I. The Feast of Saint Michael's 00:00
Lord Jesus, we come before you this morning with hearts open to receive what you have for us. We trust you, that you have called us this day to gather before you for a purpose, and that you will speak to us, and more than that, you will transform us. We trust you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, as you probably picked up from the readings this morning, today is the Feast of Saint Michael’s. It’s a wonderful time where we get to celebrate our anniversary as a church. We’re talking about 52 years of people coming together to worship the Lord. And this community has a lot of history over that time. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on it, but I just want to say that it’s, let’s say, fortuitous. It’s appropriate that in this time we’re going through the book of Acts, because for the decades that this church has been around, there has been a desire to represent the fullness of the worship of God, the fullness of the community of God.
And we see the clearest picture in Scripture of that in the book of Acts, as we see the early church going from the little numbers that they had, eleven terrified men, none of them qualified, and the 150 or so followers, to now the religion of billions: the salvation that Jesus brought through his church to the world. And the world has never been the same, because this community that we’re studying in Acts chose to follow Jesus. And so I just want you to keep that in mind as we’re celebrating Saint Michael’s and the Feast of Saint Michael’s, and what powerful readings, about angels descending and ascending and open heavens, and that great comment from Jacob, in light of his vision, that this is the house of God (Gen 28.17). And we in Saint Michael’s are participating in that this morning. This is the house of God. This is a place set apart for encounter, for worship.
II. Unity: In One Accord 04:23
And so, when we dive into this, I want to pull up four keys. I’m calling them golden keys: four golden keys from these early parts of Acts that can unlock God’s purposes, not only in your life individually, but in our life as a church. God has been doing these things in our midst, but I want to put them explicitly: “Look, this is what they did, and this was the response, or this was the outpouring that they enjoyed, because they did these things.”
I have to go backwards a little bit. Father Powell talked about Pentecost last week. Of course, that’s like the opening theme of the whole book. If you think of a symphony, that grand opening that sets the tone, and everything else that follows is a variation on the theme, that happens at Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit comes, empowers his church, and then through them reaches the world. And so when we look at Pentecost, the key phrase is that they were all in the upper room praying in one accord.
Now, we don’t have time to go through all the different things that happened in Pentecost, but I want to just highlight this aspect of one accord. Because, as you may know, Bishop Jones, who’s now the primate of North America, has been doing a series on Acts as well. And so I was listening to his in preparation, and he mentioned that about a year ago, at a house of bishops, the bishops themselves felt convicted of this word, “in one accord.” And they came together and said, “We have not been walking in the unity that we’ve been called to.” And so in that moment they committed to one another to walk in greater unity. And he brought that up to say that the outpouring we’ve experienced, things like 3SI, the house of bishops in Selma, and many of the prophetic words and encounters and Holy Spirit moments, he believes came from that unity that the bishops committed to.
And so I want to bring that down to our level. What does that mean for us? “Those bishops, far away somewhere, doing a thing.” Well, besides the fact that we get to benefit from their service, from the things that they do, it flows down into the church. We have an obligation as a church to walk in that same unity. If you want to see Jesus move in our midst, if you want to see the Holy Spirit break out even more in our midst, then commit with me to unity with one another.
One of the things he specifically called out: he said, “I’ve made a commitment in my life to never speak a bad word about my brothers,” both the fellow bishops and his brothers and sisters in Christ. Imagine a community where gossip was unheard of, where you had to teach your kids what gossip was because they’d never seen it before. I’m telling you, we can walk in greater unity just by speaking well of one another. Why does he need to hear about how you don’t like her? He doesn’t.
This is a golden key: that when people come together in unity, loving one another, building one another up, God is able to move in ways that you could not orchestrate. Think of the Tower of Babel. We know Pentecost is the reverse Tower of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, all the peoples of the world come together: “We’re going to bond together. We’re going to unify to build ourselves into heaven.” And the Lord looks and laughs. Well, he did say they can achieve a lot (Gen 11.6). They may actually get pretty far with this. But the natural thing that happens, aside from the Holy Spirit, the natural outworking of our fallen humanity, is that we disintegrate. And that’s what happened at Babel. They were scattered in their languages, and their unity was broken apart.
