Day One

If you have your Bibles, I'd encourage you to open up to Acts chapter 3. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts is where we're going to be today, chapter three. Man, I love that song. Worship team did better than I thought they would, you know? You come out here and you think, like, "I hope I can get somebody to show up and play guitar, " and then we had the band up here, and I'm just so proud to see where God has brought them.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Good job, Carz, wherever he's at. Good job, bro. I know you didn't come here to hear me or to look at a bunch of pipe and drape and bright lights. You came here to hear God's word, so we'll start in verse one of chapter 3. Might be a familiar story to some of you, might not be to others of you.

Let me give you brief context. What happens is Jesus dies on the cross in the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. He rises from the grave three days later, hangs out with his disciples for a little bit of time, and then he leaves. The Bible says he ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father, and he leaves his disciples—that's his followers—, in order to make this church thing happen, and he sends his Holy Spirit to dwell in them so that it can happen effectively. And in chapter three, God has sent his Holy Spirit, and, the disciples are seeing God work in them and through them.

There's your short context as we jump into this passage. Here's what it says—says one day. Everybody say "one day." One day, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer, at 3:00 in the afternoon. Now, a man who was lame, or paralyzed from birth, was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Peter looks straight at him, as did John. Gives him some really bad news. Peter said, "Look at us." So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have"—what a buzzkill—"but what I do have, I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and his ankles became strong.

He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Now catch this: then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Today I want to talk to you about the idea of just—look at your neighbor, look at him. Want, I say it to him—one day.

Look at your neighbor, say "one day." One day. I say "one day" a lot. Anyone in here trying to work out, exercise, fitness—if you don't know what working out is, it's that thing where you like move your arms and legs and eventually get in shape. That thing. All right, so a couple of you tried to work out.

The rest of you have done what I'm learning to do and just give up on it, you know? You're not 19 anymore. So my journey, and my wife's journey, and I'm willing to bet all of your journeys with working out, looks a little bit like this: "One day I'll do this." And you might not think, "I never say one day, that's not in my vocabulary." "January 1st I'll do this." "I want to do it next Monday." "I'll start Sunday after church, I'm gonna go for a run." Right, you may not say specifically "one day, " but you have in your mind, because you have the desire to get better when it comes to physical fitness, you say, "I'm going to do it, I'm excited, I'm going to do it." And every time that comes into my mind, I get super exhilarated and motivated and inspired and all these other words that don't really pan into anything eventually. What happens is, I'll get so excited that I'm going to start working out on Monday, or next month, January 1st, or March 1st—I'm going to do it March 1st—and I get on Amazon and Google, I say, "You know what, if I'm going to work out, I got to get the right clothes, I got to get the tennis shoes, I got to make sure I clear out my schedule the proper way." And then, what—the most recent time I want to look at, the most recent time—what I did is I said, "I don't like going to the gym anymore. I just need to have discipline.

I don't want to go to the gym anymore because I'm 35 years old, and I looked a certain way at 25 years old, but I don't look that way at 35 years old." And so, at 35 years old, when you go into the gym at 35 years old, and you see the people that are still 25 years old and they're working out, you look at them and they look at you, and they probably don't care about you at all, but I feel like, I'm an Israelite going into the land that God called me to. I feel like a grasshopper in their sight, and so I don't like to go to the gym. So I said, "Hannah, I'm going to work out at home"—this is fairly recent, wasn't it? "I'm going to work out at home." Here's what I need to work out at home, sweetie. I said, "Since I can't just lift one weight, I got to have multiple weights, so I'm going to get adjustable dumbbells." I brought them—someone's with me on this, you need your adjustable dumbbells, it's super helpful if you use it.

That's 80 lbs. Look at you, bro. Yeah, that's that 25-year-old in the gym. It's adjustable, I could have made it lighter on you, I don't know, whatever. So I got these adjustable dumbbells, and I'm like, "Okay, cool, cool.

What can I do with just adjustable dumbbells? I need a bench." And so I got a bench. It's okay, we don't flip it around, so that's it on bench. I'm like, "You know what, this is annoying because I want to use my garage, but I live in Phoenix area, and during the summer it gets hot here." And so, like, "What am I going to do? Well, I guess I'll just bring it into my living room and I'll work out." And I did that for a day.

And I brought it in—here's the thing, though—I worked out, it was cool and everything, then my kid jumps on me, and then, where do I put it now? I can't leave it in the living room, I host people, I got to be a good host. And so then I put it in the closet, and then every time I think about working out, I'm like, "I got to take it out of the closet, it's messed up."

