Church as Family
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And it is an honor and a privilege to continue on with you guys in our Anchor Series. So we're in about the middle of it.
And the question that we've been seeking to answer is, what does the Bible say about the church? And then from that, how do we live that out as Mill City Church, as a local church body, as a gospel-centered community on mission? And so we've kind of taken it in those chunks. For three weeks, we looked at what is this idea, what does it mean to be centered around the gospel, the good news that Jesus saves? So we took one Sunday and just looked at the gospel message as we see it from the book of Romans.
We looked at Romans 1 through 6. And we see that we were created to worship God, but we choose to worship other things instead. We saw that we all fall short, and there's no amount of work that can fix this. But Jesus died to pay our debt and to make us right with God, so we're saved by His work and not ours. That's the gospel message that we're saved by Jesus' work and not ours. And coming out of that, it's the message, but it's also more than that.
It's how does that impact our lives on a day-in and day-out basis. So two weeks ago, we looked at the idea of gospel fluency. Since the gospel is the story that changes everything for us, it impacts everything. It impacts the way we think. It impacts the way we speak. It impacts the way we view the world and live in a relationship with other people.
And then last week, we just took that a step forward. Since the gospel applies to all of life, it actually applies to my individual life. And we talked about what it looks like to apply the gospel to our hearts, because our hearts are prone to wander and to drift. And when we speak that gospel truth back into it, it brings us back into right understanding of living in relationship with God. So today, we're switching gears just a little bit.
We're moving from this idea of gospel-centered to talking about what it means to be a community. And what we're going to see throughout the entire New Testament is that the way that believers grew in their understanding of the gospel, grew in their understanding of how to follow Jesus, was in the context of community, of living in real relationship with other people. And I think part of the reason that is, is that the society in that day, the culture in that day, was very communal. Like people had to live in a relationship with each other, which is actually very different than the culture that we live in.
We live in a very individualistic society, where most people are just kind of looking out for number one. So the money that they make from their job, or how they spend their time, or with their hobbies, is we live in an individual society where most people will say, you take care of you, you take care of your family, and then whatever else you have left, whether that be time, or money, or resources, whatever, you can use that to, to be in relationship with other people, or to bless other people. And so we see that. That's one way to think about it. I heard someone say that it seems like in America, the goal is for you to work a good nine to five Job, to get a good paycheck, to be able to go home, and not have to talk to anybody, watch TV for four hours, and then go to bed.
Like that's the individualistic American dream. And I don't think, I don't think it's because we don't want to be in relationship with other people. I really don't think that's it. I think we just don't feel like we need to be in relationship with other people. That people aren't a necessity. That relationships aren't important.
Don't enhance life. Don't make it better. And the culture of Jesus' day didn't see it that way. They needed each other. And as we look at places in scripture today, what we're going to see is that this idea of community, or relationships, it's expressly taught, some, but it's way more just implied in the relationships that people shared as believers, as they lived out this community together. That's what the culture was like at the time.
And Jesus shows up on the scene, and begins to preach a gospel to everyone, that salvation is for everyone. He's preaching to the Jews. So the Jews were God's chosen people that lived in relationship with him, that he said that he was going to love, and to bless, and to multiply. And Jesus comes preaching a salvation for everybody. And through his death and resurrection, he opens up access to God for everyone. And the entire New Testament is this beautiful story of all these different kinds of people coming together and figuring out what it looks like to follow Jesus in relationship with each other.
And the Bible is going to describe those relationships as a family. That's the word that's going to be used. So today, that's absolutely what we're talking about, is the idea of church as a family. And I just want to say this, before we dive into the scripture, I realize that family is not the easiest thing for everyone to talk about. So we all come into this room from different backgrounds, different experiences.
And in fact, when I said the word family, some of you went ahead and checked out, because you don't want to talk about it. The pain, the emotions, the feelings that you have, whether it be from a divorce, or some type of abuse, or just a bad home life that you grew up in, or are a part of now, you don't want to talk about family. And so what I want to ask you this morning is regardless of your background, regardless of how you walked into this room, I just want you to open up your mind and open up your heart to this idea of family that the Bible is going to talk about. Because I believe if you do, it will change everything.
Just like it did for Josh and Nadine, it will change everything for you. And I'm going to pray that God would help us to do that. So you guys pray with me. God, we ask that you would help us grasp this idea that you have made us into a family. God, it wouldn't just be something that we know or something that we recognize, but it would change us. God, it would change the way we live, the way we speak, it would change the way we lived in relationship with other people.
God, I pray for everyone in the room, regardless of the family background that we've walked into this room with, I pray that you would redeem that idea and you would give us a beautiful picture of what your word says you have invited us into. I pray that you would do that through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so if you got a Bible, go ahead and grab that. And if you didn't bring one with you, look to your right or to your left, because this scripture isn't going to be on the screen. So just grab one of those Bibles that we have sitting on the seats.
We're going to be in Galatians chapter four. Galatians is in the New Testament. If you got the blue and white Bible, it's going to be page 623. And if you don't have a Bible, we want you to take that one with you when you leave. We have lots of these and we want everyone to have a Bible. So please take one of these with you when you go.
Okay, the book of Galatians is a letter that Paul is writing to a church that's in the Southern province in the Roman Empire. Okay, and what we know from the book of Acts about Paul is that Paul becomes a Christian. He becomes a believer and he starts going on these different missionary journeys. Yes. Well, and you know what? I'm a little dyslexic, guys.
I told them it was. So if you go to 623, I don't know where you're going to be, but if you'd like to join us in 632, sorry about that. But anyway, so this is a letter that Paul's writing to the church in Galatia. So when Paul became a Christian, he began to go out on these missionary journeys and one of the areas he ends up is in Galatia. Paul shares the gospel. People become Christians.
They begin to follow Jesus. He begins to teach them what it means to be a disciple and they start a church there. And then Paul moves on from that place. And we know that by this time, there are many churches in this area. And what Paul, the purpose of Paul writing this letter is to continue instructing them in how to follow Jesus in normal, everyday life as a church family. And that's important for us.
That's important for us to remember that Paul is speaking to a church family because I want us to listen to this as a church family. I want to hear this as a collective. So chapter 4, verse 4 on page 632, if your Bible looks like this, let's read it together. Verse 4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Okay, let's stop there. All right, this is what we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks.
This is the gospel message. What it said here is that God sent Jesus, born of a woman, conceived of by the Holy Spirit, which meant that Jesus was fully God and fully man. So Jesus was God in human form. And it says that he sent Jesus to be under the law. The law, God gave the law to his people to tell them how to live in relationship with him and with each other. So it says that he sent him to be under the law.
But here's the catch. Nobody could live up to the law. That's what we talked about in our first week, is that no amount of work could fix this. Nobody could live up to it. And so it says that he sent him to be under the law to redeem those who were under the law, which is this beautiful picture that Jesus comes and he lives a perfect, sinless life. He perfectly obeys God's law, perfectly lives in relationship with God, and then he dies to pay for the fact that we never could have lived perfectly in relationship with God.
And in doing so, he paid for our sin. That's the gospel message, and that's important because Paul, before he goes into how this plays out, he just sets the stage again. He said, here's the gospel that Jesus came to redeem us, and then it begins to give us the practical outworking of what that means. It continues on. We'll read verse 5 again and keep going. to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. To redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And that's beautiful. That the reason that Jesus came wasn't just to save us, but it was to adopt us as sons. That Jesus, in doing this, was creating a new family that was made possible for those who placed faith in him. And I want you to think about this idea of adoption for a second. I want you to think about adopted parents versus biological parents. And this idea of adoption.
How many of you know someone who's gone through the adoption process? Okay, so kind of all across the room. It's insane what you have to go through to adopt a child. So you have to fill out a ton of paperwork. You have to have all these different background checks. You have to go through interviews.
They come to your house and look through how your house is set up. They not only interview you, but they interview your family. They interview your friends. And then when you add into that the cost, oh man, it costs a ton of money. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. And especially if you're adopting somebody from overseas, you have to pay for the adoption and pay for the plane ticket to go over there.
And a lot of times ending up in another country, you're just paying to fly out there for another interview. And then you've got to fly back and then they let you know and then you get to fly back over and you get to pay for another ticket as you bring your adopted child home. Adoption is very costly. And it's absolutely the same thing for God. It costs Jesus his life to adopt us into his family. And in an adopted family, and think about an earthly family for a second.
Biological children and adopted children have the same rights and same status within a family. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? The parents could have could have left them, not provided for them, not protected them, not cared them, just left them out on their own. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? And it costs a lot. And that's absolutely what's true for us.
That God was willing to allow his son to be murdered to bring us in to adopt us into his family. It gets better. It gets better. Keep reading with me. Go back to verse 6. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. I'm going to read that one more time. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir. So for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them, it says that God sends his spirit into them to cry, Abba, Father. Just this beautiful picture of family. And we can kind of gloss over that and not catch it because Abba is actually the Aramaic word that means Father. but it's way more relational than Father is for us. It's much more akin to the word Daddy. How awesome is that?
I want you to think about that. The creator of the universe is allowing us to be brought into a family where the relational tie is where he's our Daddy. That's absolutely beautiful that we've been, as verse 7 says, that we're no longer slaves. We're not slaves to sin. We've been made sons. And God is our Daddy and not only sons but an heir.
The inheritance that we have as sons is salvation, is God himself. It's his presence. And the reason that it says sons and not sons and daughters, it's not trying to be exclusive. So it isn't just saying only the males. No, no, no. What God is showing us is actually the nature and the value of the adoption that Jesus' redemption brings us.
You see, in this culture, the way that inheritance was passed down was from male descendant to male descendant. It was passed from father to sons. And the way that females were blessed in this culture or taken care of was through the finances that were provided by the males. And what Paul is saying here is that men, women, and children alike are given the new standing as sons in this new family. Which means that all of us are heirs. And here's another thing.
Don't miss this. Not only are we given Jesus' right standing with God, we're also given his relational standing. not only does Jesus take care of our sin, but we're seen as sons. We're given his relational standing as well and it changes everything. What we're looking at is the theology behind this idea that we've been made into a family, that we've been changed forever, that our identity is no longer in ourselves, but it's in Jesus and in this family that he's invited us into. That's what we mean when we say that Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community on mission. That's what we mean.
It's a family and we're not just talking about it in means of the relationships that we're aiming to grow. No, no, no. This is a declaration of what God has made us into. We've been made into a new family for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them. That's why the New Testament letters are written to brothers. It's a shout-out to this family of people that come from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds.
I want you to look around the room for a second. Not for real. Y'all still looking at me. Look around the room for a second. Okay. For those that have placed faith in Jesus, you have been made into a new family.
Just as much family as your flesh and blood family. real family. That's what Jesus has made us into. All right. So we're tracking. We're getting this idea. We're understanding.
Like we can see it very clearly from Scripture. This isn't just something that we talk about. It's absolutely true. It's what Jesus has done. He's made us into a family. So the question then becomes, okay, I'm on your team.
That's true. How does that play out in life? What does that actually mean? How does that affect me on a day in and day out basis? And what we're going to do is we're going to take a zoomed overview. We're going to zoom kind of through the New Testament here.
We're going to look at a little bit of Jesus' interactions with people. We're going to look at how the early church lived in relationship with each other as we see it in Acts. And we're going to kind of talk about the New Testament so that we can begin to see this idea of church as family. What does it look like? Because here's the deal. This wasn't so much commanded as it was assumed because of their culture.
