As we begin the year, we’re going to be walking through Acts 1-15 together. We’re going to see God take this group of folks that was cowering in a dark room after Jesus Crucifixion and grow them into this big, bold, multi-national, multi-cultural group of Jesus like people. I know that maybe the more official title of this book is the Acts of the Apostles, but I think a more descriptive title of the book would be the Acts of the Holy Spirit.
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In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:1-8
It’s the first week in January… This is the time of year where we all put our heads together to come up with a plan for how we’ll improve ourselves, how we’ll boost profits, how we’ll fix our businesses, our relationships, our churches. Because there’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of things to get done. There’s a lot of projects to get the ball rolling on, all that stuff when we said “we’ll circle back on this in the New Year” well now it’s time to start doing that thing we said we were going to do.
I personally have never been much for resolutions. I normally start well on January 2nd because I never know what I’m resolving to do until January 2nd, its not something I put thought to before then. And then I do really well for about 3 days. Then the 4th day I miss. Something comes up, and that thing that I was planning to do gets pushed aside for something more pressing or at least that’s what I tell myself. But I come back on day 5 ready to rock. Then two weeks later, that thing that I had resolved to do, I’ve totally moved on from.
And that frustrates me because every day all year long I see people sharing their wins. All this stuff that they’ve done and accomplished. Our culture values starting, going, trying, overcoming, succeeding, winning, to put it simply: doing. These values instilled in us from the time we are children: work hard, come up with solutions, if we’re not winning, we’re not trying hard enough.
And so, when something isn’t working. We try harder. We brainstorm. We spend more and more time trying to fix what it broken.
Our churches are not exempt from this. We’re not the only folks who come on Sundays and remember a time in our lives when there was more people in the room with us on Sundays. It’s happening all throughout our country. Each day we become a more secular society. And no political power grab is going to reverse that trend. And its not that our programs aren’t good enough. It’s not that churches aren’t doing enough things. Church growth strategies and church consultants are not the hope of the world. Even still in 2025 America, Jesus is the hope of the world.
We can’t try and do ourselves into going where God wants us to go. And this frustrates me and maybe you too.
In these first few verses of Acts, we see Jesus give a holy command to his disciples. And it’s not to scheme and plot how they’re going to grow church attendance. It’s not to go out and try really hard to win the approval of folks in town. Jesus tells them to wait. Wait expectantly for the Holy Spirit to move and when it comes, go where it’s taking you.
They’ve just been with Jesus for three years, walking with him, talking with him, seeing God work in mighty ways, and yet according to Jesus, they still need to wait. They need guidance from a source outside of themselves. Jesus knows that this new Kingdom He’s come to bring about is only possible with divine intervention and leadership. So he doesn’t take this time to give them a pep talk. He’s not saying you guys got this now that I’m leaving. He’s saying wait for more guidance. The Holy Spirit will lead you where you need to go.
There’s a book I got into last year titled, When Church Stops Working, it talks a lot about this problem that churches are facing as we move into a more secular time. Here’s a passage that connects with what we’re talking about today:
“In Acts 1:4 we read that the first command Jesus gives the disciples is “not to leave Jerusalem.” We might have expected that first command to be to go out, to witness, to start a program, to preach, to teach, to do something, anything, that would make the church bigger. But Jesus orders the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait. The real origin story of the church does not start in Acts 2 with progress and growth. The real origin story starts in Acts 1 with waiting for God to act. God is the hero, and the church waits.”
The problems we experience in our secular world do not require secular strategies, they need sacred solutions.
So I don’t think I’m really breaking any news here. Obviously, we need God to intervene in our world and the Holy Spirit to lead us. But how do we cultivate a culture where discernment alongside the Holy Spirit is our default mode? Now its common for us to have periods of discernment like when we are appointing new shepherds or something like that, but how do we become a group of people who naturally are attentive to and aware of the Holy Spirit’s direction in our midst? To borrow some language from Mark Love and his book It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us, how do we become a sailboat instead of a rowboat? How do we as individuals become sails instead of oars?
Just for fun a couple images from pop culture come to mind. Here’s an image from the 1959 movie Ben-Hur. He’s depicted here as a prisoner in the bottom of a Roman ship where they were forced to row to keep the ship heading where it needs to go. Unfortunately, I think this is a great illustration for how we often attack problems both as individuals and as groups. Sayings like “if it is to be, it is up to me” tell us that with grit and determination we can exact our will on the world around us and bend it to be what we want it to be. Just keep rowing. I think this mindset leads us to a lot of places we were never meant to go. It leads to power grabs, burnout, and a lot of frustration when we don’t get the outcome we want.
On the other hand, here’s an image from one of Wesley’s favorite movies, Moana. Which one of these pictures looks like they’re having more fun? When we accept our role as a group of people being led by the Holy Spirit, we can walk forward into community with empty hands, willing to accept the moment we’re in and be transformed by God no matter what comes our way.
So how do we as a church community get from being a rowboat to a sailboat? What sort of practices can we begin now so that when there are needed moments of discernment and direction from the Holy Spirit, it’s not such a foreign concept to us?
We’ll talk about this at the end of our series, but in Acts 15, the apostles had to discern what to do in a big way. There were some people that thought one way and some people that thought another, but because they had taken on a lifestyle that was so dependent on the guidance and discernment of the Holy Spirit, they were able to meet the moment, and be in tune with what God’s plan was for the Church.
In his teachings from Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer claims that if we want to become like Jesus, we’ll have more success if we train well than if we try hard. To explain that simply, the idea is that if you just wake up every day and try to be like Jesus, that’s great and good, but if you have not been committing yourself to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditating on Scripture, fasting, giving, and living in community with other believers, going out and being like Jesus will be frustrating to you because you will fail. On the other hand, when your heart has been transformed by the Holy Spirit through these spiritual disciplines, being like Jesus will be far easier for you, because you will already have been transformed into someone more like Jesus than you are right now.
So as we enter into a New Year here together today, my invitation to you is not to pick up a flyer on your way out that outlines our 2025 strategic plan for improvement and growth. Instead, I am inviting you to envision a church that walks in step with the Spirit, and help us take a step in that direction by engaging deeper in spiritual practice this year. That may be participating for the first time in a practice of Sabbath. Setting aside time in your week outside of Sunday morning removed from the workings and worries of your day-to-day life where you can spend time intentionally with God and your family or a close circle of friends. It may be praying each day for the first time in your life when you wake up, when you go to work, when you go to sleep. It may look like reading Scripture in community with other believers as part of a Bible Reading Group. It may be fasting from something in your life to make more room in your heart, your calendar, your wallet for the Kingdom of God.
And now we point ourselves towards the Table, the spiritual practice that we do together each week as we wait expectantly for the return of Jesus. All are welcome to come and share communion with us around one of our tables today.
January 5th, 2024
Watch Sermon: https://youtu.be/y8RdOEz9XPs?si=HeHO7gwHWWqYknZS&t=1632
my own understanding 