And so, a couple years ago, what we did is we said, "Not only do we need to get in shape, but we recognize it's either hot outside or it's cold outside, we're fair-weather fitness people." And so I said, "You know, I want something that is convenient, that holds me accountable, that I could do very easily when I wake up in the morning." And so my wife and I, we collectively agreed on getting a device that was really helpful. Why don't you pull it out for me? We got a—y'all see it—it's a Peloton.

Do not clap. But I got on this in the first service, but I'm going to stand next to it in this one, 'cause it felt really weird sitting on a bike in front of all these people that I don't know. And so, the cool thing about this is, you know, someone will teach you how to do it, and then you don't have to adjust this thing for resistance, they'll do it for you if you just press lock on it, and you just have to sit here literally and watch someone tell you how to do it. But then it's like, "I got to pick the right teacher." And I don't want—for some reason, I'm not like sexist or anything, I just don't—I need a guy, like my football coach in high school, who's just going to like cuss at me when I'm—it's like he's like, "Keep going!" And so I got to do that, so I spend 20 minutes trying to find this, and then by the time it—I start going, I'm like, "I got to quit, I'm done." And so that is me. I'm like, "One day I'll get in shape eventually." And so what I do is I say I'm preparing, but really what I'm doing is I'm procrastinating.

Come on, somebody, it's true. And many of us in our spiritual walk, we say, "One day I'll go back to church"—you're here today, why don't you give yourselves a hand today—"One day I'm going to go to church." "One day I'm going to get back with God." ", one day when I have my kids, and they're starting to grow up, and I remember how it was cool that I went to Sunday school when I was a kid, I'm going to get my kid back in church, and so then I'll go to church." "One day, when I'm a little bit less busy." One day, one day, one day, one day. And here's what I want to encourage you with: it is natural, to say we're getting prepped for something we want to do in the future, and it's also natural to procrastinate that very thing that we know will add value to us. But in the end, when that day comes, I want you to be ready for it, and for many of you, that day could be today. That day, that "one day" that you've been looking forward to, it can be today, and all it takes is a choice.

The passage we just read, and we'll toss up verse one, it says Peter and John were going to the temple at around 3:00 in the afternoon, it was the time of prayer, they're going to the temple. And then what happens in verse two? I'll open it here too. It says, "Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts." And I've already read it to you, so you know what happens—this man is healed, and it starts the passage, it says "one day." It was just a random day. I bet Peter and John didn't necessarily expect it.

I definitely know this man who was pulled there every single day wasn't expecting it, but Peter and John's story and this lame man's story came together on one day. Like, this vision has been, in my heart since 2021, when we were on our way back from Iceland, and God just kind of gave it to me. I don't know if I was like watching a TikTok clip with Elon Musk or something, and he shot up a rocket, and I was like, "Orbit, yeah, that's cool." But the idea—the idea to me—that God wanted his people to get into a place where it became natural to revolve everything around him, not something that's far distant in the future and unnatural, that he wants us to revolve every aspect of our life around Jesus. Well, he planted that vision into me, and now it's 2024, so it's been a minute. This "one day" where we launched publicly and invited you guys to come in has been a long time coming, and we're believing, just like Peter, who in verse three, it says—this, sorry, small words—"When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money." Verse four: "Peter looked straight at him, as did John, " and other texts would say that he fixed his gaze.

So, for me today, for our team today—like, we're like Peter and John, I'm not as cool as them, but you know, like, I'm excited that you're here, and I'm believing right now that if God brought you here, he brought you here on purpose so that he could start giving you a fulfilling purpose in your life. He brought you here for a reason, and I'm just a dude—I'm going to talk about that for the rest of this sermon, about how we're just people. But man, if you can recognize that today—not only did God bring us, as a church, me as a pastor, here—whatever, whatever you're going through in life, whatever's stressing you out, whatever caused you to say this morning, "Hey, we should go to church, " whatever got you here—I believe he brought you here on purpose, and I think he can do a work in you. So while we're fixing our gaze on you, trying to help you understand that there is a God who loves you, doesn't hate you, that he sent his son down to show you how much he loves you, and then he died on the cross and rose from the grave so that you might have life abundantly and life eternally—right, that's the God that we serve. That's why we fixed our gaze today, that's why we invited you here today, to tell you about Jesus of Nazareth.

