Sermon Transcript
Well, let’s take our Bibles out. We’re going to start a new series this morning. It’s a series we’re going to be working on for all year in the book of Acts. And so I hope that you brought along a Bible or you got a message note sheet. You can use that to follow along with what we’re going to get started with this morning.
And as we jump into this first section, I was thinking about the ice bucket challenge. Maybe some of you have actually taken the ice bucket challenge. It’s fascinating to see how this went viral this summer. It really got started this summer with one person who spread to another person. Well, now if you go on YouTube, there have been over a billion views of people taking the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Just on Facebook alone, 1.1 million videos have been posted of individuals— we’re talking about individuals or groups— that have taken the Ice Bucket Challenge just over about a 15 to 17 day period. Last part, the last part of August, 2.2 million posts on the subject. So I’m sure you’re aware of what it is. It’s the simple challenge of pouring ice water on your head, all for a good cause for ALS. And so the idea is to fill up a bucket with ice that has water in it and pour it over your head and then challenge, even before you do that, somebody else to do the same thing.
And that has actually just spread worldwide. I want you to see the number one video that’s out there right now. It’s actually a record of Zuckerberg and him challenging Bill Gates to the, the ice bucket challenge. And so this is the most watched video of all the videos that are out there. Take a look at the screen.
And after I dump this bucket of ice on my head, I get to nominate 3 new people to challenge. So I’m going to challenge Bill Gates, my partner at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, and Netflix’s founder and CEO, Reed Hastings.
I’m glad to give to ALS. It’s a great cause, but I want to accept this challenge. I want to do it better than it’s been done. Been working on this, you know, got this design. There we go.
Yeah, it’s gonna be great.
I’m here to join the people bringing attention to Lou Gehrig’s disease by taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. I’m gonna challenge 3 more people to Elon Musk, Brian Seacrest, and Chris Anderson of TED, consider yourself challenged. You have 24 hours. Good luck.
Yeah, I just had to show you that one because that kind of fits our scene here in the Silicon Valley, and we can maybe identify with making it better and better and, you know, all the rest that goes with this stuff. But it’s interesting because if you’re challenged, you have, as he said there, 24 hours to do this challenge, otherwise fork up some money for ALS. If you go ahead and perform the challenge, you still should fork up some money for ALS. And it’s been interesting because already in terms of what’s been donated just this over the summer months and on into September, Over $110 million now has been donated to charities connected to ALS disease, which in comparison to last year, all of 2013, there was $19 million that was donated that entire year, and we’re just talking about since summer. And so as I was getting into this study, I was thinking, now there’s a perfect example what a challenge can do and the tremendous impact that could come out of it if we were to take the challenge and do something about it.
Because this challenge, as you can obviously see, has spread throughout the world. It’s spread viral. Well, Jesus left us a challenge. If you’re a Christ follower, he left a challenge for his followers. The challenge is found in Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
You familiar with it? He said, I want you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. Now, that’s a huge challenge. I want you to take what it is that I’ve given you and I want you to spread it right there where you live. And we’re going to talk about that today here, right here where you live.
And then I want you to spread it to the state that you’re living in. They called it a province, to Judea. And then spread it to the state or province above you— that was Samaria— and then spread it out to the entire world. And so when we look at the book of Acts, it’s really the unfolding. That’s the outline of the book of Acts.
Chapters 1 to 7 focuses on the gospel going to Jerusalem. They took Jesus up on his challenge. Chapters 8 to 12 focus on the gospel going to Judea and Samaria. Again, they took Jesus up on His challenge. Peter was the primary spokesperson in chapters 1 to 7.
Philip was the primary spokesperson in chapters 8 to 12. And then in chapters 13 to 28, the gospel goes to the whole world, and Paul’s the primary spokesperson there. And if you go all the way back to the beginning of the book of Acts, Acts chapter 1 and verse 15, we know that this small group of people that took on this challenge were just 120. That was it. The church was 120 people meeting together for prayer, but by the time we get to Acts 21:20, the church now is in many thousands.
