We Love Jesus
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. We've entitled this sermon series, Home Sweet Home. We're spending five weeks just looking at the church, looking who the church is, what are the characteristics of the church, if you find God's people on earth, what do they look like, how ought they to organize themselves, and that's what we've been spending some time doing. So we're in our second week.
Last week, what we said was the church is the church through Jesus' work on its behalf. The church is people. It's God's people on earth. The church is all of the people throughout all of history who have ever believed in Jesus. So when you talk about the church, you're talking about all Christians everywhere, around the globe and throughout all history who have believed in Jesus, and then each local church is made up of those people, a group of those people.
And the church, we would be tempted to say that the church is a group of people who do this, have these certain characteristics, act this way, behave a certain way, follow a certain set of rules, follow the Bible, whatever. We would be tempted to say that. So it's people's actions first, and that's what makes them the church. But when you start reading the Bible, and we looked in Ephesians 1 and 2, what we saw was the churches made the church by Jesus, that it was his actions on behalf of the church, on behalf of his people, that actually makes them the church, that he died for their sins, that he welcomes them, that he adopts them, that he accomplishes everything for them.
So we said it's kind of like a family. So here's how this works. You have the genetic makeup that you have. You have the last name that you have based off of the actions of other people, not off of your actions. You're in the family you're in based off of other people's actions. So, I don't know, a hundred years ago, there was a young lady.
She worked at a bookstore. There was a young man. And he had what they would have said a hundred years ago, mad game. And he came to the bookstore, and he began to talk with her, to flirt with her. They met at a train station. They grew up in school together.
They met in college. They grew up, their families lived next door. It doesn't matter. Everybody's got these different stories. But there's these people that came together.
And about the same time, there were some other people that met and came together. And both of those people around the same time-ish, within 20 to 30 years of each other, had children. And then those people grew up and met each other at a bookstore or a train station or the internet, whatever. And eventually, you have what we have now, which is a certain genetic build, a certain genetic makeup, a certain last name. And it's based solely off of the effort, energy, work of somebody else. And that's the church, that we're the church, that Christians are Christians based off of what Jesus has already done, based off of what he accomplished for us on the cross.
You wouldn't have Christians without Christ. I know that seems complex, but it's pretty straightforward. Without Jesus, there is no church, because the church is his people on earth. And so, what we're going to talk about today is, though, what does the church begin to look like? If there are Christians made so by Jesus' effort, made so by Jesus' work, what do they look like? What are the characteristics?
What are the attributes that if you went across the globe, if you went back in time, if you looked at any given church, what are the things that automatically begin to show up because they belong to Jesus? So, one of the ways to think about this, if we're still kind of following the family idea, is on my dad's side, he's got a brother. My uncle and my aunt, they have four children. Three of them are boys. One of them is a girl. And in that family, because of the genetic makeup, because of the genes they have, because of the upbringing, if you're one of their children, you're tall, you're sarcastic, like aggressively so, you're just kind of aggressive in general, and you're fairly good at sports.
Like, that's just kind of their children fit that category. So, even my cousin Cindy, who's a girl, she's tall for a girl, she's sarcastic, and she's, you know, good at sports for a girl. I just said that to annoy some people. I was just for my own enjoyment. So, I'm sorry. But, she, that's just what it is.
That's how it works. And it has to do with their genes, and it has to do with their upbringing. It has to do with the parents they had, the situations where they lived. I'm like, it has all these things to do with that. And there are just certain qualities and characteristics that are just going to come through their DNA they had no real choice about. That's the church.
That when we become Christians, when Jesus works on your behalf, and you see what he's accomplished for you on the cross, and you place your faith in him, and what we read last week, the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells in you, it's like you have new DNA. You've been made new. The Bible says you've been born again. You've been welcomed into a new family. And so you have a new father and some new DNA, and the church begins to look like the church across the globe, regardless of language, regardless of culture. There are certain things that are just going to be there.
Now, this is very important for us to understand before we start reading this text today. If you are tall and sarcastic and athletic, that does not make you my cousin. They don't recruit. Like, they don't just meet people and be like, hey, you're tall. I saw you using your words to hurt that person's feelings. Want to be my brother?
Like, they don't do that. My uncle's not like, I think I met one of my sons today. No, like, he knows. So here's what I'm saying, and here's what the Bible says very clearly. We're going to look at what are the characteristics, what are the attributes of the church? If you're going, okay, I want to be a Christian, or I see that in my life I don't have any of those, the response is not, let me start doing those.
