Acts - Go Where You've Never Been

Good morning.

What a day.

That's one of those songs that has a fake out ending.

And so I started walking.

Some of you guys may have seen me.

Had to just slowly creep back, but well, there you go.

Well, hey, it's it's Bless the Bikes.

This is always a good day for us.

You always notice Bless the Bikes for two reasons.

Number one, a lot more motorcycles.

Number two, a lot fewer sleeves, which is really good when you look at it.

A lot of sleeveless stuff, which I love.

We're gonna have a good time today.

There's gonna be barbecue outside you wanna you wanna purchase for lunch.

The Salisbury's, when they do barbecue for us, it's always a treat.

And so, really, we want to use Bless the Bikes as a big excuse that, regardless of your transportation this morning, hang out and uh and let's enjoy some time together as a family.

If you did ride your bike, uh, we'd love to pray for you.

Just pray for your year.

We've got a big motorcycle group here, and it's something we do every year.

So just hang out by your bikes when we're done.

We'll have music, we'll have food outside, and uh, and just wait to get prayed for.

If you didn't ride a bike this morning and you would like prayer, we will do that as well because we love to pray for one another.

Next Sunday is Baptism Sunday.

Oh man.

We do it two Sundays a year, and and honestly, it's the it's it's the best, the best Sundays we have.

It's gonna be amazing.

And so, if you're getting baptized, please do us a favor, sign up at the info desk.

If someone in your family is getting baptized, sign up.

You don't have to sign up to be baptized, but it really helps us if we know how many people to expect.

So if you could if you could do that for us, that'd be great.

And as many of us as possible, if you can come next Sunday and then hang out afterwards and just cheer on every person that gets baptized, that goes all in with Jesus and makes that known.

I know it'll mean a lot to them.

And we are a family.

We're a church family.

We want to we want to encourage each other and celebrate with one another.

Friday, May 9th, Ken Kington's Ultimate Comedy Night.

That's coming up soon.

I accidentally lied to everyone last week, um, which I guess is technically still a lie, so I'm sorry.

I said that last Sunday was the last week you could get tickets for 10 bucks.

Uh I am really bad at calendars.

I am.

We learned that with Baptism Sunday, which we originally announced as May 5th, which was last year.

This is the last Sunday to get tickets for 10 bucks.

So, good news, you can still get them for 10 bucks.

You can still do this.

This is good.

After that, they go up to 15.

But even more importantly, Ken is a part of our teaching team.

He's a great part of this church.

He's filming a brand new special right here.

Uh it's it's gonna be a great time.

And so if you'd like to come to that, grab tickets today at the Connect Desk, right by where you sign up for Teams, or you sign up to join a small group, and we'll all be here on Friday, May 9th, laughing together, which is what we do a lot anyway.

So it's gonna be uh it's gonna be easy for us to do that.

Uh, one thing I do want to mention real quick before we we get started is you may have noticed that we have signs out that now say you can park at Lowe's any Sunday.

We know that our parking lot gets really full on certain Sundays, and so we talked to Lowe's this week, and they're totally cool if we use some of their parking lots.

So if you ever do that, there will be someone to help you cross so it's nice and safe.

And it'll be a police officer, someone that people will listen to, which is always helpful.

Uh and if you already go to Lowe's once you're done, if you're like me, and about every two or three Sundays you realize something you need, just save yourself the trouble, use one parking lot.

It'll be really simple, it'll be really good.

Uh, only other thing I want to say is a big thank you to everybody who helps us financially.

God is using it, and he's doing great things with it in the community.

We give 10% of everything we're given back to this community.

Um, my wife and I give, and the way we like to think about it is several years ago, Steve taught a message on the book of Nehemiah.

And Nehemiah builds this wall to surround Jerusalem.

And we see this church in a lot of ways as the wall for our family.

And this is where our our son is gonna grow up, our daughter is gonna grow up, it's where they're gonna fall in love with Jesus and be able to have a church that it's not just full of the Holy Spirit and full of God's word, but it's it's also gonna be full of freedom and love, and we need that for our children.

So this church is our wall.