The word many thousands are used there, and other historical sources have connected this many thousands term that’s found there in Acts 21:20 to 60,000 or 100,000 people. It’s right in Jerusalem that potentially, after 25 years of growth, The church has now grown to maybe 100,000 people. So from 120 to 100,000, I would call that major impact. How did it happen? And what I want to do today, and we’re going to look at this for the next couple of weeks as all 3 of us as pastors bring this to our attention from an overview perspective, as we talk about the ripple effect, we want to understand what was it that this church did?
How did this ultimately happen? They didn’t have social media. And yet the gospel went viral, we might say. It went throughout the whole world. The people took Jesus up on his challenge.
So this morning we’re going to think about that. What would it be like for me to actually take Jesus up on this challenge? If you’re a Christ follower, Jesus wants you to take him up on this challenge, to spread the gospel first to your family, to friends that are around you, We’re on different campuses in the area. We work at different locations, different settings in neighborhoods. We have the opportunity to bring the gospel here, and from here, hopefully it will go all throughout the world.
But what was it that actually made that possible? I mean, what happened in the early church? Sometimes you’ll be around churches that grow. And I don’t know if you’ve ever asked this question. I’ve asked the question, what is it?
What’s happening here? What, what’s taking place here that’s ultimately growing this church? Well, I want to show you just briefly this morning some matters that were happening in the lives of the people in taking this witnessing challenge seriously that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Would that not be great? Wouldn’t it be great?
Think with me. Wouldn’t it be great if there were people that ended up in heaven because of you? Because you took the challenge seriously. I would love to see that happen through my life, that people would come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, their lives would begin to be changed, and they would ultimately start living for God instead of for themselves. How do we get at this?
Let me give you just a quick overview of of Acts chapters 1 through 7. I’m gonna use the word ASCENDS, okay? Just ASCENDS as an acronym, A-S-C-E-N-D-S. And the word ASCENDS actually summarizes for us the first 7 chapters, 7 key events that happen in the first 7 chapters of Acts. We’re gonna do it in a walkthrough style, okay? We’re gonna actually try to teach you a walkthrough the book of Acts in the next 3 weeks so that you can walk through the book book itself and then take the things we’re looking at and actually kind of attach them to where they fit in the book of Acts.
How many of you have ever been to a Walk Through the Bible before? Anybody? Okay, a few of you. Just so nobody feels left out, how many of you have never been to a Walk Through the Bible before? Put your hand up.
Okay, yeah, most of us probably haven’t been to a Walk Through the Bible before, but what we try to do is we just try to summarize the content so we can remember it in a simple, memorable way. Memorable way. So just take the word ascends. We know in chapter 1 that Jesus ascended before anything happened here on earth after His crucifixion. He ascended.
So we’re just going to say together the word ascends. Say that with me. Ascends. Okay? I want you to say it with meaning, okay?
We’re going to say ascends. Good. Now, what happened was is that He ascended and when He ascended, the who descended? Who descended? The Holy Spirit, right?
He said, you wait until you receive the power from on high. So after he ascended, the Holy Spirit descended. So we’re just going to say— we’ll use your hands with me here just for a second. We’re going to say ascends, and then we’ll say Spirit. Okay, so there’s your A-S. Ascends Spirit.
What happened next? When you get to chapter 3, you find that the apostles are out doing miracles. They came across a guy who was lame from birth and they cured him. They gave him legs so that now he could walk. Miraculous cure.
So we’re just going to remember that. The C here will be cure and we’ll pat our legs. Try that. This will be cure. Okay, so we’ve got sins, Spirit, cure.