But with the Holy Spirit, we are the new church. Not the Tower of Babel, but the house of God. And we come together as the living stones to build the temple that reaches to heaven. That’s what the church is. Not by your effort, but by the Holy Spirit’s power. So when we come together in unity… how does a house work? How does a wall work if the bricks are completely misaligned? It doesn’t stand. If there are gaps, it’s going to fall.
Now, this is not a condemning word here. You’re thinking, “I don’t know if I can be that unified with some of these crazy people.” I hear you. It’s not condemnation. It’s invitation, to walk in what the Holy Spirit is inviting us into. And I will say, Saint Michael’s historically has been known as a church that gathered around and went for things in unity, and we’ve seen God move powerfully in that space. So I’m saying the iron is hot. Let’s strike now. Let’s get rid of gossip and slander and envy and malice, and let’s walk together. These are your brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, if you think there’s a problem with them, you have to remember God knows, better than you do. Unity is not about fixing your brothers and sisters. It’s about letting God do it and trusting that he knows better than you do. He’s got them. And even more importantly, he’s got you. Okay, let’s walk in unity, because it’s a golden key that unlocks the purposes of God in our life. It’s the number one golden key.
III. Devoted to the Apostles' Teaching and the Fellowship 10:00
So Pentecost happens. Peter gets up, gives this amazing speech, and the Holy Spirit moves, and three thousand come into the faith that day. Then what do they do? Well, in verse 42, chapter 2 of Acts, it says:
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2.42
Okay, let’s break that down. What’s the apostles’ teaching? We find it in the Bible. The Bible is the apostles’ teaching. It’s explored. It’s opened up. It’s preached from this pulpit. It’s sung in our wonderful, anointed worship, as we sing these songs that declare the goodness of God, the reigning of God. All of these things are ways that we devote ourselves to the teaching of the apostles. And it’s not so that you can get your PhD in the Bible. There are many people who know way more about the Bible than anybody in this room who don’t know God. Knowledge is not enough. You have to be transformed by what you hear. It’s a living word. And so they devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching. Not to study; it’s a devotion. It’s a matter of the heart: “I’m committed to what the Bible says, regardless of how I feel about it.” It’s not what I’m bringing to the Bible. It’s what the Bible’s bringing to me that counts. So when you look at that, that’s one key aspect of how they gathered.
And then they devoted themselves to the fellowship. It wasn’t “me, Jesus, and my Bible, off in the woods” that changed the world. It was when people came together in the fellowship, studied together to hear what God is saying, like you all are this morning. This gathering is part of the keys that unlock God’s kingdom in our life: the fellowship of the saints.
In fact, we did a survey a little while ago at the behest of our bishop. He gave us these surveys, and they’re meant to gauge where your church is at along very many factors, so that you can start to improve and continue to work. And, you know, God has a plan, and he is very strategic, and we want to be on his plan. And so this was a way that we could prayerfully consider where we’re at as a church and get his plan. So we had about thirty people in this room and from our congregation fill out these surveys. And let me just say, we scored the highest, in the highest bracket, on fellowship. Praise the Lord. That’s awesome. I love that. I love you guys. And you guys seem to love us. I won’t say me, because, you know, debatable. But us.
We love our community. That’s part of what we do at the Feast of Saint Michael’s, where we gather, and we’ve got the Habit Burger truck outside. Hallelujah. And we’re going to just sit and enjoy a meal together and fellowship one with another. That’s part of the strength of the church that God builds. Because, like I said about this building, the house of God, the bricks have to fit together. But just like with an actual stonemason, we’ve got to be shaved. We’ve got to be molded. You’ve kind of got to squish them together with the mortar. The bonds of love have to be worked on. It does not just happen. So hang out. Let the Holy Spirit move in fellowship this afternoon. Don’t think of it as separate from what we do when we gather to worship the Lord. There’s a true nature of the Holy Spirit that moves just in us loving one another. It’s part of what we’re called to do. They devoted themselves to it.
