Hey, before I get into today's sermon, I do have one day.
I was going to have Vivi do the announcement, but now I'm just going to--we do have--pretend like I'm really bubbly and excited and also female, but we do have daughters this Tuesday night. Daughters is coming back Tuesday, which is super excited. Start 7 o'clock in the atrium. They're going and doing another book study. They're going over Philippians, which is a great book. So you don't want to miss this one. This one's only a four-weaker, right? Four--there's the first--sorry, the second and the fourth and then the second on the fourth of May, and then it's a four-weaker because it's a four-chapter. It's going to be a really fun time. So if you have never been, man, it's a great time to come together, study the Word. There's questions that are involved. There's relationship. It's a good time to learn and just be in fellowship. So that's going to be really exciting. Hey, do this for me. Stand with me to your feet so I can read God's Word for us together.
Acts chapter 1, verse 8, it says,
Father God, we just thank you for today.
Lord, we thank you for the opportunity we have to come together here to witness your glory, to witness your miracles, to witness how good and pleasant it is for believers to come together and dwell in the house of the Lord.
Lord, I thank you for this moment. I thank you for this time. It's in your holy name we pray. Amen and amen. Okay, you may be seated. You may be seated. Okay.
Thank you, guys. Oh, my goodness.
So it's, you know, like you guys, you know, discovered it's my birthday. And, you know, I, when we were talking about it, V was asking me, like, oh, you're turning 40. Like, it's your birthday. Like, that's a big one. What do you want to do? Do you want to do something? And I was like, I want to go and preach at church.
Like, I don't do this out of obligation or out of feeling like the need. Like, this is one of the greatest joys and love that I have in my life is to come together and to be with you all and to speak and to share God's Word. I consider it a great privilege and a great honor and to be able to do it on my birthday and on a birthday that is in our culture a fairly large milestone is such a true joy and such a true privilege. And I think it's so great. And, you know, one thing that I think is awesome is I know that some people, you know, they really worry about aging.
Like, we have an anti-aging culture and Western culture, like, it's really against aging or trying to look like you're aging and all those kind of things, right? And here's the thing. I think the fear of aging in general is a problem because I think there's so much beauty in the aging.
But I don't believe that aging results in decay and death and, you know, just feeling miserable all the time. I mean, those of you who are, you know, over 40, you do know you wake up with a few more pains than maybe when you were 18. You know, I remember I used to just jump right out of bed. And now if I jump right out of bed, I pull something. But that's okay. You just had to slower, you know, you get to slow down. But, you know, there was something that God put on my heart when I was preparing a few months ago just thinking about this upcoming birthday because I believe that God gives us a promise of how we get to age and that we can age in wisdom. And yet God still maintains our health and our vitality and our mentality as we grow more and more in oneness with Him. And I was thinking about the story of Caleb and the Old Testament. Some of you guys know the story of Caleb. So Moses sent the 12 spies into the land and he told the 12 spies, "Go check it out. Tell us what's going on." And the 12 spies went and they came back and all of them agreed like, "Man, this land is like flowing with milk and honey. Like you won't believe the produce. You won't believe." Like they're carrying, you know, grapes on like, you know, poles because they're so the clusters are so large. It's this incredible, like bountiful harvest land, this beautiful land. And remember, this is after they've been in the wilderness for 40 years and they come back, but they say, "But we can't take this land."
There's giants in this land. They will, we can't do this. Even though God said it was ours, we actually don't trust Him enough because we don't believe it. But there was two, there was two who went and they said, "This land is not only a good land," but they said, "God will deliver us that land. God will give us that land." And the two who went and who said that they could go, one of them was Caleb.
