Worship Together: Acts 2:43 (Mike Baker)

What is Salt + Light Fort Worth?

Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.

https://www.saltandlightfw.com/

I wanna thank the leadership
team for giving me this

opportunity and, uh, to speak.

And it's always, uh, dangerous when
a preacher who preached every week,

every Sunday, doesn't preach for months
and months and months and months.

So y- y- you kind of store up.

So I hope you brought your lunch.

Anyway, anyway.

So, uh, let's pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, and fill our hearts,
our minds, our spirits this day.

Come, Holy Spirit, and fill us,
uh, with your presence, your power.

And Lord, I pray that you would fill my
words with power from the Holy Spirit.

And if there's anything I've written
or thought about that, uh, you'd

rather say something different, then
I'll scrap mine and go with you.

So I am open to your Spirit, open
to what you have to say to us today,

'cause we're here to lift up Jesus.

We ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

Okay, has everybody turned their
phones on the s- the ringers off?

I keep giving-- getting a call.

Must have a friend in Nigeria.

They keep calling me
and- … wanting to talk.

So anyway, these are
amazing things, you know?

Amazing.

Somebody somewhere, some really smart
people, had a concept of the cellphone.

Somebody.

A bunch of people probably.

And then there was a group of people
who were also very wonderful and

very, very experienced craftspeople to
produce this product, to make this, you

know, this concept become a reality.

But you know, there's a small part in this
Apple phone, we're an Apple family so if

you're other folks, it works for you too.

There's a small part in
here that Apple didn't make.

It's the battery

And this wonderful concept, this wonderful
physical fabrication of this phone would

be absolutely useless without the battery.

It's what turns this thing on.

It's what makes it comes to life.

It's what makes it function to do
the things that it's able to do.

And it's amazing to me, my
father worked for NASA, you

know, the first lunar landing.

We have more computing power in our
phones than they had in the entire

thing, you know, the entire spacecraft,
or NASA that, for that matter.

They're amazing, but they
wouldn't work without the battery

and the energy of that battery

You know, the-- We've, we've
kind of camped out in Acts two,

but I wanna back up to Acts one.

I know, here he goes.

We're gonna go to Acts one.

There's a real difference between
Acts one church and Acts two church.

Have you noticed that difference?

You might go back and read
the whole thing and see.

Acts one, Jesus said that God's
gonna br- send you his promise.

Most of the disciples probably didn't
have a clue what that promise was.

And really-- And none of them had
a clue how it really turned out.

But they just knew that Jesus promised
them that the God was gonna visit them

So what did the Acts 1 church?

Well, they do what we most churches do.

We've always had 12 apostles.

We, we only have 11 now.

What are we gonna do?

Oh, let's have an election
so we can get a 12th one.

They were concerned about
getting back to the original 12.

They're Jewish.

They, you know, 12 is an important
number to the Jewish people.

And so the church spent its
effort getting back to 12.

And then Acts 2 hits, and the
Holy Spirit comes, and everybody

is filled with the Spirit.

The disciples that were with Jesus,
other men, women, other people

who were there, they all were f-
were touched by the Holy Spirit.

They all began to, uh, be able to
do the things that Joel promised,

to dream dreams, to, you know,
to have a new experience in life.

So the church was a wonderful concept.

It was wonderful in its, uh, p- you
know, gathering the people together.

But it was only until the Holy Spirit
came that they really could become church.

You know, we've been reading that
they devoted themselves to the

apostles' teaching, to fellowship,
the breaking of bread and prayers.

There would've been no devotion to
those things without the Holy Spirit.

They were a scared bunch of guys hanging
out in an upper room trying to avoid

Romans and the Jewish authorities.

That's what they were in Acts 1.

But then the Holy Spirit comes, this new
presence of God that they've never known

before, and now they're in the streets.

It's what energized the church.

That's what gave them the
ability to be devoted.

They weren't devoted before.

They were scared They weren't
telling people about the teachings

of Jesus before the Spirit came.

They did that after the Spirit came.

They weren't breaking bread.

They weren't in fellowship.

They weren't pr- they probably were
saying their prayers just to stay alive.

But it wasn't until the Spirit came that
all of a sudden the church went from

being a wonderful concept, a wonderful
fabrication of people, gathering

of people, that exploded to become
something so much more, that it began…

It started a movement to change the world.

And all of a sudden there are
just thousands of people wanting

to join this, this new movement.

So that's what I want us to think
about is, who is this Holy Spirit?

We've been running the Alpha
course now, I think we're about

week six, seven, somewhere.

Six, seven, I shouldn't say
that with the kids around.

But anyway.

My grandson loves that.

So anyway, hopefully he's growing
out of that, that, that idea.

But anyway, we've been doing it six
or seven weeks, somewhere along there.

And, uh, the, it's-- The Alpha
is really just a basic kind of

talking about the Christian faith,
you know, what do we believe.

Tonight we're doing, how does God
guide us, is the topic for tonight.

