Intern Sunday | Acts 1:8

Well, good morning, everybody. I'm very excited to be here this morning, as we've already alluded to. And as we've already talked about, it is Intern Sunday.

And I got to serve this summer as the worship intern. And some of you guys might be wondering why I was up here worshiping. We chose to do something a little bit different today.

And so I'm very excited for what the Lord has in store for us this morning. But before we get started, I do want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for this summer.

I want to say thank you for the ways that you have loved me and provided for me and cared for me. You guys have made Delaware a place I thought I would never come to ever in my life. And truthfully, didn't even know it actually existed.

Feel like home. So thank you. Seriously, thank you.

People like Angel, people like Eric and David and Marissa, people like Paul and Doris and Adam and Austin and Brian and Tara. Just thank you. I could say thank you to everybody in this room because you guys have played such a huge role in changing my life this summer.

So thank you. Before we get into the message, I do want to share two stories with you this morning, just so you guys can get a peek into what this summer was like. My first weekend here was the yard sale.

And many of you guys are laughing at that, and I think I know why. It felt like an eternity ago. At this point, it was around two months ago, and I find myself on the Saturday of the yard sale talking to Ron, and me and Ron are talking, and he asked me, did you expect anything like this or have you ever experienced anything like this? And I told Ron, I said, no, I'd never really experienced anything like this.

Like, this is crazy. This is insane. And really, none of the interns last year warned me about this.

And he kind of looks at me and he kind of laughs. He goes, they didn't warn you about this. Shame on them.

And so I got a kick out of that. And the second story, I didn't know board games were going to be such a huge thing here. And so one of the board games that I played was Farkel.

And many of you guys know what Farkel is. It's a little dice game. And I suck at Farkel.

So much so that I got the name the Farkel fella. And so that is something that has been given to me for the rest of my life. And so, again, as it is Intern Sunday, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you on behalf of the interns for the ways that you guys have loved us. As this is our last Sunday, we're being sent back into college, back into the path that God has for us. But for all of this, this morning, all of us this morning, we have the same mission.

And this is why we've been going through Acts. And we find ourselves this morning back in Acts 1. So if you guys want to open your Bibles to Acts 1, should be page 935 in the Bibles in the pews. Like I said, we all have the same mission, and this is why we've been going through Acts.

As we've been going through Acts in these past few weeks, we've been in 6, 7, and 8. We've been seeing the disciples' obedience to following this mission, to go be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And this mission wasn't just for them. This mission was for us, too, to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.

And so this morning, we're going to start in verse 6, and I'm going to go ahead and read it for us. Then they gathered around him and asked him, this is Jesus that they gathered around, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses.

In Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Amen. Often when people preach this passage, we go out.

So we start in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And it's used as a very missional passage, which it is. Again, this is our mission as believers.

But this morning, I want to offer you a new perspective of how we can look at this passage. I want to get smaller. So we're going to get smaller and smaller and smaller, and we're going to be asking the question, what does it mean to be a witness to blank? And we're going to fill in this blank three times this morning.

And again, truly just to offer you a new perspective. And there's another overarching question as we talk about Acts 1-8 this morning, is how do we witness to these places? How do we witness to the ends of the earth, to Samaria, to Judea, and Samaria in Jerusalem? So we're going to go ahead and get started. The first section that we get to cover this morning, and the first question that we get to ask is, what does it mean to be a witness to all the ends of the earth? Jesus is very literal in his language here.

The word here means to the utmost ends of the earth. So as far out as we can go, as far as we can see, as far as we can think. And this isn't the first time Jesus has commanded us to go.

We all know the Great Commission, Matthew 20 and 19. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And the result of this mission we see in Revelation 7, where John gets this vision of heaven, where people from every tribe, nation, language, are praising the Lord for all of eternity.

So now we get the beginning of our mission, Matthew 28 in Acts 1, and we get the end of our mission, Revelation 7. So how? How do we do this? And what does it mean to be a witness to the ends of the earth? I think it's also very literal this time. I think it actually means to go and share the good news with the nations, to share the good news to the utmost ends of the earth. And this is exactly what the disciples are doing through our acts.

Peter and Thomas. And we've seen them extending the gospel to all nations, starting in Jerusalem and then going outward. But again, this mission isn't just for them, it's for us too.

