00a0 But his stick-the-neck-out actions and attitudes also earned Paul a lot of jail time.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Lesson from the Acts of the Apostles is only one example of how Paul could go from preaching to prison with just one sermon.\u00a0 In fact, he did this so often we might describe the phenomenon as \u201cThe Paul Principle.\u201d\u00a0 That is, if you speak the truth, you should be prepared for whatever comes: either adulation or accusation, loving or loathing, thrones or prisons, recovery or relapse, plaudits or audits.\u00a0 When Paul recognized that the spirit possessing the young girl was confusing his listeners and drawing attention away from the gospel, Paul banished that spirit using the power of Jesus\u2019 name.<\/p>\n

Paul risked the truth \u2013 and was prepared for the consequences.\u00a0 Who hasn\u2019t heard of \u201cThe Peter Principle\u201d \u2013 the notion that everyone will eventually be elevated to the level of their incompetence?\u00a0 The Paul Principle means the better you are at proclaiming your witness and speaking the truth, the better your chances are of finding yourself swimming in a very large kettle of hot water.<\/p>\n

How many of us are willing to do the same – to speak a word of truth without expecting any reward, in fact knowing full well both you and your message will be rejected, ridiculed, maybe even relocated?<\/p>\n

When your concern for an addicted coworker leads to an intervention, don\u2019t expect him to thank you.\u00a0 Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.<\/p>\n

When you lunge at your three-year-old and bat her hand away from a hot stovetop, don\u2019t expect her to thank you.\u00a0 Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.<\/p>\n

When you confront your best friend with evidence that he is cheating on his wife, don\u2019t expect him to thank you.\u00a0 Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.<\/p>\n

When you point out the illegal practices or immoral attitudes present within your company, don\u2019t expect your boss to thank you.\u00a0 Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.<\/p>\n

When you call out \u201cthe emperor has no clothes,\u201d don\u2019t expect emperors to thank you.<\/p>\n

Back when I was a deputy sheriff, I was sent on many a disturbance call.\u00a0 At one of these, the wife met us at the door and complained that her husband had been beating her again.\u00a0 A fellow deputy and I went into the house.\u00a0 When we confronted the husband, the fight was on.\u00a0 After a rather spirited tussle and roll-around on the kitchen floor, we cuffed him and stuffed him into my patrol car.<\/p>\n

The wife was indignant.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you doing?\u00a0 I just wanted him out of the house.\u00a0 If you take him to jail, he can\u2019t go to work in the morning.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t have the money to bail him out!\u201d<\/p>\n

As the old saying goes: No good deed goes unpunished.<\/p>\n

How does one hold nothing back in life and still survive \u201cThe Paul Principle\u201d?\u00a0 Paul himself kept his focus on the truth by adopting an attitude post-moderns have short-handed in the mantra: Praise, blame, all the same.<\/p>\n

Paul didn\u2019t depend on the feedback he got from his listeners for his sense of purpose and vision for the future.\u00a0 If he had, the apostle would have quickly given up his ministry in despair.\u00a0 But Paul knew that doing good really is its own reward.\u00a0 It has to be, for the chances of someone\u2019s praising you, blessing you, rewarding you for doing good and speaking the truth are increasingly rare in this world.\u00a0 The reward Paul looked for was not in this world, but in the next.\u00a0 The power of a boldly spoken truth is that it has an extremely long fuse.\u00a0 If need be, the fuse of truth can reach across the other side of eternity.<\/p>\n

Paul and Silas receive the blame for putting a stop to the slave girl\u2019s soothsaying.\u00a0 When she decides to follow God, her employers lose money.\u00a0 Later, the missionaries receive praise for invoking that same Savior\u2019s name during their earthquake sing-along from the depths of their prison cell.\u00a0 Praise?\u00a0 Blame?\u00a0 It was all the same to Paul.\u00a0 It was all the same truth spoken, all the same gospel proclaimed, all the same Spirit manifested that kept Paul in and out of trouble.<\/p>\n

Each time he entered a new community, Paul knew his words might land him in prison.\u00a0 Each time he entered a new prison cell, Paul knew the gospel message might earn him a death sentence.\u00a0 Each year that he endured yet another round of conflicts, criticisms, cruelties, and curses, Paul knew his body was more frail, the beatings more damaging, the prison floors colder, the days of freedom shorter.<\/p>\n

But praise and blame remained all the same for Paul.\u00a0 He concerned himself not with his own position.\u00a0 His eyes were fully fixed on that flaming fuse of truth that was burning into the future.\u00a0 He knew that the foundations of this world are out of this world. Do we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A son called from out of state to check with his mother to see how she was doing. His mother, a widow, lived alone. So he called regularly to stay in touch. \u201cHow are you, Mom?\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m fine, but the pipe under the kitchen sink broke.\u201d \u201cDid you get it fixed?\u201d \u201cNo, the plumber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n