It's it's protection, it's safety, uh, and it's awesome.

And so if you support us financially, thank you so much.

Um we really appreciate it.

All right, let's pray and let's get into what we're gonna talk about this morning.

Jesus, thank you so much for being all that we need.

That is truth.

You are all that we need, you're all that we need to rely on.

God, you love us so much.

You are for us, we're your kids.

And we pray that you would speak this morning.

You would speak from your word, and you would speak right into our hearts so that we leave this morning more in love with you than we are right now.

And we ask all this in your name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, first off, thank you so much for last Sunday.

Easter was it was amazing.

You are a really fun group of people to worship Jesus with.

I'm serious.

Every morning, it is so much fun.

So thank you for that.

This morning we're gonna begin a brand new series on the book of Acts, and it's a pretty natural progression from last Sunday.

Acts tells us the story of what happens next, how the message of Jesus spreads, how the early church gets started.

And a lot of people have called the book of Acts the gospel of the Holy Spirit, which is pretty accurate if you think about it.

The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, tell us the story of Jesus coming to this world that we live in, interacting with us, doing some amazing things, and we get to see the aftermath.

We get to see how the world reacts to Jesus, to God on earth.

And the book of Acts is very similar, it's just the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes.

And the Holy Spirit does some incredible things through people, and we get to see how the world reacts again to God on earth.

And I'm really excited about this because the Holy Spirit is just as alive, active, and powerful today as he was 2,000 years ago.

Every bit as much, and I think a lot of us have experienced the Holy Spirit, and a lot of us, I'm sure, want to even more.

So let's just pick up where we left off last week.

Jesus died and rose again.

This is big news.

If you weren't here last week, I'm sorry I spoiled it for you, but he died and he rose again.

He's alive.

And he's appeared to his disciples several times, giving every single one of them what they need to know that he is risen, that he is exactly who he said he was.

So now what?

Now what, right?

Feed him again.

That'd be a good thing to do.

That was funny.

That was funny.

I like that.

Wow.

They have this incredible news.

Jesus is alive.

This man lived, did miracles, said he was God, got killed, everyone lost faith, but then he rose again.

He's alive.

We can all know him.

This is incredible news, but what do we do with this?

One of my favorite shows on television is Shark Tank.

I love that show.

A lot of you probably do as well.

If you've never seen it, these people have businesses or concepts for a product or something like that, and they make a pitch to the sharks.

And the sharks are very successful businessmen and women who are going to potentially invest in their product or humiliate them on live TV.

Those are their options.

And sometimes it can be painful to watch because they are not afraid to be brutally honest and just rip someone apart on national television.

But every once in a while, there'll be this person that has this idea that is unbelievable.

They have an idea, a product, a business that is amazing.

And it's one of those things that you watch and you start to kick yourself.

You're like, why did I not think of that?

This is incredible.

And when I watch the show and those people are on, sometimes I'll look at them and say, Why do you need the sharks?

Like, you have this incredible thing, this amazing thing.

How are you not successful?

Why do you need these guys?

And the answer is really simple.

They have this incredible thing, they just don't know what to do with it.

They don't know where to go from here.

And they need that direction, and that is exactly where the disciples are after Jesus rises from the dead.

I mean, they're like, we have Jesus, we have God, we have life.

He's defeated death, he's defeated sin.

This is amazing.

Now what?

What do we do?

How do we get this out there?

And Jesus is going to show up and tell them about 40 days after he rises from the dead.

It starts in Acts 1, verses 6 through 11.

Acts 1:6–11

It says, So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?

I love those last two words.

Our kingdom.

One of the phrases Jesus used more than anything else was kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven.

So if you read Jesus, he'll say, The kingdom of heaven is like this, or the kingdom of God is this.

And every time he said that, all of the people listening to him thought he was talking about Israel as a country.

They longed for Israel to be a sovereign, powerful nation again, and it hadn't been for centuries.

They'd been conquered by the Babylonians, the Babylonians got conquered by the Persians, the Greeks conquered the Persians, the Romans conquered the Greeks, and every single time somebody conquers somebody, Israel just changes hands.