The response is, let me have Jesus make me part of his family. You go to Jesus first. He's got to adopt you. He's got to pay for your sins. He's got to make you one of his before those characteristics will start showing up. So you don't just white knuckle, okay, let me do all the actions.
Just the same with, like, growing up in my house. You know, I had to cut the grass. I slept in my house. I had to eat at a tape pool with my family at a certain time. If you just showed up, cut my grass, showed up to dinner, slept in my house, the next day you looked at my dad and you were like, hey, daddy. He'd have been like, boy, what are you doing?
Like, who are you? Get out of here. Like, just because you do the actions doesn't make you a son. It doesn't make you a daughter. And so what you've got to realize, and Jesus puts it this way, he says that you don't get figs from a thistle bush, which is basically like nobody's ever picked a peach from a pine tree. So if we go through this today and you start realizing you don't have the characteristics, you don't have the attributes, you're like, oh, I'm a peach tree.
I'm a peach tree. And it's like, why are you making pine cones? Like, those peaches are the worst, crunchiest, most terrible peaches. I'm a peach tree. I'm just really tall and I throw needles everywhere. And during a certain time of the year, I throw yellow dust everywhere onto all the cars, you know, like all the other peach trees.
Like, if you realize that, the response isn't start really trying hard to make peaches. The response is, go to Jesus. Say, hey, I need you to dig me up. I need you to plant a new tree here. Okay? So, now let's look at what are the characteristics of the church.
Go to Acts chapter 2. In your blue and white Bibles, that's going to be on page, we're going to be on page 592. Acts chapter 2. So what this is, is Jesus has already died. He's already taken disciples and trained them on what it looked like to follow him. And then he dies to pay for sin because it wasn't just about following him.
He actually needed a sacrifice on our behalf. We needed someone to die for us. So Jesus dies and then he rises again from the grave. And when he rises, he goes back to his disciples and he says, okay, what we were doing already, I need you to keep doing. And I need you to tell people that there has been a sacrifice, that they can be saved, that there is hope. I need you to go be my people, be my church.
And so what we're going to read is the beginning of the church in Acts chapter 2. And here's what we're seeing. It's kind of like flipping through an old photo album and realizing that your great, great, great granddad has your sister's, wait, no, granddad, that would be weird, has your brother's face. Or your brother has your great, great, great granddad's face. Maybe he's your sister. Maybe she's, you know, got some really strong features.
Or he has some soft ones. Like you don't know. Your granddad, you realize, whoa, y'all's faces are the same. Like we look the same. That's what we're doing. We're looking back at the church and saying, what are the characteristics that we see that are typical, that are the attributes of all of the church throughout time and history?
If you went to Botswana, you would see this. If you went back in time 300 years, you would see this. Like you would see this in the church. That's what we're looking at, in Christians. And so as a Christian today, if you're in here, you're just basically asking this question, how do I see this showing up in my life? Where is this in me?
Where is this in our church? And we are going to talk about what we see in this passage and then we'll reference other passages just to try to help make it clear. And so we'll be a little more all over the place than we usually are, but we'll stay in here in our Bibles and show stuff on the screen. And we'll pray and we're going to start reading. God, we thank you that we have your word. We thank you that your Holy Spirit leads us from the inside out, that you begin to change us and make us yours.
I pray, Lord, that you would shape us as a church, as your people, to live out what it means, what it looks like to be your people on earth. And I pray, Lord, that you would claim more people for yourself today, that more people would respond to your love, that more people would respond to what you've accomplished on the cross today, and that more people would be a part of your church today. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so Peter is one of Jesus' followers, and this is the Holy Spirit comes on Peter and on all of the other disciples and indwells them, and Peter begins to proclaim.
He opens the Bible, begins to teach, he begins to quote Scripture and preach to about thousands of people. There's just a giant crowd, and so we're going to pick up in verse 37 where he's finishing up what he's been saying. And what he's been saying is, in the Old Testament, it is clear that Jesus fulfills these prophecies and that Jesus is who he says he was. He is God who died for our sins, and we're going to pick up where he finishes. And what we're looking for is what are the characteristics that begin to immediately show up in the church that ought to show up in us. Verse 36, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
So Peter finishes by saying, Jesus who was crucified, who died for your sins in your place, is Lord and Christ. He is the one who was promised who would save us. And he's Lord, he's in charge. Verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? The first characteristic that is absolutely first and foremost in the church is that the church, that Christians love Jesus.
