Acts 1:8 Church
Jim Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · March 5, 2023
Jim Clements teaches from Acts 1:8, showing that Jesus is the message and the Holy Spirit gives the power. He calls every believer to be His witness, starting at home in Moncton and reaching out to the ends of the earth.
Topics: Holy Spirit, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Amen, well, I'm gonna go off script right away if that's okay. There's two things with heavy air even sharing the generosity that I've realized from all of you as a congregation is incredible, and last week when I told you that we purchased 24 pallets to send to Turkey and Syria, and we thought the wrench kind of got on the faucet and we kind of closed that off a little bit, but God's got a bigger wrench than we've got, and so 27 pallets will go to Turkey and Syria from your giving. So thank you for that. Thank you for that. Incredible gift to love, and I'm also going to do something. I don't know if we've done this before, so forgive me for those of you that are in here that I'm gonna do this to. A number of people recently joined membership of Moncton Wesleyan, approximately about 20 of them, and I'm not gonna ask you to do anything other than just stand where you are if you're in the room today and you came through membership with me with the last class. Just stand where you're at and we can give them all a hand.
[1:04] We got him here. Here, just give them a hand for standing up back there. Thank you so much. And look up in the dolphin. You want to miss anybody. You can have a seat. Thank you so much. They survived the class, so you can survive the class with me teaching it too. So, there you go. Today we're going to talk about restarting, re-engaging the missions ministry of Moncton Wesleyan, 2023. We are beyond, we're post-pandemic, and we have started a lot of things, and a lot of things are going well, and it's time to take our missions to the next step, and most of you know, if you've been around me any length of time, I have told you that Gisèle and I live our lives with Christ by simple means.
[1:51] The answer is yes. Now, what's the question? And so when I said that long time ago, I had never been to certain parts of the world. And God said, you said yes. That I want you to go to the Middle East in the middle of the crisis with the refugees coming in from Syria in the Lebanon. I was like, you want me to go where? And He goes, I want you to go right into there and do ministry. And it was incredible days as I flew to a place I'd never been. And I can remember with the person who was my host there saying, we're gonna go and pray for a family today, and I was like, cool, I can do that, and we stopped at a store and we bought all these fresh vegetables and groceries. We walked down to the street to this apartment complex. And when I say apartment complex, that's being kind, and he said we got to go up four flights.
[2:46] Being North American, I go, where's the help of here? Expect me to lug four sacks of groceries up four sets of stairs? You look at me, and we walked up four flights of steps, and he goes, I said, which room is it? He goes, oh, we still got two ladders to go. What do you mean, two ladders? Out under the roof top we go, and we go up one ladder. That's probably about eight feet. And then there's this other small five foot ladder, and we get up to the top, and there's this woman, single mom living with two physically handicapped children in a tool shed on the top of this building. And we sat and we listened to her story. We prayed for, we blessed with the groceries. She made us coffee, and it was an incredible moment.
[3:35] That's what God's calling us to as a church and as individuals. And then He said, I want you to go where it all is happening. And I said to a person that was with us, our guide, I said, Are we able to go to the Bekaa Valley? The Bekaa Valley is just a few miles from the Syrian border. And when you see the crisis that was happening at that moment, you can't help but think when you come back to your church, what God wants you to do. For some of us it's give, for others of us it's going to be go, but it's not always in those settings. But when you live your life to say, yes, now what's the question? God will be obedient in blessing you with where He takes you in that.
[4:23] I'm going to take us to Acts 1:8 today. It's the call of Jesus for everyone to go and be on mission, and it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth. What do we learn from this immediately? The first thing you get out of this scripture is the message. What's the message in here? Jesus says in this verse, you shall be My witnesses. That's what He's telling us. Jesus is the message in Acts 1:8. Jesus says to His disciples in Luke 24:46-47, thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day.
[5:12] And then to repentance for forgiveness of sin would be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. For us, that would be beginning in Moncton. Jesus commanded His disciples to take the message of what He had done to all nations, to the whole world. Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 15:1 through 4. Now, I make it known to you, brothers, the gospel which I preached to you. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul said this is the gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He defeated death. He rose to prove that He is the Son of God, and that death has no hold on us ever. Acts 1:8: Jesus is the message. He's the message that we are to share.