And after that happens, you get into chapter 4 and you continue on into chapter 5 and you find out that the church is actually caring for each other. They’re giving away what they have to each other to care for each other’s needs. And that was wonderful. There was a couple that was noted— or actually a person named Barnabas— but there was a couple that saw this and they wanted to get in on the acclaim of what was happening. Their names were Ananias and Sapphira.
You may remember them. What they did was they came and they lied about what they were giving, and the ultimate thing that happened to them was they died. So it wasn’t like a great thing in the church at that point in time, but we remember this as the first embezzlement in the church. Okay, we need an E here. So we’re going to use the word embezzlement and we’ll just stick our hands out like this and say, give me your money.
Okay, so this will be embezzlement. Say it with me, this is embezzlement. So we’ve got sins, spirit, pure, embezzlement. Good. Now after the embezzlement, the church actually continued to grow.
We’re going to see this in just a moment. The church continued to grow so much so that the religious authorities authorities decided to throw these guys in prison. They thought that would stop the growth. So they landed in prison, and God had a better idea. He sent an angel to release them from prison, and this release happened at night.
So we’re gonna call this the night release. There’s our N, okay? The night release will open the doors of the prison here and say night release, okay? Not a cold medication night release. This is the opening of the doors of prison.
So we’ll say night release. Try it all with me again. We got Sins, spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release. Good. And after that, there were so many people that were coming to faith in Jesus, some of the people in the church were being neglected— actually, the Hellenistic widows.
And so you get to chapter 6, and they ultimately raise up some new leadership to help meet these kinds of needs in the church. And so chapter 6, the beginning focuses on a brand new office in the church called deacons. Yeah, and what’s a deacon? A deacon is a servant. So we’re gonna remember the deacons here by just serving.
So we’ll just say deacons. Okay, just serve your neighbor. Go ahead, deacons. Good. Oh, that was awesome.
All right, so let’s try them together. So we got, uh, sins, Spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release, deacons, and one of the deacons’ names was Stephen. There’s your S, okay? Stephen. What do we know about Stephen?
We know Stephen gave a walkthrough the whole Bible, actually through the Old Testament, and in the end of it, he invited people to receive Jesus as their Savior. But instead of receiving Him, they came up and they killed him. You remember this? They killed Stephen, first martyr in the church. This is why I don’t give invitations at the church.
No, I’m just kidding. Okay, they killed him. And we know that he ended up seeing the glory of heaven before he died. And so we’re just going to take him to heaven, and we’ll just open the gates of heaven here and say, Stephen. Now those 7 events frame what happens in the opening chapters, which give us a framework for seeing how the church began to have a tremendous impact with their witness.
Let’s say them together again one more time. So we had sins, Spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release, deacons, Stephen. Okay, we’ll work with those as we go along. But here’s the question, just for a couple minutes: what was it that they did that can help us be better witnesses? You see, Jesus said— here’s the challenge— you be my witnesses.
What did they interpret that to mean? And what can I learn from them that would help me be a better witness, better than I am right now? And I hope all of us want to be better witnesses than we are right now, that ultimately could impact people for all eternity. What can I learn from them? Well, it’s fascinating.
As I went through and I just tried to summarize this, there’s so much to summarize. As I summarize this, I began to look at, and the church grew, and the church grew, and the church grew. And I went back and I said, what was it before, and the church grew? What was there? And what was here before, and the church grew?
And what was here before, and the church grew? And I want to just— I want to just point out what I saw because I think it could be so helpful to us. So look at Acts 2. Acts chapter 2 is this event where the Holy Spirit comes on God’s people. They start speaking in languages that other people understood, the languages of their native tongue.
And the people who heard this, who are there in Jerusalem for the Pentecost celebration, were bewildered and amazed, it says. Do you see that in your Bible? Acts chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. And in verse 12, it says this: Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what does this mean? I mean, what’s going on?
Some, however, made fun of them and said, they have had too much wine. That’s what it means. These people are drunk. These Christians are drunk. That’s what this means.
