"The Mission of The King"

Well, good morning, friends. This morning we're starting a new sermon series in the book of Acts.

! So would you turn with me to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1. We're going to look at the first 14 verses of Acts chapter 1 today.

Acts 1 · chapter mention Acts 1 · chapter mention Acts 1 · chapter mention

So let me pray as we come to God's Word together. Father, we thank You for this morning. God, thank You for Your Spirit

who dwells so powerfully among us, and thank You that He has given us a Word through which, God, You continue to speak.

So as we come to Your Word this morning, Father, we ask that we would see not just truths to believe or things to do,

but we pray that we would see You in all Your glory, that we would see Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,

in all of His beauty and grace, in all of His power and sovereignty,

and that by Your Spirit we would be formed and transformed as followers of Him. We pray this in His mighty name. Amen.

All right, Acts chapter 1. Let me read 1 through 14 for us.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Acts begins like this.

In the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach

until the day when He was taken up after He had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen.

He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

And while staying with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,

which, He said, you heard from Me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

So when they had come together, they asked Him,

Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, it is not for You to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority,

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,

and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.

And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said,

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying,

Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew,

James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James.

All these, with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer,

together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.

Where are we going?

Are we there yet?

Are you sure we don't need to pull over and ask for directions?

These are some typical questions you might hear on a family car ride.

Of course, no one really asks for directions anymore, right?

Because now we have GPSs on all of our phones.

Now, of course, in the confines of a minivan, such questions can become a bit irksome.

But on the whole, they are good questions.

And not just when you're packed into the car for a weekend road trip.

Where are we going?

It's a good question to ask of one's life, is it not?

And here we are this morning on the brink of a new season, right?

For some of us, it's the start of a fresh semester at school.

For others, you've moved to New Haven for the start of a new job.

For others, you've welcomed the addition of a new family member.

Perhaps you've just arrived to New Haven from another part of the country or another part of the world.

Or perhaps you've been around for some time and are just feeling the air of newness as well.

And in this season, it's right to be asking, where am I going?

What am I going to be about?

What direction will I take?

And of course, it's not just a new season for many of us individually,

but also for us as a church, it's the start of a new season.

As another school year begins, it's another ministry year for us that's beginning.

And so, for us now, it's right to be asking, where are we going?

What are we going to be about?

What are we going to be about?

So, both individually and corporately, there's a great opportunity before us.

An opportunity to set our sights afresh on what God will have us be and do.

An opportunity to kind of get down to the essentials, to sort of clear the barnacles off the hull

and to open up the sails and to hit the open water with fresh vigor and purpose and direction.

You see, in any congregation and in any Christian's life, really, there's a danger of kind of falling into what we might call maintenance mode, right?

Of settling into a kind of comfortable status quo.

But what we see in the book of Acts is the church on a mission.

A church that's not comfortable or complacent, but on the move.

But, of course, the shift from kind of maintenance to mission is not easy, right?

Often, we don't like change.

We don't like to step out of our comfort zone.

But, in addition, it can be a little dangerous.

We can rush forward without the proper kind of biblical moorings and priorities.

We can go forth with a frenetic urgency and passion and then quickly lose heat and lose heart.

There will be a lot of talk, a lot of running around, a lot of activity, but no real lasting fruit.

We can launch our ship from the harbor with excitement, with enthusiasm.

But if the compass is off just a few degrees, we'll find ourselves eventually lost at sea.

Discouraged.

Frustrated.

Thirsty.

But if we come again to the Bible and listen to what God is telling us about our identity to God.

So, what do we learn then?

What do we learn about our mission as a church, this mission of the King, from this passage?

Well, I want to point out four things this morning that we learn about our mission from this passage.

The first thing we see is what we might call the nature of our mission.

What is the nature of our mission?

Well, Jesus says in verse 8, you'll be my witnesses, right?

Now, words like witness or testimony, they can often have sort of a religious ring to them these days, right?

We often talk about someone giving their testimony in a church service.

But instead, picture yourself when you hear this word in a courtroom.

Someone's on trial.

Someone's on trial.

And you're called to the stand because you've seen, heard, or experienced something that's relevant to the case.

In other words, you're a witness and you're being asked to give your testimony.

These words have that same kind of courtroom connotation here in Acts.

The apostles have seen and heard and experienced something.

And Jesus is telling them that now they're going to share it, to state it, to testify to it.

And that's the first reason why, if we think about it, the first reason why the nature of the church's mission is witness.

The first reason why is because Christianity is, first and foremost, about what Jesus Christ has done in history.

What he's done objectively, such that people could see him with their eyes and hear him with their ears and even touch him with their hands.

It wasn't just a subjective kind of religious experience that they had.

Luke kind of goes out of his way, doesn't he, to make this clear in our passage.

In verse 3 he says,

There is, friends, a kind of facticity to the Christian message of Jesus.

And that's why the nature of our mission is one of witness.

Because at its root, it's built upon something that men and women had seen and heard and touched and experienced.

And what that means is that Christianity offers itself for genuine investigation.

Christianity doesn't ask you to sort of suspend your reason when considering Christ.

In fact, just the opposite.

It invites you to come to the Gospels with all your mental faculty sharpened and to ask the tough questions.

Friend, don't think that Christianity is threatened by questions.

In fact, it welcomes them.

So if we are being true to the nature of our mission, to testify, to witness, to the Christ who acted in history,

then our church should be a place where more and more people are asking some genuine questions and seeking honest answers.

But, you know, there's a second reason why the nature of our mission is witness.

It's witness.

It's this.

The reason why the nature of our mission is witness is because Christianity is not primarily something that we do,

but something Christ has done for us.

Therefore, witness testifying to something outside of us has to be the essential nature of this mission.

Think about it.

If Christianity were basically a list, right, of rules that we had to keep,

then Christ would have said to the apostles,

okay, you're going to be my police officers to keep people in line, right?

Or I'm sending you out as judges to evaluate how people are doing.

But instead, Jesus says, you're going to be my witnesses

because I, Jesus, have accomplished all that's necessary to reconcile sinners to God.

So we testify to what Jesus has done at its core.

And what does that mean?

If we're witnessing to something that Christ has done,

not something that we have to perform or upkeep.

Well, friends, it means that our mission needs to be marked.

It must be marked.

It will be marked by genuine humility.

Now, not the kind of humility that's sort of never certain whether anything is true or not, right?

That's not the kind of humility we're talking about.

Rather, we're talking about the kind of humility that realizes

our own ability and ambitions are not what matter at the end of the day.

This is the kind of humility that realizes we have nothing in ourselves to boast about.

This is the kind of humility that sort of forgets itself

and focuses on the greatness of Christ.

So, this is the first thing we see,

that the nature of our mission as a church is witness.

It's testifying to Christ.

Second, let's consider the scope of this mission that we have,

the scope of our mission.

In verse 8, Jesus says to the apostles,

you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.

In short, what we see here is that the scope

of the mission of Jesus for His church is worldwide.

Now, consider just a moment what this verse is telling us about God.

In short, it's telling us that God is faithful to His promises, actually,

if you were to hear this sort of commission of Jesus

in light of the Old Testament, right?

God is faithful to His promises.

You know, one way to think about Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria here

is that that was the kind of old geographic extent of ancient Israel.

Throughout the Old Testament, God said that He would bring His salvation

to His people, to His Old Testament people, to Israel.

And now Jesus is saying to the apostles,

you're going to be the witness bearers of salvation

to the Jewish people.

You're going to be my witnesses to them.

But, you see, it goes further than that.

Just like the Old Testament pushed further than that.

Because God's salvation wasn't just for ethnic Israel.

It was a salvation that God had planned

through Israel for everyone

to the ends of the earth.

Even sometimes when it made us a little uncomfortable,

made the apostles a little uncomfortable.

In the first century, you'll remember that Samaria

was sort of that region sort of north of Jerusalem and Judea.

It was a place where people who were kind of multi-ethnic lived.

They were half Jewish, half Gentile.

Their religious beliefs were sort of an amalgam

of some Old Testament beliefs,

but some beliefs imported in from other cultures.

And because of that,

Samaritans were despised by many Jews of Jesus' day.

But the gospel was for them too.

And then it pushes even further out.

The ends of the earth, Jesus says.

Right?

To the ends of the earth,

which is inclusive of all ethnicities,

and all cultures,

and all language groups.

And again, in the Old Testament,

God had promised that through the Messiah,

He would bring His salvation to all people,

to the ends of the earth.

