Live Boldly in the Spirit - Acts 3:1-4:31

My name is Connor. I'm the communities pastor here.

I've oversee leaders and groups and help raise up new leaders

and by way of a little bit of introduction to share a little

bit about who I was as a kid. As a kid, I was, no doubts about

it, a sports nerd, loved sports, particularly loved football,

would watch every Sunday from 11:00 AM until as late as my

parents would let me stay up for the Sunday Night Football game.

And I loved sports because I loved watching them, but also

because I I played them. And because of that, I really

was tuned in to not only Sundays as I watched the NFL, my

favorite sport, but also to the sports documentary.

And I would watch as many of them as I could because I wanted

to see not just what happened on Sunday on the field, but what

happened throughout the week on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday leading up to the game that got these players

to where they were to be like me.

And many of my friends wanted to be professional athletes.

And maybe football sports is not your thing, but you've maybe

watched a bit too much of something or have been

enthralled by something like the behind the scenes of Taylor

Swift's Eras Tour or maybe Chef's Table on Netflix.

You've enjoyed watching chef's piece together meals across the

globe or maybe something like that.

And it's a sense of what we get as we look to the book of Acts

this season as a church because we see what the church was like.

We get to see not just what Sundays are like.

Because last week we looked at that.

Tucker really preached on what is the first Sunday of the

church look like? The Holy Spirit falls, Peter

preaches A sermon, thousands come to know Jesus through it

and join the church. But what does that first Monday

look like? We've seen Sunday, but what does

Monday look like? As we read narrative texts like

Acts, we need to ask a couple questions to help us make sense

of what is happening. And one of them is this Why did

the author, in our case it's Luke, tell this story and why

did he tell it this way? Why is he telling it now, and

why is he telling it this way? And so we're picking up Acts

after we read Luke, which is the perfect way to do it because

they share the authorship of Luke and Luke.

The gospel is all about Jesus and his disciples and how Jesus

works with his disciples to begin doing and teaching his

way. And then the book of Acts picks

up that same Jesus continuing to teach and continuing to do

things through his disciples. And so really what we're asking

this morning is what does the day in the life of a spirit

filled person look like? What does Monday look like for

the church that has been sent? And so if you'll turn with me to

Acts Chapter 3, that's where we'll be this morning.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

And I want to warn you because we won't just be in Acts Chapter

Acts 3 · chapter mention

3, we'll be in three and four. And so don't worry, we'll get

through it in a timely fashion. But in order to help us make

sense of this, these two chapters which tell one story,

it's one unified story, we're going to break our chapters, our

story into four consecutive scenes, 4 consecutive scenes.

And as you guys turn there, I want to give the backdrop to

this drama that's about to unfold.

And so Acts 242, a verse many of us maybe are familiar with, says

this. And they be in the church

continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship

and the breaking of bread and in prayers and looking much like

what our Calvary communities look like.

They would eat together. They talk about the Bible

together, discuss the apostles teaching together, pray for one

another, hang out with one another.

And then verse 46. So continuing daily with 1

accord, or in other words, unity in the temple and the breaking

of bread from house to house, and we are going to pick up this

story as two particular disciples head into the temple,

as was their practice. The two guys we're going to

speak about and think about and read about today are Peter and

John. Now, as we begin to read about

them, there's going to be a temptation for most of us who

are familiar with these two fellows to exalt them above the

level of ordinary. We're going to be tempted to

think about them as these holier than thou, better than mean

people. But it's important to understand

them as they truly are. These are two ordinary men, two

men who were fishermen before they met Jesus, two men that

went through the ordinary Jewish schooling system, two men who

had nothing special about them other than two things, two

things that we as follows just actually share.

They discipled under Jesus and they had the Holy Spirit in

them. And so when as you read about

these two guys, we're not reading about any special

people, but just two guys who disciples under Jesus and are

filled with the Spirit. 2 guys much like us.

And so look with me to scene #1 chapter 3, verse one.