That's the first characteristic. That the church, that Christians are cut to the heart by Jesus and they love Jesus. That they see what he accomplished for them on the cross. And there's this love, this response to Jesus' love for us. That the Christians in the church respond by loving Jesus. And so here's what that means for us.
1 John 4 says that it's God that loves us and that we respond in love. Like that we didn't love him first, but he loved us first. Went to the cross for us. That he redeemed us to make us his and that we love in response. Matthew 22, Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. He says that's the primary thing, that we would love God.
Now, you can't always feel lovey. Like some of us hear that. You hear that you should love God. And there's like, maybe the room's like half and half. Half of the room is like, yes. Love God.
I do that. I do that right now. Like half of the room, like you talk to them and you're like, hey, how's it going? How are you and Jesus? And they're like, oh, wonderful. I've just been reading my Bible and it was like, I felt today like God gave me a hug.
People, it's like, that's beautiful. I'm probably not going to say that to you if you ask me how things are going. Like, it's like, I just don't, I don't feel my way through life. I'm not emotioning around everywhere. And so there's this thing when we see, like, you should love God and there's this immediate like, for half of us that are like, I don't know how to do that. I agree.
That sounds good. But how do you do that? Like, how do you, and so you just, it's almost like you try to force yourself to feel a feeling. Which is really hard. Like, all right, make yourself hungry right now. If you're not hungry, unhungry yourself.
Nope. Or if you are hungry, unhungry yourself. If you're not hungry, well done. You already unhungried yourself. I just got confusing. It wasn't helpful.
You can't make yourself feel a feeling. That's what I was going for. All right. Nailed it. But you can't.
Like, how do you produce that? And so here's where the Bible actually steps in and helps us out a lot. Just makes it much easier on us. John 14. This quote will be on the screen. John 14 says this.
If you love me, this is Jesus talking to his disciples. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Another place he says, if you love me, you'll obey me. Now, I used to read that and think, like, oh, I got to do what you say and then I'll be in the club. Like, that's, that's the, if you love me, do what I say. Like, and it used to bother me until I realized that I have a hard time feeling like I love Jesus.
Like, that happens sometimes. But what it made so clear to me was, what he's saying is, not if you commit, if you do my commandments, you'll love me. This is the other way around. If you love me, like, if you have that characteristic, you'll do this. And it'll be easy. And that makes sense.
It's like saying, if you trust me, you'll do what I say. So there are some people in your life that you just, when a situation comes up, you're like, I just need to call them. I need to talk to them. And you basically just show up to them and say, hey, what should I do here? And you're just going to do what they say. You already know you're going to do what they say because you trust them.
You believe that what they're going to say and they'll say, you should do this. And you go, all right, sounds good. And it depends on how much you trust them as to how willing you're able to do that. What he's saying is, if you love me, and so for people who don't feel lovey, we get to obey. And that's how we show Jesus that we love him. We get to do, we get to read what he says and do it.
And that's one of the ways that we get to say, no, I love you. Be the same way if I said, oh, I love my wife. I love her. I mean, I don't, I hadn't seen her in a while. I don't really hang out with her anymore. Or I hadn't done any of that husband stuff recently.
Like, talk to her or help her do anything. You'd be like, I don't know how much you like. Did she leave? Like, or why is there? No, she's there. She's probably crying.
I'm not there. I don't know what she's doing. Like you, like it shows up. Like you would say, I don't think you, do you know what the word love means? Like you're supposed to, like there's some things that go along with, whatever. That's what Jesus is saying.
If you love me, this will show up. If you love me, you'll obey me. Let me, I'm going to read a quote from C.S. Lewis because he's addressing this. And I think it's really helpful. They are told as Christians that they ought to love God.
They cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, if I were sure I loved God, what would I do?
When you have found the answer, go and do it. On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for him. Nobody can always have devout feelings. And even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do his will, we are obeying the commandment, thou shalt love the Lord thy God.
He will give us feelings of love if he pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, his love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins or our indifference. And therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to him. We just get to follow and remember forever that he loves us.
But one of the first traits, characteristics that you'll see in the church is a love for Jesus, shown in an appreciation of Jesus, shown in an obedience to Jesus. And when you find a church that is a church that is Christians, you'll find people singing to Jesus, you'll find people praying to Jesus, you'll find people preaching about Jesus, you'll find people gathering on a regular basis to remind themselves what he's done for them and to celebrate that it's already been accomplished because they love Jesus. And so the first thing that we see right out the gate is that they're cut to the heart by Jesus. And let's keep reading.
