Typically, Tuesday (today) is one of my weekly "focus on the Sunday sermon" days. However, this week Creekstone is not having a Sunday morning service. So time for some golf, right?! For starters, I don't really play golf (because I don't like to cuss in public). I like to hike or run trails. Second, it's raining. Third, we are launching our K-Groups Sunday evening, and I am planning to take time to prepare a discussion guide that will prime the pump for what we hope these groups will be, which in my mind is something along the lines of Acts 2:42-47,

"42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." 

What if Creekstone were a worshipping community that was radically devoted to sound doctrine and to caring sacrificially for each other? What if we were a community where the power of God was manifest in ways that would only be explained by the miraculous presence of God? What if we were a community that was so alive to the wonder of God's grace in the gospel that we drew unbelievers in to the fellowship by the attractiveness of our joy? That would be a dream come true! But is it really possible? Absolutely.

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand the key to this kind of community. Essentially, the members of this early Christian community (1) believed the gospel with repentant faith and (2) were filled with the Holy Spirit (see verses 37-41 for context). Acts 2 teaches us that the kind of spiritual-community we long to experience cannot be created by a program or by principles. It must be the overflow of the Spirit Himself in the lives of grace-dependent people who are actively affirming the gospel motto, "Jesus is my righteousness." K-Groups can be gospel kindling, but the Spirit must set the fire.

In light of the potential for such a faith community, I want to invite you to sign up for a K-Group and be devoted to it. They meet twice a month, on the second and fourth Sunday nights of each month (Sept-Nov. and Jan-April) from 5:30-7:00 p.m.  For more information and to sign up, go to this link on the Creekstone website. Also, be sure to email Andy Woznicki (ajwoznicki@gmail.com) with the group number you plan to attend (1, 2, 3, or 4).  

On Sunday mornings at Creekstone we have folks fill out a "Keeping in Touch" form. It's got a place for contact information, how folks heard about the church, groups to get in, ways to serve, and a section for comments and prayer requests. I have been in contexts where, if someone were to make a comment on the form, it usually would not have been to encourage, but to complain. "It was too hot in the room." "It was too cold in the room." "You use too many illustrations." "You don't use enough illustrations." "I didn't like the new song." "I loved the new song." I think you get the point. 

However, one of the amazing blessings of serving you folks at Creekstone is that rather than merely commenting or criticizing, you use the KIT form to encourage. How can I put into words what a small dose of "we love our worship team" does for everyone involved. In fact, I believe that encouragement is one of the most powerful of all spritual gifts. I pray that we will all crave, use and celebrate this gift.

As a motivator to greater performance on the job, in the classroom, on the stage or on the field, encouragement does FAR MORE than criticism or complaint. Think of the latter as law motivation, and the former (encouragement) as grace motivation. I think that this applies in parenting and marriage, too. 

So, as the synagogue leaders said to Paul and his companions in Acts 13:15, " "Brothers, if you have a message of encouragement for the people, please speak." 

For those of you who were serving in the Creekstone nursery or were providentially hindered from being at the High School this morning, here is today's message— the second in a three-week series on Creekstone's core commitments leading up to our Sunday morning "Grand Opening" (Creekstone 2.0) on Aug. 22.

Acts 2. 41 - 47. Community by Mckay Caston

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Acts 2.41-47.Community.mp3 (18.33 MB)

Powerful Ministry For Powerless People by Mckay Caston

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Click here to download:

Powerful Ministry for Powerless People.mp3 (15.26 MB)

I gave this message last night during a special Creekstone gathering at my house. It is the overflow of personal conviction in my own life concerning my lack of prayer and lack of living a Spirit-empowered life. I sense that this has been affecting, or soon adversely will affect, the ministry of the fledgling community we call Creekstone. So this message is a philosophical reboot of sorts for my own heart, calling us all back to the foundational, biblical model of ministry for powerless people found in Acts 1 and 2. It deals with the power we need, the means to experience that power, and the reason God provides that power.

Whether the mission is starting a new business, exploring space or driving for a vacation to Disney World, a mission is an adventure which requires stepping into (often) unknown contexts with uncertain outcomes. Sure, I have a portrait in my mind of how it will all turn out. However, that picture is rarely how the paint is applied in real life. In setting sail on a new adventure, experience can quickly turn optimism into pessimism. So what I need in order to sail well in my present adventure in mission/church planting is neither an unbridaled optimism or an enthusiasm crushing pessimism. I need gospel realism. That is what I find in Acts 17, where Luke records the ongoing adventure of Paul's missionary adventure.

In Thessalonica, some Jews and many Greeks were persuaded by Paul's preaching and became believers. They would later be the recipients of I and II Thessalonias in the New Testament. And yet, some of the Jews became jealous and formed a mob (probably to stone and possibly kill Paul). Paul escaped the city by night.

In the city of Berea, as he preached, many people "received the word with all eagerness." But Paul's Thessalonian opponents tracked him down, and so "the brothers sent Paul off on his way to the sea..."

During his next stop in Athens, he reasoned in the Jewish synogogues and with anyone in the marketplace who was open to dialogue. After an invitation to preach in the Aeropagus, "some mocked," but "some men joined him and believed."

The lesson for me here is to maintain gospel realism. God is at work. People will respond to the gospel and believe. However, there will be opposition and rejection, too. If I do not expect both, I either will grow disillusioned or cynical. So I'm glad for Acts 17, which mirrors the effect of the cross. Some mocked Jesus, beat him and spit on him. But even a hardened Roman soldier/executioner ends up confessing, "Surely, this was the Son of God."

I'm reading through Acts this week and just made it to chapter 15, where there is a meeting among church leaders such as Paul, Peter and James (and many more) over what is required in order to be saved (read: fully forgiven, completely accepted, and eternally loved by and reconciled to God). Verse 1 describes the controversy, "But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" At least they would say you can't be really saved. Maybe in some provisional sense. Partly saved, but not completely saved without circumcision. 

The word that sticks out to me is unless. For them, the additive to the blood of Jesus was the old covenant rite of circumcision (more blood). What is the additive today? Unless I ____________. What is it that I think I must add in order to move from a provisionally accepted state into a condition where I can KNOW that I a fully forgiven, completely accepted and eternally loved? Whatever it is, I should flush it, because in the debate, Peter stands up and declares that regardless of the individual, the human heart is "cleansed through faith." And faith alone. No more blood on my behalf is required. This is why he wraps up his speech saying, "We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus..."

So, I'm thinking of two broad implicaitons:

1. This means that, through mere faith in the reconciling work of Jesus for me, I can experience what it is to be saved—fully forgiven, completely accepted, and eternally loved. This is God's grace to me.

2. Now I need to consider God's grace through me. What will it mean for me to trash the unless that I require of others (wife, children) in order to experience the same thing from me? Does my wife feel accepted and loved by me (read my grace to her and vice versa), or is there an unless attached to that blessing? I fear that I have attached many unlesses.

The answer to my legalism toward her and others is to go back to Jesus and get re-oriented to the gospel so that I can experience the kind of grace to me that flows through me.  If no grace is flowing through me... Well, I know that the real problem is with me. I have clogged arteries.

Lord Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. Let your grace flow to me so that it (your life by your Spirit) can flow through me. Let me rest in the gospel, knowing that through faith and by sheer grace, I AM fully forgiven, completely accepted, and eternally loved.