You're not going to see Jesus sit down. You're not going to see two chapters in the gospel where it says Jesus sat down and told them how to be family. It doesn't say that. It just shows how they followed him in relationship with each other. It's way more fish than water. Y'all get that illustration, right?
No. That's why I'm going to explain it. Okay. If I was going to, so if I was going fishing and I was telling you about the bass that I was trying to catch, all right, you tracking with me? I'm going to tell you about that bass. At no point do I have to tell you that that bass is in water.
No point do I have to do that unless I'm talking to the part where I hooked him, battered him, fried him, and then we ate him together, which is the intended purpose of the fish's life. But if I'm telling you about the fish, if I'm telling you about what the fish ate, how it moves, how it breathes, at no point do I have to remind you that the fish is in water. And that's very much the way the Bible treats this idea of living in family. It's not, it's expressly taught some, but it's way more understood in the relationships that we're going to see. So again, if you're a note taker, you may just want to jot down some of the references rather than try to flip back and forth in your Bible because we're going to kind of go all over the place.
The first place I want to go is Matthew 12, 46 through 50. Matthew 12, 46 through 50. We're going to have it up here on the screen. It says this, while he, and this is talking about Jesus, while he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Okay. So Jesus is hanging out with people and it says that his mom and his brother show up and someone says, hey, your mom and your brother are outside. And he said, who are my mom and brothers? It's not like Jesus forgot. He didn't just have a moment there because he then points to his disciples and he says, here are my mom and brothers.
Whoever obeys my father's will is my mother or, I'm sorry, I said father or mother, mother or brothers. Okay. Here's another one. This is another interaction of Jesus with people and this is going to come from John 19. Okay. This is at the end of Jesus' life.
He's giving his life. He's on the cross. It says this, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.
And from that hour the disciple took her to his own house. Okay. So Jesus is on the cross and it says the disciple whom he loved, which is John, which is my favorite. Like John calls himself that. This is John writing the gospel. You know, it's a little cocky, John.
Take it easy. But it's true. He did. He did love John. And as he's dying, he gives the care of his mother to his disciple. And it's not that Jesus didn't have other brothers.
We just saw that in the passage before and we know that from other passages in scripture. But there's some amount of, but they didn't believe in him yet. We know that from, we know later that they become Christians and they follow him. But he hands care over of his mother to his disciple. So Jesus begins, is beginning to change this dynamic.
He's beginning to shift our understanding of earthly family and this new faith family that he's creating. And then Jesus rises from the dead and then he ascends into heaven. And so these believers, these disciples and others that he had spent time with, they just go into action. They begin living like the words, the things that Jesus had taught them, the things that Jesus had showed them. And we get a very clear picture of that in Acts chapter 2. We get to see this, this new family playing out.
Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42. You might be familiar with this. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple, I'm sorry, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. It says that they shared all of their possessions, that they spent time together, that they prayed together. What you see there is a picture of a new family, that their understanding of family had been radically changed.
They realized that the only way that they could follow Jesus was in the context of these family relationships with other believers. And that makes perfect sense when you tie together with what we've already seen that Paul says to the church in Galatian, the Galatian church, they've been made into a new family and so they're absolutely going to live that way in their relationships with other people. But here's the problem with that. That messes with our Western minds, right? When I say that you should be living in relationship with other people and sharing your faith with them and that's actually how you grow, don't, don't, some of us just kind of go, really, I think I can handle it on my own.
In fact, the thought of Jesus ignoring his mom and his brothers when they came to visit makes most of us cringe. Right? Just a little bit. What about honoring our mothers and fathers? Isn't that one of the commandments is Jesus saying that I shouldn't obey that commandment? No, he's not saying that.
I mean, we see very much that Jesus has a deep love and compassion for his mother. He entrusts her to one of his dearest friends and his disciples. But what all of these passages are emphasizing is this idea that the new family is going to play as significant a role in our lives just as much as our earthly family. So is Jesus saying that we shouldn't spend time with our spouses or with our kids? No. But is Jesus saying that this new faith family is to be viewed the same way?
Same amount of love? Same amount of care? Same amount of compassion? Energy? Absolutely. Now, before mothers start to take off their shoes and hurl them at the stage at the thought of not being able to spend time with their children, it's not to the exclusion of our families.
It's an extension of it. Think about the entire New Testament for a second. Again, this is the zoomed out version. Jesus spent the three years of his ministry with twelve dudes. Some of them were fishermen. Some of them were tax collectors.
One of them was a zealot. And here's why that's funny. A tax collector basically worked for the Roman Empire getting money for them. A zealot was someone who absolutely wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. So next time you're in a conversation in your community group, realize that the tax collector and the zealot probably wouldn't have had a whole lot in common too.
But, they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. It was in relationships that Jesus poured into them and they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. And then Jesus ascends and we see the early church doing the same thing. And now the barrier has been broken down. Salvation isn't just for the Jews, it's now for the Jews and the Gentiles which means it's for everyone. And this early church is learning how to live in relationship with each other because they've been separated for so long the door has been thrown wide open.
As you read the letter to the church at Rome, at Colossae, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, you're going to read through it. And what those letters are going to be is it's going to put the gospel on display and then it's going to talk about how do you live that in relationship with other people. In fact, more often than not when you're reading those letters, when you see the pronoun you, it's usually not singular. More often than not it's going to be plural. The idea that the letter is being written to y'all. It's not written in there like that but it is to y'all and it's to be understood and lived out in the context of community.
In fact, if you just read through the New Testament you're going to see a whole bunch of these things called one another's. Okay? Fill in the blank, one another. The greatest example of that is love one another. It doesn't say love yourself. It implies the fact that to grow in our understanding of love means that it needs to be between two people or a group of people.
Love one another. That's how we grow in our understanding of how Jesus loved us is with other people. And that's just one of them. And I just tried to brainstorm all the ones that I could think about and just kind of create a list. Listen to this. Love one another.
Pray for one another. Serve one another. Bear with one another. Encourage one another. Teach. Be at peace.
Be devoted to. Give preference to. Same mind toward. Edify. Admonish. Accept.
Greet one another. Have patience with. Speak the truth in love to one another. Be kind. Be subject to. And on and on and on.
This idea of relationship. And they got that. That the way they grew in their understanding of the gospel and how to follow Jesus was in the context of relationships. You see what the New Testament is pointing us to? Family. Real family.
And it's not to the exclusion of your earthly or your biological family. Instead of thinking of them as distinct and different, the goal is to begin viewing them as the same. Same amount of love. Same amount of compassion. Not that your children aren't going to get your time, but you're actually throwing open the doors of your family so that your children receive more love, more care. Now let me be clear.
I understand that not everybody grew up as a part of this idealistic, earthly family that I've been describing. Maybe you grew up in a home where your parents split up, in a home where there was abuse. I get that. And in fact, you're kind of cynical towards this whole idea of church family like I'm talking about right now. But all of us know what a good family should look like.
Every single one of us. Whether you have that, have that or not, we all know what it should look like. And all of us have this intrinsic desire within us to belong, to be accepted, to be a part of that. All of us want a father that instead of raising his fists, open his arms in love. All of us want a father that will speak words of love and care and not tear us down with abuse. And what I'm telling you is, what the New Testament is screaming to us is that you've been invited into that family.
Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of whatever baggage we come in with, the New Testament is going to say is that Jesus redeems people into this family, which is really good news. You know why? It means that no person in that family is going to be perfect. That the entrance exam to that family is not, you've got your mess together. No, no, no. The entrance exam is, I don't.
That the reason we get to come and be a part of that family is because Jesus redeems us and brings us into relationship. And so, yeah, it's a messed up, jacked up family, just maybe like the one that you grew up in, maybe the one that you know, but here's the difference. The gospel changes us. Jesus works and he changes us and he brings us into real relationship with each other. And as we open up our homes and open up time with each other, it over time, as the Holy Spirit works in that, helps us grow closer to him. And there's a lot of love and there's a lot of joy.
And so that's what we mean. When we say that we're a gospel-centered community on mission, that we're a people redeemed by Jesus to look like and to live like family, and so we just act like it. That's how we express ourselves. That's how we grow in our faith is with other people. And so the question then becomes, okay, I'm with you, Matt. I'm tracking.
I understand that this is what the Bible says is what Jesus has done. That I see that this is how that plays out. How does that impact my life now? How do I begin living like that is true with the people that are in this room, the people that are in my community group? And so we're going to talk. I'm going to give you just a few practical, tangible handles for how this plays out.
But our community groups are going to talk about that this week too. And so I want you to be thinking about what would it look like for us to live in a relationship with each other. And the first way is this. The first way to begin thinking about how do I exist in family with other people is to ask the question, how do I exist as family with my earthly family? Seems pretty simple, right? Try to answer that question.
Okay, how do I relate to my family, my earthly family already? And so for me, the way that I'm going to answer that question is I'm going to think about Katie. I'm going to think about the way I relate to Katie. So Katie and I spend time together. We share meals together. We go to the grocery store together.
We read the Bible together. On Friday nights, we go to the grocery store and we buy cookies and we go home and we bake them and then we shamelessly eat all 24 within 24 hours. We go on walks together and it's the same way that you relate with your family. You fight and you forgive and you reconcile. You defend each other. You help each other.
You laugh together. You do Pinterest projects together. Yeah, I said Pinterest projects. You do it. You know, it's true. You pay for things for each other.
You give gifts to each other. You see how beautiful that is? It's not to the exclusion of the family you already have. You're just opening that up for other people. You begin to ask that question. It sets the stage for how we live in relationship with each other.
And I'm going to be really honest with you guys. This is absolutely from my heart. Katie and I moved to Columbia two years ago to be a part of helping start Mill City Church. And the only people we knew in the city were Chet and Anna and they had moved here three months before. We spent time praying and planning and asking God, what do you want this church to look like? What is this going to look like?
And then we started with our first community group meeting in a home and right off the bat I knew that something was different. It was real. There were real relationships. We spent time together. We shared meals together. We played spike ball together.
I began to love and care for the people that I was in a group with and they shared that same love and care for me. And then it went from one group to two groups, two groups to five groups and as we continue to grow as a church, that's our understanding. That's how we view ourselves in living in relationship together is in this idea of family. And Katie and I have this conversation every now and then. It's like, how did we ever exist without this? I never want to go back.
I never want to miss out. Life is so much better, has much more, I don't know, it's just better. I just love being in relationship with other people and it has changed my life. It has changed my walk with Jesus. It's improved. Like Katie and I have grown closer in our marriage.
It's changed everything. And so when you start to ask that question, how do I view my earthly family? It begins to answer the question, how do we relate to each other as church family? Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Think through this. Okay, if we really are family together, think through these scenarios with me.
You get a call in the middle of the night from somebody in your community group. It's not look at the phone and move it to the side. No, they're family, right? So it means I'm going to answer the phone and I'm going to run to help, whether it's something that's happened or their car's broken down or if they just need to talk, they're family. I'm going to answer the phone. Short on bills?
Can't pay their mortgage? Don't have enough money to buy groceries? Absolutely. I'm reaching for my wallet. Because they're family. I'm going to help.
There's relational drama in your group because of a fight. You're family. You're not running away from each other. You're going to stay and you're going to talk about it. You're going to be open. You're going to be honest.
