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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Acts 1:1–11
In the first book. Oath. The office.
I have dealt with all that
Jesus began to do and teach
until the day when he was taken up,
after he had given commands
through the Holy Spirit to the apostles
whom he had chosen.
He presented himself alive to them
after his suffering by many proofs,
appearing to them during 40 days,
and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And while staying with them, he ordered
them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for the promise of the father,
which he said, you heard from me.
For John baptized with water,
but you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now.
So when they had come together,
they asked him, Lord,
will you at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?
And he said to them,
it is not for you to know
times or seasons that the father
has fixed by his own authority,
but you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the end of the earth.
And when he had said these things,
as they were looking on,
he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven,
as he went, behold,
two men stood by them in white robes,
and said, Men of Galilee.
Why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus
who has taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way
as you saw him go into heaven.
Well,
welcome to the weekend here at Christ
Community Chapel.
My name is Zach,
I'm one of the pastors here,
and we are so glad we get to be
part of your weekend,
specially an outdoor service.
I see those fans are working. That's good.
Keep yourselves cool. That's good.
Don't hesitate to flag somebody down
for a bottle of water,
head back to the refreshments,
that's not going to bother me.
Stay, stay comfortable.
Stay hydrated.
We are so glad, we're baptizing.
you know,
we already had one service this morning,
we baptized 14 people in that service.
We are planning to baptize 30 people
in this service.
It's going to be awesome.
I say planning
because I'll tell you in a minute,
we are ready for you to make a decision
to trust Jesus to be baptized today.
I'll say more about that in a minute.
So 30 minimum could be more.
But hey, if you're a friend or family
member of somebody who's getting baptized,
I just want to start by saying
thanks so much for being here.
What a wonderful way
to support them and care for them.
We're glad you're joining us.
Thanks a lot.
We are starting our fall sermon series.
We're going to be in the book of Acts.
We're calling it Room For More.
And the reason we're calling
that is a little bit of a double meaning.
One thing we're going to learn
by studying the book of Acts, the book
that details the beginning of this thing
we call the church, is
that God
always wants to make room for more.
He's always looking to reach more people,
to bring more people in.
We want to join him in that.
We want to be a church
that takes that seriously.
We want to make room for more
and more people.
In fact, you can drive around our property
and see that
that is true as we're building space
for more and more people.
That's who God
is. That's who we want to be.
But not only that, another meaning
of calling this room for more
is what we're going to see is, as we study
the book of acts,
is that the local church is meant to be
the most exciting place on the planet.
It is meant to be a place
where God is doing
incredible things,
where God is changing lives, restoring
relationships, rebuilding families,
setting people free from addictions.
We want to see God do the incredible.
And so we increasingly want to create
more room,
even in our own expectations,
that we would show up to church.
We would be expecting something incredible
to happen, believing
that God can and will and wants
to do incredible things.
Room for more people.
Room for more expectations from God.
In fact,
this sermon series is a little unique.
I'll tell you more about this at the end.
It's a ten week series that is building
towards a particular event,
as we just lay brick
by brick in our theology
of having a big view of God
and expecting him to do big things.
And I'll end the sermon
by explaining that.
But for now, if you have a Bible,
you could open it to acts chapter one.
If you don't know problem,
it's going to be on the screen behind me.
Or if you just don't want to hold it
because you're too busy fanning yourself,
no problem.
It's going to be on the screen
in front of me, in front of you.
But also I have a three point outline I'm
going to use to guide our time together.
Very simple.
Three questions I want to ask this.
Why is there a sequel?
Who is in this one
and who drives the plot forward?
Why is there a sequel?
Who is in this one
and who drives the plot forward?
All right, let's start with the first one.
Why is there a sequel?
You know, my children have grown up
in an era in which they expect
that every movie that is made for them
is one of many.
Like, I just took my kids
this summer to see Toy Story
five, just like I took them to see Toy
Story four.
Toy story three.
If they make a Toy Story six,
we'll be there.
We're going to see it.
You've got the minions movies.
There are all these movies made for kids
where there are one, two, three, four,
five, six of them.
In fact, my kids
just now expect that any movie they watch,
there's a second one or a third one.
I could take them to the movie
theater to see a brand new movie,
a movie that just came out and that night
and net at home, they'd be scrolling
Netflix trying to find the second one.
It's just how they think movies work.
Every movie has a sequel,
and they think that for a good reason.
That's been a Hollywood move
for a long time.
If you make a movie and it makes money,
you try to make the same movie again.
Like, did you know
you remember the movie in the 80s, jaws.
If you've seen this right,
it's an okay movie about a man's battle
against a shark.