We'll move on to the next characteristic that you're going to see. So Christians love Jesus. The church loves Jesus. Verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
And 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 gift of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Peter says repent. Repent means stop sinning. Acknowledge where you're wrong and turn away from that. Put it down.
Acknowledge that you need Jesus to save you, that you can't save yourself. Confess that and leave it. Turn away from your sin and come to Jesus. So he says repent. The second thing that we see that is true about the church is that the church hates sin. Christians hate sin. hatred comes from love.
Just so y'all know. Hatred comes out of love. The only reason you hate things is because you love something else. If you've ever met a person who truly hated, it first was born out of love. It came out of love. So let's say after the gathering today, we're hanging out.
I got a one-year-old son. His name's Archer. He comes running up and like hits your leg and you take offense because what the heck is he trying to do? So you just, I don't know, slap him in the face. He falls on the ground. My wife's there and she's like, comes at you, you know, like her eyes turn to fire and she assaults you and you push her down.
Then I'm going to come over there and you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to go, hey, you probably shouldn't hit children. And that was my wife. You should quit kicking her. You're hurting her. Like, no, that's not what's going to happen.
You and I are going to have an interaction because I love, because I love them. I'm going to hate anything that hurts them because I love them. I'm going to hate anything that comes against them. So Christians who love Jesus hate our sin because our sin killed Jesus. It was our sin that sent Jesus to the cross. It was our sin, our failure, our rebellion that he had to come pay for.
Christians hate sin. If there was a weapon that killed your brother, there was a gun that somebody shot your brother with, you wouldn't take it to your house and hang it over your mantle and people came over and said, what is that? You say, oh, it's the gun that killed my brother. I polished it up and hung it up here. You wouldn't do that. And if you meet Christians, people who are part of the church that don't care about their sin, they don't, they're missing something.
So Christians repent. Christians hate sin, fight sin. Now, we don't hate sin in a superior way that we look down on those evil sinners. No, we were the first people to repent. That was how we responded to Jesus. We acknowledged our sin.
We hate sin the same way we hate cancer. That it's in us and it's in other people and we want to get rid of it. We want to fight it in ourselves and we want to fight it in other people. We're not mad at the people. We want to help them. Christians hate sin.
They hate how sin tears families apart. They hate how sin causes death and murder and lies and strife. They hate how sin eats away at us so that we can't even think straight anymore. They hate how sin tears up all of our relationships. We hate sin and so we fight against it. Romans 8 is going to say that we put to death through the Holy Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body.
That Christians actively aggressively fight sin. Know it. Look for it. Realize that's what made Jesus have to save us. Repent. Acknowledge it.
Fight sin. Hate sin. That's in the church. If you're in here today and you say you are a Christian and your life is not marked by active repentance continually looking at your own sin and despising it and actively working to change if you say you're a Christian and nobody can ever come tell you that you're wrong nobody can ever address error in you that's scary because the first step of becoming a Christian was saying I see that Jesus had to die for my sin and I want to turn away from it. I don't want any more of it. Now we're going to keep sinning.
You're going to keep failing. You're going to keep falling short. It doesn't say Christians don't sin. We just don't like it. We don't like how evil our hearts are. We don't like that we're actively in sin.
I'm going to read a quote. This is from 1 John so it'll be on the screen. If we say we have fellowship with him which means we're connected with in relationship with Jesus while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. If you were like I don't know I'm doing pretty good.
I don't have any sin. The sin was you just lied to yourself. Repent of that and then try to figure out what else is going on because we've got something going on. We're continually lying to ourselves. If we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
So here's what he's saying. If we walk in darkness if we're actively sinning actively unrepentant actively pursuing sin we're in darkness we're not in the light. We haven't shown a light on haven't seen clearly how messed up we are. You want to hear something kind of gross about me? It's not real gross. I'll just tell it and then you can decide whether or not you want to hear it.
