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The following message is delivered by Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. Today's sermon is entitled "Great Gates." The scripture reading of the morning is from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the twelfth chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered twelve.

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When Peter realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate,

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but ran in and told that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, "You are mad," but she insisted that it was so. They said, "It is his angel." But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.

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But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, "Tell this to James and to the brethren." Then he departed and went to another place.

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And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Peter and James had been arrested by Herod Agrippa. James was almost immediately executed, and Peter was scheduled to be killed. The Christians of the community had gathered together, praying that Peter might be saved. And their prayer was answered.

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An angel came to Peter in prison and led him to freedom. As soon as he is released, Peter goes immediately to the house of Mary. Now Mary was the mother of the John Mark who wrote the gospel according to Mark. She evidently was a woman of considerable wealth and power.

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We do know that her house was the headquarters for the Christians in first century Jerusalem. It is very likely that the upper room in which Christ celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples was in the house of Mary. And it is almost certain that on that day when the whole house was filled as with the sound of the rushing of a mighty wind, on Pentecost, that house that was filled, that place where the disciples were, was the house of Mary.

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Now when Peter gets there, he knocks on the gateway. And a servant girl named Rhoda comes and asks who is there. Peter identifies himself. And she is overjoyed at hearing that Peter is there, that he has somehow been released.

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And she rushes back in to tell the praying Christians what has happened. And amazingly enough, they don't believe her. They say to her at first, "You must be crazy." And then when that argument does not prevail, they say, "Perhaps it is his angel."

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There was a belief in first century Judaism that when a person died, that person's guardian angel appeared briefly on earth at the time that the soul departed to be in heaven. So they're suggesting by the reference to the angel that Peter is already dead. It's really a rather comic situation.

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Here they are praying for the release of Peter, and here he is knocking at the door, and they're arguing about whether it's really Peter or not. But Peter keeps on knocking, and eventually they open the door, and to their amazement and great joy, there he stands. And he comes into them and tells them his story.

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Now the trail that winds through this little story is a very interesting one. And there are many roadside rest stops where we would want to sit a while and ponder the view to our prophet. But because our time is very short, let me just mention to you a few things that we need to learn from this story. The first I would sum up in the single word, participation.

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Notice that when Peter is released from prison, he doesn't flee Jerusalem. But to the contrary, he goes immediately to be with the other Christians. He understands, you see, the power of the faith partnership. He knows what it is to experience positivity in one's own life because one associates with other positive people.

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I think we all understand how we are influenced by the company that we keep. Take a man like Einstein. He was often described as the isolated genius of Princeton. And yet Einstein was not isolated. He said that most of his discoveries he made while standing on the shoulders of others.

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And at another place in his journals, he notes, "Our outer and our inner lives are built on the efforts of others." He recognized the influence of others on his experience. Go to another area. Go to Lefty Gomez, the great pitcher of the American League. Someone asked him to what he attributed his success as a pitcher.

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And he replied, "I attribute my success to the fact that I had a very fast outfield." He knew it was important to have those good people behind him. Someone asked John D. Rockefeller on one occasion to what he attributed his success in business. And he replied, "My success is due to the fact that I have surrounded myself with excellent people."

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The company that we keep either lifts us or lowers us. We are with people who energize us and vitalize us, do us good. Or we are with people who paralyze us and hypnotize us, doing us no good. And this teaches us that we should avoid fellowship with doleful, dull, discouraging, disappointed personalities,

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both inside and outside the church. We are to be with those who empower us. Now, the second thing to notice in the story might be summed in a single word also. And this word is anticipation, which means simply you either plan ahead or you will be left behind.

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Rhoda goes to the door when she hears the knocking. She recognizes Peter's voice and she's thrilled. And she runs to tell the others who are gathered there praying the good news. But meanwhile, she leaves Peter standing in the street.

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And the soldiers of Herod Agrippa are probably already in those streets with their torches and their spears, trying to find the escaped prisoner, Peter. In other words, in Rhoda's enthusiasm, she displays some very poor judgment. It's important to have enthusiasm in our lives.

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It's important to have a certain dynamic aggressiveness in our experiences. This is good. But our enthusiasm and our dynamism is always to be disciplined. That is, it is to be mixed with thought and planning, not with cynicism, but with anticipation.

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You know, there are a lot of people that as soon as you come to them with a new idea, they immediately start thinking of the problems that are going to be created by that idea. Now, that's cynical. One ought not to focus on one's problems.

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There probably had been more good ideas wasted and lost in this world by negative thinking people who focused on their problems than for many other single source. You see, when you focus on your problems, that promotes indecision within you. And indecision in turn promotes anxiety.