And so some very practical ways we can extend the gospel to all nations, to the ends of the earth, we can give. We can give to people who are already on mission and to organizations who are focused on bringing the gospel to nations who don't know Jesus or who are not predominantly Christian. We can pray for our brothers and sisters who are on mission right now in these nations, people who are, quite frankly, risking their lives to extend the good news of Jesus, of the gospel.

Or maybe God is asking you this morning, or God has put it on your heart, to actually go to these places, to be on mission, to live a life on mission, to share your experience with the gospel and to share the good news of Jesus. The unfortunate part about all these things is that it's not easy. It's not easy to do any of these things.

In fact, Jesus says the complete opposite. Jesus doesn't promise success in this mission. Jesus doesn't promise that this is going to be easy.

In fact, Jesus says, don't be surprised if the world hates you for this. Don't be surprised if the world hates you for believing in the gospel. I'm going to share a story of one of our brothers in Nigeria.

He's a pastor at a church there, and his name is Ezekiel Dachomo. A few weeks ago, on July 11th, he had gotten word that nine of his family members were killed for the sake of the gospel. If you guys didn't know, Nigeria ranks number one in Christian persecutions every year.

And so for him to even be there and to be a pastor at a church is already dangerous for him. And now he had gotten word that nine of his family members were killed, of which a four-year-old and a two-month-old. As Dachomo attended this funeral, there were reporters there wondering what Dachomo was going to do next, what his next step was.

And he told them that he was going to be a pastor and he told these reporters that he's not leaving. He's not going to leave Nigeria because the gospel needs to continue to be preached to this place. Again, this place that ranks first in Christian persecutions.

Now, you might be wondering why this happened, why nine of his family members were killed. Simply because they followed Jesus. Simply because they worshipped freely.

Simply because they were open about their faith. And the reason I tell you this this morning, the reason I tell you this story and the reason that I tell you, that you will be hated in the world for your faith, is to open your perspective, is to open your mind to what it means to be a witness to all the ends of the earth. Where some of us are so trapped in this, like the U.S. is the whole world.

But again, when Jesus says to go be a witness to all the ends of the earth and to preach the gospel among all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, it's all people. And the second reason I tell you this is exactly that, is exactly the image that we get in Revelation 7, where people from every nation, every tribe, and every tongue are worshipping. Jesus is not being facetious.

He's not lying to you. He's being very literal. Everyone, every tongue, every nation, every tribe, will be worshipping for all of eternity.

And what a beautiful thing that is. And our mission on earth is to extend the gospel to people who are different from us. So if you're not ready for all of eternity, with people who are different from you, you have some time to get ready, because it's going to be a long time.

The second section that we get to look at this morning, and the second question that we get to ask is, what does it mean to be a witness to your neighbor? Jesus, in Acts 1, mentions a few places before we get to the ends of the earth. He says Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. And this morning, we're going to call them your neighbor.

And the reason I say that is because for the disciples, these surrounding areas were their neighbors. The disciples received this mission in Jerusalem. Judea is the surrounding area, and Samaria, beyond Judea.

And this morning, it's the same. Maybe your neighbor is actually proximity. So Sussex County, the people in Sussex County, the people in Delaware, the people on the East Coast, or the U.S. Or this morning, your neighbor could be someone close to you relationally.

Could be a family member, could be a co-worker, could be a close friend. However, like the ends of the earth, and what it means to be a witness to the ends of the earth, we need to open our mind to who our neighbor actually is. And this is the exact question Jesus gets in Luke 10.

In Luke 10, a lawyer comes up to Jesus, and he asks Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, as long as you keep the commands. And the lawyer starts feeling really good about himself, because he says, I've kept these commands. I've loved God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength.

And I've loved my neighbor as myself. Jesus' response to this lawyer is, you will surely inherit eternal life. But then the lawyer started getting a little cocky.

He started feeling really good about himself. And maybe he's asking this question to justify who his neighbor is, to who he has to show his love to. And he asked Jesus, well, who is my neighbor? And Jesus, in Jesus' fashion, tells him a parable.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell among robbers. They beat him, and they stripped him, and they left, leaving him half dead on the road.

Now, by chance, a priest was going down that same road. When he saw him, he passed on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he saw the man, he saw him, and he passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where the man was and had compassion on him. Jesus asked the lawyer, well, who was the neighbor in this story? And the lawyer answers this question with saying, the one who had compassion on him. When we ask who is my neighbor, it's not just the people we're like.

It's not just the people who talk like us and think like us. And again, Jesus is very clear when he says this. Jesus is using cultural values in the ways that people looked at Samaritans.