You're going to forgive. You're going to reconcile. We've got college students who live with us, who live in this city with us but have family that live other places. What if you had a college student that didn't have money to travel home to see their family? What then? You're going to put them in the minivan and you're going to grandma's house and they're going to have to choke down the same terrible stuffing that you do.
Just part of it. When you start answering those questions, it begins to show us how we should relate to each other as church family. And I've got some examples of this. Tati and I have been putting hardwood laminate in our house. We're expecting our first child in May and wanting to do some house improvements. And so I told someone in my community group that I was going to be doing that and they said, I want to help.
Okay, we were going to be working on it on Friday. Well, that Thursday that person got sick. That Thursday night their child had to go to the hospital and it had to get stitches. And the next day he couldn't even go to work because he was so sick. But you know who showed up at my house that afternoon?
Drove an hour to my house to help me even though he didn't feel good. Stayed till nine o'clock on a Friday night and whose wife and children completely understood because we were family. We get that. He was willing to sacrifice. That's a beautiful picture of family. I have heard countless stories of people having trouble with their car.
I've heard stories of people riding with each other to go check out a new car that was an hour away. Of people stopping work in the middle of the day and going and taking care of somebody's vehicle. Of coming together to help people get a vehicle. Not only vehicles but like AC units. Like if there was something going on like an HVACalypse. People running to your rescue.
Absolutely. I almost died that week guys. I'm for real. But because I'm in church family came to my rescue. Helped me in my need. I've heard of stories of people trying to organize birthday parties and kids going I want church family there.
The people they're rattling off aren't their classmates. They're rattling off church family. Adults that they want to be there. People sharing in life experience together. Stories of people who have had to go to the hospital or had a family member that had to go to the hospital dropping everything in the middle of the day and just taking off. Because it's family.
It's real church family. Just as much family as our earthly family. See how beautiful that is? And that is absolutely the picture of the gospel. That Jesus opened up the door so that all of us could be welcomed in through his redemption. That we were offered forgiveness and grace and we've been made sons and heirs.
And so that's the way we live that out is as a church family. And I want to point out just a couple of groups of people where this is especially beautiful. The church has family for new Christians. For some of you when you placed faith in Jesus your old friends your family wanted nothing more to do with you. You might have had to leave old habits and old patterns behind. And what's beautiful about this is that the church steps in and helps and loves and serves.
That it's real family. It's real relationships. And so what you left pales in comparison to what you now have. The church is family for people who are single. Our culture says that the goal is to get married and have 2.5 kids and have a house with a white picket fence. Yeah, is the Bible going to say that marriage is a blessing?
Absolutely. Is the Bible going to say that singleness is a blessing too? Yes. But unless the church opens her arms unless we're opening our homes unless we're opening our tables to people what we're asking single people is to be alone. That's not the case when you have real church family that you're throwing open the doors and inviting and welcoming people in. And it's especially beautiful for people who come from broken homes.
If you come from a home where you didn't have a dad who was there or you had a parent who was abusive or you didn't have real loving relationships with people the church's family redeems that for you. Jesus invites you into a family where the entrance exam is Him. It's Him. He welcomes you in. He's the one who redeems you in. And the most beautiful and captivating part of this idea of church's family is this.
Is this last scripture that we're going to look at from Revelation. And I want us to read it together. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth. The striving that we put forth now together as a family is just practice for what we've been invited into. That one day all those that have placed faith in Jesus from every tribe nation language and tongue are going to sit at the table with Jesus our Savior and Lord and we're going to share a meal together and we're going to be together as a family for eternity.
You see, Katie won't always be my wife but she'll always be my sister so that when Katie and I open up our homes to people when we go out of our way to make time for people in our church family we're just getting a little bit of practice in for what eternity is going to look like as we share in relationship with Jesus forever because we know that our citizenship is in heaven just like Philippians says and so that when we open up our homes open up our time it helps us grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and it's just practice for the eternity that's waiting for us. Bianca's going to come back up and we're going to continue to sing this is going to be hard this is it's going to be messy we're going to have to fight everything inside of us our natural tendencies and the things that we think we're going to have to we're going to have to learn how to grow and how to sacrifice time and as we do so Jesus works in that and he brings us closer to him and he brings us closer to each other and he gives us real family and I say this all the time and it's absolutely true here it's messy it's beautiful and it's worth it and so we're going to stand and sing in a second and there are three ways that you can respond to this the first one is this you can become a Christian and you can be a part of this family so if you've been you've been listening the whole time like I want that I want that to be true for me but I know it's not it says that to be a part of this family is for those who place faith in Jesus that Jesus redeems them and saves us and brings us into this family so right where you are as we sing this next song just cry out to him place your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sin ask him to change you from the inside out and then tell somebody don't leave here without telling somebody that news the second thing is this join a group if you've been hanging out with us on a Sunday and you've been hearing us talk about this idea of community groups join a group that is absolutely where we grow and what this looks like on a day in and day out basis you can't become family with people in an hour and a half on a Sunday you just can't do it it's not possible and you don't want to miss out on that and the third thing is this if you're already a part of a group don't settle for anything less than the beauty of what we've talked about this morning let me pray for us God I pray that you would teach us what it looks like and what it means to be family that you've opened up the way for us to live in a relationship with you and in doing so you have invited us into a family God I pray that you would teach us what that looks like that we would grow in our understanding of you as you work through the relationships in our church in Jesus name Amen
The Method
Transcript
My name is Chet. It's good to see everybody this morning. Excited to be able to meet here and excited for our second time being able to meet here at Glen Forest School. We are in our third week of Dawn of the Church. So we're finishing up today, which feels a little odd because we spent 11 weeks in the book of Colossians.
And so we've only been three weeks walking through the first couple of chapters of the book of Acts. And so it's felt a little short, but it's been I think it's been good. What we wanted to do is just spend a little bit of time and look at some family history. We wanted to look and see how the church started, what it looked like when the Holy Spirit first moved among a group of people, what it looked like for them to begin to follow Jesus, to begin to be the church. And so what we looked at was week one, we looked at the mission that we've been given as a church, that Jesus talking with his disciples says, this is what you're supposed to do.
This is what you're called to do. You're going to be my witnesses. And you're going to start here where they just killed me, which not many people get to say. Like not many people get to say that's where I just died. Like you don't usually get to tell people that you don't usually get to have this conversation. But Jesus had been crucified, he'd been murdered, and he didn't stay dead.
And so he says, you're going to start here where they just killed me. And then you're going to expand out from there. Then you're going to move to a place that you don't get along with these people. You have prejudice against them. And then you're going to move to the ends of the earth. And so we just looked at what the mission is that we're supposed to be witnesses of what Jesus has accomplished to the ends of the earth.
Last week we spent some time looking at the message that we're given to declare. So what the Holy Spirit actually, when he moves, what we point people to, what we talk about. And so today we're just going to look at the method by which that moves forward. The way that the mission, the message moves forward on the mission. And so it's kind of like this. This is a very simple way to think about it.
And so it's going to break down if you think about it too long. But think about it in a very simple way. And this can be helpful. So let's say we were going to make a sandwich and we were going to put some peanut butter on bread. And so that's the first part of what we're going to do. And we're going to put chunky peanut butter on the bread because we're going to eat the sandwich, not throw it away for bringing shame to sandwiches.
So it's going to be chunky peanut butter. And we're going to put that on the bread. And so in some ways the mission is that process. We're going to put chunky peanut butter on the bread. And it kind of answers the what's the overall goal and where. And so the overall goal is to get chunky peanut butter all over the surface of the bread.
And so that's what we looked at week one where Jesus says you're going to spread this message over the face of the earth. And so the message is kind of the chunky peanut butter. It's like the actual content of what's moving forward. And so what we're looking at today is the method, which would be like the knife that you used or the spoon that you used to spread the chunky peanut butter. Or, you know, like three fingers, depending on if you have roommates and or no one's watching. So, like, that's what we're looking at.
And so if the mission is spread the message all over the earth, and that's kind of the bread, that's what we looked at. Like, what are we doing and where is it going? The second week we looked at what's the content, what actually moves forward. And today we're looking at, like, how are we going to do that? How does the church actually accomplish this? And so we're going to be in Acts chapter 2.
I'm going to pray, and then we're going to start kind of looking at this and trying to answer this question. God, we thank you that you did come, that you did rescue us. And we pray that we would appropriately feel the weight of being called into your mission, that we wouldn't get complacent with what it is that we're supposed to be doing as we follow you. And, God, we ask that you would empower us through your Holy Spirit to continue your mission in this city. And we love you. We praise you.
Speak to us now as we have time to open your word and study. In Jesus' name, amen. So we'll be in Acts 2, starting in verse 41. I just want to point out in verse 38. Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. And so then 41 says, So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.
So, Peter says, repent, turn away from your sin, you'll be forgiven because of what Jesus has already done. It's not about what you do, but it's about what Jesus has done. And you'll receive the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit of God will come move and dwell among you. And then it says that 3,000 people became Christians. And so I said this last week.
That's like a logistical nightmare as far as, All right, cool. They had about 120. They're like, All right, we're going to start a church. We're going to do this thing. And then 3,000 people become Christians. And they were like, Okay, let's figure it out.
And so what we're going to look at as we look in this chapter, Luke, who's writing this story, is just going to describe what happens among the church when it first got started. So he's just telling us this is what it looked like. This is what they looked like as they first got started. And so in the Bible, there's prescriptive and descriptive sections of Scripture. So prescriptive is like a doctor gives you a prescription and it's, Go home, take these, rest this way, don't do this.
It's like, do, don't, this is what's best for you. That's like prescriptive. And so the Bible has some of that where it's like, Love your neighbors, be generous, be kind to one another, bear one another's burdens. Like it just straight up just says, do this. And then it has descriptive passages where it just says, It just tells a story, just tells you something that happened. And so sometimes we get confused when we're reading descriptive passages and think it somehow applies to what we're supposed to do.
So like there are times in the Bible, it talks about humans. So it talks about a bunch of messed up stuff. So Cain and Abel, Abel pleases God. Cain gets mad and kills him. And they're brothers. That's not a prescriptive thing.
That's not like the Bible saying, Here's how to handle your brother when he makes you angry. That's not what that is. It's not like, well, I'm going to go all Genesis 4 on this sucker. Like that's not what we get to do. It's just describing what happened. And so what this passage is doing is it's just going to describe for us what the early church looked like.
But in that we're going to get to see what the Holy Spirit does among a group of people that he's taking over, that he's moving in, that he's captivating, that he's changing. And so it's just the Holy Spirit moves in. And this is not. So we're going to look at it. It's going to describe the early church. And what it's not saying is, look at how well they organize themselves.
Look at the great leadership of the apostles. That's not what's happening. What it's saying is, look at what the Holy Spirit does when he begins to change, busted up, broken people, when he moves in and takes over. So we're looking at what the Holy Spirit does in believers as we read through this. We're going to see that the apostles mess stuff up consistently. They're in and out of jail because they're proclaiming the gospel.
So it's not that they're always being able to do great leadership stuff because half the time they're not there. Like people are having to pray, like let's get him out of jail. Some of them are going to be murdered. In Acts 6, they realize that they're not organized well. And so this isn't pointing to how to organize your church, how well it's what the Holy Spirit does among a group of people. Now, we should be organized.
