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Witness - Blueprint Series
67 Plays1 year ago
In this sermon, Ridley Barron preached about the book of Acts and the critical role of individuals in God's mission to spread the gospel. He explored the potential historical support for the missionary journeys of Paul and Luke, the strategic spread of the gospel throughout the Roman Empire, and the intrinsic connection between being a witness to the power of Jesus Christ and living a life empowered by the Holy Spirit. Barron emphasized the need for believers to fully commit to Christian principles, embody a "sent life," and be active participants in God's plan, regardless of occupation or location.
Timestamps:
00:00 Join class in 2 weeks; family gathering important.
06:42 Luke writes to Theophilus, a wealthy Roman convert.
07:34 Wealthy Roman official likely funded Paul's journeys.
13:10 Christianity based on historical, real-life events. Jesus' return inevitable.
14:49 Theophilus seeks answers, Holy Spirit promised, Jesus ascends.
17:26 God's plan: Share the message with others.
23:04 Pain is part of God's plan for you.
25:13 Embrace Holy Spirit for power in life.
28:03 God's people need both power and spirit.
33:28 Recognition of sin; Jesus' sacrifice for redemption.
34:16 Dedication to Christ can change the world.
39:35 Obedience, witness, trust, follow, gospel, believe, pray.
41:11 Live fully, spread love, seize every opportunity.
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Transcript
Introduction and Community Updates
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning church. So glad to see you here and haven't had a chance to speak to a lot of you because I was tied up before the service but I hope I get to speak to you afterwards if I have not already seen you. Before we dive into the word this morning we're going to be in the book of Acts starting chapter one this morning.
00:00:18
Speaker
But before we dive into that, I wanna say a couple things to you. Two weeks from today is our next Discover Us class. It's the next step in membership. For those of you who have decided you're ready to take that step, or maybe you've been praying about that, just want more information about the church, we would love to talk to you. Get you engaged in that class two weeks from today, right after the third service. Also wanna let you know, last Sunday of the month, April 28th, is our next family gathering.
00:00:45
Speaker
The family gathering is an opportunity for all of us to get together, hear about the different ministries and ministry opportunities that are going on in our church. That happens at four o'clock on Sunday afternoon. Just come out, hang out with us, hear what's going on, how God is moving in different places in our congregation and get called up to speed. None of the great place if you're just getting started in our church to hear what God is doing and how he's moving. So make those two things on your calendar and we'll look forward to
Beginning the Acts Series: An Overview
00:01:10
Speaker
that.
00:01:10
Speaker
I am incredibly excited to be starting in the Book of Acts. Somebody other day said, hey, Book of Acts, that's going to be exciting. What's it going to be? 10 or 12 weeks? 28 weeks together in the Book of Acts.
00:01:21
Speaker
Maybe longer, I don't know. We're gonna trust the Holy Spirit just to guide us through these conversations, but here's the truth. There is so much in this book we could stay in here a really, really long time and pull a lot of good stuff out of it. It is an incredibly impactful book because of two things. Number one, it talks about the Acts of the Apostles. That's its official full name, the Acts of the Apostles. What did those men and women do early on that turned
00:01:47
Speaker
a movement of a small group of people into a worldwide religion that has changed the world more than any other religion in history. But secondly, and this is equally important, it is about the act of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the main character all the way through this book, starting at the very beginning when Jesus ascends and says, hey, I'm gonna leave my Holy Spirit with you all the way through to the very end. It is a transitional book. It is part two of the Jesus story.