IV. The Breaking of Bread and the Prayers 13:25
And then they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, to the Eucharist. You know why I love the Eucharist? Because I have nothing to do with it. God does the work. When I consume his flesh and drink his blood, I am impacted and changed by his work, and I don’t get to pretend it’s about me. Sometimes, in the apostles’ teaching (they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching), I read the Bible and I think, “Man, I got so much out of that, because I am just so smart. I am just so intelligent. I am so well read. I am just… wow, me.” Sometimes that trick can happen. That can’t happen here. “Man, I ate that piece of bread.” It’s like, no, it just happens. It’s a mystery. We don’t understand it, but we encounter God in it.
So let’s devote ourselves to it. There’s a reason we do this every week, and those who go to school do it at least twice a week. This is an exciting center, in the middle of this mysterious worship service that you will never fully comprehend. But everyone here is welcome. Come to the Lord’s table. Be baptized. You know, put on the proper garments; that’s the analogy there. But it’s like: come into our fellowship, be a part of us, share at the table, and let God work.
They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Not just to praying, not just to those things, but actually the prayers. And I won’t get into all the various studies of what they were praying and all that, but I’ll tell you, we inherit it in our liturgy. We inherit the church’s devotion to the prayers in the written forms of our worship. On Sunday mornings, when we say the collect or when we say the blessing over the Eucharist, those are words that have been handed down to us generationally. Those are things that we’re participating in. So when they say they devoted themselves to the prayers: yes, they prayed for one another. They had spontaneous prayer. Of course, we see it all throughout Acts. But there’s also an aspect in which they had a form to their worship. They had words that God had given them through the Scriptures. You see him prescribing certain prayers in the Old Testament. All these Jewish men were seeing the results of their Jewish faith in Jesus. So they were inheriting a tradition that was then passed down and, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, transformed into what we get to do today. We all inherit these things.
So when you look at the fullness of worship and you talk about the CEC: what is the CEC? The CEC, the Charismatic Episcopal Church, exists to make known the fullness of Christian worship in the sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic expressions of the one mighty river of God’s church. That’s what we’re supposed to do. And when we do it right, it looks like this. And so we’re connected through the generations. I mean, we’re having a celebration of our anniversary of 52 years. We’re connected two thousand years, and we look forward to this church continuing in that tradition and walking in that faith.
V. Generosity 17:03
Okay, so that’s a key verse. And what happened when they did that? In verse 43 it says:
43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. Acts 2.43–45
Here’s another of our golden keys: generosity. Unity and generosity. God moves through generous people. And it’s not because, if you’re generous, the church has more resources and therefore can have more programs. That is not what I am saying. I’m saying that when you become generous, like the early church was generous, something is unlocked in the spiritual that allows you to walk in God’s fullness in a new way. Because when you don’t allow generosity, which is a part of the fruit of what the Holy Spirit does in your heart, when you hang on to that money and think about it as yours instead of his, it corrupts your spirit. It becomes an idol.
I don’t want to focus on that today. I want to focus on what happens when you give. God is able to move mightily on your behalf, because you’ve let go. You’re not taking the wheel. You’re letting him. We see this over and over again, and we’ve seen it even in this church over and over again. Think of this building that we’re standing in: the incredible generosity of the people who came before me, some of them in this room, who laid down their lives, who gave and gave and gave, that we might have the vision that God had given them for a place to worship the Lord. I’m going to talk about beauty a little bit later, but think about the inheritance of their generosity. All of the things that have happened on this campus: the school, the church, the youth group, the conferences, the worship, the healing. I mean, God has moved mightily out of their generosity, over and above the dollar amount that they gave.
If you want to unlock what God’s doing in this church, in our life, in your family, ask him how he wants you to be generous. Where does he want you to give? Yes, financially. That’s very important. Finances are a part of this, because finance is talked about so much in the New Testament, because it’s one of the many strongholds that can get a hold of you. So yes, financially, but also in your time and your effort and your energy, in your willingness to help one another.
I just heard… my brother Gavin is living up in Burbank right now and attending a church up there. And he was talking about something in the culture, not at the church, but in his wider culture, the people he works with and people he talks to, how there’s this idea that helping somebody to move is the worst possible thing that you could possibly do. That if you ask somebody to help you to move, you are evil, and you should not. “You should hire movers and figure your stuff out.” That’s the opposite of generosity. That’s “I defend what is mine, and you better not ask for any of it.” Not financially, but in the effort, in the time. And yes, moving people is suffering. Absolutely. But we suffer for one another. We are generous with one another.