[6:12] I used to be a children's pastor when I first started out, and there was always this joke people would say when they met you as a children's pastor. Do they say, is it true that every kid says that no matter what the question is, the answer is Jesus? And I said, well, I don't know, you know. And they said, well, I figured, like in kids church, you can say, well, God created all creatures, as this little creature that stores nuts away and has a furry tail. What do you think? The answer, isn't a kid in kids church would say Jesus? And I said, well, I got a little bit more thinking of what kids church is like, but I will tell you this: That in kids church, you're probably going to get three answers. You're gonna get the Bible, you're gonna get God, and you're gonna get Jesus. See, the message is that simple when it comes to a children's church, because the truth is the Bible tells us that God sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross and pay the debt for our sins. The kids ministry is not that far off with those three answers when you look at it, and that is the message that Jesus has called us to share.
[7:18] Jesus didn't send us on mission to tell people that they've fallen short. He knows that they fall short, and we've all fallen short. He didn't send us to say that we're religious and they should be religious. For all of us, we need to look in the mirror. We need to be truthful with ourselves, and we think about that because except for the grace of Christ, we would be struggling and seeking also. The message that people need is the gospel of Jesus. That is love, grace, and truth. Jesus didn't send us to be our mission to tell people that we're a good church because we're not always a good church. Are we? There's times that we have struggles. There's things that we battle and have challenges with the message that people need to hear is that God is good.
[8:10] Come on. All the time. Going to try it again. That coffee, you need to buy more coffee at the café because you all struggling right now. He ate way too many donuts one or the other. God is good. All the time. God is good. That's what they need to hear. Jesus didn't send us on mission to preach about prosperity and riches. Because if we were to go to a foreign country and talk about that and all the luxuries we have here, what would it look like then when our economy crashes or we lose the money we have or whatever things that we gather up to them. What would happen to our message?
[9:00] Jesus didn't send us for a dream of prosperity as our gospel. But He did promise us that we would get our daily bread and daily needs that we have. You see, Jesus is the message. Jesus is the most important message that our children need to hear. Jesus is the most important message that our students need to hear. Jesus is the most important message that our families need to hear. The women who are down at the Pregnancy Center, Jesus is the most important message. They need to hear those that are struggling with addictions. Jesus is the most important message that they need to hear. The message of love, grace, and truth. And love is the message that comes from Jesus Christ, whether we are here in Canada or ministering in a foreign country. Jesus is the message.
[9:54] Sometimes we spend too much time thinking about hell. Well, you don't want. Hell is probably a bad place and it is a bad place. But I'd sooner think about heaven. I'd sooner think about the hope that God has promised us, the love that those who are believers and come together and say that they were followers of Christ. What can be God and given in that is so much more important than spending about what we fear. Think about what we hope for. That's where we should have our message. Jesus is the message for all people and all needs. The Bible does say that we've all fallen short of the glory of God. That is why God sent Jesus to die on a cross so that we can be free.
[10:41] So death has no hold on us any longer. And for us to share that with other people. And if you're here right now and you have no idea what I'm talking about, Jesus is the message for you today, right here, right now. But our commission is when Jesus says, "You shall be My witness." That's all of us. That's not just pastors. That's all of us. So we know the message is Jesus, but what's the scope of all this? The verse goes on. A lot of people love this verse because it details out the call of the mission. Jesus said He told His disciples, "You will be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, all of Judea, Samaria, and even the remotest parts of the earth." Those are four distinct spots. Here's a map so you can see what it looks like.
[11:32] You see Jerusalem down there in a beige kind of the bottom. Judea is the whole beige section around it. Some areas of purple section above, and then the rest of the world. It wasn't a small spot. He was telling them that was what they knew at the time. If we were to take that into our own context right here, Jerusalem was our home base. That's where the worshipers were, the temple that they were in. This is Moncton, the greater Moncton area. The church that you're in, the area that we surround, that is our Jerusalem. Judea is our region, the Southeast region, maybe the rest of the province. Samaria could be the next province to us, maybe the rest of Canada, if we look at it that way. The remotest parts are the parts of the world beyond Canada. That is what we're being called to as a church and as people.