As a Jew himself, the Jewish religion looked down on Samaritans. And for him to say a Samaritan was the one who had compassion on him, and the Samaritan was the one who is my neighbor, is foreign. It's weird.

But again, we have to open our perspective to who our neighbor is. Our neighbor isn't just a person who's like you, who talks like you and thinks like you. Your neighbor is the person on the street who's asking for money and doesn't know where his next meal's gonna come from.

Your neighbor is the parent who hurt you and betrayed you, who you couldn't want to be farther from. Your neighbor is a friend who betrayed you and betrayed your trust, and you don't even know what that friendship's gonna look like anymore. Your neighbor is the one who you have a broken relationship with.

These people are our neighbors just as much as the people who we love and the people who we trust and the people who talk like us and think like us and look like us. So what does it mean to be a witness to your neighbor? What does it mean to be a witness to these people? Again, I think it's very practical. I think it's to be bold in the gospel, to share the gospel to these people, even if you disagree, even if they hurt you, even if that relationship is broken.

Maybe it's leading by example. Maybe it's loving them the way that Jesus loved them or showing grace the way that Jesus has shown us grace, or maybe it's actually sharing the good news of the gospel to them. Last week, as I was leaving work, I went to go get my hair cut, and this was my second time getting my hair cut this summer, and I went to my boy Isaac.

And me and Isaac, again, this is my second time seeing him, the first time I got my hair cut, me and Isaac talked about the socioeconomic state of Delaware. So I had no clue what this conversation was going to look like this time. And so I never like any of my haircuts.

I'm really stressed whenever I get a haircut. So as I'm driving in the car, I'm just like, I'm scared. I don't know what I'm going to say.

I don't know what I want my hair to look like. And so I get into the barbershop, and I sit down in the chair. And again, all these thoughts are just racing through my mind.

And me and Isaac start talking about culture. Me and Isaac start talking about, like, culture, especially for me as a college student, and the way that culture has shifted. And specifically, the way the conversation shifted was one of us had mentioned that culture has shifted away from biblical values, that culture has shifted away from these values that we see and the ways that Jesus lived and the words that Jesus preached.

And I don't know where along the way Isaac decided to tell me this, but Isaac decided to tell me that he's been in the Word. I don't think he'd consider himself a Christian. I don't think he'd consider himself a believer, a follower, a disciple.

But he told me that he's been in the Word. And at that moment, I felt my heart beating out of my chest. My hands started getting sweaty.

My thoughts were racing even faster than they were. And at that point, I didn't care about what my haircut looked like. I cared about sharing the gospel to my neighbor.

And so in that moment, I was bold. And I think it wasn't me. It certainly was not me.

I wouldn't have said anything. But in that moment, I asked, you know, Isaac, what's something that you don't understand about the Bible? Because he had mentioned that he reads and he doesn't understand sometimes. And I said, well, if you don't mind me asking, what is it that you don't understand? And he had said that he doesn't understand some of the words or the phrases that are being used sometimes within the context of the Scripture or the context of the time.

And to be honest with you, I probably did not say the best of things. I was stressed out of my mind trying to say the right things to somebody who was my neighbor, to somebody who I couldn't be farther from, to somebody who I wasn't anything like. I didn't know how to relate to Isaac.

Isaac is a barber in Delaware. I am a Midwestern boy who goes to Bible college. We could not be any more far apart.

However, in this moment, Isaac was my neighbor, and I got the chance to share the gospel with him. And this conversation ended up evolving into, what is faith? What is prayer? What does it mean to follow? And after I'd stood up for my haircut, he took the little cape off me. I don't even know what to call it.

And I said, you know, Isaac, thank you for being open to sharing this with me because I'm sure I know how hard it is. And he goes, yeah, I'm never usually this open about sharing something like this, and I don't know why. And I said, you know, I don't know if the Holy Spirit was working, and I don't know if God had put me here for this, but I think it's evident that God was present in this conversation.

And so the last thing I did, I said, Isaac, you know, can I pray for you real quick? And again, I probably didn't say the right things. I probably didn't pray the words I wanted to. I probably didn't answer the questions that he had well.

But to be a witness to my neighbor in that moment was just sharing the good news of the gospel. And that is our mission this morning to whoever your neighbor is. Again, if your neighbor is somebody who looks like you and thinks like you and talks like you, that's okay.

