Transcript:

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My name’s Tim. I have the privilege of serving and leading as a lead pastor here. And we are in a study in the book of Acts we just started at last week. And so if you’re a guest today all new to this it’s okay. We’re just getting started in a series here. So we’re going to be Acts chapter one today.

It’s a book in the new Testament and follow along here, listen, make note if you’d like, but I’ll unpack some things for you. And so we’re just enjoying you, inviting you to, just to enjoy and to listen and absorb, but we’re in Acts chapter one, looking at verses four through 11 today with our time.

Acts chapter one, four through 11. This is Nancy Duarte, who is an impactful communicator CEO someone that’s done Ted talks and has written actually textbooks on communication for leaders and for people serving in all areas and ecosystems of life. I don’t want to quote her as we open up here today with our time.

And God’s word leaders anticipate the future. They stand at the edge of the known world, patrolling border patrol the border between now and next to spot trends. They help other see the future to guide people through the unexpected and inspiring them to long for a better reality. It’s Nancy Duarte.

Really? I think what Nancy is describing here is vision. Typically we rally around vision. You all support causes and charitable movements because they have a compelling vision and a compelling mission. You’re a part of organizations and industries in many ways, because you aligned with the vision of your organization.

There’s something there. And a lot of people struggle with their business or the place that they work and serve the career that they’re in when the vision becomes stale or it is just non-existent. Vision is key. And in our day we’ve been shaped by many visionary people like Branson and bill gates, bayzos Musk.

And key visionaries have been shaping and pressing and pushing into different ages and opportunities of technology and leading us into the future. I was a fan of Steve jobs. In some ways he was a kind of a peculiar guy, but he was quite a visionary. And every time that he would give a keynote when he was there alive and leading apple, it seems like the world would stop because people wanted to catch a glimpse of what was coming.

They leaned into what he was saying and what they were up to. They wanted to hear and catch to have a glimpse of the future. And so what he would do is he would just unpack. An aspect of the future. And he would then invite us to trust him, to take us into that future leaders. You have that privilege and that opportunity, whether you’re leading a large scale business or something small, or are you leading your, just your family, maybe leading yourself or leading others.

We have the privilege of leading ourselves into a future and leading others into a future with. Now that word’s become a just a crazy bud buzzword, the last 10, 15 years people, what’s your vision. What’s your five-year plan. And I can remember even going back before that, before this became such a buzzword, being a student, people would say, Tim, what are you going to do? 

And then, for the next five years, or what do you, what’s your vision for the next 10 years? I have no, I don’t know. I D I don’t even know what I’m going to have for lunch today. You’re asking me about these big philosophical, like big what if down the road kind of questions. And so it can be overwhelming and challenging, but the thing is, Jesus, the visionary of all visionaries doesn’t anticipate the future.

Like we do, he knows the future and he holds a few. And he’s inviting us to trust him, to lead us into the future, that he knows that he controls that he is ordaining and guiding these a visionary of visionaries. And when we come to Christ and what he unpacks for us in his word, and we come to follow him, the mystery of what life is all about, begins to fade away.

We have these big sort of what’s the vision for my life. What’s the vision for my family and my business. What does the future look like? And we think we’re creating it on our own, but the reality is God has established a vision for us. A great plan for us. And when I learned to yield to Christ, when I learned to yield to the God of the universe of cares deeply for me, and cares deeply for you and cares about what you’re wrestling through now and what you’re going to wrestle through in the future.

When we yield to him and align and merge with his vision for us sparks fly in a good way. There is ignition and traction and enjoy begins to flow. Suddenly we are by the grace of God, aligned with God and what he’s about and who we’re to be about. And so what I’m getting at here today is the visionary of visionaries Christ, the living God, the one that conquered death for us, the one that is in control of all things lays out a compelling vision for us.

It’s a vision for you as an individual. It’s a vision for us as a collective, as a church. And the question is, do we trust in him? Do we yield to what he’s laying out for us? It’s easier said than done, but what we run into here, this collision course we’re on today. As we go further into the book of Acts, is that God, through the Son of God gives us a roadmap, gives us footsteps to follow into follow G.