They haven't been sovereign and powerful in a long time, and they want that.

That's what they long for, to the point that they believed that's what the Messiah was coming to do.

But that's not what Jesus meant when he said kingdom of God.

He was not talking about a country.

In fact, he he kind of defines it for us in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6.10.

He says, May your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The way that the ancient Hebrew people would write, it was very common for them to make two statements that were almost identical in structure and style and put them right next to one another.

And when they did that, the second was always defining the first.

And so when Jesus says, May your kingdom come, may your will be done, what he's saying is that God's kingdom is wherever there are people who are doing what God calls them to do.

Wherever there are people that are following Jesus and listening to God and doing what he's asking them to do, that is God's kingdom.

And it's much bigger than one nation.

So Jesus is about to do what he does a lot with the disciples.

He's about to say, hey guys, hold on, you're not seeing this from the right angle.

Your vision is a little small, it's a little narrow, so I'm going to expand it for you just a bit.

So going on, it says, He replied, The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times.

And they're not for you to know.

It's like a parent talking to a child.

I love that.

Stop asking me that question.

We'll get there when we get there.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him.

As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white robed men suddenly stood there among them.

Men of Galilee, they said, Why are you standing here staring into heaven?

I think that's an odd question.

It's like Jesus just went there.

That's why.

We just watched him.

But nonetheless, Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go, because what goes up must come down.

That is just science.

So here's the thing.

He's been preparing them, he's been training them to do his will, to spread his message everywhere.

But there has to come a time when they're not reliant on Jesus physically standing with them.

There's so many times in life that we just wish we could see Jesus, that we could just be there with Jesus.

And that's a great thing to long for.

One day we'll have that fulfilled.

But there's got to come the point when they don't need that.

And Jesus has to make sure that it's that it's in a way that they realize it's got to be obvious that the old chapter is closing and a new chapter is beginning.

It can't just become this situation where he starts appearing less and less often.

And one day they're like, was that the last time?

I'm not sure.

Is he gonna come back?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Is he done?

We'll see.

That can't happen.

It's gotta be obvious, and I think he chooses a pretty epic thing to do here.

I love this because spiritual fancy language will say this is the ascension of Jesus, but the man flew.

Okay?

I mean, let's think about this.

The man flies.

And I love this because about the only thing Jesus hasn't done at this point is fly.

And there just had to be times when the disciples were hanging out on a day that he had done something amazing like walk on water or feed 5,000 people, and when they think Jesus is out of earshot, you just know that one of them, probably Bartholomew, looked at the others and said, Do you guys think he could fly?

Like, I'm starting to think he can fly.

And it turns out he can, but as amazing as amazing as this is, we cannot let it overshadow something incredible and really unbelievable that Jesus has just said.

He's just told his disciples that, hey, you're not thinking big enough.

Israel, that's just the start.

I want you to take my message.

I want you to take this news everywhere.

To every nation.

If there is a person breathing, take it there.

I want you to take my message to the ends of the earth.

And this is incredible because what we have to understand is this is 120 people following Jesus at this point in time.

That's it.

And it's 120 very normal people.

A few of them were people of means, some of them financed Jesus' ministry, but most of them were just everyday people.

Very few of them had probably ever been more than 20 miles away from their homes.

Because that is how the world was at that time.

And Jesus says, I want you to take this message everywhere.

The entire earth.

We hear the phrase going global now, it's pretty common.

I'm guessing it was not as common to go global 2,000 years ago.

But that's what Jesus says.

I want you to go everywhere.

And just think about the disciples, think about the excuses that could be coming into their mind.

Jesus, we don't know anyone in those places.

We don't know how to get to these other nations.

We can't afford to travel, to leave our families, to leave our jobs.

What do you mean, take this everywhere?

We don't even feel prepared to take it to Jerusalem.

How can we take this everywhere?

Jesus is asking all of his disciples to go to places they have never been before.

And that is not an easy thing to do.

That's not easy.

Some of my favorite memories growing up are these memories I have of with my family taking road trips.

We were a road trip family, and we moved a lot.

I'm from Springfield, Missouri.

