[0:00] Would you follow along as I read God's Word for us from Acts? Let me make sure I have all the verses you have. I'm going to read a little bit from Acts 1 and then a little bit from Acts chapter 8.
[0:17] This is God's Word. And while staying with them, Jesus ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me.
[0:30] For John's 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?
[0:42] And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father is 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 Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
[1:04] And 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 then in chapter 8, And Saul approved of his execution.
[1:16] And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.
[1:28] Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church. Entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
[1:43] Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds, with one accord, paid attention to what was being said by Philip.
[2:00] And they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them. And many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
[2:12] So there was much joy in that city. Friends, this is God's word. He gives it to you because he loves you and he wants you to know him. Amen.
[2:24] Now, I'll admit that Acts chapter 8 is a bit of an odd passage to begin our Advent season. I mean, where are the wise men and the shepherds and Mary and Joseph?
[2:36] They don't seem to show up anywhere in Acts. Well, what I said earlier is that the Advent season is a time of looking forward to the arrival of Christ. In fact, in most churches, we read in this Advent season, up until Christmas Eve, we read passages that are prophetic passages.
[2:54] Out of Isaiah and out of the Gospels. Things that are pointing our attention forward. And then, at the Christmas season, we look back. And so, I want for us to spend this season looking forward.
[3:08] To looking forward to that day when Jesus will return. When he will declare his authority as the king of all kings in this world. When he will establish his kingdom to reign over all kingdoms.
[3:22] And he will build a new heavens and a new earth that we will be a part of. And so, over the next few weeks, I want us to wrestle with this one question.
[3:33] And it's this. What response should grace and peace have to the promised return of Jesus Christ? What response should grace and peace, should we as a church, have to the promised return of Christ?
[3:49] How should that shape our life? How should that shape our vision? How should that shape the kinds of things that we are a part of as a church? And so, Acts is a great place to start with that.
[4:01] And we'll skip around and look at some various things the next couple of weeks. So, here's what I want to do today. Is I want to answer my own question. And I want to say, here's what our response should be.
[4:11] What should our response be? First, why is it so hard to seek that response? And then third, how the gospel empowers our response.
[4:23] So, let me answer my own question. What should our response be? Well, let me back up and look at Acts chapter 1 first. We started there. It's that in-between time, right?
[4:33] Between Jesus being raised from the dead and Jesus ascending back into heaven. And he gives the disciples a really clear direction. Did you see what their mission was?
[4:44] Chapter 1 verse 8, you will be my witnesses. Where? In Jerusalem, where they are locally. In Judea and Samaria, the geographic region.
[4:58] And then to the ends of the earth. And in fact, that little Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth, that actually is the outline for the whole book of Acts. But what did that mean that they were going to be witnesses?
[5:11] Well, it meant that this little group of disciples. I mean, think about these guys. These are regular folks. They've just been with Jesus for a few years. But this little group of disciples is going to witness to what?
[5:24] The glory and the reign and the power and the grace and the coming again of Jesus Christ. He says, to the entire world.
[5:35] He says, to the ends of the earth. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. And so, even a church now 2,000 years after this little group of disciples, we find our mission rooted in that calling.
[5:50] We, grace and peace, are called to witness to the glory and the power and the reign and the grace of Jesus Christ in Ottawa and in Chattanooga and to the ends of the earth.
[6:07] That's our calling. But what does that actually look like? That's great to say. What does that actually look like? Well, Acts chapter 8, it gives us a great example. Philip, right here, gives us at least one example that we can build off of.
[6:21] Philip, if you remember him, he was one of the initial group of deacons. He was also a preacher. And he, Philip went, it tells us, he went from Jerusalem and he went to Samaria, the capital city of Samaria.
[6:38] He preached the gospel. What happened there? Verse 4. Did you notice this? People paid attention. Why? Because they saw the signs that he did. The oppressed were healed.
[6:50] The lame walked. It says that there was much joy in that city because of Philip's preaching. Doesn't that sound a little bit familiar? Where have you heard that kind of language before?
[7:03] Jesus. When Jesus showed up, what happened? Lame people walked. Blind people saw. People, there was joy of redemption. And that's really important.
[7:14] You see, when we witness to the presence, when we witness to Jesus, Jesus' presence is with us. As we go and as we witness, Jesus' presence goes with us.
