All In - Our Purpose - Acts 4:23–31

Listen, I want you to go with me for just a second. Instead of being right now here about 9:30 in the morning, I want you to go to me tomorrow night, Monday night. um let's go a few hours before kickoff between the Broncos and the Chiefs and um Sean Peyton's got the team all around and he's about to give the big let's we can do this and we can win this game and we can take him all the way to the Super Bowl speech and all of a sudden some little 19-year-old boy comes up to him and say, "Excuse me, sir. Coach, we have a problem. We forgot the water bottles. They're back in Denver." Now, you probably wouldn't want to be in the room when that happened. When when when the coach is hearing that news, but it doesn't stop there. And all of a sudden, someone else walks up and says, "Um, we got a bigger problem. We left the jerseys back in Denver. Somebody was supposed to bring the jerseys and we don't." And then by that time, someone else walks to him going, "Well, we may have a bigger problem than that." You know, our quarterback, he missed the plane. Okay. Now, you can imagine there is consternation. There is uproar. There is tension in that room because here's what they know. If the Broncos are going to make it to the Super Bowl, everybody has to be allin, don't they? Like even though you for sure know the quarterback has to be allin, but you also need to know that the water boy and the uniform person, everybody that has a part in this whole season, they have to be allin. Now, you may be asking the question, "So, are we going to have a sermon about the Broncos today?" Okay, is that all we're going to talk about? No, we're not going to talk about the Broncos, but we're going to talk about this all this idea of all-in. And we're starting a brand new series called All-In. And it is not about football. It is about the New Testament church. You see, the football, every team that's kicking off today has the aspirations of going to the Super Bowl. But when it comes to the church, when Jesus talked about the church and and it spelled out in the New Testament, there was this idea that everybody would be allin and it wasn't about winning a Super Bowl. It was about changing the world with the message of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. And here's what I'm afraid that if you went across America today, including South Sub Church, and you asked the question, are you allin and what are your aspirations? Here's what I'm afraid the answer would be from us and many other churches. It'd be kind of like the pastor wearing a split jersey. We're sort of kind of allin, but we're not completely allin. Like we're in on Sunday mornings from 9:00 to 10:00, but Mondays comes in the way. Monday comes around and things that get in our way and Tuesday comes around and we get busy with something else and we live a life that the resurrection of Jesus is not part of our life or he's a part of our life but not all of our life. In fact, I would go far to say this. If we did a poll amongst churches in America, South Subchurch included, and we asked the question, "What are the aspirations of your church?" We might hear things like, "Oh, we have great aspirations. They're all about Jesus. We want to meet the budget. We've got the aspiration that we want to try to increase attendance. We've got aspirations that we're trying to keep everyone happy, that we're trying to protect people's preferences." The list goes down, right? Continues to go on. We want to have a great worship service. We want to improve our building. And we have all these aspirations. And there is nothing wrong with any of those aspirations. Those are part of conversations that we have around here all the time. But when it comes to the aspiration that Jesus had for the church in the New Testament when it began and still the aspiration it has for us today, it has nothing to do with any of those things. You see, somehow we've lost along the way that Jesus established his church simply for it to survive. Like if we meet the budget, we're surviving and that's a good church, right? Or maybe we've had the idea that Jesus created a church and established church, the church to satisfy us. How many people have gone to one church going, "Well, that no longer satisfies me, so I'm going to go to another church." And it's all about our satisfaction. But what we learned from the New Testament church, it was never about a person's satisfaction. It was never just simply about surviving. It was a group of people that came together and said, "The resurrection, the story, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so lifechanging, we have no choice but to get the word out." And so, we're going to begin this new series today, and we're going to run it for five weeks. And the series is called Allin. And here's what we're doing in the series. We're going to take a look in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 4 and Acts chapter 5. And we're going to discover together what the New Testament church was really all about. And what we're going to find out is what they were all about is they were all in. And the reason church that I felt so called that we need to study this passage together is this is that I hope through this study that we will take a look at the New Testament church that Jesus created. We will look at South Sub Church, a church that God created, and compare those together and see how much we're really like the church that God intended. Now, I'm going be honest with you. I think this particular series may be one of those series that we kind of call a little toe stepping. Do you know what I mean by that? It's the kind of series that when I preach, you're not going to say amen. You're going to say ouch more often. But here's why I think it's so important for you to get it. Because if my toes are getting stepped on by God throughout the week when I study, then your toes ought to get stepped on, too. And so, if you have your Bibles, if you'll turn with me to Luke chapter, I'm sorry, not Luke, but Acts chapter 4. And we're going to begin there in Acts 4:23. And let me give you just a quick rundown of what's taking place before we get to this point. The book of Acts is really the recording of the New Testament church. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospels, they record up to the point that Jesus was crucified. And then when Luke writes the book of Acts, he's saying here's kind of part two of what the life of Jesus is after he went ascended up into heaven. And so if you read the first couple of chapter of Acts, here's what you'll find out that Jesus had spent 40 days on earth. And he he wandered and he was with and he spent time with different people, his disciples and his followers. And so he was kind of setting up this whole idea of what the church would be. And then after 40 days, he ascended up in heaven. And that's if you read in chapter 2, that's when the day of Pentecost came. And the Holy Spirit, which was God's presence, came on everybody. And what you find out when God's spirit came on everybody, it empowered them. It emboldened them to share the message of Jesus to everybody. And so in chapter 3 and chapter four, there's this one particular instance where Peter and John, two of the disciples, they were out preaching and the religious leaders didn't like it. And so they had them arrested and they they accused them and they beat them and they gave them all these mandates. They said, "Here's the deal. we're going to let you go because if we don't there's going to be a riot that's been caused because the people want to hear you but don't you ever share about Jesus ever ever again. And so they released these two disciples to the people and said sh don't ever say another word about Jesus. And so we read here in chapter 4 chapter 4 23 this is the two men coming Peter and John coming back to their fellow Christians. And read with me what it says there. As soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said. And when they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God. And this is what they prayed. Oh Lord, creator of heaven and earth, creator of heaven and earth and of the sea and everything in them, you spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor, King David, your servant. And this is what you said. Why do the heathen raid rave rage against the Lord and the foolish nations plan their plots against the almighty God? The kings of the earth unite to fight against him and against the anointed son of God. And that oh Lord is what is happening here in our city today. For Herod the king and Pontius Pilate the governor and all the Romans as well as all the people of Israel. They're united against Jesus. They prayed. your anointed son, your holy servant." And they cried out, "They won't stop at anything that that you in your wise power will let them do." And then verse 29, "And now, oh Lord, hear their threats and give us your servants, your boldness in preaching your word. Stretch out your hand with healing power. May miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant." And after this prayer, the meeting place where they were at shook and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And then they preached the word of God with boldness. Let me ask you a question. When's the last time you gathered together in church and you prayed with the believers and the building shook with the power of God? Now, I want you to think about this for a second. Monday night or today at any NFL stadium across America, the building, the arena, the stadium will shake because people will stop start stomping their feet. They will start yelling, screaming and you will really feel like that environment is shaking. But how many times most times we gather together in the name of Jesus and the only time we shake is if somebody turns the air conditioner control a little bit too low for your liking. Are you with me? Yet, we're reading this account. We're reading this story in the New Testament. And they said this when all the people, all the believers got together and they prayed, it said the building just shook. And so, it makes me ask the question, why? Why did they get to shake and we don't? Why why did their buildings shake and ours doesn't? Maybe because they did communion the way everyone wanted. Maybe they chose the right songs.