And Caleb, along with Joshua, were the only two of that entire first generation that went into the wilderness who went into the Promised Land. But when they were still in the wilderness, they went ahead and they divided. This is where it gets kind of weird and like, you know, some of the Exodus story, but also some of the other, like where it gets boring. They divided all the land amongst the tribes. And one of the things that happened for Caleb before they ever crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, Moses promised Caleb this particular thing because he was faithful and because he trusted God. He said, "There's this hilltop city that's your inheritance. It's yours." And when this happened, Caleb was 40 and he promised it. And then 40 years passed and they went through the wilderness. And when they got to the other side of the Jordan, before, right after, like they'd just done a few little things on the other side, Caleb went to Joshua and said, "Joshua, I want to go and claim that hilltop city that Moses promised me." And he said, "Well, Caleb, that's rough. Like there's people who live there. It's inhabited. They have fortifications." And he has this great quote and this is one of like, this is a great quote and this is for you wherever you're at. You don't have to just be 40 today, but this is for you. He said this. He said, "I'm as strong today." Remember, he's 80 now. "I'm as strong today as when I was 40 years old. So let me go and take the land." And so Joshua said, "Okay." And wouldn't you know it, Caleb got some of that old man's strength and he went up that hill and he took that Promised Land and it became his inheritance. And I share that story with you wherever you're at, wherever you're in this place, wherever you're in a dream, maybe you're young and like 40 seems like an eternity away from now, it will come faster than you think. And maybe you're like, "I remember 40. That was a long time ago."
Wherever you're at, we can grow in stature with God and closeness with God and relation with God and yet God can still hold on and say, "Yet your vitality of who you are physically comes not from what the world says but what I say about you." And you can be as strong today as you were, whatever that day was, that you can walk in that promises that God has for you. And I told my kids this, they said, "What are you most looking forward to in this decade of 40?" And I said, "I'm looking forward to just becoming closer and closer to Jesus because I'm more like him today than I was when I turned 30. And I'm more like him today than when I turned 20. And I hope that when I turn 50, I look more like him again because I believe that through this process of close intimacy with him, we are slowly transformed bit by bit, piece by piece, more and more into his glorious image to become more like him. Now, secretly, I'm also opening, hoping when I turn 50 that I still have hair. That is something I'm holding on to. I'm believing for. I'm trusting Jesus. I'm taking communion over it. But you know, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. He still loves me, even if he leads me through the valley of the shadow of no hair. I will fear no evil because that is what it is. So that has nothing to do with the sermon. I just wanted to encourage you with that today.
We are in a series where we've been talking about the Holy Spirit and I have one thing that I want to make sure that I cover and I haven't exhaustively covered the Holy Spirit or the giftings of the process. I'm not even really scratched the surface. But I want to talk about something I think is really important for all of us to understand. And I'll go a little bit abbreviated just because of time this morning. But I do think that this is important for us to latch on to. So we've read this verse many, many times as a real foundational verse for our church and for our culture. In Matthew chapter 28, Jesus tells the disciples, he says, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all the commands that I command you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." So he tells them this commandment, this great commission, "Go, go out and preach." So he tells them this thing, "Go out and make disciples. Be my witnesses. Be my evangelists. Go out and share this good news that I'm giving to you." But then if you read in Luke chapter 24 and then also in Acts chapter 1, it's this kind of this caveat. In Luke 24 it says, "And behold, I'm sending forth the promise of my Father upon you, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." Acts chapter 1 verse 4 says, "Gather them together. He commanded them. Do not lead Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father has promised, which he said, you heard from me."
Now, so here's what happened. Jesus gives this command. He says, "Hey, I want you guys to all go." Remember, this is after the resurrection. This is before he ascended back into heaven. And he says, "I want you all to go." And then he has this caveat, "But wait." Have you ever been told that? Like, "Go, go, go, don't wait." I feel like I sometimes do this when I have kids. Like, "Go, go, go, bla, bla, bla, bla." And you're like, "What am I doing? I'm stuck. Am I going or am I waiting? You said to go, but wait."