I grew up… my dad: I cannot count how many people we moved with my dad. And it would just be, like, Saturday morning: “Hey, we’re going to go help this person move.” And you just were like, “Okay, there’s my day. That’s it. It’s going to be hot and sweaty. Maybe they’ll have pizza.” That was just the way it was. It was just natural. It was normal. It was generosity in our midst. No wonder we have such good fellowship scores. You know what I’m saying? If you’re willing to help each other move, you are really invested.
Okay, so this is happening. They’re giving away their stuff. They’re selling things. They’re just being generous. And God’s able to move because of that.
VI. Beyond the Doors of the Church 21:41
So let’s go into chapter 3. We’re not going to get through all the things that I wanted to get through today; I can already tell. But we’re going to talk a little bit about what happens when you get beyond the doors of the church. Because all of this has been about the church, what they were doing amongst themselves that was allowing the Holy Spirit to move. But if you stop there, you are missing the point. This is your training, your transformation, your equipping. But at the end of the service, I get to send you to do the work. I get to say, “Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.” You’ve received the power. Rejoice, and go out there, because the people who need Jesus are out there. Yes, we all do; of course, more of him. But those people are desperate and hurting and broken. So let’s see what happens in chapter 3, verse 1:
1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Acts 3.1–2
So Peter and John, just like in the story of the Good Samaritan, are on their way up to prayers. And they are, I will argue, the most important, or at least a part of the most important, religious leaders in the history of the world. They’ve got things to do. But the first thing you’ll notice is that they pay attention. They see the man who is lame and being carried to the gate. Unlike the priest and the Levite, they see the man in the parable (Luke 10.31–32). So they see this lame man, and they stop.
This man, in that society, was unable to work. They didn’t have the modern conveniences that allow so many more people to contribute. So his contribution, his food, his daily bread, was, “Please give me money.” That was it. Most of us have never been there, have never been at that level of desperation, where the only thing that would give us our next bite to eat was the generosity of strangers. So it’s hard to imagine the depth of desperation that this man was probably feeling in these moments. So in this moment, there’s a hunger in him. He is broken, and he’s hungry.
VII. The Beautiful Gate 24:10
Now, I don’t think it’s an accident that he was being carried to the Beautiful Gate. I want to argue (and I don’t have time to do a whole teaching on this) that what beauty does is attract the spiritually hungry. The example that I felt was this morning, and you will have an opportunity to participate in the glory of this: we were making a bread pudding for the dessert downstairs. So if you see the bread pudding, it’s great. And the whole house filled with the aroma of this French toast bread pudding, and it was insane. Just delightful. And I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and so I was hungry. And all of my kids at some point or another came up and went, “What are we eating for breakfast?” In that moment, it drew the hungry. Let me tell you that.
And beauty is like that for our souls. It’s like you get a whiff of something that draws you in. Now, of course, there are times where beauty has no substance behind it. There are beautiful songs that are full of nonsense or lies. There are beautiful paintings that depict stories, or movies that call out to your soul. Something about it is moving you. The beauty of it is drawing you in. But like a candle replicating the bread pudding, when you get there, there’s nothing to eat. It’s just an idea.
And I just want you to hold on to it, because the amount of stuff that we have put into this building to make it beautiful matters. Do you know how many people stop at that Saint Michael’s statue out front to take a picture or say a prayer or just look for a moment? They’re drawn by the beauty. Or over 3SI: we had this amazing conference, and the worship was loud and people were singing, and that next Sunday we had three different people from the neighborhood come because they heard the beautiful music. Beauty draws the hungry. It draws people.
And it also adorns God. It’s right and proper and good that God’s spaces should be beautiful. Absolutely. But I’m talking about the evangelical nature of beauty, that draws people in. So we should be committed to beauty. There’s a reason the lame man was at the Beautiful Gate, and not the expedient gate, the easy gate, the one that was ADA certified. It was the beauty that he was drawn to.
VIII. Look at Us 26:22
And as he goes to the beautiful place, Peter and John see him. And as they see him, well, he sees them. Verse 3:
3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” Acts 3.3–4
He notices him. He directs his gaze at him, as did John. So you can imagine the guy’s just like, “Alms.” He doesn’t believe that he’s going to receive anything in that moment. He’s just doing his work. But Peter and John say, “Look at us.” And all of a sudden the whole reality has changed. It’s like something’s about to happen. And the hungry people have expectation and hope. He, in that moment, has faith.
I’ve noticed this with my kids, especially Rowan, Ruby, Rhys, Margot… Malcolm, he’s starting to crawl a little bit, but the older ones. When I’m calling their names and I want them to come to me for some reason, I’ll call for like five minutes with no response. But if I say, “Hey, Rhys, I have something for you,” boom. He is just after it. He’s like, “What is going on? I’m there.” Why is that? Because he expects to receive something. That’s what faith is: an expectation of God. It’s anticipating what God is going to do.
In this moment, that man, in his limited place, had faith that something good was going to happen. He was expectant. Now, obviously he thought of one thing. He didn’t realize what was going to happen. But that fixed attention, expecting to receive something: that phrase just leapt off the page. How often do we go to God with a fixed attention, expecting to receive something? We need to cultivate that expectation through prayer and devotion. Let’s continue to look to him. He is always giving us stuff, because all good things come from him. But we need to cultivate an expectation to see it. And then that hunger will grow into true joy and fulfillment, as we know we can trust him.
It’s the opposite of what the world says. Because the world says the hungry starve. The hungry are undesirable; the state of hunger or poverty is undesirable. But in the kingdom, the spiritually hungry, the poor in spirit, receive from God. It’s upside down. The rule is, in the kingdom, the hungry get fed. And so we need to cultivate a hunger.
We’re so satisfied all the time. We have everything we could need. You get a little bored, you get a little hit of that glowing rectangle in your pocket: “Oh, I feel better. That’s nice.” And then you do that over and over and over again, and your ability to be hungry for the things of God in your life flatlines, because you got good enough. You got the imitation. C.S. Lewis says we’re like kids making mud pies in the slum, who reject the opportunity to go on a holiday to the beach because we just don’t know what it is. That’s how good God is. He’s sitting there, and he’s like, “Why are you making mud pies in the slum? Look up.”
IX. What I Do Have I Give to You 30:30
What did Peter and John say? “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them (Acts 3.5). Okay, verse 6. Let’s keep going:
6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. Acts 3.6–8
You can just see it all play out on that lame man’s face. He’s looking, expectant to receive something from them. They say, “I have no silver and gold,” and his face falls. And then they say, “But what I do have I give to you,” and he’s a little cautious: “Okay.” And then the power of the Holy Spirit comes, and he rises up, and then he’s leaping and shouting and praising God. I love that.
It’s Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So “Christ”: he’s the Savior. That’s a title. And then “of Nazareth”: an actual person. He actually existed. He’s from a place in time.
So if we steward a community of people who are united, who are generous, and who have faith and expectation that God will show up, then when we leave here, we take something with us. You always do. You’re baptized. You have the Holy Spirit. But if you steward these things, then you will be able to bring it with you to the world.
X. Studying the Game Footage 31:59
That’s what we need to do as we look at Acts. We need to study it kind of like athletes, and I’ll close with this. They study game footage, and they’re trying to see: How does he move? How does he turn his hips? How does he find that gap? What is going on here? How do I make myself better? But there are two types of people who do that. There’s also the hobbyist, who sits on a couch and watches and goes, “How does he do this? How does he do that? Oh, it’s so cool.” One type becomes the champions of the current time. The other type sits on their couch, goes to church every Sunday, attends a home group, and never does anything with it.
That’s the challenge for us as we look at this: are you going to take the words that we’re studying, the moves, the things that we see in the early church? Are you going to apply those to your life, day in and day out? And if you listen to interviews with the athletes who really do it, it consumes their life. Their whole life revolves around getting that extra millisecond of step, the extra turn, that little bit of technique, all of that. And yet we’re so complacent with our life.
I just invite you: there’s more. The more you give, the more you devote, the more you will see the will of God come in your life. So let’s look at these things. Let’s take them seriously. Let’s apply them daily to our life, and let’s keep building the kingdom of God together. 52 years: I can’t wait to see what the next fifty bring. Amen.