I. A Heavy Week 00:01
Lord Jesus, as we come before you this morning, let only your word be spoken and only your word be heard. In your name, amen.
So this week we are launching a new sermon series on the book of Acts. As you know, a lot has gone on this week, and so we’re going to take a moment and just talk about what I feel like God’s put on my heart relating to the tragedies and difficulties of this week. In fact, you probably don’t know this one, but you know McKenzie and Miles: Miles’s dad has been sick for some time, and he passed away this morning. So in the midst of death and tragedy, praise God for church. That worship was just awesome and touching.
I felt like God really put on my heart some things to talk about. If you maybe aren’t in the news, and trust me, that’s okay, I’m not here advocating that you need to be plugged in all the time. Please don’t. But if you haven’t heard, a Christian apologist, a political activist, Charlie Kirk, was shot dead earlier this week on a college campus while he was doing a tour where he would go to college campuses and sit down and debate people on their ideas. He was a Christian man, and he sought to live a Christian life, and he did that very publicly. And it’s a real, unbelievable tragedy that somebody would take the life of another human being for the sake of their ideas.
And so it really struck me. I’d really listened to a lot of his stuff, and there were videos of him hugging his children. And in the midst of all of that, I think there’s been quite a range of responses. And you may be feeling a sense of heaviness this morning, or this week, as you’re wading into the world we all live in, the world of social media and inundation with information. Or maybe you even just saw the video. I mean, how scarring is that? All these things we are constantly confronted with. And so I just wanted to run to Psalm 11 this morning, which I think gives us a few ways of understanding the difficulties we face in the world.
II. In the Lord I Take Refuge 02:30
So we’re going to start with Psalm 11. It says in verse 1:
1 In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, 2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; 3 if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Ps 11.1–3
Well, it starts right away: “In the Lord I take refuge.” And I can tell you right now, Charlie Kirk is in the Lord. He took his refuge in the Lord. And sometimes that can be so jarring to us on earth, because we see it and say, “He was bold for Christ. He trusted in God, and yet he was slain.” Well, they said the same thing about Jesus on the cross: “If God has chosen you, then save yourself” (Luke 23.35). And yet we know that God’s ways are even bigger than ours. That doesn’t dismiss the tragedy and the difficulty. But we have to start with this promise, that God will be our refuge.
And then I like how it switches to another voice. I think we can miss this sometimes, but it says, “How can you say to my soul, ‘Run away, the wicked bend their bow’?” What he’s saying is, “If the Lord is my refuge, how can you tell me to run away? How can you advise me to be afraid of the wicked, if God himself is my refuge?”
And as you look at this: most of the time, the things we encounter are spiritual darts of the enemy. And so you may sit here saying, “Well, it’s unlikely that somebody will shoot at me.” Thank the Lord for that. But don’t get this wrong. It is still true today that the wicked shoot from the dark at the upright in heart. But it might be temptation or anger or fear. All of these things are the wicked bending the bow to strike the upright in heart. And so we need to have God as our refuge. It doesn’t mean you have to be the strongest: “I’m going to be so strong that fear will never touch me.” No, God is so strong that I don’t have to be touched by fear.
III. If the Foundations Are Destroyed 04:47
So keep that all in context as you’re reading through this. But then there’s that line: “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” And you may have even heard this line used as despair: “What are we going to do? They’re destroying the foundations.” Well, what is the answer to that? It’s a challenge to the psalmist. The psalmist didn’t write that. That’s the challenge. The answer of the psalmist is in verse 4:
4 The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. Ps 11.4
They can do whatever they want in the world. The foundations will never be destroyed. Like we sang today, we’re going to build our life on his love, which is a firm foundation. If you’re building your life on the foundation of America, freedom, your culture, you’re going to be on shifting sand. Kingdoms rise and fall. The Lord remains the same. We build on an unshakable foundation. And so we don’t have to be afraid this morning. We don’t have to be angry this morning. We don’t have to be vengeful or perplexed. We can just stand on Christ alone.
