Preparing for 2025 Together | Pastor Ken Prabucki

Good morning, Christ

Community Chapel.

Pastor Zach here.

And if you're new here,

I want you to know

we're doing something

a little different

this weekend.

Usually our teaching team

consists of Pastor

Joe and myself.

We alternate on about.

And every other week basis,

which I love.

We love

not just getting

to preach to you,

but also getting to listen

to the other guys.

One of my favorite things

that we do.

But there are actually six

other staff pastors

who serve this church

really well.

They just don't always

do it on stage.

And by preaching.

Except we're going to flip

that this weekend

and actually going to do this

four times this year.

We're calling it

Staff Pastor Weekend.

There'll be

a different pastor

preaching in every service.

And in every venue

Thursday night

in the weekend,

East Hall

and West,

giving you a chance

to get to know

some of your other pastors

and to hear

a different perspective

on the same passage

with the same outline,

just a different guy

delivering it.

So would you join me in

welcoming your staff pastor

in your venue to the stage?

This guy works really hard

to love

and care for you, and I'm

so glad

you got a chance

to hear from him

as he teaches

from God's Word.

Enjoy the service.

Yeah.

Now we're talking.

All right.

Welcome, to the weekly

gathering of Christ Community

Chapel for our very first

service of 2025.

Happy New year.

Yeah.

Even more hoots and hollers.

Good. I like the energy.

Let's be honest.

It's, It's January 2nd.

So it's

just after the holidays.

It's cold.

It's dark, and you're here.

We're going to tell you

when we get to heaven.

You're getting

the good rooms, all right?

You're committed.

You're committed.

I'm so glad that you're here.

For those of you

that I haven't had

the privilege of meeting yet.

My name is Ken.

I'm one of the staff

pastors, as Pastor

Zach just alluded to.

I've been on staff here

for about five years.

Prior to that, I was,

practicing attorney.

I practiced

law for a decade before,

God called me

to a full time ministry.

And I've been married

to my wife, Jamie,

for a little over 16 years.

I have three daughters.

They are eight and six.

And two.

Kamiya, Skyler and Lily.

So pray for me.

I got three little girls,

is what I tell people. You.

If you know me,

you've heard me say this.

In this season of life,

I don't sleep.

I'm not funny.

And I'm never right.

That that is me

in a nutshell.

But really,

thank you for being here.

Thanks for making the time.

Especially if you're here

and you're visiting here

and you're new.

We're so glad that you're

joining us.

You know, that

being the new year, 2025,

it's time for New Year's.

What new year's

resolutions, right.

New year, new you.

Time to pick something up.

Time to drop something.

Maybe drop a few pounds

that you picked up

over the holidays.

But it's an opportunity

as you look ahead to the year

to say, I'm

going to do

something different.

I'm going to

change something.

And New Year's

resolutions are good.

They can be great.

But I'm going to challenge

you tonight to consider

something

that is transformative,

not just for you,

not just even for us, but for

the region,

for the communities

around us, for the world.

And I hope you say

yes to that.

I hope you'll say

yes to that.

And if you're here

and you're

not yet a Christian, I'm

going to invite you

to consider something too.

So stay tuned.

In our passage tonight,

which I'm going to

read in a moment,

we're going to be looking

at a church

that said yes

to something

transformative and changed

the world.

And so let's

turn to that now.

It's acts chapter

Acts 13 · chapter mention

13, verses one through three.

Chapter 13, verses

one through three.

You can find it

in your pew Bibles, or

pull it up on your phone.

But but,

let me let me

read this for you.

And then

and then we'll,

we'll zoom in.

All right.

Here it is,

Isaiah 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13, verses

one through three.

Now, there were in the church

at Antioch, prophets

and teachers

Barnabas, Simeon,

who was called Niger,

Lucius of Cyrene.

Monaghan,

a lifelong friend of Herod

the tetrarch.

And Saul,

while they were worshiping

the Lord and fasting,

the Holy Spirit said, set

apart for me

Barnabas and Saul,

for the work

to which I have called them.

Then, after

fasting and praying,

they laid their hands on them

and sent them off.

And we're going to spend time

in those verses tonight.

Let me give you the larger

picture, the context briefly,

so you can kind of,

understand how

how we found ourselves

here, in the book of acts.

Really.

We're we're really

the story is picking up

post Jesus's life,

death and resurrection

and acts opens with

Jesus before he

ascended into heaven,

giving a charge

to his disciples.

And I'm going to read

that charge

because it's

gives us

some pretty crucial context.

It's acts chapter one

and it's verse eight.

This is what Jesus says.

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 end of the earth.

And then Jesus ascends

and the mission continues

through the power

of the Holy Spirit.

The local church is formed,

and we see the gospel

go forward.

Now in acts chapter 13,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

verses one through three,

we are right on the brink

of the global church

being launched.