And his word is not in us. So here's what he's saying. If we walk in darkness if we're actively sinning actively unrepentant actively pursuing sin we're in darkness we're not in the light. We haven't shown a light on haven't seen clearly how messed up we are. You want to hear something kind of gross about me? It's not real gross. I'll just tell it and then you can decide whether or not you want to hear it. I'm kind of a sweaty person. I have really thick hair and whenever I'm doing something like activity wise I start sweating and I do this a lot with my hand
Just while I'm doing stuff like I'll just run my hand through my hair and what happens is there's some sort of a weird biological thing I have that is due to the consistency of my sweat maybe high fructose corn syrup I should try to drink less Mountain Dew and the thickness of my hair that it turns into the most amazing hair gel you've ever seen and after I have been sweating or working out or whatever I can make my hair do just whatever I want it to and it'll stay that way forever. Yesterday I was putting floors down in my house and apparently
For some reason kept doing this and so I had been doing this for a while people would come over to my house I talked to people I went outside for a while and talked to my neighbors for a little bit I walked by a mirror and every hair on my head was standing straight up and the only way you would assume that happened was I actively stood in front of a mirror and was like this looks good because there's no other reason why anyone's hair should ever do that I mean I look like
A character from like a cartoon or something like my hair just and I thought that's why my neighbors looked at me weird because I was just straight up talking to them like yeah what's going on and they were like yeah okay like don't know me well enough to go hey bro that's not a good look like you should you should go fix that I didn't know it because I hadn't looked at myself and what he's saying is if we if we walk in darkness
We're not walking in the light of Jesus but once we shine a light on it we see it and we fix it it was too late for me yesterday because my hair was done like I couldn't get it back down it's not too late for our sin like we get to see our sin and we get to confess it we get to bring it to Jesus it's the same way with your room looks really clean until you turn the light on your house is really nice until you move the refrigerator and you gotta see what's behind there
Like that's what he's saying so honestly if we hadn't noticed your sin in a while you probably haven't been very close to Jesus because that's where we notice our sin but here's the good news we just confess he's already forgiven us we just we hate our sin we repent of it but he's already accomplished everything it's not about your behavior your ability to be good it's about you acknowledging it and getting to move forward because he forgives us Christians hate sin
The church hates sin alright let's keep reading so he starts off with 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 gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself just wanted to point this out noticing sin in ourselves does not create superiority or pride or self-righteousness
Towards other people it helps us love them more so when we see someone else sinning and doing things that we would never do because we sin in a different area we just get to go yeah they're far off too they're far off like I was far off and this is for everyone who's far off everyone who's not even remotely close to being like Jesus gets to be welcomed in 40 and with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying save yourselves from this crooked generation
So those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3,000 souls so 3,000 people just became the church just joined the church there was about 120 before this so now there are 3,000 Christians on the face of the planet and immediately the Holy Spirit goes to work to begin to change in them and give them the family traits that we're looking at today so 42 and they
Those 3,000 people devoted themselves to the apostles teaching okay this is something else that you will find every church everywhere they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching what that means is they took everything the apostles which were the 12 men who followed Jesus around whatever they said they took it they wanted to learn they wanted to grow they wanted to understand who Jesus was what he had done
What that meant the apostles we know were teaching from the Old Testament and then we have now what they wrote down in the New Testament and so what this means for us today is that the church loves the word the church loves the word which means we love the Bible we studied the Bible we grow in the Bible because it's what teaches us how we ought to act how we ought to live what Jesus has done for us you go around the world you're going to find people
That read this study this memorize this in places in places where it's illegal they've made there are people that had the Bible mounted to the underside of a stool so they could flip it over and be reading and if anybody authority or whatever came they could flip the stool back over and sit down on top of it because the Bible would be hidden underneath there are people who would pass around just sheets all you would get
Was a crumpled up torn out page from a Bible and you would work as hard as you could to memorize that section and then you would trade with someone else and they would give you another torn out sheet of page from the Bible and you would try to memorize that because the church loves the word when I was in junior in college I went to Romania and I was going to get to speak at some churches in Romania and I remember
Asking the pastor I was like hey how long do you usually preach and he was like till you're done and I was like what yeah but okay how long should it be before I'm done because I'm American we pretty much have time limits on this thing and he looked at me and said about half the people here will have walked six miles or further to be here
To hear what the Bible says you go until you're done and on a regular basis I would preach which for me he was still only like 30 minutes or something 15 20 30 minutes even with a translator it's not the case now but that was when I was a junior in college and then they would still get up they'd say thank you
And they'd pick another passage and they would preach right behind it so we're going to start doing that every Sunday we'll have sermon one we'll have an intermission we'll have sermon two no but the church regardless of where it is loves the word we're going to read this we're going to study this we're going to try to grow that's why