Maybe they had the temperature in the room at the right level. I'm being a little sarcastic. Can you feel my sarcasm right then? No. It had nothing about those things that when we come to church on a Sunday morning that so many times our focus and attention is on, it had to be about something else. Something was going on amongst them. Something was going on in them. Something was moving through them that made the building shake that day. And so, here's what I want to do for our last minutes together. I think there's four things that we can identify, that we can discover in this story that we just read together today that will give us a clue. What made that church different than our church? Now, hear my heart. When I say our church, I could use our church like every church in America, but we're not concerned with every church in America, are we? What our heart and our passion and our focus is on is South Subchurch. So, why did that church 2,000 years ago shake? And South Sub Church doesn't shake when we meet together. Here's the first thing I would say. If you're taking notes, I would say this. I think it's very obvious. They were united. Okay? They were a group of people that though they were many, they were one. In fact, look with me again at verse 24. And this is what it says. When they, and again, they're talking about all the people that are gathered in the room together, the church that was gathered, when they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer. If you circle things in the outline of your or your own Bible, would you circle that word all? That is key to everything that we're going to learn and discover. over these next few weeks as we look at the beginning of the New Testament church. It was all you see that word speaks to more than the physical count of the people in the room. That word all spoke to their involvement. You see, you have this idea that they sat down, they prayed together, and it's not like they're all kind of sitting there checking their watch and maybe somebody's looking the phone and checking the school over here and somebody stands on the platform and prayed. The sense that you get when you read the story, this account there in the book of Acts is that they all prayed together. While one might be voicing it, every one of their hearts was connected with it. This wasn't a leader and followers, they were all participating together. There were no spectators. Prayer wasn't left to just a few. And they were doing more than propping up their leaders. They were all equal in their participation. And you can travel to any church in America right now and there's this rule called the 8020 rule. You ever heard that rule in churches before that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Now you say that and you if someone never heard of church before and church is supposed to be this all-in type of thing and you heard that for the first time you're going what what kind of church is that? But I want you to know that 8020 rule doesn't surprise any church in America. that 20% of the people will do 80% of the work. That is exactly opposite of what was going on in this encount. Let me give you example here in just a week or two. You're going to be hearing the trunk or treat trunk or treat announcements. And that's the time that we do this outreach for our community. We're going to be asking for candy. We're going to be asking for volunteers. We're going to be asking for trunks. And here's the deal. We are going to promote that to over 400 people that call South Sub Church their home. If I look at it historically, do you know how many people will volunteer to help? About 80 people. I'm not very good at math, but you know what the percentage of that is? That's about an 8020 rule. And I could look at that through trunk or treat. We could look at that through the need of volunteers on Sunday morning from the coffee cafe to the kids ministry. We could look at the finances of the church. And I guarantee that 20% of the people finance everything that takes place generositywise in this church. Now hear me church. This is not your pastor up here going shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. This is your pastor up here going, "When I read the account of the New Testament church and the building shook because of the power of Jesus, here's where I'm at in my life. I don't want to spend the next 10 years of my life leading a church that we just settle for the leftover crumbs of what the Holy Spirit has for us. That what we read about in the New Testament in Acts is not something we're trying to duplicate, but the power and the intention and what God want to do is as real today as it was back then. But we settle for just going to church instead of actively participating and being the church. That was a difference in the New Testament church then to the church that we call South Chub Church today. They were united and they were all in. The mission of Jesus was never intended to be served, funded and carried out by a faithful few. It belongs to all of us.