Has anyone ever been to Springfield, Missouri?

Heck yeah.

Cashew chicken, do you know what that is?

Well, never been to Springfield then.

Okay, so Springfield, Missouri, it's where I'm from.

We we moved to Wisconsin, we moved here eventually, and every time we would move somewhere, we would get in the car.

Every time I was off school, every time we had summer vacation, and we would make three or four trips a year.

We would drive all the way to Springfield.

It was usually a 12-hour drive.

And those trips were so much fun.

I look back now and I don't know why they were that much fun.

They shouldn't have been.

This is before there were DVD players and TVs and cars.

My parents controlled the music.

Okay?

And that that was hard.

That was really hard because it would be my brother and I in the back seat.

My parents would put in a CD and then just forget it was in there.

That was their MO.

And so we would listen to the same albums for hours.

I'm being serious.

I have Fleetwood Max Rumors album memorized to this day.

Okay?

Some of you from my parents' generation, Three Dog Night, who's familiar with Three Dog Night?

Do you know how many 30-year-olds know every Three Dog Night song?

It's me.

I'm the only one.

Not just the one about the bullfrog.

I know every Three Dog Night song.

The worst, though, and I know this might offend people, but just hear me out.

For me, the worst, this this man has been ruined for me, is James Taylor.

Okay.

James Taylor, what a what a great songwriter, what a great musician.

But but goodness gracious, my parents got the James Taylor Greatest Hits album, and I kid you not, we listened to it an entire 12-hour trip.

And to this day, when I think of James Taylor's songs, it's one song to me.

It is one song, and actually a lot of them sound alike, but it is one song.

It's all mashed together.

So it's I've seen fire and I've seen rain because I'm gone to Carolina in my mind.

You know.

It's it's Mexico, it sounds so simple.

I've just got to go to Carolina in my mind.

It's just one song.

I can't listen to James Taylor, I can't do it.

But despite the music, despite you know how long the trip was, despite being in the backseat with my little brother, those are some of the best times I had with my family.

And usually those trips, even though they were 12 hours long, went pretty smoothly.

And a lot of the reason for that is that we were going somewhere we had been before.

We were going back home.

If we happen to be going somewhere we hadn't been before, that usually went a little less smoothly.

So I remember one time my dad's driving, my mom's in the passenger seat with a map, and my dad asked my mom, we've never been in this place before, by the way, never.

None of us.

What's my next turn?

My mom looks at the map and says, Oh, you need to turn right, right here.

And my dad just goes, That doesn't sound right, and kept going.

All right?

And I'm in the back seat, and I'm not gonna say this because I I see what's happening, I see the tension mounting.

I'm not gonna say anything, but I'm thinking, how does it not sound right?

We've never been here before.

Like, what does that mean?

And so, surely enough, we got lost, and my mom would remind my dad that she had the map, and my dad always just said, Well, just put it away, just put the map away.

And then we'd be in that stage where we had awkward silence for like 15 minutes, as my dad just tried to figure it out, and eventually he'd crack and say, All right, get the map.

Tell me where to go.

And that happened a lot, and it's because it's it's hard going somewhere you've never been before.

That's challenging.

And it's not like we were in another country.

That specific story, I'm not lying, that's us going to Chattanooga for the very first time.

Okay?

It's Chattanooga, Tennessee.

And the way Atlanta keeps growing one day, we're just gonna have one big city from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and that that was just us going to Chattanooga.

It's not like we were in another country.

I mean, can you imagine going to another nation?

Now, not only have you never been there before, not only do you not know where you're going, you don't even speak the language.

Anyone who's ever traveled to a foreign nation knows what that's like.

That's a huge barrier.

So just think about the disciples.

Think about Jesus telling them, you're going to every nation on this earth.

And they're like, we don't know how to get there.

We don't know anyone in these places, we can't afford to go.

Jesus, we don't even speak the languages.

How are we gonna do this?

Well, the good news is they're not gonna do it alone.

In verse 8, he said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

You will be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

This is not the first time that Jesus has promised the Holy Spirit to his followers.

In John 14, he says, If you love me, obey my commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you.

