Continuing in Acts, Morning Praise (9)
First B Jackson
2013-06-23

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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All right, good morning everybody.

How are we? You look good

this morning. Was it hard to get up this morning? No. I'm loving it. Sunshine, longer days, this is good.

What do you say we stand out and just begin by worshiping, praising God?

Hands. For the joy of the Lord is astray. We bow down and worship him now.

Lord, that's we declare this morning that you are holy, you're good, and there is none like you. You're the Lord and so we are here to to give ourselves to you and worship and I pray that we wouldn't hold anything back that we truly worship you with our our whole heart, mind, our soul, our strength, everything that we are.

Amen. God almighty, we worship and adore you. We're thankful for you this morning and for showing yourself to us. We pray that you would allow us lord the privilege of feeling your presence this morning. In a very heady way, we know that it is true but God ask you to fill each one of us and let us know who you are, how you are, allow us to reflect your light.

It's in Jesus name, lord, we pray. Amen. Y'all may be seated. Welcome to First B. I'm glad that somebody welcomed me back to First B.

We had Tanya and I went on a little vacation and I was gone for about a week and a half, and I ate 19 barbecue sandwiches probably, some somewhere along that line. I actually found out about a day and a half after I was gone that I was incredibly homesick for here. And up to the point of the trip, I had not been at all homesick for home there. So, this is home and I I really appreciate being back. I'm supposed to do the announcements and not be seppy.

But I we had a great time. It was it was a time of refreshing. We had some folks come out to visit us out here from there a few weeks ago. They rented a 15 passenger van and drove out here from Georgia and they turned around and they went back in that van. We went through Yellowstone.

We did all of that and they they put 5,500 miles on that van. It was unlimited mileage. That's very good. We went to Georgia to visit family. We got an Email yesterday from our rental car company.

We put 4,009 miles on our just visiting people while we were there. So, we were rolling pretty much the whole time but we went from place to place and had a had a really really good time. I think because I've been away from the pulpit for a week. I think it's going to come up in several illustrations. Just warning you.

So, the announcements this morning, there are couple of different things. I want to say thank you to all of VBS workers. I was not around but I heard that it was a fantastic time. A 110 kids the first day grew from there. But there's a video and since I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll let the video talk about.

Hopefully.

That was such a powerful week.

It was great. This place is just full of life and energy, and it it was just so cool to see. And yeah, that was me in the dunk tank and that was still fun. So, I think we're going to take a moment here and greet one another.

Yep and we've got a couple of other announcements. Next week, there will be a congregational meeting. I'll mention that probably a little bit more in the sermon too but it'll be a congregational meeting between services. If you really want to know more information about what the whole meeting is about, it's probably easier to explain. In between services today, we'll fill you in on that.

There are couple of pages back there that you could pick up if you'd like to read over a kind of a timeline of what's brought us to this point but so that's next Sunday, June 30. I feel like I'm forgetting something. The VBS Everywhere Fun Fair was a theme. Y'all could see that and it will be picking up stakes, I guess, as it were and taken off to August. Taken off to Africa in August.

So y'all can still be praying for that. We've got a practice run here and we'll get to go. The gals are 19 ladies are gonna be going there. Monday nights at 06:15. Thank you very much.

Monday night, six 06:15, we'll have meal music and a message as we do every Monday night here at First B and let's get back into it. Everybody, get up if you would. Greet one another and the band will bring you back together.

This life we will find, we will be yearned. This life we will find, In this life we will find, we will be searching. In this life, we will find, the world won't satisfy.

Lord, how true. You truly are that well that does not run dry. We can't tap you up. You're the creator and sustainer of all things and you give us life and meaning and purpose and for that, we're thankful. Lord, who else is there that offers eternal life?

It's you and you alone. Lord, we give you thanks. Amazing grace. That's how we're saved. Our free gift of God.

Not by our works. We're not boasting in anything and but you this morning. Yes. Knowing that it's your work on the cross that's made us right with you and our faith in your work. Thank you.

We thank you for that. And as we enter here in the worship of giving, this is just a way for us to worship as well. To say what you've given, we give back. We give with an open hand and with a cheerful heart. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. You can have a seat. Good morning. We're so blessed to be here today.