[12:25] Jesus basically says, start where you are, your Jerusalem. And then expand out. Acts 1:8 commands that. We picture this in a different way. Many people picture this in a different way. But I want to show you something that our tech people did for me. That's really cool. Take a look at this. You know what that is? And we'll run that one more time for them. Watch it. You know what that is? That's every one of you that I had placed on a map to show where you live.
[13:14] That's our Jerusalem. You want to know how big of an impact we can have if you start in your Jerusalem, where you live, in your own neighborhood, and make a difference to share the message of Jesus through grace and love and hope and truth. What would it be like? And then go out from there, then go to another part of our region or province, and then Canada, and maybe you're even thinking about going somewhere to a foreign country. I would encourage you to go to MW.church/congo. If you want to go to Congo, we'll make it so you can still go to Congo. What is God calling into a healthy church is in all four areas?
[13:59] That we just talked about. They're in their city. There's somewhere in the region, province, maybe another province in Canada. They're influencing, or in a foreign country. And that takes us to then out of this scripture the application of it: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. What's that? Look for us in our city. We have Harvest House Atlantic, Naomi and Ruth, the Pregnancy and Wellness Center that we support as a church. Some of these will repeat because of their reach and our region and province. Again, Harvest House Atlantic, Kingswood University, the Buckingham Leadership Institute, Adult and Teen Challenge, Cadence Island ministering to our students. Another province and reach that goes further beyond our provinces: Kingswood University, Adult and Teen Challenge, just, you know, attract from all over, and the Buckingham Leadership Institute. Foreign countries or places. We are the papal clinic and in the Congo, Haiti, where we've got the oxygen generating plant, the Bahamas. We've been in there, the Burkina Faso, we support missionaries there. In South Africa we do.
[15:05] And of course, you know about Turkey and Syria and the Ukraine. We have been a healthy church, but I believe God is calling us to put our hands and feet in the motion more when it comes to supporting the mission work that He's calling us to in these areas and beyond. A lot of you may not know that we have a missions budget. And we have a church budget, but the missions budget is not part of that. The missions budget comes from gifts and love offerings that people give to support all these ministries, and you can find out what that is, and I would encourage you that if you want to be part of that and God is putting that on your heart, then you would consider that today. What is Jesus saying to you right now?
[15:52] When you see those names and you see those partner ministries, when you hear that, you should be part of an Acts 1:8 church. It is not good enough to say, "Hey, I'm part of a church, and this is what they do." I'm so glad to be part of a church that is doing this, X, Y, and Z, because when a day comes, God is not going to talk to you about accountability for what our church is doing for you or what you're doing in the church. What the church is doing? If you're tracking with me, He's not going to hold you accountable for what other people in the church are doing. God's gonna hold you accountable for what you're doing, not anyone else. We don't get to ride anyone's coattails when it comes to this.
[16:40] So the real question is, what are you going to do? I think it would be a great personal goal for all of us this year. If we were able to say, how am I gonna be an Acts 1:8 follower of Jesus and spread that message? Some of us have already done it, some of us are continuing to still do it. But my prayer today is that you take at least that one step to personally connect with one of these ministries that we've just showed up there that we partner with. Or maybe you're going to personally connect with somebody in your neighborhood. That will be your Jerusalem. Let me just, a little relationship kind of side note. If you invite someone to church for the first time or to something for the first time and you don't know them other than waving at them when you drive by to go to your house, that's probably not a good thing to do right away till you build some relationship.
[17:39] Because as soon as they say no, you're at a negative. Spend some time serving them. Jesus gives us a great example to serve, figure out things about them there. There's neighbors that I have had in my past where I've lived and have come over and said to me when I moved in, they said, "So what do you do for a living?" which is like the worst question a pastor wants to get asked first, right? And I happen to tell this guy, "Well, I'm a pastor," and he goes, "Well, I just want you to know that I live for everything that you stand against." And I looked at him and I said, "I'm gonna be the best neighbor you've ever had, lived next door to you." And I prayed with him on the front lawn while he was mowing for his son, who was suffering from massive PTSD in a clinic in Seattle from the time he served in the forces.
