God's Mission, God's Way - Acts 19:11-20

Hi family. Thanks for joining us today. Glad you showed up. I've been out gallivanting around the Middle East. We had a great time, and it was wonderful to be back in the land where Jesus walked. No big deal. It was fantastic. And we had a good trip, and I'm glad to be home, briefly. Two things I want to say about that, number one, we blew in yesterday afternoon. So, I don't even know what day of the week it is. That being said, who knows what I'm going to be capable of saying today. This could be epic. Well, it's going to be epic. It could be an epic awesome or an epic fail. I guess that depends on whether or not you have the Holy Spirit. I don't know. And it begins. So, please give me some grace this morning on that piece.

The other thing is I want to just apologize for what the last couple of weeks and the next few weeks is going to look like. So, two years ago was when I had to put these dates on the calendar for these trips, for Israel and then Turkey at the end of June. It was two years ago and it was all fine until, then, the calendar started to fill in and things like my son decided to get married. Which sounds like a congratulations, but it's next week, right in between the two trips. So, Kelly and I are going to be running around like we have our hair on fire for a few weeks, which is fine. Pray for us, but we have a great cast of people that will be stepping in and filling in the pulpit while I'm out and about. But never fear, not going anywhere. We have lots and lots and lots of stuff to do here in the church. So, I want to be a part of that. So, we just got to get through the next few weeks. With me?

Okay, here we go. Book of Acts number 22. If you can believe it, we're coming in on the home stretch. I know this has been forever. We're going to look at Acts chapter 19, today, verses 11 to 20, which is not such a big section. And we're going to pull out some lessons that I think are particularly important and relevant for us as we consider what is it that we're expecting when we follow God? What is it that we're expecting? And why do we come to church at all? Why are we even here? And so that's what we're going to be wrestling with today. We're going to begin, verse 11, here we go. "God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul." Okay, this is so important. This statement, I could spend an hour just on that statement. I won't, but I could. Who's doing the miracles? God.

Now, Paul is the conduit, right? He's the one that's actually being God's hands and feet, but God is the one doing the work. God is the one doing the work. There's a weird thing in the church in America with the whole rockstar spiritual leader thing, and I don't like it at all. Number one, I don't like the pressure. Number two, it's ungodly. Anytime that anything takes your focus off of anything other than God and His presence, then we're skewed in some way. Whether that's somebody pulling for that influence or we're giving it voluntarily, that we'll wrestle with that. But God was doing extraordinary miracles. Only God has the power to do that, right? Only God has the power to do that. "Extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them." Handkerchiefs.

By the way, I saw a televangelist, you know this is going to be quality, that was bless- He was praying over handkerchiefs and you could buy one for the low, low price of $1,000.00, right? And he used this verse. God's miracles are for free. "Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists..." There are so many fun phrases in this passage. "... itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, 'I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.'" Which, by the way, there's a whole lesson in that that we're not going to talk about. Like, do you have your own connection with God, or are you living vicariously through somebody else's spiritual walk?

I'll give you a litmus test for that. How'd you do it, preparing yourself to come to church this morning? Were you ready when you came in? Had you done time with the Lord? Have you been in His Word? Have you worshiped Him? Have you spent time talking to God? Is your heart ready? Or were you just expecting me to do all that work for you, like a bird feeding its babies, right? "Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, 'Jesus, I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?'" There's so many things that I want to say here. "And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them..." That means he kicked the thunder out of them. "... and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Just sit with that for a minute.

"And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled." That means it was lifted up. It was made great. "Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices." Interesting connection that people are like, "Oh, these people tried to play with Jesus, and it didn't work. Maybe I should stop playing with Jesus too." I'll just offer a bit of advice. Generally speaking, you don't have to see somebody's life fall apart before you know that bad is bad, right? It's just generally a good idea to take Jesus seriously. "And a number of those who'd practice magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found out to be 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily" Just interesting to me, so God is doing all of these miracles, and there's some people who want to tie into it? They want the privilege without carrying the responsibility.

Not unlike you and me, we want the privileges of a relationship with God without carrying the responsibility of it. There's some lessons that I want to talk about this morning in this passage about what kind of people God uses, and what they do. Number one lesson that I want to point out here is this: in order to gain access to God's hands, you must first pursue God's face. Hear me say that. We want God to do things for us. We want Him to bless us to work in our life, to do miracles. We do that, but we don't want to have connection to Him. If you want to access the hands of God working in your life, you must access His face.