Amen. Thank you. Well, I'm getting back into the saddle here today. I I was thinking about, I don't know what Carl preached last week. As far as what his points were and what his slides might have been and all of that sort of stuff but I know what the passage was and I know he stuck close to that and so I thought, that's awesome.

We can come together with one spirit. That's great but to come together and know we have one objective truth, one objective word of God. That's fantastic because I don't need to know what he said about it because I know what it says and so as I went back through, I I am resisting every urge to re preach because it's so good. What he preached last week, that part, that one verse in there, there is no other name whereby we must be saved except that one, Jesus Christ. I'm going to get into Acts four and he last week covered chapter four from one up through verse 22.

I'm going to start in verse 23 and I'm going to go just to 31 instead of 37. It just was too long. Sorry. It's all good. The thing about this is, it is a narrative and we know from the very beginning, Acts one, Luke tells us what he's doing.

He's telling Theophilus, this is my second volume and I'm going to give you an accurate history of how this whole thing got rolling. He gives us right off the bat. Acts one eight, Jesus is encouraging affirmation. It's not a command in Acts. It's not a command when Jesus says, you will be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts.

It is a command in Matthew. It is a command in Mark. It is a command in lots and lots of places. It's throughout the Old Testament telling us that we need to be a light to the nations but Jesus gives them an encouraging affirmation at the beginning of Acts and says, oh, it's going to happen. You will be my witnesses.

Stay in Jerusalem until you're imbued with power from on high and in Acts two, we see that happening. Acts two, we get the report of exactly what it was that happened and then, we see what Peter recognized. He recognized what had happened and he knew his Bible and he brought them and said, this is what's going on right here and he proclaimed Jesus boldly. Chapter three, no silver and gold have I none. That's the one.

Last one that I preached was about this. There's a crippled man outside of the temple and Peter walks by and says, silver and gold have I none but what I do have, I'll give you and as he was reaching down and lifting the man up, the man was healed. So, God's work done again and then, what does Peter do? Peter do, the preacher do. Seizes the opportunity.

Peter, seeing his opportunity began to preach and it says, and he went on for a long time. He was preaching Jesus the same message because that's the message. Today, we're going to read through this. I'm going to kind of preach through the passage. The points, I have points.

Trust me. You might, you may find them hard to detect because we're preaching through the passage but I have a couple of other stories that I want to throw in there too. In this past week, while we were gone, we were we went to visit my folks first and it was good to kind of tap back into my roots and see where I grew up. I got a chance to go see the pastor who's the pastor for sixteen years of my childhood. His wife had had a knee replacement.

I was kind of on a busman's holiday. I went to the hospital to visit this lady who had just had a knee replacement. It was my old pastor's wife and we sat together and he told me of all these years, he's been a pastor since 1949 and tapping into those roots and thinking how awesome that was and then we went from there to the beach and honestly, I was having a hard time getting away from here. I was thinking about everything that's going on. Just we're we're doing some crazy new things.

New stuff is happening. New things are afoot here. And it's not you know, there's nothing new under the sun. We went over Ecclesiastes. But just seeing that, I got out in the ocean.

My favorite thing to do this not a preacher story, my favorite actual activity to do outside is body surfing. I love it. And so when we got to Florida to visit a man and uncle, I got out in the waves, Pascal and Tanya were playing on the beach. I got on the waves and I just looked out at the horizon and relaxed and just waited. And the flag says, calm seas with with jellyfish.

But calm seas, it's worth it for body surfing. So I got out there and I was just sitting there and it really was kind of calm. I'm watching, watching, and I'm thinking, I'm feeling a little bit of this. If you like the body, I know all of y'all are skiers and it's not a normal probably thing activity here but body surfing to me, you just kind of sitting there. It's rocking in the cradle.

It's really relaxing but when the waves are chopping and the waves are coming, there's a power that is inexplicable. Even when it's you're a surfer. Even when even when there aren't big waves, it's still you feel like you're being carried along back and forth a little bit. And when the waves start to get bigger, then, you're like, whoo. But if it doesn't have any kind of momentum back towards it, you can't ride with that wave.