That's one thing that we've seen as we've continued to grow is we're trying to organize ourselves better. We're trying to always train leaders and that sort of thing. So I just wanted to put a shameless plug out there. If you're good at logistical things, that's a Holy Spirit-empowered gift. Like if you can do spreadsheets, the Holy Spirit empowers that. That's a gift of administration.
I'm just letting you know. Biblically, there's a gift of administration. And so some people are really good at that kind of stuff and they feel like, well, I don't know how to really plug in and serve. That's actually how. And so they do try to get more organized. They're not organized yet.
And so we're right in line with Scripture being disorganized. But I want you to see that there's 3,000 new believers. Now, when we look in this section, we don't know how much time has passed. He just begins to describe the early church. So a couple days, some weeks.
Maybe he describes the first months of. Maybe he's describing the church in Jerusalem as a whole over the course of some years. But it basically says 3,000 people become believers, so 41. So those who received the word were baptized. And they were added that day about 3,000 souls. And then he immediately goes into.
And this is what they did. This is what they look like. So the majority of these people had been Christians for, like the apostles had only known and been following Jesus for three years. So think about that for a second. Some of us in here would say, I don't know, I've been a Christian for years. Some of you have been like, I think a couple of weeks-ish, give or take.
And that's what most of the people here were. The vast majority were like, I'm just trying to figure this thing out. And the truth is, that's the way the church should always look. There should always be people who have just become believers and are just trying to figure it out. And it's actually way more fun that way. It's way harder and way more messy.
Like, it's really nice to get 50 Christians who've been Christians for a really long time together and sit in a room. And maybe there's less mess, maybe they understand more, but it's way less fun. And so the whole time here, there's 3,000 new believers trying to figure out what it looks like to follow Jesus. And so it says, And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And so what we're about to look at is devoted themselves. What they devoted themselves to.
And so for us, devotion, like, I don't know if we understand devotion. I mean, we see it in certain places. Like, I want to talk to you about something very important. This week, football comes back. It's here, guys. Thursday.
Like, we got together. My community group meets on Thursday. And we got together and the discussion was, Who's got the SEC network? And somebody raised, We're going to your house. You're throwing a party. I don't know if you knew that.
You're going to be throwing a party because the Carolina game is going to be on Thursday. And you have the SEC network. And so we understand devotion a little bit when it comes to, like, being devoted to a brand. So you have people, like, devoted to Apple products. Who, like, always want to fight people who like Microsoft. Like, people who have apples get angry about it.
Like, I don't know. Like, this is better and I'm mad. Like, that's kind of their attitude. We see devotion when it comes to teams. So we have devotion, like a heart level loyalty.
Care about a team. You want to argue for why your team's the best. You want to argue against other teams. Like, if I see someone wearing orange, I just push them down. Like, that's just kind of how. No, we've got, we've got, I mean, in our church family, we've got people that are Clemson fans.
And every week, as we always do with everybody, we invite them to repent. And we've got Carolina fans that we were devoted. Like, we care about it. But I was talking to my wife's cousin who lives in Alabama. And he's a Clemson grad. And he said, I was talking to him about it.
He's an eye doctor there. And he goes, you know we're just kind of messing around in South Carolina when it comes to being devoted to teams, right? He's like, I'm in Alabama. And it's serious there. He said that he was, he's an eye doctor. He's about to perform surgery.
And he was standing in a room with about ten family members of this guy who's about to cut his eyes open. He said before this moment, he would always, like, have this conversation where it's like, okay, we're about to, y'all are about to have to leave. I'm about to wheel him back here. Does anybody have any more questions? Like, is there any clarification needed? Do you want to pray?
Like, he always just kind of opens it up for whatever's going to take place. And he said, they all just kind of stood there. And nobody asked any questions or anything. And then one by one, they walked by this guy. His name was Johnny. And they were going, Roll Tide, Johnny.
Roll Tide. Roll Tide, Johnny. Just, like, fist pumping and rubbing. He said, Roll Tide. Roll Tide, Johnny. And he said, like, 15 of them.
Roll Tide. And then they just walked out. And he was like, he said he wanted to be filming it, but he thought he might, like, get in trouble or something because he's a doctor. And so we have devotion there. We see devotion in, I think, I've actually gotten to where I like going to weddings. And I know that's weird.
I don't like, there's some things I don't like about it. Like, I don't actually like the whole process. Like, I don't like having to dress up. This past Easter, I was trying to dress up a little bit for when we did our stuff. And I asked Anna, like, how did I look? And she looked at me for a second.
And then she goes, you know, some people are supposed to dress up and other people aren't. And I think you're one of those aren't people. And I was like, that was very hurtful. But it's kind of true. So I don't like dressing up when I go to weddings.
I don't enjoy that process. But there's two things I kind of like about weddings. I like awkwardness. And weddings are awkward. So I always just kind of appreciate awkwardness.
And so when people are standing up doing their wedding, like, they don't know what to do. They don't know what to do with their hands. Everyone's sweating. I enjoy that. And then I enjoy the actual process of what we're doing. Weddings are intense.
It's two people standing up and saying, forsaking all others, I'm devoted to you. Like, it's me and you forever. Whatever comes, whatever's coming after us, like, this is going to be hard. And we're messed up and we're sinful. And this is going to be difficult. And it's not going to always be fun, but it's us forever.
And that's, I think, one of the best pictures we have when people genuinely take marriage seriously of what devotion is. And so what we're going to see here is not what the disciples did. We're actually looking at heart level change that the Holy Spirit did in them. Does that make sense? So it's the Holy Spirit moves in, begins to wreck shop, and changes loyalty and changes love in the hearts of these new believers.
Because it's not about how well they organized themselves and how well they disseminated the word and how well they did all these. It is absolutely, Holy Spirit moves in, 3,000 believers. There's no way this is going to be organized. And then the Holy Spirit changes all of them together to look this way. And so, as we read through this, last caveat, don't read through and think, oh, so that's what I do. That's what I do to work really hard to earn this.
No. This is what the Holy Spirit does in believers. And so if you're sitting in here and you're thinking, I don't really have a desire to do any of that. Some of that actually sounds kind of horrible. The response isn't, I'll work really hard, do those things, and then be a good Christian. No, the response is, repent of sin and place your faith in Jesus, and then the Holy Spirit does this in us.
Does that make sense? Is that fair? Okay. Four things they devoted themselves. Four things heart level change that the Holy Spirit made in them. It says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
Alright, so what that means is that they were devoted to what the apostles were telling them about Jesus. What the apostles were training them in. And so the apostles were the people who'd been following Jesus around for three years, and the apostles were teaching them, here's what Jesus' kingdom looks like. Here's what it looks like for us to follow him. Here's how this plays out in the world. And so when the Holy Spirit moves in and begins to take over the lives of believers, they automatically begin being sold out to learning who Jesus is, what he did, what they'd been called into, what he'd accomplished on their behalf, what it looked like for them to be the church.
And so for us, that might as well just say, devoted to the Bible. That's why we would spend all summer just walking through the book of Colossians. That's why we study the Bible when we get together in our community groups, because we're devoted to learning and growing and understanding what it means to be Jesus followers. That's one of my favorite things to see this in people. So you see somebody who starts kind of placing their faith in Jesus, and then they'll suddenly start being like, hey, I was reading this in Scripture the other day.
Hey, I was looking at this, and I have a question about this. And it's like, oh, there's the Holy Spirit at work, drawing somebody in to read the Bible, because that's what he does. The Holy Spirit starts working in somebody, and we just want to read. I used to have conversations with Russ, who's one of the guys, one of the first guys to become a Christian as a part of our church. And he would ask me questions. Like one time he looked at me and said, he said, okay, you've got cancer, and your dad has cancer cure serum.
But then he says, I'll give it to you if you worship me. What the crap is that about? And I was like, what? Your dad sounds horrible, Russ. And so he was a very antagonistic approach to who God was, and I had to break all of that down, which was like, that's not at all what's happened here. Jesus came and died for us.
Like he took our cancer and died with it so that we could be cured, and then we would want to worship. So like we had to have those conversations. And then Russ became a Christian, and his attitude changed. So he always had like a bajillion questions about the church and about the Bible, and they were always kind of antagonistic. And then he became a Christian, and he started asking questions like, hey, what do we believe about this? And his whole response was different.
Like it was just like, oh, well, we believe this, Russ. And we would just flip to the thing. He was like, oh, cool. Okay, okay. That sounds good. And then there were other times he was like, really?
I don't really like that. And it's like, oh, yeah, me neither. But that's what we believe. We repent. You know, God's right. We're not.
And so we get to have those conversations. But there's just something that happens in believers that we change to where we're devoted to learning, devoted to reading Scripture, devoted to growing in it. And that's what happened among them. So they were devoted to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship. So they were devoted to each other.
That's great. Fellowship basically means friendship with a purpose, like community with a goal. So it's fellowship. It's friendship around something that kind of holds you all together. And so if you're Lord of the Rings fans, the first book in the Lord of the Rings is the Fellowship of the Ring. It was like a group of people that came together for a goal.
And so that's what they were devoted to being around each other. They made time for it. As we read through the rest of it, it says day by day they were gathering in large groups and they were gathering in smaller groups, meeting in homes. And so they were devoted to, took time out of their schedule to be around church family. They were devoted to each other. The Holy Spirit changed their heart to where they actually wanted to go out of their way to be around each other.
And I think we find this true if you've been a part of a community group. And it's easy to kind of get out of the rhythm of being around church family. And a way I think about this sometimes is when Anna and I first got married, we moved into this really sketchy house that like uneven floors. And if you ran the washing machine while trying to eat a meal, the table was going, and you could just bounce your stuff up and down on it. And we lived there fixing it up instead of paying rent. So it was like, we'll paint and like get rid of the snakes and most of the cockroaches and the mice and you don't make us pay rent.
And he was like, deal. So that was the house we lived in for the first couple of months of being married. And we were painting one of the rooms and it had oil-based paint. So we were painting over it with oil-based paint. If you've ever painted much, oil-based paint is pretty intense. And so we were in this room and we're painting.
And, you know, painting is not fun. So we're painting for a little while. And then, you know, the paint smells horrible. And then you kind of get used to, you don't notice the paint smell anymore. And then we both kind of were like grumpy. And then everything was hilarious.
And so at one point I'm sitting there, we're both like laughing hysterically about something that didn't make any sense. And I was like, that wasn't funny. And I was like, but I think it was funny. And I was like, maybe we should go outside. And so we went outside and that first breath of air, it was like, oh yeah, this is what oxygen is like. This is what this was supposed to have been like the whole time.
And so that's what church community, that's what church family is like sometimes. It's like we get out of it and we don't realize that what we're breathing in and what we're walking in on a daily basis actually isn't good for us and actually isn't healthy and actually isn't right. And then the first time we get back around church family, we go, oh yeah. Oh yeah, this is what this was supposed to be like. Oh yeah, this is what I've forgotten what it was like to be around church family and actually have people I can talk about real life with. And there's something that the Holy Spirit does in us that draws us into that.
And so they devoted themselves to fellowship. Which, isn't that just great though? Like if the Holy Spirit is going to do something in us, isn't it great that he draws us in to be around each other? A bunch of sinful people who know Jesus. And so like, you know I'm going to be sinful. You don't expect amazing things out of me.
And I don't expect amazing things out of you. We expect amazing things out of Jesus. And it's just a group of people to be in life with and be friends with. Like I'm just excited that that's what the Holy Spirit does. So the Holy Spirit draws us into fellowship.
