God's World Gets Another Chance

Transcript

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[0:00] So let's go to the sermon and the introduction. We're looking at Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 11. It's for Ascension Sunday, so this is the story of Jesus ascending into heaven. We are still in the Easter season until next week, which is Pentecost, and that's the beginning of a whole new season and a whole new beginning for the Church of Jesus. So this is Jesus giving his final instructions to the apostles about what's going to happen next, and he has to leave so that the Spirit can come and give power to the apostles to do this work. And as much as they loved him and as he loved them, he knew that as long as he stayed, there was probably something, there's some growth that they would never have. There was some connection that they would never get with the Spirit, and so he had to leave so that the Spirit could come and leave. And so he had to feed the Church into the future, and it has.

[0:55] The title of this sermon, as I've said a few times now, is Second Chances, and I'm going to leave that as a bit of a question mark for you there. I'm going to ask you to listen for a second chance being offered in what Jesus says next. So with that introduction, let's go to our reading. It's Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, and it goes like this. The author Luke writes, He wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven. After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

[1:46] On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave. Do not leave Jerusalem. But wait for the gift my Father promised which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

[2:05] So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

[2:24] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight.

[2:47] They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men, dressed in white, stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.

[3:09] That's the word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm going to invite you to keep, and I hope you printed out your bulletin at home, or you have a Bible where you can look at these verses again, because actually today we're going to go through them, not exactly verse by verse, but we're going to go through them sort of in order and look at some of the verses that I would like us to sort of unpack a bit more. And so first off, I want you to look at verse three, where it says that over the course of 40 days, he appeared continuously to the disciples, and they talked and they were together, and things like that. And so you could say that the mission of the apostles and of the church is definitely rooted in what we would call the truth of the resurrection. This is really important, that this whole description of what happens next in Acts refers to the resurrection. And that also makes sense because we're still in the season of Easter. We're still in the miracle of God conquering sin, death, and the devil on the cross of Jesus. And so we're still in the season of death, and the devil on the cross of Jesus Christ, because of his resurrection.

[4:24] And so his resurrection is proof that God has power over death, is proof that whatever Jesus said was actually true. And so we cannot put enough emphasis on the resurrection. If you ever read a prayer for Owen Meany, which is this kind of funny book, Owen Meany, who himself, it's kind of hard to know exactly what he believes, but he does say this. He says, if you're a Christian and you say you don't believe in the resurrection, then you're not a Christian. The resurrection is a prayer for you. The resurrection is everything. All right? So the resurrection is really central to our belief. And Paul says this himself. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, and this is a good one to memorize. If you keep listening to me before long, you'll have memorized a good part of the Bible, I suppose. But it says this, 1 Corinthians 15, 17.

[5:12] Paul writes, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. I mean, we get that. That without the resurrection, everything else that comes after it is kind of pointless. It kind of doesn't make sense.

[5:30] You are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost, which is also bad news. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, and he is not raised, then we are to be pitied more than all people. Ouch. But, he says, verse 20, Christ has indeed.

[5:52] Been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. And this is what the apostles are living in. This is the context that they're in. For 40 days, they are with Jesus after his resurrection. And everything they do is rooted in the fact and the reality and the truth of his resurrection. And if he was not raised, all this is futile. I think we get that. Let's go on to verse 6.

[6:23] Verse 6 is kind of a sign, and I think it's a little bit humorous. Verse 6 is a sign that the disciples still don't really get it. And I think this is the other reason Jesus needs to go. Because he keeps telling them how they don't get it. And it really takes the work of the Spirit for them to get it. And what they're asking him, you may remember from the reading, you're looking at it now, verse 6, is, is now the time when you're going to, to restore the kingdom to Israel. In other words, is now the time when we, and especially as disciples, but all of us as Jewish people, will assert our own civil authority over this land. And anyone who doesn't belong here, we will send to the borders in kind of a violent way. And we're going to have our own country again. And we're going to, you know, just have the good old glory days when we had our own country, when we were independent, when we had power. Is that? And that's coming next. Because clearly, since you're about to go, you must, this must be, we've been waiting all along. And now this must be, this is the last chance you're here. So if you're leaving, you must be planning to do this right before you go.

[7:36] Because they still want physical, civil power over other people. They want to control what other people do. They want to control the environment that they're in, the physical environment that they're in.

[7:51] And also, there's an idea that this would be the end to history, right? Not all people had heard yet what the gospel was. But if Jesus brings the kingdom back to Israel, it really is like the end of history, at least is how they understood it as the end of times. And they wanted their reward now. They didn't want to wait until more people could hear it. So the Messiah says, you know, I didn't come to give you those rewards, but I've come to set you to work because the fields are ripe for the harvest. And as he says, pray that the Lord of the harvest sends workers into the field.

[8:28] So there's a mild rebuke here from Jesus. You can kind of hear it. You can read between the lines. In a way, he's saying none of your beeswax. Remember beeswax? That's what my dad used to say. It's like none of your business, but none of your beeswax is a little bit nicer, a little softer, right? None of your beeswax. The answer is some of that will happen someday. Some of that will happen someday. Way in the future.

[8:54] But it's nothing for you to worry about right now. That's not what this is about. It's not about you getting control right now. Right now, you will be given a gift that will enable you to do something far more powerful than just ruling over this tiny country. So in another way, the disciples are asking for this very small gift and Jesus is offering them instead something far greater. They want control over the, what we would call the physical, the temporal, the civil, and Jesus is offering them the spiritual gift, which in the long run is far greater and makes far more sense for them.

[9:36] So what Jesus then says, and we want to go ahead now to verse eight, is that there's going to be some work involved. I'm not bringing the kingdom back now so that you could have your reward now and that the world would end now. Before people have it. Before people have a chance to hear about it. You have to do some work. You have to go out into this world and tell people you have to be my witnesses. So you will be my witnesses. You will do this work. But here's the great news. He says, you will receive, and you'll note in verse eight, the word he uses, you will receive power when the spirit gives it to you.

[10:15] Now, some of you are physicists, you know, or you remember physics from high school or college. Power actually is the ability to do work. And I'll read to you a little bit of sort of a scientific description of the power and the units that we measure power in. The dimension of power is energy, which is the ability to do work, divided by time. And so in the international system of units, the unit of power is the watt, which is equal to one joule per second. So that's the power. Not J-E-W-E-L, but J-O-U-L-E. It's a unit of energy. One joule per second. Other common and traditional measures are horsepower, comparing the power of a horse. One mechanical horsepower equals about 745.7 watts. A little bit of history there, a little bit of science there. It's fun. But power, take this away, is the ability to do work.

[11:20] Over a period of time. This is the prime, this works. This is the promise that Jesus is making to the disciples. I'm giving you power so that you can do work over an extended period of time. And the work is this. You will go out into the world. You will travel. You're going to have to get your reservations. You're going to have to get your walking shoes on. You're going to have to pack your bags because you're going out from this place when the time comes. And you're going to work.

[11:51] You're going to talk to people. You're going to walk into strange places that you haven't been before. You're going to face hostility. You're going to get beaten up. In the long run, almost all of you are going to be killed for this. There's a lot of work ahead. But I'm giving you power to do work over time. And that's what I'm giving you. And that's the Holy Spirit.

[12:15] This is how I like to think of it. Is there's a lot of work ahead. There's a lot of work that Jesus is telling the disciples they need to do. But there's also a lot of help. Think about this for just a second. And don't quote me too much on this. But I am going to say this a bit provocatively so I can get your attention at home. Is that Christianity is a great religion for lazy people.

[12:45] I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people.

[12:56] I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. I'm going to say that again because I don't think you can believe your ears. Christianity is a great religion for lazy people. And so it's almost like we're not doing the work because the power of the Spirit is so great. And I want to give you an example of this. And it was when I used to not be a pastor. I used to be a person who worked in the world. I'm not going to say what company I worked for because you know. But I worked at that nameless company. And I met a subcontractor there. And we had all these really interesting conversations. And it seemed like all these conversations were getting very spiritual. And his name was Mark. And at one point, he shared with me what he thought. And he was then open to hearing what I thought. And I started telling him what I believed. But what was strange about that was that it was almost like I wasn't saying it.

[14:09] It was almost like I was sort of sitting back. And I was like, wow, I can see Hans-Erik talking to Mark. And I'm like, how did this happen? And Hans Eric was saying all these things that were really the gospel, and I wasn't doing it. And I'm pretty sure that while I was doing it, it was the Spirit speaking through me. And so I kind of had some spiritual popcorn, and I was just like, this is very interesting. I could watch this all day. And that doesn't mean I'm smarter than anyone or a super Christian. It's just that one day I was actually lazy enough to let someone else do my work for me. And so you're not, now don't get me wrong, you're not lazy people. But I still remember it to this day, and I think we all want experiences like that. And you didn't know this, but we're going to make this a little interactive now. And so what I'm going to ask you to do, and watch this, there's our chat log. Would you please type in right now, if you've had an experience like that, where you've had a little bit of a struggle, you saw the Spirit working through you, and you didn't feel like you were completely in charge, and that's great, or if you would like that to happen to you. Also, you can text it in if you don't have access to that chat log.

[15:21] Start chatting that now with a yes, or a no, or I want to, or even tell us a little bit about it. And we're going to stay with this chat log just for, you know, maybe two or three minutes. So there's plenty of time. Start texting in, chatting in.

[15:35] When was there a time when you felt like you weren't in charge, and you felt like you were in charge, and you felt like you were in charge, and the Spirit was working through you, giving you power to say or do something that God wanted you to do. Go ahead and send that in now. We've got plenty of time. I'll wait for it to come in. I've got my phone here. I'm going to take, let's see what other, and there's plenty of time, so.

[16:04] Oh, this is great. I'm going to say one greeting was from my sister Lisa in Cleveland. She says, happy Ascension Day, the day that Jesus started working from home. Good, good one, Lisa. That's excellent. All right, we got a yes from Jenny Gatterland. Praise God for that. Good. And what else do we have on the chat log? Okay, I put my chat log over there. I'll be right back.

[16:43] All right, and we have, let's see, yes from Andres. Krista, yes. Zach, yes, in college. Divya, many times. Natalie, when I was a freshman, I prayed for a man. It felt like the Holy Spirit was speaking through me. Of course he was. I didn't make those words.

[17:09] Yes. Yuki says yes. Yes. For Yuki and Steve. Praise God. Okay. Yes. This is either Karen or Craig. I can't tell which. Yes, while talking to a voodoo priest in Benin, West Africa. Great. Pam, I had this experience a couple of times with coworkers. Neither had any church background, so I was at a loss for words. But the right words came out. This is what Jesus is promising. You will be my witnesses, and I will give you power to say these things. And ultimately, the power. This is what Jesus is about.

[17:42] This is about witnessing to the resurrection. Brian Smith, these divine moments happen during conversations at the soup gatherings in our neighborhood. Praise God. Adele, it has happened on various occasions. Good.

[17:55] Yes. Backyard Bible Club says MJ. Thank you. Jared. Oh, it's Wendy. One time I had a strongly, too strongly correct a student. I find these conversations very hard, no doubt, to have. But this time it was like I opened my mouth and went to the Bible Club. And words came out, but they sure weren't from me. Praise God. Wendy.

[18:17] Duane. Often when I'm speaking to youth, no doubt about that. Okay. We have, I'll take another few other seconds just in case people haven't had a chance yet or they're just catching up to the stream now. Thank you for this witness, this testimony. Praise God.

[18:31] Wow. Did you text me something? What did it say? Yes. When I was working for a family and wondering what to tell them about Christ. And then the Spirit just spoke. That's good. Victoria's been trying to text me all morning and it doesn't work. So our phones don't like each other. But she just said yes when she was working for a family and she didn't know what to say to them about Jesus. The words came from the Spirit. Good. Let's see. Anymore?

[18:58] Okay. I'm going to cut it off there. If more come in, that's totally fine. We don't mind. We won't. And if I hear a beep, I will interrupt what I'm doing and let it, and bring us in. So. Hey, and at some point, let us know how you like this interactive part of having a sermon like this. Okay. Bye, chat log. We'll see you later. So good. So let's go back to the sermon.

[19:27] Here's something else I've noticed. And I think we're, we may be lazy people, but we're also modest people. So some of you actually do this all the time, but you're too modest and humble. And that's great to say anything about yourself. But listen, family, and I'm talking about Foothill right now. I have met so many people in our church who it seems like they just live this way all the time. When they speak, when they act, it is pretty clear to me that the Spirit is in charge in that moment. And it's not every moment of their lives because nobody can really pull that off, but it's most of the time that I'm with them. And so I see it a lot here. And if you know somebody like that, where almost everything they say and do seems to be the Spirit at work, my advice to you, and this, I don't rarely get, I rarely give advice, but my advice to you is try to spend as much time as you can with that person, because that will rub off on you. So get to know people like that. And as disciples, our goal is to become like that, to be always more reliant on the Spirit and tapping in to the power of God and becoming lazier and lazier in the good way. Okay. So.

[20:40] Let's stay in verse 8 because this is what Jesus says. He says, you will be my witnesses. And we've talked a little bit about tenses, indicative, imperative before. This is actually an indicative future voice, but it has an imperative quality. It almost has a commanding quality. The same exact verb and tense and voice shows up when in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says, be perfect as your Father in heaven. It's in perfect. You will be my witnesses just as you shall be or will be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect. And the indicative future can also be understood as a command or a prophetic promise, which I love. So we should understand ourselves this way is that witnessing to the resurrection is something we do. That's the indicative. We witness to the resurrection. We do that just because of who we are as Christians, but we are also told to do it. And you could say in a way it is prophesied that we will do it. This is important. There's a sense that God has faith that the power of the Spirit is powerful enough to get us to do in the future what he asks us to do. And so. Yes. Yes, we cooperate in it. Yes, we submit ourselves to the leading of the Spirit. But there's a sense, there's this optimism on God's behalf that we will actually witness

[22:16] to the resurrection. The other thing I want to say from verse 8, and you may be noticing that verse 8 is getting all the love here, and I think that's where it belongs. Verse 8 is one you should memorize, of course. A really challenging thought. And I don't think it's actually that challenging, but it's maybe mind bending, that the way it talks about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit coming on you at Pentecost, he's talking to the disciples, is the exact same way in Luke chapter 2 where it describes the Holy Spirit coming on Mary and giving her the opportunity to become the mother of Jesus. This phrase is epi-ercomi. Epi means upon, like, you know, like your epidermis is upon the rest of your body. Ercomi. Epi is the Greek word for to arrive or to come or to happen upon a place. And so one way of thinking of it is that the Holy Spirit happens upon us. The Holy Spirit arrives to us. And that's a good way of thinking of it.

[23:21] And actually, really, I think that's the best way to read this is that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit arrives to you. And he comes to you. He comes and he enters and he lives with you and he is your companion at your side. There's a lot of kind of great sort of adjectives and prepositions that kind of describe how the Spirit sort of works through us. But I think the best way is to say you will receive power when the Holy Spirit arrives and you will be able to do what only God's power can do in us. And for Mary, it was to conceive Jesus in the incarnation. That was the power that he gave her. He gave Mary. And for us, it is to conceive and build and grow the church.

[24:11] That's what is happening here in this passage. And that's what happens to us as Christians is the Spirit comes to give us power to conceive and grow and build the church through the witness of the resurrection of Jesus. That's all kind of falling together. Okay.

[24:35] So, still in verse 8, so I hope that challenging thought was also a refreshing thought or an intriguing thought for you. But now I think the best part is what I would say is Samaria. If there was any word in here that is more dear to me, it couldn't be any other besides Samaria in verse 8. I think it's in verse 8. Gosh. I think the verse is... Yep. Verse 8. For some reason, I thought in my mind it had split the verse into the second part when it got to the second phase. But I'll read verse 8 again.

[25:13] It goes like this. "'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.'" And I want you to remember Samaria from Luke 9.

[25:32] Luke 9. Verse 52 and 56. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He was in Galilee to get to Judea where Jerusalem was. He had to pass through a third of the country called Samaria. They did not get along. And so he had to go through and he meant to go through. It was important for him to go through. So this is what Luke 9.52 through 56 read. And listen along because this really sets the tone. Luke 9.52-56. And he sent messengers on ahead. That's Jesus. Luke 9.52-56. Who went into a Samaritan village to get things done. He went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him. But the people there did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. They didn't think Jerusalem was the right place to worship God. They thought their mountain was the right place to worship God. When the disciples James and John saw this, here's another question, kind of like verse 6. They asked, "'Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and destroy them?' But in the same answer, in a way, Jesus turned. And they went to another village." And so history kind of repeats itself. Jesus is now the time when you destroy all your enemies. And Jesus says, you don't know what you're talking about.

[26:49] Now is not the time to destroy our enemies. Now is the time to keep on moving to Jerusalem. And we will come back to this town, not to destroy it, not to make them feel bad for what they did. But to give them a second chance to hear the message again.

[27:07] And so he knew, even on that day, he knew they would be back. Not him, but them. He knew they would come back to that town. And if you want to read ahead this afternoon, and I encourage it, look at Acts 8. And you'll read about how Philip went to Samaria. Evidently they divided up the land and it was Philip's job to go to Samaria. Philip went to Samaria and had a ministry there. And he said, "'I will give you a second chance to hear the message again.'" So for me, it's the second chances that hold all of this together. And I want to put it all together in just a second, but I want to also ask you this.

[27:45] When did you get a second chance? Think about what it was like for the Samaritans for Philip to come back in just a few months after this and give them another chance to hear about Jesus. And when did I give, or when did you give someone a second chance? And I'll just say. I give second chances. I love to give second chances, but it comes with a conversation. I don't give third chances, or I try not to, right? Because we have to agree what consequences happen for a third infraction, basically. We definitely forgive seven times seventy always, right? But we have to have boundaries so people don't reoffend forever. We give second chances. There's a conversation though.

[28:27] But let's put it, that's an aside. It's about personal boundaries. But that's. Let's put it all together. This is the ministry and mission of the church that Jesus is giving to the disciples, and it's rooted in the resurrection. It's rooted in the witness to the truth that Jesus came back from the dead, that God conquered sin, death, and the devil through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's rooted in that. Without it, nothing works. So it's rooted in the resurrection, and it comes with power that's not in ourselves, but it's power from the Spirit. The ability to do God's work over time, and the witness is to the resurrection. We foster faith in others by being witnesses to that very same resurrection. And so on some level, when you witness to another person, you're witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but you're also witnessing to your own resurrection. Your first resurrection when you died to sin and were raised to newness of life in Christ, and your future resurrection. The hope you have in eternal life in Jesus Christ. That's our witness as we go out. And it's by the power of the Spirit that we go out. And when we do, and this is the beautiful part, when we go out and say these things,

[29:47] when we have these conversations that we're not in charge of, we are bringing second chances to the world. God wants to give this world a second chance. He wants it so much. He's not ready to destroy it. He rebukes us if we think it should burn before every last person has had a chance to hear. God is the God of second chances, and this world is getting a second chance through the ministry of the church that's going out with the power of the Spirit to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[30:21] And so here's, that's it right there. But here's an invitation. We have a chat hour afterwards. And sometimes we don't know what to say in chat hour. You can say whatever you want in chat hour. You can talk about anything you want. But I want to suggest in chat time, maybe we spend a little bit of time. Have you gotten any second chances? Have you given any second chances? What was that like? So maybe we'll spend some time in chat hour doing that. But that's the message for now. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the power of the Spirit that bears witness, that gives us the ability to do work, that births the church into this world. And thank you most of all for second chances that we've received and that you want to extend to the world through us. Amen.