I don't understand it. I don't know what the exact details are are on that, why it works, why it doesn't work. But the draw, the drawing out is what tells you that's going to be a good way. Okay, that was Panama City near Destin in between the two and that's where we were and it was great and I was riding a wave here and there but it was calm seas. I have had another story.

I won't go into it at length. I was nearly killed in Costa Rica at Playa Hermosa and it was the same thing. I was feeling this. I looked down the beach and I saw, oh, there's a guy down there in the water. Well, he's down there.

I can get out there too. Of course, he was looking back up the beach and going, well, he's in the water. I can stay out but I got drawn out completely. I got kind of caught in a rip and I found myself way deeper, way in over my head. I could not find my way back.

So I had to ride a wave back in. When you have to ride one back in, it's not nearly so much fun. But that's the way to get in. So I waited and I felt this one's drawing and it's smaller than the rest of them. It wasn't an enormous wave, but it was way bigger than I normally would serve.

Anyway, the thing drew me in and it dumped me and I was nearly killed. I hit hard enough that I thought I was going to be paralyzed. That's a hard feeling. Both of them got me back to the beach. Both of them got me where it was going but it can be kind of hard.

When I was praying through just everything, the passage right here, I I did the study before I left on the vacation. I was going to try to just preach it just like that and when I got down there, I thought this is so much like what's going on right now. Some of us feel like we're being kind of carried along and there's a drawing towards this and people are in agreement that this is a good thing and I'm not trying to be vague but the next week, we're going to be voting on is congregational approval of the budget change But really what's happening is Carl will be moving officially from the youth pastor position to an associate pastor position and the youth director position will be filled by Renzi Reno. Renzi, right now, is driving a group of high school girls to a basketball, something, the basketball team in Laramie. He's doing that right now.

It's who he is already. What Carl is doing up here is who he is already. And we are all, I think, all of you included, all of us are kind of feeling that going back and forth and you're just feeling it and we want to ride it. We want to ride the wave. So, I'm asking for you to prayerfully consider just like you have been but as I was considering the scripture, it seemed to me to be right there in line.

I don't see anything political and I hate agenda driven preaching. Does this make sense? Tanya is looking at me right now. It doesn't look like you hate it, it looks like you're doing it. I promise you that I'm not.

This is not agenda driven. I just cannot help but see it in the text. And it's not that there are two forces. I don't think that there are any opposing forces as far as I see but we all do feel like we're just trying to figure out what's going on but the thing is is in the middle of the ride, you lose all that. You drop all of that and if we're all praying the same direction, God, for your will to be done, the just will live by faith.

We're taking a scary step. It's scary to jump into the wave but once you get in it, I wish I knew skiing analogies but y'all know it. Glory bowl or whatever. I don't know all that stuff But when you know it's right, it's right and when you get to going, it is. There are couple of things that make it scary.

One thing is, it's a new staff position and that means that we have to pay that person. And right now, at this place, at the normal budget level, we would not have the money to pay that person. So it is a step of faith. What I said, I hate agenda driven preaching. It seems like whenever a capital campaign for a building starts, you get a lot of messages that line up with that.

Stewardship and faithfulness and financials. This is the normal course of where we were supposed to be this week and to me, it just blessed me all week long. It was like that encouraging affirmation in Acts one eight where Jesus says, you will be my witnesses. I believe that that's what first speed is going to be for the youth of this community. When I ask you a while back and now we have visitors too.

I'm glad you're here. When you go back home, please pray for the youth of this community because this is a very tough place to be a young person. Everywhere is but this is a particularly tough place. So, now, we're going to preach. Acts four one four twenty three through 31.

So, remember the story. They've healed the guy. There's no doubt about it. They haul him in and arrest him. It's primarily the sadducees.

The reason it's primarily the sadducees is because of political stuff. The sadducees are a far left religious group and they don't believe in the resurrection. They absolutely don't. In modern day Judaism, there are modern day sadducees who do not believe that there is a resurrection. Fairly, politically, liberal.

There are also the Pharisees that are conservative. They definitely believe that there's a resurrection. And they're the chief priest. At this time, the chief priest were more towards the sadducees. Herod was a Jewish leader but he's under Roman control.

So, I'm just getting back to this. If you read these names that were in Carl's sermon, you're going to recognize they're the same ones that were involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. All the same names, all the same players and so this is only a few weeks later. They arrest Peter and John. They bring him in and they warn him not to preach in this name.