He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.

The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and it doesn't recognize him.

But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

He lives with you now and later he will be in you.

We need to be reminded as often as possible that our God is ours to have.

He is not a God that wants to be worshipped from afar.

He's not a God that wants to be admired from a distance.

He had that before Jesus came, and Jesus came to change things.

Our God is ours to have, his desire, his heart is to know us intimately.

And his way for doing that, he says, is to literally be in us.

To be in us.

Later on in that same chapter of John, Jesus said, My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.

That's God's heart.

For your life to be his home.

I really relate to what Jesus said just a moment ago because for most of my life growing up in church, I had experienced the Holy Spirit around me, but not in me.

My religious background was just a little different, and and we loved God very much.

You know, God was our father, I think I've said this before, but he was our father.

Jesus is the son, and the Holy Spirit's the weird cousin that we only invite when we have to.

That was basically how it was.

Because the Holy Spirit's kind of weird, right?

It's it's harder to picture that.

If someone says father, you can picture that.

If someone says son, okay, I get that.

I've got that's Jesus.

Holy Spirit, what is that?

And and I started having friends that would talk about the Holy Spirit all the time.

The Holy Spirit told me this.

The Holy Spirit's really telling me this.

And sometimes they'd even say, The Holy Spirit told me to tell you this.

And I would think, well, why didn't you just tell me?

And sometimes, just to be honest, sometimes those people really weirded me out.

It's because a few of them are really weird.

Some of them are here right now, but it's okay.

And I I I was I was very Weirded out by thoughts about the Holy Spirit because that just wasn't familiar to me.

But after a while, when I got past the weirdness of it and accepted the fact that if we serve a supernatural God, there should be some things he does that seem a little strange to us.

Once I kind of got past that, I started realizing, man, I don't have that.

I've never experienced that.

I want that.

I want the Holy Spirit not around me on Sunday mornings when worship is awesome, but in me, leading me, speaking to me, doing the things that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would do.

He will comfort you, He will teach you, He will lead you, He will guide you, He will speak into the future, He will heal your past.

I want that.

And so I started to pray for that.

Again, very, very cautious.

I don't want to be weird.

So God, please give me that.

I started praying it a lot.

And about a year later, God did give me this experience with Him where for the first time in my life I felt the Holy Spirit in me.

And it was just a little weird.

So that's okay.

It was a little weird.

But it was incredibly personal and incredibly intimate.

And I needed that.

And if you're here this morning and you've never experienced the Holy Spirit in you, there's great news.

That's what God wants to do.

If you desire that, if you want that in your life, if you say, okay, hold on, that's a little soon for me, uh, let's just give that some time.

You know what?

God's patient.

But if you want that, if you say, hey, I do want the Holy Spirit in my life, you desire the exact thing that God desires to do.

And that's good.

And so ask him for it.

That's what Jesus said, right?

We will make our home in you.

He wants to be in us.

That's a promise that he makes.

But the disciples at this point in time, they've never experienced that.

They've yet to have that experience.

And I often wonder if when they heard all these promises that Jesus is making, you're going to get the Holy Spirit, you're going to get the Holy Spirit.

If they ever looked at one another and asked, Do you think we'll know when we do?

Like, how are we going to know?

And they're about to find out.

In Acts chapter 2, we get to this really special day.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The day is called Pentecost.

It's a day that the Jewish nations celebrated the law coming down to Moses.

And God's about to one up that, and something else is going to come down, much more powerful than the law.

It says, On the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one place.

Suddenly there was a sound from heaven, like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.

Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.

And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem.

When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own language being spoken by the believers.

They were completely amazed.

How can this be?

They exclaimed.

And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done.

They stood there amazed and perplexed.

What can this mean?

They asked.

But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, they're just drunk.

That's all.

So this is a pretty amazing thing.

There's a lot going on here, right?

We've got this sound from heaven, this big commotion, everybody comes to see what it is.

And the disciples, for the first time ever, just instantly speak new languages.

Rosetta Stone is not the fastest way to learn a new language.

Okay?

That is false advertising, right?