Isaiah chapter one. Here's what it says, starting in verse 10. "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!" By the way, never a good analogy when the passage opens up with, "Hey, rulers of Sodom!" You generally don't want to be called that. "Give an ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 'What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?" says the Lord; 'I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required, this of you, this trampling of my courts?'" Here's what's happening, God is speaking to the people, and He's saying, "I'm tired of all your religious activity, because it doesn't mean anything."

Now ,that doesn't mean, see, you should not have any religion. That's not what He's saying. What He's saying is when you act as if religious activity is the extent of your relationship with God, you're missing the point. Religious activity is the overflow of what we do in our relationship with God. So, for example, why do we come to church? We come to church because maybe we need something or I need to be encouraged. And there are weeks where we all visit that place, but if that's the only place that we're ever at when we come to church, we have an issue. And when we worship, how do we worship? Do we worship as a way to tick it off the list? So, it's like, "Yep. I did my job. I did my activity. I did my duty." Or do we worship out of the overflow of a connectedness with the Father that's been going on all week?

How do we worship? Do we worship as if we're going through the liturgy, it's going to be three songs and a directed prayer, or do we worship as if we are desperate for the presence of God? We need more of the presence of God, and that's reflected in the energy that we put into worship. It's kind of like in your relationship with God, when you're worshiping God, do you want people to know that you actually have a relationship with Him or not? Because we sing as if we don't want people to really know that we love God. It's like if I'm married to my wife, but I don't want anybody to know that I'm married. That's how we treat our relationship with God.

When we worship like, we worship. Do you see what I see? Seeing lightning like thunder. Is that how we worship? Is it, or are we just really just standing there kind of enduring it, right? Like, "I'm just enduring this until the end." Or even better, even better, do we sit out in the lobby and drink coffee? Oh, my meddling, because I don't like the music. You know what? Here's the funny thing about music, there's never been one music style that told me I couldn't worship. Only my heart can do that. People complain about the lights and the whatever and this and that. Like, "I would prefer this. I would prefer that." There's the smoke machine, I hate the smoke machine. If it was up to me, we wouldn't have smoke. People are like, "Well, it is up to you." Some hills aren't worth dying on. Right?

Here's the thing, you know what that smoke machine's never done? It's never told me I couldn't worship. Only my heart does that. If I can't worship because there's smoke in the room, that's on me. That's not on the smoke or the lights or the song choice or anything else. So, when we, when we come to this religious activity, we come to it as if we're just going through the motions of it. Why? Why are you doing that? God doesn't need it. None of this is for God's benefit. We're not doing this so we're like, "God, see, I'm suffering in the name of God, this horrible worship music. I'm suffering. I'm enduring, Lord, bless me." We act as if God somehow needs us to engage in the religious activity. God doesn't need it. God doesn't need your religious activity. You do. You need worship. You need it. I need it. And so then the question becomes, do I need worship as I'm doing it, or do I need to change my worship so that it becomes something that's a benefit to me? Because if I worship like-

Like most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. And too many times we get caught up in, "Well, I prefer this or I like that or I don't like that," and we're we start playing a preference game. And God's like, "It's not about any of that." None of this stuff- We missed the point. And in Isaiah chapter one, the God followers are missing the point. They're doing the sacrifices because they're trying to earn God's approval. We come to church because we're trying to earn God's approval. God loves you. I don't want you to walk out of here and not know that. If you're curious about whether or not God loves you, He cannot possibly love you anymore than He does. He loves you fully, completely, and perfectly. Before you ever do anything, God loves you. I'm the one that needs the religious activity. I need worship. I need the Word of God in my life. I need it.

And so what's happening here is that Isaiah, the prophet, is addressing, "You guys are going through this religious activity as if you think you're earning God's approval in some way." Keep reading. "When you come to appear before me, who has required this of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly." By the way, all these things are things that God gave them to do. The things in of themselves are not bad, but when we do them from a wrong place or for a wrong reason, it misses the point.

"Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, and learn to do good." So, here's the point. He says, "You come in and you do all this religious activity, but then when you go back out into the world, you live like the devil. You're doing your own thing out there. You're not actually- it's not translating into anything in your life." It would be like- So Jesus feeds 5,000 people with a boy's sack lunch, right? Five loaves and two fish. He feeds 5,000 people, a lot of folks with just a little bit of food. And then there's 12 basket fulls of bread left over. Now here's a question. Do the disciples believe that Jesus did a miracle? They know what was available and what God did with it.

The next story is they're out across the lake in the boat and a storm comes up and they panic, right? So, do they believe that Jesus did a miracle feeding 5,000 people? Well, maybe, but what difference does it make if it doesn't change anything? What difference does it make if you believe God can do miracles, if it doesn't change anything? What difference does all your religious activity make if it doesn't change something in how you live your life? We just do what we've always done, but somehow there's this disconnect between our religious experience and our real life. So, we want God to do things for us to protect, to provide, to bless. We want God to do that, but we don't want to engage Him in a connected relationship.

He says, "Cease to do evil." So, that looks like treating the waiter or waitress poorly at lunch today. It looks like how we talk to people at the grocery store. That looks like the things you yell at the ref on the TV today. Now, we're preaching. It looks like how we do everything. It looks like the things you give your energy to, the jokes you tell, the what's acceptable and what's un- That's what it looks like. "Cease to do evil, learn to do good."

Here's what good looks like, "Seek justice," mishpat, distributive justice. Here's what that means, and I'm not going off on justice piece. What does it mean to seek justice? I think for most of us, if something, if a need came to us and we were able to meet it, we would. I think most of us would. By the way, I think most non-Christians would do that too. If there's a need that comes to us, we'll step out and meet it, but what this says is to seek it out. Seek out the opportunities to do good for people. Seek that out. Don't just let come to you and then respond, seek it out. "Correct oppression." When you see people being taken advantage of step in and fix it.

"Bring justice to the fatherless." Now, that's not mishpat. That's not mishpat. This is pronounced judgment. And here's what you have to understand from- Especially in the Old Testament, when we're talking about the judge in the Old Testament, we're not talking- When we think about a judge, we think about the person with the black robe and the gavel and they pronounce the sentence, but then somebody else carries the sentence out. We have police officers in the jail system and all that stuff to carry out the sentence. In the Old Testament, the judge is the one who's actually responsible for carrying the sentence out. Think about the judges in the book of judges like Samson and Eli and all of these guys. They're not just standing back and pronouncing judgment. They're actually engaged in carrying the judgment out. So, go and help those who are fatherless, who can't help themselves.

"Plead the widow's cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." So, stop doing evil. All the religious activity in the world is meaningless when your life is full of evil. Learn to do good. What does good look like? Looks like seeking justice and correcting oppression and helping those who can't help themselves. That's what it looks like. And then He says if you do that, then "though your sins are like, scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." Then when we learn to do good, well what's good? Seek justice, correct oppression. We don't get to demand access to the blessing of God if we're not willing to step into a connection with the Father.

And there's- I've had people, I can't even tell you how many times, the number is large. I could give you a preacher stat, like 78.2% of statistics are made up right on the spot. But a lot of people that come into my office and they sit down and they're like, "I'm mad at God." And I'm like, "Why?" And they're like, "Well, because I expected God to protect me, and He didn't." I'm like, "Really? Tell me about that." And they tell me the story of, "I did the wrong thing and I knew it was wrong, but I expected God to protect me." And I'm like, "God did protect you. He told you to don't do that. He did protect you. You just didn't listen."

We don't get to demand access to the blessings of God if we're not willing to pursue connection with the Father. That's the way it works. The reason why Paul, in Acts 19, is able to be the hands that do great things is because he's connected to the Father. And so much so that people are trying to mimic, they want to be like him in the execution. They want to be like him in the blessing, but they don't want to be like him in the discipline.

Second lesson that I think is important from this passage: Paul's actions were for God's glory and the betterment of others. We actually need both: for God's glory and for the betterment of others. If we do things just for God's glory, but we don't actually consider what makes people actually better, then what we can do is become really legalistic and fundamentalist and mean and cold and callous. And we're spouting truth, but we're not helping promote the Gospel.