And Jesus gives this thing. He says, "Hey, I want you to go. I'm about to leave and I can't talk to you in person anymore. So I'm going to tell you, this is what your mission is. You need to go out there and make disciples." But before you go, you need to wait. You need to wait for the thing that I'm telling you is coming. For the helper, for the advocate, for the counselor, for the Holy Spirit.
Because here's the thing he knew, you could go out and you could try to do this thing I'm telling you to do. And you could go out and try to do it on your own power, on your own strength, on your own way, and you'll fail. You'll fall short.
You'll come up with something that you can't figure out. You'll get burned out. You won't have the wisdom. You won't have the strength. You won't have the thing. But he says, "But if you wait, if you wait, the Holy Spirit will come and it'll change you." And here's what's really crazy. In Acts chapter 1, 4, he's telling them this, "Hey, I'm about to go, but I want you to wait." And in verse 6, they say, "So when they'd come together, they were asking Him, "Lord, is this the time that you're restoring the King of Israel? This is post resurrection. He's about this in the heaven. He's done all these miracles. All this stuff happened. And the disciples, while He's giving them this last little, the Holy Spirit's coming, you're going to be issuing this new thing. They're like, "Is this when the swords come out and you overthrow the Romans?"
And Jesus is like, "This is why you have to wait, because you're still just don't get it."
They're still thinking restoration of the nation of Israel. They're still thinking earthly kingdom. They're still thinking earthly things is what God was saying to go out and to do.
But you know what happens later in verse 8, He says, "But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you'll be my witnesses." You'll be my witnesses. You see, after the Holy Spirit fell on that day of Pentecost, they were no longer worried about their political kingdom. They were then fully embraced by the Spirit and they were thinking about new humanity and how they partner with God to usher in new creation here on earth. Their whole mindset was changed. You notice from that moment forth, in the day of Pentecost on, they never once say, "And when will the Romans go away? And when will your kingdom?" They all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit illuminated their heart. The kingdom is now. And they're like, "Oh yeah, Jesus kept saying that over and over again."
I just kept misunderstanding. Oh, the kingdom is ushering in the goodness of God here on earth. The kingdom is not looking at this flesh and blood. We don't wrestle against the flesh and blood, but against the personalities in the darkness of this world. I'm not in a fight with this Roman neighbor or this Greek neighbor or this other person. I'm not in a wrestling match with them. I get to usher in something that Jesus brought for all mankind that He purchased with His blood and His sacrifice on that hill. I get to be filled with something and it comes with this idea, this word that Jesus says, "You will be my witnesses."
Now, here's something that we got to think about, especially if you've grown up in church culture. For a lot of people, witness, our witness is 100% associated with the idea of evangelizing.
So when we say like, "Hey, I'm going to go out and witness to people." Okay? Like maybe you grew up in that culture, right? What that meant was, is I'm going to go out and I'm going to tell people about Jesus, right? I'm going to witness to them. And maybe when you think about this idea of someone witnessing, maybe you've got some pretty crazy, kooky ideas of things that happen. Because probably everyone in this room at some point has had someone come up to them and try to give them a track or try to give them a Heavir and Hell flyer or try to have some kind of analytical debate with you about something. And like, you're like, "No, I really love Jesus." And they're like, "I don't think you love Jesus enough. I need to get you saved today." He's like, "I'm already saved. I don't know if I can count to your total today. I'm sorry, sir or ma'am." Or maybe you've been at the quick trip and there's been the soapbox preacher who's speaking something, who's doing something. And for a lot of people's minds, that's the idea of what witness is. It's 100% tied up to evangelism. And it's 100% tied up into this idea of having awkward conversations. And so when Jesus says, "I want you to be my witness," you're like, "Jesus, I'm not doing it. I love you, but I'm not going to the mall." And reach out to some stranger and say, "If you were to deny night, we didn't have an apple, we didn't have an apple." I'll take that as a yes. Thank you. I'm not doing that, Jesus. I don't want to do that.