And really he gives us the vision of all visions. I think the challenge that we face is that the vision that God has for us, that the vision that the king has for us, that we’ll look out here for a few moments today at times, is at odds with some of the things that we want to do. And in some ways we feel like if we yield to God, we’re going to lose freedom.

We’re going to lose the life. But the reality is when we died, And maybe even put some of our dreams and aspirations to the side to learn and understand what he has for us. Then transformation comes. And then we learn as we talked about already in our times together over the last few weeks that the passions and the joys that you have, and the things that you want to pursue are not always at odds with the things of God, for you. 

In fact, they can be aligned into this holistic pursuit of God, this holistic sort of worship. Let’s take a look at the vision that Christ has for you. The king of all Kings, the Lord of all Lords, the leader of all leaders, the visionary of all visionaries, what he has for us. Let’s take a look, Acts chapter one, verse four.

Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them. Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you that. Now Luke is writing to his buddy Theopolis right. Was this Roman official someone significant from what we can tell what we’ve pieced together with what we understand of history and titles and phrasiology Theopolis was a significant leader.

Most likely in the Roman government, he was a newer believer and it seemed like he was wrestling with the faith. He had questions, he had doubts. He had issues that a lot of us face, we still have questions. We still have doubts. We wrestle with a lot of different. But Luke set out in Luke Acts to encourage the awfulness, his faith, to build him up, to give him courage, to know that what he had received by eyewitnesses and what he’d been taught was dependable that this new life that he found himself in following Christ, this new foundation he had stepped upon is a sure one.

So Luke’s seeks to build into Theopolis to empower him, to encourage him. And he was reminding him over and over again of historic record of the things that Jesus did, things that he taught, the miraculous things. You performed everything about his life and ministry. And he built that into Theopolis and Luke.

And now the followup here in Acts, he’s still trying to re enforce his. So you’re saying, look, Jesus. After he died, he appeared to many people. He built upon what he was teaching. He actually broke bread with these guys. He appeared to 500 or more people after he came back from the dead people saw Jesus.

They saw him die. They saw where he was laid in the ground in Joseph’s tomb. And they saw him after he rose from the dead. The awfulness you are believing in something true. That’s been corroborated in a healthy way by eyewitnesses. So Jesus was having a meal with these guys after he came back from the dead, by the power of God, the Holy Spirit.

And he says, don’t leave Jerusalem to the Father, sends you the gift he promises. I told you before. See Jesus said it was better for him to leave when he was ministering with his guys, who’s coming to the end just before he was arrested before he would go on trial. He says, guys, it’s really better that I leave because God will send the helper, the advocate, your paraklete your teacher, your guide, God, the Holy Spirit, because God, the Holy Spirit will come and empower all believers nationwide, worldwide.

It’s better for you that I leave so that the helper can come. And the Holy Spirit was promised. And the people of old knew that the Holy Spirit was to come. The old Testament is chock full of reminders and promises of the spirit of God. And so it’s better that you wait, it’s better that the Holy Spirit will come.

The Holy Spirit will teach you and remind you all the things that I taught you, Jesus would say all of the things that I leaned into with you on the Holy Spirit will remind you. Encourage you in the Holy Spirit will overwhelm our conscious and give us the ability to do what is right and what is pure and what is lovely, what is in line with God and his righteousness and the Holy Spirit will correct us when we mess up.

 When we sin, which we do all the time, lovingly leading us back to the grace and love and goodness of God, but he says, wait, Don’t leave Jerusalem until that gift comes, who likes to wait right. Waiting. It’s awesome. It’s right. Cricket. Nobody likes to wait. I can remember telling my dad, middle, October, dad, can I get this new bike for Christmas?

 And my dad’s I don’t know. We can put it on the list. The GT interceptor. I was so amped about it. Like I was going to be like BMX kind of superstar at anyway. And dad’s listen. Christmas is not till the 25th of December. I was just like, like now I was in the adult. I’m I think I’m an adult. As an adult, like that goes like that, mid October to December 25th, it’s boom, it’s you wait, you go to sleep, you wake up it’s Christmas. How did that happen? But as a kid, that is like 10 years as we grow up, though, we still don’t like to wait. I don’t like, I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to wait, see a big part of a vision is the right time.

 So the king had a vision, but it was about the right time. It wasn’t Willy nilly. It was something really adapted and drafted up, I would say, and this is a good kind of whoa, this is getting more like matrix stuff here, but like that vision was established in eternity past.