And the Apostle, it so says, That is not what the breaking of bread means. It kind of means two things. And it happens in the context of fellowship. And we'll see it later. It says from house to house they were breaking bread in their homes. What it means is they were devoted to Jesus' presence.
They were devoted to the presence of Jesus. It's an active, intentional process of taking communion together. So they shared meals. Communion meals were meals. They shared meals. We see later in the book of something that Paul wrote that slips my mind now.
I think it's Corinthians. He fusses at them for some of them eating too much. And some of them not having any when they finally show up. And some people drinking enough to be drunk. And so like it's an actual meal that would have taken a while. And they would share meals together with the intense purpose of gathering around the gospel.
So Jesus on the last night before he was crucified said, This is my body. He took bread. He said, This is my body broken for you. And this is the blood of the new covenant which I pour out on your behalf. And so when it says that they were devoted to the breaking of bread, what it means is they were devoted to actively participating in the gospel together. That they intentionally gathered around the gospel.
They intentionally actively sought the presence of Jesus in their fellowship. So like sometimes my community group will get together and we say we're going to gospel each other. Which just means tell us what's going on in your life. And let's remind each other of how the gospel applies to that. Tell us what's going on in your life. And let's remind each other of how Jesus is at work in that.
And how he rescues us in that. And how the gospel works in that. And it can be really awkward sometimes. But it's just us saying we're intentionally going to press into the gospel. We're intentionally going to be centered around the gospel. And that's what happened.
They automatically became gospel centered people. They automatically began to devote themselves to the presence of Jesus. And so that these communities that gathered in homes were around the gospel. Their intense purpose was their intentional purposeful approach to walking. And what it looked like to have the gospel effect who they were. So they devoted themselves to the presence of Jesus.
And the prayers. Which just makes sense. They devoted themselves to prayer. That as the Holy Spirit works in us he draws us towards God. Because prayer is a couple things for believers. It's asking God to work.
To move. So as Christians what we believe is that we didn't fix this on our own. That we didn't rescue ourselves. But that Jesus did. That we needed help. We needed something outside of us to rescue us.
That's why we fill ourselves up with the Bible. Because it's not about finding our inner person who's wonderful. Like that's not what we're shooting for as Christians. I can tell you pretty clearly my inner person is not wonderful. So like y'all don't want to meet more of him.
You want more of the Bible filling me up. And we want more of the Holy Spirit working and moving. And so prayer is just us saying. This isn't up to us. This isn't about us being great. This isn't about us being moral.
This isn't about us being smart. And so we just pray and ask the Holy Spirit to move. Ask God to work. It's just active surrender. And so they devoted themselves to prayer. And all of this kind of happens in the context of community.
In the context of fellowship. They were devoted to each other. Devoted to learning with each other. Devoted to praying with each other. And devoted to intentionally building themselves around the presence of Jesus. And the gospel work in their life.
And that's what the Holy Spirit did in them. That's how the Holy Spirit began to work in them. And so the response again isn't. Cool. I'll do those four things. The response is the Holy Spirit does this in us.
And so if you don't have a desire for that. We just repent and become Christians. We place our faith in Jesus. And the Holy Spirit begins to work. So this is what happens.
This is what they began to devote themselves to. This is what begins to take place in a minute. And then it's going to tell us what they looked like. So 43. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
And all who believed were together. And had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing to the proceeds to all. As any had need. And day by day attending the temple together.
So they got together in large groups. And breaking bread in their homes. So then they gathered in smaller groups. And shared meals together to be intentional about. The gospel taking place in their hearts. And it says this is day by day.
Breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. So we're going to stop there. So here's what happens.
It says. They devoted themselves to these four things. And then this is what they look like. They had glad and generous hearts. They were being generous to one another. People were selling stuff that they had.
So that they could give more to other people. People were receiving gladly. So here. When the Holy Spirit moves in. Jesus comes after our passions. He actually begins to change in us what we care about.
What we love. Where our loyalties lie. And so then you have a group of people that become generous. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. The God of heaven stepped out of heaven. So that I could have good things. Like he gave up all good things to suffer on my behalf. And he died in my place. Where I deserve to be punished.
Where I deserve to die. He died in my place. So that I could have life. So that I could have joy. And eventually I could go to heaven. Like I could join him in heaven.
He stepped away from heaven. So that I could have good things. Well suddenly that group of people doesn't hold on to their possessions the same way anymore. It's like oh you need stuff? Yeah. I've got stuff.
Oh you need help with that? I can help with that. Because the God of heaven gave up everything. So that I could have everything. And since I already have everything. Everything I have is his.
And yours. That's what happened. They began to sell their possessions. And give things away. So it's like what I had designed in my brain was heaven.
Where I wanted to live. And how I wanted to design my life. And how I wanted it to look. And the possessions I wanted to have. Heaven isn't the same to me anymore. And so I can give these things up.
To be a part of this community that Jesus has changed. And so it says they were generous. They. Everything they had. They had in common. It was like you need this.
You can have it. It's all of the things I have. Are given to me by Jesus. And then it says that they. Distributing the proceeds to any as all had need. And day by day.
Attending the temple together. And breaking bread in their homes. They received their food. With glad and generous hearts. Not only were they generous in giving. And gracious in giving.
They were generous. And gracious in receiving. And so that's actually another way that the gospel works among this group of people. Among Christians. Is it is. Oh.
Everything I have. Everything I've ever been given. Was given to me by grace. So when someone else gives. I can just receive. Because I know how to receive.
By grace. The gospel has changed my heart to where I can receive. Like have you ever noticed that. That there's something in us. Automatically. That when someone gives us something.
We feel like we owe them. You ever notice that. Like someone serves you. Or does something nice for you. And you feel like they. That you owe them.
So like before. Somebody will give you a birthday gift. And you're like. Oh sweet. A birthday gift. Ah.
Crap. I'm going to have to remember your birthday now. So like people give me stuff. I'm like. Dang it. I am never going to remember your birthday.
So I just like. I'll thank them. And be like. Just so you know. I'm not reciprocating. Unless you remind me.
Like. But there's something in you. That feels that. Like when someone's generous to you. You want to. You want to be generous back.
And you almost feel like you owe a debt now. Because someone was nice. And what it says is. They received. With glad and generous hearts. That the gospel actually moves in.
To make people generous. In giving and receiving. To make people gracious. In giving and receiving. And so that they were able to just. Hey.
Yeah. I actually do need. The whole gospel is predicated on the fact. That we need. That we're broken. That we're busted.
That we fall short. And so it's like. Sometimes in life. It's like. I'm. Not only do I need the gospel.
To change me. And to save me. From my sin. But I actually need help. Paying bills right now. And the gospel is that I fall short.
Not that I'm great. Not that I can prove myself. And so the gospel actually frees me up. To walk through life. And get help. Walk through life.
And receive assistance. And not feel bad about it. Isn't that beautiful? And doesn't that just mess. With your Americanness? Doesn't that kind of annoy you?
It annoys me. It's like. No. No. I need to prove that I'm awesome. It's like.
Well the gospel says you're not. So like. When Jesus died on the cross. He definitively declared. Chet is busted. And he needs my help.
Because if there were some of us. Who were going to work it out. He wouldn't have had to die. Like if there were some of us. Who were just going to be good enough. On our own.
He wouldn't have had to go to the cross. And so when he went to the cross. He declared definitively. For everyone in this room. You need help. You're not going to work it out.
You need Jesus. To step in. On your behalf. And that applies to everything. And so then we actually become generous in giving and receiving. And that's what the church did.
It became a generous people. And it says they were glad. Isn't that great? It doesn't say the Holy Spirit came in. And 3,000 people became believers. And they all got really angry.
And mad about morals. And they gathered together. To fuss at one another. And to hit themselves with whips. And cry. Like that's not what it says.
It says the Holy Spirit moves among the people. And they became generous. And gracious. And happy. And that's cool. That's a beautiful thing to be true.
That that's what the Holy Spirit does. Because it wasn't the apostles training them to do this. It was 3,000 people being changed by the Holy Spirit. To follow him. And that's what he does among us. It was really cool.
Last week. I don't know if y'all have gotten to meet. Some of y'all may have been able to meet Billy Briggs. Who's kind of the facilities guy here. And this place has been really gracious with us. And good with us.
But we were talking to him last week. And it was funny. After we had done everything. We were cleaning up. And then there was just a handful. I mean a decent amount of people just hanging out and talking.
Because we always do that. We hang out in our church family and talk. And have fun together. And that's why we brought the cornhole boards in here. Because it was too hot last week to do them outside. So we want to be able to hang out and be church family when we're done.
And so we were doing that. And he was showing Matt and I like how to not tear things up. And how to get in the doors. And get out of the doors. And how to lock stuff. And he stops at one point and looks at me.
And Matt was over talking to people. And he goes, so you're like actually the pastor. Huh. And I said, I was like, well, yeah, Matt and I are. And he goes, okay. He's like, we didn't know.
Because we'd only ever seen y'all. But we thought maybe the pastor was going to show up later. Like riding in on a golden chariot. And y'all were like his henchmen or like lackeys or something. And I was like, I'm glad I threw off that vibe. That lackey henchman vibe.
And so it was like, yep, no, it's us. So I bet you regret your decision to enter into a deal with us now. Like I don't know what his thought process was. And then he was just talking about it. He goes, and we're sitting there. We were walking up.
And we see everybody just kind of hanging out and talking and laughing. And I mean, it's been, you know, 30, 45 minutes after we were done. And they're hanging out. And he goes, well, I think it was good. I think it was a good space for y'all. And I think they enjoyed stuff.
He's like, they're still here. And I was like, oh, this is what we do. I said, a bunch of us are going to go eat now. That's because we like food and each other. So like that's what we're going to do.
And he said, he said, man, that's great. He said, that's what churches should look like. He said, we've had them before, had to meet here in our facility. And like five minutes afterwards, people are flashing the lights. Like, back it up. This is what he said.
He said, flashing the lights like, hey, our God thing's over. The week's about to start. And I was just like, yeah. And like, you don't realize it. I mean, I get into this and feel like this is what it's supposed to be. And this is what the Holy Spirit does among people.
They become glad and generous and enjoy each other and are devoted to each other. And it's beautiful. And here's what happens. So what we've said is God's given us a mission to see the message move forward, which is that Jesus came and died on our behalf and that we weren't going to earn anything. We weren't going to save ourselves. We weren't going to accomplish this on our own through our good morals or our really smartiness.
It's wasn't going to happen. Our amazing religious ideas weren't going to happen. That Jesus had to step in and rescue us. And so the message that was declared is you're sinful. You killed Jesus. He had to die for you.
And he saves you. So he's Lord and Christ. Like he is the one who's rescued us. This is what Peter stands up and declares. And so we have a mission to move that out everywhere. To declare that message everywhere.
That we need Jesus. That we need Jesus. And then what we see is this is how it's done. When the Holy Spirit moves into a group of people, what we've talked about is what they automatically look like. But what he does is he makes communities of people just like this.
And that's actually how the mission moves forward. That's actually how the message gets spread is that there's communities of people just like this. That actually have the Holy Spirit working in them. 47. Well here we'll start at, we'll read the whole thing. Because reading the Bible is good.
42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
The way the Holy Spirit works in his people to move the message forward. Is communities of people who are changed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. To gather themselves around the gospel. To intentionally practice the presence of Jesus. And to grow. To be in normal everyday life.