Did you know they made four jaws movies,
including the last one,
which is called Jaws The Revenge,
in which a family member of the shark
from the first movie
developed a personal grudge
against the family of the guy
in the first movie and follows them
all over the world trying to get them.
It's a stupid movie
that never should have been made.
Sometimes listen, sometimes stories just
over, you know, like it was a good story.
It ends well.
Let it, let it be.
Don't try to make a sequel.
Which leads me to this question
why doesn't the Bible
stop after the story of Jesus?
I mean, Jesus is the Son of God, born
to a virgin
who lives a life on our planet perfectly,
a life of perfect obedience.
He tells us he he's come to do that
for us, that he lives a life of obedience
where we haven't, so that when he goes
to the cross which he told us
he planned to do, it would be our sin,
not his, that he would carry with him,
so that when he came up under the anger
and judgment and wrath of God
the Father, that together
as part of their plan they could do away
with all the judgment that was on us,
and we could be forgiven, he told us.
And then did.
Raised from the dead three days later,
he ascended into heaven.
I mean, it's a great ending.
Why does the Bible keep going?
Why wouldn't you stop there?
That's a good place to stop.
And I just want you to see that the Luke,
the guy who wrote the book of acts,
also wrote the Gospel of Luke,
one of the four stories
of Jesus's life, death and resurrection.
And he tells us at the beginning
of the book of acts
that he's writing a sequel,
that he's keeping the story going.
Here's what he says acts
chapter one, verses one through three.
He says this in the first book.
Or for our metaphor,
you might say in the first movie,
I have
dealt with all that Jesus began to do
and teach
till the day when he was taken up, after
he had given commands to the Holy Spirit,
to the apostles whom he had chosen,
he presented himself alive to them
after his suffering by many proofs,
appearing to them during 40 days,
and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Great ending, great ending.
Why make another one?
Well, the answer to that is actually found
in acts chapter one, verse eight, where
Jesus tells his apostles
that he wants them to be
his witnesses to Jerusalem,
where they were when he said it,
Judea, Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.
You see, what Jesus is saying
is that the story isn't over.
And the reason it isn't over, he says, is
because there are people
who don't know about him.
So the Bible tells us that the way
to have a relationship
with God is wonderfully,
inclusively exclusive.
And what I mean by
that is the Bible tells us only one way
to have a relationship with God.
That is faith in Jesus Christ, His Son,
his life, his death, and his resurrection.
But that way is available to everyone
but Jesus in his life and in his ministry,
only traveled
about a geographic distance of 150 miles.
So in the beginning of the book of Acts,
Jesus tells us the reason
there's a sequel.
The reason the story keeps going
is because there are a lot of people
in a lot of places
who do not know what he's done,
who do not know that it is possible
for them to have
a relationship with God,
to be forgiven, to be included.
But to that way is only through Jesus.
You see, when Jesus says
the story has to keep going
because more people have to hear,
even to the ends of the earth.
Do you understand? He's talking about us.
Peter, James
and John had never been to Northeast Ohio.
They would never make it to Northeast
Ohio.
The mission of Jesus was to make sure
that 2000 years later,
you and I could hear what he had
done, could be given the opportunity
to trust in his life and his death
and his resurrection for our salvation.
The work of Jesus is not done.
It continues through the local church's
mission
to get the message of Jesus
to more people in more places,
so that they might have opportunity
to believe, because that's who God is.
A God who desires to include God,
who desires to forgive.
That's why the local church exists.
That's why there is a sequel.
But that begs the question,
and that's my second point.
Well, who's in this one?
And here's what I mean.
You may remember another movie from like
late 80s, early 90s called speed.
Do you remember this movie?
Keanu Reeves did the premises.
Keanu Reeves is on a bus
and there's a bomb on the bus.
And if the bus slows down,
the bomb will go off.
So they have to maintain speed.
And somehow
Sandra Bullock ends up on the bus.
She doesn't really seem
like someone who would take the bus, but
she's on the bus and together
they try to keep everybody alive.
Speed was a successful movie,
and actually the writers reached out
to Keanu Reeves to ask him to be,
and you guessed it, speed two.
And I, I watched an interview this week
where Keanu said, you know,
I was open to it.
I liked speed, so I asked them,
what is the plot of speed two?
And they said, well,
this one takes place on a cruise ship,
and if the cruise ship slows down,
the bomb goes off.
And to which Keanu said,
have you ever been on a cruise ship?
They're not fast.
That's a stupid idea for a movie.
He declined to be in the movie,
and as you might have guessed, speed two
was a terrible failure at the box office.
You see, because it's hard to make
speed, too, if Keanu Reeves isn't in it.
Hard to make a sequel
if the star isn't in it.