00:02:14
Speaker
Jesus ascends and goes to heaven, but it's not the end of the gospel It is in fact the the sounding gun if you will that starts this one once again worldwide movement There's a lot of this that we need to pull from here for ourselves as a church as followers of Jesus Christ Lots of good marching instructions for us commissions for us. So I am incredibly excited I hope you will read along with us as we go through the book over the next
00:02:40
Speaker
year, however long it takes. But again, I'm incredibly excited. So I want to start by talking about how you need to read this book and understand this book. I think it's really important that we do that before we dive in. And then we're going to be reading the first 11 verses of chapter 1 this morning and kind of pulling that apart, seeing what God wants to show us. I want to start by reading something
00:03:04
Speaker
from one of the commentaries I was working on. It's a great kind of introductory piece to this. It says, three crucial decades in world history. In the years between AD 33 and 64, a new movement was born. In those 30 years, it got sufficient growth and credibility to become the largest religion that the world has ever seen and to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
00:03:27
Speaker
It has spread into every corner of the globe and has more than 2 billion adherents. It has had an indelible impact on civilization, on culture, on education, on medicine, on freedom, and of course on the lives of countless people worldwide. And the seabed for all this, the time when it really took decisive root was in these three decades. It all began with a dozen men and a handful of women
00:03:57
Speaker
the coming of the Holy Spirit. So with that let's talk a little bit how we need to approach this book as we get into it this morning and then like I said we'll see what Acts 1 1 through 11 has for us. It really was the turning point of Christianity
00:04:12
Speaker
It emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the book, specifically in some key characters, one we know as Paul. Although they will talk about Peter and James and others, Barnabas will be introduced to us along the way, but Paul's kind of one of the central characters here.
00:04:28
Speaker
Another focus of it is the outward spread of the gospel. You might be familiar with the verse we're going to read in just a minute, but it says, we start here in Jerusalem and we go to the uttermost parts of the earth. Most of you have heard that in some regard. So we will get to see that story. But the central message of the book of Acts is this, that the gospel did not die when Jesus died on the cross. In fact, it was just the very beginning of the story.
Key Figures in the Acts Narrative
00:04:54
Speaker
And so we get to see that after His ascension, after the resurrection, everything picks up speed and momentum because now the Holy Spirit has arrived and He is the central power force for everything that we do. Acts gives us much of the context of the New Testament,
00:05:11
Speaker
All of the things that follow the book of Acts are in letters that are written in regards to things that happen in the book of Acts. In fact, if you read along with us in the book over the next several weeks, you will pick up on stories and you'll go, oh wait, so this is where the book of Philippians comes from, the story of Philippi. This is where the book of Romans comes from, you know, these conversations. It starts with Jesus' ascension 40 days after he was resurrected, and it goes all the way through to the imprisonment of Paul in Rome at the very end of the book.
00:05:42
Speaker
So let me introduce some key characters to you. Luke. Luke is a doctor, a physician from Antioch. He is the one who writes this book. You'll recognize his name because he also wrote one of the Gospels. Most scholars believe that the reason he wrote this book was at the encouragement of somebody I'm fixing to tell you about in just a minute, but that he wrote the book in two phases. He wrote the book of Luke and then he turned around and wrote the book of Acts. So it's part one and part two of what he wanted to share with us.
00:06:08
Speaker
Luke's a very humble guy. He never talks about himself very much in his writings but he is obviously part of the story as you can tell along the way. One of the things that struck me that I had never really thought about very much as I was getting ready for this is Luke is a physician and who in the world needed a physician more than Paul?
00:06:25
Speaker
Right? I mean, if you know Paul's story, you know he was stoned multiple times, he was bitten by a snake, he had all these different things going to him, and it's like God said, I know what you're gonna need and he's gonna be traveling with you. He's gonna become a very good friend of yours. So pretty cool that God did that and had the foresight to do that.
00:06:42
Speaker
You'll notice right at the beginning of the book, there's a guy by the name of Theophilus. This is the one who is the recipient of this book. Most scholars believe that Theophilus was a very wealthy Roman official who very likely became a Christian early on in the whole process. And because of that,
00:07:00
Speaker
Luke wrote the book, perhaps maybe Theophilus even said, hey, can you tell me the rest of the story of Jesus? And so that encouraged Luke to sit down and begin to write these stories. Luke, we don't think was actually around Jesus at any points on his own personally, but he gained his stories from listening to the other disciples that he traveled along with, including Paul. Remember Luke was from Antioch.
00:07:22
Speaker
Theophilus actually means, the name means lover of God which probably was not his name to begin with but became his name after he chose to follow Jesus Christ under the influence of people like Paul. And because he was a wealthy Roman official many
00:07:37
Speaker
Many scholars believe that he was probably the resource that helped fund many of Paul's and Luke's missionary journeys, as well as the cost that it took to write the book of Luke and Acts. Even in those days, it cost money to publish a book, to have it copied and recopied so that people could get their hands on it.
00:07:54
Speaker
Acts chapter one verse eight, we're gonna read the whole passage in just a second, but
Acts 1:8: A Commission and Outline
00:07:58
Speaker
I wanna read this. It should become a very familiar verse to you if you do not already know it. It says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This verse serves not only as a commission to you and I as followers of Jesus Christ, but it serves as an outline for the whole book.
00:08:22
Speaker
Acts chapter 1 verse 7 talks about how the Word spread through that infant church there in Jerusalem and how they became on fire for Jesus Christ because of the work of the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 8 verse 12, the Word spreads in Judea and Samaria as Paul begins to take the gospel out away from the city along with others who had been spread out by persecution as well as just by the commission of God.
00:08:48
Speaker
chapters 13 through 20 spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. It talks about how they went even further out in those concentric circles. And then chapter 21 and 28 kind of focuses on how the gospel specifically spread amongst the Roman Empire. And the reason that's so important, and again how it's an example of how God just needs nothing to chance,
00:09:08
Speaker
What better time to spread the message of Jesus Christ than under the influence of the Roman Empire? If you know anything about this, the Roman Empire was one of the greatest ever in its influence for commerce and trade. So the gospel being spread by that route would have been a very, very simple plan for getting the gospel out. If you know anything about Roman roads, if you go over to the Middle East today, there are still Roman roads. We can't get roads to last more than six months here in the United States.
00:09:36
Speaker
But they have Roman roads that still are very, very strong, very, very reliable, and of course that increased the ability for people to travel. So guys like Paul and Peter as they were going around would have used those roads kind of like interstates today.
00:09:52
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about how not to read the book of Acts because I want to encourage you not to do this, not to fall in this trap. Number one, I don't want you to read it as a scholar or a historian who's just looking for facts and dates and things like that because, quite frankly, you're going to miss a lot of the incredible story of the Holy Spirit and what he did. It'd be real easy just to fall into that trap of going, oh, with this date, this person, this place.
00:10:18
Speaker
I also don't want you to read it as a casual reader who's just lightly looking for events or things that happened along the way because you just want to hear the cool stories. This is my challenge to us as Grove Hill Church. I want us to read this book together as people who live on mission.
00:10:36
Speaker
people who are responding to what Christ compelled us to do by going into all the earth. So I want us to read it as people who have been given an assignment and what we're doing is rereading the assignment that has been given to us, okay? So let's talk about how we study Acts. Number one, you have to be very careful to read it in light of the entire Bible. Just like with any other book, it has to be read in its context.
00:11:06
Speaker
Technically, the Bible is 66 books, but it is one story. And that story begins in Genesis with God and his plan for creation. It goes all the way to the end where the whole story of creation is brought back to its place of wholeness. But in between, there is a journey and acts as one story as part of that big meta-narrative that we call God's story. So I want to encourage you to read it in light of it. If you don't, you allow room for errors.
00:11:34
Speaker
because what's going to happen is you're going to forget that over here Jesus taught this or over here in Philippians Paul encouraged us with this and you're going to forget that those things are all connected by one thread and that thread is that it is God's story we are telling. Secondly, we have to remember that it is part of the book of Luke.
00:11:56
Speaker
or the book of Luke. When we get to Acts, what we are actually reading is a story that's already in progress. Its theme continues, the themes of the book of Luke continue all the way through the book of Acts. And Luke and Acts, here's a little bit of trivia for you, Luke and Acts together comprise more material in the Bible than all of the letters of Paul put together.
00:12:17
Speaker
We immediately, when we're asked about the New Testament, recognize Paul's contributions because he did write more of the books of the New Testament, but the actual material in Luke and Acts is much broader than all that Paul wrote and put together for us. Lastly, we have to consider its genre. The genre is, of course, history.
00:12:39
Speaker
Luke was writing as a doctor who was observing historical facts. While it is historical, Luke is recording for us some events without really commending all of its practices to us.
00:12:53
Speaker
One example is this. Later on in the story, we'll read about Paul having a handkerchief that was blessed by him and given to a man that brought him back to physical wholeness. Paul does not commend that as an act that we should be doing here today. It's not a regular practice. You aren't supposed to all have handkerchiefs carried around that are blessed to give to people.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's just a fact that he has recorded for us so that we can read it. So being historical, it reminds us that Christianity was not built on some fantasy or myth or tale about some really popular figure in the Middle East. These are real events, real happenings, and by sharing these things with us, what he is encouraging us to understand is that the last event that he talks about, we can count on it happening. And that would be the return of Jesus Christ.
00:13:39
Speaker
So he talks about the fact that Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again. He talks about the fact that he appeared to over 500 witnesses in the last 40 days that he was here on the earth. And he talks about the return of Jesus Christ as an inevitable event that the world will someday experience. Are we all on the same page? Are you ready to get into this? It's gonna be so good.
Resurrection and Witnesses
00:14:04
Speaker
So good. And y'all gotta get excited. The first service, it took him 15 minutes to get excited like I was.
00:14:09
Speaker
Oh, thank you, there we go. All right, verse one. I wrote the first narrative Theophilus about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles that he had chosen. After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. Remember, he's writing to Theophilus as a young believer saying, listen, this story's not make-believe.
00:14:39
Speaker
There's evidence, there's real evidence there for you. In fact, as he's writing this, most scholars believe that those 500 witnesses, probably about 60 or 70% of them were still alive. So if Theophilus had questions, he could seek out any one of these people and go talk to them. While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said, you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
00:15:08
Speaker
So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or periods that the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
The Call to Witness and Suffer
00:15:30
Speaker
After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching and a cloud took him out of their sight.
00:15:37
Speaker
While he was going, they were gazing into heaven and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. So I'm gonna spend the balance of our time talking about five things I want you to consider as we do our part to fulfill the mission that Christ has given us. Number one,
00:16:04
Speaker
Every believer is called to witness. Every believer is called to witness. If you are here this morning and you call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, you are commanded to be a witness to the power of Jesus Christ and its potential to change the lives of others. That would be a great place for an Amen. Because I need to know, number one, you're here with me, but number two, you hear me because none of us have an excuse. None of us.
00:16:33
Speaker
You see, we have been invited by the Holy God to become real players in the greatest rescue story that human history has ever seen. God could have done every bit of this by himself. He could have done the full work of rescuing the whole world on his own, but instead he says, I wanna work in you through you so that others may know about me. And this is an idea that the church desperately needs to recover, especially here in the United States.
00:17:02
Speaker
because we have become an entertainment-focused church. We become really, really preoccupied with how does the church take care of me? How does the church make me feel better? How does the church affirm who I am? How does the gospel make me have greater self-esteem? And I'm here to tell you that none of that was a part of the original plan. None of it.
00:17:26
Speaker
What God has always intended was that he would die for the whole world and that for those who received Christ and accepted the message of Christ, their immediate assignment would be, now go tell others. It's been his plan all along. Many of us think that missions began in the New Testament. The truth is it began in the Old Testament. It began with the covenant of Abraham where God said to him, I'm gonna bless you so that you will be a blessing to all people.
00:17:54
Speaker
So from the very beginning, very beginning, it has been God's plan that the whole world would come to know through the ones who already know. You see, as many of us have kind of bought into what is kind of like this dispensationalist kind of mentality, our thinking is that Israel was God's first plan and that didn't work and so now he's turned to the church as the second plan. No, no, no, no. The church has always been God's plan.
00:18:19
Speaker
The church has always been part of God's plan that the Gentiles would be included. By the way, you're a Gentile if you don't know that today. If you're not Jewish, you're a Gentile. And so every single one of us had been a part of God's plan from the very beginning. The idea that somehow Israel messed up and God's plan was thwarted, that seems to deny to me that God is an omni-powerful God.
00:18:41
Speaker
He's omnipotent and he's omniscient. And because of that, he's known all along how this plan would unfold. He started with Abraham saying to him, I'm gonna bless you as a nation so that you may be a blessing to all people. The only difference between you going to work tomorrow morning and you being a missionary out in the field is geography. It's geography.
00:19:07
Speaker
You see, tomorrow morning when you go to work, Jesus says to you as a follower of him, go wherever your feet take you, but take me with you. You are not a teacher who knows Jesus, you are a follower of Jesus who is a teacher. You're not a mechanic who chooses to be a Christian, you are a Christian who's chosen to be a mechanic. And God redeems your life
00:19:33
Speaker
and likewise redeems your career and says, I'm gonna use you wherever you are if you will let me. That's part of us going to the whole world. So the question you gotta ask yourself this morning is this, where do I serve and who am I called to reach? Where do I serve and who am I called to reach? Because I love you very dearly, I'm gonna help you answer both of those questions in the immediate present.
00:20:02
Speaker
Where do you serve? Wherever your feet take you, who do you reach? Who's ever standing right in front of you?
00:20:09
Speaker
Start there. Now there are gonna be some in this congregation that are gonna be called out. There are gonna be some of you who are called to go do missions somewhere else. Maybe short term, maybe long term. Some of you may be called to go be pastors. Some of you may be called to go missionaries. Some of you may be called to go do English as a second language in a foreign country where you can share the gospel. Some of you may be called to do some very different or extraordinary things, but all of you are called to missions. All of you.
00:20:40
Speaker
right where you are, starting with your neighbors. The second thing that we have to understand is that following Christ involves suffering. Following Christ involves suffering. Might surprise you, the Greek word witness that we use so freely, that word comes from the Greek word martous, and martous is where we get the word martyr.
00:21:04
Speaker
Just wear the word, we get the word martyr. You see, Jesus all along, if you follow the gospels taught and preached to his disciples, they will hate you because of me.
00:21:16
Speaker
And what do you hear in the churches that are preaching here in the United States today? Oh, come follow Jesus and get the blessings. Come follow Jesus and let him relieve your stress, relieve your pressure, relieve your pain. Come follow Jesus and let him fix everything in your life. That's not the gospel that we read and preach right here today. The gospel we read and preach says that the gospel doesn't succeed unless something dies. Did you hear that?
00:21:44
Speaker
In fact, look at this quote right here. This is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. So you see, the gospel's not gonna succeed unless there's a sacrifice that is made. While Jesus was teaching here on the earth, one of the examples he used was that of a kernel that falls to the ground and dies so that other things may come from it. Someone must sacrifice and sometimes even die so that others may live.
00:22:12
Speaker
And Jesus said the best example there was for that, because of his willingness to die for you and I. You see, even suffering is part of God's plan. Can I just say this is a thing that's all the way through the whole book of Acts, that God is fully in charge of your life. He knows everything about your life. There's not a part of his life that's surprising to him. God doesn't make up the plan as he goes along. He's already got it in place for you.
00:22:41
Speaker
I've had more than, gosh, thousands of people who've asked me over the last 20 years, why in the world did God allow what happened to your family to happen? And my answer is, I don't know. I just know that there are people in heaven today because of it. I know that there are people who've come to know Jesus Christ because of what happened to my wife and to my son and the story that my family went through. What you need to understand is that the pain that's in your life is a page that God is writing so that others can read it.
00:23:12
Speaker
I want to say that to you again because there's a lot of you in here today that are hurting, your marriage is struggling, you're going through pain, physical illness, emotional stress, all those things and you're going, nature is human nature, right? Something like that happens to us and the first thing we do is look to heaven and go, God, why are you allowing this to happen to me? And it's because it's not a surprise to God, it's a part of his plan for you.
00:23:35
Speaker
It's a part of his plan for you. And so he looks at you and says, the pain that's being written on the page of your life right now will open the door to somebody else's prison if you'll just trust me in that season.
Empowerment by the Holy Spirit
00:23:48
Speaker
It's a witness to the people around you. Let me remind you what the word witness means. Martyr. Martyr.
00:23:56
Speaker
Listen, I don't care what the pain is, I don't care what it looks like. Romans 8, 28, Paul picks up on this theme and says, we know that in all things God can work together for the good of those who love the Lord, right? Your struggle, your conflict, your inner turmoil, all of those things can be and will be used by God if you choose to trust Him.
00:24:20
Speaker
Number three, we are not on our own in this mission. We are not on our own in this mission. The Holy Spirit all the way through this book is the energy behind everything that happens and it's no different today.
00:24:33
Speaker
He grants us boldness, He grants us courage, He uses our life to point others to Jesus Christ. Can I just say something? I have been a Southern Baptist all my life, so I'm speaking out of my Southern Baptist heritage. I know we come from a lot of different backgrounds, but being a Southern Baptist church, I feel like I need to say this, please don't be scared of the Holy Spirit. Please do not be scared of the Holy Spirit. You need the Holy Spirit in your life.
00:24:59
Speaker
If you are a follower of Jesus, he's already there. You may not know it, you may not recognize it, you may not feel it, but he is there because it is the Holy Spirit that changes you. The Holy Spirit that remakes you into the image of Jesus Christ. And if you aren't feeling power in your life, there's one of two things going on. Either A, you are not a true follower of Jesus Christ, or B, you're suppressing the Holy Spirit's work as he tries to do things in your life. So I'm not telling you to go all wacky and crazy,
00:25:28
Speaker
But I am telling you to follow the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit tells you to get up in the middle of my sermon and come down here and follow in your face. I'm going to step back and let you hit the floor because that's what you need to do. Now, here's the difference. Here's the difference. The difference is whether you're trying to control the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit is trying to control you.
00:25:50
Speaker
Now some of our sweet brothers and sisters in other faith traditions that shall remain nameless right here, they get off kilter with things because they try to control and manipulate the Holy Spirit. That's like trying to control God. Oh, it is trying to control God because Holy Spirit is God, right? So it's not us controlling the Spirit, it's turning the steering wheel of our life over to Him and saying, you're in control. You choose to do what you need to do in me and I will step back and let you do it.
00:26:20
Speaker
If you want me to go talk to my neighbor across the street, I'm going to trust you in that. If you want me to write a bigger check at church, you knew I'd get there at some point, didn't you? I'm always meddling in your finances. You know, if you just turn your checkbook over me, I'll take care of that for you. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Don't get sensitive. Some of you got real tight at that moment.
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm talking about following the Holy Spirit here, right? That's all I'm talking about, trusting the Holy Spirit. I want you to look at this. Ordinary people of God who are equipped with the word of God and empowered by the Spirit of God can accomplish every single part of the mission of God. Now that's a fact, that's a truth, all right? But I wanna go back and I wanna unpack it for you for just a second. Ordinary people of God, that's you. You're ordinary. And so am I. You see, in the kingdom of God, there are no celebrities.
00:27:09
Speaker
In the kingdom of God, there aren't rock stars. In the kingdom of God, people aren't elevated above anybody else. So what I want to encourage you to hear from me today is if you're a follower of God, your gift given by the Holy Spirit is yours to be used and it shouldn't be compared to the person sitting over here. Your ability to follow Jesus Christ is your comparison to who you are in Jesus Christ, not compared to your brother or sister sitting on either side of you.
00:27:34
Speaker
You are an ordinary person who has been empowered by the Holy Spirit. God gives you what he wants you to use, and when you're going, hey, I don't know if I can do much for the kingdom of God, what you're literally saying is, God, you don't have a clue what you're doing in my life. That was another great place for an Amen. Because you need to understand every single follower of Jesus is given an assignment. You are given an assignment to do something for the kingdom of God.
00:28:03
Speaker
ordinary people of God who were equipped with the power of God and empowered by the Spirit of God. Notice the two go hand in hand. Empowered by the Spirit, equipped with the Word. Why is that important? We have a lot of great firemen here in our church. Appreciate the work that they do.
00:28:22
Speaker
And if I was their fire chief and went up to them and said, I'm going to buy you the best hose that is made in the industry. I want to make sure you have the best equipment. So I'm going to buy you the best fire hose you can have, and I'm going to give it to you to go fight fires, but I'm not going to give you any water. Now, what good would that do? You'd be stuck. You'd be in trouble, right? You can't fight fire without a water. You can't have the Word of God without the Spirit of God and do any good.
00:28:52
Speaker
You know what the Word of God without the Spirit of God makes you? A scholar. Lots of scholars out there that know the Word of God, but they don't trust the Word of God. You know what you have when you have the empowered Spirit of God without the Word of God?
The Global Mission of the Church
00:29:07
Speaker
Immature followers of Christ. Because you can't follow after something you don't know. And you got to know this Word.
00:29:17
Speaker
So you gotta have the equipment of the Word of God, empowered by the Spirit of God. You don't wanna go fight a fire without the water. You don't wanna go live the Christ-filled life without the Word of God, giving you direction on what that looks like. That's why we're in this book for the next 14 years. Number four, our target is the whole earth, not just those we know. Not just those we know.
00:29:45
Speaker
John 3 16, for God so loved. Is that what it says? Does it say the world? Y'all are not real confident right now. I refer you back to being equipped with the word of God. Go read the word of God. It says for God to love the whole world. The whole world.
00:30:07
Speaker
every single corner of the world. There's not a place that hasn't been loved or touched by the presence of God. God loved the whole world. He died for the whole world. So we must learn to love the whole world just like he loves the whole world. We need to set aside our fears. We need to set aside our biases. We need to set aside our prejudices and our misconceptions. And we need to set aside our pure laziness. You didn't know I was going there, did you?
00:30:37
Speaker
Let me shoot straight with you. Some of you are lazy. Some of you are like that brown dog laying on the porch. Sometimes you go over to kick it, just make sure it's alive. And I'm just waiting for the Holy Spirit to kick some of you off the porch and say, go do something. I did not fill you in my presence and I did not give you my skills and my gifts and my talents so you could sit there and hold a chair down. By the way, our chairs don't float away.
00:31:08
Speaker
We don't need you to hold them down. We need you to get out of them and go. We need you to go serve. We need you to go find those who are lost. We need you to go penetrate the darkness. We need to go fight against a culture that has turned anti-Christian. And many of you are scratching your head going, why did this happen? Because we're lazy. Because we're lazy. We're afraid. We don't live out the gospel.
00:31:32
Speaker
Somebody at school starts teaching your kid about 15 different genders and different pronouns and all that kind of stuff, and you sit around and go, oh, that's so bad. Go show up at the school board and tell them you're not gonna stand for it. Go tell them that we know what the word of God teaches. We know what basic biology teaches us. We're not gonna fall for the lies that the media feeds us. We're not gonna buy a culture that's gonna tell us wrong things. We're gonna live out the truth without fear.
00:31:58
Speaker
Our target is the whole earth and the whole earth deserves to know what you and I have been blessed to know. So let's quit looking for reasons not to go. Let's quit looking for reasons not to be a part of the work of the kingdom because all of us are called. Now, I know what some of you say because some of you said it to me. You've made this comment before. We got plenty of lost people right here. Why are we sending money somewhere else?
00:32:27
Speaker
Why are we going to other places? Because the commission that Christ gave us was to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the other most parts of the earth. It wasn't an or, O-R, it was an and, A-N-D. Or means you got options. And means I want them all. Everyone of them matter to me. Whether it's the Messiah of Malaysia or the Lewisburgians of Lewisburg.
00:32:55
Speaker
Whoever falls in that category of needing Jesus, that's who he wants. I don't even know where that came from. Never followed. Our mission for the king is driven by our passion for the king. You see, the apostles were driven by their love for Jesus. Now, let's be honest, they had a little bit of an advantage because those apostles stood and watched Jesus die for them.
00:33:23
Speaker
They saw what he was doing on their behalf. That compels you to love. Every single one of them recognized it was their cross he was dying on. It was their sin that was putting them there. But just so you don't think you have an excuse, we have a very graphic description of what Jesus has done for you. And in case you're not sure, it was your cross he died on. It was your sin who put him there.
00:33:54
Speaker
And because of your love for him, you should be compelled to go. Just a little bit of love for Jesus leads to just a little bit of zeal for his kingdom. Just a little bit of commitment to Jesus results in just a few results for Jesus in his kingdom. But an ordinary man or an ordinary woman who's fully dedicated to Christ can change the world.
00:34:25
Speaker
If you've been here long enough, you've heard me say that. I believe we can change the world from Chapel Hill. Right here in this place, right here in this moment. But it starts when you and I decide that the Holy Spirit's gonna get all of us. Every bit of who we are, which requires us to die. To die to our desires.
00:34:52
Speaker
Can I just say something to you? Some of the weakest, most immature, impotent Christians I know are the ones who are still trying to hold on to their former life while they reach out for the life that Jesus has called them to. You can't do that. You can't do that.
00:35:12
Speaker
Jesus says, if any man's gonna follow after me, he's going to have to die to his own desires. He's gonna have to take up my cross and he's gonna have to come follow me. You don't get to pick the rules. You don't get to decide. You only get to choose which part you like and which part you think you can do without. Last week on Meet the Nation, one of the most popular news shows in America,
00:35:41
Speaker
There was a conversation between a Catholic priest and Episcopal bishop. Just to be honest with you, neither one of them passed for Christians. But they were talking about the faith of our current president. And the Catholic priest literally said, and this was actually shocking coming out of the mouth of the Catholic priest, he said, Joe Biden is a cafeteria Catholic. He says he picks and chooses which parts of the gospel matter to him.
00:36:13
Speaker
But can I suggest to you we have cafeteria Baptist? Bible very clearly says you should have nothing to do with those who have darkness in their lives. You should not be a part of that kind of life. You should choose to come out and be separate. That's what it literally means when it says be holy as I am holy. Holy means to be set apart, to be different.
00:36:43
Speaker
But we still live with people we're not married to. We still excuse our lust. We have addiction problems that we think that Jesus will look away from because they really don't impact anybody. Some of you, never given a dime to support the work of the kingdom. I don't want to be standing next to you when you try to explain that to God. I saw what you said about that whole tithing thing. I thought you meant everybody but me.
00:37:18
Speaker
Some of us never pick up the word and study it for ourselves. I think that somehow being with the pastor for 30 or 40 minutes on Sunday morning is gonna be enough. Can I invite you to step away from being a cafeteria Baptist? Step up to the buffet, get it all, get as much as you need, he'll make more.
00:37:45
Speaker
But more than anything else, can I remind you that all He asks is for one ordinary man or woman to sell themselves out and watch how it changes the world.
Living Fully for Christ in the Last Days
00:37:57
Speaker
As you go out this week, the call is to live a sent life so that the world may know, so that Christ may receive glory. So as we're closing today, there's two things I want to say to you. Number one,
00:38:14
Speaker
There's some of you in here who do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I know it. You know it. You just don't realize you know it because you come to your friends or your Bible study teacher or your life group leader or one of the staff and you go, I just don't feel any power in my life. Well, the reason you don't have any power is because the source of your power isn't in you. The Holy Spirit's not in you. You don't get that until you become a follower of Jesus Christ, a true follower of Jesus Christ.
00:38:40
Speaker
So if you're going, I just don't have any joy, I just don't have any power, I just don't have any discipline, I don't have any of those things, I don't see any changes happening. It's because the Spirit's not in you to do the work that He wants to do for you. The only thing that can change that is you. For others of you, most of you in this room, as followers of Jesus Christ, you've been trying to control the Holy Spirit, instead of letting the Holy Spirit control you.
00:39:10
Speaker
And what that means is that you start every prayer time by saying, okay, God, I'm in this season of suffering. I'm not gonna ask you why I'm in this season of suffering. I'm gonna ask you, how do you wanna use this season of suffering? It means that some of you are gonna have some serious conversations with God to say, okay, God, I've been making excuses long enough, and it's time for me to get serious about my faith. To be obedient in all areas of your word, not just the ones that I think are convenient.
00:39:42
Speaker
And then the command for all of us, every single one of us, you will be my witnesses in Chapel Hill, in Middleton Sea, in America, and to the rest of the world. And none of us have an excuse. Will you join me as we pray? Father God, this morning as we have been invited into your word, we have been abruptly faced with a challenge.
00:40:11
Speaker
Are we gonna trust you? Are we gonna follow you? Are we gonna be obedient to you? Truthfully, that's what the gospel's always been about, that you died to save those who are willing to give their lives over to you. When we do that, you empower us to go and do the rest of the story, to live lives of obedience.
00:40:41
Speaker
There's somebody here today who just doesn't know Jesus. I pray, pray, pray that this moment may be the time that they choose to follow. If there's some in here who are struggling with obedience, if they're one of those that we were just talking about who's kind of a cafeteria Christian right now, picking and choosing what they wanna believe and when they wanna believe and why they wanna believe, I pray that we just take away those restrictions on you and say, you know what? I'm just gonna choose to believe it all.
00:41:11
Speaker
to choose to follow it all, to do it all. Lord, we are living in what the Bible refers to as the last days. So what that means is we don't know how long we've got. Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe 100 years.
00:41:37
Speaker
But if the people you've put in our lives who don't know Jesus really matter to us, we'll live like tomorrow's our last chance. We'll live like the next conversation may be our last. And we will be Jesus to them so that they may have the opportunity to know.
00:42:03
Speaker
Father, ignite our hearts with your spirit so that we may be faithful to do your work. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.