 You got to wait for the right timing.

 See the times that we get the times we get ahead of the Holy Spirit, we end up somewhere, but it’s not where God wants us to be. I’ve been a lot of places and God in his Providence and his kindness has redeemed those things. He’s redeemed our mistakes, our sins, the lifestyles we’ve fallen into that.

 Aren’t of him that really lead to. Death, it’ll draw us back. You can take all kinds of evil and brokenness and bad, and he can turn it for good. He restores and does these things, but he says, don’t get ahead of me. You wait for me and wait for my time. See a lot of things happen in the waiting. It’s usually in the weighting that God establishes the plan.

 It’s usually in the waiting, the establishes the directions. It’s usually in the waiting that just provides what is needed for what he’s going to do now next. But we don’t like it. Wait, I just want to sprint half the time. And Kristen’s whoa, hit the brakes. I’m like the, the Macy’s balloon there in the parade and she’s got like holding me down.

 Cause I want to just fly away. Somebody like, that’d be great. Do I want to see that? But wait, God’s timing is always right. I think there would have been a tendency there. I know there were filled with fear and anxiety, but there would have been a tendency there. I think for Jesus, his followers, the women and men that were following him that knew him, that trusted him.

 There would have been a Tennessee for them to maybe scatter from there and to go in and do this and do that and the other. But Jesus is no, I’ve got a vision for you. There’s a timing that I’ve established for. You wait for the gift that the Father promised for you to come and then move and then run.

And then you can. We need the Holy Spirit to guide. Like I said, we can get ahead of God. And in some ways, bear with me. God’s everywhere. Always at the same time, he’s omnipresent, but there’s, there are ways for us to speed ahead of what God would do. And like I said, we’ll get somewhere, but it’s not where God really wants us to be.

Like I said, he’ll were deemed that, but trust me, I’ve done this time and time again. I’ve run ahead to try to force something. And it’s always like a house of cards. It doesn’t stand a breadth of when the breeze, it just, boom, it’s going to be gone. Kristen and I, and the group here that’s come together. We learned how to wait for God.

I think many of us felt God’s starting us up to launch out and start this new ministry. It’s God’s ministry. It’s his church. We just have the privilege of being a part of it. We get to have sort of a 50 yard line, front row seat to what God’s unpacking here and what he’s doing. But we were waiting on him and we were praying and we were like, I don’t know, God, like we’re seeking his spirit and leaning on him for discernment.

Is this the right time? We had a great run in Duxbury five years, we loved it. We just felt God calling us to step out and do something else. And others were feeling that. And so here we are, but we were waiting. We were hesitant. God, is this the time is now the moment we were reluctant. Honestly, as a family, we’re like, God, you’re stirring.

We feel you. Is this your time. So it makes complete sense, right? At the end of a pandemic with no building and no budget and nothing, let’s start a new church. Okay, cool. Yeah, but look what God’s done just in a few short weeks, she’s brought in an incredible group of people together in his grace.

And in this strength, people that are trying to figure out, do I believe in God? Do I want to follow this guy that you claim is real and wants to know me deeply and have a relationship? Am I there yet? Maybe not. You guys are crazy. And then others are like, no, we do believe, and we want to follow Jesus.

We’re like, okay, God. So here we are. Look what he’s doing. So he’s breaking bread. Hey, look, I’m about to give you the vision and the first step is don’t do anything. Just sit here. Look at verse five, John baptized with water, but in just a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. John, the Baptist came a cousin of Jesus.

Incredible. We’ll look at that around ad and around Christmas season and John, the Baptist was preparing the way for the ministry of Christ, the Son of God, fully God and fully man, the hypostatic union. Take note of that. That’s one of those, like you spit words and you say the hypostatic union, the Son of God, fully God fully, man.

Not just God, not just man, but God and man, the God. Comes to rescue and John, the Baptist blazes, the trail sets the stage leads the way forward for the followers then, and for the followers. Now, John did this sort of preparatory baptism. It was a baptism of acknowledging sin, the repentance of sin being cleansed, being established in Christ, placing faith in Christ and being prepared to receive Christ.