Every week we start off with open your Bibles to this place because we're going to read this we're not just going to talk about things that we think and feel we're going to read this and try to apply this and try to see what because we believe that this is how God speaks to us this is how
We're changed and how we grow we're devoted to it now personally you got to find a way to get in the word to consume the Bible to be devoted to teaching and we have now you have more avenues for this than anybody ever has you can listen to it while you
Ride around you can put it on your iPad you can listen to other sermons where people are taking this you can order any kind of book you want to from Amazon and read this and read a commentary and what I found is we have as much access to this as any place in the world ever and we don't
Touch it but Christians do we want to know what it says we want to study we want to learn from it I've noticed a couple of things one is if it gets if your relationship to Jesus is dry or feels off or not great
The response is to start reading the Bible so let me explain how this works my wife and I have been married for going on seven years we have a son now and there are times where it's like we just kind of live in the same house
We're both there making sure things you know get done or whatever but we're not like enjoying our relationship and even harder now that we have a kid and some of y'all have like seven children and Lord bless y'all but we have one child
And it's like it's hard for us to even have a conversation where we're not like in the middle of a sentence and then having to go put it down stop quit you're gonna hurt yourself I'm gonna hurt you or like you're in the middle of a conversation
And we're like is that jelly or blood do you want to taste it like I mean we're doing pretty good as parents just so y'all know like but uh it's hard so there are times where it's like we're just not relating well and so what we do is we put I
Don't go ah you know what we're not getting along hope that gets better I put forth energy because I'm a Christian I believe we're gonna be married forever so if we're not getting along I want to make sure we get along that's gonna make forever a long time like if I gotta stay married forever
And we don't like each other that's bad so I'm like no we're gonna figure out how to like each other like we're gonna get along we're gonna I'm gonna tell some jokes we're gonna laugh if something's gonna happen we're gonna ride a roller coaster so we can at least smile near each other like
We're gonna figure this out but I have to go I have to do work I have to get somebody to watch the kids so we can go on a date or whatever and that date if we hadn't been getting along or hadn't been on a date or hadn't had a conversation with each other for a while it's awkward but the
Point is I press into it so that we can get back to where we need to be so that I can grow so the relationship can begin to grow it's not gonna happen on its own and for some of us it's like I don't know I'm just not relating well to Jesus and it's like when was the last time you opened this up when was the last time you sat with him and said I just need to talk I need you to and
You're like well it's awkward yeah it's not gonna get better not doing that that's that's how we do it I've also found Christians will sometimes say yeah I'm just really praying about this and trying to see what God wants me to do my next question always is are you reading your Bible no that's like saying I'm waiting for a phone call where's your phone in the house you're not gonna get that call like it's
Harder the person could show up the person could show up at your house and when we say I'm trying to find what God's will is for me but I'm not gonna read the main thing that he's already told me all of his will in it's a lot harder the the other thing this is I'm just trying to help us see how the word shows up in us and how how it matters to us I mean I'm going to cover two more things but let's I want to read a passage for us first
To one is from first Timothy he says until I come he's talking to a pastor devote yourself to the public reading of scripture to exhortation and teaching what he's saying is get together read this he says to that same pastor again in another letter in second Timothy 316 this will be on the screen all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching for us to grow and learn for reproof for correction correction is hey you're a little bit out of line here
Reproof is dude pay attention the difference there reproof is a little more aggressive and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearance and by his kingdom by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove rebuke and exhort with complete patience and the teaching I love it
Is good for my soul that it says reprove rebuke exhort that the reason for preaching is that what it means is when I come to the Bible I've got to realize that Jesus is going to need to reprove me he's going to correct me he's going to need to rebuke me there's going to be times where I'm off and that's what the Bible does is it helps change me and then he's going to need to exhort me which is help me grow and actually want to put forth effort two other quick things when it
Comes to reading the Bible Christians sometimes say they're actively pursuing sin and then they'll say well I prayed about it and I just feel like I don't I don't feel like I mean I think I can just keep kind of going like I don't feel like God told me to stop what you have just said if the Bible clearly explicitly says you should not be doing the behavior doing should not be actively involved in when you're involved in and you say I prayed about it but don't feel like I should stop what you have
Articulated out loud just so you know the next time you say that sentence is I'm so far removed from Jesus right now that even though he's already clearly said it it's not actively at work in me there are some things you don't need to pray about he's already made really clear and we learn through the word the other thing sometimes Christians act like they want to be led by the Holy Spirit and all Christians should all Christians should want to be led by the Holy Spirit and so Christians will say well I just don't read a lot because I
Want to be led by the Spirit I just want the Spirit to guide me like I'd much rather just have the Spirit in me than then read the Bible that thought process is confusing you're just kind of off there the Holy Spirit breathed out the Bible first Peter says that it was people carried along by the Spirit that wrote the Bible so the Holy Spirit is going to teach you through the Bible the Holy Spirit is going to teach you using the Bible the Holy Spirit can teach you can lead you when you're not near a Bible but he's going to line up with what the Bible already says it's like this you ever been around a couple and they can have a conversation