[7:29] His transforming presence, we could say. There's a church that we're connected to because we've been a part of the Acts 29 network, if you're familiar with that. It's a church in Los Angeles.
[7:40] And I've followed this church for a number of years because I love it. It's called the Reformed Church of Los Angeles. It's located in Linwood, which is just adjacent to Compton and Watts. It's pastored by a man named Ruby Rubio.
[7:53] And here's how he describes himself. He calls himself a Chicano criminal in South Central, saved by Jesus. In fact, what he says on all his bios is that his pronouns are ese, vato, and homie, which I love.
[8:11] Those are his pronouns. His personal story is pretty amazing. Rudy grew up in that neighborhood, and he was in jail for the first time at 13.
[8:22] From 13 till about 20, he was in and out of the system in California in various offenses, various problems, all these kinds of things.
[8:32] And all the typical things that you imagine from watching TV shows about South L.A., you know, that's what Rudy was a part of. But God showed up in his life in dramatic fashion.
[8:46] He got converted, and how he describes his own life and his own ministry is that it is a constant surprise to him. None of this was expected at all. He never expected to become a Christian.
[8:57] He knew people who went to mass. He knew people who went to church. But he never expected that he would become a Christian. And yet God showed up for him in his darkest moments. There's actually videos about him talking about this.
[9:10] He didn't think that he would be a pastor. But after he got converted, God gave him a mentor and a spiritual father that he never had. And he certainly, once he even thought about being a pastor, he never thought that he would start his own church in the neighborhood he grew up in.
[9:26] And yet God called him to plant a church and pushed him out to do what? To go and to witness to the transformative presence of Jesus. And now, Reformed Church of Los Angeles, here's how it describes itself.
[9:43] As a multi-ethnic, multicultural, confessional, liturgical church filled with all kinds of people. And it is beautiful to watch their services online and things like that.
[9:55] God has brought reconciliation. He has brought healing. He has brought joy to people in Compton through the witness and the presence of Jesus proclaimed by, well, by Rudy and his friends.
[10:10] See, that's what our response should be. We should have a passion to be those who are going. There's a movement of the soul that moves us into practical acts of going.
[10:24] Our response should be a response of going. That's the point. That's what we should respond to. What Jesus told the disciples is, you're going to go.
[10:36] Now, that message should sound a little familiar, but that's actually why it's hard. Why is going so hard? You know, if you're like me, you hear stories about Rudy and you're kind of, it's a little bit energizing and kind of exciting.
[10:49] And you're kind of like, well, that's pretty cool. But, you know, does that really happen in a place like Chattanooga? Does that really happen in a suburban neighborhood like Udawah?
[11:00] It seems a little bit unrealistic. And yet, like Rudy's story, God's work takes us by surprise. But that surprise is why it's hard.
[11:11] Recall two Sundays ago, we finished our sermon series in Genesis that we've been looking at all spring. And we finished with the call of Abraham. But if you go back to the beginning with Adam and Eve, God called Adam and Eve.
[11:24] And what was their fundamental job? What were they made for? To be fruitful and to multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. They were made to be people who go.
[11:37] And then that gets reaffirmed with Noah. Noah, the flood was here. Now you're out of the flood. Now what do I want you to do? Be fruitful and multiply. Go. Fill the earth. Subdue it. Did the people do it?
[11:49] No. What did they do? They stayed. They built a city. They built Babel. They built a tower. They were frightened to go, to scatter, to do what God had wanted them to do.
[12:01] They banded together. They stayed. So what did God do? He confused their languages at Babel. He sent them out. He forced them into scattering.
[12:12] And then out of that scattered humanity, God found Abraham. And he called Abraham. And you remember what he said to Abraham? I'm going to bless you.
[12:23] Why? So that you will be a blessing to the world. Now go. Now go. Go. Scatter out. Go. Go be the man that I've called you to be.
[12:36] Build a people that I've called you to build. God's message was familiar from the very beginning. His message has been go. Now when we get to the book of Acts, Jesus told the disciples right in chapter 1, as I said a minute ago, that they were to wait to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[12:53] And then once the Spirit has come, you go in the power of the Spirit. But by the time we get to chapter 8, what's happened? Nothing. They haven't gone anywhere.
[13:06] Why? Well, because life in Jerusalem was great. The Holy Spirit was with them. They were worshiping together. They were serving one another.