But Jesus said, look, John was paving the way with this baptism of water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The long awaited son of God, of son of God would come. And the long awaited third member of the Trinity God, the Holy Spirit would calm the overwhelm and a good way to take up residency within us to guide us right.

To guide us in the ways of God to give us a hunger for the things of God, to be position. I think to receive the vision that the king has for us in profound and true ways,

the Holy Spirit’s going to come. And a few days, are you ready to receive? My conviction is that we place faith in Christ as our Lord and savior. And it’s at that point that the Holy Spirit that comes to dwell in us to take over. To empower to fuel. Now there’s a little bit tension that we see in verse six.

See, Jesus is beginning to unpack the timing of his vision and his plan for them and for us. And he’s establishing some key things here in Austin. There is an objection to vision. There are things that stand in the way, if those of you that lead and in any capacity know that you’ll lay something out, either delivered to you from higher ups or you’re the higher up establishing something.

There’s always I don’t know about that or there’s this sort of confusion and you need to lean into that vision to clarify it more and more. To articulate it more and more to give people a better picture of the roadmap and to lay it out in different ways. And so we get to verse six and there’s a little bit of a tension it’s not bad, but there’s a little bit of confusion.

Look at verse six. So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord has the time come for you to free Israel and restore. If you’ve been on a road trip with your grandkids or kids, Tim has down the road. Are we there yet? Are we man? We took a long road trip. We’ve talked about that long, longer.

We’re like just down the road, like we pretty much left the driveway here. Are we there yet? I was like, you’re kidding me. Are we there yet?

The apostles here are wondering if they had arrived. Are we there yet? Jesus. What Jesus is going to begin to unpack is in many ways, we’re just getting started. We’re just taking off. We’re just underway. We’re at our cruising out the tune and we, the journey is ahead, but they’re saying it is the time come for you to free Israel to restore our kingdom.

They were being pulled into sort of this temporal thing. They wanted something tangible. They wanted something here. And now what they’re saying is Jesus is now the time for you to restore Israel to the golden era. The days of David and Solomon, they were tired of being overlooked. They were tired of being the doormat there in the ancient world.

They wanted to push Rome out and they wanted Israel to be prominent. Again is now the time there was an objection here. So there’s a lot of temporary temporal things that we will rally around and be pulled into. But as always, the King’s vision is greater than ours. It wouldn’t cooperate more than what they were thinking of and they weren’t way off base.

They just, they wanted to see God honored through this pure religion that was a flowing out of Judaism. And now in this new sort of chapter through the Messiah that had finally come, they just wanted to see that. It’s play out before them, but it’s interesting as we look through history and we think even through our day, like nations warring against other nations to have a Supreme vision and have Supreme sort of authority, we see empires and dynasties come and go governments and iteration after iteration just unfolding before our eyes and.

And the blip of a couple of hundred years things look different. Jesus is saying, look, I will establish something for my people that shows in people of Israel, but I’m going to establish something that’s far greater. It’s not an experiment that will come to an end someday. I’m ushering in an eternal kingdom.

Something that goes well beyond this time and this space. And it’s a vision, not just for Israel. It is a vision then for the Jew and the Gentile alike to be part of this kingdom, a new family through Christ. Now Jesus here is unpacking and unveiling the vision in a new way, but it’s not really a new view.

He’s really just refreshing it because if I venture back to the old Testament early on. God creates everything. He’s the catalyst. The university creates Adam and Eve. They’re married. He says, Hey, I’m blessing you be fruitful and multiply, take my image and my goodness and my beauty right to the world, spread out fan out from year, make me known all over.

And that was the Genesis of human life. Sin enters in everything goes sideways real quick. Godin’s mercy covers them with animal clothing there, and they’re sent out of his presence that, that unity and that fellowship, that was to be flawless with tainted a bit. And they’re sent out of the garden, but still the mission was saying, go and seek the welfare of those around start culture.

Dream love. Built cities create art, go and just be my people. Man. Sin is messy at jacks. Everything. Everything goes just bonkers Cain and Abel, and their warn of fighting jealousy. And so Cain kills his own brother and just gets weird and it just spirals and God in his mercy restores and reframes the vision through these other visionaries.