But about a third of the course, out
of the 15 videos, five of them are all

about the Holy Spirit, because the Holy
Spirit probably of the Trinity is the

least understood by the majority of us.

Now, if you were raised in a Pentecostal
church or Assembly of God church

or maybe a Church of God, you know
a lot more about the Holy Spirit.

You've experienced the Holy Spirit
a lot more than, than typical

mainline, you know, denominations.

So about a third of this course is all
about the Holy Spirit, because it's the

Holy Spirit that turns the church from
being just a, a nice group of people

into something dynamic, can change
the world, turn the world upside down.

It's only by the Holy Spirit.

We run out of our ingenuity and our
talents and our gifts real quickly

And we l- need to learn to be
dependent upon the Spirit of God,

the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

So we're gonna watch a clip.

I'm told it's not short, but anyway,
it's a, it's a, it's a good clip.

Let's watch this clip together.

I came to faith in Jesus about at s- age
16 and I was, you know, really excited.

A bunch of people had been praying for
me that, you know, that I would walk

down the aisle, I was raised in the
Baptist Church, walk down the aisle and

get saved and all that kind of thing.

And so I did that.

Everybody was all excited.

So I remember at a talk, I don't know
if it was a youth group or church or

whatever, somebody said that there
was a book in the Bible that talked

about what the early church was like.

And said it was the Book of Acts.

And so I said, "Great, I'm gonna get
this, you know, and start reading."

So I read through Acts and I was pumped.

And I'm telling you, people were
being healed, people were being

raised from the dead, people were
just doing all kinds of stuff.

People were, were being devoted
to the apostles' teaching.

They were being devoted to caring for,
for each other and sharing meals together.

I was excited.

So I went to the Baptist preacher
and said, "Man, this is exciting.

Can you, can you, uh, you know, where,
where are we doing this, this praying

for people and people getting healed?"

He said, "Oh, we don't do that anymore."

I said, "What?"

He said, "No, we, we
don't, we don't do that."

He said, "That happened back during
the, the, you know, the disciples'

time, but we don't do that, you
know, in the current church.

In the modern church w- we don't…

So we pray for people to be healed,
but, you know, but, but tho-

those miraculous things, those awe
and wonder things that we saw in

Acts, that happened way back then.

It doesn't happen now."

And I was one disappointed 16-year-old.

I wanted to be part of a
church that made a difference.

I wanted to be part of a
church that actually prayed

for people and saw them healed.

I-- That's the church I
wanted to be a part of.

And so I was really disillusioned.

And after Kim and I got married,
we visited some different churches,

and we ended up in the Episcopal
Church, which I know doesn't seem

like a real spirit-filled church.

But anyway, we, we ended up in the
Episcopal Church, and all the prayers

were in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I said, "Well, at least they're
mentioning the Holy Spirit."

And so eventually I was ordained
in the Episcopal Church.

And I'll let you know right
up front, l- let you know who

you're, who you're listening to.

I don't speak Greek or Hebrew.

I can't read Greek or Hebrew either.

I know a few little words here and there,
but I'm not the learned theologian.

But let me tell you the experience
I've had with the Holy Spirit.

Like Paul says, "I wanna pass
on to you what I have received."

And it…

I could give you a variety of, uh,
examples, but, but I just wanna share one.

We started a church.

I was a church planter.

You know, God gave me the
gift of attention deficit.

I know you guys see that as a
liability, but that's my spiritual gift.

And so he gave me this gift,
and I love to gather people.

I love to gather people who
are not part of a church into a

church to become, become church.

That's just who I am.

That's just my heart.

And so we, we were s- we're
starting a church in Sugar Land.

We were meeting in Clements High School.

It's a shame Allison's
not here this morning.

She, she went to the other school,
uh, i- there in Sugar Land.

And so we, we, we gathered in, in…

We called it St.

Clements.

It was Clements High
School, but we called it St.

Clements in, in Sugar Land.

And so we had this church, a
group of people there, and we, you

know, gathered on Sunday mornings.

There was a family, a man and a woman, who
had once been a part of the congregation.

They moved to Arkansas.

And about a year later, she called
me and said, "Well, we're coming to

Houston because I've been diagnosed
with a brain tumor, and so we're coming.

We're gonna come to church on Sunday, and
then I'm going to MD Anderson on Monday."

And I said, "Okay."

And she said, "Would you
add me to the prayer list?"

And I said, "Sure, we'll
add you to the prayer list."

And in our tradition, and in that
tradition, we had a list of prayers

that we pray for people every week,
and so I put her on the prayers.

And if somebody wants to
do that, that'd be great.

And if you've got some condition going on
that you wanna be prayed for, let us know.

You know, we're a family.

We're a family, so we can be
open and pray for each other.

So as they p- you know, play, if
you wanna pray, or if you wanna have

somebody lay hands on you and pray for
you, or if you don't want anybody to

lay hands on you, that's okay, too.