It's an amazing,

an amazing moment.

This church is stepping

into the mission

to take the gospel

to all corners of the globe.

And by the way,

that mission is continuing

through the book of acts,

through the balance

of the New Testament,

through to today,

to this very moment.

And who is God

using to do this?

He's using the church

at Antioch.

He's using Paul.

He's using Barnabas.

And how it happened, how

this church stepped

into the mission of God,

how God use them.

That's really important.

Understanding the ingredients

that were involved,

not just for

the church at Antioch,

but but for us here and now.

And so as we walk

through these verses, I'm

going to walk through them

using the three ingredients

for the mission of God

to move forward.

There are three things there.

My three points for tonight.

Here they are.

How does the mission

move forward?

Number one, open hearts.

Number two, open hands.

Number three, open doors,

open hearts.

Open hands, open doors.

Let's start with open hearts.

If you were to

look at this passage,

something very important

for us to understand

that every single person

mentioned here, and in fact,

every single person

in the church at Antioch,

had said yes to Jesus.

They said yes to Jesus.

It's a church

because it was comprised of

Christians.

They've opened their hearts

to the truth of the gospel,

to the good news of Jesus.

And when I say open hearts,

when we talk

about open hearts,

what I mean is hearts

that have been transformed

by what I'm going to call

supernatural surrender.

Supernatural surrender.

All right. Two things.

You need them both,

for your heart

to be fully open.

All right,

let's talk about that.

Supernatural peace first.

Coming to faith

in Jesus

requires an act of God.

Full stop.

It requires God to act.

He must do something.

That's the supernatural part.

Now, if you look at Paul,

God showed up

in a pretty amazing way.

The conversion story of Paul

is pretty incredible.

He's an enemy of the church.

That's an understatement,

by the way.

At one point,

the author of acts says

Paul is breathing

threats and murder.

I've been married

for 16 years.

If I knew

my wife was breathing

threats and murder

against me, I would run

threats and murder.

He he has just tacitly

or explicitly approved

of the execution of someone

just a few chapters

back, he's

going home to home,

dragging Christians

for imprisonment or worse.

And then he is struck down

in what

I can only describe

as the original come

to Jesus moment

comes face to face

with the risen

Christ and is changed,

transformed.

God acted

in a supernatural

way, and Paul's life

post conversion is marked

by powerful evangelism,

incredible obedience,

remarkable suffering,

all because God worked

in his heart

in a powerful

and personal way.

Open hearts

require an act of God.

That's the supernatural part.

But they also involve

something in our part two.

And that's the

surrender piece.

To be a Christian

means that

we have to acknowledge,

first and foremost,

that we're deeply broken.

There's

something wrong with us,

and we can't

fix it on our own.

And we need someone,

not ourselves, to intervene.

We need a savior.

I have three little kids.

We talk about Jesus

as the rescuer.

We need to be rescued

from our broken,

sinful state.

By the way, surrender

might sound like it's easy.

It might sound like

it's weak. It's not.

Surrender is hard.

It's active.

How many times

have you surrendered

in an argument

with a spouse or a friend?

Let's speak for myself.

It's not easy to surrender,

to throw up your hands

and say, fine, you win.

How much more?

So when it comes

to the God of the universe,

when we have to say

the way I've been

living my life.

I can't do it anymore.

You win, God, you win.

C.S. Lewis has a great quote.

I'm going to paraphrase it.

Basically he says, look,

people aren't just imperfect

human beings

that need to shape up a bit,

dust themselves off.

They are rebels

who need to lay

down their arms.

Strong language.

But I think it's apt.

We need to surrender

supernatural surrender,

open hearts

that come from

that supernatural surrender

and act of God and response

from us.

Now, if you're here

and you're Christian,

you might be thinking, okay,

sure.

For Paul,

I mean, this conversion

story

is really one of a kind.

That's true to an extent.

But,

you know,

while you probably,

I'm guessing,

weren't actively

persecuting Christians,

dragging them

from their homes,

you probably weren't

struck down in route

to Damascus.

You probably weren't

rendered temporarily blind.

Let me ask you, who were you

before Jesus.

How did you think?

How did you speak?

How did you act?

Do you remember

what was life like before

Jesus?

You know, elsewhere

in the New Testament,

Paul writes

of us as dead in our sin,

children of wrath.

Rebels

that need to lay

down their arms.

So maybe you weren't at odds

with the church

per se,

in the way

that Paul was, but.

But you were

absolutely at odds

with the God of the universe.

And you know what it took for

you to be made right

with God?

Jesus living the life

that you couldn't, dying

the death you deserve

and raising from the dead.

I'd say that's pretty

supernatural, wouldn't you?

It took God in your

moment of surrender

when you finally laid

down your arms and said,

you know what?

Not my way, but yours.