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The biblical principle is to decide, to act, but then to plan and anticipate for what one knows will follow. It's a principle of balance. The Bible says at one place, "Take no thought for tomorrow." There's a call to aggressive, no-holds-barred enthusiasm.

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But the Bible also says, "Which one of you, if he is going to build a tower, does not first sit down and plan out how he will pay for it?" You see, there needs to be that enthusiasm, and once that has been demonstrated, then there must be careful and anticipation of what comes after.

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Charles Kettering was chief of research for General Motors for many years. And back in the 1920s, the single difficulty in producing cars, which slowed down the mass production process more than any other thing, was the fact that it took 37 days to paint a new car.

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The paint was put on brushstroke by brushstroke. Now, this was much too long to move those production lines as they wanted to be moved. And so Kettering gave to his associates the task of cutting the number of days in which it took to paint a new automobile.

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He said, "I want you to cut it, and I want you to cut it hard." Well, his associates went to work, but they made a mistake. Because what they did was to begin to focus on the problems they encountered in the existing process. They didn't consider any new processes.

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No room for any new ideas. They kept working over and over the same thing. And as a result, at the end of the time allotted to them, they had cut only seven days off the painting time, from 37 to 30.

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At this point, Kettering decided to take on the problem for himself. His approach was altogether different. He announced the day he took the problem that he was going to cut the painting time down to one day. He announced that publicly for everyone to hear.

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Now, when you put yourself on the line like that, there's tremendous motivating power in that. He put himself in the place where he had to produce. And then, having put himself in that place, having decided, he began to anticipate, not the same old problems, but new angles, new approaches, new ways in which to solve this mystery.

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And he set to work. The problems became spurs to his creativity. And at the end of the time he had allotted himself, he had cut the painting time down to less than one day, to one hour. He developed the famous Duco paint finish.

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Incidentally, there's an interesting story that came out of that. He took his associates out to lunch and told them what he had accomplished. And they didn't believe it. So after they had enjoyed their lunch, they got up and left the restaurant, having been in there for about an hour and a half.

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And when they got into the parking lot, the man who was driving said, "I can't find my car." And Kettering said, "Well, isn't that your car over there?" And the man looked at it and said, "Well, it looks like my car, but my car isn't that color." And Kettering said, "It is now."

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Charles Kettering is known as the second greatest adventurer in American history. And his whole principle was to set your goal, decide, and then let that goal goad you in anticipation of the problems you're going to confront. When you do this, you see, problems do not become stop signs. They become guidelines.

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You are not abused by your problems. You use your problems. You anticipate. Now, the third thing I'd like us to notice out of this story, again, maybe some that a single word.

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And this time, the word is perspiration. And by perspiration, I simply mean persistence. There are two excellent examples of persistence in this story. In the first place, there's the praying of the disciples.

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They had prayed that James, the brother of John, would be released from prison unhurt. And he was, in fact, beheaded. But this did not stop them from their habit of prayer. They began to pray immediately for Peter, who was also in prison, that he might be released.

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They persisted in prayer, even though initially they had been discouraged. The other example of persistence shows up in the 16th verse of the story. The folks are inside debating over whether Peter is at the door or not. And the scriptures note that while they were doing this, Peter kept on knocking.

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That is persistence. Now, all of us encounter difficulties and delays in our lives. We can't dodge such times. What's important to remember is that at such times, we must keep knocking and keep praying.

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Never quit. There has been no significant advance in the history of civilization. I don't care whether we're talking about artistic advance or economic advance or business advance or national advance in some time of national crisis or opportunity,

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scientific advance, social progress, whatever area of progress that you might define, that would not have come about had there not been some people who were willing to stay at it when everybody else had given up. The old line is true.

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When the going gets tough, the tough get going. George Washington at Valley Forge, his troops ill-fed, ill-clad, unpaid, a mutinous spirit. What does he do? Does he leave this icy hardness behind him?

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Does he give up? No, he persists. He keeps on and he wins. Abraham Lincoln decides to become involved in national politics

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when the threat of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is advanced. Lincoln was concerned that the United States as a whole might approve of slavery, and he did not approve of it. And after he was elected president, some of his advisors said to him,

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when the South threatened to revolt, "Let the South go." And Lincoln replied, "I will hold them as firmly as a chain of steel." And he never gave up, and he preserved the Union. Teddy Roosevelt was called upon to mediate between Japan and Russia,

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and neither side would give in. And so Teddy Roosevelt hit their ambassadors again and again and again. He would not desist, and finally a treaty was arrived at. And after it was arrived at, the ambassador of Russia said,

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"I have seen two overwhelming forces in America. One is Niagara Falls, and the other is Teddy Roosevelt." He was tough. He kept on going.

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Here's Douglas MacArthur. What was the first thing that MacArthur said publicly after his retreat from Corregidor? "I shall return."