But here's the thing. That's not what Jesus meant. That's not what Jesus meant. That's not what the Gospels portray a witness to be. When He invites you to be a witness, what He's inviting you is more if we were to actually get it in the sense of a court of law.
A witness is the person who saw something happen and needs to tell other people to convince them that what happened happened. That's what a witness is. A witness is someone who viewed something, usually in our legal context, it's like crime, and they're telling what they saw so that everyone can understand the facts so that they can make a decision on what's going on. The witness is important because they see something and they share it. It really actually has nothing to do with the witness themselves. They're just telling what they saw. And you see, Jesus, when He says, "You are called to be my witnesses," He says that, "You are called to be in this earth to live in a way in which you see what I have done, and you get to share with others what you've seen."
You see, it's not about you, it's about what you saw,
which is why Jesus had this vendetta against blindness. Did you ever notice everywhere Jesus went when He saw a blind person that has just really made Him mad? Like every single time? He's like, "Why are you blind? Let me heal your eyes. Why are you blind? Let me heal your eyes. Let me spit in your eyes. Let me rub mud in your eyes. You're going to be able to see, and you're going to be able to see, and you're going to be able to see," because they were physically blind so they couldn't see, but He was less concerned about what their eyes naturally saw and more consorted with what their spirits saw because the whole nation of Israel was spiritually blind. And He came to open up the blind eye so that the blind could see, so the captives could be set free. He came so that there was a way, so the spiritual blindness as well as the physical blindness could be removed so that they could see and witness what God was doing.
You see, something happens when we understand that the Holy Spirit empowers us to be His witness,
to see His goodness, to bear witness to it, and it's not to bear witness just so that like, "Wow, that was cool.
Well, better go on with my day."
You get the opportunity to bear witness to the work of Jesus Christ in your life and the Holy Spirit in your life with the very intention of when the opportunity arises and the moment is there to be able to share what you saw,
what you experienced, and how it looks.
So here's the thing, the Holy Spirit sometimes will lead you in the different ways. Once the day of Pentecost happened, pre-Pentecost, they were only concerned, they were only concerned, they were in this prayer meeting that was really long and really boring and nothing was happening. And then finally Peter stood up and decided like, gave this really random, like if you read chapter one of Acts, it gives us a really random accountant story and basically is trying to talk about how we need to get our 12th disciple.
One of them, you know, "He who shall not be named is dead," and he betrayed Jesus, so we need a 12th one. And so he's like, "We got to pick a 12th one." And so he goes through this process and they get a couple of nominations. And then like the very end of chapter one, it says something really interesting. It says, "And then they cast lots to pick them." Now, if you know what casting lots is, this is actually, it's not like a satanic ritual. In the Old Testament, there was this holy idea of how you could understand God's will that the priests would do, that they would cast sacred lots. They called them the umim and the thumim, and they would cast these lots to be able to divine what God's will was. And that's why you saw that like in Moses, remember it was like, "Cast lots and find out which person was who stole that treasure from that enemy that I said to destroy everything." And it's like, "They cast lots and they picked this tribe, and then they cast lots and they picked this family, and then they cast lots and they picked this thing, and they cast lots and they cast lots and they cast lots." And it's basically this yes or no thing. Well, they get to this point and they're here in this upper room and all Peter can think, "I need the 12th guy. I don't know what we're doing up here. He's getting bored." Because you know Peter was still not patient at this point. "Been here a long time, Jesus. You said it was coming. I've been here like over a month.
We need to get the 12th guy." So they cast lots and they get this guy. And the only time you hear about this guy is right here.
So we picked him by the holy stones.
And all of a sudden, the next thing, the Holy Spirit comes.
And we don't have to cast lots anymore because the Holy Spirit is alive and speaking to you. And you know, the person that they chose with the lots was this guy.
What we didn't know, fast forward, the disciple that Jesus was picking was the one that he saw on the road later, that he blinded.