We pick up the story now. Peter and John went together to

the temple at the hour of prayer, the 9th hour, 3:00 for

us, 3:00 PM to be exact. And a certain man lame from his

mother's womb, not meaning that he was like a loser or uncool or

uncouth, meaning that he couldn't walk from his mother's

womb. And later in the narrative,

we'll find out this man's 40 years old for his mother's womb.

Until now, for four decades, this man has been carried by

loved ones, friends, family alike.

He's never taken a step by himself.

And this man very wisely, very shrewdly, is laid daily by his

friends at the gate of the temple, which is called

beautiful shrewdly, because these people are going into the

temple, the people of Israel, and they're passing this man,

and then they're leaving the temple and they're passing him

again, and they're going to worship God.

God, who cares about the outcast, who cares about the

poor, who cares about the needy. And so very wisely, he's seated

outside the temple asking for money, asking for help from some

people who have had their hearts stirred by God.

And so as he sits there, he sees Peter and John again, nothing

special about them to him at this point, just two ordinary

fellows who he asks this question that he'd ask countless

people previous to this. He says, can you give me some

money? Or in other words, he says,

asked. He asked for alms.

Verse 4, Peter fixes his eyes. He looks at this man.

And as he looks at him, maybe imagine him getting down on his

level. He kneels down to see this man

face to face and Peter says to him, look at us.

So verse 5, this man gives his attention to Peter and John

expecting to receive something from them.

And Peter lays out maybe one of the more rude statements so far

in the book of Acts. Silver and gold we do not have.

And you can imagine this man sitting there watching Peter

bend over, look him in the eyes, draw his attention, tell him

this, I don't have any money for you.

As he sees missed opportunity after missed opportunity, walk

through behind Peter. Bad news first, then good news,

Peter says. But what I do have, I give you

In the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of Nazareth.

Rise up and walk. 40 years you've been sitting here lame,

unable to walk. In this moment, rise up and

walk. Peter puts his money where his

mouth is. He grabs this man's hand and

helps him to stand up. And as he does so, immediately

his feet and ankle bones received strength.

And as most of us would in this moment, this man begins to leap

for joy. From crippled since birth to

leaping for joy. This man now goes into the

temple, walks in for the first time ever with Peter and with

John. And verse 9, the people, the

people who had for possibly decades and maybe a few times a

day for decades, walked past this man.

Maybe many of them, having given him a bit of money from time to

time, helped him out. They knew his face, they knew

his story. They see him walking and

praising God, and they knew that it was he who sat begging alms

at the beautiful gate of the temple.

And they, rightfully so, we're filled with wonder, an amazement

at what had happened. And scene one, OK, so we've seen

so far in the scene #1 is that Peter and John go into go into

the temple. And on their way to the temple,

they see a man who asked for help, asked for a bit of money,

and they offer him healing through the name of Jesus and

the power of his Holy Spirit. Now before we go to scene #2 I

want to share just a quick word on the power of God to heal.

Because out of all of the workings of the Spirit, the

gifts of the Spirit, the things the Spirit does, this power to

heal might be and probably is the most emotionally charged

one. What I mean by that is this, if

you were asked to give a teaching at maybe a church or a

school or to some friends about Jesus and, and, and you were

excited about it. And she began to pray, Holy

Spirit, please bless this teaching.

May it go well. May you speak through me and may

people's hearts be changed. Non Christians become

Christians. Christians deepen in their

faith, just work so powerfully through me.

And then you go and you do the teaching and it totally falls

flat. Everybody's going to be OK.

The people will forgive you and probably will forget about it by

the end of the day. After a day or two, you'll

forget about it and move on. Nobody is really hurt in the

long run. Not so with healing people that

you've prayed for, for healing people that come to the church

and maybe we pray for up front or in the prayer room.

If they do not get healed, people like this man, then life

isn't OK. They still are broken and for

the majority of people, this guy would have kept on living as a

cripple, but the majority of people, they're coming for

prayer because life and death is on the line.

Jesus, please heal me coming for prayer because I want to be

healed, otherwise I will die. And so this working of healing,

it is rife with emotional charge.