These other heroes that carry the plot line, come to Genesis 11. We see the tower of Babel in there. What’s happening. Is a vision of God has not been carried out. All these people rallying together. One, one city, like one people group. They’re trying to make a name for themselves. They’re trying to have a kingdom outside of God and his vision.

And so they start building this tower to heaven. They want to reach heaven on their own. They want to have an existence apart from God. God steps in these scrambles they’re understanding they can’t babble, they’re babbling or they can’t understand. And the idea is that he would scatter the people again so that they could be in alignment with his desire for the nation.

People of Israel told that they were gonna be a blessing to all nations. They were just in and of themselves, but sojourners and aliens and those traveling through not the green guys, but like those coming from other lands, other neighbors, neighboring nations coming through you’re to love on them and to care for them and to feed them and to provide shelter for them to bless them.

And then you’re going to go and take the beauty, the image of God day. So the vision is not new. It’s been corrupted and in God’s mercy and grace and Providence, he is establishing and reestablishing and leading it forward. He’s got a plan it’s unfolding in this timeline, through his people. Let’s get back here.

She’s wait for seven. the Father loan has the authority to set those dates and times they are not for you to know. Listen, part of the plan is completely established by the Father. He has the authority. God, the Father has the authority to establish this plan and this vision. And in fact, it Matthew 23, verse 40.

There, we learned that only the Father knows when the kingdom will be fully established. Only the Father knows when the Son will return into establish and to begin to make all things that are wrong. Become untrue. Only the Father, not the angels, not Jesus, the Son of God, but God has aspect and control has authority over that aspect of the vision.

Jesus is saying don’t get caught up in politicking. Don’t get caught up in temporary things here. Don’t worry about the things outside of your purview and your understanding. You lean into the things that you can be a part of the things that you can control. You trust the future to me. And now I’m empowering you and freeing you up to go make much of me.

the Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times they are not for you. When you’re leading and you’re serving your vision often has layers to it. Your team and your board may know the largest aspect kind of share the vision you have for your people, your organization, but then there’s often an unrevealed aspect to your vision.

Something you’re praying about something you’re chewing on something you’re drafting, you’re working on. You may have a couple of trusted friends that you’re bouncing this idea off of in many ways. What we see here is the vision. Of God through Christ has a revealed nature to an unrevealed nature to it.

Jesus is saying, Hey, I’m kicking you into gear. These are your marching orders here. Yes. Trust in me that there is a future trust that I’m going to return trust that we’re going to be a part of this new kingdom together, but don’t worry about those things. Just stay focused on what I’ve revealed to you and what I’m carrying you out and calling you into.

Sometimes people will get lost, just looking down the road fully onto the horizon. Always looking ahead, always looking at, I think man, there was this sort of moon cycle that came about, or man, there was a strange tie. I think Jesus is going to return it. We know there’s all kinds of prophecy and scripture.

I’m not saying that we’re unaware. We don’t want to be caught unaware, right? We want to be prepared mindful of the urgency of the moment, knowing that Jesus could return at any moment to establish the kingdom. That should keep us on track, keep us focused, but we should not be obsessed trying to figure out all the details and of.

Predict the time. So many people throughout history is that 1980 December 1st Jesus will return. I can pretty much guarantee if you predict the time that Jesus is going to come, I almost guarantee you he’s not to come on that day. Like rest in the vision, arrest in his guidance, rest in him and your relationship with him.

The one that he’s established with you, trust him, find comfort in the fact. That Jesus. Isn’t just trying to predict the future. He knows the future. He’s in control of the future, and he’s inviting us to trust him to take us there, but we’re not just along for the ride on the bus. We get to be a part of this.

Like we talked about last week, the things that God has been doing, the things that we’re reading about here in this historic record of the early days of the body of Christ at church. It’s really our story. And we’re invited into this vision and this unfolding narrative, these things are still playing out today in many ways, because we know Jesus, this is our story.

These are your people. They’re my people because God is doing something transcendent. He’s bringing us into it. All right. So we come here to verse eight and this is really the meat of the vision. This is the vision and plan. Laid out for us, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes with.

So it’s God’s vision and plan. It’s his timing through his people that are empowered by his presence, through the Holy Spirit. This will not unfold unless we know Christ, unless the Holy Spirit is upon us. This cannot become a reality unless we are being empowered by the presence of God, through God, the Holy Spirit, his plan, his vision, his people, his power at work in and through us.