And he said, "You're going to be my apostle to the Gentiles." That's the one the Holy Spirit picked was Saul when he changed his name to Paul. And that's the person the Holy Spirit says, "Listen, your lots and your manmade ways of trying to figure things out can do whatever you want. But the one that I am going to work through, the one that is going to be my witness in this world, is the one that I'm going to blind for so that then he can see."
And Paul got to be this witness to people. The least likely candidate, he would have never been invited to the room.
But the Holy Spirit said, "This is it. This is him. This is the one I'm choosing." And guess what? Maybe you're here today and you're the least likely one to get picked. If we lined everyone up and it was old school dodgeball picking in junior high and we were picking and you're like, "I'll be the last person to be picked."
Everyone's been the last person picked at some point and that's like the worst feeling. When it's just getting less and less and less and you're looking around and you're thinking it's never going to happen and then it's just you and then the team's like, "I guess we'll take him."
It's the worst.
"I guess we'll take him. You're on our team. Just try not to get in the way."
Some of you feel like that right now. You're like, "If we were to line up in some kind of holy thing, I'd be the last person to be picked."
"I'm not supposed to be a witness. I don't even know what I'm doing."
Paul actually said that about himself. He said, "I'm the least likely person to be a disciple of Jesus and yet the Holy Spirit picks me and empowered me and equipped me to be his messenger, to be his witness and to boast in the works that the Holy Spirit did in conjunction with me." That's what's so beautiful about the Holy Spirit.
The power to use you to be a witness of his greatness, to be a witness of his goodness, to see what happens. And listen, there's three things.
Jesus on his life, he did three really big things. He taught, right? We did a long study on the Sermon on the Mount. He did great teachings. He performed miracles, physical miracles.
And then in the end, he displayed sacrifice. He displayed sacrifice in multiple ways. Of course, the biggest, most complete sacrifice was the work of the cross. But we saw other episodes of sacrifice and servant leadership, like when he went into that room and he took off his robes and he washed his disciples feet. And he said that this is what servanthood looks like. Like that is the thing that we get to see in Jesus, that he offered these three things of sacrifice. He offered teaching, he offered miracle, and he had sacrifice. And here's what's amazing, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the witness that you get to hold on to, you have the opportunity to see and to participate in all three of those things, not just here when you're in church, but in the world.
You see, what's weird when you look at Jesus' teaching and when you look at the disciples' teaching, they occasionally had things that we would call works of the Holy Spirit in a church service. It happened occasionally. Jesus healed a couple people in the temple. You see a couple things happening in home churches and different things in the temple. But the vast majority of the encounters with the miraculous power of Jesus or the teaching power of Jesus or the sacrifice of Jesus was not done in the church, it was not in the walls of the synagogue or the temple, it was done in the wild, out and about.
You see, the witness that you get to bring is not just here in these rooms.
The witness that you get to have is out there, in the wild,
the place where you get to walk in love and grace and mercy, and you get to show the miraculous power of God at work in whatever way God decides to manifest that. And you get to show what sacrifice looks like.
These are powerful things. And so here's the thing.
We get to look at something like teaching what Jesus taught, speaking in love, speaking in love to people, being a witness that speaks in love.
We get to walk through and maybe you say, "Again, now we're back to this idea of talking and witnessing. I don't want to do that."
I don't know if you know this, but everybody here has a gospel that you share regularly.
It may be the Bible. Maybe that's your thing. It may be something else.