Not my own kingship, God.

But but yours. Jesus.

You sit on the throne

in that moment of surrender,

God transforming your heart

from unbelief to belief.

Supernatural.

The ongoing work of God

through the Holy Spirit

in your life

even now,

making you more and more

like Jesus and less and less

like the old you.

Tell me what

isn't supernatural

about all of that?

As I was preparing

this sermon,

I had to face

a sobering reality.

I'm going to

ask you this too.

When is the last time

that you just stopped

and marveled

at the work God has done

in Jesus, in you?

It's an incredible thing.

It's an incredible thing.

So the supernatural

surrender.

It's what leads to

open hearts.

It's true

of every single person.

The church

at Antioch, here

in this passage, it's true

of every Christian.

It's true of you.

It's true of me.

We are

walking miracles.

Let's not

forget that.

And by the way,

if you're here

and you're not yet

a Christian,

I have not

forgotten about you.

Thank you for being here.

What I've just described

isn't you yet.

But it can be.

To acknowledge

the work of Jesus in his life

and his death

and his resurrection.

To surrender to his kingship,

to invite God

to transform you

and to be made more

and more like Jesus.

You can have that.

God has acted.

Will you surrender?

Will you surrender?

The mission of God

moves through open hearts.

That's the first ingredient.

And then open heart.

Open hearts.

They lead to open hands.

That's my second point.

Open hearts

lead to open hands.

I think it follows

that if we really, really do

embrace the magnitude

of what

God has done for us in Jesus,

that our response

will be this,

this overflow,

this abundance

of of gratitude,

of joy, of a, of a

desire to obey and to follow.

And to

say, Jesus, what you want,

I want what you love.

I'll love.

I want to follow you.

My hands are open

to whatever you want,

whenever you want,

however you want.

And that's

what's happening here

in acts chapter 13,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

verse two.

It says,

while they were

worshiping the Lord

and fasting,

see what they're doing.

This this church

is abstaining from food

from their physical

needs in order

to more fully commit

to prayer,

in order to earnestly seek

God's guidance

because they want

what he wants.

They want to love

what he loves.

Their hands are open.

Now the idea,

the idea of wanting

what someone else wants

and loving

what someone else loves.

It's not just true

in this context.

It's actually true of

of anyone with whom

you're in a relationship,

anyone you care about.

I've been married

for 16 years.

We dated for five years

prior to that,

and I can tell you

there are things that I want

and love

now that I never thought

I would.

Never in a million years

never wanted to travel,

had no desire to do it,

and that Jamie

and she,

she changed my perspective

on that.

I love to travel now.

Of course we have little kids

so we don't travel now,

but maybe again one day.

I'm glad you're

sitting down for this.

I watch

documentaries sometimes.

It's true, it's true.

If you knew me pregame,

you'd be like, no you don't.

Sometimes I do,

and I even enjoy them.

I've come to love them

because Jamie loves them.

NPR podcasts

I don't listen to those.

I'm not Jesus, but.

But I listen to Jamie

when she talks about them,

and that's something.

If you have

kids, if you have kids,

you know this is true.

You know that.

That you want what they want.

You love what they love.

I got an eight year

old, a six year old,

two and a half year old.

Okay?

I find myself on some random

Saturday morning

wearing a tutu

and dancing to Kidz

Bop volume 84.

Sure.

Let's do it.

It's what they want.

It's what they love.

Let's go.

I dressed up in an inflatable

T-Rex costume

and walked the neighborhood

a couple of years ago.

People were

not a joke, people.

I think I almost caused

an accident.

People were stopping

dead in the street

just so they could

take a picture.

What I'm about

to share with you

next is is really not

Sunday service material.

I'll be honest, it's

more of a Thursday story,

so I'm going to share it.

A couple of weeks ago,

just think, Sunday

evening, Sunday evening,

Jamie's, cooking dinner,

playing with the girls

were being silly.

We got we got music on.

And at some point,

I decided it's a good idea

to play the Baywatch

theme song.

Anyone remember Baywatch?

Yeah.

Don't hassle the Hoff. Right.

Okay.

All right.

If you don't know Baywatch,

just understand that,

everything that follows

is the opposite

of what that show was.

Okay, in so many ways.

So I decided to be funny

to play

the Baywatch theme song.

And I'm slow motion

carrying my children

through the kitchen.

Right.

Just just trying to get there

laughing. Jamie's laughing.

Shaking her head,

she says offhandedly.

Well,

the only thing

that would make

this better is if you

did that in swim trunks.

Or you betcha.

You betcha.

We have a bay window.

Yeah,

you don't have to groan.

I mean, come on,

like I know what I did.

You don't need to.

So if you happen

to be walking by our house

a couple weeks ago

between like 515 and 530,

I am deeply sorry

to send your counseling

bill to me right?

It's nuts.

I know it's nuts,

but you know what I want?

What they want.

My wife, my kids.

I love what they love.

Some ways

I'm totally unlike myself

now because of them.

Open hands,

open hands.

That's the church at Antioch.

God, what you want?

We want what you love.

We're going to love, too.

And let me say this.

When your hands are open,

when your hands are open,

sometimes it means you're

letting go of stuff too,

right?

You know,

with my family, it's

a certain amount of freedom.

With kids, it's

definitely sleep.

Occasionally my self-respect.

But you know what?

My priorities have changed.

Same is true

when you have open hands

with God.

When your heart's been opened

and your hands are open.

It's not just how you think

and act.

It's how you spend your time,

your energy, your money.

It all changes.

Your hands are open.

Whatever you want.

God, I'm in.

I'm in.

By the way, it's

actually not a secret

what God wants here.

We don't have to wonder.

It's why

I read acts 18A

few moments ago.

What does God want?

He wants them

to be his witnesses

in Jerusalem,

all Judea and Samaria,

and to the end of the earth.

Church are

are we a church

of open hands?

Whatever you want,

whenever you want,

however you want.

Jesus, you have it.

I want what you want.

Do we love what God loves?

Do we love who God loves?

Are we an open handed church

key ingredient

in the mission of God

moving forward?

So if our hearts are open

and our hands are open,

what happens?

Well, what happened here

in acts

13, it's my final point.

The third ingredient.

Open doors, open hearts.

Lead open hands, open

hands lead to open doors.

This is what acts

13, two and three says.

While they were worshiping

the Lord and fasting,

the Holy Spirit said, set

apart for me

Barnabas and Saul

for the work

to which I have called them.

Then after

fasting and praying,

they laid their hands on them

and sent them off.

You see,

when our hearts and

our hands are open,

God opens doors.

That's what he did here.

And there are two things

I want to mention about this.

Two things. Number one.

Number one,

when it comes to open doors,

it's a wee thing,

not a meat thing

or a heath thing

or a sheep thing.

I know

that's a lot of pronouns, but

you need to hear me on this.

It's a wee thing

because sure,

sure, God

calls Paul and Barnabas.

To take the gospel

to the ends of the earth.

But it's the church

at Antioch

that he uses to do it.

It's the church.

The praise for them.

It's the church

that lays hands on them,

that commissions

them, that sends them.

So while Paul and Barnabas

are walking through

that open door,

the church,

in a very real way,

is walking through

that open door behind them.

It's a wee thing.

And just like behind Paul

and Barnabas was the church

in Antioch.

Truth is behind

every dynamite.

Senior pastor

and every dynamite

lead pastor.

Behind every Joe, behind

every Zach is a church.

It's a wee thing.

They'd be

the first to tell you that.

When God opens doors,

we walk through them

together.

That's the first thing.

Here's the second thing.

Seemingly small moments

can change the world.

Seemingly small moments

can change the world.

In this passage,

you have one church,

two missionaries,

and kind of a vague directive

to go.

And from that,

the launch of the

global church.

I don't believe this

church knew

what God was about to do.

But he's working

through these

seemingly regular people

in a seemingly small moment

to change the world.

And a

step of faith

with open hearts.

With open hands.

They walked through the door.

He opened.

Do you know what I love

maybe most about this passage

in the grand narrative

that God

is writing in the story

of the Bible?

Things like this

aren't the exception.

They're the rule.

Again and again and again.

God uses

seemingly regular people

in seemingly small moments

to absolutely change

the world.

With Abraham,

all the families of the earth

would be blessed.

He took David,

the runt of the litter.

A shepherd made him a king,

and from his lineage

came Jesus.

And from this church

at Antioch

we have the global church.

I asked you

at the beginning

of our time together,

if you'd consider saying yes

in 2025

to something

that would be transformative,

not just for you and for me,

but for the region

to have a far larger

impact.

Saying yes

to an open door.

Next week

we're going to start

a new message series.

And I don't think

I'm overstating this.

When I tell you

that we believe it's

one of the most

important series

we're ever going

to preach here,

because we believe

that God is up to big things

right here and right now,

that he's

using regular people

in seemingly small moments

to change the world.

Will that be us?

Will that be us?

I hope so.

Open hearts,

open hands.

Let's in 2025, let's commit

to walking through the door

that God opens

and inviting him

to use us

to change the world.

Would you pray with me?

Heavenly father,

as we sit here on

January 2nd, we don't

know what's coming tomorrow,

let alone

the balance of the year.

But I pray

for me

and for every

single person here

that our hands would be open,

and that when

you open a door,

we choose to walk through.

You have done so much for us,

shown us

that we can trust you,

help us to follow you

wherever you lead us.

We love you, Jesus.

It's in

your name that we pray.

Amen.