So even if there needs to be a sequel,
here's the question
who is going to make the story happen
if not for Jesus?
Jesus is ascending into heaven.
Jesus is going to to make ready heaven
for all of us who place our faith in him.
He isn't going to show up
in the book of acts beyond this
first chapter,
how can you continue the story of Jesus
without Jesus,
who is going to do the work?
Well,
Jesus tells us his expectation and acts.
Chapter one verse eight.
Look at the screen with me. Here's
what he says.
But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the end of the earth.
Now, in the context of this passage, of
course, the you there are the disciples.
Jesus is telling them, okay, I'm
ascending into heaven.
The work is yours.
Now I want you to take the message of what
I've done this wonderfully, inclusively
exclusive message of how every person
can be forgiven through me.
I want you to take it to the ends of
the earth that that mission is for them.
But I want you to see that Jesus intends
that mission to go everywhere.
But all the disciples within
the next 100 years will be dead,
and they will have taken the gospel
beyond the geographic area that Jesus did.
But there will still be work to do.
You see Jesus in Acts
one eight when he says, but you will be
my witnesses,
is not just speaking to the disciples.
He's speaking to all of us who believe,
all of us who are followers of him.
He's saying, and you will be my witnesses
in Northeast Ohio.
You will be the ones who make sure
people know they can be forgiven.
They can be included.
They can be accepted through me.
You will be my witnesses.
We are the continuation of the mission
of Jesus Christ.
Unless you doubt that, just consider this.
We're baptizing today
44 people across two services.
But what's what's incredible about
that is not only that 44
people are trusting Jesus.
I'll say more about that in a minute,
but I want you to understand
I'm on stage up here with a microphone.
Most of the 44 people getting baptized
this weekend do not have a personal
relationship with me.
The people who drew, who drove the story,
who made part of the mission of Jesus
include them are their parents,
their friends,
their family members, their neighbors,
their colleagues,
the person who invited them to church.
The person who began a conversation
about God with them.
Every one of these 44
people have people in their lives
who have pointed them to Jesus.
Those people are who Jesus meant.
We are the ones
God wants to reach Northeast Ohio through.
We are the witnesses of Jesus.
He has placed here
so that our friends and family members
and colleagues and neighbors might know
they too, can be forgiven.
When Jesus says, you will be my witnesses,
he means you.
He means you.
And. And here's the thing.
He also means
the 44 people being baptized.
What he's telling the disciples is
the work isn't done.
More people in more places.
He had in mind 2000 years later,
people in Northeast Ohio, people in Hudson
on September 13th
responding in faith to Jesus.
These 44 people were why?
Jesus said the mission has to keep going.
And the reason I say that is because
perhaps, maybe he also meant you.
You also
can be forgiven and included in
what God is doing,
being guaranteed a place
and the kingdom that is to come.
Not because you've earned it,
not because you deserve it,
but because Jesus Christ has lived
in your place and died in your place
and rose from the dead.
And if it's some point today,
a month from now, a year from now,
you feel the call of God to respond
in faith.
It is because 2000 years ago,
a mission began
in which Jesus included you.
The mission of Jesus is not over.
It continues every day
through the work of the local church.
But if you're hearing me,
what you're hearing me say is, okay,
so the mission of Jesus is continuing.
Jesus is in heaven.
We're doing the work, or we up for that?
Are we capable of that?
Are we the right people to trust?
Well, that leads me to my third point.
Not just why is there a sequel
and who's in this one,
but also who drives the plot forward?
A chick fil A recently opened up
about four minutes from my house.
There's a little bit in Northeast Ohio.
There's a little bit of a
I don't know if you notice
a chicken Cold War going on right now.
It's like Raising Cane's and Chick fil
A going up everywhere,
and I feel like
we're the beneficiary of that war.
Like, let them let them keep fighting.
They're going up all over.
There's a chick fil A
now like four minutes from my house,
and I didn't want to get excited.
So I looked it up this week.
I thought, well, what are the odds it's
going to make it right?
What are the odds it's going to stay open
pretty high, I have to tell you,
like the average chick fil
A location makes a profit every year
of about $9.4 million,
which shouldn't surprise any of you,
because I see you in the drive through,
I see you, you're there.
But here's the other thing.
An owner operator of a chick fil
A, which that's a really hard job to get.
You can cook it sometime. Really hard.
Time to get has a listen to this a 96%
success rate 96% now.
But here's the thing. So in other words,
chick fil A doesn't miss.
They don't miss. But but do you know what
I think is interesting?
I have no idea who manages or owns
or operates the local chick fil A's.
I have no idea.
Like I've been to all of them.
I don't know,
they put their picture on the wall.
I don't pay attention, I don't care.
It doesn't make any difference to me.
You know why?
Because the secret sauce of chick fil A
is not the owner operator.
It's the chicken.
It's the customer service. It's.
God help me. It's the milkshakes. Right?
That's the.
That's the secret.
It doesn't matter who's there.
The secret sauce is not the person.
It's chick fil A. Well,
let me tell you something.
When Jesus says the mission of his work
is continuing through the local church,
he's not saying that you
and I are the secret sauce.
We participate,
but the hope of the mission
being successful is not me
and it's not you. Here's what he says.
Look what he says in acts chapter one,
verse eight.
Listen, but you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Do you hear the order of operations there?
He says, the Holy Spirit, the third member
of the Godhead, father, son, and spirit,
he says, I'm going to heaven.
He's coming down.
He will come upon you.
He will bring the power.
He will be the secret sauce,
and then you will be my witnesses.
You see the hope of your friends
and family members and neighbors.
Coming to faith in Jesus is not
the preaching or the music or the people.
It's the Spirit of God working through
the people of God the way he always has.
2000 years ago, Jesus said, we're taking
this thing to the ends of the earth.
And they just thought
he meant the west side of Jerusalem.
Here we sit in Northeast Ohio
with the gospel of Jesus being preached,
not because of the men and women
who carried it,
but because of the Spirit of God
working in them,
is that we think as Christians,
the best that God had to do was behind us.
But it isn't.
It's ahead of us now.
We can never improve
upon the work of Jesus.
That's not what I mean.
But more people hearing about Jesus leads
to greater things.
And if you don't believe me,
listen to what Jesus says
in the Gospel of John, chapter 14,
verse 12.
Here's what he says truly, truly,
I say to you,
whoever believes in me
will also do the works that I do.
Listen.
And greater works than these will
he do because I am going to the father.
Jesus doesn't mean you will die
and raise from the dead
that you will go to the cross
and pay for the sins of the church.
Not what he means,
but he means by greater is geographically.
You will go where I haven't been.
You will tell people
I haven't met that they can be forgiven.
Friends, listen to me.
The best days of the church
are ahead of us,
as the Spirit of God
empowers us to reach people far
from him, for his glory
and to their good room for more.
Room for more people, yes,
but room for more.
God, you said greater things are coming.
We want that.
We want that.
Which is why I'm happy to tell you
that this ten week
series is going to culminate
in an event of some sort.
On November.
November 15th.
I say some sort because construction
is really making my life tough.
Okay, so in some form on November 15th
we are going to gather
for a healing service.
We're going to invite friends and family
members and neighbors that are dealing
with physical illness, mental
and emotional problems, relational damage.
We're going to invite them
to come and be prayed over, because what
we're going to learn in the book of acts
is that the power of God opens doors
for the message of God.
Like there's one story in the book of acts
where the Apostle Paul is in prison
in Philippi, and he is not doing anything
for the mission of Jesus.
He's in jail
until God sends an earthquake.
And in the rubble of the jail,
the jailer who was watching
Paul, is getting ready
to take his own life
because all the prisoners have escaped,
and he knows what that means for him.
And Paul stops and says,
hey, listen, if I promise
not to run away,
can I tell you about Jesus?
That's ministry
in the equivalent of T-ball.
Anybody can tell you about Jesus
in the midst of a supernatural earthquake.
But you see, that's the point.
The Bible has never been the story
of incredible
men and women doing incredible things.
It's been the story of ordinary men
and women experiencing incredible things
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And we're going to begin as a church
to ask God, would you do something
miraculous?
Not because you owe us, but
because we have friends and family members
who will never listen to the gospel
unless you do.
Would you open doors for us
to be witnesses
to the undeniable evidence of your power?
I know for some of us, that's
going to be uncomfortable,
and we'll teach you along the way.
We'll prepare you along the way.
But I want you to see that Jesus himself
expected the incredible story of God,
the miracles, the power of God
to continue from Jerusalem
to Northeast Ohio and beyond.
And he wants you and I to be part of it.
Let me pray for you.
Father God, thank you so much for the
mission and ministry of the church.
God we believe. Help our unbelief.
Increase our desire for more
people to be here so that they can hear,
that they can be forgiven.
And God,
increase our appetite for you to do more,
for you to break out of the little box
that we have you in.
That's once a week on Sundays
or Thursday nights when we gather.
But we would say, God, if you're
in the business of doing the miraculous
to help people come to know who you are,
we just want to be around for that.
We we don't want to be the reason for it.
We don't want to be the ones
people talk about.
We just want to be witnesses to it
and for it.
God, would you use us in that way
for your glory
and for the good of our friends
and our family and our colleagues
and our neighbors that have still yet
to put their trust in you?
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.