It says it was day by day God added to them those who were being saved. Day by day. Day by day. That more and more and more and more and more and more people became Christians. Got around and said no I want to be a part of this. Not only do I hear what you're saying about Jesus.
But I see it. I see generosity. I see graciousness. I see your ability to receive things. And I always feel like I have to prove myself. And I see that you don't feel that.
Why is that? Oh the gospel. I can't prove myself. So it would really be horrible to try to feel like I had to. I'm freed up by Jesus. So there's groups of people that gather around this.
And the communities of people that move this forward. And people get saved. That's how we walk on mission. Is allowing the Holy Spirit to change us. To move in us. And to move among us.
And day by day people become believers. As we devote ourselves. As the church devotes themselves. To growing and understanding what we're called into. Who Jesus is and what he's done. Devote ourselves to each other.
Devote ourselves to intentionally being about the gospel. Practicing the presence of Jesus. And to praying. To asking and begging God to show up. And to do what only he can do. Because it says the Lord added to their number.
At no point is it about how amazing these believers were. And at all points is it about what the Holy Spirit does among a group of people. As he begins to wreck shop and take over their hearts. And that is how God has designed his church to move forward. That's our family history. That's how it got started.
And that's what we get to be in this city. We get to be communities of people intentionally centered around the gospel. Devoted to Jesus and his church. To having the Holy Spirit work in our hearts to change us. That's us. That gets to be us because of the Holy Spirit.
Because of who God is. And it's beautiful. And it's fun. And it's important. To get to invite more people in to what's already been accomplished for us in the cross. Band's going to come back up.
We're going to sing. And then we're going to do this. We're going to be communities of people intentionally centered around the gospel. We're going to gather together in large groups. We're going to meet in homes. Share bread.
Intentionally be about Jesus and what he's done for us. We're going to pray. Because we need Jesus to show up. If those statistics are still true. 48,000 people inside of like a six mile radius. That doesn't include Columbia.
There's like 100,000 people within a five mile radius of the state house that don't know Jesus. We're just talking about the West Columbia area is 48,000. We're not getting into Irmo. We've got a group meeting in Irmo. We didn't even touch people out there with that number. We've been given a mission.
We've been given a message that's actually good news. And we've been given the means by which to do that. The method that God has designed that as communities of people changed by the Holy Spirit. I'm going to pray. We're going to stand up and sing. And then we're going to be the church.
As we respond to who Jesus is. As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us. We've got communion set up. And communion is just. So they intentionally gathered together.
And they partook in. They broke bread together. They shared a meal that was an intentional communion meal. To remind themselves of what Jesus had accomplished. And one of the ways that we do that is we have some juice and some bread set up. Which is just to actively remind ourselves of the need for the gospel.
And so as a large group today we're going to do that. We're going to break bread together. In a very simple way. And then when we gather together in our homes. We're going to share meals together. We're intentionally remembering that we need Jesus.
So if you're a believer. And want to partake in communion. Want to remind yourself of your need for the gospel. Want to celebrate and actively participate in the presence of Jesus. We've got that set up at both sides of the room. If you're sitting here and you thought.
I don't really have a desire to be devoted to any of those things. Then the response isn't work really hard. And you can earn it. The response is realize that you need Jesus. That he actively works in our hearts. That he wants to change us.
And that's what happens among believers. We get to repent. We get to place our faith in Jesus. And he does this in us. God we thank you. For your grace.
And God we ask. As right now the believers in this room. As we devote ourselves to prayer. As we do what we do all the time. Where we pray together. God we ask that your Holy Spirit would.
Empower this in our souls. That your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts. To change us. To make us more. Like you. That you would help us be devoted to these things.
We praise you for your grace. And your love. In Jesus name. Amen.
The Mission
Transcript
It's basically we're going to take the next three weeks to look at some family history. We're going to look at how the church began, how the church got started, and we're just going to kind of investigate what that means for us. As far as we're a church plant, we've started meeting as one community group last March. We started meeting all together. We'd get together on Sundays. We started that last October, so we hadn't even been doing that for a year, and that was when we multiplied out to four community groups.
And so we're just kind of in the process of getting started and seeing what it looks like for us to follow Jesus in this city and what it looks like for us to be church family here and to plant a church. And so what we're kind of looking at is if we're doing this, if we're going to spend time, effort, we're going to sacrifice to start a church in this area, why? Why would we do that? Why is that important? And let's look back at what the original church did, the first church as it walked from what Jesus did on the cross and as he sent them out, what did they do? What did that look like?
And so we're just going to take three weeks to look at how the church began and what it looked like and what that means for us, how we then looking at some family history, at how the church originally began, how do we then apply that, how do we walk that out now and here. And so that's what we're going to be doing. Very excited to be able to do that. We're going to be in Acts chapter 1, and so we'll be in Acts chapter 1 and Acts chapter 2 for the next three weeks. One of the things that has puzzled historians as they've looked at the beginning of Christianity is just how quickly it grew. So historians who follow movements and look at how things progressed through history, they look at the early church and look at Christianity when it got inaugurated, and there's a little bit of confusion about how quickly it grew.
So Jesus would have been born right around A.D. 0. That calculation is kind of off, so he was within about three years of that, of A.D. 0. He would have been crucified on A.D. 30 or A.D.
33, Given Passover falling on a Friday. So A.D. 30, A.D. 33, right around in there he was crucified. He was in the grave for three days, came back on Sunday, back alive, was with his disciples for about 40 days, and then Pentecost happens 50 days after the crucifixion, after Passover, and that's when the Holy Spirit falls and the church officially kind of begins. And so then what happens, so that's in A.D.
30, A.D. 33. By the end of the first century, by A.D. 100, they went from about 120 Christians, and that's what Acts 1 says, there's about 120 of them who still said, no, we're going to follow Jesus, to about a million. That's an estimate, but over the course of about 70 years inside the Roman Empire, Christianity went from about 120 to a million. That is insane growth.
And that's why historians will look at the early church and say, I don't quite know why this happened. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And it didn't make a whole lot of sense because Christianity wasn't a very smart thing to join. It wasn't a good financial decision. Most people who became Christians ended up losing wealth and power. It wasn't a good political decision.
You were most likely going to be ostracized if not persecuted. And so the early church, a lot of them are killed. Romans ended up lighting their streets with Christians at different times, using them as street lamps, using them during the games to be attacked by tigers, and that sort of thing fed to lions. And it just wasn't a good move. There are only a few things historians will look back at early Christianity and say that they kind of had because it wasn't a good financial decision, wasn't a good political decision, wasn't a good power move. Like in the South, you kind of have to.
And in the United States up until recently and even still now, you kind of have to say, I'm a Christian. I believe these sort of things for the most part for political power. It helps you. It didn't help you at all. It was not a good move. So a couple of things they had was the way they treated the poor.
One of the Caesars said that Christians not only take care of their own poor, but they take care of ours as well. So they did treat the poor. They were the first diverse groups in history. So the first groups to have ethnic diversity, to have racial diversity, ethnic diversity, socioeconomic diversity, to have men and women serving and working alongside of each other. In history. So they had mass appeal, but you had to get over your own preconceived notions about how amazing your race and gender were before you could even hop in with Christianity.
So that's kind of helpful, but also not because everybody had to get over their own prejudices to even be a part of it. But really, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Christianity to grow the way it does, or the way it did. There's a... Kenneth Scott Latourette is a professor at Yale, and he says this. He says, So he says, So he says, So Christianity explodes. And this historian from Yale says, Is that something supernatural happened.
And so what we're going to do for the next three weeks is we're going to look at this explosion, and we're going to look at what it looks like for us to be a part of the same mission, the same history, the same family line. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop into Acts chapter 1. God, I just thank you that we get to be a part of something that you began over 2,000 years ago, that you inaugurated your church, that you gathered a people for your name and for your glory to be a part of your mission. And so, God, I just pray that we would honor you as we join in that in West Columbia, South Carolina, as we join in what it looks like to follow you in your mission.
Give us wisdom. Speak to us tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Acts 1, 1 through 11, we're just going to walk through this passage. It's on page 591 if you've got one of the Bibles in the chairs.
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. Okay. The first book that he's referring to is the book of Luke. So this is Luke who's writing this. He was a physician, so became a Christian later in life, was relatively wealthy, prominent. Was a physician.
He was a traveling companion of Paul. And so that even in the book of Acts, at certain times when he's talking about what Paul was doing, he says, we. So he'll be like, we were shipwrecked. We got stuck on an island because he was with Paul. So he traveled around with Paul.
Theophilus, who he's writing to both in Acts and Luke, seems to be a prominent maybe political figure because he calls him excellent Theophilus at the beginning of Luke. And so basically what Luke says in the Gospel of Luke is, I'm writing you an orderly account. I've gone around. I've done some research. And I'm going to give you an orderly account so that the things you've been told about Jesus, you can actually know are true. I'm doing some investigative reporting.
And I'm going to give you that. And so then he writes him a second book. He says, in the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit. And so what he's saying is, I'm starting a new book to tell you more things, but this is what I told you in the first book. I want to point something out to us, though. He says, all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit.
So Jesus gave commands through the Holy Spirit, that Jesus operated as led by the Holy Spirit. So quick theological recap for us. God exists eternally coexistent as one God in three persons. I'll say that again because it doesn't make any sense, but it's biblically true. God exists eternally as one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So as Christians, we believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
They are Trinity, but they are one God together, co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal, but they operate in different capacities as God. And so God the Father is in heaven. God the Son comes to earth, lives on earth as a human, and is empowered for what he does as a human through the power of the Holy Spirit. So that Luke is going to tell us over and over again that he was empowered by the Holy Spirit, that he was led by the Holy Spirit. And so Jesus actually shows us what it looks like for a human to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so that's important because Jesus is actually going to say to his disciples in John, it's better for you that I leave because if I leave, I'll send you the Holy Spirit.
What that means is if Jesus wanted to join our church plant, we should tell him no. Now that just seems wrong, right? That's what he tells the disciples. He says it's better for me to leave because then I'll send you the Holy Spirit. We're better off as his church to be believers filled with the Holy Spirit than to be just people following Jesus and Jesus be a part of us. So if he came to Matt and I and said, hey, I'm going to start coming to your elder meetings, but y'all don't get to be led by the Holy Spirit anymore, but I, Jesus, will be a part of your elder team, we should say no.
Now you'd want to fire us, but biblically we're right. So what he says is, we see that Jesus is empowered and led by the Holy Spirit, and then he says he's going to send the Holy Spirit. So after he'd given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering. So after he had been nailed to a cross, after he had been beaten, nailed to a cross, after he had died, been laid in a grave, he presents himself alive to them. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
So Jesus dies and then presents himself alive and hangs out with the disciples for 40 days. And it says he did many proofs. So he ate with them. Here in Acts it says he stayed with them. So he was around, he talked with them, he let Thomas feel his scars in his hands and his side.
He proved that he was alive and he was with them for 40 days, teaching them about the kingdom, helping them understand what he had come to accomplish, what he had done on the cross. So Jesus presents himself alive, verse four, while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the father, which he said, you heard from me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
All right, I just want to stop us there for a second. He's with the disciples. He's talking with them and they say, all right, are you going to set up your kingdom now? And I love his response. You don't get to know when I'm going to do that, but I have a mission for you. That's what he says.