It may have to do with something like, I don't know, intermittent fasting. Or maybe it's about pickleball. Or maybe it's about your new food hack. Or maybe it's about something else. Like you have this thing. If you ever get someone that's really quiet and then you talk to them about the thing that's their thing, they will not stop talking to you about it. Like too much. I went to this pastor's retreat and there was this guy who was a pastor and he was really quiet. He didn't want to talk very much. He was always quiet, quiet, quiet. And then during one of the free times, we went to this place and there was a pool table. And all of a sudden, he like lit up because we're at this pool table. And he's like, "Oh, we have a pool table at my church and we play billiards. We have a billiard club and we do all this stuff." And we're like, "Oh, wow. That's really cool." And he's like, "Let me tell you all about billiards." And I'm like, "Okay, great." And then he just started talking and talking and talking and talking and he's giving all the dimensions and the rubber. And he's talking about the tables and the manufacturers and the brands and the sticks and the pull of the cues and the thing and the chalk. And he's talking and he's talking and he's talking. I'm like, "Uh-huh, uh-huh." And he's like, "Oh, you just more like chess. You got to set up six sessions in a row." And he's going and we're like, "Oh my gosh. This guy will stop." And I'm not kidding you. Like 25 minutes he's talking. We haven't even played yet. And he's explaining all the things and the angles and the this. I'm like, "I've got to go. If you were to go there and I'd go here." I'm like, "Uh-huh, uh-huh." And I'm like, "Okay." And after like 25 minutes, this morning he's talking the entire weekend. Like by far, he's just like evangelizing pool.
And he's like, "Time to play." And I'm like, "Great. Great." I was like, "And just, you know, I'm terrible at pool. But thank you for all your instruction." He's like, "Yeah, no problem." He's like, "Don't worry. It'll be fun no matter what." I'm like, "Great." Well, guess what? Here was something funny. He was also terrible at pool.
I beat him and he I'm horrible. I'm horrible. And you know how it was. He's like, "Ah, Mike. The queue is two ounces lighter than what I'm used to. And that's a different brand of Chuck." And I'm like, "You know all the words. He like literally evangelized me for pool for a really long time." He would hit a shot and totally miss it. And he'd go up to the rubbery and be like, "I think the bumper's a little... The bumper's not quite regulation on this." And I'm like, "What are you talking about, guy?
You totally are not good at this game.
So get me on my table. Get me on my table." And you'd see. "Okay. It's in Indiana. I'm never coming."
But here's the thing. We can talk about a thousand things. And if I found yours, that'd be the thing you talk about.
It could be sports. Your sports team. It could be a million things. You find it. You light up. You talk about it. And by the way, I'm not saying it's bad to be into billiards or pool. I'm not saying it's bad to be in these other things. But you have a gospel that you're sharing. The world has a gospel that is sharing all the time with you. And they have no shame of sharing their gospel towards you. About their political ideas, about their moral ideas, about sexual orientation, about what's healthy, about what's not healthy. They will try to tell you what it looks like to thrive all the time. The world is full of people witnessing and evangelizing their good news to you. But the only people who are often ashamed to share the good news are the ones who have the true good news inside of their heart.
Because we don't want to be offensive. We don't want hurt feelings. And listen. I'm just here to tell you. When a message is shared in love and relationship, it's not offensive.
It's not offensive. But when a message like our good news is withheld, that actually is hurtful. How can you care for someone so little that when the opportunity presents yourself in the context of relationships in the right time, that the Holy Spirit creates a way in which you can speak the good news to a friend, to a brother or sister in Christ who's desperately in need of it and you say, "Ooh, I don't want to offend him, so I'm not going to share."
This does not go on the soapbox. This does not go into a random stranger. I'm talking about in the context of a relationship while being led from the Holy Spirit, you have a good news message inside of your heart that Jesus has done. You have witnessed it. If we had time, we could stand up and every person could share the things that you've witnessed of God, the places where he showed up, the miracles that have happened, the relationships that have been stored, the financial provision, the healing. It would go on and on and on and on. You've witnessed it, not just me. And yet sometimes when God says, "Hey, I want you to be my witness," you're like, "Send someone else, God.
Send someone else."