[13:17] They were figuring out problems. I mean, you know, when Peter preached, there was like 3,000 people joined in a day. Have you ever been a part of a church that like part of a movement where something was happening?
[13:29] Something new and fresh and dynamic. It's exciting to be a part of. And the excitement of the church in Jerusalem was driving them.
[13:41] But it had an unintended consequence. They stayed. They didn't go. Nobody went to Jerusalem, went to Samaria and Judea and Samaria.
[13:52] Nobody went to the ends of the earth. And so you get to chapter 8 and nothing has happened. See, every church, I said this a couple of weeks ago, every church plant has to wrestle with this gravitational pull to focus on ourselves.
[14:09] You know, it's exciting to be a part of something that's growing. It's exciting. It's fun to be, to meet new people. It's fun to, it's exciting to see something happen.
[14:22] And so we get comfortable. And change feels threatening. And we like our safety. We like to sit in the same spot that we sit in.
[14:33] I know where all of y'all sit. You like these places, you know? The Warnats are kind of front row people. They like it. It's good.
[14:43] So are the Conners. But then we got back row people and y'all are fine too. We get comfortable. We begin to think things like, well, we don't want to go plant a church.
[14:56] We just got comfortable here. We can't go take on a project like that because we need to build ourselves a building. We need to, you know, we need to save our pennies because that's prudent.
[15:08] And we need more space for our nursery. We got all these kids. All these kids. What are we going to do for them? How are we going to take care of the needs for the people who are right here? We need more youth events.
[15:19] Plus, you know, I just really like the friends that I've made. It's really hard to make new friends. It's hard to learn new names. It's daunting to think about welcoming new people.
[15:30] You see, those dynamics and many others, countless others like them, distract us from our core mission to proclaim and witness to the glory and the grace and the reign of Jesus Christ.
[15:44] They prevent us from going because going is hard. It requires sacrifice. And you see that right here in Acts.
[15:55] God was at, see, you got to see the thing here. God was at work among the people in Acts. Good things were happening and they were sacrificing their mission.
[16:06] Those two things can happen at the same time. Sometimes we even enshrine this kind of thing. This is maybe a little insider baseball, but, you know, that's fine.
[16:18] In church world, church planting and church growth world, there is this old principle that's been around for decades and it's called this. The homogeneous unit principle.
[16:30] I'm sure it extends in other sociological circles, but it's definitely in church world. And here's what it means. It means that you can best grow a church, create excitement by maximizing the factors of sameness in a group.
[16:45] See? The more people that are like me means that I'm going to feel more comfortable. It means that I'm going to invite other people who are like me to join me in the place that I feel comfortable.
[17:00] And therefore, things will grow. And so, if you get the same people in the room, what happens is it grows. And that's actually true. That happens a lot. It is an intentional effort, we might say, to decrease the amount of cultural, socioeconomic, ethnic differences that people have to cross, the lines that people have to cross to be a part of a church.
[17:29] I want you to ask yourself this question. Isn't that poison? Isn't it poison to think that difference is something that we should avoid?
[17:42] That we should not cross boundaries of race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status. To keep different away.
[17:53] To prioritize my safety and my comfort above everything else. You see, when a church thinks like that, what does it do? It stays. And that's why the going is hard.
[18:08] It is hard to welcome difference. It's hard to be inconvenienced. It is hard to keep going over and over and over again. But this is where the gospel of Jesus empowers us.
[18:24] Even in the midst of difficulty, we know we're called to go. It's hard to go. How does the gospel empower us? That's the last thing. I just want to tell you this. God loves you too much to leave you in a place of staying.
[18:39] He is going to push you to go. Whether you choose it or whether he does. You're going to go. See what happens right here in the church in Acts.
[18:54] It took an outside force to push them to go. Chapter 8, verse 1. That very first sentence, it feels a little out of place. And the reason why is it is.
[19:04] It is a tack on to the whole story of chapter 7, which you could go read. Well, chapter 6 and 7, which you could read later. It's the story of Stephen. Saul approved of his execution.
[19:16] That was the execution of Stephen. Stephen was another deacon and another preacher in the early church. And the Jewish leaders executed him. And that kicked off this furious persecution.
[19:29] And what happened? What happened in that persecution? The disciples were scattered. Where were they scattered? To Judea and Samaria.
