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.

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Acts 2.41-47.Community.mp3 (18765 KB)

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Powerful Ministry for Powerless People.mp3 (15627 KB)

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.