The Broncos are going to march their way trying to get to the Super Bowl. And it is not reserved for a few star players. It is for every single player, every single water boy, every single uniform person, every single person in organization. Everyone has to be allin. And we expect it for a football team, but we stopped expecting it for the church. So the first thing, why' the building shake? Because they were united. Here's the second thing. If you're taking notes, they made the focus about Jesus. That whole prayer meeting, that whole moment was not about themselves. It was not about the persecution they were facing. It is not what might be up in front of them. It was solely all about Jesus. You see, for many of us, our life, I compared to this like a cherry pie. You take a cherry pie and there's different pieces. Maybe you might find eight pieces in that cherry pie, right? in the my life. Piece of that pie would might be my vocation. A piece of that pie might be my family life. Another piece of that pie might be the hobbies and the things I like to do in my free time. And then we have a piece of that pie that's our spiritual life. And so what we've done is we've taken our lives and we've divided up like a big pie cherry pie and we've got the different pieces and we fit God into one of those pieces. Here's what we need to understand. That God was never intended to be a piece of our life. If it's a cherry pie, he should be all the cherries that fills every piece of the pie in our lives. And that's what the New Testament understood and realized that Jesus was the center of their lives. He was more than the center of their lives. He was the cherries and the pie of their life. It shaped their conversations. Jesus shaped their courage. He shaped their prayers. He shaped their finances. And this, my friends, is where we struggle, isn't it? We love Jesus. And I want Jesus to be a part of my life. I just hesitate making him all of my life.