And at the same time, this man probably came with his own set of expectations, and Peter says, before this man— Really like says anything. Peter says, "Look at us, " right? Cuz this man who had been brought every single day—, lame. What that means is he couldn't walk, you know, so people had to bring him every single day, and he was sitting down at the gate called Beautiful. That is the gate to the entrance of the temple courts.

He could not go in because he was lame. Lame people could not walk in to the temple court, so he had to sit there, and what he would do every day is he'd beg for alms. And so he came with an expectation about what that day would look like, and he—Peter comes by him and he looks at Peter and he asked him for money. And Peter, he says, "Look at us." I used to read it, say "look at us, " like Peter was just a super spiritual, amazing man of God—"look at us, we're so special and cool." But I read it recently and I was like, now Peter's like, "Look at us, I ain't got no silver or gold. Look at me, I ain't got—I'm a Galilean, I ain't got nothing.

I was a fisherman before this. I'm just walking into the temple. You need to lift your gaze up a little bit and look at us and recognize we're not anything to write home about. We're not special." If you just look for about 2 seconds, you recognize, I ain't got nothing to offer you. I just said "ain't"—that means I'm from the south, you know what I'm saying?

Like, clearly I empathize with the people who were from Galilee because I'm from Arkansas. But we're all in Buckeye, you know what I'm saying? We ain't special. Look at us. And Peter says to the man—I'll read it so I don't screw it up, because yeah, I'm just a dude, you know what I'm saying—he said, Peter said in verse 6, he says, "Silver or gold I don't have, but what I do have I give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk."

And I want to tell you very clearly, we don't have all the programs—, worship was better than I thought it was, but like, we going to get there, you know, we're going to keep getting better. I'm just—I'm just talking up here, I'm trying not to screw it up, you know what I'm saying. We got this pipe and drape in here, we're trying to make it not look like a gym, but y'all all know it's a gym, right? You going to ask me about youth ministry, it's like—I hope we—I think we got some kids here somewhere, right? These kids, we're all in a multi-purpose room.

We don't have all the programs, we don't have all the perfection, we don't have all the lights, we don't have all the action that you might be expecting. We don't have exactly what you're looking for, but what we do have—we don't have silver or gold, but what we do have, we can give you. In the name of Jesus, start walking toward him. This is what he's called you to. Just start walking.

And I know this is going to be crazy weird, but I've set it up properly that I'm going to do a bunch of weird stuff right now. There are some people in this room, you came with expectations, or you came with no expectations, you had no clue what you were going to expect. You woke up this morning, said, "I need to go somewhere cuz I got stuff going on, " and you're here right now. What I want you to know is in the name of Jesus, you can begin walking toward him, regardless of the wrong you've done, regardless of the stuff you're going to do. If you can confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you can be saved.

That's the Bible's prescription. And so, they typically do it—you know, the good guys, the ones who have the programs and all the stuff, they know what they're talking about, right—they do it at the end of service. But I want to give you an opportunity right now. So if everybody could just bow their head and close their eyes—if that's you, and you need to trust in Jesus with your heart and begin following him today, it is that simple. You might pray a prayer like this: "God, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, make me a new creation, and I commit right now to follow you for the rest of my life. Today is my one day." In Jesus' name we prayed, amen. Now, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand right now, but I'm going to ask you to do something very specific. If you have that connection card, you can use the QR code, or you can write it down—there's a box that says "I trusted in Jesus" or "I accepted Jesus." I want you to let us know about that right now.

And for those of you who are still kind of questioning all of this, you got another 10 minutes on my sermon to process through it, it's going to be all right. But I wanted to let you know, so I get us all on the same page—everyone in here has had the opportunity to hear about God, hear about his Son, and trust in Jesus with their life, right? So there we go, and today was your one day. But for some of you, this is just another day. Like, I'm just a dude talking.

You've been to churches before, this isn't your first rodeo, and you're in here right now and you're thinking, "Should I connect to this church? Should I commit a portion of my life to this church? Should I really begin revolving my life around Jesus?" Or you came here not even thinking about the church, you're thinking about the fact that you're on the verge of divorce in your marriage, you came here because your kids are driving you crazy. I get it. Like, you came here because something is going wrong in your life and you want to find an answer for it.

Now, shortly, the answer is Jesus, we believe that, I know that—, but not everything's going to happen today for you. And so for some of you, today was your one day, but for a huge portion of you, today is just day one. It's just day one. Can you picture—like, go back in time, or go back all the way 2,000 years ago—to this scene with Peter and John, who were Jesus's disciples, who are now trying to figure out how to do the faith, and this man who's been lame from birth, who was sitting there. They both encountered each other on that one day, and crazy things occurred.