Don't preach resurrection and don't do it in Jesus name. They knew by Peter's preaching that they were complicit in Jesus' death but they just didn't want it to spread. So, as soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priest and elders had said, primarily sadducees, the ones who are against resurrection because it was not their theology. Ain't that interesting? It wasn't their politics and it wasn't their theology and because it wasn't, they told him, they warned him not to do it.

So, and when they heard, these are the other believers present. When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God. This does not necessarily mean it was unison but they all prayed this type of prayer or they said a hearty amen agreeing with it at the end and they start off and this is, oh sovereign lord, the Greek word there is despotess. Despotess, the way we get the word despot. What it is is all powerful one.

The one who has the authority to rule and to do this. So, I've heard from a fellow a while back. He said, wherever you fall out on the Calvinist and Armenian scale, wherever you see yourself shaken down on this sovereignty of God versus the responsibility and free will of man. When you pray, you're praying for God to do something. You're praying for him to act and when they fall down, they are adoring him and admiring him and saying, oh, sovereign lord, you are the one, the creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them and that everything in them.

I kept saying, I am in this thing right now, lord. You are the creator of all of this as far as that horizon can see, as far as I can see, and way way beyond that. The sea and everything in em. You spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant, saying, why were the nations? Your version may say Gentiles, the word there can be Gentiles because basically, Gentiles, every nation that's not Jewish.

Every nation that is not Israel is it's this word. Why were the nations so angry? Why did they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepared for battle. The rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his messiah.

That's actually from Psalm two. It's a messianic Psalm. It's looking forward to the time of the Messiah but he's saying that everyone who has ever allowed themselves against Messiah, their plans were ultimately futile because this is how God wins. This is how God will win. In fact, this happened here in this very city.

So, let's look this over for just a second. We've got the nations. We've got the kings. We've got the rulers. And then it says, Peter saw that.

He knew his Bible. Like I said, he looked back on this and he saw that this is the truth from scripture and then he said, in fact, this happened here in this very city. So, the nations, he's saying, happened here, this nation. For Herod Antipas, Herod was a king. Remember when Herod was trying to kill Jesus because he thought he was born king of he was born king of the Jews.

Herod was the king. Pontius Pilate, what was he? A ruler. Nations, king, ruler. Then he says, the Gentiles, that's also the same word for nations.

So, it's all the nations, everybody and we've said before that in Jerusalem, people were gathered from all over, everywhere. So, all the nations were gathered in one place. So, all the Gentiles but it says, people in the New Living Translation, it says, people, I actually got a chance to talk to Doctor Larkin about this which is cool. When we were in Florida, we were headed to South Carolina and I went up there and I visited the seminary when I went to school just to say hello and almost nobody was around because it's summertime but one of the professors directed me and told me that Doctor Larkin is dying of pancreatic cancer. You may have seen that on your bulletin.

He still took the time. I stopped by to to pray with him. He still took the time to sit down with me and I was talking about this. I knew that it was plural in the Greek. I knew it was and we talked about why that might have been and he, humble, humble man said, the peoples of Israel probably is lining up with the parallelism of that previous slide and I said, could it have been though that they were just such a divided people that the sadducees and the Pharisees and the other factions, the zealots.

Those who are complicit with the government were just such a divided people that the peoples of Israel made more sense at that time because they were not united around God and he said, yeah. Actually, that's a really good way to look at. I thought, yay. Doctor Larkin says, yes. And I also told him that how much I appreciated this that I'm reading through this as I'm doing this series and he very graciously said, I said, I know that you're not able to get out the house much right now but you're a part of what's going on still for God's kingdom and he said, and he he knew that and he said, it is a mercy of the good sovereign lord to be able to help people properly appreciate scripture.

That's a long way. That's Doctor. Larkin talk for it is good to just help people understand what's going on. So, again, the peoples of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed, but everything that they did was determined beforehand according to your will. That's a hard truth.

That is that whole predestination. Oh my goodness. I can't even think about that. It turns my mind inside out. Is God completely sovereign?

He is. Is man completely responsible? He is. Scripture affirms both. You have a very real choice when God says, whosoever, he means it all the way through our John study.

It said, it's about what you believe. But he will use absolutely everything to do his will, absolutely everything. So when it says, everything that they did was determined beforehand. It's everything that they worked the best that they could do. What is the absolute, most catastrophic failure?

Absolutely, most catastrophic failure and horrible thing to even consider if you're one of the disciples. In the last six months of Jesus' life. What could you just think? He might take over. He might do this.

Would it ever have? Even though he said it over and over, would death on the cross ever have entered your mind as the best thing that could happen? No. Abject failure is what you would consider it. Absolutely awful.

And now, oh Lord, hear their threats. This is the Sanhedrin. This is the council, the sadducees, the chief priest, the elders, they're threatening them and saying, don't do this again. They've already arrested them. They threatened to beat them.

Oh Lord, hear their threats. And it doesn't say protect us. It doesn't say, kill em lord. Get rid of em. Change the parties.

It doesn't say, switch this up. It says, now, oh Lord, hear their threats and give us your servants. Great boldness in preaching your word. That's what they prayed for. Was courage to continue doing exactly what they've been doing this whole time.

That's what we need. That's exactly what we need is great courage, great boldness, in preaching the word. And this is cool too. This is another very affirming thing from scripture. Stretch out your hand with healing power.

May miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. Peter stretching out his hand to that man who was lame and picking him up. What they're praying for is that God will stretch out the hand but they're praying for him to do it through them, through their bold proclamation of his word. It's not through necessarily any bold move, bold political move because they've already kind of covered that the peoples and the politics and the agendas are all conflicting and not necessarily in his line. What they're opening themselves up to do and to be is open to God's direction and his movement in their lives.

Now, lord, hear these threats and give us your servants great boldness in preaching your word. They want to preach and teach from a place of confidence, not from a place of fear. Stretch out your hand with healing power. May miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. And after this prayer, the meeting place shook.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and then, what did they do? They preached the word of God with boldness. That's what they were praying for. They were praying that God would allow them to do that and then, that's what he allowed them to do. That's it.

Just making sure. I think that it's great that we see this cycle repeated over and over and it was true history but it is something happens, someone recognizes that this lines up with scripture. They preach Jesus boldly and they ask for a sovereign God to do what he will and he does. The in gathering of 3,000 that day. In this passage, I think the one that Carl preached last week, it said and there were 5,000 at this time, not including women and children.

So, 5,000 adult males. God is the one who grows. God is the one who grows us in our lives. God is the one who grows churches. God is the one who grows his capital C church but we should be open to doing his will and stretching out his mighty hand.

I'm not saying there's a side to this. There's not. It's just let's preach with boldness. Let's all do it. So, and ride the wave for crying out loud.

That's the thing. It is so much fun to be doing that and to look around. When I was back and I'm talking to Doctor Larkin, he said, how are things going? And I said, we're seeing people come to Jesus. We're seeing people who have been hurting that are not hurting.

Emotionally, spiritually, even physically. I said, we're seeing people who have been addicted. See their addiction subside. God is at work. He is doing it.

I want to give you the encouraging affirmation that you will be his witnesses in this community and to the youth of this community particularly. It is going to take some effort on our church's part to to get behind this and do it. However, it is. However, it is that God wants it done is the way we want to do it. So, I'm going ask Carl if you'll come back up and lead, band, everybody and we are going to sing a song.

I'll ask you to pray for Doctor Larkin. Either for great comfort and encouragement or for healing. He didn't care which. I praise God for him. I'd also ask for you to pray for for just traveling mercies for Renzi and them but that he and Kale would be able to proclaim God's word with boldness on this trip.

The reason we put so many miles on that car is because it's a great time to just talk and get together with people. So, I'm going flip on the I will follow. We'll sing this. If you'd like to come down front and pray, that's what I'm going to do. If you want to talk to me, I'll cut my microphone off, tap me on the back, and I'll join you.

Alright, stand if you would and sing.

And part of being bold is our willingness to follow, obviously. And so as we sing this song, this whole message of being bold, it starts with really and truly following Christ. Getting on board with him, what he's doing. Let's sing it together.

Amen. God, that is our prayer this morning that we will follow you. We just will leave it aside and follow you. In Jesus name, amen. Y'all dismiss.