Galatians 5:13-15, here's what it says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers." That's great news. Christ has set you free. "Only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in this one command, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another." We're like, "Well, I'm going to be right with God, but I'm going to chew you up and spit you out. I don't care. I don't care about what you think. I'm just going to be right. I don't care about you. I'm going to be right." If you don't care about other people, then you don't care about God. Because what God says is you can't love Him without loving other people. Loving other people is the net sum result of loving God. It's what it looks like to love God well. He says it over and over again. It's not just about, "Well, here's the truth, and so I don't care what you think." No, you should care what people think. You should care what people think, and here's why, because Paul says, "It's not me who lives. It's Christ who lives in me." So, when people see you, they shouldn't see you. They should see Christ living in you.

Romans 12 is famous passage. Paul says this, "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with a brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." Let's do that one, just that one. "Outdo one another in showing honor." Let's put that one into practice. "Do not be slothful in zeal, but be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord." Here, that means don't be lazy in your relationship with God. Don't be like, "Ah, man, I know I'm supposed to get up and read the Bible today, but I was up late last night. It was a really good show." Really? So, Game of Thrones is more important than your Bible study? Oh, it wasn't Game of Thrones, House of Cards? You're like, "I don't watch those shows." Really? So You Think You Can Dance? What? Pick your show. It was Real Housewives of whatever. So much more wholesome.

"Don't be slothful in your zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty." Here's what that means, don't think you're important. "But I don't know if you know this, I'm kind of a big deal." No, you're not. No, I'm not. "But associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." By the way, honorable doesn't mean agreement. It just means it was honorable. "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." You know what that means? It means don't go pick a fight with everybody. "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'"

This is such a hard lesson because if you're not careful, this can get twisted into "You just need to let people walk over you." Nope, that's not what He said. You are okay to put boundaries for safety reasons in your life. That is okay. That's healthy and right and good. And it is an unloving act to allow someone to continue to treat you in an ungodly way. That is an unloving act, on your part, to receive from someone treatment that's ungodly, especially from somebody who calls himself a Jesus follower. But I don't have to take wrath on them. I don't have to execute vengeance. That's God's job. "To the contrary, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Man, so hard. So hard, but when we do these things, we do them for God's glory and for the betterment of other people. If we want to be someone that God uses to do the crazy things that Paul did in the book of Acts, if we want to see the book of Acts, the works of God show up like they did in the book of Acts, it will not happen if we choose to be vengeful people. We've got to be willing to love well, even those who don't love us back. And again, that doesn't mean that I have to stand in and be taken advantage of. What that means is I don't need to exact vengeance.

Third lesson: there's a difference between good things and God things. There's a difference between good things and God things. And sometimes we trade the God thing for something that's good. Matthew 7:21-23, here's what it says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who's in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"

"But we did miracles in your name, and we cast out demons in your name. We did all kinds of crazy things in your name." And Jesus is like, "Yeah, but I didn't know you." And I get back to what we originally talked about. This isn't about having God's works in your life. It's about seeking God's face. When I seek His face, the works are a byproduct of that. And here's the thing, it's super scary because God will honor His word. He will always do His part. The question is, are we doing ours? You could be right in the middle of something pretty special.

Hebrews 3:14-19, here's what it says, "For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. And as it is said, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.' For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led out by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief."

Listen to me, these are people who had every reason to believe. God gave them food every day. God gave them a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. God gave them miracle after miracle after miracle, and they still had unbelief. And so many of us are like, "Gosh, God, if you would just show up and do something for me, then I would know what you want." No, that's just not true. You could be right in the middle of a miracle and completely miss it. Completely miss it. And we want God to do good. We want God to do good things for us. "God, I want this. I want this. I want this." And when God says, "No," we're like, "God's not even real." And he's like, "No, I just had something better for you."

Simple analogy, if you ask God for a $10 bill and He wanted to give you a $100 bill, but in order for you to get the $100 bill, you had to let go of the $10 bill, would you do it? Now, when we know the whole equation, of course we say, "Yeah, $100 is better than $10." I don't know if you- I mean, they're pretty much about the same amount of money in this world that we're living in right now, but it's like a gallon of gas or something like that.

Preach.