But by no means was that their first day. How many—how many days of consistency were Peter and John going to the temple? It was almost as if it was a habit for them to go to the temple at the time of prayer. And this man, the text tells us, this man he had to get someone to pick him up and drag him over to the gate called Beautiful every single day. I bet it wasn't called Beautiful to him.

I bet it was called a workday for him. And so they drug him over there, set him down. How many years had they done that and nothing had happened? All he was doing, all he was expecting, was to go there and make a little bit of money so he could pay the guys who drug him up there, and so he could have enough to make ends meet for the next week or the next day. Neither person was necessarily expecting anything miraculous or anything from God that day, but they were consistent for so many days before that, right?

Why do I tell you that? Because if for you today is day one and not your one day, it might not happen for you today. It might not happen tomorrow. It might not even happen next week. It might take three years for your marriage to be restored.

It might take years for your kids, to start shifting their behavior. It might take so much time for you to see the victorious things of God in your life. Now, I'm believing it can happen quickly, but what I know—it takes quickly or over a long time, it takes consistency in the present. So let me be very practical with you. If today is your day one, and you're believing, "Man, God brought me here for a reason, " but not everything was unlocked today, God didn't reveal himself to me in a powerful way today—in fact, this worship was kind of interesting, I'm not used to stand for 30 minutes, that was weird—or, "This guy's talking at me, I don't know him, I don't trust him"—it might take you a second.

You might have to go every single day with the same thorn in your side, with the same feeling of lameness that this man had. It might take you week after week after week to see the victorious things of God. But I would encourage you—we have this thing, we call it the 5Gs: gather, grow, group, give, and go. We believe these are the pathways that God utilizes to help us know him at a deeper level and accomplish his calling in our life. And the first of those is gather.

Here's—I want to tell you, if today's your day one, what would it look like for you to commit to gather with us? Or if you're visiting from another church, or one of these churches that are starting soon, to begin gathering consistently. For us, I'll be clear—like, we got Easter in a month. What if you committed to gather every week until Easter? What if you committed to gather every week until Mother's Day?

Your moms would like it, you know what I'm saying. What if you committed to gather every week through the summer? It's going to be hot, you ain't got nothing else to do in the heat. What would it look like for you to choose right now? You know, I don't know what God might do, but I'm going to consistently show up.

If I don't have a car, I'm going to get someone to drag me up to church. I'll give him a little bit of pocket change if I need to, to help him out. I'm going to commit to put myself in position for God to make me spiritually successful. Gather—this is what we want to do. I want to encourage you to gather consistently.

See, I didn't ask you to do all the other stuff, I just want to encourage you to gather. You know, the funny thing, cuz gathering is just a step—just, alarm clock, I'm here, I'm hoping God will do something. And you know, I can make you a promise, he's going to do something if you commit to him, he will. But it's his timing, not yours. And so that's why I'm asking you to gather, because I recognize—look at us, we're just people trying to, in some way, steward the manifest wisdom and craziness and power of God, and some days he's going to just show through, other days it's just going to be another Sunday.

But here's what I know—if you consistently attend, you're going to see him work powerfully. You know, it's funny, because just to this illustration that I was doing here, when we say, "One day I'm going to do this"—, years and years of wishing I was 19 again physically, and you know, y'all know I'm talking about—some of you haven't even realized when you talk about how you used to be, people don't really like it, you know, still wearing your letterman jacket. If you do that—I'm not, like, look at me, look at us, we're figuring out—true story though, I, I wore a letterman jacket one time after I graduated high school, one time, and I hung out with my friends never again. That's all I'll say. I look at Mad, he's wearing his letterman jacket.

Anyways, instead of this, what I've learned, and what a fitness guru would tell you, or just someone who knows how to stay fit, is they'll say don't necessarily prepare for all the big and crazy things. You don't need all the big programs, you don't need all the big equipment, you don't necessarily need a trainer—though those can be helpful and accountable, right? Like, you don't necessarily need all of these things. In fact, there are a couple things you can basically do. You can start dieting—and it's so funny, I'm going—I give you this in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, you can just start walking now.