This is something descriptive of Jesus’s day in a way, though, it’s also prescriptive. This vision is still the same. He says, but you’ll receive power in the Holy Spirit comes upon you. You will be my witnesses telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, his plan, his people, his power, his timing.

We get to be a part of it. When your vision aligns with the vision of God for your life and for his church. Oh man. Watch out. Watch out, just watch what God will do. See the piece that will become yours when you trust in him as king. And you say, look, you are giving me all kinds of goals and all kinds of visions.

And it’s just aspirations. I just ask that you would shake them, inform them that you would lead me forward, but may I be more aligned with you? And when your life isn’t alignment, where you merge with Christ and you yield to his authority. Watch out transformation, peace, joy, new vision, new insight, a heart that is softened.

The heart that is pumping in unison with the very heart of it. The nature that is more selfless and broken for what’s going on in the world. I’m telling you like, I just, man, I was just scrolling the news on my phone and like you’ve got unrest in South Africa and things are happening in Cuba and Haiti and all around the world.

There’s just stuff going on. And everyone’s saying, I’ve got the vision, I’ve got the leader, I’ve got the approach. I’ve got the mechanism. We’ve got the techno everyone’s we can do this. Yeah. And we need to care for the wellbeing of the nations. We need to love well and serve well and care. But ultimately what will transform is Christ and his unfolding kingdom in our hearts and in the hearts of others.

It’s his vision that needs to be restored, not only for us, but for the nations. Are we aligned with his vision? You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes up. This is an embarrassing story. So bear with me, I kinda, I’m pretty open. So in January, we fly out west to see some family and friends we’re going to go skiing.

And we got all the stuff, we got winter gear and I got my skis and suitcases and we landed out west in the Rockies, get to the airport and, we’re trying to like shepherd and like corral the kids through the airport, to the. The shuttle to get to the rental place. And it’s just now you’re just, oh man.

And one of them was just aimlessly walking. You get a cross outside through like multiple lanes of traffic to get to the shuttle. That’s like a mile away. And I’m like, oh man, we’re gonna lose a kid here before we even hit the ski slopes. It’s we’re trying to like corral them all, shove them into the bus lovingly.

Okay. I don’t want to get an email. Okay. We get them into the bus. We go to the rental place. There’s a place that we like to use out, out west. I won’t give the name away, but it’s a European company and they rent like really high-end like luxury SUV’s and cars and everything nationwide, worldwide. And for like dirt cheap prices, I’ll tell you offline.

Okay. And so we show up there and for the cost of. Like a domestic SUV, much less, we got this 20, 20, 21 Cadillac Escalade. And I’m like this is gonna be great. We get all the gear in the back of the thing. We get the kids buckled in and latched in. Cause they get the anchor systems and all that.

It’s dark out. It’s really cold. Cause we’re all in Colorado and we finally get them situated. I’m like, let’s go. Okay. We got, we have a drive now from there and I’m sitting there. I’m like, How do I put this thing in drive? Say, how do we put this thing in gear? This is where it’s embarrassing.

Okay. Don’t beat me up. And I’m a techie in some ways, it’s like a space shuttle on wheels. If you’ve driven some of the newer new stuff, touchscreen this and automate them, talking to stuff, and it’s like talking to me, I’m like, what is happening? The kid’s daddy, can’t we get going?

And so I go back in, I do the walk of shame back into the check-in place I get. One of the workers was like, Hey, can you come? And. This is something wrong. What’s wrong. Ah, do that seems great. I just can’t put it in dry and everyone’s chuckle laughter and SU like they’re trying to be cool, not embarrass me.

And so we walk out, we’re like, there, this is 45 minutes. Mind you. I’m trying to get it in drive. Okay. Just whatever then Kristen’s don’t, don’t you think she could help? Yeah. Okay. So he comes out, he’s trying to like, oh yeah, I wonder how this works. Not trying to embarrass me too much.

And we get it in drive and we take off, see, a lot of us have potential and we’ve got abilities and we’ve got power. We’ve got intellect, we’ve got life experiences. And, but without the Holy Spirit, putting us in gear, we’re not going anywhere.