[18:35] God created that opportunity because I've built a relationship. If you want to share your message of what Jesus is in your Jerusalem, you've got to build relationships. This kind of movement that I've seen, I've seen this in the past, in churches that I've been in, we started, we said, "Okay, God, we want to do Acts 1:8. What's that mean?" And He laid something on our hearts, and it was, we're gonna raise a million dollars in three years to give away. And it was incredible to watch God make that happen. That kind of challenge that God places on a church, and a church accepts it, and it's not about just money.
[19:20] It's about going. And it's going into the countries. These churches that I've been with in the past now have multiple international partnerships that they work directly with in the field because they've been able to do that. One of the churches that had the million dollars in three years now raises that every year. That's a God thing. You shouldn't be afraid of that. That's a God thing. That's not a human thing. That's a God thing. And it's incredible to watch God at work when you are on mission for what He's calling us to. Are we aware of all the things that we have a chance to do? See, I'm convinced today, been convinced for a long time, the reason there's such disarray in life and in society, it's because people are looking for what we already know to be the truth.
[20:15] And they're going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole after rabbit hole trying to find the meaning of life, the satisfaction, the fulfillment. They need the love. They need whatever it is that they need. And we have the truth. But that truth has to come out by going side by side, loving some of the hardest people to love, and caring and serving with a chance to share the message of Jesus. And we ask God to support this and the times and resources that you have. And how do we do it? We do it by just jumping in. I've got a picture to show you. It's an old picture.
[21:01] This picture, you might even recognize some of the people in it. Maybe you won't from a distance. This is a group of teenagers from here. These are the teenagers, some of them are adults, probably in this room, when I can't believe he's showing that picture, that started the missions work at the clinic in Congo from this church. That's who we are. It doesn't matter the age. Doesn't matter. They're still here and there's still being part of it. I also have a couple of videos I want you to watch. I'm gonna show you the first one. These are two people dedicated to the mission. The missions team here at Moncton Wesleyan. Just give this a watch, please.
[21:46] Hi, I'm Dorothy Cadet. I've been a member of Moncton Wesleyan for the last 10 years, and I'm Alan Dunn, and I've been a member here all since I was 12 years old, so I'll let you figure out the math. Missions has really impacted my Christian journey. The first mission trip I went on was nine years ago. The reason I decided to go to Haiti was to see how I could help the Haitian people. As a child, I had seen the commercials on people going to places and helping people less fortunate. Going to Haiti gave me a wanting me. I found out that it wasn't me going to Haiti and the Haitians that needed help, but my heart that needed help. Going to Haiti broke me into a million pieces, and God was able to rebuild me from that broken state. The Haitian people showed me what it was to have faith, to have love, and to really put God first.
[22:46] They have no other choice but to believe in Jesus. Coming back from Haiti helped me really center my life around Jesus and be grateful for the things that we have in this part of the world. Since the first time I went to Haiti nine years ago, I've had the opportunity to go back to the community in Babko six or I think six times, and what they have taught me and what they've shown me about love and faith continues to inspire me during my journey. So missions to me is maybe a little bit different, and I think what excites me about missions is hearing stories like Dorothy's, and there's many other people in our church that I've traveled with, and I hear different stories from them. My first mission trip, I was probably early 2000, maybe 2004, 2005, and it was a trip to Trinidad with Pastor Carl Jill. Many of you may remember him. This was also, I had a chance to meet Dave Marshall, which he kind of was looking after a lot of the mission trips here, and I love an adventure, and I think when God is helping you find your place in the ministry, I think you have to enjoy what you're doing. I really thought is going to call you to do something that you hate.
[24:14] For something that you're not like, He'll give you the tools and He'll equip you to do it, and I think you'll find joy doing it at the very least. I want people to come back and have a better appreciation for life here in North America. I know we complain a lot about our government and our roads and all that sort of stuff, the potholes. Yeah, but I think until you've actually been in a place like Haiti or the Congo, do you really have a true appreciation for winning the birth lottery? And that's a funny way of thinking about it, but why were we so lucky to be born here and not in Haiti?