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What did MacArthur say when he was driven up against the Sea of Poussin and was confronting the possibility of terrible defeat? He said, "I have never been more confident of victory any day of my life." And you remember the pictures of him sloshing ashore with his corncob pipe in his mouth.

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Yes, he was a ham, but he was a magnificent ham. These are the kind of people, you see, who persisted, and in their persistence, they displayed their finest hours. Sometimes we're going to be refused.

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Don't let that frustrate you. Sometimes we're going to be denied. Don't let that intimidate you. Instead, expend more perspiration.

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Don't look at what is lost. Look at what is left. And our fourth and last stop, again, may be summed in a single word. And this is the most obvious implication of this story,

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and therefore we need to spend the least time with it. The word is expectation. Those Christians praying in the House of Mary didn't really expect to have their prayer answered.

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That's the reason when Rhoda came in with the news that Peter had been released, they said she was crazy. It was simply too good to be true. Now, that would be comic and ludicrous to look at

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if it hadn't been for the fact that Peter was left in a place where he might have been rearrested and subsequently killed. There are so many people who go through a low level of life and miss much of what the human experience is to be

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because they have low expectations. They come to worship on Sunday morning, but they don't really expect anything to happen to them. And so they leave this place untouched, unchanged, unempowered.

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They pray, but they don't really expect God to answer their prayers, and as a result, they don't see those answers even when the answers stand right before them. They give much less than they ought to to the work of the Lord.

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Why? Because they don't expect the Lord to honor his promise that if you tithe, he will see that you always have more than enough. And because they don't expect this, they become parsimonious disciples

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and miss the joy of real stewardship. There are people who go through life in a dull and tedious way because they don't expect God to make life exciting for them, and because they don't expect him to do that,

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they allow him no opportunity to do it. My friends, we are to pray big and we are to act big because we have a big God. Some years ago in New York City, Western Union

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wanted to hire a new telegrapher. They put an ad in the paper, and on the morning of interviews, many men came, and they were lined up in a waiting room in front of the door where the interviews was to be held, and the line got very long, and the

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interviews did not start at the time when they were supposed to start, and so people became impatient and a little bit surly. There was a kind of grumbling attitude in the room, and suddenly while everyone was standing around complaining, a young man, a very young man, way back

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toward the end of the line, stepped out of the line, walked all the way to the front of it, and knocked on the door. Fellow on the other side opened the door. The youngster whispered something to him. The man invited him into the room.

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Three minutes later, he opened the door and he said, "The job is filled. We have hired this young man. The rest of you may go." And immediately there was a great deal of anger. Why, he was way at the end of the line. We were here before he was,

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and you haven't given us the opportunity to do what we can do. How do you know that we can't do better than he does? And the man in charge of the hiring said this, "Gentlemen, since the moment when the very first one of you came into this room this morning, I have

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been softly transmitting into this room, by Morse code, this message. Whoever hears this message, come immediately to the door. The job is yours." This young man heard, came, and the job is his.

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The rest of them, they went there, you see, expecting the usual interview. They expected the usual tests of their proficiency. They expected to be taken in the usual order, one after another, in line. But this youngster, not so conditioned to be

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without expectations, went in wide open to all the possibilities. He had high expectations and so he was alert, and he was the one who heard the message and got the job. Expectation.

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We all spend our time at Mary's Gate, sometimes in our family life, sometimes in our jobs, sometimes in our friendships, sometimes in our church. At such moments, we need to remember four key principles. Participation.

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Dynamic people will empower you. Spend your time with that kind of person. Anticipation. Decide, and then having decided, go on to anticipate what your problems are going to be. Don't let your problems lead your life.

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Third word, perspiration. Be persistent. Never look at what is lost. Always look at what you have left. And the fourth word, the fourth principle, is expectation. Don't live in that gray fog of petty dreams and miserly hopes, which anticipates, expects nothing, and so gets nothing.

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Make no mistake about it. The church, at its very best, is not great because it is made up of great people. No, the church at its very best is when the average people who belong to it have great expectations.

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Not great people, but great hopes in a great God. Folks with that kind of faith, they're the ones that reach the stars. Let us pray. Oh God, our Father, when we come up against those moments in our lives,

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when we feel defeated, when we see no new alternatives, when we find those about us lamenting the same old lamentations, rehearsing the same old loss of courage, lack of initiative, absence of drive, when we, our Father, are tempted to give up

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because we have so little hope, at such moments, take us by thy Spirit to Mary's gate. Help us to see Peter there, and Rhoda, and the company of the disciples, and from their experience,

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may we learn so that our lives might be lived in a way that is worthy of thy name, so that our lives might be nothing less than adventures in faithfulness. We pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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Amen. [silence]