And what gave the New Testament church the power that gave them the power as they as they focused on all that was going, they made Jesus Christ the focus of everything they did instead of an afterthought of or a piece of most of what they do. Let me give you another comparison. What gave the New Testament church in Acts this power that they experienced that we may not experience today? If you're writing things down, you can write this third one down. They chose purpose over comfort. The followers of Jesus in the New Testament days, they chose purpose over comfort. Now, to understand this, you have to go back a little bit. Okay? This is the early days. The New Testament church is being created. God is pulling all the people together and there's great persecution taking place. like no one no one's on the sideline going let's throw a ticker tape parade for all those Jesus followers they are facing persecution from the religious officials there's some persecution still going on from the Romans it is not a peaceful wonderful place to be a Christian at that time [snorts] but during this time that the new church church is being just identified and the new church is being just erected Jesus came to him in Acts chapter 1 vers8 he said this and you will be my witnesses telling people everywhere about me. And so he showed up to the followers and he said, "Guys, I'm going to kind of point you in the right direction. I'm going to do more than just point you in the right direction. I'm going to give you your purpose in life. This is not some things you ought to think about to add to your life." He goes, "Let me give you your purpose of your life. And your purpose is you are to be my witnesses. And your job is to let other people know who I am as a resurrected savior." It was the same instructions that he had given his disciples earlier on in chapter in Matthew chapter 28 when he said this. Therefore, and go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Here's what we have to realize. When Jesus gave these instructions both in Matthew and in Acts, listen to me. They were never meant by Jesus to be a suggestion. They were a command. They were never meant to be a suggestion. They were always supposed to be a command. And so when these followers in Acts chapter 4, they heard this, they took it for real. I mean, they're going, "Okay, we got you." Like, we have no choice. This is not something we do in our spare time. This is our time. This is what we do when we go to work. This is what we do when we go with our family. This is what we do when we go in the marketplace. We get the charge. We know what we're supposed to do. And they're in this moment that they're being threatened. And remember, Peter, John had just come out of prison. They had just got tired or just got being finished being beaten and being threatened. And they were sent back out. So if the Roman officials and the religious officials did this to Peter and John, surely they would do it to anybody else that spoke about Jesus. And so they all got together for this little prayer meeting. Now, can I just be totally confessional to you right now? If I'm in that prayer meeting at that moment and my two good buddies, my two followers just went through what they went through, put in p in prison and beaten and they're coming and I may have the same thing for following Jesus. Guess what my prayer would sound like? Oh dear Lord, will you keep me safe? Oh dear God, is it your will that I move someplace else where I don't have to worry about this conflict? Oh dear God, help me to pray for all these people. maybe not speak about you cuz we know what's going to happen to you if I do that. What happen to me if I do that? But so God just and I would pray, watch this. I would pray this amazing, beautiful spiritual bubble of protection around my life. Because following Jesus is never supposed to cost me that much. Following Jesus is not supposed to cost me having to go to jail. Following Jesus is not supposed to cause me being persecuted. And we know this. Following Jesus is never supposed to cause me physical pain. Following Jesus is supposed to be in our western culture, we know this. It's kind of like the cherry on the top. It just makes my life easier.

Are you with me, church? This was not their mentality 2,000 years ago. When they prayed that prayer, they understood that they were not praying about comfort. They were praying about purpose. And my confession is this. I am really easy to give up a little bit of purpose. It gives if it gives me more comfort. And then I ask the question, and dear God, why doesn't the building shake when we come on a Sunday morning? because [snorts] we're more focused and concerned about our comfort than we are focused and concerned about the purpose of God in our lives.

When Jesus gave the instructions to go into all the world and teach and preach, when he said, "Go into the world and share with anybody and everybody," that wasn't a dated instruction. That was an eternal command. That wasn't something for the Christians a long time ago. That is for all Christians even today.

But yet, can we all agree that sometimes too many times our comfort is more of a priority than the commands of Jesus?