[25:01] You don't realize the impact you have and the next video in a second I'm going to show you is the joy. It just displays the joy. So Jon Westrup, another person who's on our missions team, went to the Bahamas to help with the last week with some programs. They got down there, and we didn't tell Pastor Raymond He was coming. And the over amount of joy that's expressed of the impact that you can have in a person's life, whether it's here in the city of Moncton and the province, in the country, in a foreign country somewhere. Don't underestimate how God can use you and how He's calling you to be an Acts 1:8 follower.
[25:49] Check this video out. Thank you. He may be keeping a secret to hold down. He's just a little excited to see you. The impact that you have in relationships you make, not only in foreign countries. They're right in your neighborhoods that have that same joy. You want to be able to have relationships that when you drive into your neighborhood or you're going for a walk, garage doors are opening and not closing when you're going by, right?
[26:42] That's what we're after. So we think about all this, we know that Jesus is the message. We know what our scope and application is. But there's one thing that gets skipped over pretty quick, but I want to go back to it. That's at the first part of the scripture. That's the power. And it says in there, "And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then you shall be My witness." The Holy Spirit came upon the early church later on in Acts 2, and Peter and the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. They became bold witnesses. But the Bible also tells us that the Holy Spirit comes over all believers and followers of Christ. Every believer can have the experience of the Holy Spirit of God in us.
[27:30] Who gives the power for change? See? It's not going to be any one individual that helps make change. It's not going to be the government. It's not going to be your work. It's not going to be your sports. It's not going to be whatever you put in its place. It's the Holy Spirit working through you that is going to make the change in people's lives when you allow Him to use you in that way. The Holy Spirit is the only effective way that can make change happen in someone's life. But you have to be willing to allow yourself to experience the Holy Spirit's working. It says in Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the Lord.
[28:16] He is the one that needs to empower us for sharing the message and for doing Kingdom work. There was a time in New York that it was so dry that we hadn't seen rain in so long that you could actually see cracks in our lawn, like I could put my hands sideways down in the dirt. That's how open it was, and I was crazy enough to think that I could change that, so I hooked my hose up to my sprinkler, you know, the like that, and I dragged that stupid sprinkler around the yard for way longer than any human being should drag a sprinkler around the yard. My neighbors were probably thinking I was nuts, and every time the water hit the dirt, it was gone.
[29:01] Like it was like I was having no effect. And all of a sudden in the distance, I could see these dark clouds coming, and I'm like, "Oh." And I got inside. A garage door was open, and it poured, like just like a torrential downpour. It saturated the ground, and when it had stopped and passed, you could still see the water sitting on top of the lawn. See, what I was trying to do in hours, God did in about five minutes. The example in that is it doesn't matter what we think we can do, we can work at something for an entire day, but the Holy Spirit working through us can accomplish more in five minutes than we can all day in someone's life. The Holy Spirit can accomplish in one move of His Spirit what we can't do in an entire year.
[29:59] It is important for us not to pass over the Holy Spirit, because it is so important for us to have that indwelling of Him in our lives, that we can then accomplish the mission, which is the message of Jesus Christ, in the people's lives, that has the love, the grace, the hope, and the truth, so that they can live free from whatever is holding them in bondage. Jesus said in John 15, "Without Me you can do nothing." But with Him, nothing is impossible with God. We need to make sure that we are not only an Acts 1:8 church, but that we are Acts 1:8 people as followers of Jesus.
[30:51] Will you pray with me, please? And as you bow your head, I just want to give you some things to seek. I know a lot of times when prayer's happening, you're probably going to listen mode, and that's okay. Listen for God. Listen for what He may be saying. I want you to seek Him. If you don't know Him, seek Him for salvation. Seek Him for restoration of relationships. Seek Him for restoration of communities. Seek Him for someone you love to know Him. Seek Him for missions and outreach of our church. Seek Him and thank Him for the blessings on our church. Seek Him to show us how to serve our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Father, we just lift ourselves up to You now.
[31:36] Father, we say, "Here we are, use us." May our answer be yes before we even hear the question. Father, we love You. And we know that people need to know the truth of Jesus Christ in their lives. Father, may we share that. May those that are called to go, go, I mean, those that are called to stay and minister here, minister here. Father, may each one of us surrender today to be an Acts 1:8 follower of Jesus Christ in Your name we pray. And everybody said, "Amen."