This is not to make you feel guilty. This is to make you understand you don't have to do this on your own. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells inside of you who says, "You will be my witness because I will make you a witness." When you wake up every morning, you say, "God, open my eyes so that I can be aware of your presence and if there's someone in my daily journey that I'm called to share your good news, not my good news, not Jonathan's way to life, not my way to thrive, but your way to thrive,
will you show me it? And will you give me the boldness and the compassion and the love to share that in an honoring way?
In an honoring way?
You know, sometimes people can say things in love and yet it doesn't feel very loving. I don't know if you've ever been corrected in love by someone. You're like, "That wasn't loving." I just want you to know. You said, "I say this with love," and then you said it, and it wasn't.
I think you hate me.
The Holy Spirit comes in so that you can share this spoken love and you get to bear witness of these things.
You get to walk in a supernatural love. And here's the thing, miracles and signs and wonders, those things are amazing, and they still happen today. And I believe that the Holy Spirit can move and can move through you and you can witness healing through the power of prayer. I believe it with all my heart. But here's the thing that I also know is a miracle, that I also know is supernatural, is when someone who looks different than you, acts differently than you, believes differently than you, and God puts a supernatural love in your heart for that person, and you move and you walk in a love that covers towards that person, that is not from you, that is not from this kingdom, that is not from this world, that is a supernatural kind of love that Jesus displayed here on this earth.
And that when you partner with that love, you are seeing and expressing a miracle.
And sacrificial love.
The early church was not as well known for all the miracles, although miracles were happening. The thing that they were known for is that they loved each other, that they welcomed people from a vast, diverse socioeconomic group, and that they were willing to serve each other and to give sacrificially. This sacrificial love, because that's what they used to all Jesus to.
They loved sacrificially.
And their sacrifice, the way that they sacrificed, was part of the witness that they got to carry every single day.
And here's the thing, serving, having a servant's heart, being like Jesus,
that's like a practical thing that we get to do to help remind our souls, to remind ourselves that we get to walk in sacrificial love,
that we get to serve other people so that we can walk in a way that Jesus did.
You know, a lot of you guys were in the serve team rush before, and we believe that serving is an important part of our Christian journey because it's something just like communion is a powerful representation of who Christ is to us, just like baptism is a symbolic gesture that we get to walk through, just like something like a day of Sabbath where we get to rest and refresh and remind our minds. When we get to have a regular routine of walking in service to others, it's something that we get to do to say, "God, I want to partner with your Holy Spirit and serve." Listen, you are here and I want you to serve. I want you to join a serve team, but I don't want you to join a serve team because you're guilty or because you just need to check off a box or because you need some community service hours. If you need those, we'll sign off on them. But that's not why I want you to do it. I want you to do it because you realize there are people who need to be served. Every single church service, there are hundreds of volunteers that work in different capacities here in this church for us to be able to come together and to sit down and say, "Wow, how good and pleasant it is to dwell in the house, Lord." We only have six full-time staff. Six. I'm one of those. And I don't do anything except study. They do all the other work. So then there's five. And then I usually distract two of them with something else.
And I say that because the only way we have church is not because of me. It's not because we're paying people to do it. It's because you come here and you serve and we walk into this community together. It's the only way we have church. If none of the serve team members showed up, we wouldn't have church.
We're not one of those churches that like, "We just pay everyone and it works out great." We don't. We're here because we're here together and we believe in that. And serving is a capacity for us to let our witness shine. Because we're not just serving so we get it done. Guess what? We're serving with a purpose. And the purpose is not just to let me do something for you, but to do something and to serve in a way that says, "One day I believe that we can be family."
So when I go and I get to serve in the kids' department, it's not just like, "Oh, I'm taking care of these kids. I hope one of them doesn't poop all over the place."
It's like, "Hey, I'm serving these kids because one day I believe that they're going to have a relationship with Jesus." And when they have a relationship with Jesus, we are actually no longer like, "I'm your teacher and you're five." We actually, under the blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we become brothers and sisters in Christ, even with a young member because we are now kinship. We are family.