Fitness gurus will tell you, just start walking, just start walking. And if it's day one for you, and you just start walking, then eventually you're going to do like this guy—he started walking. Peter had to help him up, he starts walking, but then he starts—that looked weird, don't get that on video—he starts jumping, and then he's like, "Hallelujah, praise God, I got this"—we're testing out the stage, that's what we're doing today. He started, and all of us are waiting for the pelotons, we're waiting for the bench, we're waiting for the weights, we're waiting for the clothes, we're waiting for the shoes, we're waiting for the trainer, we're waiting for the day that we're not as busy, we're waiting for all of these things. But in Jesus' name, all you have to do—is you notice how slow I'm walking, I'm doing it for some of you who may not be ready to walk—like, eventually you going to have—you going to have Jesus on you.

In Jesus' name, I'm—I'm confident—that was weird, look at us, goodness gracious—just start walking. And so really practically, there are a couple ways—I already said you can just— Gathering, but for some of you, there are some next steps that it's time for you to take. Some of you just trusted in Jesus today. We're going to have an easy opportunity next week, for those who want to make their faith public through baptism. After the last service, we had several people come up to us and they signed up for baptism.

So I'm excited to see what's going to happen. And if today was your one day, you're like, "Hey, we'll lift you up in Jesus' name." Just the first step is to make your faith public through baptism. So next Sunday, we're going to do baptism after both services. It's going to be an amazing opportunity for us, not just to celebrate with people whose one day was today or next week, but for those of us who are ready to take that next step and make our faith public. And today's just day one, and what you can do on day seven is get baptized.

For others of you, your next step is to begin serving, or commit — not just to this church, but to Christ Jesus. And as you commit to him, he's going to call you to a local church. It might be another church, but I'm believing since you're in here today, we're going to talk about this church. And so if God calls you to take a step toward him through Orbit Church, just come next week, and after the second service, what we're going to do is we call it "into orbit, " like into Orbit Church — it's clever — and then you get into orbit and you're walking with God, and it's super cool. It's clever, and it's got like a metaphor to it.

It's a cool illustration for you to live your life. Right, we want to help you get into the place where you're revolving everything around Jesus. You'll learn a little bit more about our church, and what it looks like for you to find purpose in Christ Jesus. And as you do that, you might join a team. Some of you might find that you're called to lead at a high level.

Some of you might find a passion for outreach. Some of you might recognize that God can actually use you in your workplace. He can, he can help you spend your time more effectively when you're driving to work. Like, there are things that God wants to use you to do. The only way to find out is you seek him.

What I love about this man in the passage is when Peter helps him up — like, you would think, because this is what we do, right? You would think as soon as he gets up and he can walk — like, if you could, if you could walk, I ask you, if you could walk, like, who's the first person you would tell? Your family, right? Yeah, but what does this dude do? He's sitting down.

Peter helps him up. "I'm going into the temple." He walks into the temple with Peter and John, and he's leaping and praising God. The first step he makes when he is brought out of his miry pit is he goes and he worships God. And for many of you, on day one, what you need to recognize is that God, as he helps you, he helps you so that you can know him at a deeper level, because he solves all the problems in your life. Now, that sounds too simple, doesn't it?

"Matt, Pastor Matt, my problems are very nuanced." He solves every single problem. What it takes is consistent focus on him. And as he delivers you, you don't use that deliverance to say, "I'm going to go do my own thing." Use that deliverance to go into the temple. Use that deliverance to approach boldly the throne of his grace daily, so that he can give more and more of himself to you. And then he delivers you again, and he delivers you again.

And as he continues to deliver you, eventually you get to this place where every aspect of your life is contingent on your relationship with your creator. And so, I guess, before you leave, if there's anything I would say to each of you — we've got a lot of stuff coming up, we don't have all of our stuff together — but if God is leading you right now to partner alongside us in this ministry, I want to go back to what I said in the welcome: grab that connection card and fill out whatever box relates to you. Give it to someone on your way out, or fill it out online, and we will reach out to you. Because our whole passion is to help you find the peace that God provides in Jesus, and to find purpose that he'll provide as you seek him. It's that simple.

We want to help you get into orbit in your walk with God. Let me pray for us. Father God, we thank you for today. I thank you for every person in this room, God. I pray that you would give them much clarity on what it looks like for them to take their next step toward you.

Some people we lifted up today, other people would be lifted up in the future, but regardless, there's one thing that matters right now — is that we take steps to you. We don't wait for the perfect, we start while we're imperfect, just walking day in and day out. God, help us walk. In Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen. Y'all stand as we continue in worship for a moment.