Notes on Acts 1:8 (Part 2)

Jesus said to be witnesses in “Jerusalem.” Now, obviously Jerusalem was a physical place. In fact, it was the place where this event occurs. Jesus had spent forty days with the disciples and had told them not to leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came (Acts 1:4).

Although Jesus was literally speaking of the city they were in (and a place that was buzzing with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ), the principle applies to us. I think what  “Jerusalem” means for us is to start where you are.

Jesus didn’t tell them to go on some long journey to get to a particular place to share the gospel. He told them to start being witnesses in the place where they received the command.

When we first encounter Christ, we don’t need to wait until we get to a certain place to witness. We can start right where we are.  Start with your friends and relatives that need Christ. Start with you old drinking buddies who need hope. Start with the people you used to run with who need to know that Jesus loves them.

Start in your Jerusalem. Determine who is in your Jerusalem that needs to hear the message of Jesus crucifixion and ressurection.

Chuck Smith Jr. on Evangelism

“The type of evangelism that is concerned only about winning souls, while neglecting the needs of individual men, women, and children, is a contradiction of Scripture, which tells us that God made humans in his image and that salvation means wholeness as well as rescue.”

Thoughts on Acts 1:8 (Part 1)

I had the privilege of speaking in the Wednesday night service at my church last night. I thought I would share some of the thoughts from that message here. I will take a couple of days to post my notes and thoughts from the message.

I taught from Acts 1:8.  Here are some thoughts I talked about:

* “You will receive power” – This implies that on our own we have no real power. The power that we have is only power that we have received. This SHOULD keep us from being prideful, but often does not work out that way.

* “After the Holy Spirit has come on you” – The Holy Spirit can also be translated “Sacred Breath” (which has some pretty cool implications). We don’t get the power until we receive God’s sacred breath. It is His breath alone that gives us any power. It is about HIM. Not us. Too many times in our lives we strive to find power through various different venues.  The only sources to true power (the power of God), is the Sacred Breath of God – the Holy Spirit. Where are we trying to get power from besides the Holy Spirit?

*”You will be witnesses unto me” – The power is given to us so we can “witness” (Gk: martus) for Christ. We are to use this power to express Christ to others. We are to express Christ ONLY! Not our opinions, our denomination, our political party, our accomplishments or anything else. We are to express Christ alone. We are not even to express the Bible, but to express the Christ revealed in the Bible. We are not to express some generic “god”. We are to express the Father of Jesus Christ, the Yahweh God of the Bible. What is our life expressing?

* “In Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth”. These were obviously real places that Jesus was speaking of, but I think they have significant and profound principles for us today. We will discuss Jerusalem in the next post.

Bush’s Divinely Inspired Reports

GQ magazine has posted some “Intelligence Report” documents from the Bush administration. These documents were prepared by Donald Rumsfeld for President Bush.

The disturbing thing about these memos is they have cover sheets that contain pictures of war captioned by Scripture. This is disturbing on a number of levels, including the fact that the verses are grossly proof-texted and give a strange feeling that Rumsfeld and Bush felt that God had ordained this war and America was doing God’s work.

You can see them for yourself here (WARNING: THIS IS GQ MAGAZINE AND IT IS DESIGNED FOR MEN SO THERE ARE ADS THAT ARE AIMED AT MEN.)

The American Patriot’s Bible

Thomas Nelson has released “The American Patriot’s Bible.” I haven’t read it. I don’t plan on reading it.  Greg Boyd reviewed it and you can find his very well written reviews here (part one) and here (part two). If this Bible contains what Boyd says it does (and I have no reason not to believe Boyd), then this is really sad.

For me, just the title is pretty ridiculous. The title is aiming at excluding people from reading it. As if someone from another country could not read this Bible.

This goes back to the whole allegiance thing. Do you pledge allegiance to the flag or to Christ? Because you really can’t swear allegiance to two things – that’s treason. To be a patriot (according to dictionary.com) means “a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.”

Are we supporting the interests of America or the interests of the Kingdom of God? There are certainly interests in America that we would support, but those interests should only be ones that cross over into the interests of the Kingdom. We do not support the interests of America and the Kingdom of God. We support the interests of the Kingdom of God regardless of whether or not they are American interests. If our interests in the Kingdom also happen to be American interests, that is fine. But the Kingdom ALWAYS trumps America. This is where I fear we tend to get off track. We support American interests (oil, greed, war, etc..) without any consideration for whether or not they are in the best interests of the Kingdom.

All Christ followers of every nation on earth should pursue the Kingdom regardless of their nation. Nationalism is idolatry.

Matt Chandler – “Jesus Wants the Rose”

This video is powerful and conveys an amazing truth. By Matt Chandler:

Kids Ask Questions About Jesus

This Video is Great:

The Church of the Individual

Another one of the areas of culture that the church has widely (and sadly) adapted is individualism.  America is quite possibly the most individualistic country on the planet. And I think the American church has widely accepted this trend instead of transforming it. The church has developed Terrell Owens syndrome (“I like me some me”).

It’s not that I think the church doesn’t care about other people. I think that many churches in America care deeply about other people. Where I see this trend is in the area of growth. We tend to focus on individual growth of the Christian instead of group growth. It’s kind of like the church is saying, “We are glad that you came to Jesus and we hope you come back to church every week, but for the most part you are on your own. It is solely up to you whether you will grow closer to Christ.”

I think this is a huge mistake. We were designed to live in community and we were designed to follow Christ together, not separately.

We have become like Cain, asking the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). The resounding answer is, “YES!”

The spiritual maturity of our brothers and sisters in Christ is a shared responsibility. We must take a portion of the responsibility for the spiritual growth of our fellow Christ followers.

The Bible says we are to share the load of each other’s burden (Galatians 6:5).  Jesus prayed before He died that we would all be “one”, because that would show an individualistic world that Jesus was really from God and came to change everything (John 17:21). He wanted us to follow Him together. He knew firsthand the loneliness that comes from the absence of community. He died alone on the Cross after all of his closest friends left him in the garden by himself.

He endured the pain of individualism so that his church would not allow anyone to suffer alone.

Reasons Why People Don’t Go To Church

This is a great video:

A Materialistic Church

There has always been an interesting and necessary tension between culture and Christianity. There are many different views of culture and different views of what the church should do with culture. Should we use culture? Create culture? Redeem culture? All of the above?

Most churches agree that some aspects of culture should be used by the church and other aspects of culture should be rejected by the church.

It seems to me that there are at least two negative aspects of American culture that has been widely assimilated and accepted by most churches in America: materialism and individualism.

Think about it. Most American Christians are materialistic and individualistic, and most churches not only fail to speak against these things, but they inadvertently promote them.  In the next couple of posts I will be talking about each one of these.

One of the things about culture that I think the American church has widely accepted is materialism. Many American churches meet in buildings that are far beyond anything that is necessary to fulfill the mission of the church.

I recently heard Rob Bell talking about the building Mars Hill meets in. They call it “the shed.” He said an architect told him that every building teaches something. The architect said that “the shed” teaches him that the action is somewhere else.  I thought about how most church buildings I know of would say that all of the action is in that building. Come to think of it, most church services I have been to say “this is what it’s all about.”

I am not condemning any particular form of church growth or church service and I certainly do believe that a church service should be exciting and done with excellence. I am trying to get us to think about what message we are conveying with our building and with our services. What is happening during the week? Is life change happening only on Sunday or is it happening every day?

The building, of course, is not the only way the church promotes materialism. We do it through our craving for clothes and style that fits what culture had dictated is “in”. It seems to me that too many times the church wants to be just like the culture. That’s not always bad, but definitely not necessary. There is nothing wrong with being in style. But there is something wrong with being materialistic in order to be in style. When the church starts buying into the idea that we “have to have” something because of whose name is on it or who is endorsing it or who wore at or who said it was “cool”, then I think we are missing it.

Again, I’m not suggesting that it is bad to be in style or have something that is popular. It’s all about the motive. Because when it comes down to it, materialism can only be determined by motive.