29 "Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. ³⁰ Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹ Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ ³² This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.

While in the back of my mind I have always known that our children are sponges in terms of how much they absorb from their environment around them, I have become a whole lot more aware now that I have responsibility for three of my own. Sometimes this can be a good thing. Sometimes, well, lets just say that our kids aren’t just soaking up the good stuff that we do. I think of Mandy and the fact that she now has her senior license and is able to get out on the road, and there have been more than a few occasions when I have thought as I have sat in the passenger’s seat, "oh my gosh, she drove that the exact same way that I would have" (for the sake of the innocent (and the guilty) I am not going to say if that particular ‘skill’ was a good or a bad one). I listen to Jim, and I am amazed at how words and phrases that are not his own emanate from beyond his lips, and I know as soon as he starts to say it that what I am hearing is a reflection of how I talk. And obviously Austin is at an age where he is taking in everything and kicking it right back at you reminding you of what you say, what you do, and how you do it. For example with Austin, he has begun to recognize where we are going when we are traveling in the van to the point that we will be heading north up Route 9, just beyond Hannaford, and if I step on the break even a little, let alone turn right to head to the M&T Bank, he’s yelling out, "Ice cream! Ice cream!" He’s not even three and he already knows where Holy Cow Ice Cream is located. Don’t tell me that we don’t have an amazing influence on those who are around us, because I’ve got a two year old demanding ice cream from his car seat that tells me different.

I don’t know if Peter had the thought, "what is going to be said through me today is going to be an influence for Christians for the rest time." My guess is that it wasn’t. However, the fact that we are here almost 2000 years later shows to me that what he said and did was incredibly influential, not just for the people who were listening on that first Pentecost, but for us here today.

And why was he influential? Because he was willing to stand up for what he knew to be true. As he said at the end of the scripture that we heard, "This Jesus God raised up, … of that all of us are witnesses." He was a witness to the resurrection and he was willing to model for the generations of believers who were to follow how they should stand up and profess their belief This was an expectation for all of the apostles, to go out "into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that [Jesus had] commanded [them]." (Matthew 28:19-20a). Standing up and modeling their faith commitment was not optional, or something that could be done when easy or convenient: it was the great expectation of God as articulated through the Messiah, the one whom we worshipped but a few days ago as the one who was raised from the dead. Modeling faith was an expectation.

Now when we have that sort of a lead in, many of you may be thinking that I’m going to plunge into the waters of, "be like Peter." I’m not. None of us are Peter and to ask you to try and walk in his shoes and be the sort of influence to the world of Christendom that he always will be, is impossible.

However, that doesn’t mean that your influence, through the way that you model your faith, isn’t any less important. Your influence may not be upon the totality of the world, but it is on display for your co-workers, your friends and family, your children, your spouse, and that influence can be utterly profound. That is God’s great expectation for each one of us.

If your looking for examples, here you go. First off: prayer. Praying is one of those activities that scares most us to no end. We don’t know the words to say; we don’t how to get started; we don’t want to miss something or someone. It scares us so much that even dinner grace has been shrunk down to something that is regurgitated by rote. And I’m no exception: what we say around the table is God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.

Now for kids, that sort of a prayer is fantastic, because it gets them offering thanks to God. But think about what that models to our children when that is, quite possibly, the only prayer that they hear us as adults, as parents, ever say. All of a sudden, prayer becomes something that only the minister, or someone elevated in the family structure says. Take dinner as an opportunity to model what your faith means to you.

Last Sunday I had someone come up to me and ask what an appropriate Eater dinner grace might be. (I can honestly say, that was the first time I have ever had anyone come up to me and ask that sort of a question.) I took a second and said, "thank God for the reason you are gathering, for both the family and friends who are gathered as well as those who couldn’t be there, and that the food might be blessed to your body so that you might have the strength to serve as God has called you to do." My feeling is that if we start with that simple sort of prayer whenever we gather at the dinner table, not only will your kids begin to see what it means to live out your faith but that you personally will begin to feel more secure in the act praying so that when a need arises, you feel like your faith can be implemented in that way. Prayer is one of the great expectations of our faith. Let’s model it for ourselves and for all those around us.

Another avenue of modeling your faith is through your level of commitment. I know our lives are busy, but we’re the ones who set the priorities as to what gets done and what doesn’t. There are too many of us who are modeling for the world a faith that comes to church on Sunday and is put to bed by early Sunday afternoon. One of the big reasons why the mainline church is struggling today is that it became satisfied with having members that showed up on Sunday mornings and that was it. Faith is so much more than what happens between 9:15 and 10:15. Faith is finding ways to serve your neighbor when a need is expressed. Faith is saying, "we’re going to help out at People’s Place or go on the Mission Trip (and not head to that soccer game or go on that extended vacation) because service is not an option, it is an expectation." Faith is taking the time to attend a Bible Study, or read the Bible at home, because we know that in doing so, we have the opportunity to hear the voice of God speak to us in new and different ways. Commitment is one of the great expectations of our faith. Let’s model it for ourselves and for all those around us.

If you’re looking for another area, look no further than forgiveness. Our faith demands that we reach out beyond our comfort zone, and the biggest place that we get caught in the trap of settling into what is comfortable is in regards to forgiveness. I can’t tell you the number of people, whom I consider to be good people, who won’t talk to someone because of an unresolved dispute, because of the fact that forgiveness has not been offered. Or even worse, they will talk about how important forgiveness is when they’re in circles of people of faith, but once their beyond those circles, well, then their life shows something completely different.

What sort of an example are we setting if we say that we are Christians and then we are unwilling to forgive those who have wronged us, or admit that we were wrong and offer our most sincere apologies? If we’re not willing to forgive and confess so that we might have the opportunity to be forgiven, then what we’re showing to those around us is that it’s optional. It’s not! Forgiveness for those who have wronged us, and owning up to our own sinful wrongs is one of the great expectations of our faith. Let’s model it for ourselves and for all those around us.

There are way too many days when it feels like too many of us are taking our faith for granted, and using it like a commodity that can be bought or sold at our discretion, allowing it to appear when its convenient and shoving it back into some corner when it doesn’t fit the environment that we happen to be in. That is not the great expectation that God has for us as we move beyond these walls out into the worlds of which we are a part. God expects us to model to those who are around us (our co-workers, our friends, our families, our kids, and our spouses) what it means to walk toward God. If I have learned nothing else from having children, I have learned how much they are paying attention and learning how to live because of how I live. I know that I have had those same sorts of thoughts as I have looked to other preachers and professionals whom I look up to: much of who I am is in response to some influence of modeling that I had.

I’m not saying that we’re going to be perfect. We’re sinful creatures. We are going to fall short. But even when we fall short we have the opportunity to model to those around us what it means to own up to what we have done and through confession, seek restoration. There are great expectations that come along with your faith. Peter knew this. We know this. As we talked about this morning, prayer, commitment, and forgiveness are three prominent places where we can begin to allow those expectations to develop into reality. And they can be. We have the Lord God Almighty on our side. We can pray! We can set good priorities and stay committed to them! We can learn how to forgive (and be forgiven)! Strive to great expectations of God. Strive for them. Don’t settle. Step out in faith and allow your faith to modeled to all those you know.

Holy and gracious God, as people who profess our belief in Your Son as the risen Christ, there are great expectations as to how we should live in the world. There have been days when we have lived up to these expectations. There are others, many others, when we have not. We pray that Your Spirit might work in us to strive toward these great expectations so that what we model to the world, to our children, is of You and You alone. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.