That the Messiah, when He came,

wouldn't just be Israel's King,

but He would be the world's true Lord.

That He would bring God's kingdom,

that is God's saving rule,

God's world-healing reign,

and then across the globe,

to the ends of the earth,

even all the way to the ends of the earth,

right here in New Haven.

Have you considered, friends,

from the perspective of Jerusalem,

we are like in the far-flung reaches

of nowheresville,

right here in New Haven, right?

And yet, lo and behold,

God's faithful to His promise.

Here we are,

hearing the message of His salvation.

Now, incidentally,

this verse here that we're looking at,

it kind of provides a rough outline

of the book of Acts,

if you think about it.

In the book of Acts,

what we're going to see

is that chapters 1 through 7

deal with the apostles' witness

in Jerusalem.

And then in 8 through 12,

we consider Judea and Samaria.

And then in chapters 13 through 28,

we see the gospel beginning

to go to the ends of the earth.

Or at least it makes it

all the way to Rome,

which was the center

of the empire at the time.

Now, this scope of the mission

that we see here,

what does it tell us?

It tells us about the universality

of the gospel, right?

The Christian message is good news

for everyone.

No matter what country

or culture you're from,

the message about Jesus

is the message that

you desperately need

and that God graciously offers.

Now, of course,

that's the thing

that kind of trips many of us up

when they consider Christianity, right?

How could you say

that Christianity is the truth

for everybody?

Sounds a little exclusive

or intolerant, right?

There can't just be one answer

for everyone, right?

We think that.

And yet, friends, what if?

What if as humans,

there were one problem

that we all shared?

One problem that we all experienced

and acknowledged

and spent our whole lives

living under,

many of us spend our whole lives

ignoring, right?

What if there was one problem

we all experienced

and what if there were

one person

who actually overcame

that problem?

What if there was someone

who actually defeated

that problem for good?

wouldn't you want to share

the news about that person

with everyone?

Wouldn't you want to commend

that person to everyone you know?

I mean, think about it.

You listen to a podcast,

it gives you some, like,

hot takes on how to improve

your sleep,

and you're like,

you've got to hear this, right?

But, friends,

there is someone who has come

who has solved

the problem of human existence.

Because, listen,

each of us

is going to die one day.

It is the universal problem,

and there's only one person

who's ever overcome death,

the Lord Jesus Christ.

He rose from the dead

never to die again.

Why?

Because in His death

and resurrection,

He defeated

the cause of death,

which is sin,

the very thing

that separates us from God,

the life giver

of all things,

and separated from God

through our own waywardness

and idolatry,

we die.

And yet, Jesus has overcome that

and risen from the dead.

He has conquered death.

No other great world leader

or religious figure

can make such a claim.

Right?

If Christ has risen,

then surely all people

should know about Him,

should they not?

Both here in our Jerusalem

and Judea and Samaria,

as we might say,

and to the ends of the earth.

The scope of this mission

shows us not just

God's lordship

over all cultures

and people groups,

but the scope of this mission

tells us about God's love

for all cultures

and all people groups.

All the earth is His.

God doesn't play favorites.

His grace extends to everyone

who will receive it,

no matter what their background

or language or ethnicity.

All are welcome to come to Christ

and receive the newness of life

that He offers.

Now let me say just a quick word

of application

before moving on to the third point.

First,

Trinity,

our church,

we want to be a church

that continues

to invest

in the global mission

of the church.

The work of God

in the world

is so much bigger

than what's happening

here in New Haven.

So friends,

take some time

to learn about

the missionaries

that we support.

Pray for them

in your quiet time

in your small group.

But second,

we need to continually

remind ourselves

of how strategically

we are placed

as a church

to impact

the worldwide mission

of the church.

People come to New Haven

from all around the world.

Some people come to New Haven

even from countries

where Christianity

is illegal,

where Christians

are persecuted,

and where most people

have little or no exposure

to Christ,

and God providentially

brings them here

right into our backyard,

as it were,

right into our apartment complexes

and our residence halls.

And all this means,

what it means

is that you and I

here

can reach the ends

of the earth

with the gospel

without having to walk

to the end of our street.

Right?

Let me be somewhat direct.

Do not think

that God brought you

to New Haven

simply so you can

get an education,

or work for a few years,

and then move on.

God brought you

to New Haven

to be a part

of His kingdom work.

So whether you're

going to be here

for four months

and move on,

or four years

and move on,

or whether you're

going to be here

for the rest of your life,

join a church,

get in on the action,

and don't miss out.

The scope of this mission

is worldwide,

and the world's right here,

right at our doorstep,

ready to hear the good news.

So that's the scope

of the mission.

Third, we see in this passage

not just the nature

and the scope of the mission,

we see the power,

the power of mission.

Now at this point

you might be thinking,

how in the world

can I,

can we,

possibly do this?

Right?

The first obvious problem,

given the nature

of our mission as witnesses,

is that we aren't

eyewitnesses of Christ,

right?

The apostles,

whom Jesus chose,

are fundamentally different

than anyone else

who came after them

because they were

literal eyewitnesses

of Jesus Christ,

of His ministry,

of His death,

of His resurrection,

and of His ascension.

We aren't witnesses

in the same way

the apostles were witnesses.

In what sense then

can we be witnesses at all?

Right?

And second,

given the immensity

of the scope

of the mission

to the ends of the earth,

how can we possibly

even make a dent in that?

It seems overwhelming.

Well friends,

the answer,

actually,

to both of those problems

is found in verses 4 and 5

and in the first half

of verse 8.

In a few days,

Jesus told His disciples,

you will be baptized

in the Holy Spirit.

And in verse 8,

He says,

you'll receive power

when the Holy Spirit

comes upon you.

The Holy Spirit,

God Himself,

the third person

of the Trinity,

the Lord,

the giver of life,

as the Creed says,

the Holy Spirit

is the power

of our mission.

Now, we're not going

to go into all

of the detail we could

concerning the Holy Spirit

this morning

because His ministry

is going to unfold

as we walk through Acts

this year.

And if you want

to go even deeper,

you can come to the

adult ed class

starting next week

at 9 o'clock.

We're going to explore

the person and work

of the Holy Spirit

in more depth.

But for now,

here's the relevant point

that Jesus is pulling out

in the context of mission.

Jesus is promising

that the Holy Spirit

will come upon

His disciples

in abundance

and they will be

empowered by the Spirit

to carry out

this mission.

Think about that word

baptize, right?

Baptize means

to immerse something,

to plunge something

underwater.

And Jesus promises them

that in a few days

they're going to be

plunged into the Spirit's

presence and power.

Just like the prophets,

like Joel and Isaiah

and Ezekiel had promised,

just like John the Baptist

had promised,

the Holy Spirit

was going to flood

their lives,

as it were.

Now, of course,

again,

these earliest disciples,

especially the apostles,

they occupied

a unique place, right,

in the history of redemption.

They had a unique place.

I mean,

one of the ways

in which they were unique,

right,

is that they were followers

of Jesus

before Jesus had completed

His redemptive work

and before He inaugurated

the New Covenant.

So they sort of received

the Holy Spirit

in New Covenant fullness

after they had already

become disciples of Jesus,

as it were,

right?

But today,

we are in the position

living on this side

of Pentecost

that we are baptized

with the Spirit,

we are flooded

with His presence

upon our conversion

to Christ,

upon receiving Him.

Now,

we can experience

fillings with the Spirit,

no doubt,

right?

These fillings can range

in depth and duration,

but friend,

every genuine

New Testament Christian

has been baptized,

so to say,

with the Holy Spirit.

Now,

what does that mean?

Well,

it means a lot.

It means that God

Himself,

in the person

of the Holy Spirit,

is present

to believers today

in a real,

personal,

and powerful way

through the Holy Spirit.

we may not be

eyewitnesses

of Jesus' resurrection

like the apostles were,

but we have

their eyewitness testimony

preserved for us

in the New Testament,

and that Spirit-inspired

written witness

still speaks today.

And moreover,

we have the same Spirit

dwelling in us

as in them,

so today,

we may not be able

to physically experience

the risen Jesus,

but we can still

no less experience

His spiritually

transformative power

through the operation

of the Holy Spirit.

We can hold forth

the apostolic testimony

and witness

to our own experience

of the risen Lord Jesus

at work in our lives

through His Spirit.

But what are the power

Jesus promises?