And so couple words on this, as we see in the gospels, Jesus

walk around Jerusalem healing and we see the disciples now in

the book of Acts healing get asked the question, why are they

doing this? Is it because they're just nice

people? And sometimes we read that into

Jesus. Jesus is so nice.

He goes around and he sees people who need help and, and he

and he's so helpful that he tells them to to walk and be

healed or he gives them their sight back.

And while that Jesus is is nice, he's a kind guy.

What's happening is deeper than that.

Jesus heals and disciples heal because they are proclaiming

God's Kingdom. And as you guys know, in God's

Kingdom there's no tears or pain, there's no sickness,

there's no brokenness, there's no lameness, there's no death.

And so every time that Jesus and disciples heal, what they're

doing is saying there is a Kingdom that is perfectly like

this, and you are getting to experience that in a tiny little

bit right now. Now here's the difficulty for us

as the church, we live in the same same sort of lives, same

sort of way as Jesus and the disciples did.

We have 1 foot in the Kingdom and 1 foot in the world.

And what that means for us is that we have this tension of

knowing that God desires to and often does heal people, and he

definitely can. But then also God is

compassionate and kind, and he often walks through suffering

with people, not healing them, but comforting them till the end

until they pass from this life to the next.

And ultimately, no healing is the end of the story.

This side of eternity. This man who's healed in this

moment might get a paper cut tomorrow and eventually will

pass from this life to the next. And so we as Christians, that

we, we, we lean into the power of, of God to heal and we pray

for healing. But to hold these two things in

tension that God can and often does, but at the same time

sometimes walks through suffering compassionately and

loving with those around us. And we ought to be the same.

Now let's turn our attention to scene #2 Scene 2.

We'll pick it up, Chapter 3, verse 11.

Now, as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and

John, all the people ran together to them in the porch,

which is called Solomon's, and they were greatly amazed.

Now I want us to help. I want to help us get this

picture of what's happening here in our minds.

There's a couple pictures for us.

The first one is a picture of the temple.

As you can see, even from this photo, the temple dominates the

skyline of Jerusalem. It is the main thing.

It's massive. And as you can see, the columns

and the porches along the side, there's four of them.

And the one closest to US, the one in the foreground of this

image, is on the east side, and that's where Peter, John, and

this lame man are. They called that Solomon's

porch. You go to the next picture, you

can see a rendering of what that might have looked like.

And so maybe imagine being Peter and John and you're looking

right down this aisle, right down this porch, and people are

starting to flood in because you just healed this lame man that

they've known for 40 years. They've seen him.

And now Peter sees all of this. It says in verse 12.

And when he saw it, he responded to the people, men of Israel.

What do you marvel at? This kind of an interesting

question, right? To which they would probably all

be thinking that we marvel at this because we know this guy

and he has never walked and you show up and he walks into the

temple with you. What on earth happened?

Now Peter explains why they should not be marveling at this.

Read on with me. Or why look so intently at us as

though by our own power or godliness we made this man walk.

It wasn't us. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob, the God of our fathers, in a sense, the God of the

Jewish people, the Old Testament God glorified his servant.

And here's the kicker. Jesus.

Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate

when he was determined to let him go, but you denied the Holy

One and the just, and you asked for a murderer, Barabbas, to be

granted to you and killed. You killed the Prince of Life

whom God, God raised him from the dead of which we being Peter

and John are witnesses. Now remember, this story comes,

possibly it comes after Pentecost.

It could come on the very next day, but it's about 50 or more,

give or take, days away from Jesus's crucifixion and

resurrection. And so these people in the

temple are some of the very same people who stood chanting,

crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

Many of these people were there saying, give us Barabbas the

murderer. We want him and not Jesus the

Prince of life. Some of these very same people

were there, and Peter calls them out on that.

But then he offers this beautiful word, I think

responding to a very simple yet powerful prayer that Jesus prays

on the cross. You're probably familiar with

it. As Jesus hangs on the cross, he

says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

And I think Peter hearing that now, recognizing the opportunity

that he has in this moment, says what he says next, says you

killed these people, You killed Jesus.

