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 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, 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, 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, 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.