In my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began
to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.
After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the
apostles he had chosen 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 40 days and spoke
about the Kingdom of God. 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've heard me speak about.
For John baptized with water. But in a few days you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit. And that's our text for today.
My wife Taran and I, we've been living in Scotland for the last
21 years until really recently, but before that we lived not
very far away from here in Watford.
Oh, OK, we've got some Watford people in the house.
This is going to be fun. So, so, so we're in Watford and
we started to sense the Lord calling us away.
And, you know, we went on a bit of a journey and we ended up
being really, really clear that the Lord was calling us to move
just the two of us and our newborn baby to Scotland, to
Aberdeen of all places. And, and we were excited about
that. We were less excited about
explaining that to our family and the people who had just
become grandparents. And so, you know, we were super
nervous that and our remember driving down the motorway
towards Devon where Taran's parents live and just praying,
Lord, please will you let this go OK.
And just being super nervous about how they might respond.
And so we get there late at night and we are, we, we go
straight to bed. We get up the next day.
The fatted calf has been, you know, killed.
And there's a big lunch ready and all of the family are coming
over the, the grandparents and the siblings and the dog.
And, you know, it's like a big, big event.
And, and, you know, I could hardly get through my roast lamb
or whatever it was because I was so nervous.
And then eventually, after the meal was finished, I said, well,
you know that we've been seeking the Lord and we've been asking
him, like, where we should go. And we've been pursuing a number
of different options. Well, we're now at a place where
we feel fairly clear that the Lord is asking us to move to
Scotland and in fact to Aberdeen.
And there was a really long pause.
And then eventually Terence Granddad, who at that point when
he was in his 80s and he was kind of like the patriarch of
the family, he suddenly spoke up.
And in a very kind of grave and sombre voice, he said no.
He said no, you can't go to Aberdeen and you definitely
can't move to Scotland at all because, and we were wondering
what he's going to say. And he went they won't have AB
and Q in Scotland. And I was like, I'm fairly sure
they will have AB and Q in Scotland.
He said, no, I was there during the war and they didn't have AB
and Q then, and I very much doubt they've got one now.
And my point is, you might be wondering what my point is.
I believe, or many of us would believe that there are loads of
things that we absolutely couldn't live without.
But it turns out that actually there are loads of things that
we think we couldn't live without that we really could
live without. I remember we had some friends
who were asking the Lord, Lord, we'll go anywhere, We'll do
anything for you as long as there's a place where the Pizza
Express, my wife, Taryn, you know, when people say literally
and they, they, they, they don't actually mean literally.
Well, Taryn, literally when, when she was pregnant with our
first child, she literally doubled her own body weight.
And, and you know, I couldn't possibly comment on the reasons
for that, but they may have had something to do with the fact
that she just couldn't leave the house before she'd consumed a
full tub of precooked cocktail sausages.
Now, you're welcome. Now, we might believe that that
our life just couldn't go on if, you know, without chocolate or
without coffee or without B&Q or without precooked cocktail
sausages or Pizza Express. But the truth is there are very
few things that we actually can't live without.
But what I want to talk about today is how we as human beings,
never mind we as followers of Jesus, we cannot live without
the presence and power of God. We can't live, Oh, I'm enjoying
this. This is good.
We can't live without the Holy Spirit.
And if I could sum up where we're going to go over the next
season of life as a church across all of our expressions,
it's that and the teaching series that we're going to start
digging into, which is called impact.
You know, the kind of the central thesis of the whole deal
is that we are dependent on God, we're dependent on his spirit.
We're dependent on the power and the presence of God that you and
I were born to know the voice of God at the core of who we are.
We're born to recognize his voice.
We're born that whatever beautiful or perfect purpose He
has laid out for each one of us, it's actually impossible to
complete it without being full of the Holy Spirit.
So we don't need pretty much more of anything at all.
But we do need much more of the Holy Spirit.
If we want to make an impact with our lives, if we want to
make a dent in the universe that echoes on into eternity, we need
to be full of His Spirit. And you know, as we were
preparing to come to versa, from the moment where we knew we were
coming, we were like, Lord, what on earth are we going to do?
Like on the 1st Sunday and the Sundays after that?
What journey in the scriptures are we going to go on together?
We began to sense that the Lord would have us do this.
So what we're going to do is over the weeks and months,
probably up until the summertime at least, we're going to walk
our way through the book of Acts.
And as we do that, we're going to stop.
We're going to kind of linger wherever the Holy Spirit is
mentioned. And we're going to try to
understand what was going on in that moment.