And so the answer to the challenge we’re given (“Why aren’t you afraid? What are you going to do when they take away the foundations?”) is: the Lord’s in his temple. My foundation hasn’t moved. And his eyes see and test the children of man. We can trust God to be the judge. So many of us want to find justice ourselves in our life, whether that’s cutting down the person who cuts in line, or calling out somebody on social media, or complaining to my friends about how evil and wicked everybody is. Let’s let God judge the hearts.
IV. The One Who Loves Violence 06:17
Okay, verse 5:
5 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Ps 11.5
One of the responses I’ve seen from this tragedy with Charlie Kirk is a group of people, whom I sympathize with, who basically are like, “Let’s get our guns in order. Let’s prepare ourselves.” And there’s almost an excitement to the idea of “Oh, they threw a punch. Oh, they’re going to mess with us.” That is not God. That is evil, to love violence.
Maybe you’re sitting in this pew and you’re like, “This isn’t for me. I hate violence. What do you mean?” But people need to know that there’s a spirit that acts on our culture, and it’s the enemy, and he’s tempting to violence. That’s what happened to that young man who took Charlie Kirk’s life. He was tempted to violence. That’s the enemy’s hand. Don’t let him then play his game where he says, “Oh, what are you going to do now?” He’s playing both sides against the middle. You know what I’m saying? All of this is for destruction. But we don’t do that. We stand on God.
And as the Lord tests us, maybe he’s testing your heart. Are you going to get angry about this? Are you going to have vengeance in your heart about this? Are you going to be fearful now? Are you going to dismiss those people who disagree with you? He’s testing our hearts. Revenge fantasies, new weapons: don’t let it have a hold on you.
V. Not Against Flesh and Blood 07:47
“But we’re in a war,” you might say. Yes, we are in a war. We actually absolutely are. It’s a war between good and evil, and the battlefield is in your heart. That’s what Papu, Archbishop Adler, used to say all the time: we’re born into a world at war, but it’s not the war you think. It’s a war for our hearts.
“But they’re killing people. Actually, somebody got killed. So it’s real. It’s physical. It’s a danger.” Yeah. Well, what did Paul say about the war? Because you remember the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostles (we’re going to read all about it): they were being slaughtered by an evil, tyrannical regime. Both their culture, the religious institutions of the Jews, and the Roman Empire were out to get the Christian movement in the first century. And yet what did Paul say? “Get a really nice gladius, one of those swords. Sharpen it really well. Make sure you know how to polish and take care of it, so you can fight to defend yourself.” No, that’s not what he said. People are really saying this type of stuff out there. No. In Ephesians 6:11, Paul, in that situation, says:
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephes 6.11–12
What is the scheme of the devil? That you would be killed physically? Maybe. Maybe he’ll try to make that happen. He wants your destruction any way he can get it. But I can guarantee you his scheme is to lead your heart away from the cross of Christ, the cross that accepted all violence and transformed it into forgiveness. That’s where our heart needs to be: with Jesus on the cross. Let’s be more committed to our spiritual weapons than our physical weapons. Let’s not make an obsession of something that does not save. A horse is a vain hope for safety (Ps 33.17).
So what do we do with our anger? Well, verse 6. He says:
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. Ps 11.6
“Let him”: that’s God. It’s not our job. God will take care of wickedness. You know what he will do? He’s an all-consuming fire (Heb 12.29). He will burn it away. The problem is, that includes the wickedness in our own heart. Let him rain coals on the wickedness in your own heart and burn that away from us: anger, fear, loathing, violence, all of these things. Because “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Rom 12.19). You can trust him with this. That’s the test. Do you trust him? Verse 7: why can you trust him?
7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. Ps 11.7
And as I began, so as we end this psalm, I’ll remind you: Charlie Kirk is beholding the face of God right now. And so is Bob, Miles’s dad. We have a hope that’s so much bigger than right now, today. And so when we deal with these things and wrestle with these tragedies, let’s remember what it says here. God loves righteous deeds. We know he hates wickedness. Let’s be like that. Let’s love the righteous and hate the wicked.
VI. Honor Our Heroes 11:36
I want to say one thing that we can be tempted to that’s a lot more subtle than the temptation to violence and vengeance. The subtle temptation in our culture is to tear down our heroes, to tear down those we could look to. Maybe you in here are like, “You know, I’m not all that sad about Charlie Kirk not being a voice in the world anymore. Sure, it’s sad that he’s not able to be a husband to his wife or a father to his children, but I didn’t like some of the things he said,” or “I have a problem with him for this, that, and the other.”
Let me say right now: Charlie Kirk stood on the gospel of Christ. And it’s actually important that we stand up and praise people who do so. It’s actually important that we call out those who are exemplary members of our community, of the church. Because if we’re silent about it, or if we let people’s reputations be savaged by this little cynical “Well, he said this thing I don’t like,” or “He had this politics I don’t like,” or “He did this”: if we let that happen, then the image of Christ, the icon of Christ that Charlie Kirk was, is tarnished in our community.
We’re supposed to look at these icons. There’s a reason we have pictures on the wall. I am certain that there’s something Joseph believed that you do not. Who cares? He was a holy man who raised the Son of God. Charlie Kirk was a holy man who loved his wife, who loved his children, who lived for God’s kingdom. I am certain he made mistakes. Haven’t you? But we have to have heroes. We have to have people we look to and admire. We should all be talking about how courageous he was, how articulate he was, how passionate he was, how successful he was in spreading truth.
And if you disagree with him, that’s okay. You’re not evil for disagreeing with somebody. Of course he had differing opinions from you. But let’s not tarnish the witness that he was. What did he say? I was watching this podcast a few months ago, and the guy said, “What happens if it all goes away?” And he goes, “You mean if I die?” And he was shocked at the idea, as we all would be, as a thirty-year-old, healthy, young… he couldn’t even imagine it. But he said, “You know what? If I do die, I want to be remembered for this: courage in my faith.” Let’s remember him for that. Because it’s important to remember and honor those who pave the way for us, who go before us, who fight with us.
VII. The Acts of the Holy Spirit 14:35
Okay, that’s all I have to say about that for now. But it really does lead to what we’re talking about when we talk about the Acts of the Apostles. Because what are we doing? We’re looking at those who went before, those who were willing to die for their faith, those who were willing to stand up and debate and let their words bring the message of Christ, not violence, those who stood up against evil and were tormented for it. We’re looking at their example, and we’re seeing: how did they make a community that ended up inspiring the faith of billions of people? How did they continue the work of Jesus and bring it to the world?
So when we look at Acts, we start in chapter 1. We’re not going to do a line by line today. There will be some stories where we will. But I just want to tell you a couple of things about Acts that I want you to keep in mind as we launch into this series. First of all, it’s written by Luke. Who’s Luke? He was a physician, a very careful historian. He is actually rated as the number one historian of all time until the modern era. The way he kept his records and the way he wrote changed the face of how we write history, because he was so careful to try to tell the truth. He wanted to make sure he could communicate what was actually happening in the community he was in. So he was there for a lot of these things. He traveled with Paul at times. He was in Jerusalem, or he was with these early people, and he was recording everything for this man Theophilus, and he’s like, “Look at this. Look what God is doing.”
It’s called the Acts of the Apostles, but everybody likes to say it’s really the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It’s what God does through them that counts. And that’s important for you to know, because sometimes we can talk about the Acts of the Apostles like we talk about Hercules and Jason and the Argonauts… or, okay, let me update my references: like we talk about Iron Man or Thor, these superhuman, capable people who just did this crazy stuff we could never aspire to. No. They were men and women like you and I, empowered by the Holy Spirit like you and I, to bring Jesus to the world. That’s the lens through which we want to look at the Holy Spirit’s activity, because he chooses to use us. Lord have mercy, he chooses us.
VIII. You Will Be My Witnesses 16:41
Let’s begin with the final words of Jesus, in chapter 1, verse 6. The disciples come together, and they ask him:
6 “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1.6
Their perspective is still a little off. It’s not about a political kingdom. That’s what they were thinking at this moment. And he says to them:
7 “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” Acts 1.7
So if you ever hear somebody say otherwise, if somebody tells you the world is ending, Jesus is returning on October 13th, blah, blah, blah, because of this, that, or the other, you can just turn that one down. We can move on. It’s not for us to know. We can trust God instead. Okay? But this is the important part. Verse 8. All of it’s important, but this part’s really important. This is the thesis of the whole book:
8 “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.” Acts 1.8
The reason I know this matters to us is that it’s not done. There’s a mini picture of it as it spreads throughout Acts, but we get to keep doing it. There are billions of people who never heard the apostles, but they get a chance to hear us. They never saw the apostles, but they get a chance to see us. We are continuing the story of Acts. We’re being empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we can be Christ’s witness to the world. If you want to know what being a Christian is, that’s it.
It’s a small movement, five hundred people-ish, because he showed up to five hundred as a resurrected man (1 Cor 15.6), something like that. And yet they stood on this promise, and the word spread to billions. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Greater things shall you do” (John 14.12). We’re not meant to be shadows of Christ’s ministry. We’re meant to be Christ in the world, to continue his ministry, to be his story. When people say, “I saw Jesus,” they see it through you. That’s how God set up the system, that we could reveal him to the world. We’re joining his story and, by the Holy Spirit, bringing Jesus to the ends of the earth. And that’ll keep happening until Jesus comes again. Praise the Lord.
IX. More Jesus, Not Less 18:56
Okay, so Jesus says that, and then he ascends. We’ve got a nice icon over there; you can see him as he ascends. I’ve gotten a chance to preach the Ascension a couple of times in the past couple of years, and there are a couple of notes we need to make.
First of all, the ascension of Christ, ascending to the right hand of the Father, means more Jesus, not less. He is now more present to us than he was when he was on earth. On earth, he could talk to the people who could see him. In heaven, he is everywhere, filling all. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28). More Jesus, not less, through us.
And on top of that, it means Jesus is already seated on his throne of authority. There is no authority on earth except Jesus’s authority. It even says that God puts in place the rulers of the world (Rom 13.1). Mind-blowing. God’s ways are bigger than our ways. But you never, ever encounter a situation for which Jesus doesn’t have the authority to bring redemption, peace, and his kingdom. We actually serve the King of kings, the Lord of lords, today. Now we get to walk out the fulfillment of that.
There’s this great bit by a comedian. I won’t even say his name; some of his stuff is not appropriate. But either way, there’s a great bit where he’s talking about the early colonial empires. They walk up and plant their flag, and the person comes up and says, “This is our country.” And he says, “Do you have a flag?” It’s this great joke about the way places were conquered in the past. But look at Jesus’s flag. It’s over the whole earth. We have a flag. It’s a symbol. Everywhere you go is actually Jesus’s. Period. We do house blessings to confirm and to declare, “This place is Jesus’s.” We’re not buying it. He already bought it. He made it. It’s his. It’s all his. We are walking in that authority. And whether we live or die, we’re his (Rom 14.8). That’s what he did through his cross and resurrection, through his ascension. He sits up there and rules all of us, living, dead, but alive with Christ. We start Acts strong, with a declaration that all is his in his ascension, as he sits with the Father in heavenly places.
And lastly, it means that he has chosen us to be the gospel in the world. Instead of ruling from here… I mean, it’s a weird hypothetical. You can’t even imagine what it would be like. But he actually chose to be present with God, that we might make him known. The way people find out about Jesus is through us. I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s been a rash, an abundance, of these visions that Muslims have had, and have, of this man in white. It’s documented really well. They go to the Christian missionaries in their area and say, “I’m seeing a dream of this man in white.” And the missionary says, “That’s Jesus.”
You see what I’m saying here? We are necessary to God’s plan of salvation for the world. He actually uses them. He didn’t go to the Muslim and say, “I’m Jesus. Here’s the gospel. Now you go be a Christian.” He sent them to Christians, because that’s his method of communicating his redemption to the world. How important is that burden? How heavy is that burden, that the world doesn’t get to hear about him except through us, through the witness we can be in our life and in our words? The Ascension is central, because it’s all about what the church now gets to be in the world. God empowers us to be him to the world.
X. The Downpour 23:57
So the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of the Holy Spirit, is page one of the story of the people of God, the church, bringing salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit to the world. And that’s your job as we go throughout Acts.
And I want to just share this prophetic word that I had during 3SI. This is a summary, but I had a prophetic word during this Three Streams Ignited conference we had over the summer, which you’ve heard about. There was a thunderstorm the night after our fire night. It was about 4:00 a.m., and I was woken up and walked out on my porch, and I was looking around, and I felt like God just spoke to me: we’re not dealing with a thundercloud situation, like in the old story where Elijah sends his servant and says, “Do you see rain?” And he goes, “I see a thundercloud the size of a man’s fist” (1 Kings 18.44). No, we’re not dealing with that. We’re in an outpour, a downpour, an outpouring of God’s Spirit. And this is a word for the Charismatic Episcopal Church: there have been people over and over again saying, “How long, O Lord?” Or they’ve been predicting, “I hear the sound of the rain.” And it’s like, “No, no, no. We’re in it right now. This is happening.”
And in the midst of that, there was this idea of the lightning and the thunder. The lightning was like the miracles God was going to do, and is doing, and the manifestation we saw even at 3SI. We’ve been seeing it at our fire nights: God does these moments that reveal who God is. The lightning lights up, and you see God and his heart and his power. But there’s a thunder that follows the lightning, and that’s the word of God reverberating. And you could hear it specifically in this thunder. It was reverberating off the mountains, and it felt like it was going everywhere all at once. And that’s what I felt God was saying about the CEC, and Saint Michael’s in particular: there’s a message he’s entrusted to us. As simple as this: they will not know him if we do not tell them.
He has entrusted us with his message. How does it say it in the Acts of the Apostles? When the angels show up and the apostles are just looking around, they’re like, “Why are you looking? He’s coming back” (Acts 1.11). But he promised them power as a part of their message, that the Holy Spirit would empower them to be a witness. And I shared that with Bishop Jones, and he’s the primate of the CEC, and he said, “This is a great word for what’s going on.” I say that to say that we’re a part of a bigger movement of stuff that’s happening, and you’re going to see more of that in the coming years, and in the coming weeks as we dive into the stories of this book.
Bishop Jones has actually been teaching on Acts. I was listening to his series, and that’s when I felt like God said, “Hey, this is what we need to be in right now.” So we’re joining with him. We’re not doing this as our own separate thing: “We’re going to break from the lectionary and do our own thing.” No, we’re flowing in the Spirit with what God’s doing in the Charismatic Episcopal Church right now. And it’s important, because God is calling us to live the life of normal Christianity. That’s the title of the series: The Acts of the Apostles: Normal Christianity.
So as we continue to do this, follow along. Read chapter 1. We only read a couple of verses from it, but follow along and press in, because there’s only more with him, not less. And so you can give him more, and he will meet you in that. For whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. So why do we keep thinking we’re in charge?
I just think, in the midst of a heavy week, one last thing I’ll leave you with is something I felt like God gave me. The closing words are “Put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isa 61.3). And it’s not a shallow thing. It’s not like “If I jump high enough while I’m praising, then I’ll feel better.” It’s actually an act of surrender, where you give God that heaviness, that fear, that anger, that sorrow, and he replaces it with the garment of praise. That’s the promise. And we even sang about it this morning: he turns our mourning into dancing (Ps 30.11). So let him work with you as we go through the coming weeks, as we go into Acts, as we deal with these tragedies, as you might be feeling. Let him transform it into praise. And guess what? That’s also the weapon of our warfare: praising God. Amen.