And it doesn't have to be at the church. Maybe you get to go do some of these different things. We got a great group that's coming out. It's called Hands and Feet. And they're going to be doing stuff and fixing fences and doing all this other kind of stuff. Like they're going to be real practical in the community doing things. And you know what? Maybe that's the way. But we don't just do it. It's like, "I just want to do this so you don't have to do it." No, we do this because we want you to experience the love of Christ so that one day we can become family.
We can volunteer at John 3.16. We can volunteer at other things in the community. Serving has something to do that whenever we do something, not with the expectation that we can accomplish something, but from the place of, "I've already received so much, so I give out of what I've already received."
"I'm not serving to do something. I'm serving from a place."
And that's part of the Holy Spirit's witness. And that is what the Spirit does inside of you. So when Jesus said, "You can be my witness. You can be my witness."
It may come in the context of a relationship in which you get to share about what God's done for you. You just have to be genuine and honest. You don't need to know all the apologetics. You don't have to have every Scripture reference memorized. They're not going to ask you a million really hard questions. And if they do, you can just say, "I don't know." And that's fine. People ask me questions all the time and I say, "I don't know." Like, "You're a pastor." I'm like, "Yeah, I guess I'm not very good at it." I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
But I love you. Jesus changed my life.
You get to walk in supernatural love to people that maybe you would never come across if it weren't for the believing of the Holy Spirit.
And we can have an opportunity to be self-sacrificing because Jesus already sacrificed everything on our behalf. And so we can say, "God, you've already given so much. So allow me to serve someone else."
With the intention of one day being family with them.
The Holy Spirit comes and when you say, "Come Holy Spirit, breathe new life into me. Wash inside of me. Show me new ways in which I can be your witness in this world."
As many people are in this building, there'll be that many expressions of the Holy Spirit moving and sharing and growing and creating opportunities for you to be witness, to bear witness of the goodness of God.
I don't need to tell people about my life.
That's another way sometimes we've used that word witness. We say, "Oh, I don't want to do that because it could hurt my witness."
And I understand what they're saying, but here's the thing. I don't need to tell them about me.
I'm not going to tell them like, "Hey, I've been perfect and I've been perfect because Jesus made me perfect." Like everyone who sees me knows that I'm a mess up.
They don't need any help from that. But when I say, "Hey, I want to tell you not about me, but about him."
I want to tell you about what he's done in my life and others. And yeah, I'm still flawed and I'm still figuring it out. I'm still trying to figure these different pieces out in my life, but he has changed me.
And I just get to witness it every single day.
Open my eyes, God, so I can see, so I can witness your glory. Hey, stand with me and let me pray for you.
Father, I thank you for today.
I thank you for your spirit.
I thank you for your witness. I thank you for the opportunity you give us to share about your goodness, to love unconditionally,
to serve people around us who need a tangible experience, a tangible touch of your love.
Lord, I thank you for every person who's here.
I pray that your spirit empowers us to be bold witnesses. And if we need to open our mouths, we open our mouths. And if we need to open our homes, we open our homes. And if we need to serve and to get into the mud and to work, Father God, you allow us to do that.
Let us bear witness to your goodness, Father.
It's in Jesus' holy name I pray. Amen and amen. Hey, church, three things before we dismiss this morning. Number one, if you need prayer for anything, prayer for you, for someone else, if you have any questions about salvation or God, the prayer team is going to be down here at the front. They would love to let you know. Number two, make sure you go out, check out some of the serve team tables, discover something, find a place to get connected if you're not. And then number three, Easter is just a few weeks away. Prayerfully consider who you can invite to come to church with you that day. It could be an individual, it could be a family, but I want you to pray and consider who is one person or one family that you can say, "Hey, do you have Easter plans? Would you like to come with me to my church to have Easter, to celebrate Easter?"
And allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in that process because I think it will be a powerful invitation. Hey, you guys are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday. We love you very much. Bye-bye.