And therefore what might happen in our lives today if we were
to, to kind of seek to understand it and to appropriate
everything that's in the text in our lives today.
So that's pretty much where we're going.
And so as we do that, and this is really a kind of introductory
session, as we do that, we're going to observe all kinds of
things. So, for example, we're going to
observe that the disciples were dramatically changed when they
received the Holy Spirit. This kind of amazing inner
transformation occurred in their lives, where they went from
people of absolute fear to people of remarkable courage.
We're going to observe how the church went from kind of like,
just really ordinary people making all kinds of mistakes.
And they carried on making some like, you know, meandering into
some places they maybe wished they hadn't.
But they went into a season of remarkable fruitfulness for the
Kingdom. And we're going to see the lame
walking and demons fleeing and the dead being raised.
And we're going to see some amazing ways that they were
guided by the Lord and by his Spirit.
And we're going to see that the only explanation for any of it
is Pentecost. The only is I don't know whether
you've ever seen a bouncy castle.
You know, when it, when suddenly you unplug it, like without the
power, you've got nothing, right?
You know, suddenly it's just all deflated.
And, and that's really the journey that we're going to go
on. Without the power, we've got
nothing. And by the way, what an amazing
vision for a life that we would live, the kind of lives for
which the power and the presence of God is the only explanation,
right? The people look at us and they
say, well, even though I understand their education and
their experience and their background and all the kinds of
things that have happened, there's still no possible
explanation for how that could have happened with those people.
That's the kind of life that's going to be laid out before us
over the coming months. You know, they said of Jesus,
who is this man? And they asked each other, where
does this man get his power from?
And they asked the early church or of the early church, like, by
what power do you do these things?
Oh, that they would ask the same of us, by what power do you do
those things? And so that's going to be the
invitation over the next season as we journey together.
And today in the in the time that I have left, I just want to
take some time to look at the critical foundations that the
author of our text today, Luke, lays in the early verses of the
book of Acts that really go to lay a foundation for everything
else that is to come. I think there are really 3
foundational truths that we need to understand.
It's like assumptions. He's like stepping in and saying
these three things really matter if you're going to understand
the rest of the story. And the first one is this.
Jesus is alive and he's at work. This journey begins the the the
book of Acts begins with the risen Jesus, right.
So he's no longer in the tomb. His body is no longer wrapped
in, in burial clothes. His body is no longer subject to
decay or to rigor mortis or anything like that.
He is alive. Like he's fully alive.
You know, it's not the kind of alive where you hear people say,
well, yeah, I suppose he's kind of like alive in our hearts or
in our memories or something like that.
No, no, no. Luke wants to tell us Jesus is
like, properly alive. In fact, he's more alive than
many of you are looking this morning.
He's like, now just to let you know, when I say things that
aren't very funny, right, the journey that we're going to go
on together is you laugh. I preach better.
That's how it works. So, OK, so he's really alive.
Verse three. He presented himself to them and
gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive.
And he didn't just do that once so that they were like, oh, I
wonder, you know, did we hallucinate that?
Did we, you know, were we, was it just wishful thinking that
one time? No, no, Luke tells us he did
that over and over again over a period of 40 days.
In other words, Luke, Luke wants us to understand that the
Christian Church is the only movement that has ever existed
that's still being led by the founder after his own death.
Also, in addition to that, Luke wants to go one further and say
he isn't just alive. He's still doing things.
He's still at work. If you're the kind of person who
likes to circle things or underline things in your Bible,
highlight things, and I hope you are because that's a really good
way to deface your Bible. Perhaps a good word to circle is
the word in verse one where it says began by former book
Theophilus. He's talking about the Gospel of
Luke. Actually, he's saying in the
Gospel of Luke I wrote to you about all that Jesus began to do
and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.
So he's telling us that everything that's captured in
Luke's Gospel, all the amazing things that he did.
So, you know, the, the feeding of the 5000, the calming of the
storm, the, all of the healings, the paralyzed man, the man with
leprosy, the 10 men with leprosy, the woman who'd been
bent double for 18 years and so on and so on.
Every amazing thing that he did and all the amazing things that
he taught. That was just the beginning.
Jesus was just getting started, right?
All the way through he, he's kind of doing amazing things.
He's teaching amazing things all through his life and ministry,
all the way through the cross, through the resurrection and
beyond into all of his post resurrection experiences.
Luke is telling us that was just him like beginning and he is
still doing things today. He was just getting started.
If you're new to church, and I know that there are some people
in this room who are new to church, that might surprise you
because you might have thought, well, the church is kind of like
a a well meaning, earnest group of people who are seeking to
live according to the teachings of Jesus after he's disappeared.
And to be honest, we are a well meaning, earnest group of people
and we are seeking to live according to the teachings of
Jesus. But the difference is that we
believe he's still here. He's like here and he's doing
things in our midst. Even today we're expecting him
to show up. We believe that he's here right
now, just this week in our staff meeting on Tuesday.
It's amazing, actually, the staff meeting.
In some ways, I wish you could all come to it, but people have
the opportunity to share what Jesus is doing in and around the
church. And this week there was the most
amazing story from just about one particular person whose life
has been dramatically changed by Jesus.
And, you know, he's obviously experiencing a lot of
difficulty. And yet he wrote in and Natalie,
one of the team, she read out this letter and I've got the
permission to share some of it. So.
So this is what he wrote. He said, I hope to see you on
Wednesday. I should have been with you at
church on Sunday, but there were some altercations in this house
and I had to call the police. I've mentioned to you before
that it's very difficult to deal with addicts who are on crack
cocaine. Don't worry about me, because I
know that having found Jesus, the Lord is looking after me.
And because you both devoted so much time to me, I've made it.
I walked tall. Now you will see this in me.
I can't thank you guys enough. I'll see you on Wednesday and
you will see that I'm no longer lost in the desert of my sad
mind. I'm a special guy.
God bless. Isn't that beautiful?
And that's just one like on, that's just one, I think it was
Christmas Eve at the Carol service, there were like 15
people who gave their lives to Jesus in that one moment.
And that's just part of a wider move of God's spirit that is
sweeping this nation at the moment.
And and you're going to get really bored of hearing me talk
about this, but but it is actually amazing that we are
living in a moment where God is moving in this nation in a way
that people haven't known for hundreds of years.
And the Bible Society just did a report.
It was actually they commissioned a really like
proper organization called you Gov to do a really big sample
size survey of the whole population.
And what they discovered was that more than 2 million people
have joined the church in England and Wales in the last
seven years. I mean, that's incredible.
I mean, yeah, you could clap that.
That would be good. And what they found is there are
actually five times as many young men in church as there
were seven years ago, and there were four times as many young
women. But there are people of all ages
joining the church at the moment.
And I know that there are people in this room.
It's like you're almost wondering, like, why am I here?
How am I here? How did I get here?
I just feel compelled to come. Well, the truth is that Jesus is
alive and he's at work and he's at work in your life.
GK Chesterton said at least five times in history, the Christian
faith has to all appearances, gone to the dogs.
In each of these 5 cases, it was the dog that died.
I love that. We shouldn't be surprised that
God is at work in our nation because Jesus is alive and he's
at work. That's the first thing.
Secondly, the world is ready and waiting.
Whenever we approach a passage of Scripture, it's always a good
idea to just try to have a try to have a look at what the
context is. You know, often as Christians,
we like to just take one verse and write it on a fridge magnet
and stick it on the fridge and completely ignore whatever the
context is. But that's a bad idea.
So. So if we were to look at the
context immediately surrounding our verses, we'd start to
understand that when Jesus makes this promise, that is to do with
being filled with the Holy Spirit, being baptized, being
drenched, being being overwhelmed by the Spirit of
God. He's doing that because of the
call that he's given to the church.
And in fact, you know, if you were to look at the verses
immediately before the ones that we read now, you're like, well,
hang on a minute. You read the Acts chapter one
verse one. There are no verses in front of
this one to one. In one sense you're right.
But the book of Acts is volume 2 of A2 volume work a bit like
Lord of the Rings. It's like a story that kind of
goes over 2 volumes. And the first volume is called
Luke's Gospel. And so if we were to go a few
verses up into the very end of Luke's gospel, we would find
that Luke 24, verse 46, Jesus said the Messiah will suffer and
rise from the dead, and then repentance for the forgiveness
of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.
Can you imagine those poor fishermen who've like only ever
been in this tiny part of the Middle East and suddenly they're
being sent to all nations without the invention of a
plane, a train or an automobile? It's like an enormous call and
that that comes immediately before this thing about the Holy
Spirit. And then immediately after it
acts chapter one, verse 8, Jesus says you'll receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
So the context of this promise to be filled with the Spirit is
this enormous call to make sure that everyone on the face of the
earth has the opportunity to accept or reject the good news
of Jesus. The whole world is ready and
waiting. One of the wildest things that
came out of this report by the Bible Society was the incredible
spiritual hunger that is present across the adult population.
And we don't know about the children and young people
because they, they haven't done a survey of them yet, but the,
the adult population just, I'm hungry to encounter God.
I don't know about you. I've been a Christian for about
30 years. And in that time, you know, I've
done my best to kind of share my faith with people around me.
And I, it's not been easy. You know, I don't know what kind
of a response you've had, but, but often I felt like people are
like smiling and nodding whilst thinking in their hearts.
No thank you. Or even, in some cases, open
hostility. But the news is that that things
are shifting. And So what they discovered was
that one in three people in the adult population in England and
Wales would come to a church if only they were invited.
One in three. And so I don't know if you can
imagine, maybe you work at a gym or something like that.
You're like, OK, well, I've invited you and you said no,
I've invited you and said you said no.
So you're the one who's coming. You know, it's like, that's how
that's how statistics work, isn't it?
I mean, it isn't quite how statistics work, but the more
people you ask, the more it is like that, right?
So if you ask 1000 people, then maybe 310 people will come to
church. And so we have this incredible
opportunity. The world is ready and waiting.
You'll be my witnesses to the ends of the earth, says Jesus.
And finally, the, the, the kind of the third foundation that
Luke is laying for us is that the order of things is this.
It's God does something in your life, and then he does something
through your life, right? The the order is in you then
through you. A while ago, my uncle moved into
a new house and we were really excited to see his new house.
And so there was a kind of a big family gathering.
We all went. We were super excited to see it.
We're excited to see each other as well, right.
But but mainly we're excited to see the house.
And it was a really nice house, you know, in a nice area and it
was made of old bricks and it and, you know, they were kind of
like beautiful gas St. lights outside and all this kind of
thing. And it was a really good house.
The problem was that it was next door to this awful house.
It was like a derelict house and it looked like it had been drawn
by a child. You know, it was like a child's
drawing of a house. And the windows were falling out
and half of the building was falling down.
And it's really difficult, isn't it, when somebody says to you,
what do you think of my house? And you're like, well, your
house really nice. The problem is your neighbour's
house not so great. It was a bit awkward and anyway
we kind of got through that. About a year later, our family
WhatsApp group went wild. And the reason was because my
sister-in-law had been watching a TV program called Ugly House
to Lovely House. Has anyone ever seen that
program? Right.
So, so ugly House, a lovely house.
And this was the house that was featured my uncle's next door
neighbor. And so they, they, it was, it
was so brilliant. They did everything to that
house. I mean, there was barely a
single thing that remained the same.
And, and so from the inside out, they renovated every single part
of it, new kitchens, new bathrooms, they knocked a load
of walls down and put up some other walls.
And then they made the outside beautiful new Windows and
everything else, and it looked amazing.
The only problem was that now my uncle's house looked like it
needed some work. You know, there's a, there's,
there's a scruffy house in every road, right?
And if you're looking through your front windows and you can't
see the scruffy house, that means you're living in it,
right? So anyway, my point is, and
again, you might be wondering what my point is, my my point is
actually don't we all long for it's a bit of a tenuous, I mean,
don't we all long for a renovation?
Don't like, I don't know about you, but like my heart is
breaking for so many situations around the world at the moment.
And I want God to do something dramatic in Ukraine, for
example, or in the Middle East. It's like, oh, Lord, please.
But actually whenever I approach the Lord, what I'm also deeply
aware of is, Lord, when you're doing all those things out there
in the world, please don't pass me by because I know that in my
own life there are attitudes and behaviours that are not good.
I'm not going to confess them to you right now, but like, I just
know that I need work. I need an inner transformation,
a renovation of my own soul. So I just find it really, really
interesting that Jesus is like, yeah, I'm sending you to the
nations. Every single person on earth
needs to have an opportunity to accept or reject the good news
of Jesus. But before you go, just wait
right there, because I'm going to envelope you with my Spirit.
And in fact, in Luke's gospel, right at the end, Jesus says the
same thing, but in slightly different words.
He says stay in the city until you've been clothed with power
from on high. You know, we need to know the
power of God, the transforming work of the Spirit right in the
core of who we are. Even as we go, we we're living
in this moment of incredible opportunity, the kind of
opportunity that our great grandparents would have longed
for. But here's how it works.
God has to do something in you before he does it through you.
And so we as a church, that's what we're going to ask for
right over and over again, over weeks and months, we're going to
say, Lord, we need it. Everything that you want to do
in our lives, you know, we want to live the kind of lives for
which only the power and the presence of God is the
explanation. We want to, we want to fulfil
everything that you're calling us to do.
But first of all, Lord, please will you do something in US?
Don't pass us by. Why don't we stand?