Well, in response, Peter stood up with the other apostles, and this is what he said. Verse 14: Peter stood up with the 11, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk as you suppose.
It’s only 9 in the morning. It’s not gonna happen. No, this was what was spoken by the prophet Joel. And he connects what’s happening here to what an Old Testament prophet predicted would happen. I skip over that just for a second just to get down to the core of what ultimately happens and what Peter says in verse 22, men of Israel, listen to this.
Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited to you by God, accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men— think about saying this to your friends— and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Go on down to verse 36. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.
You know, when I read that, I thought to myself, when was the last time we see Peter speaking? You know what it was? It was when he was afraid to answer a little girl at Jesus’ trial, and this girl asked him, hey, aren’t you one of his followers? And he said no. And he said no, remember, 3 times he denied it.
He was a coward. But now he’s standing courageously, kind of like a 180-degree change in what he’s willing to say a couple months later. And he’s a brand new person, and he announces without any reservation who Jesus is. How did they respond? Verse 37, when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
And so Peter tells them, verse 38, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you, the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, for all whom Lord our God will call. Then it says, and with many other words he warned them and pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation. So he put it out there, and what happened? Verse 41, those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.
What happened? 3,000 more people joined up. 3,000. So now the church is not just 120 20, it’s 3,120 at least. And why did it happen?
Because one person stood up and spoke courageously on behalf of Jesus Christ. Why did the church grow? Because there were people that were willing to speak courageously about Jesus Christ, even to the extent where they put it on the line and said, you know what, you guys are the culprits for what happened here. And they announced the sin problem and all the rest of it. You know, one of the reasons why we don’t have the impact that we could have is because we chicken out.
God opens the door, and, and I want you to notice something. I just think this is so important to see this. God opened this door, didn’t he? Peter didn’t try to open this door. God opened the door.
In fact, he opened the door 2 times in this account with 2 questions. The first question was, after what was happening there on Pentecost and the tongues that had come on the people, the people were just in shock. They were bewildered, and they said, what does this mean? They had no answer to what it meant. So Peter just stood up and gave them an answer because he had an answer.
And then after having given them an answer, they asked another question. What was the question? Brothers, what should we do? Tell us. So all Peter was doing was responding to the work that God was doing in people.
And sometimes I think we miss it. Seriously, I think God’s working in people and he opens the door, but we checking out. There’s a prompting, there’s, there’s an open door right in front of us, and we just checking out. We don’t represent Jesus well. What does it mean to witness for the Lord.
It means, number one, to speak courageously. Is that you? Would you like it to be you? I would like it to be more me than it is right now. I really would.
I want to take greater steps in this direction than I’ve ever taken in my life. And the reason I want to take greater steps in this direction is because I long to see people come into a saving relationship with God and have their lives be changed and ultimately one day spend eternity with the for him, don’t you? There’s a second matter I was looking at here with regard to why the church was so impactful in their witness. Look at chapter 3, verse 1. One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer, all 3 in the— at 3 in the afternoon.
And now a crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. So here’s our cure coming up here. And when, verse 3, he saw Peter and John about to enter— so Peter and John are on their way to the temple for prayer— he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John, and Peter said, look at us. So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
And then Peter said, silver or gold I don’t have, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Walk! And taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong, and he jumped to his feet and began to walk. And then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. Now let’s just stop there just for a second.
What’s just happened here? Peter and John are on their way to the temple. Do they have on their calendar, stop and help a beggar whose Is it on their calendar? No. In fact, they don’t even notice the guy until the guy says something, until the guy says something with regard to begging, right?
And this person who says something is hoping to get some money, but they don’t have any money. So what do they give him? They give him what they had to give. See, they had a miracle gift that they could give You and I, as far as I know, don’t have that gift, but they had the gift. They didn’t give him money, they gave him the gift of being able to walk.
And as you continue the account, what you find out is that they give the gift of life too in the name of Jesus Christ, because it goes on, verse 9, and when all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. And while the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. And when Peter saw this, he said— so again, do you see what’s happening here? God’s orchestrating all of this, and now there’s a crowd of people, and Peter says, I’m gonna say something.
God’s brought all this together. This is a divine moment. And when he saw this, he said to them, men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us if by our own power or godliness we’ve made this man walk? By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong.
It’s Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given him complete healing, as you can all see. And then you go down to chapter 4, verse 1, and it says, and the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people, and they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. That was the last thing they wanted to hear. So they seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But And notice the big but here.
But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to be about 5,000. Why? Because of an act of kindness. Because of an act of compassion. Because these guys stopped and they helped an individual that was hurting.
They couldn’t give him money because they didn’t have money to give, so they gave him what it was that that the Lord enabled them to give. They gave him healing. By the way, it impacted not only that individual but others. And it says in Acts 4:13 that when they saw the courage of Peter and John, they realized that these were unschooled, ordinary men— we’re schooled in ordinary men and women— unschooled, ordinary men. They were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Why was their witness so effective? Because they spoke courageously and because they acted compassionately. Can we do that? You better believe it.
I mean, there are people all the time that aren’t even on our radar, that we’re on a mission somewhere else, and all of a sudden this person interrupts the mission that we’re on, and God wants to use us to help this person see Christ, and potentially it could impact this person and impact others and impact others. But maybe we’re just too busy to see, to stop. We got to go to the temple, we got to have prayer, or whatever it might be. A couple weeks ago, I was at the club, 24 Hour Fitness. I was working out.
It was just one of those days I want to just get in, get out, you know. I have these a lot— get in, get out. Just want to get out of here as quick as I can. And I had Come to the second part of my workout, and I walked by a friend who’s there. We’ve spent several, several times together over breakfast or coffee.
This is a person who’s not a Christ follower. And I said to him, hey, how you doing? You know, we got to get together pretty soon and hang out again and catch up on how things are going. He said, how about right now? I said, you mean like right now, right now?
He said, well, 25 minutes. I could do it in 25 minutes. And I remember in the back of my mind thinking, wait a minute, this is not on my calendar, okay? I, I’m not really sure I can do this right now. And then the second thought was, I got to hurry up and get home and work on my message because I’m preparing a message, and it was actually this message about witnessing.
So I got to get home and do my message on witnessing. I don’t have time to talk to you right now. Don’t you understand? I got to be able to sandwich it into my calendar when it’s convenient for me and I’m emotionally ready for this or something. So at least at that moment, you know, it was a good moment for me.
It doesn’t always go this way, but I said, you know, that would be great. And so I changed what I was doing there, and 25 minutes later we’re sitting over at Panera Bread having breakfast together. I bought him breakfast and the breakfast just sat there in front of him. I thought, man, he doesn’t like the breakfast I buy even if he chooses it. You know, but anyway, it just sat there.
But the reason that it sat there was because he would not stop talking. And what he was talking about was how painful his life was at that moment. And part of the pain was connected to him, connected to something that had happened to him the day before. A huge decision came down on him the day before, and he was a wreck. And he said to me, Dave, yesterday was the worst day of my life.
This is a person who’s in his early 30s.
And I had the opportunity to do what it is you would do, right? To show some compassion, to show some empathy, to have a listening ear, to not try to fix it, to just be in the moment with him, to put a hand on his shoulder, to say, can I pray for you? Just to be there. I didn’t share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I didn’t stand up and say, you’re a sinner and you need a Savior.
But I did the very same thing I think that Peter and John did here when they stopped and they cared for this man through how they could care for him, how God provided for them to care for him. In other words, we can all do that. You may not be able to heal them, but you can bring them to the one who can heal them.
You say, I don’t have any money. Well, Peter and John didn’t have any money either. It’s not the money thing, it’s the compassion. Tell me how you’re doing. What’s going on in your life right now?
Yeah, I’ve got some time. Let’s go over to the coffee shop. Let’s hang out together. Let’s talk. Let’s just be friends.
Why did this church have such an impact? They were willing to change their agendas for God’s agenda, to speak courageously, to act compassionately. Can I give you a third thought? Chapter 4 says, verse 32, all of the believers were one in heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. That’s going to be fun to get to this this passage, isn’t it?
You may want to be gone on this particular week. They shared everything that they had. They didn’t consider anything that they had their own. It says there were no needy persons among them. From time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them, and they brought the money from the sales and they put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
Some of you are saying, that kind of sounds like communism or something. I mean, what is that? This communal pool or something? We’ll get into that once we get there, but just the point right now is simply this: these people were willing to take whatever they had and to give it away to anybody who was in need, even if it required selling their properties, which many of them did. And we’re told after this that this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira who want in on this whole thing.
They want in on the acclaim, and ultimately they lie to God and they lie to the Holy Spirit about what they were giving, and they died. God took their lives. And as a result of them losing their lives, great fear came on the church. And it is in the context of fear that it says in chapter 5, verse 11, great seized the whole church. And all who heard about these events, what had happened as a result of the lying in the church— which, by the way, I think God still takes lying seriously.
I think God still takes lying and fabricating the truth seriously. He wants a pure church.
But it says no one else dared join them. I mean, they heard what happened. I don’t know if I want to be a part of that. Though they were highly regarded by the people, nevertheless, verse 14, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. The church grows even more.
So it had grown from 120 to 3,120 to 5,000 men, and now it grows to— they don’t even give the number. Maybe it’s just too many to count now at this point. All we know is that grows again. And how does it grow this time? Well, it grows as a result of an act of faith where people gave away their possessions to others who had a need, and it grew as a result of God’s work of fear that He placed in people.
And through this faith and this fear, ultimately people came to faith in Jesus Christ. And as I look at this account, I again say to myself, is there something here that God is teaching us about witnessing and the potential to have greater impact, and it certainly is. But of course, part of it’s connected to the work of God in the lives of people. It obviously is always that way. But also, some of it’s connected to the generous giving of the people.
And that’s the third thought I wanted to leave with you this morning. God can work through generous giving to get people’s attention and ultimately to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ. I had a person who was a part of the first service come up to me on the break and he said, hey Dave, I just got to tell you, it’s really interesting that you talk about this today because the other day I was over at Safeway and there was this person out front asking for money, asking for food. And this person had a couple of people out front with her, it was her kids. And so I stopped and I, I said, can I help you?
She said, we need food. I said, okay, let’s go. So he took her inside Safeway with the shopping cart, and she filled up the shopping cart with food, filled it up. And then they came out into the parking lot, and he had a spiritual conversation with her out there. He had the courage to have a spiritual conversation with her out there.
Then he said the very next day he was driving down the Miramonte, and there was a car that was smoking. Okay, it was like something went wrong under the hood. And he doesn’t know a lot about, you know, engines, but he decided maybe I can help. So he said, I stopped and I opened up the hood. And I could just imagine this person opening the hood, you know, because it’s kind of at this point— yep, that’s an engine, or whatever it was, you know, that’s in there.
And so he opened up the hood and he could see that the guy was out of antifreeze. So he said, so you’re out of antifreeze? He said, oh, what do I do? This individual said, well, why don’t you jump in the car, we’ll go buy some antifreeze. So he took him over, he bought him some antifreeze, they came back, put the antifreeze in.
He could see that one of the hoses was leaking, and he said to this 21-year-old, he said, you know, I don’t know where you’re going, but where you really should go right now is back home. But before the guy got into the car to go back home, he engaged him in a spiritual conversation.
Now, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t have any idea what’s gonna come out of that. All I know is I look at a church maybe like Westgate who has these incredible ministries they call Beautiful Day, and at a Beautiful Day where people are giving generously to others, people come to faith in Jesus Christ. God can use that, right? He can use that in our life if we’re driving down the street or we’re over at Safeway or wherever it is with our neighbors that neighbor in need, and you hear about your neighbor is hurting right now, and you go over there and you bring them something, and you just, you just care for them.
St. Francis of Assisi, some, some say, said, preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words. If you were to Google that right now, you would see there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not St. Francis of Assisi CC ever said that because they cannot find that quote. There’s the gist of that in his teachings, but they say he probably never really said it. But whoever said it, it’s a cool statement, isn’t it? See, it’s not one or the other.
It’s all of this. It’s all about, yes, practicing your faith, but it’s all about when the door opens, Preaching your faith, sharing your faith. It’s all about speaking courageously, acting compassionately, and yes, giving generously. We could expand this statement to just say, preach the Gospel at all times by how you live, and when you get the chance, use words. Use words.
You and I know People in this community, they’re evangelists. Remember Tim Riley? He’s one of my favorites. We’ve had him come to the basketball thing a couple of times now and share the gospel. And maybe you know Jim Stumpf.
He’s this evangelist over at Stanford sharing his faith with athletes over there. He works directly with the football team, the baseball team, the tennis team, the men’s teams there. And when I think about these guys, It’s not one thing that makes them an effective evangelist. It’s, it’s all of that, isn’t it? It’s taking all the tools that God has given to us and using them.
And so these guys speak courageously. They are unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Are we? I mean, do we want to see God use us in greater ways? Do we want to help more people?
Speak courageously. And, and they act compassionately. I think about Jim and how Jim is at every football practice. If it’s possible for him to be at every football practice, he’s there. And he’s at every Stanford game.
If it’s possible to be at the game, he’s at the game. And when a person is hurting or injured, he’s the first one out on the field to do something to just comfort that player. It’s just acting compassionately. And in acting compassionately, he’s told me several stories where God has used that to open a door. To talk about the gospel.
And it’s giving generously. And we can give generously by just giving of our time, by giving of our treasures— we’ve heard this before— by giving of our talents, but just giving. Could we do that? Could you do that? Could I do that?
Can I speak courageously? Can I act compassionately? Can I give generously? Yeah, I could do that. You could do that in the power of God.
You could do that. What could we expect will come out of that? Maybe the kinds of results that happen in the early church. Would that not be fabulous if it began right here, right here with a few of us? Again, let’s go back to the ice bucket challenge.
Millions of people have been touched by this challenge. Millions of dollars have been raised, it all started by one person.
Acts 1:8, there’s a challenge: be my witnesses here, there, everywhere. Lord, thanks for giving us an opportunity this morning to encourage each other about a matter that’s great importance to you. It was the first thing that you said when you were on earth. You invited people to follow you and to become fishers of men. And it was your last words, where just before you went back to heaven, you said, be my witnesses.
Start right where you are and and spread out.
And Lord, I pray that you would help us be better witnesses for you with our words, with our actions, and through our giving. God, I just ask that you would give us opportunities even this day, this week, to be your witnesses, and we would accept that challenge. He would take you up on it. The results would be magnificent and pleasing. I pray for anybody who’s here today that’s not yet received Jesus as their Savior, that this might be the day of salvation for them.
They would say yes to you and to the life that you desire for them to live that’s connected to you. May they stop living for themselves and start living And if that’s the desire of your heart, tell God that. Tell Him that right now. Invite Jesus to save you. Ask Him to save you from your sins, to make you one of His children, to adopt you into His family, to cause you to be born again.
And share that with somebody. Talk to one of us after the service about this. Lord, thank You that You hear the prayers. The sincere prayers of people who call upon Your name for salvation. And it’s in the name of Jesus we pray.
And everybody said, amen. Well, we’re going to continue to worship the Lord this morning, and Colin’s going to come back. And as we sing these songs together, let’s be present in the songs.