[19:41] Does that sound familiar? Back to chapter 1, verse 8. I'm going to make you my witnesses to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jesus, or God the Father, gave them a severe mercy.
[19:57] A persecution that pushed them out to the very places that God had intended for them to go. He broke their inertia and he made them go.
[20:09] You see, there is a fundamental aspect of the gospel that is at work right here. And here's what it is. God is pushing his people in the early church to imitate the ministry of Jesus.
[20:23] Why? It was Jesus who went. It was Jesus who was the one who is the greater Adam. Who was the one who has filled the world with goodness and grace as a blessing.
[20:38] Jesus is the greater Noah who has proclaimed God's presence among the people. Jesus is the greater Abraham who has left his own father and the honor and the wealth and the dignity of being God himself.
[20:53] And has taken on human flesh and the indignity of it. Jesus is the one who has crossed every boundary. Jesus is the one who has become a blessing to the nations.
[21:06] This is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Christmas to see that Jesus, the God of heaven and earth, the one who was there at the beginning, who created all things by the power of his word, has come and become man.
[21:20] So that he could redeem us who are under the power of sin. Can you imagine the lines that Jesus had to cross to come here?
[21:33] And so we in his name are those who cross lines and barriers who go. This is what we do. This is what the church is all about.
[21:45] We could say it even this way. There is no redemption in this world without going. Without going. There's no salvation without crossing boundaries.
[22:00] There will never be any hope for this world unless there are a people who follow God's call to go. Now we serve a great God who will push us anyway, but let's just keep that part away and let's just go ahead and make the decision to go.
[22:16] We need people who are willing to leave their comfort, to leave their safety, to enter into the unfamiliar and hostile world of another person, not for their own benefit, but for the other person's benefit.
[22:33] Instead of their own. See, let me just say it this way. Part of the reason we talk about Jesus every week, every week. The church is not a political action committee.
[22:49] The church is not a social work organization. The church is not a recovery center. The church is not a child care and education organization.
[23:04] The church is a group of people who are transformed by the presence of Jesus and called to go.
[23:15] And see, when we shape our identity, when our story is reflected by the story of Jesus, that pushes us outward. This is why we talk about Jesus every week.
[23:28] We are little, Christian means little Christs. Very little. That's what our calling is. And so, at Grace and Peace, we want this impulse to go, to be central of how we think about ourselves.
[23:45] Let me tell you about a little story. Well, it's not really a story, but I'll back up. When our elders were first installed back about a year and a half ago, we had a lot of work to do.
[23:58] You know, a new church, a church plant, there's a lot of things that we haven't done. I mean, you know, every week you could probably pick out something that we haven't figured out yet. Because there's a lot.
[24:09] But we had things like shepherding the flock that we needed to do. We bought the office property over through the trees. We were dealing with budgets and staffing.
[24:21] But the question that I posed to our elders and the question that we wrestled with more than any other was this. How can we, as a church, avoid the gravitational pull of stopping our going?
[24:38] How can we avoid becoming static and concerned with the very important institutional priorities of a church like this?
[24:48] How can that not become the central focus? But how can we keep the pedal down on our going and seeking after the lost?
[24:59] That was our heart. And we came up with, we've been wrestling with this for a year and a half, and we've come up with two initial answers. I don't think this will be the answer for all time, but at least right now, these are two things.
[25:09] And I'll talk more about this in our congregational meeting, but I want to introduce them here. The first one's this. We want to affirm that we are a multi-ethnic church planting church.
[25:20] That is what we want to be. We want to continue to grow in bringing in all kinds of people from all kinds of places into this room, and we want to then send people out.
[25:32] Now, initially, that will mean funding church plants, perhaps all over the world. It will mean planning for church planting, and it will eventually mean us being a part of planting other multi-ethnic churches in Chattanooga.
[25:46] Now, we don't have any specific plans right now, but we did apply for it, and we received a grant from a foundation that will help us establish a church planting residency program.
[25:57] What that means is we will be able to go and hire a pastor who will come here, be on our staff, learn how to plant churches from us, and then be sent out to plant, maybe in our area, maybe in some totally far-flung area.
[26:14] But that's something that we're working on. We want to continue to be a multi-ethnic church planting church. The second thing that we want to be committed to is that we want to give our best to those who are going and doing this kind of work.
[26:31] In starting a residency program, there's an image that we've really gravitated to as we've thought about this, and that is of a teaching hospital. You know, Dr. James Haynes is one of our elders, and he helps run the medical residency program down at Erlinger.
[26:48] It's a teaching hospital. And in a teaching hospital with a residency, what they do is they take trained doctors, right? They've finished medical school. They come in into the residency program, and they participate in the daily life of what they're doing in a particular specialized place.
[27:07] They get specialized medical education. And Dr. Haynes would say that some of the best moments in a residency happen in what we call scrub sink moments.
[27:20] You know, you've seen on TV. Before you go into an operation, they're there scrubbing their fingers, you know, getting all the, you know, I don't know, bacteria off or whatever.
[27:32] I don't know if that really works, but apparently they do that in, you know, operating rooms. I've never been there, but whatever. But those scrub sink moments, when you're walking into an operation, you're talking about, okay, what are we going to do?
[27:45] How's this going to go? What are the particular things that we're going to focus on? And then when you come out, as you're cleaning up, you're reflecting. What was happening there? How did that go? We want to create the environment where leaders are having these scrub sink moments, where there is an intentional continuing education that is happening.
[28:06] We think that grace and peace can be like a teaching hospital. We could create a pipeline of leaders to be those who go. Both people who are, you know, we could see this from the very beginning, from people who are just getting converted, who are people who are really being formed spiritually in their character and their spiritual life.
[28:29] That they are developing and learning how to use their gifts in the body of Christ. People who are deepening in their understanding of who God is and what the church is about. People who are getting trained, specially trained.
[28:42] People who are honing their skills in ministry, giving them a vision for where they can go and serve, and finally sending people off to go. That's a big vision.
[28:53] It's going to take time for us to do. But part of the reason we're attracted to this kind of a vision is because, you know, one of the oldest comparisons for what the church is all about is a hospital.
[29:04] A hospital for the spiritually sick. The people who are sickened by their sin. People who are burdened by the betrayals that they have felt.
[29:16] The people who are suffering under the shame of their own failures and losses. People who are abused by their own addictions. People who are failed and who are flailing. People who are unknown and unloved.
[29:29] People who are desperate for hope. They come to the hospital of grace. They come to a place where they can receive the healing palm of Jesus and his grace for them.
[29:45] Do you see what it said in verse 8 of chapter 8? When Philip got done. What happened? What was the effect? There was joy in that city.
[29:57] There was joy in that city. The effect of Philip's going and witnessing and proclaiming to the power and the might and the glory and the reign of Jesus was that joy came.
[30:14] People found reconciliation and hope and peace. We want to be a place. We want to be a place. What we say is that grace and peace exists to be a place where people can discover God's grace and his peace.
[30:27] If that begins to happen, what does that produce? It produces joy in Jesus. See, we want to be a place where we're raising up leaders, training them well, sending them to go.
[30:41] That we are constantly giving ourselves away for the benefit of people who do not sit in this room. We want to give our best for the glory of Jesus and the gospel.
[30:57] Yes, we have to build an institution. Yes, there is work to be done, things to be focused on and things like that. But we can't let it distract us from that future vision and what we're called to.
[31:13] I'm just going to end with this. You know, increasingly you go to states where weed is, you know, legal. You go to Colorado or whatever and there's these dispensaries all around, right?
[31:29] You know, I mean you can't like go anywhere without them. What's the symbol of a dispensary, a weed dispensary? It's a cross. It's a green cross, right? And it's this like beacon.
[31:42] What do you find when you go there? Well, I don't know, some sense of distraction or comfort or, you know, escape, whatever it is.
[31:52] There is some sense of promise in that dispensary. Why don't people see the cross is on top of churches and think that place is a dispensary of grace?
[32:06] Why don't people see the church that way? What would it take for us to be so moved by the promised return of Jesus that we become a place that is dispensing grace with abandon?
[32:24] That we become a people that every way that you engage this church and the people who are sitting in this room, what you find is grace and mercy because of the goodness and the glory and the reign of Jesus Christ.
[32:39] That's what people eventually found from the early church. Those were the kinds of people that they found. Wouldn't it be amazing if we became a place like that?
[32:54] If people knew this church was a place of grace? May it be so for us. May it be so for us.