If we’re not in it submission to Jesus daily and we’re not in submission his ways, and we’re not inviting his vision daily, you our lives wherever we are, we’re going through life without his full presence. And without his enablement, we can’t get in gear without him and the Holy Spirit. We figured it out.

We got going. And mind you guys I just encourage you, like when your wife’s to say, get some help just, we should just do that. Cause we would have been there like an hour earlier. I was like, no, I got this. May that be the same of us in our spiritual walk that we would lean on the spirit of God that we lean on God that we wouldn’t try to just etch out a reality and a future and a household and cry without crying.

Without leaning on him through prayer without just inviting God empower me. I yield to you Father. Forgive me for the things that are hindering my intimacy with you. Forgive me for the things that are distracting me. Forgive me for the things that are taking the offline and off the vision that you have for me and for my family and for my future, I want to be about you.

There is no other way crisis. It we’ll see later on in Acts that there’s no other name. In heaven or under heaven by which we must be saved. Jesus is the way in John 14, one through six, she said, Jesus, the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Christ. I know that’s a narrow path, but that’s the nature of the gospel.

The gospel is extended. All of us, the love of Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection, his sacrifice is offered to all it’s extended, all nations in all peoples. Do we receive him by faith? Do we find forgiveness in him? Do we enter into his love and his truth and go from there? He establishes this vision.

It’s his vision, his plan. It’s his timing. It’s his power and his presence through his people by the Holy Spirit.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses. You are going to get to go and make much of me. You’re going to get to go and tell everybody everywhere about me and who I am and what I’ve done. You have received the message of Jesus from witnesses that walked with him and talk with him.

We’ve looked at the information and all of that. Like good detectives. And we’re like, you know what? It makes sense. There’s logical sane eye witnesses that saw him, walked with him, saw him on the cross, saw him after he rose and because of their eyewitness accounts, we believe, and we follow and we get to be the witnesses today.

So go and tell you’ll be my witnesses telling people about me everywhere. Everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, the ends of the earth shipyard church. We want to be about the vision of Christ for us as being played out through the word and the Holy Spirit. We aspire to lead a ministry that isn’t just about one group of people, but it’s inter it’s multi-ethnic it’s multi generational, the kingdom of God and the body of Christ and heaven are wildly diverse.

Beautiful. The beauty that God created is on display and the diversity of people throughout the world and our desires to follow him into this vision. This mission of being his witnesses here on the south shore and up into Boston and up into new England all over throughout the nation and to the nations.

We want to tell people about Jesus everywhere. What I love about Luke is he’s logical and he’s scholarly. And so the end of verse eight gives a bit of a roadmap. The first seven chapters here are about the church unfolding. Telling people everywhere in Jerusalem to start in the city where they were start here for us, we start in this region of Plymouth county.

We start where we are. The first seven chapters are about what happened and how the church expanded through the movement of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit through the people of God there in Jerusalem, and then throughout Judea and Samaria. And so from there, it’s a first seven chapters about Jerusalem, chapter eight through 12, the word spreads through Judea and Sumeria.

Chapter 13 through chapter 20 talks about how the message spreads to throughout the world. And that same message is still expanding and spreading today in and through you and through me in the last chest several chapters, 20 through 28. Talk about how the gospel spread there in and around Rome.

It’s his vision becoming our vision. One of the ways that we’re going to help walk into this vision more and more, we haven’t talked about a ton. Are these things called compass groups are groups where we can gather with others safe environment where we can just walk through stuff in life, where we can share struggles, where we can pray together.

Encourage one another, explore the face together, but also to. Mobilize together out of these groups just to serve and love on the community. Out of these campus groups, we’ll go and explore the vision and mission that Christ the king has for us. Now in our day, the vision is the same. The mission is the same, but as we always say in leadership, the methodology changes, same message, same mission.

New methodology today when Jesus was offering this vision there wasn’t social media. There wasn’t live stream technology with smartphones. We’ve only had the smartphone since 2007 then. And so same thing and same mission, but new day, new technology, new capabilities and new opportunities of spreading the gospel.

We will wildly explore all things that are in line with God’s word that may help us expand the message of God and help. Be his witnesses and help us make him known as individuals and together. And so we’ll look into opportunities of growing as disciples and then being able to make other disciples, bringing others along.