We want access to the best version of God's blessing, but who knows what the best version of God's blessing is for you, you or God? What the question is, do we really believe that God has every intention of giving us every good gift that He has for us? Or do we believe that God is holding out on us? That's rooted in our decision, our faith, our posture before Him. And we hang on to the second rate blessings, believing that's the best that we can have when God wants so much more for us, but we won't trust Him enough to let go of the things that we keep cling to. The reason why Paul is able to do miracles, be the hands and feet of God in the world, and the reason is the same reason why the sons of Sceva get attacked and humiliated, it's because they wind up chasing the good. Paul lets go of the good so that God can do whatever He chooses. The question for you and me is will we do that? Will we be willing to let go?

So, I have some implications for us this morning. Number one, the goal of our relationship with God isn't to get Him to do what I want. It's to know Him and His business in the world. When we know Him and we know His business in the world, then we know where we're supposed to be giving our energy to. Number two, glorifying God and helping others go hand in hand. You don't get to say you carry truth and not help other people. That's nowhere in scripture. In fact, what happens in scripture again and again is that these two things are connected that if we're going to be serious about our relationship with God, it's going to look like serving other people well. In a myriad of different ways, but it will never look like I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and enjoy my relationship with God and that's going to be okay.

Number three, we don't have to give energy to creating something to do for God. That's really good news. He supplies the mission and the means to do it. We don't have to come up, "God, I don't know what I'm going to do for you. I could do this. I could do this. I don't know." God's like, "I don't want you to do either one of these things. Here's what I want for you," which is better than what you can come up with on your own. Number four, we can be right in the middle of a miracle and completely miss it. I hear so much talk about praying for revival. I want to pray for revival. Pray for revival. Pray for revival. Pray for revival. What if we're experiencing it? "Well, we haven't seen 3,000 people come to Christ in one day." True, but we're seeing seven today and that's pretty cool. And every week more and more and more people are saying yes to Jesus. Every single week that's happening. And by the way, not just our church, like yes, it's happening in our church and I'm so thankful to be a part of that, but it's not just our church.

The kingdom's moving forward, and what you look for in the world, you will find. What you look for in the world, you will find. If you're looking for all the tragedy and mess up and brokenness in the world, there's lots of it out there. But I can tell you this, there's also a lot of really amazing, incredible things going on in the world. What you choose to focus on, you will find. And I know that living in the times that we live in that it's really easy to get sideways on. Sorry, buddy. It's really easy to get sideways on being afraid of the future. Even for people that are like, "I'm not scared," but they're acting in anxiety, which is fear. "But I'm not scared." Kind of you are. If we're just honest about it, it's unsettling to live in the world that we're in, and we can get so fixated on that.

I was listening to the news this morning, because I've been out of the commission for the last couple of weeks. I'm like, I didn't even know what was going on in the world. So, I was listening to the news this morning and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is depressing." There's never any- The sad thing is it's the goodness in the world isn't news. Nobody's interested in that. We all want the fear stuff. What you're looking for, you'll find. What if we're right in the midst of a move of God, and it's going to take some altering on our part, maybe a change of perspective, maybe a change of action, maybe a change of how we give our energy to really understand it and to see it and to become part of it. But we're right in the midst of it. What if God is moving, and we need to focus on that, fixate on it, call it out, celebrate it, and press into it.

So, as we move into our communion time, maybe that's our space to just kind of sit with God and our heart is where are you letting yourself get distracted by anything other than His glory? Where are we allowing ourselves to get caught up in worldly things? Where are we allowing ourselves to get lost in the tragedies of this world? Because there are tragedies going on in this world. There are, we experienced some horrible tragedies in our country over the last couple of weeks. But what if God's ready? He's already moving. What if we could be part of that? Where are you getting distracted? And what does God want you to do with that? Let's talk with the Lord about that as we get our hearts ready for communion.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it, and He said, "This is my body, which is given for you. So whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me." Let's remember Him this morning. And then after the dinner, He took a cup and He said, "This cup, this is a blood of the covenant, which is shed for you. So, whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me." Let's pray. Lord, for your glory and through your spirit, we offer our lives to you. It is only by your grace and your forgiveness that we're even able to do that. And so Lord, again, we come asking for forgiveness and grace, as we figure out how to eliminate the distractions that keep plaguing our mind. Lord, help us to be people who represent you accurately. Help us to be people who celebrate your move, who see where you're working, call it out, and invite people to that, who rest in your goodness. Lord, help us to be people who understand kingdom living in Jesus name. Amen.