Without using words they've just been together long enough like like you would you would be around them and something would happen and one of them would look at the other one and go and they look back and go and look back and go and it was like a pitcher and a catcher doing the like you know giving each other signals and you like one of them will be like what y'all's faces doing but they have a whole conversation without ever having the reason they got there is they've been around each other so much that they knew what each other were thinking they knew like Anna and I the closest I have gotten is that I'll think up something hilarious and Anna
Will look at me and go don't say that and I'll be like my face gave me away I got to look less excited that's about as close as we get right now otherwise we got to actually say words to each other but we can't do the face thing yet but when someone says I want to just be led by the Holy Spirit the way you do that is by learning the word and it makes it way easier for the Holy Spirit to converse with you for the Holy Spirit to teach you when you're not near the Bible so if I said I really want Anna and I to be able to just have face conversations the way we practice that is not it's through real conversations that's how we learn what the face meant first the face
Needs to say words to us and then we can just get the expression part and some of us like I really just want to be led by the Spirit get in here start reading this and the Spirit will lead you that's how that's how that works he's going to lead you here and then he'll start leading you when you're not near it okay Christians love the word for oh no not for I got to read it here first that'll make sense otherwise you know where'd you get that no I got the passage we didn't read um they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship what that means is they devoted themselves to each other they devoted themselves to they belonged to one another so the Bible in several places is going
To say we're actually members of one another we belong to one another the same way that your foot belongs to your hand like you connected they're devoted to one another the Bible has 59 one another's we're going to read all of them next week and the week after probably that was 59 one another's where it says do this with one another this is how you relate to one another you're members of one another love one another bear one another's burdens like it's going to over and over and over again because it's just assumed that we're going to be connected to one another we're going to be devoted to one another when when God became your father if you place faith in him you got a whole lot of brothers and sisters so if you're like well can't can't a
Christian be a Christian on an island yes you can be a Christian on an island none of us are like I haven't seen anybody walk in here wearing a loincloth holding a volleyball with paint on it or whatever and if if we did we would say we're so glad you're off the island you should get in a community group unless you plan on going back to the island you need to get in a group that's what we say because here's the thing we were designed to be to relate to one another to love one another that the church loves one another Christians are devoted to one another first John 4 10 through 11 says this oh nope sorry that's way back wait I'm gonna get it yeah it's first John 4 10 through 11 and this is love not that we have loved God but have loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for
Our sins which means he turned away wrath says beloved if God so loved us we also ought to love one another John 13 35 says this by all by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another one of the ways that we put God on display is our relationship to one another that's one of the things that I love about whenever we have baptisms those videos over and over and over again is somebody saying yeah I started hanging out with a group I started hanging out with a community group I got around this person and this person and this person this person harassed me and then this person loved me and then this person sir like and it's just this I got to see Jesus at work through his people the church loves one another I feel like sometimes on Sunday what we're doing is like a cooking show you watch a cooking show that I like them at the beginning when I
See a little bit of the cooking show I'm like oh it looks great but then by the end when they walk over and they're like okay they open the oven it's already cooked and then they pull it out and then it's the worst when they go mmm this is so good it's like all right this just got annoying because I want to eat that and I'm not putting any of that effort into it and you also moved way too quickly on some of the stuff like I understood what you were talking about like polonaise what I thought I was an island um that may not be a word it might be polonaise or something like that so it's spelled like bologna anyway um it feels like you sometimes that's what Sunday is to me we're going to proclaim Jesus we're going to open the Bible but we're going to say is this is the ingredients this is what it should look like and if you just do Sundays you don't ever get to taste it if you just
Do Sundays and so what we're saying when we say get in the group is that you actually get to it makes it tangible it makes it real when you see people actually loving each other actually forgiving each other actually bearing one another's burdens because you actually get to see the gospel on display that's why Jesus says they'll know you're my disciples by the way you love one another the church is committed to loving one another we're going to spend more time on that next week and the week after the last one is this we're gonna read the rest of this passage to the breaking of bread and the prayers which was them getting together praying together to them celebrating Jesus connected with one another 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 after day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes they received their food with glad and generous hearts what I love about that section is that all of those people's friends probably thought they were crazy they were like whoa you are hanging out with these people way too much you're giving them some of your money like y'all are eating together all the time like this is getting weird and it's like no this is what family looks like we've been all brought into the same family so they were devoted to one another 47 46 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 that's the people who weren't in the church and
The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved the church loves Jesus's mission the church loves the people who aren't in the church yet that's what it ended with was that everybody appreciated that the church existed and more and more people were invited in if you're a Christian you care that people aren't Christians not because you want them to come be good like you that's not Christianity Christianity is I know what sin is like I know what it does to people and I know that it's been taken care of on the cross I know that there's hope I know that there's freedom I know that the things you're chasing after will never fill you up will never fix you Christians love Jesus's mission which is to see more people brought into the family to see more people have their sin paid for Christians the church loves their neighbors the church loves their enemies because they realize that they need
Jesus if you're here today and you don't know Jesus we want you to know Jesus we want you to be saved by Jesus we want you to be taken by Jesus and made his we want your sins paid for by Jesus because somebody's gonna pay for your sins and it's gonna be you or it's gonna be Jesus and the church wants more and more people to know Jesus wants more and more people to be welcomed in this was Jesus's plan from the beginning when he calls the disciples he says follow me I'll make you fishers of men which means I'm gonna teach you what it's like to be rescued to be redeemed to know and be loved and then I want you to do that with other people I want you to get more people to know this it says he appointed 12 that he said he appointed them so they could be with him and that he could send them out to preach send them out to tell people about this when Jesus is about to leave in Matthew 28 it says that he tells him go make disciples which is just go do the same
Thing I was doing with you second Corinthians 5 17 this is Paul writing to the church and here's what he says therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away the behold the new has come all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses that sins against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation therefore we are ambassadors of Christ we're representatives of his God making his appeal through us we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God if you find God's people they vehemently actively continually want to see more people meet Jesus go out of their way pull money out of their wallets give up their time to see more people come to know Jesus because Christians know that that matters and Christians know where their hope comes
From and Christians know that life is is ultimately empty and fleeting and futile without Jesus if you're not a Christian today you're here and you're hanging out you're like I'm just hanging out with church people somebody invited me whatever I know I'm not a Christian here's what I would say most everything I just said does not apply to you at all it may be helpful for you to know what a church ought to look like what you need to know is that Jesus died to pay for your sins because he loves you he loved you so much he gave up his life so that you can have one what we read last week says that we were children of wrath but we've been adopted as sons we deserve to be crushed but we were brought into the family and the only way that happened was that the son became a child of wrath that the son of God took wrath on our behalf so that you who deserve wrath can be a son like that's that's what it's saying if you're here today and you're a Christian real quick if you're not a Christian and
You see that the response is the same thing that Peter said which is repent and be baptized acknowledge that you're a sinner so that you can be saved and then we'll talk about the baptism stuff later if you're a Christian the question really is are those five things showing up do you love Jesus are you obedient are you following him do you enjoy Jesus do you hate sin are you repenting you actively in sin and don't care do you love his word do you study do you read do you try to intake and grow and understand what the Bible says do you do you love the church do you love your fellow believers your brothers and sisters and do you care that people don't know Jesus if you're saying I'm a Christian those need to be showing up and you can ask Jesus to help you you continue to go back to Jesus and say I need help here I need to change here I need you to work in me here I need your DNA to be more active here I need the Holy Spirit to work in me here and if you're here today and you say I'm a
Christian but you don't have any of those none of those are showing up none of those are active in you I don't think you're a Christian if you have no evidence of those things at all I don't think you're a Christian we're not mad at you you just need to know you're not a Christian it's a dangerous spot to be in to not actually believe and follow Jesus and have him work in you and believe that that he is and the response isn't work harder the response is go back to Jesus and say I need to be made new we're gonna spend the next few weeks talking about what a local church gets to look like and how we're designed to interact with one another but those are some characteristics that define Jesus's people that are at work around the globe what's beautiful is as you open this and study it you're doing what another million people are doing in all their kind of different languages when you go out of your way to help point someone to Jesus you're doing what people have done
Through the centuries because Jesus saved people and it was his plan that his people would change the world make sure you get to join in here locally what the church looks like throughout history and throughout the globe as we love one another and serve one another as God's people let's pray God we thank you that we can be saved we thank you that that's based off of your work not ours and we ask God that you would be at work in us to help us love you more to help us follow you God to show us our sin and help us to hate it God that you would teach us through your word and that we would grow to love your word empower in us the ability to love one another even when that's hard the ability to love one another in all of life and God I pray that you would help us to have our hearts broken over the people who don't yet know you that we might go out of our way to help them come to know you
Jesus help us be your church Amen Amen 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.