So you don't get to know. That's not for you to know, but I have a mission for you. So just, just to help us out, just so y'all know, anybody who comes along and tells you that they know when Jesus is coming back does not. They don't get to know. We don't get to know. We're never going to get together and have a big chart with a really sweet dragon drawn on it to talk about all the things that have lined up with what's happened, what Ezekiel said in the 70 weeks in Daniel.
And so obviously on June the 21st, because we did Bible math, Jesus is coming back. We're not going to do that. Even if it's a really sweet picture of a dragon, we're not going to do it because we don't get to know. So what he says to him is you don't get to know, but I have something for you to do, but you have a mission. And so we're in the same place with the disciples that Jesus hasn't returned yet. He's going to, but we have something to do.
We have a mission to be a part of. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. First of all, Christians, we receive power from the Holy Spirit. We are led by the Holy Spirit. So it's to the point that Jesus says, don't, don't go do anything else until the Holy Spirit comes.
Now, depending on what kind of background you have, kind of the options are you come from maybe a church background where you're, you're sitting here going, finally, it's going to talk about the Holy Spirit. Finally, we're going to get into some of the good stuff. It's possible that you're in here from a church background and you're going, this is about to get weird. We're talking about the Holy Spirit. Things are going to get, going to get odd. I'm not quite ready for this.
Some of you are thinking, man, I can't believe I forgot my tambourine. Others of you are thinking, I hope nobody pops out with a tambourine. Like that's, that's kind of the, where we could be as far as when it comes to how we've grown up and understood the active role of the Holy Spirit. Some of you maybe have no clue what I'm talking about. Good. You get to be pretty neutral.
You get to just approach this in a good, helpful way. All I want to say is, and we're going to get to talk more about the Holy Spirit next week as we look at Pentecost. What I want to say is we are not afraid of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to be actively involved in what we're called to do. That the Holy Spirit of the living God gives believers power to be witnesses to Jesus. And we're going to talk more about what that looks like.
We're not afraid of the Holy Spirit. We want the Holy Spirit. I know that the Holy Spirit does what he wants to. Jesus says he's like a wind that blows where he wants. You don't know where he's coming, when he's coming, where he's going. And I realize that freaks us out.
And we'd rather just open the Bible and have a passage and be really safe. We don't get to do that. We, we, we do believe in the Holy Spirit and he does do what he wants. And he does move in power for gifts and for miracles. We believe all of that. And we'll talk more specifically about some of that next week.
But it's not something to be afraid of. The Holy Spirit is good. He is God. And we just want to approach it in a helpful way, healthy way. So, but the Holy Spirit, you will receive power when he's come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. So witnesses there, he means, well, they're going to testify to who Jesus is, to what he did.
A witness just tells of an event. So if a witness is brought up during a court case, all they're doing is telling you what happened, what they saw, what took place. You see, Christianity, and it's even how he starts. He says, in the first book of Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. Christianity is not a philosophy. It's not a set of teaching that we follow.
It's not a way of life that you can try out. And if you like it, good. If it works for you, good. But if not, try something else. That's not how Christianity works. Christianity is about a person.
It's about Jesus and what he did, what he accomplished on the cross. And so he says, you're going to be my witnesses because all they're going to do is bear witness to what he did, to news. It's not good advice. It's not good philosophy. It's not good teaching. The gospel is good news.
That's what gospel means. It means good news. It's just, we talk about an event that already took place. So it's not about what we do or how, how well we can work it out. He says, you're going to be witnesses. You're just going to tell people what I've already done.
And the truth is, we do this anyway with things that we like. We bear witness to things that we enjoy and appreciate. Just take Clemson and Carolina fans. They will both sit and tell you why you should like one over and against the other. One of them is right. Up top.
But one of them is not. But they have reasons for why LeBron James fans are, obnoxious is the word I was looking for there. Which, just for the record, any LeBron James fans, have you already swapped? Like, did you have to go burn all your heat stuff? Did you pull all your old Cav stuff out? Do they even have the same jersey types that they used to?
Do you have to fill out a form to swap bandwagons like that? Is there any kind of regulation on this? A buddy of mine is a Heat fan, and he loves LeBron James, but he said he's kind of glad that he left because now a lot of fans are leaving with him that were just LeBron James fans and didn't really care about the Heat. But we do this. I met a guy. I was at a party of a friend of mine, and one of his neighbors came over, and he was from Chicago.
And in the middle of a conversation, I was like, oh, you're from Chicago. Hey, nice to meet you. Have you eaten barbecue yet? He was like, yeah, he had gone to Little Pigs, and so I was like, that's a very good representation of barbecue, although I did make sure that he had gotten some mustard-based sauce because that's South Carolina barbecue, and it's like, I don't know, drinking magic. But it was, I mean, we were barely in a conversation.
It was like, oh, hi, nice to meet you. How do you feel about biscuits? Like, I immediately turned it to something that I cared about that I wanted him to be a part of, that I wanted to share with him, and the truth is, when Jesus says to the disciples, you're going to be my witnesses, this wasn't some sort of guilt trip thing. I used to grow up in church and felt like I was supposed to tell people about Jesus, but I always felt really guilty about it. I felt like I had to, or I was bad or wrong, and I had to come up with some really good ways to do it, or learn some kind of canned presentations, and to be able to talk to people about Jesus, and so when he says this to the disciples, this wasn't weird for them.
They were, yes, absolutely. You couldn't get us to shut up if you wanted to. We're going to tell people. So when he says you'll be my witnesses, what he's telling his followers is, the mission that I'm giving you is to declare what I've already accomplished, to tell people this good news, and they wanted to. One of the best ways I can describe this is, if you almost get a ticket, like if you almost get a speeding ticket, that actually makes your day better. Like if you're just riding, you just ride home, and you just make it home, that's nice.
If you're riding home, and you should have gotten a speeding ticket, and you don't, that's better. Like it just feels better. You feel good. Like you call people after almost getting a speeding ticket. Like you will call people up on the phone, like you won't believe what just happened. What?
I was doing 75 in a school zone. Got pulled over, got a warning. Like you, you do this. And my brother called me up the other day and said, hey, I just blew through a red light, made eye contact with a cop, who was stopped on the other side, and he didn't pull me over. Like he just called to tell me, that he should have, I think gone to jail. Like I, but he didn't.
And the truth is, that's the way I feel, about what Jesus has done for me. Like I want to share this with people. I deserve hell. I've rebelled consistently throughout my life against a holy God, willfully rebelled. And he should have destroyed me, but he didn't. He chose to come and live a perfect life and be destroyed on my behalf so that I can receive grace, unmerited grace, that affects everything for me, that changes everything for how I live and how my relationships get to work and how I get to walk through life without guilt or fear.
And I get to have joy and peace because of what Jesus has done. So when he tells the disciples, you're going to be my witnesses, they're saying, yes, absolutely we're going to be your witnesses. Absolutely we're going to tell people about what you've accomplished. You see, when they ask him, are you at this time going to set up your kingdom? See, beforehand, I say that in verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
When he was, before he died, they understood that he was going to set up a kingdom and they were going to have a, that Israel was going to be at peace because they were going to have a new king. And the Old Testament says that. What they didn't understand was they were still thinking that it had to do with their ability to earn it, with their ability to be on the right team, to do well enough, to follow the right person, to earn it. And they have these discussions with him all the time and he keeps telling them, it's not, it doesn't work in the same way as the stuff you're used to. And so after he died, they understood that he had to die for their sin.
They understood at this point that if God is going to set up a peaceful reign and get rid of all that causes problems, he's going to have to get rid of all humans because we cause problems. They understood that, that what messes up everything we get involved in is us. And so what they were asking him was, now that you've taken care of sin, because when he died for sin, he made it to where he could return, destroy evil, and not have to destroy us. So the disciples understood that. You've paid for our sins so you don't have to destroy us now when you destroy evil because our evil has already been destroyed on you.
Does that make sense? So when they're asking him that, they're saying, are you going to do this now? Is it going to be the 120 of us who aren't destroyed for rebellion? And what he says is beautiful. No. There's going to be a lot more of you.
There's going to be a lot more people that get invited into what I've accomplished on the cross. You're going to bear witness to the fact that I've already paid for sin and that they can have forgiveness and be reconciled to God through me. And so that's what the mission is, that we would see more and more and more people meet Jesus. That's what we want. If you're a Christian, you want everyone you know to meet Jesus. That's just how that works.
If you're in here and you don't know Jesus, I'm going to be very upfront with you. I want you to meet Jesus. I want you to repent of your sin. I want you to know Jesus. We've gotten in our mind today, culturally, that that's bad for us to want other people to believe things that we believe. As a Christian, it's not.
Because what I believe is that you have hope because someone else did good work on your behalf. And you have peace because someone else paid for your sin, your rebellion, your brokenness, and that someone loves you enough to rescue you. I want everybody to know that. I had a buddy of mine at work. I was talking to him and he found out I was a Christian. He said, oh, so I bet you want me to become a Christian.
And he said it like I think he was used to people calming down when he said that, like Christians being like, well, no, you can believe whatever you want to. And I said, yeah, I think that'd be great. I think it'd be great if you became a Christian and realized that Jesus is God and that he offers you hope and life and joy and rest in him. I think that'd be wonderful. And then I just like made awkward eye contact with him for a long time until he was just like, well, I just, okay. I don't know.
But it's true. That's what he says. So when Jesus says this, he says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. See, they already had gods that they worshiped in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. But Jesus says, no, you're going to go declare who I am and what I've done.
We're not going to get together and talk about whether or not that's a tolerant. You're going to go tell people about me. And they said, yes. Just to point out what he's saying here, when he says Jerusalem, they were from Galilee. They were kind of up above Jerusalem and it was kind of like a redneck version of things so that Jerusalem was the city. But if you were from Galilee, they could pick up on your accent.
And so I had a teacher one time when I was coming through school, she went to New York and she said she was trying to shop and all the workers kept doing was going and getting more workers to make her repeat her questions because they thought she talked so ridiculously. And so that's kind of what Galileans were. You were in Jerusalem and you sounded ridiculous. Jerusalem also was not a happy place for the disciples at this point. Jerusalem is where Jesus had just been murdered. Before they went to Jerusalem, people had tried to stone them.
They had escaped. It said Jesus eluded them and they got away. I don't know. It's like swim moves. Pushed a guy. I don't know how that worked but he eluded them and got away.
Then Jesus says, okay, we're going back to Jerusalem and Thomas who gets a bad rap for doubting but Thomas says, well, let's go die with him. He looks at all the other disciples and says, if he's going to Jerusalem, let's go die with him. And so they understood what was going to happen when they went to Jerusalem. And Jesus died but the rest of the disciples didn't although some of them were going to soon. And so when he says go back to Jerusalem, it's not an easy place for them to go back to. But he says, wait, the Holy Spirit's going to give you power and you're going to be witnesses here.
He says, Jerusalem, all Judea, so it starts locally, starts where they are, then it spreads out all Judea and then to Samaria. Samaria were people they didn't like. So he says, you know all the people you have prejudice against? Yeah, you're going to go tell them about me as well and invite them in to the point that when Samaritans became Christians, some of the apostles went to make sure it was legit. They were like, we're not so sure they can actually become Christians and they showed up and we're like, oh, okay. Seems like it's the same thing for us.