But verse 19 You can repent therefore, and be converted.

You can turn away from your old life and start to follow, be

converted to the way of Jesus, that your sins may be blotted

out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of

the Lord. And that He may send Jesus

Christ, who has preached to you before, whom heaven must receive

and tell the time restoration of all things which God has spoken

by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

See what Peter's doing? He's offering forgiveness to

some of the very same people who literally put Jesus on the

cross. And he's saying it's possible

for you to turn to Jesus to be forgiven, to have your sins

blotted out, washed away by God himself, if you will simply

repent and convert to Jesus. And then he explains what that

will be like. And it's beautiful what he says.

It says times are refreshing, may come in lieu of the great

time of restoration. 1 commentator explains it puts it

this way. He says heaven is the place

where God's purposes for the future are stored up like pieces

of a stage set waiting in the wings.

So he imagines God unfolding all of eternity, the whole story of

humankind, like watching a play. And out on the sides and in the

backstage, he has all of these things that he's storing up,

chief among them Jesus himself. And he is waiting for that final

great act of the play. When Jesus finally reappears,

heaven and earth come together as one.

And that will be the great renewal of all things.

And that's what Peter's pointing to you.

But he's also offering refreshing.

We can have all of that, but we don't have to wait.

Another author, he puts it this way.

He says we need not and must not wait until we die to live in the

Kingdom. If we will only move to that

land now by giving our lives to Jesus, the passage and physical

death will be but one day in the endless life we've long since

begun. Isn't that beautiful?

So Peter's preaching to these crowds.

And that's where we end scene #2 we see Peter and John, witnesses

of Jesus's life, death, crucifixion, resurrection, and

ascension. Offer forgiveness and hope to a

people that's marveling, marveling at what what Christ

has done through these men. See, these people had a few

years of Jesus in their lives where they saw him do these very

same things. And now he's still working and

he's still speaking through these two men and the rest of

the church around them. And Peter offers to them the

same offer that's on the table for each one of us to go to the

restored and new Kingdom to be with God both in eternity and

also starting now. And we turn our attention to

scene #3. And as they spoke, it says in

chapter 4, verse one, the people, the priests, the captain

of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, people who need

no introduction. And they don't probably need to

tell you what they do next. If you're familiar at all with

their reputation throughout the Gospels, they show up, they hear

that these men, Peter and John, are talking about Jesus.

And of course, what do they do? They put their hands on them.

They arrest them and they put them in prison for the evening

to await trial in the morning. Then Luke has this beautiful

kind of throwaway statement in verse four.

He says, however, as Peter and John were were towed off to

prison and awaited trial, many of those who heard the word

believed how many? Well, he says the number of men,

just men in the church now came to about 5000.

So the first Sunday added 3000 people, total men, women and

probably some children. Now that this first Monday we

see 2000 men added or depending on how you do your math, there's

5000 men in the church plus however many women and children

were were a part of it as well. The church continues to grow

exponentially. Verse 5.

And it came to pass on the next day that the rulers, elders,

scribes, as well as Anis, the high priest, Caiaphas, John and

Alexander, and as many as were in the family of the high priest

were gathered together at Jerusalem.

And when they had sent them in the midst, they asked.

So here's the picture. I'll show actually an image on

the screen of what this kind of would have looked like.

This is the Sanhedrin court. It was arrayed in the half

circle so that the Sanhedrin could talk back and forth to one

another, so they could have discussions, and they would have

put Peter and John right there, smack dab in the center and

surrounding Peter and John are not just average ordinary

people. These are the authorities.

These are the elites of their city, the religious and cultural

elites, the people everybody would have looked up to, the

people who held all of the power.

And they stand there in the middle of them and they're asked

this question. Peter and John, we want to know

verse 7, by what power or by what name have you done this?

Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit and you'll notice

throughout the book of Acts, at any time anybody's filled with

the Spirit they speak says to them, rulers of the people and

elders of Israel. If we this day are judged for a

good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been

made, Well, let it be known to you all and to the people of

Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom

you crucified, who God raised from the dead, by him, this man

stands before you whole. They say it's by the name of

Jesus, the man you crucified, who God raised from the dead,

that you have been made a whole. And then Peter quotes Jesus,

quoting the Old Testament. And Jesus had said this couple

months before in the temple, and Peter says this is the stone

which was rejected by you builders, which has become now

the chief cornerstone. Nor is there any salvation in

any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among

men by which we must be saved. Now I want us to notice here for

a moment the character arc, if you will, of Peter, because we

see Peter right now speaking boldly before the elites of the

city. But just a month and a half,

couple months previous, Jesus was standing exactly where Peter

was on the night he was betrayed.

He was taken to be tried by the same people, these same elites,

same authorities. And Jesus did where Peter stood

and Peter stood outside. And you might remember the story

because Peter famously stands outside and he's talking with a

a girl, not just any ordinary girl, but servant girl.

And she asks him kind of a similar question as the

Sanhedrin, as the council there. And she says, you're one of his

disciples, aren't you? And Peter responds, no, don't

know him, don't know what you're talking about.

I'm not one of his disciples. So somehow, in the span of a

couple months, Peter goes from denying Jesus before a servant

girl to proclaiming him in front of the very same people who had

Jesus crucified. What happened?

We know two very simple and short things.

If you want an expanded version of it, I would encourage you to

take a look at Pastor Tom's Wednesday night teaching from

Holy Week, the Wednesday leading up to Easter, because he gave

one of the more most beautiful sermons I've ever listened to.

His poetic and wonderful showing how Peter and Judas responded to

basically denying Jesus on the night he was betrayed in

different ways and how Peter persevered but Judas didn't.

So I point you there for an extended reading and extended

time of thinking about this. But in summary, you can sum it

up this way. Peter goes from denying Christ

before a servant girl to proclaiming him boldly before

the authorities by witnessing the resurrection of Jesus and by

being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now it says when they saw the boldness in verse 13 of Peter

and John. This word boldness is very

important for us. It comes up in the book of Acts

3 times and all three times are in our text today.

So Luke is encouraging us to look at this idea, this theme of

boldness and boldness. Very Simply put, it's just this

ability to speak frankly, to speak the truth is often used in

political context to say about a someone running for office or in

office that they spoke the truth without worrying about risk to

the reputation or risk to themselves.

And that's what Peter and John do.

They speak boldly and they perceived that they were

uneducated and untrained men and they marvelled at this and they

realized that they had been with Jesus.

Now by uneducated and untrained, what Luke is not saying is that

the that Peter and John weren't brilliant.

He's saying that they weren't educated.

The the elites are realizing these men didn't go to our

universities. They didn't get educated the way

that most people do. For them.

They had what they would call rabbis, or what might translate

for us roughly as the Ivy Leagues.

And most of us could probably name a few, if not all of the

Ivy League schools, right, Harvard, Princeton, Yale.

And they knew these rabbis that would have disciples.

And a lot of those disciples were known by these people.

And what they're saying is these two guys did not come through

one of our Ivy League rabbis. They are brilliant and they are

wise and they're using scripture well and they're doing

incredible things, but they're subversive.

And it reminds us a lot of that guy Jesus, because he too didn't

come through the normal rabbi school and came out of this

place called Nazareth, which nothing good comes from there.

And he subverted the whole nation, so much so that we just

had, we had to put them to death.

And they realized these men, by their boldness and by their

training, had been with Jesus. And verse 14, it says that they

see the man who had been healed standing there and they realize

something. These Peter and John men are

brilliant and this man is healed.

There's not a whole lot we can do today.

So they send to Peter and John out and they deliberate.

They talk across the circle to one another and they realize

something. We can't do anything, but we can

be incredibly harsh with them and give them a very stern

warning. And so they call Peter and John

back in and they warned them. They say if you speak the name

of Jesus or preach his Kingdom anymore, then we will deal with

you severely. It'll be awful for you.

You're not going to like what we're going to do.