But I'm inviting you to open your perspective to who our neighbor is. Because maybe your neighbor, maybe the one who needs to hear the good news of the gospel is the one who isn't like you, who doesn't think like you, and doesn't talk like you. Again, because we need to go to all the ends of the earth to people who don't look like us or talk like us.

And the last section that we get to look at this morning has been the section that has been driving this sermon. And we get to ask the question, what does it mean to be a witness to yourself? That might be a weird question. Not many of us ask that question often.

But as I was getting ready for this sermon, this was the question that was driving my thought process, was driving what this was gonna look like. And I didn't know how to answer this question until God had given me an answer. And this was the answer that God gave me.

If our missions as Christians is to be a witness to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth, to our neighbor, to all the ends of the earth, to all people, regardless of what they look like, regardless of what we think, regardless on whether or not we think they're normal or not. If we want to be a witness to these places, it starts by dying to ourselves. It starts by giving ourselves up.

Jesus is very clear on the cost of being a Christian In Luke 9, 23, he says, if anyone would come follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. This is the cost. This is the cost of what it means to be Christian.

Following Jesus isn't going to just cost a part of you, a part of your life. He doesn't just want a sliver of you. He wants all of you.

So this morning I'm going to say this very bluntly, and usually I wouldn't say this very bluntly, but if you think Jesus, the one who you believe lived, the one who came down from heaven, who died on the cross for your sins and rose again, if this is the one who you call Lord and Savior, and you think he's not going to ask you for your entire life, you've missed the point that Jesus came to preach. Jesus didn't die for you to come here on a Sunday morning and forget like he exists in your retirement, in your work, and in your schools. Jesus didn't die for a prayer life only filled with eyes and knees.

Jesus didn't die so you could only preach the gospel to people who look like you or think like you and talk like you. Jesus died so we could too, and that starts with giving ourselves up to him. But there's good news this morning.

If we keep going back in verse 8, this is what it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. It's not by our strength that we can be witnesses. It's not in our ability to speak.

It's not in our ability to even give ourselves up. It's through the power of the Holy Spirit. And this isn't just someone who is just here with us.

We see in the scripture that the Holy Spirit is the one who raised Christ from the dead, the one who brings strength when you are weak, the one who convicts you and brings you back onto the path of righteousness, the one who leads you and guides you along the right paths for his namesake. This is the one who's always with you. He is always with you.

And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6.19 that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own. So the mission for all of us this morning to be witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth starts with us. But it starts with us recognizing that we need to lean fully and wholly on the power of the Holy Spirit.

But again, just like every single one of these sections, it's not easy. It's not an easy task to do this. We are constantly at war within ourselves.

We are constantly battling the struggle to want to be in control of our entire lives. And this is why we need to lean fully and wholly on the Holy Spirit to give us strength in every day, in every moment. So the last question I want to ask you this morning is what's stopping you from giving every part of yourself to Jesus every day? Again, to be a witness to yourself means to give yourself up.

And for a lot of us, we haven't given all of ourselves up. So what's stopping you? I know for me in my life, the thing that stopped me from giving my all were really two things, was my mental health struggles earlier in my life and some of my family issues. Some of my family issues that I'd struggled with earlier this year.

And for these two things particularly, I'm a very sweep-it-under-the-rug type of guy, a very out-of-sight, out-of-mind type of guy. But these two things also were the biggest burden of my entire life every single day. And I started to doubt.

I started to wonder if the gospel was really for me. But to be a witness to myself in that moment, in those days where I felt like I wasn't worthy of grace, when I'd lost hope in anything, where I doubted God's plan for my life, to be a witness to myself was to remind myself that Jesus came and lived and died for me and that I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, He who is with me always, who gives me strength to do His good work, to be a witness to the people who I'm not like, to be a witness to the people who I don't even want to be close to, and to be a witness to the ends of the earth. So I'm going to leave you this morning with this passage that Paul writes in Galatians.

Galatians 2.20 says this. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.

The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. The invitation for all of us this morning is exactly that, to give ourselves wholly and fully to Jesus. Let's pray.

Lord, I thank You for this day. And God, what a blessing it is to be here with Your people. And Lord, my prayer for all of us in the room, my prayer is that we would give all of ourselves to You, that every day we would lean fully on the power of the Holy Spirit to crucify ourselves to follow You, so that we can be witnesses to Your people, to the people who we aren't like, to the people who need to hear the gospel, and to all the ends of the earth, so that one day in heaven for all of eternity, every nation, every tribe, and every tongue can sing, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

And that is our mission. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.