It is true

that on our own,

we are too weak

to carry out

our mission,

but God has given us

exactly what we need.

Zechariah 4, 6 says,

not by might,

not by power,

but by my Spirit,

says the Lord of hosts,

right?

So the question is,

and the question

we have to ask ourselves is,

what power are we relying on

to fulfill our mission?

At the end of the day,

are we relying

on our clever intellect?

Do we think we can argue

or reason people

into the kingdom of God?

Are we depending

on our kind disposition?

Do we think that

if we're super nice to people,

we'll win them to Christ?

Are we relying

on massive programs

or flashy technology

to produce

spiritual transformation?

Friends, listen,

all that stuff

has its place.

God wants you

to use your mind.

God wants you

to use your love.

God wants you

to use the tools

at your disposal

to witness Him,

but the truth is,

none of that

is going to do

a hill of beans

without the Holy Spirit.

Without the Holy Spirit

shining the light

of the glory of Jesus

into our hearts.

Without that ministry,

the Holy Spirit,

we can argue

and we can love

and we can program

all we want

and it won't make

a difference.

But here's the good news.

Just as Jesus promised,

the Spirit's power

is at work in us.

We can rely on Him

in our speaking,

in our loving,

in our planning

to do the real work

of changing hearts

through those means.

And what does that power

look like?

You know,

when we think about

the power of the Holy Spirit

today,

we immediately tend

to think of the so-called

sort of miraculous gifts,

things like healing

or speaking in tongues

and prophecy.

And we're going to talk

about those as we go

in the book of Acts.

But can I share with you

one of, I think,

one of the key passages

about the Holy Spirit's power

in the New Testament?

It's from Ephesians chapter 3,

Ephesians 3:14–19

verses 14 through 19.

And it says this.

It's actually a prayer

of the Apostle Paul.

Paul says,

Oh, why?

For what?

So that Christ

may dwell in your hearts

through faith,

that you being rooted

and grounded in love

may have strength

to comprehend

with all the saints.

Notice the power language?

Strength to comprehend what?

What is the breadth

and length

and height

and depth

and to know

the love of Christ

that surpasses knowledge

that you may be filled

with all the fullness

of God.

When the power

of the Holy Spirit

is at work in our lives,

how do we know?

It's when Christ

dwells in our hearts.

It's when the love

of Christ

shines forth

in all of its

multi-dimensionality,

its height,

its depth,

its length,

its breadth,

when we're filled

with all that fullness

of God's grace

and love for us.

That's the Holy Spirit's

power at its core.

When instead of our hearts

being caught up

with false gods,

right?

When instead of that,

Christ dwells there.

When instead of seeing

the love of Christ

as a small thing,

we gape and we gasp

and our intellect

reaches its limit

because of the immensity

of Christ's love for us.

We know something

that surpasses knowledge.

In short,

the Spirit

is powerfully at work,

not just when there are

signs and wonders,

but when our hearts

are filled with the assurance

of the love of Jesus

in the gospel.

When we know

that Jesus has forgiven

our sins

and reconciled us to God,

when the reality of that

washes over us,

then we will speak

and we will serve

with extraordinary boldness,

just like the early church.

Friends,

that is the power

of our mission.

The power of our mission

is the Holy Spirit.

All right,

fourth,

finally,

last point.

What is the end?

What's the end

of our mission?

Well,

the end of our passage,

well,

the end of the passage

about the ascension

shows us

that there is

a hope

to our mission.

We're going somewhere.

We're headed

in a direction.

There's actually

an end,

a goal

of our journey.

And that end,

that goal,

is what?

It is the

kingdom-restoring,

world-renewing

return of Jesus Christ.

This same Jesus

who has been taken

from you into heaven

will come back

in the same way

you have seen Him

go into heaven.

Now,

of course,

we don't know

when Christ will return

to restore all things,

and there's no use

speculating about the end,

right?

Jesus tells us

the Father has set

the time by His own

authority,

and it's not for us

to know.

It's funny how often

in the history of the church

we've sort of ignored

that very clear

command of Jesus,

right?

But we know

that Christ

will return,

and when He does,

He will restore

and renew

all things.

Brothers and sisters,

here's how our story ends.

Here's how the story

of Trinity Baptist Church

ends.