And Peter again brilliantly responds by putting the leaders

in this tough position of choosing between God and their

own judgment. He says this in verse 19.

Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more

than God, you judge. But we're going to keep

preaching the gospel for why we cannot but speak the things

which we've seen and heard. Peter says we have to talk about

this. You got to punish us.

Punish us, but we will not be silent.

And scene #3 In this third scene, we see the conflict

between Peter and John, and the elites of the city come to a

head. And we see Peter, who once

backed down to a servant girl, stand up for Jesus by the power

of the Spirit, witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus.

And we see them preach boldly. Now the Holy Spirit is in them

giving the words to say. So to recap real quick, just to

make sure we're all tracking with the stories so far, Peter

and John heal a man who's been lame for 40 years.

They go into the temple, He's rejoicing.

The people are marvelling. Peter preaches A sermon that

causes the church to grow almost double in size and causes him

and John to be thrown in prison and taken to court to be

questioned by the cultural elite, to which they stand up

faithfully and boldly proclaiming the name and the

Kingdom of Jesus and offering forgiveness and repentance, the

opportunity to repent to everybody involved.

And that's Monday in the life of a follower of Jesus, in the life

of a spirit filled the person. And at this point I'd like to

address possibly for you and me, an elephant in the room.

If this is what the life of a spirit filled person looks like,

then how was your last Monday? How was my last Monday?

Or maybe, you know, let's be generous.

How was our last week? Or maybe there there's a

particular season in your life that you can look to and not

that you went to the temple and healed someone and preached the

gospel to Jewish people who had put Jesus on the cross.

But just simply shared the the good news with God's Kingdom

boldly and honestly with a a friend who you love and trusted

God to to move miraculously and do things in their life and

their heart that you couldn't do ordinarily by yourself.

How many of us have spent a Monday or Tuesday or a season

like that? And maybe you're leaning in at

that and saying maybe you haven't, but I would like to.

If that's you, this scene, the last scene scene #4 is for you.

So lean into this with me. Verse 23 of chapter 4.

And being let go, they went to their own companions.

They went to the church, and they reported all the chief

priests and elders had said to them.

So they go to their community and they say, hey, guess what

happened? We got arrested.

And here's what they said. And verse 24, they all heard it.

The whole community, the whole church heard it.

And then they lifted their voices.

They began to sing in unity, and they said, this Lord, you are

God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that's in

them, who by the mouth of your servant David.

And now they're going to sing some words from Psalm #2.

Why did the nation's rage in the people's plot?

Vain things. The kings of the earth took

their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the

Lord and against his Christ. And as they sing these words

from Psalm 2, they would have had the imagery of Psalm 2, the

rest of it in their brain and on their minds and in their hearts.

And one of my favorite parts of Psalm 2 comes in verse 4, and it

says this David writes, he who sits in the heavens, meaning

Jesus shall laugh, shall hold them in derision, meaning that

Jesus looks at the authorities, He looks at the kings of the

earth, He looks at the nations and trying to usurp authority

and take authority. And he laughs.

Why? Because he knows his Kingdom is

the Kingdom, the everlasting Kingdom that will trump every

other Kingdom. And he knows he is the king who

has won a decisive victory. And so the church picks up this

song and they sing these words and they continue for truly

against your holy servant Jesus, whom you've appointed, anointed

both Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of

Israel. Everyone involved were gathered

together to do whatever your hand and your purposes

determined before to be done. In other words, they just did

what you had planned, what you had prophesied, what you had

told. You've been in control all the

time. God.

Now lean into verse 29. Now, Lord, look on their

threats, and grant to your servants that we with all

boldness may speak your word by stretching out your hand to

heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of

your holy servant, Jesus. What does God say to this?

What does he do? Verse 31?

And when they prayed, the place where they were assembled

together was shaken in answer to the prayer for signs and wonders

to be done. And they were all filled with

the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God

with what? With boldness.

Again, answer to prayer. And you see what they did right?

How did their Mondays look so different?

How did their Mondays look so powerful?

How did their lives operate so transformedly?