Okay. And then to the ends of the earth. So it's going to start locally and it's going to continue to spread and spread and spread and move and move. Christianity is a movement and movements move. And so Jesus tells them, I want you to stay where you are until the Holy Spirit gives you power and then you're going to be witnesses everywhere. God has you where you live and work for a reason.
He's in control and knows where we are and the Bible says he set our boundaries. It says that in the book of Acts. He has us where we are for a reason for us to be witnesses. We're in the same mission that they're in. We're called to the same task that they're called to, to be witnesses until Jesus comes back, to declare that the gospel is true until Jesus comes back. And it continues to work itself out.
So as a church, we've pretty much just been in this area. We hadn't done any national mission trip stuff. We hadn't done any international stuff, although we are in some conversations with some people in Madagascar to try to figure out what it would look like for us to maybe support them, help them, at least be praying for them, just trying to talk with them. I don't get to talk to them much because I think they have to walk a couple days to the internet. But I was talking to somebody and he said that they were trying to get a group to go there, but to go partner with them, but it takes like four days just to get to where they are because it's like an airplane ride, a train ride, a bus ride, a canoe, and then you like climb a mountain.
And so I was like, well, I can't say much about our church plant right now, but I know we have people that will travel four days just to go somewhere. We got people in our church that do that kind of thing for fun. What did you do this weekend? Climb the mountain. Why? So I was like, we got people who would be willing to do that.
So we started that conversation with them and that's because we believe that we're supposed to be a part of this, that we're in this same mission to see locally people meet Jesus. That's why we've got, we're praying over four different areas in our city right now. We're looking at what it would look like for a group to kind of adopt University of South Carolina and just start trying to love those guys there. People start playing games with them, start trying to build with people there. We're looking at Midlands Tech, what it would look like for us to start building with them. We're looking at area in West Columbia, colloquially known as West Hell.
What it would look like for us to start partnering with them, start loving them. We're looking at Glen Forest, what it looks like for us to start because we believe that we're supposed to be witnesses here, that we're supposed to be like Jesus where it says that he, what all he began to do and teach, that we're supposed to be the same, that our lives bear witness to the gospel and that we with our mouths bear witness to the gospel. And so the disciples were called into a very big mission. Jesus looks at his apostles and says, you're going to proclaim this in the place that just killed me and all the places around it.
Then you're going to go to a place that you have prejudices against and then you're going to take this to the rest of the world. That's a big mission. But he says, you're going to be empowered by the spirit of the living God to do this, which is really good news for us as Christians who think I'm inadequate to accomplish this. yes, but God is not and we're invited to be led by him and to be a part of what he's doing. So it says this, when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Okay, that just got weird. he's talking to them and then he just, he just, he just takes off and floats up.
Like, I always imagined, like, it's called the ascension, so people talk about the ascension. I always imagined that it was slow, like, just in my brain when I was younger. But it says a cloud hit him from sight, so if it was slow, that would have taken forever. Like, he's just slowly floating, bye, bye. Bye. Like, it took a really long time.
At some point, it would have been like, I honestly don't think that's what happened. I think he was talking to them and then it was just, you don't get to know when the kingdom's coming back, but here's what's going to happen. Stay here until the Holy Spirit comes. He'd already told him, when I leave, you're better off because I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, stay here until the Holy Spirit comes, and you've got a mission to see the rest of the world come to know what I've accomplished in the gospel. And then I think he just, took off. More like the guy from Matrix or Hitch or something where it was like sand blew in their faces and he was just gone.
And then they said a cloud hit him. So he just took off, which means that Jesus bodily ascended. He didn't spirit float away. He bodily ascended and he is at the right hand of God bodily now. So he ascends and it says that they're looking up into heaven and that would have freaked us out.
Like I imagine it says that a cloud hid them. When he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, so I imagine they're still just looking. And I think the only thing you could do is like look and then try to make eye contact with someone else like, did that really just happen? To see if everybody else was looking and be like, okay, I'm not the only one who saw that, all right. And so it says this, while they were, when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes. These are most likely angels, but two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. So Jesus says, it's not for you to know when the kingdom's coming and I've got a mission for you. And then he takes off and they're staring into heaven. And these two, it says men, but there was men in white robes, probably angels said, hey, hey guys, I imagine they were just staring for a while.
Like the angels are standing there like, didn't he tell them to go do stuff? Like, what are they doing? And I was just like this, it's like, should we help them out? Hey guys, hey, hey, look here, look here, eyes down. He's going to come back. Until then, you've got something to do.
And we're in the same spot that they're in. Our goal when we get together is not to just huddle up and stare up into heaven waiting for Jesus to return. That is not the posture of the church. Never has been, never will be. Our goal is not to build little Christian ghettos where our kids only learn Christian things and we only have Christian friends and we're only around Christian schools with a Christian government and Christian military walls that keep all the bad people out. It's not what the Christianity is designed for.
What he says is you're going to go to a place that hates you and that just killed me and some of you are going to die there. And then you're going to spread this all through Judea and some of you are going to die there. You're going to go to Samaria and you're going to take this to the ends of the earth. We're to go. We're to go. And that response to Jesus is yes.
It's always yes. None of the disciples looked at Jesus. You don't look at Jesus and say, I was kind of hoping for something like light. Maybe like easier. You don't look at the God of the universe who just came off of a cross and walked out of a tomb and tell him you want something light and easy. That's not how the mission works.
And so we as the church are commissioned to spread the gospel everywhere. And it's good news of the radical love and joy and peace offered to us through Jesus who paid for our sin, paid our debt so that we can have life and hope in him. And we're to spread that everywhere. And the answer to Jesus is yes. Whatever it is, yes. Whatever you want me to do, yes.
You've rescued me, you've redeemed me, I'm a part of your church, and yes. Nothing you ask of me is too big. If Christianity was based off of our ability to do things, our good work and our hard effort, at some point Jesus could ask too much of you. At some point, so if it's about how hard you work, at some point he's asking too much. But since Christianity is pure grace, that we've been redeemed and bought back, no effort of our own, no merit of our own, Jesus can never ask too much.
And the answer is always yes. So that's why Christians historically have done bizarre things. That's why they'll pack up, move to another country where it's dangerous. where they can't even tell people they're Christian because they're going to be killed and they have to build relationships with people and help people know the gospel. That's why Christians during plagues would head back into the city because there were people dying that needed to know the gospel and we've already been given life through Jesus. And so Christians, instead of fleeing plagues, would head back in and would be the nurses in the hospital.
Some of the first hospitals were started by Christians because they weren't afraid of getting sick. But they know that we've been called to minister to those who are dying and those are sick and those who are broken because we were dying sick and broken and Jesus came for us. That's why somebody goes to school and then heads off to rural podunk nowhere USA to be a pastor to 20 people. Because when Jesus calls, the answer is yes. Whether that lifts you up, makes people know your name. Do you know how many pastors are in the U.S. that no one's ever going to know their name?
Never going to live out the American dream of being famous. And they're being faithful to what Jesus has called them to. That's why we're called to live as everyday missionaries to our city. Your job is not just a job. You've been called into a mission that has eternal impact for you to be praying for your coworkers, for you to be following the Holy Spirit and what it looks like for people to meet Jesus in this city. I heard a pastor say that a good way to know whether or not you're following the Holy Spirit is if all of your prayers from last week were answered, how much would that have just benefited you and how many more people would be in the kingdom because of it?
That we pray as if the mission is somehow about our own comfort and not about more people being invited into what Jesus has already accomplished. The answer to Jesus is yes. That's why we as a church are, honestly it's why we're moving to Glen Forest because we think it's a better opportunity for us to be on mission in our city and we're always going to look and try to make decisions based off of mission. So yeah, we're going to have to get up early. Load-in is going to be harder and early. So like when we roll things in and set stuff up and put it down, it's going to be with a bunch of whole bunch of grumpy people at like seven o'clock in the morning.
And we're going to do that because we have more space for people to meet Jesus, more space for us to get together and bear witness and because we have the whole rest of the day to try to build relationships with our neighbors and our friends and our people in our city. For us to go to parties that our co-workers invite us to. For us to watch football and invite friends over and watch football. Because we're going to try to figure out what's the best way for us to be on mission in the city. That's why we carve out time during our weeks to hang out with our community groups. Because we think that's our best opportunity for mission to invite people to walk in normal everyday life.
We're just trying to figure out what it looks like to be on this mission that Jesus has called us into. See when Jesus calls us the answer is yes. I love this. I'm going to read you about a guy named John Patton. He was a missionary. They found a string of islands in 18 something and some people went as missionaries to that string of islands and they were there for about I think two weeks and then the inhabitants killed them and ate them.
So missionaries found string islands that we need to go there are people there we need to go tell them about Jesus. They were there for about two weeks before cannibals killed and ate them. So a guy named John Patton started feeling like God was calling him to go back to that island. It had been about 19 years since the last people went who were killed and eaten. And so when he was talking to his church family about it one of the elders said his name is Mr. Dixon.
He says the cannibals you will be eaten by cannibals. So when he says I feel called to this island to go tell them about Jesus that guy says cannibals are going to eat you. That's what happens on those islands. And in a letter he wrote back to this this elder John Patton wrote this Mr. Dixon you are advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or by worms.
And in the great day my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer. He and his wife went he had to talk to her dad about the fact that he may never see her again. He and his wife went and within a couple of weeks she and his baby died and he was there by himself. eventually that entire island met Jesus. But even if it didn't we have a mission and we have a God who's powerful and who's capable and who's good and in the cross prove that he's good and he's for our good and it doesn't matter what he asks from us. The answer is yes. It doesn't matter what the sacrifice is.
It doesn't matter what it does to our budget. The answer is yes. It doesn't matter what it does to our schedule and our time. The answer is yes. I get frustrated when my Christianity starts cutting into my budget and my time. And I have to repent constantly because when it comes to following Jesus the answer is yes.
Whatever the mission whatever the task whatever the call the answer is yes. And so some people in this room you may be supposed to go to another country where you can't tell people you're a Christian where we can't tell people what country you're in. And for some of us in this room it just means that we need to realize that when we go to work tomorrow we're not just punching the clock. We're bearing witness right where we are to who Jesus is and what he's done for us. That every day we're called into this mission. And for us as a church it means that everything we do is about this mission.
To be Jesus' people on his mission to see more people meet Jesus. Whatever that looks like and whatever that takes. Next week we're going to talk about how the Holy Spirit empowers us to do that and then two weeks from now we're going to talk about what that actually looks like practically. The means by which we move the mission forward. But we have a mission and for us as a church and for us as individuals the answer to Jesus is yes and we join him in what it looks like to bear witness to him wherever we are.
And we'll pray. Band's going to come back up and we're going to sing. God we thank you that you have rescued us. that we have hope and joy and rest in you that our standing before you isn't based off of our ability to be good witnesses. It's not based off of our ability to accomplish your mission that you accomplished everything for us in the cross and that you through your Holy Spirit empower us for mission. That we just get to join you in what you're doing. But God I pray that you would lead us to repentance in areas where we're fighting against following you in mission.
That God we wouldn't think it's okay to say we're followers and not follow. That we wouldn't think it's okay to say that you're our God and you're our Lord and not submit to you when you call us into what it looks like to follow you. God move among us empower us by your Holy Spirit to be witnesses in the city and may we say many many more people come to know that you are God and that you have life and joy and hope and peace and rest for them. We love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen.