Summary
Pastor Safrit begins a year-long series on the Book of Acts, focusing on Acts 1:1-8. He emphasizes the importance of having the right message about Jesus, the right methods for sharing the gospel, and the right mindset as believers. The sermon highlights that every Christian is called to be an ambassador for Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to witness to the world, and challenges the congregation to evaluate their commitment to this mission.
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I'm thankful for the day that we get to run home to Eden as they sing about. I hope you're looking forward to that as well. If you have a child that wants to go to Children's Church, they can be dismissed at this time. And I'm thankful we have that opportunity.
I think Ms. Green is going to be taking them back today. And so all the children can be dismissed. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Acts chapter 1 today. Acts chapter 1,
my plan that as I've been praying at the end of the last year of where God would have me to go is take this year and preach through the book of Acts.
And so we're going to spend about 40 weeks this year that I have planned through the leading of the Holy Spirit to walk through this book and begin to ask ourselves the questions of where are we at, where's
our church at, and help us to have a good understanding of the very first church that's recorded here in Acts as the church began.
And I have had a thrill studying through it and continuing to study through it. And I hope you'll take this year and read along with us as we go through it. And we'll spend chapter 1 verses 1 through 8 this morning as we look through this.
So if you have your Bible opened up to God's Word, we'll stand and read and we'll go from there. The Bible says in Acts chapter 1 verse 1, I wrote the first narrative,
Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day that he was taken up and had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles that he had chosen. And after he had suffered,
he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Verse 4, Let us pray. Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done for us. God, I'm thankful for the freedom that you've given us to stand up here today, the power that you've given us to be able to be here. And I thank you for your blessings.
I thank you for these young people that led us in worship and were able to bring us to the throne this morning. And I pray that you'd be with the words that I speak this morning. Lord, help us to be anointed by you. In your name we pray. Amen.
Amen. You may be seated. I have notes provided for you in your bulletin. You can follow along. And I'm looking forward to this study.
But as I have began looking through this, I want to give some history, some background to the book of Acts. The author here we see is Luke, who also wrote the first book, which is part of the Gospels of Luke.
Introduction to Acts
And this is a continuation, you can say, a sequel to his first book. He began writing in Luke.
He hit the book of the story of Jesus that details out and lays out all that Jesus did through his miracles in a very detailed fashion as Luke was a doctor. But now we begin to see him following this with the history of the startup of the church.
He's sort of taking a documentary point of view where he takes a step back and he begins to document some big key moments that happen in the church. As we walk through this, we're going to see arguments in the church. We're going to see frustrations with one another.
We're going to see unity with one another. We're going to see the church grow in an exponential number that we've probably never seen before since then. Just the amount of people that are growing and coming to know the Lord.
And it begins and it starts with the apostles and Peter.
And then it transitions to the Gentile leader, which is Paul, that brings the church to the Gentiles, which is us. Just a small history of this. It was wrote in Rome between 70 and 90 A.D.
And it was written to cover a 30 years after Christ and the spread and the growth of the church.
So my goal, sort of as we lay this out, is I want us to walk through this book and examine ourselves and examine our church and ask ourselves, what are we doing and how closely are we aligning to the vision of the New Testament church in Acts?
See, it's an easy thing and I'm guilty of it this morning. I will raise my hand and say I am guilty of it myself to do things in church because we've always done them.
When I was in ministry in Idaho, we moved to Idaho. It was our very first ministry. And we were ministering and being a youth pastor. And my wife taught in the Christian school. And we had Brody and Jade.
And a lot of what I taught and what I did was because it was what was taught to me and what I had heard and what I had learned. And I was just sort of regurgitating a lot of what I had been told.
And then we moved to North Carolina and during that transition between Idaho and North Carolina,
the Lord began to really prick my heart and say, James, what are you doing and why are you doing it?
And is it because I have told you to do it or is it because some other person had told you to do it? And so I began to really deep dive and examine every area of my life.
Why am I using this version? Why am I going to, why am I wearing a certain outfit when I go to church? All the different things that you can begin to ask yourself.
And the Lord, through this moment, taught me that I myself must get back to what the Bible says on what I do with my life. Our life is founded on the Scripture. The Scripture tells us that we have new life in Christ.
And so, therefore, if we have that new life in Christ, then everything I should be doing is based on Scripture.
And so as a personal illustration there, we have to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, as a church, what are we doing?
And we must do everything that we possibly can in the church based on a scriptural principle that's laid out in Scripture. Not because my grandma or my great-grandma did it this way or I really like it this way, but because Scripture tells us that this is how we should do it.
I've said it before as we look through the last words of Jesus. I made this statement and I'm going to use it again. Last words are lasting words.
And we look and we see here in Acts chapter 1 verse 8 the last physical words of Jesus while he's physically here on this earth. And he lays out these last words that we have recorded and we understand this is the mission that Jesus is giving to the church.
As I was just meditating and thinking on that, those last words again, I went through and I just sort of looked through some of those last statements and last words that people had given. I came across one statement,
the last words of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci was a famous inventor and artist.
He painted the Mona Lisa that's worth millions and millions of dollars and people go all over the world to be able to see this painting.
And people admire to see what Leonardo did and sometimes we'll even uncover a sketchbook that he had drawn and we begin looking at those creations that he made.
And Leonardo da Vinci, a lot of people don't know that he was overly modest. And in his last words as he was dying, this is what he said, I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality that it should have.
I often want us to sort of take a step back and say how often is this us? Where we look at our life and we say, man, I've been here 35, 36 years, maybe it's 70 or 80 years. And you begin to examine your life and you say,
God, I've offended you because I could have done so much more. I could have done so much greater things for you. And some of us look ahead and we say, man, I've got,
based on statistics, I've got more life ahead of me than I've got behind me.
Lord, allow me to be able to do some things that is going to change the way we do life. And oftentimes, though, if you're like me, you begin to get overly criticized and you begin to get overly critical in your life. And you begin, you're afraid you're going to mess up.
And oftentimes people will say, Pastor James, I'm afraid if I take that step of faith, I may mess up in that step of faith. And so I'm just going to freeze and I'm not going to do anything.
And oftentimes this is how it is in our life and this is how it is in our church. I'm afraid to mess up.
I'm afraid to do something that's going to cause something bad to happen. But Jesus, as he gives us his last words here, his last physical words on earth, he lays out the mission of the promise of the spirit.
The Mission of the Disciples
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come unto you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
He's telling his disciples, you've got a mission that's laid out for you. And you are going to be amazed at how awesome this mission is. But this mission that he's laid out to the disciples was not just to them. This mission comes to us. And it's very clear that every believer is commissioned,
commanded, and constructed to share the gospel with the lost world. The Bible says that in 2 Corinthians 5.20 that we are his ambassadors to this world. Think about this term,
an ambassador. This is someone who has been endowed with the authority of the one that's sending them. So we have an ambassador to the UN. We have an ambassador to Israel.
And when the ambassador of the United States walks into this room or wherever they're at, they are walking in with the full authority of the president. They are walking in with every amount of power and authority that the president of the United States has. And Jesus, through this statement here,
through the writings of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.20, he says, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God.
So church, as we begin to evaluate our life this morning, as we begin to evaluate our church, as we walk through this book, I want us to ask ourselves, are we being faithful ambassadors for Christ?
Are we being so faithful that when we walk into a room and we begin just to share what Christ has done for us, and we begin to share the good things that Christ has given us, that people say,
I can see that you're part of a bigger nation.
I can see that you're part of something a whole lot greater than just this world that you're in. You are here on a mission from someone else.
And so as we begin to break this passage down basically into four points, I'm going to start with the very first verse. And it helps us to realize that we must have the right message.
As a church that's going out, as a people that's going out, we must ask ourselves, what is the message that we're preaching and what is the message that we're doing? The very first verse says that all that Jesus began to do and teach.
This is ultimately the message that Jesus did and that Jesus taught.
This hasn't changed. This is 2,000 years later when this book was written and the message is still the same.
The Message We Share
We are to tell the world about him. We're not to talk about us. We're not to talk about our lives. We're not to talk about our beliefs. We're not to talk about our denomination.
I would go as far as saying we're not even supposed to talk about our church, but we're supposed to talk about Jesus. As much as you may love your preacher and you may think that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, I don't want you talking about me.
I want you to go out and talk about Jesus. He has the saving power.
My name doesn't have any salvation to it. Our denomination doesn't have any salvation to it. Our beliefs, our lives, these things don't have any power, but the power of Jesus is what changes lives.
Romans 1.16 says it like this, For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and then also the Greeks.
So I have to ask us, what are we telling the world? What is the message that we're telling the world?
Are we telling them that we have this eternal life in Jesus, that this message of salvation, this message of the gospel, or are we just simply telling them about something that's going to make them happy and wealthy and wise? This morning, church, our message should be about telling and pointing people to Jesus.
Our message should be taking the name of Jesus into all the world, as we're going to look at in just a minute, and proclaiming Jesus to every single person that we see.
I used this illustration this last week in Good News Club as I was teaching on Thursday, and I want us to sort of entertain this idea for just a moment.
Imagine you get in your car and you're going to a destination that you've never been before.
You don't know how to get there. You don't know the left or the right turn.
You don't know if you're supposed to take a bypass because there's a traffic jam coming up.
You don't really know what's going on, and so you open up a navigation system on your car or maybe your phone that's hooked to your car, or maybe you're old school like my mom and dad, and you pull out a map.
Have you ever seen one of those paper maps before? You've got to unfold them, and you've got to figure out where you're going. My dad, I was at his house just the other day, and my dad goes, James, I've got a couple of these old Rand McNeely maps.
I said, Dad, why would I need those? I've got my phone.
I've got all the electronics that I need. It's going to tell me where to go.
Well, one day you may not have that technology, and you may need a paper map. I'm like, all right, doomsday dad over here. He's going to help me out. So now we don't.
You may still be there. You may still pull your map out and highlight where you're going to go and figure out your route, but I dare say most of us probably just punch it in and say, go take me there. And imagine that voice that comes over.
I've translated mine over to a British male accent. So he talks to me in this sophisticated, I feel like I'm like some type of royalty as he's telling me, well, turn left up here. All nice and British-like.
And so imagine they're telling you where to go, and you're taking left, right. You finally get to your destination. You've been there. That's happened to you before, I'm sure.
Now, for the illustration purposes, I want us to imagine that someone is looking for the answers of life. Someone's looking for how to have salvation, how to figure out what's going on in life, and they punch in their destination, and that destination they punch in, they're coming to you for that advice.
They're coming to you and they're saying, Pastor James, Allison, I'm trying to figure out life right now, and I just need to, can you give me some answers?
And you're the voice that comes over their GPS that's telling them, hey, this is where you need to go. The Bible says we've all sinned. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. We've all fallen short of what God has had in perfection for us.
And you're the voice that gets to lead them to Jesus. We're the voice in that GPS that gets to lead and guide people to Jesus.
But if we don't have the right message, the people will never figure out the right destination.
We were leading people astray, and so we must first begin to evaluate our own life and say, am I telling others about what Jesus began to do and teach?
As his disciples laid out, and as we look through this book of what we are to tell others about, are we telling others the gospel that Peter and Paul and James and the disciples preached in that very first church?
Not only should we have the right message, but number two, we should have the right methods. We should have the right methods. Verses 2 and 3,
as he began to give instructions, he said to his disciples, he said, I've suffered by many convincing proofs, and I've appeared to you for a period of 40 days. And he began to lay out some methods that he went through.
Luke is saying here that Jesus chose his disciples. He trained them, and then he suffered and spent 40 days with them, training them in the way. Training them on how they should live their life. Training them on how they should do this ministry that he's laid out for them.
Guy, I've used this statement, if you've been around me for any period of time, I've made this statement probably more times than I can think, and I wanted to figure out who actually said it. Have you ever, like, said something many times, and you're like, who actually said this thing?
Like, I've been saying it for years, but all of a sudden now, I want to know who it is.
And so the statement that I always say are this, is methods are many, and principles are few. Methods may change, but principles never do. First time I read this was in a book called Concentric Circles of Concerns.
It's in my library. It's on my bottom shelf. And I began saying, okay, who said this? This guy's name is Harrington Emerson.
Never heard of him before. Don't know who he is. Wouldn't know if I, if you showed me a picture of him, I wouldn't know who he is. But it's this thought of methods are many. There's a lot of different methods to do things, right?
Have you ever tried to fix something, and someone comes over and says, I wouldn't do it like that.
My grandpa told me to do it a different way. I've been told there's the Anderson way, and there's the wrong way. You can do it the Anderson way, or you can do it the wrong way. And so you begin to do something and try to figure it out.
And there's lots of different methods. Some people say there's many different ways to skin a cat.
Okay, and we have to understand that as we look through this early church, we're constantly seeing the church change and the church adapt. The church changes, the church adapts. There's growth that happens, ministry happens, and the church changes.
We're going to see as we look through this, there's 120 people in an upper room.
And there's there in this upper room, and a few days later, Peter gets up and preaches a message, and it says that 3,000 people get saved and are added to the church. They're added to this body of believers. So now they went from 120 to 3,120.
Do you think they still had the same way that they kept the treasury?
Do you think they continued to meet and preach and teach the same way? They didn't have a building to hold this, so they had to change.
And I believe as we look through this, we're going to see some areas where Jesus doesn't, or the disciples don't exactly lay out a plan for the church.
But rather they give us a general principle for what the church should do and look like. For instance, they were always preaching. They were always telling other people about Jesus.
Everywhere they went, they said, hey, can I tell you about a man who changed my life? Can I tell you about this guy who I was once lost, and now I'm found?
Can I tell you about a man who I was blind and I couldn't see, and he gave me sight, not only physical sight, but he gave me eternal sight. Everywhere they went, they were preaching the gospel of Jesus. They were reaching others.
They were reaching out to those that were around them, and they were selling what they had so they could provide for things that were around them. We see as we look through this book that they're worshiping.
And they get together and they worship and they praise the Lord, and Peter as he's in jail, and Paul as he's in jail, he's worshiping Jesus in his suffering.
They can't help but worship in everything they do, and they can't help but serve one another everywhere they go. And the question we have to ask us is, what are our methods? What are the things that we're doing, and are they lining up with the story of Scripture?
Are they lining up with what the apostles would have done?
Are they doing the things they're doing because this is what God had told them to do? And ultimately, what are the methods that we're using to reach the world?
And one of this way is just simply telling our story. That's all the Lord wants us to do. I put this verse in your notes, 1 Peter 3.15. Peter is writing to the church here in Jerusalem, and he says this, But in your hearts regard Christ as Lord, as holy,
ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you.
Hope and Salvation for the World
See, church, we have been given a hope that the world is looking for. We've been given a hope and an answer for them.
If only we would just tell them what the Lord has done for us. As I mentioned, we were lost, and now we're found. We were blind, and now we see, and now we get to tell them about what Christ has done for us. So we must have the right message.
We must have the right methods. But ultimately, as we continue through this story, we see that we must have the right mindset. We must have our minds right.
It says that while he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise. You've heard me speak about John, who baptized with water.
And so they came together, and look at this. He said, he asked them, Lord, when are you restoring again to the kingdom at this time?
Jesus tells them not to leave the town, but yet rather to get away for a couple of days. To find a room to get away, to begin to think on and meditate on what I have given you, as Jesus is saying here. Basically, Jesus is telling them, things are about to change radically.
Things are going to change in a way that you could not have put down on pen and paper.
That the way the church is going to change, the way that these disciples had walked with him for three and a half years, and had began to do ministry with him, we had gatherings, but you're about to see things that are greater than I have ever, you've ever seen in your life.
And before that happens, we must get our mind right.
As I was thinking through this, even last night, as I was just reviewing my notes and reviewing what God had laid on my heart, this thought came to my mind, I wrote it down, it said,
if Jesus was about to do a mighty work in our church, would we be ready? Would our minds be ready? Would we be physically ready for what the Lord has planned for us?
Because we had gotten away, because we had put our minds and hearts into a place where only God's going to do what God's going to do, and we have begun to be in unity and praying together and serving
the Lord in a way that God is going to do something that only God can explain. Would we be ready for it?
We watch a lot of CSI shows and SVU shows, and I was thinking about this as I was preparing it.
Oftentimes in these shows, they'll have a key witness, someone who's a pivotal part of the defense or the prosecutor's stand, and what happens is they get this witness, and they get them a room, and they begin to prep
them, and they get them ready, and they say, now listen, you've got to stay away from everything. You can't go back home to your family for the next couple of days. You've got to get away. You've got to be mentally ready to testify for what is about to happen. This morning, church,
we are the witness of Christ. We get to get up and testify to the entire world. This is a huge task.
God didn't say, I'm going to endow angels to come down, and angels are going to go all throughout the world, and they're going to tell about what Jesus did.
He didn't say, I'm going to use the prophets from old, and they're going to come back to life, and they're going to travel around the world. No, He said, I am choosing you to go out into all the world and to preach and teach the gospel.
Preparing for the Holy Spirit
Jesus breaks it down for us, and He said, we are going to tell others about Christ, but we must have the right mindset before we do that. We must understand what Christ has done for us so that we can tell others what Christ has done for us. I love the mindset of John Wesley,
an old preacher that said it like this, the world is my parish. John Wesley knew that anywhere he went, sinners could be found.
John Wesley knew that if he walked outside of his house onto a street corner, a sinner would be walking by that he could tell about Jesus.
If he went to the convenience store and he had to go pick up a loaf of bread, he knew that there was someone there that needed to hear about Jesus. He knew that if he was at a gas station down the road, he would find someone that needed to hear about Jesus.
It didn't matter where he went. He had the mindset that I'm going to find someone who needs the gospel, and I'm going to be that gospel witness. Our mission field this morning, church, is anywhere lost people can be found.
And we must look as close to our home as we can and then begin to search out and say, who around me needs to hear this good news that Jesus has for us? But oftentimes, church, we aren't in the right mindset to ask ourselves those questions. We're consumed about our own grocery list.
We're consumed about our own things that we need, and we try to get in and out of things as quick as possible, and we avoid those divine appointments that God has planned for us. God has placed people in our paths every single day of our life that are searching for answers.
It may be when you're at school.
It may be while you're at work. It may be while you're, like I said, simply at a grocery store. People are in our paths that need to hear about Jesus. Are we taking the opportunity to be aware of those things around us in order to bring them into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?
And as we begin to process through this, he gets to this main point of verse 7 and 8.
He said to the disciples here, Lord, are you restoring the kingdom of Israel at this time? They were just ready for this kingdom to be set up. They were ready for Jesus to come back and rule with an iron fist and overthrow the government.
And Jesus looked at them, and I almost want to put myself in this picture and say, what was Jesus' face when they asked this question? You've had a kid that asked you a question that's like, really, you're asking that question now?
This is the question. Like Jesus says, I want you to leave. I want you to get ready for the promise. I want you to, you're about to hear, you're about to have this overwhelming experience of the Holy Spirit. And then they sort of looked at him and said, Lord, is this the time you're restoring the kingdom? He's like, what?
Why are you asking me that question now? And he said unto them, it's not for you to know the times and the periods of the Father, but you're going to receive this power.
And church, as we begin to ask ourselves, we must have the right muscle. We cannot do this in our own strength.
This mission is greater than what has ever been done or seen in the history of the world. As I was talking even this week, the gospel of Jesus started 2,000 years ago.
When Jesus Christ came into this world, yeah, it started before that of a promise of a Savior, but the message that Jesus taught, and 2,000 years later, it's still going on. It hasn't stopped.
It hasn't let up. People are still coming to know Jesus every single day of this life that we're in. And we have this opportunity to go out and to tell others about Christ. But we must have it in the right strength.
Have you ever done something and you just couldn't physically do it because you needed help? Maybe it was, for me, it was when I was lifting weights and I used to do that. I don't do it anymore. I'm fat and old.
I don't lift weights like I should. And I remember when I was benching 300 pounds, the very first time I did it, I put it on there and I'm like, I'm going to do this.
And I let it off the bar and I came down. It just stopped. Didn't go up. Didn't move.
I had no strength in my body to push that weight up. And someone else had to come alongside and use their muscle to help pull my muscles up for it to happen. This is the Holy Spirit in our life.
He's saying, listen, you're going to go out and you're going to do things. And if you try to do it in your own muscle, you're going to fail.
If you try to do it in your own strength, you're going to get weary. You're going to get burnt out and you're going to give up. But it's when the Holy Spirit comes.
Jesus said, you're going to have to get away. You're going to have to get ready with your mind for the Holy Spirit to come. And when you receive that power,
then you're going to be my witnesses. It's only until we get the power of the Holy Spirit that our message has any power to it.
If our message is to have power, if our methods are to be successful, and if our mindset is ever going to be what it's going to be, we must get it from the outside of ourselves. Jesus is telling us in this verse that our help comes from the Holy Spirit.
This morning, church, I am desperately in need of this power in my life. I'm desperately in need of this power in our church. And I'm desperately in need of this specific Holy Spirit anointing in everything we do.
Look at how Jesus said we're supposed to exercise this muscle. You can't just be given a muscle and never work it out. You've got to work this muscle out in order for the muscle to work in our lives.
He says you must look as close to you as possible. He says look locally. Look at Jerusalem where I've told you to be at. This is your home. This is your family. This is your neighbors that are around you that you see every single day. Look as local as you can.
And then he says we're going to move out a little bit from there. We're going to go in to Judea and Samaria. This is the region that we live in. And this is the western North Carolina, the foothills of North Carolina. This is the region that we're planted in.
Begin to look at those needs around you and say how can I help these needs that are around me. And then he says we must go globally to the ends of the earth, the uttermost parts of the world.
This muscle is so powerful that it will take us not only as local as our family and our family needs Jesus.
And we should be praying for our kids and our grandkids and our great grandkids to come to know Jesus. We should be praying for our neighbors. But he says the muscle of Christ, the muscle of the Holy Spirit isn't just big enough for your family. It's big enough for your entire state.
It's big enough for your entire country. It's big enough for the entire world to hear about the gospel.
You may say, well, Pastor James, I'm 70 years old. I can't go on a mission trip. I can't go.
When I talk to missionaries all over the world, most of them, the vast majority of them don't say, how much money can you give me? The first thing they say to me, can you guys pray for us?
Can you guys pray for the mission that God has led us on to go into places that we've never even seen it go before?
They care about our prayers and you can pray for our mission.
You can pray for what God is doing around us globally as we're a part of a group of churches that are doing so much more together than we can do on our own.
And we begin to look at how we can be a part of that global mission that Christ told us to be a part of, to go to the ends of the earth. This morning, as I conclude this message, there's just a couple of facets of scripture.
As Terry comes and plays, I want you to ask yourself how important has been a witness to the world to you?
How important is it to be a witness to those that are around you? Jesus said, this is the most important mission that we are going to be given. You're going to receive power after the Holy Spirit comes to go into all the world to be my witness.
The Importance of Witnessing
Jesus said, this is the most important thing. Like I said, last words are lasting words. This is his last words to the church.
How important is it to be a mission and be on mission and be a witness for Christ? Are you willing to change things in your life so that you can be a more effective witness?
Sometimes there's things in our life that are hindering us to being a witness. Sometimes there's actions that we're doing or things that we're saying or a lifestyle that we're living that is hindering the work of the Spirit.
What are you willing to deal with so that the power of God may rest upon you? Maybe it's a specific area that you just need to say, God, I am tired of doing this in my own strength. I'm getting weary.
I'm getting worn out. My power is leading and fleeting and going further and further away.
I need your power in my life to be effective.
Ultimately, what's the price that you're willing to pay to see Christ's message go further than it's ever gone before?
What is it willing to pay for the price of God's message to rest on someone else?
Someone is going to pay a price. Maybe you yourself are going to pay a price for your family to come to know Jesus. Someone has to pay a price. We know Christ paid the ultimate price, but we must be willing to sacrifice something for someone to hear about Jesus.
Ultimately, I want to ask you this personal question. How long has it been since you really told someone about Jesus? When's the last time where you sat down and you just said, you know, when I was five years old? 1993, it was a March.
The last Sunday of March where my pastor was preaching and Pastor Jerry Whitehart was preaching on the salvation of the Lord.
And I trusted in Jesus that day. When's the last time you told someone about the revolutionary change that Christ made in your life?
Let me remind you that every one of us are going to give an account one day of the witness that we've been for Christ. Romans 14, 12 says, so then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
We're going to stand before God and God's going to say, what have you done with the talents I've given you? And we may look at him and we say, Father,
you gave me 10 talents and I gave all 10 back to you and I sacrificed and I turned that 10 into 20. And he says, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
But how many of us are going to stand before God and say, God, you gave me one talent.
You redeemed me. And I was afraid to do anything. And I didn't want to misuse it. And so I dug a pit and I put it in a pit because I didn't want to tell anybody about it. And he's going to look at us and say, you unworthy servant.
I gave you so much and yet you didn't tell anyone about it. We all will give an account one day for him. How are we living our life now?
The hour is late, the Bible says, and the time to tell the world is now. Look at what John says in John chapter 9, verse 4. For we must do the works of him who sent us while it is day. Night is coming when no one will be able to work.
Church, maybe you've been distracted from your mission. Maybe the mission as we've laid out is to go into all the world and we got distracted.
I think we can all share in this responsibility. I've been distracted.
I've been distracted in what God has done in my life. I've been distracted by the things of the world. God, this is the hour to recapture our mission.
To recapture what God is going to do in a church that is fully sold out. Fully believing that God is going to do something great. It's the moment that we need to get back to the main thing becoming the main thing again. It's all about Jesus.
It's time to deal with the personal issues that we may have. It's time to deal with the personal sins that you may have before we go into communion. And ask yourself, God, I need your power this morning more than I ever have needed it in my entire life.
And asking God to come and rest his power on us again like he once did when we first accepted Jesus.
The excitement, the vigor that you had. You just felt like you had to tell the entire world about what Christ had done for you. I don't know if they've been not for you. For me, that was my mind.
As five years old, I wanted to go out and I tell every single person, I was once lost, but now I'm found. Jesus came and he redeemed me.
And the older we get, the older our minds begin to fray, the older our passion and our zeal for the Lord begin to fade. And we begin to just focus on the little things that don't matter.
This morning, I think it's time for us to obey the voice of the Lord and say, God, what is it that I need to be trusting in you so much more today than I ever have? Whatever that may be this morning, I don't know your need.
Closing Prayer and Thanks
All I know is we need to get back to the mission of the church by telling others about what Christ has done for us. Let us pray.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for your blessings. We thank you for what you've done this morning. Lord, I am thankful that you, again, allowed us to meet this morning. You allowed the weather to be fine.
You allowed us to not be taken for granted to be able to be here. But God, help us as we just come into this time of invitation to ask ourselves, what is it that we failed to do? What is it that we've put in priority over what you said was priority?
God, help us to trust in you. Maybe there's one here that doesn't know you. The day would be the day they come to trust in your saving knowledge. It's in your name we pray.
Amen. Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week. Hold on to see if we both agree with this huge Falcons each week. Endurance 노래匆AST
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