But if you want somebody to pray for
a particular situation, let us know.

Hold up your hand, let us…

If there's anything going on Yeah.

Healing m- m- many, many times we,
we pray for healing and it doesn't

turn out the way we think that
healing should be, and it's…

I, I've seen people die rather
than getting better, you know?

And, and in God's wisdom,
maybe death was the healing.

I mean, I don't know.

So it's, it's, it's, uh, it's frustrating.

It's frustrating and, and it can
really trigger a lot of unbelief.

Um, but we keep praying
'cause God told us to pray.

And it's not based on us, you know?

And it's not based on
the person, you know?

A- and I wanna hear the…

'Cause I've, I've seen some real harmful
things done in churches where people say,

"Well, you just didn't have enough faith.

That's the reason you didn't get better."

That is not true.

That is not true.

The Holy Spirit can, you know,
can heal people who, who don't

even believe in J- God yet.

Yet.

So it's not up to the person, it's
not up to the prayer, you know?

It's just, it's, it's in God's hands.

But the Holy Spirit can do it.

So would you like to
pray for the Holy Spirit?

Pray for your unbelief.

Brian, you wanna join me?

Yeah.

Yeah, I was at a conference one time,
well just, I was at a conference

one time and a guy came up and
said, "Would you pray for me?

My, my back is just killing me.

I, I can't, can't walk, can't sit."

And I said, "Sure, I'll pray for you."

And I prayed for him.

I avoided him for most of the
conference 'cause I didn't wanna

have him tell me it didn't work.

I said, "I know I prayed for him, but
I'm so embarrassed that, you know,

he probably didn't get better and
it, I probably messed up something."

And so finally at the end
of the conference he said,

"I'm so glad to find you."

He said, "My back is wonderful.

I feel great."

It was my unbelief.

I didn't believe it, it could do it.

Yet God did it anyway,
so it's unbelievable.

So we're all in this thing
together, unbelief and belief.

Uh, that's the reason when
we say the Creed, it's we…

I, I like the version "we believe" because
on that particular Sunday I may not, but I

know we do, and I like the, I like the we.

Yep.

Uh, T- Terry and I have
been around the longest

And, uh, at least in this congregation.

Um, and I have never
experienced- I'm longer than you.

Do what?

I'm longer than you.

Yeah, longer than me.

But I have never experienced this
much anxiety, and toil, and craziness

in the world in, in my lifetime.

Now, maybe that's just my particular
section of where I, you know,

was privileged to live, but I
have never seen such chaos in my

li- in my life, worldwide chaos.

So believe it or not, we
were born after World War II.

But anyway.

So I have never seen so much
chaos, and I have heard the word

anxiety in this congregation,
it seems like everything I read.

We are living in anxious, anxious times,
and things are just out of control.

If w- if we could use God, if
God wants to come back, this

would be a great time to do it.

Come Lord Jesus.

Come Lord Jesus.

I tell you what, uh, 'cause it's, these
are anxious times and I, and I, and I

understand what you're saying, and I
feel what you're, what you're feeling.

I have never felt this much anxiety and
it's almost like I'm being oppressed.

Like, it's like I can't breathe sometimes.

It's like it's just s- suffocating us.

So I'm gonna pray and then if
you guys wanna join in about this

whole topic, then feel free to.

We pray that, that God, by His Spirit,
that, that we truly can become salt

and light to, in our homes and in our
community and in this world, that we

become the salt and light to the world.

So one of the things that Jesus did before
He ascended to the Father is He gathered

with His disciples to break bread.

And many times when we say communion
words, we, we, we go back and read

what Scripture says the night before
He was, you know, uh, uh, crucified,

that He took bread and He said, "This
is my body," and He t- you know, took

a cup and said, "This is my blood."

But in addition to those things, in the
tradition that I've been educated in

always ask us to ask the Holy Spirit
to empower that matzah, to empower

that wine, that juice, not just to be
crackers and j- liquid, but to actually

be the body and blood of Christ.

And that through those things, through
those elements, we would have communion

with Him and communion with each other.

And so that's what we're about to do.

If you will please come up and pick
up a piece of matzah or a piece…

And then we have the lighter is
the juice and the darker is wine.

So please come up and do that.

So it was the night before
Jesus was crucified.

He gathered his closest followers, men
and women, in that upper room, and he took

bread, which was the custom of the Jewish,
and he gave thanks to God for the bread

as he had at every meal they'd ever had.

But this time he said, "This
piece of bread represents my

body, my sacrifice for you.

You don't understand what's
going on now, but you will."

And he said, "And the cup…"

He took the cup and he said,
"This cup is the cup of my blood."

Again, "You don't understand
what this means, but you will."

And so he took these things and he said,
"I want you to do this until I return."

So we are empowered by the
Spirit to take this bread.

It's no longer just, uh,
matzah and wine or juice.

It's the body and blood of Christ.

Let us take, take it together.

God, we ask everything that we have talked
about today in the name of the Father,

the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen