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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.
Good morning, Christ
Community Chapel.
Pastor Zach here.
And if you're new here,
I want you to know
we're doing something
a little different
this weekend.
Usually our teaching team
consists of Pastor
Joe and myself.
We alternate on about.
And every other week basis,
which I love.
We love
not just getting
to preach to you,
but also getting to listen
to the other guys.
One of my favorite things
that we do.
But there are actually six
other staff pastors
who serve this church
really well.
They just don't always
do it on stage.
And by preaching.
Except we're going to flip
that this weekend
and actually going to do this
four times this year.
We're calling it
Staff Pastor Weekend.
There'll be
a different pastor
preaching in every service.
And in every venue
Thursday night
in the weekend,
East Hall
and West,
giving you a chance
to get to know
some of your other pastors
and to hear
a different perspective
on the same passage
with the same outline,
just a different guy
delivering it.
So would you join me in
welcoming your staff pastor
in your venue to the stage?
This guy works really hard
to love
and care for you, and I'm
so glad
you got a chance
to hear from him
as he teaches
from God's Word.
Enjoy the service.
Yeah.
Now we're talking.
All right.
Welcome, to the weekly
gathering of Christ Community
Chapel for our very first
service of 2025.
Happy New year.
Yeah.
Even more hoots and hollers.
Good. I like the energy.
Let's be honest.
It's, It's January 2nd.
So it's
just after the holidays.
It's cold.
It's dark, and you're here.
We're going to tell you
when we get to heaven.
You're getting
the good rooms, all right?
You're committed.
You're committed.
I'm so glad that you're here.
For those of you
that I haven't had
the privilege of meeting yet.
My name is Ken.
I'm one of the staff
pastors, as Pastor
Zach just alluded to.
I've been on staff here
for about five years.
Prior to that, I was,
practicing attorney.
I practiced
law for a decade before,
God called me
to a full time ministry.
And I've been married
to my wife, Jamie,
for a little over 16 years.
I have three daughters.
They are eight and six.
And two.
Kamiya, Skyler and Lily.
So pray for me.
I got three little girls,
is what I tell people. You.
If you know me,
you've heard me say this.
In this season of life,
I don't sleep.
I'm not funny.
And I'm never right.
That that is me
in a nutshell.
But really,
thank you for being here.
Thanks for making the time.
Especially if you're here
and you're visiting here
and you're new.
We're so glad that you're
joining us.
You know, that
being the new year, 2025,
it's time for New Year's.
What new year's
resolutions, right.
New year, new you.
Time to pick something up.
Time to drop something.
Maybe drop a few pounds
that you picked up
over the holidays.
But it's an opportunity
as you look ahead to the year
to say, I'm
going to do
something different.
I'm going to
change something.
And New Year's
resolutions are good.
They can be great.
But I'm going to challenge
you tonight to consider
something
that is transformative,
not just for you,
not just even for us, but for
the region,
for the communities
around us, for the world.
And I hope you say
yes to that.
I hope you'll say
yes to that.
And if you're here
and you're
not yet a Christian, I'm
going to invite you
to consider something too.
So stay tuned.
In our passage tonight,
which I'm going to
read in a moment,
we're going to be looking
at a church
that said yes
to something
transformative and changed
the world.
And so let's
turn to that now.
It's acts chapter
13, verses one through three.
Chapter 13, verses
one through three.
You can find it
in your pew Bibles, or
pull it up on your phone.
But but,
let me let me
read this for you.
And then
and then we'll,
we'll zoom in.
All right.
Here it is,
chapter 13, verses
one through three.
Now, there were in the church
at Antioch, prophets
and teachers
Barnabas, Simeon,
who was called Niger,
Lucius of Cyrene.
Monaghan,
a lifelong friend of Herod
the tetrarch.
And Saul,
while they were worshiping
the Lord and fasting,
the Holy Spirit said, set
apart for me
Barnabas and Saul,
for the work
to which I have called them.
Then, after
fasting and praying,
they laid their hands on them
and sent them off.
And we're going to spend time
in those verses tonight.
Let me give you the larger
picture, the context briefly,
so you can kind of,
understand how
how we found ourselves
here, in the book of acts.
Really.
We're we're really
the story is picking up
post Jesus's life,
death and resurrection
and acts opens with
Jesus before he
ascended into heaven,
giving a charge
to his disciples.
And I'm going to read
that charge
because it's
gives us
some pretty crucial context.
It's acts chapter one
and it's verse eight.
This is what Jesus 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.
And then Jesus ascends
and the mission continues
through the power
of the Holy Spirit.
The local church is formed,
and we see the gospel
go forward.
Now in acts chapter 13,
verses one through three,
we are right on the brink
of the global church
being launched.
It's an amazing,
an amazing moment.
This church is stepping
into the mission
to take the gospel
to all corners of the globe.
And by the way,
that mission is continuing
through the book of acts,
through the balance
of the New Testament,
through to today,
to this very moment.
And who is God
using to do this?
He's using the church
at Antioch.
He's using Paul.
He's using Barnabas.
And how it happened, how
this church stepped
into the mission of God,
how God use them.
That's really important.
Understanding the ingredients
that were involved,
not just for
the church at Antioch,
but but for us here and now.
And so as we walk
through these verses, I'm
going to walk through them
using the three ingredients
for the mission of God
to move forward.
There are three things there.
My three points for tonight.
Here they are.
How does the mission
move forward?
Number one, open hearts.
Number two, open hands.
Number three, open doors,
open hearts.
Open hands, open doors.
Let's start with open hearts.
If you were to
look at this passage,
something very important
for us to understand
that every single person
mentioned here, and in fact,
every single person
in the church at Antioch,
had said yes to Jesus.
They said yes to Jesus.
It's a church
because it was comprised of
Christians.
They've opened their hearts
to the truth of the gospel,
to the good news of Jesus.
And when I say open hearts,
when we talk
about open hearts,
what I mean is hearts
that have been transformed
by what I'm going to call
supernatural surrender.
Supernatural surrender.
All right. Two things.
You need them both,
for your heart
to be fully open.
All right,
let's talk about that.
Supernatural peace first.
Coming to faith
in Jesus
requires an act of God.
Full stop.
It requires God to act.
He must do something.
That's the supernatural part.
Now, if you look at Paul,
God showed up
in a pretty amazing way.
The conversion story of Paul
is pretty incredible.
He's an enemy of the church.
That's an understatement,
by the way.
At one point,
the author of acts says
Paul is breathing
threats and murder.
I've been married
for 16 years.
If I knew
my wife was breathing
threats and murder
against me, I would run
threats and murder.
He he has just tacitly
or explicitly approved
of the execution of someone
just a few chapters
back, he's
going home to home,
dragging Christians
for imprisonment or worse.
And then he is struck down
in what
I can only describe
as the original come
to Jesus moment
comes face to face
with the risen
Christ and is changed,
transformed.
God acted
in a supernatural
way, and Paul's life
post conversion is marked
by powerful evangelism,
incredible obedience,
remarkable suffering,
all because God worked
in his heart
in a powerful
and personal way.
Open hearts
require an act of God.
That's the supernatural part.
But they also involve
something in our part two.
And that's the
surrender piece.
To be a Christian
means that
we have to acknowledge,
first and foremost,
that we're deeply broken.
There's
something wrong with us,
and we can't
fix it on our own.
And we need someone,
not ourselves, to intervene.
We need a savior.
I have three little kids.
We talk about Jesus
as the rescuer.
We need to be rescued
from our broken,
sinful state.
By the way, surrender
might sound like it's easy.
It might sound like
it's weak. It's not.
Surrender is hard.
It's active.
How many times
have you surrendered
in an argument
with a spouse or a friend?
Let's speak for myself.
It's not easy to surrender,
to throw up your hands
and say, fine, you win.
How much more?
So when it comes
to the God of the universe,
when we have to say
the way I've been
living my life.
I can't do it anymore.
You win, God, you win.
C.S. Lewis has a great quote.
I'm going to paraphrase it.
Basically he says, look,
people aren't just imperfect
human beings
that need to shape up a bit,
dust themselves off.
They are rebels
who need to lay
down their arms.
Strong language.
But I think it's apt.
We need to surrender
supernatural surrender,
open hearts
that come from
that supernatural surrender
and act of God and response
from us.
Now, if you're here
and you're Christian,
you might be thinking, okay,
sure.
For Paul,
I mean, this conversion
story
is really one of a kind.
That's true to an extent.
But,
you know,
while you probably,
I'm guessing,
weren't actively
persecuting Christians,
dragging them
from their homes,
you probably weren't
struck down in route
to Damascus.
You probably weren't
rendered temporarily blind.
Let me ask you, who were you
before Jesus.
How did you think?
How did you speak?
How did you act?
Do you remember
what was life like before
Jesus?
You know, elsewhere
in the New Testament,
Paul writes
of us as dead in our sin,
children of wrath.
Rebels
that need to lay
down their arms.
So maybe you weren't at odds
with the church
per se,
in the way
that Paul was, but.
But you were
absolutely at odds
with the God of the universe.
And you know what it took for
you to be made right
with God?
Jesus living the life
that you couldn't, dying
the death you deserve
and raising from the dead.
I'd say that's pretty
supernatural, wouldn't you?
It took God in your
moment of surrender
when you finally laid
down your arms and said,
you know what?
Not my way, but yours.
Not my own kingship, God.
But but yours. Jesus.