They asked. It reminds me of a often quoted

teaching of Jesus with the probably just as often forgotten

ending. It's the parable that you're

probably familiar with, the ask, seek, knock.

He says ask and it should be given to you.

Seek and you'll find knock and the door will be open to you.

And then he says, you all have fathers.

God's even better than that Father.

He's so loving and kind. And we apply that in all kinds

of ways, beautiful ways, helpful ways, good ways.

But Jesus, how does he apply it? What's his his end of his little

little sermon there, his little point.

He says this if you then being evil know how to give a good

gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit? How much more will God to give

the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

And so I wonder if the reason that our Mondays don't

necessarily look like these is because we've often simply

forgotten to ask God to move, to show up, and then anticipated

that he'd actually do that, and then obeyed him as he put things

on our heart, people on our minds called us to step out in

faith. Maybe then we'd be ordinary

people doing extraordinary things as disciples of Jesus,

filled with his Holy Spirit. Now, if you'll allow me just a

moment of honesty, there's some teachings as a pastor that you

give that you feel like I've mostly got that one.

And then there's others that you give and you think, I humbly, I

think I've almost nailed this one.

And then there's others like this for me that you share and

you realize you have so much room to grow in so many ways to

make progress in living this way.

And as I share this, I have some people in my mind that are in

our church family that I am so grateful for that are living

pictures of this. Think of people who one guy who

works a white collar job in Boise.

And when I talk to him about his workplace and his family, he

tells me about how he's living by the Spirit and leading people

to Jesus, the conversations that he has the ways God's moving to

people's lives in response to prayers he's prayed.

He told me once that living this way is almost feels like he's

living in a movie because the hands of God is the director

seem to be all over his day that everywhere he goes seems like

God's gone beforehand and prepared his way.

Think of another man who's a mentor of mine that when I sit

with him, it doesn't feel like I'm talking to him.

It feels like I'm talking to God through him.

Just normal average guy in our church family.

Just a little bit more further along in the journey of

discipleship than I and think of another guy who his whole life

is spent living the way of Jesus.

He's a blue collar worker and he's made connections across the

globe with missionaries, with people who speak different

languages, with Muslims. He's sharing the gospel with all

because he just listens to the prompting of the Spirit to go

and say and do what he feels like he's called to say and do.

There's others in our church Fin that that I'm so grateful for.

We're so grateful for and what we have.

I think a good, good group of people living this way in our

church. I think that if we were a church

that desires to be people who love God, live like Jesus and

let the Spirit lead that last one, let the Spirit lead.

If we're just honest, might be maybe one of our our weaker

points like myself, and we're in a church that we know the Bible

so well. I'd put our church up against

any other church in town, our knowledge of the Bible, and I'd

put our culture right up against a lot of other cultures when it

comes to thinking through things.

We live in a culture that's all logic, all material.

And so it can be hard sometimes to live according to the Spirit

because it might feel a bit bold, a bit unlogical, a bit

scary, or require us to rely on something other than the exact

written word to go on a hunch to this.

I think it's supposed to say something to that person or pray

for them. And So what I would love to do

with hope and anticipation is lean into living this way.

Tucker shared a couple weeks ago is the open to access quote from

AW Tozer. I want to read it again because

I think it it points out a truth about our our current moment as

a church, as a church culture. If the Holy Spirit, Tozer says,

was withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would

go on and no one would know the difference.

But if the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament

church, the church were reading about in Acts, 95% of what they

would did would stop and everybody would know the

difference. In closing, I'd like to do

something just a little bit different and spend a few

moments joining with the the church we see here in Acts 4 in

prayer and joining with the church throughout history that's

prayed some version of this prayer come Holy Spirit, meaning

not that he's not here already. He's present in our hearts and

in our midst, but more or less saying come in the sense of wake

us up to your presence. Help us to become aware of what

you're asking us to do and how you're asking us to live.

Help us to live with boldness and with power that comes from

you. Thanks for joining us today.

If you would like to watch the full service, check out the link

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more, visit calvaryboise.com.