No, one day the guy that started Rosetta Stone, he's gonna have to answer for that, but that's okay.

Thank God he'll forgive them.

But but they learn these new languages.

Some people in the crowd, they're not happy because some people can't be pleased, but most people, most people react appropriately.

They are they're amazed.

They're like, wow, this is incredible.

This is amazing, this is real.

You can't deny this.

And the Bible says that that day over 3,000 people gave their life to Jesus.

So their numbers go from 120 to over 3,000 in an instant.

So Jesus says, I'm sending you to all nations, to the ends of the earth, and they look back and say, But Jesus, we don't speak the languages.

You do now.

What an amazing confirmation.

That whatever the Holy Spirit, whatever God calls us to do, He will equip us to do.

To be things and to do things that we cannot do out of the natural.

We cannot do it out of our own experience.

We cannot do it out of our own know-how or out of our own ability, but yet God is calling us to go somewhere in life we have never been before.

And for some of us, that might be a healthy marriage.

A healthy marriage might be a place we've never been before in life.

We didn't see that modeled for us growing up.

We don't know what that looks like.

Our parents didn't have that.

Our parents got divorced, or maybe they didn't get divorced, they just fought constantly.

Maybe we didn't even know our parents.

Maybe we've had marriages in the past and they did not go well.

So we don't know what a healthy marriage looks like.

That's a place we've never been before.

We don't know how to get there.

Maybe it's financial stability.

We've got a friend that's that's young, he's in his 20s, and he told me that his family has always struggled financially.

Always.

And it's not just because they hit hard times, there were drugs involved, there was jail time involved, and his family was always in this incredibly difficult financial place.

And he wants something better for his family one day.

He wants a different life for his kids, for his spouse.

But that's a place he's never been before.

He doesn't know what that looks like.

He's never seen that place.

So he can't rely on his own experience to get him there.

He's got to rely on the Holy Spirit.

Some of us in the room, some of us men, it might mean being a tender, loving father who's present and not distant.

For a lot of us, that's a place we've never been before.

That's not what we had growing up.

We can't just follow the picture that we were given.

But we want to be that for our children.

And the good news is if we can't do that out of the natural, we happen to have a Holy Spirit that wants to dwell and live within us that is very closely related to a strong, dependable, but loving, tender, present Father.

So He can equip us to do that.

Some of us might be single moms.

How are we supposed to give our kids what they need from a father when we're a mother?

We can't do that out of the natural.

We have to rely on the Holy Spirit to fill that void.

But he will.

I mean, if the day of Pentecost teaches us anything, it's that no matter what barrier you face on the way to a place in life that you've never been before, the Holy Spirit will overcome that barrier.

There is no pattern that he cannot break.

There's no problem that he doesn't have the answer to.

There's no amount of courage and hope that you need that he does not have and is not ready to give.

So we don't have to live our lives out of the natural.

We don't have to live our lives depending only on what we know, what we've done before, what we've experienced.

Because we have the opportunity to have the Holy Spirit in us.

And man, it can be anything.

It could be being free of an addiction, it could be being free of religion.

It could be having a love life that honors God.

It could be getting to a place in our lives where we can talk about Jesus to other people freely.

Just as naturally as we're talking about anything else, for some of us it might be, it might be getting to a place in our relationship with God we've never been before, maybe being open to the Holy Spirit in a new way.

But I believe that if all of us search our hearts, if all of us ask God to show us a place in life we've never been, a place we would really like to be, then he will point us to that place.

And he'll tell us the same thing he told his disciples.

He'll say, I want you to go to places you've never been before.

And I'm going with you.

He'll do that.

He'll equip you, he'll guide you, he'll comfort you, he'll do everything along the way.

And you know, if I was going somewhere I've never been before, I might have a few questions.

I might want to know how long it is gonna take to get there, right?

It was really nice on those long road trips with mom and dad, knowing it was gonna take 12 hours.

That was nice to know because we could prepare.

But when it comes to God, I have no idea.

I can't tell you.

He won't, probably.

The only thing to expect is the unexpected, but but that's okay.

Because he enjoys the journey.

Those of you that are bikers, those of you that have motorcycles here today, I talked to a lot of you, and I've never heard you say, Oh, I got a motorcycle because uh it's the fastest way from point A to point B.

It's always, I love riding because it's a journey and it's an adventure, and I'm just out there and I'm loving it.

I listened to a message this last week from a great pastor.

His name's Judith Smith, and it talks about being in the meantime.

And he said, the meantime is where you're not where you used to be, but you're not where you're supposed to be.

You're just somewhere in the meantime, and we've got to be okay with being in the meantime.

We need to be like people on a bike, on a road, just enjoying where we're at, where we're going, knowing we're gonna get there when we get there.

So we don't know how long it's gonna take, but the second question I would ask, if I'm told to go to a place I've never been, and this is the most important question, is okay, okay, I'll go.

Where do I start?

Like what direction should I go in?

What's my starting point?

And I believe the answer to that is right at the beginning of the story of Pentecost.

At the very, very beginning.

It says in verse 1, I'm way, way behind somewhere.

Well, you just put it up on the screens.

I don't need to.

Oh, there it is.

All right.

On the day of Pentecost, see, it's a journey.

It's not about getting there fast, it's about just getting lost sometimes.

It's good.

It says on the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one place.

Well, where was that place?

It's Jerusalem.

The exact place they were when Jesus told them to go to all nations.

They haven't gotten very far.

But wherever it is in your life that you want to go, whatever place you've never been, where you start is exactly where you are.

And that's awesome.

So for me, I have to ask myself, where am I today?

Where do I want to go?

Where am I?

I'll tell you, I'll be honest and open.

I want to go to a new place in my marriage with my wife.

Usually when people play music, it's like behind you.

This is great, it's in front.

But it fits.

It fits well.

I want to go to a new place in my relationship with my wife.

A place I've never been before.

I want to have a closeness with her that I haven't experienced yet.

And I can't do it out of my natural because I've tried.

And it's hard.

And I'll be honest, I don't speak her language.

Okay?

I'm a selfish person.

I can have this incredibly stupid sense of entitlement.

You know, is it too much to ask that I come home from work and do absolutely nothing?

While you take care of our kids and feed them and clothe them and teach them and pick up after them, and all the while you hold a really challenging part-time job or you work for a jerk that's me.

And, you know, is that too much to ask?

I just want to come home and kick my feet up and do nothing.

Sometimes, honestly, that's how entitled my attitude can be.

So I can't go to this new place in my relationship with my wife on my own.

I have tried and I have failed over and over again.

It has to be the Holy Spirit.

But He will lead us there.

And it starts with where I am today.

It starts with an apology.

Hey, I'm sorry for being selfish.

Asking for accountability.

Will you please be honest with me when you feel like I'm acting selfish and entitled?

And my attitude toward you.

And it starts with praying, God, change my perspective.

Holy Spirit, give me eyes to see my wife and to see her for the way you see her.

To have a heart to serve her, not to be served by her.

You start where you are.

It doesn't matter how far away this destination God's calling you to is, you start where you're at.

And if you do that today and tomorrow, you will get there.

One day you'll be so far away from where you were that you'll look back and you won't even recognize what's behind you.

That's what God wants for you.

Now, one more verse I want to share.

We'll pray and worship just a little bit more.

It's Psalm 84, 5.

God says, How blessed are those in whom you live whose lives become roads that you travel.

God's desire for you is that your life is a road he travels.

He is going to call you to go places you have never been.

And I pray that that journey for you starts today.

But he is there with you.

He is walking alongside you.

You have the Holy Spirit.

So take him.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much.

That you don't send us on the journeys that you want us to go on alone.

That you give us your very Spirit to live inside of us, to love us, to draw us closer and closer to you.

We love you, Jesus.

It's impossible not to love you.

I just pray that you would bless all of us.

I do pray, Lord, that you would you would give each of us an indication this morning of a new place you want us to go in life.

And if we're already on that journey, if we already knew what that new place was when we walked in, I pray that you just spur us on.

Help us love one another, pray for one another, support one another as we get there.

Help us be patient with one another as well.

We love you so much, Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.