You sit on the throne
in that moment of surrender,
God transforming your heart
from unbelief to belief.
Supernatural.
The ongoing work of God
through the Holy Spirit
in your life
even now,
making you more and more
like Jesus and less and less
like the old you.
Tell me what
isn't supernatural
about all of that?
As I was preparing
this sermon,
I had to face
a sobering reality.
I'm going to
ask you this too.
When is the last time
that you just stopped
and marveled
at the work God has done
in Jesus, in you?
It's an incredible thing.
It's an incredible thing.
So the supernatural
surrender.
It's what leads to
open hearts.
It's true
of every single person.
The church
at Antioch, here
in this passage, it's true
of every Christian.
It's true of you.
It's true of me.
We are
walking miracles.
Let's not
forget that.
And by the way,
if you're here
and you're not yet
a Christian,
I have not
forgotten about you.
Thank you for being here.
What I've just described
isn't you yet.
But it can be.
To acknowledge
the work of Jesus in his life
and his death
and his resurrection.
To surrender to his kingship,
to invite God
to transform you
and to be made more
and more like Jesus.
You can have that.
God has acted.
Will you surrender?
Will you surrender?
The mission of God
moves through open hearts.
That's the first ingredient.
And then open heart.
Open hearts.
They lead to open hands.
That's my second point.
Open hearts
lead to open hands.
I think it follows
that if we really, really do
embrace the magnitude
of what
God has done for us in Jesus,
that our response
will be this,
this overflow,
this abundance
of of gratitude,
of joy, of a, of a
desire to obey and to follow.
And to
say, Jesus, what you want,
I want what you love.
I'll love.
I want to follow you.
My hands are open
to whatever you want,
whenever you want,
however you want.
And that's
what's happening here
in acts chapter 13,
verse two.
It says,
while they were
worshiping the Lord
and fasting,
see what they're doing.
This this church
is abstaining from food
from their physical
needs in order
to more fully commit
to prayer,
in order to earnestly seek
God's guidance
because they want
what he wants.
They want to love
what he loves.
Their hands are open.
Now the idea,
the idea of wanting
what someone else wants
and loving
what someone else loves.
It's not just true
in this context.
It's actually true of
of anyone with whom
you're in a relationship,
anyone you care about.
I've been married
for 16 years.
We dated for five years
prior to that,
and I can tell you
there are things that I want
and love
now that I never thought
I would.
Never in a million years
never wanted to travel,
had no desire to do it,
and that Jamie
and she,
she changed my perspective
on that.
I love to travel now.
Of course we have little kids
so we don't travel now,
but maybe again one day.
I'm glad you're
sitting down for this.
I watch
documentaries sometimes.
It's true, it's true.
If you knew me pregame,
you'd be like, no you don't.
Sometimes I do,
and I even enjoy them.
I've come to love them
because Jamie loves them.
NPR podcasts
I don't listen to those.
I'm not Jesus, but.
But I listen to Jamie
when she talks about them,
and that's something.
If you have
kids, if you have kids,
you know this is true.
You know that.
That you want what they want.
You love what they love.
I got an eight year
old, a six year old,
two and a half year old.
Okay?
I find myself on some random
Saturday morning
wearing a tutu
and dancing to Kidz
Bop volume 84.
Sure.
Let's do it.
It's what they want.
It's what they love.
Let's go.
I dressed up in an inflatable
T-Rex costume
and walked the neighborhood
a couple of years ago.
People were
not a joke, people.
I think I almost caused
an accident.
People were stopping
dead in the street
just so they could
take a picture.
What I'm about
to share with you
next is is really not
Sunday service material.
I'll be honest, it's
more of a Thursday story,
so I'm going to share it.
A couple of weeks ago,
just think, Sunday
evening, Sunday evening,
Jamie's, cooking dinner,
playing with the girls
were being silly.
We got we got music on.
And at some point,
I decided it's a good idea
to play the Baywatch
theme song.
Anyone remember Baywatch?
Yeah.
Don't hassle the Hoff. Right.
Okay.
All right.
If you don't know Baywatch,
just understand that,
everything that follows
is the opposite
of what that show was.
Okay, in so many ways.
So I decided to be funny
to play
the Baywatch theme song.
And I'm slow motion
carrying my children
through the kitchen.
Right.
Just just trying to get there
laughing. Jamie's laughing.
Shaking her head,
she says offhandedly.
Well,
the only thing
that would make
this better is if you
did that in swim trunks.
Or you betcha.
You betcha.
We have a bay window.
Yeah,
you don't have to groan.
I mean, come on,
like I know what I did.
You don't need to.
So if you happen
to be walking by our house
a couple weeks ago
between like 515 and 530,
I am deeply sorry
to send your counseling
bill to me right?
It's nuts.
I know it's nuts,
but you know what I want?
What they want.
My wife, my kids.
I love what they love.
Some ways
I'm totally unlike myself
now because of them.
Open hands,
open hands.
That's the church at Antioch.
God, what you want?
We want what you love.
We're going to love, too.
And let me say this.
When your hands are open,
when your hands are open,
sometimes it means you're
letting go of stuff too,
right?
You know,
with my family, it's
a certain amount of freedom.
With kids, it's
definitely sleep.
Occasionally my self-respect.
But you know what?
My priorities have changed.
Same is true
when you have open hands
with God.
When your heart's been opened
and your hands are open.
It's not just how you think
and act.
It's how you spend your time,
your energy, your money.
It all changes.
Your hands are open.
Whatever you want.
God, I'm in.
I'm in.
By the way, it's
actually not a secret
what God wants here.
We don't have to wonder.
It's why
I read acts 18A
few moments ago.
What does God want?
He wants them
to be his witnesses
in Jerusalem,
all Judea and Samaria,
and to the end of the earth.
Church are
are we a church
of open hands?
Whatever you want,
whenever you want,
however you want.
Jesus, you have it.
I want what you want.
Do we love what God loves?
Do we love who God loves?
Are we an open handed church
key ingredient
in the mission of God
moving forward?
So if our hearts are open
and our hands are open,
what happens?
Well, what happened here
in acts
13, it's my final point.
The third ingredient.
Open doors, open hearts.
Lead open hands, open
hands lead to open doors.
This is what acts
13, two and three says.
While they were worshiping
the Lord and fasting,
the Holy Spirit said, set
apart for me
Barnabas and Saul
for the work
to which I have called them.
Then after
fasting and praying,
they laid their hands on them
and sent them off.
You see,
when our hearts and
our hands are open,
God opens doors.
That's what he did here.
And there are two things
I want to mention about this.
Two things. Number one.
Number one,
when it comes to open doors,
it's a wee thing,
not a meat thing
or a heath thing
or a sheep thing.
I know
that's a lot of pronouns, but
you need to hear me on this.
It's a wee thing
because sure,
sure, God
calls Paul and Barnabas.
To take the gospel
to the ends of the earth.
But it's the church
at Antioch
that he uses to do it.
It's the church.
The praise for them.
It's the church
that lays hands on them,
that commissions
them, that sends them.
So while Paul and Barnabas
are walking through
that open door,
the church,
in a very real way,
is walking through
that open door behind them.
It's a wee thing.
And just like behind Paul
and Barnabas was the church
in Antioch.
Truth is behind
every dynamite.
Senior pastor
and every dynamite
lead pastor.
Behind every Joe, behind
every Zach is a church.
It's a wee thing.
They'd be
the first to tell you that.
When God opens doors,
we walk through them
together.
That's the first thing.
Here's the second thing.
Seemingly small moments
can change the world.
Seemingly small moments
can change the world.
In this passage,
you have one church,
two missionaries,
and kind of a vague directive
to go.
And from that,
the launch of the
global church.
I don't believe this
church knew
what God was about to do.
But he's working
through these
seemingly regular people
in a seemingly small moment
to change the world.
And a
step of faith
with open hearts.
With open hands.
They walked through the door.
He opened.
Do you know what I love
maybe most about this passage
in the grand narrative
that God
is writing in the story
of the Bible?
Things like this
aren't the exception.
They're the rule.
Again and again and again.
God uses
seemingly regular people
in seemingly small moments
to absolutely change
the world.
With Abraham,
all the families of the earth
would be blessed.
He took David,
the runt of the litter.
A shepherd made him a king,
and from his lineage
came Jesus.
And from this church
at Antioch
we have the global church.
I asked you
at the beginning
of our time together,
if you'd consider saying yes
in 2025
to something
that would be transformative,
not just for you and for me,
but for the region
to have a far larger
impact.
Saying yes
to an open door.
Next week
we're going to start
a new message series.
And I don't think
I'm overstating this.
When I tell you
that we believe it's
one of the most
important series
we're ever going
to preach here,
because we believe
that God is up to big things
right here and right now,
that he's
using regular people
in seemingly small moments
to change the world.
Will that be us?
Will that be us?
I hope so.
Open hearts,
open hands.
Let's in 2025, let's commit
to walking through the door
that God opens
and inviting him
to use us
to change the world.
Would you pray with me?
Heavenly father,
as we sit here on
January 2nd, we don't
know what's coming tomorrow,
let alone
the balance of the year.
But I pray
for me
and for every
single person here
that our hands would be open,
and that when
you open a door,
we choose to walk through.
You have done so much for us,
shown us
that we can trust you,
help us to follow you
wherever you lead us.
We love you, Jesus.
It's in
your name that we pray.
Amen.