That can be his witnesses here and wherever he takes them. You have a unique opportunity day in and day out because God is positioning you within his mission within his love, within his vision and the ecosystem in which you live and exist. My ecosystem might look a little bit different than yours. But God has purposely positioned you and me and us as a collective here at this time to be as witnesses, to embrace his vision and to make sure that all of our friends and all of our neighbors and all our family members, even the crazy uncles, I’m one of them, if you’re like, Hey, I’m a crazy uncle.

I don’t have any,  you might be the crazy uncle. If you can identify the crazy uncle in your family. We today legitimately not like this pie in the sky. Have the honor of being the hands and feet of Jesus, we have the opportunity of carrying the Baton of his vision and the gospel, wherever we go and what we’ll continue to lead into now, going forward with our compass groups and times together and doing life together is what does it look like to yield to his vision for us?

And what does it really look like day in and day out to be a witness? Of the hope of the nations. They wanted something temporary. Jesus was providing something, transcendent, something that goes beyond Israel, goes beyond our nation. Our God is a God of the nations, not just for the us, but for South Africa and Haiti and South Korea, Canada, even.

Sorry. He loves the nations. He loves us. We get to be as witness. In 15, 19 Cortez came to the new world. It wasn’t, it was new to him. It wasn’t new to the indigenous people that were already in the Americas, but Cortez came to the new world and it was horrible. Just what happened historically, the fighting and the warring and the things that went down there that genocide all kinds of just brutal things as visions for colliding as authority, power structures.

He came to the new world and they met resistance after resistance. And a lot of his soldiers wanted to turn back and then they did turn back. He got to the point where he said, look, we will not retreat. And so he ordered that the ships were burned. There was there’s no way back w victory or die, basically.

Sometimes we think, is there another way maybe Jesus will establish a new vision? Maybe the church age has come to an end. Maybe there’s a new thing that will come about in a good sense of loving sense. Jesus saying, burn the ships. My vision, my mission are timeless, trusted. We’re not waging a war of brutality and violence.

We are waging war. If you will, with love and compassion and truth and kindness with the ways of Jesus. But there is no, this is the way at the end of math to the great commission. He says, listen, I’m with you now. And I’ll be with you to the very end. Trust him his vision, his timing, his power. His presence is unfolding through you and us as his church.

There’s no backup plan. He’s the way he’s established the way forward. Now, will we trust him more and more as his vision becomes your vision? Navigating life becomes easier. Is it easy? No, but there’s clarity and there’s peace and there’s direction. Make his vision become our vision and the, his power be displayed in us through his presence and the strength and the kindness of God.

The Holy Spirit let’s pray. Heavenly Father. We need you God. Our desire is that you would just make yourself known more powerfully more clearly to us. God that you would make yourself known through your church here in the south shore and beyond God that we would trust you in all ways, God, that we would find the freedom and being anchored to you, gather we would find hope in your presence.

God that even in the brokenness, in the dark days and all of the turmoil that we see in the world, we would rest in the fact that you are coming again, that we rest in the fact that you haven’t abandoned us for a second. Even when we didn’t know you, God, that we would trust that you are doing a new thing.

God that we would truly embrace the mantle and the Baton that you’ve provided for us. You’ve handed to us to go everywhere to make you known God. I just thank you for our friends gathered here in the backyard today. I thank you for our friends gathered virtually God. We just paused to turn to you.

This may be all.

But we just acknowledge you as the catalyst for the universe and the center of the universe. And

we acknowledge you as the one, the only one that can remove sin and forgive the only one that brings eternal life, we just say yes to you. Jesus you’ve said yes to us.

We denied you and ran from you. You were running to the cross to make a way that we might be right with you at peace with God, the Father, and a part of your evolving, expanding eternal kingdom. So God we just ask that you would forgive us of our sins. He would make us whole and knew the Jesus as savior.

You would invade our lives through the spirit of God. And then we grow in you day after day

at empower in confidence, not in us, but in you. We go forward to love to seek the welfare of the cities in which we live to administer the good news of Jesus. The only thing that can heal and eternally away. Enter anyone and everyone that you place upon our path, we are yours. You are our God. We yield to you.

And we say yes to your invitation to follow your vision. We say yes to the blessing of being your witnesses. Now empower us Father to make much of you. We ask him.