Here's how the story

of your life ends

if you're a believer

in Jesus.

God wins.

The church prevails.

And of course,

it doesn't look

often

like that's going

to be the case.

The world's full,

right,

of injustice

and unbelief.

The church faces

persecution from without,

dissension from within.

At times,

we are tempted,

just like the apostles

who witnessed

Jesus' ascension,

to just kind of

stand here

gazing into the sky.

Do you wonder

what must have been

going through their minds

that day

when Jesus ascended

to the Father's presence?

Certainly one part

amazement,

to be sure.

Wonder?

Awe?

But I wonder

if it was another part

confusion.

In fear

and maybe doubt.

Because what the ascension

meant was that Christ

was returning

to the Father

definitively.

That the 40 days

of His appearing

to them,

teaching them,

being with them

after the resurrection

was coming to a close,

coming to its conclusion,

its consummation

as He was going

to be enthroned

in heaven.

He was no longer

going to be present

with them physically

and that probably

scared them a little bit.

How on earth

were they going

to make it

without Him?

So they gaze

longingly

into the sky,

partially afraid

that with Jesus

gone to heaven

they would be

abandoned and alone.

But the angels

remind them

that the end

is secure.

After all,

Jesus is not

abandoning them.

Did you notice

in the first verse

of this passage

that we read,

the first verse

of Acts,

Luke sort of starts

this book

which is the second part,

right,

of a two-part work

that Luke wrote.

The first one

we call the Gospel of Luke

or better,

the Gospel according to Luke

and then he wrote

the book of Acts.

And Luke says,

kind of picking up

his second volume,

he sort of looks back

at his first volume,

the Gospel of Luke

and says,

well, my first volume

I wrote about all

that Jesus began

to do and teach.

And what's the implication?

That this second volume

is going to be about

all that Jesus

continued to do

and teach.

You see,

the ascension of Jesus

to the Father's right hand

means that He is enthroned

as the King

of the whole creation.

And the ascended King Jesus

has poured out

His Spirit on the church

so that His work

might continue

through them.

And moreover,

Jesus Himself,

this same Jesus,

will return

to bring all things

to their conclusion.

So no matter

what the present holds,

we know how the story ends.

There's no need

to sort of wistfully

gaze at the sky

longing for the good old days,

right?

Or despairing

at our perceived weakness

and in abilities.

Friends,

Christ is on the throne

at the Father's right hand

when it says,

a cloud took Him up.

What are clouds

in Scripture, right?

He wasn't talking

about a collection

of moisture in the sky,

right?

Clouds in Scripture

are manifestations

of the presence

of God's glory.

Like the cloud

that followed the people

through the wilderness,

like the cloud

that came down

in the temple,

like the cloud

that was there

when Jesus was transfigured

on the mountain.

Jesus,

when He ascends

visibly before His apostles,

is taken up

into the glory of God

to take His place

as the King of all.

Christ is on the throne

at the Father's right hand.

His Spirit has been

poured out on us.

And He's going to return

in glory to draw

all things together

when He returns.

Sure, along the way,

we will face setbacks

and discouragements

and disappointments.

There will be times

when it seems like

the mission feels

a little futile,

but remember,

the end of the mission

is not dependent on us.

Just as God's grace

sets our mission

in motion at the beginning

and keeps it burning

with the light of the Spirit,

so God's grace

will bring it to completion

when Christ returns.

So friends,

with that hope

before our eyes

and God's Spirit

in our hearts,

don't you see

this mission that we're on?

It cannot fail.

Let's pray.

Father, we ask

that by Your Spirit

that You would renew

our minds

and our hearts

with Your grace

so that we might receive

fresh boldness

and wisdom

to faithfully witness

to Jesus,

our resurrected

and ascended King.

Jesus, we praise You.

Thank You for Your ministry.

It certainly didn't stop

when You ascended

to Your rightful throne.

But Lord,

thank You

that You continue

Your work

extending Your reign

of grace and peace

through the outpouring

of Your Spirit,

through the proclamation

of Your saving work

in the Gospel.

Father,

we pray that as we study

Acts this year

that You would shape

our minds

and our hearts,

that You would capture

our wills

and fire our imaginations

to live

as Your people,

people of the risen King,

witnesses to Your kingdom

and grace.

Pray this in Your mighty name,

Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.