They could have prayed for the threats to stop. They could have prayed for their opponents to be silenced. They could have prayed for their circumstances to become safer. They could have prayed for an easier assignment. but instead they prayed that they would be committed to the purpose. That's why their building shook. Let me give you the last one. The last one, just as I compare churches today, including South Sub Church and the church then, why why did they experience God? What was going on? They were all in. And so, here's what it meant to be allin. Here's the fourth one. If you're writing this down, they anticipated God to move. They anticipated God to move. Let me read. Look at with me on verse 29 again. At the conclusion of their prayer, they prayed, "And now, oh Lord." Now, now watch me. Stay with me on this one. The conclusion of their prayer when they said, "Now, O Lord," here's what they're kind of setting it up. And now God, it's your turn to do something. And now God, we're going to sit back and wait for you. And now, God, we're going to be watching because And now, God, it's your turn to move. Because they went on to say, "And now, oh Lord, hear their threats and give us your servants great boldness in preaching your word. Not safety in what we do, not comfort in how we live our life. But now, oh God, give us great boldness in sharing your word. Stretch out your hand with healing power. May miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of the Holy Spirit. They weren't gathering just to check it off and say, "We're a good family. We went to church." They were gathering because they expected God to move. They weren't gathering watching their watch the whole time to see if it's almost over with. They were gathering the whole time to watching to see what God was going to do. When they gathered together, there was anticipation. Now, watch this. That the room would shake. Now, when I say that, I don't think they knew that the room was going to shake. I don't know if the room actually shook and it felt like a tremor or just God's spirit was so there, so real there they just could sense his spirit. I'm not even saying every time we get we ought to see miracles. Here's what I do believe. this that every time that we gather together, the reason we don't experience God more is because we don't expect God more. My expectations, your expectations is not because we get to control God. God is God and can do whatever he want to, whenever he wants to, however he wants to. But [snorts] could it be that my expectations, my anticipation of what God might want to do clouds my eyes that I never see what he wants to do? Are you with me, church? Do we really come to church anticipating to be in the presence of God? Do we really come to church anticipating to experience the fullness of his spirit amongst us?

my confession as your pastor. I don't always do that. I mean, I come to church excited every Sunday. Saturday night's kind of my getting ready and I'm looking over the notes some and kind of relaxing, getting ready. I get up early and every Sunday I'm excited about coming on Sundays. Most Sundays I'm excited about coming on Sundays.

But I have to ask myself the question.

Do I anticipate God's presence being here? Or when I get here and the service starts at 9, am I looking for it as much at noon when things are done so I can go home and check it off the box? Are you with me, church? Now, hear me. When when I started this this sermon today, this series is not about shaking the finger. Church, you got to do better. It is not about shaking the finger going, "Come on, we got to get it together." Here's what it's about, church. Raising our hands and crying out, "Oh, God, we want more." That's what it's about.

It's about raising our hands and saying, "God, we want more of you. More of you to be in us so more of you can flow out of us so the world will know who you are. It's more about not coming to church. It is about being the church. Can I go back with fun with my jersey?" Okay, y'all failed. Okay. like you were supposed to boo and hiss that I'm split and I'm half in and half out and y'all all acted like nice little sweet Christians. Oh, you can be whatever you want to. I still say you're a bunch of liars. You don't go home and say that about me when you get home about my jersey. Or maybe it's okay. Maybe it's okay for a person in Bronco country to have one foot in and one foot out to be sort of here and sort of there. Maybe our society says it's okay if you're not allin because maybe that's the temperature of our society. Whether you're talking about football, whether you're talking about a kid in his grades, maybe you're talking about a spouse in a marriage. We just kind of got to the point in our lives. It's okay not to be allin. Listen to me. If we as a church agree it's okay not to be allin in our walk in love and relationship with Jesus, the building will never shake.

But if we come and we say we want to be different.

I love my job.

I love this church.

I love being in ministry. God called me to ministry. when I was 16 or 13 years old. I want to do ministry until I grow old. But listen to me. Can I tell you the heart of your pastor?

I want to be a part of a church that the building shakes.

I don't want to do religious stuff for the next 10 years of my life.

I dream of us being a church that we're so allin. All in in our relationship with Jesus. All in in our passion for him. All in in what we do that it so comes in us and out of us that we [music] make a difference in the world that we live in. difference in families, difference in [music] marriages, difference in social life, difference in middle school and high school's lives. You name it, divide that we make a difference [music] because we're allin. And so these next five weeks, we're going to be discovering what it looks like to be allin. And today is the beginning of taking [music] scripture and using it to examine our own lives. Will you pray with me? And so, Father, we come before you now and we're not all that we should be. God, I'm thankful that you're not up there and just shaming us and you're not up in heaven and you're just screaming in heaven your disappointment. God, you're in heaven with your grace, but may we never be just an abuser of your grace. And so, we come before you as a church and we come before you as individuals today and Jesus, would you forgive us when it's more about us than it is about you? But we cry out as they cried out two 2,000 years ago, may we, oh God, would you embolden us? [music] Would you pour in us that we will about be about you that we're all in? God, would you lead us as a church? And we pray this in your name. Amen.