SEP 13 2015 | The Secret Sauce of Pentecost

Sea Change Church · "The Secret Sauce of Pentecost" · Adam Stadtmiller · September 13, 2015
Acts 2:1-4
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

All right, Lord Jesus, we want to thank you, God, for your goodness. We invite you here. You're already here. We can sense you in such a profound way. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. I was happy with my sermon title this week. Look on your bulletin. I look on your notes there. Really clever. I made the title and I thought, I'm done. Sermon's done. I just had the title and I thought, this is awesome.

The secret sauce, and it has a rhyme, of Pentecost. Anybody else happy with that? No. Zach said no. I'm not. No, you're not. Pentecost. We look at this amazing, incredible happening in the life of the first church that had the presence of the Holy Spirit come and be a part of it, that powerfully affected the world. You are in the pews right now because of what happened on this day in one unique, particular church.

And it shows what happens or what can happen when a group of people come together unified and are kissed by the power and the love of God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. It is just powerful to see that happen. And we want to continue to create the environment that can replicate the essentials of what happened on that day. Now, if you know me well enough, you've been listening to my sermon series on Acts, you're going to see that one of the things I want to do is create an environment.

What are the things that led to the Holy Spirit doing what He wanted to do in that unique church setting? What you are probably not going to hear me say is these unique things happened at this church in Acts and the exact same manifestation, the way that it happened there needs to happen here. And this is the only model. And if we don't have this model, then we're missing a little something.

What I think we happen to do when we do that, we tend to put the Holy Spirit into a confined box of the way that we think He should act, the way that we think He should work. And I think that there are essentials, like I say in prayer. What is the key? What's the secret of prayer? Praying. That's the secret. You can pray in any way you want. See, I'm really, if I have things that give me a spiritual rash, okay, it's when people come and tell me this is the way that it has to happen.

And if it doesn't happen this way, whether that be the way people come to follow Christ, because we know that there are people that followed Him in a moment. And we know that there are people like Nicodemus who followed Him from a distance in the dark for a long time. And then finally got to the point where they came out in their faith and took Jesus off the cross in broad daylight.

Nicodemus did that from John 3, 16. And he was willing to go and show that he loved God. And he buried Him with a kingly burial. Put himself at great risk to do that. That the Holy Spirit works in many different ways. And what I find is being a moderate, trying to unify the church on the essentials is one of the hardest things to do. I tweeted this week, and it had multiple retweets.

If you want to have no friends, try to unify the church. It's true. Because it is so often we want to put God into our box. So as we read through the book of Acts, I want to say that I believe that this is a beautiful story of a unique church. And God might even have other churches in our day and time that He chooses the personality of this church.

The things that I'm going to go after in this church are going to look so much like this first church in Acts. And I believe there's parts of the world I've been to churches like this where they look very much like this unique first church of Acts. At the same time, I've been at other churches that look absolutely nothing like that at all. There's no tongues of fire.

There's no manifestations that would look like something amazing was happening on the front lines. But if you were to dig beneath the surface into what is actually happening in that church, in that place, you would see such a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit that it would blow your mind. If you could see the kingdom activity, the angels going back and forth with messages to the throne, with the Holy Spirit working and changing lives.

One of these instances where this is happening is where my brother works near Westminster Abbey. My brother works in the square at Westminster Abbey at the Methodist, the Central Methodist Church. It is the home of Methodism, if you've ever heard of it. John, they have a statue. My brother told me they just moved the statue for a movie that came in with Hugh Grant in it.

And they had to move the statue. He said it cost $10,000 and moved the statue 20 feet inside. Now, the studio had to pay for that. That tells you a little something about that statue and this church and the pipe organ. And when we were there, the Lord blessed us. I wanted to go hear a concert of the pipe organ, but we couldn't go on the Sunday.

So we went to Friday because my brother's office is actually at Central Methodist, okay? He works with the Vicentian Charity. You've heard of St. Vincent's of DePaul. He works with them. The Anglicans and the Catholics have gotten together to do social justice. They have said, hey, you know what? We have a lot of things we can fight over, but there's a lot of people that need some help.

Why don't we put our resources together and work together? Go figure, okay? Go figure. I got an email this week when I mentioned that, you know, God loves the Catholic Church. I got an email. You know, you shouldn't say that. We don't want to have, we don't want to have, we don't want to put the hand of fellowship out to them. Spiritual rash. I'm just itching.

I'm itching. I got spiritual poison ivy when you write that stuff to me. My brother is there, and so this little, I'm telling nine stories at once. We went there, and he said we can only go on Friday to see my office because he wanted to show me the work that he does. It's a beautiful work. And I went in, and the guy who was doing the organ concert, practicing.

And we got in. Just me, my wife, our kids, my brother, and one guy that was sitting behind us. Five of us sat there and listened to the concert just for us. I thought, God, you're so good. I didn't have to wait in line. I didn't have to pay 50 pounds for a ticket. I just went in, and God said, we know it blew me a kiss from heaven. I love you. You know, we stayed 15 minutes and just listened to it.

It was gorgeous. Absolutely. And the pews rumbled. It was just amazing. My brother is at this church, and he's working. And when you're tying together Catholics and Anglicans, and they have some similarities there, but they have a big break in England, especially. More so than here, where there was that break. Remember, if you're church history, you would know that.

And they've decided to work together to bless some people. And so one of the things that they have, they've created in his office. You have to go through locks to get there because there's a lot of abused girls and women who come in that are running from husbands or pimps or these different things. They come in, and they have children, and they have a child care facility, and then they have an apartment.

They've actually made an apartment with a kitchen and a washer, dryer, because some of these girls don't know how to shop. They don't know how to cook. They're desperate. Why are they going to get rid of their babies? Because they don't know how they're going to take care of them. And so my brother has this thing where they will bring these women in for free classes where they teach them how to do a budget.

They teach them. They bring them all in. It's an actual kitchen. It's an actual. Like, I went in there. It was like walking into an apartment. And then their children are being cared for by workers from all over the world that are there, some from Uganda. And then they're down teaching them basically basic life skills. I'll tell you what. There was no, it didn't look like chapter 2 of Acts.

It just didn't look like it at all. At all. I mean, if you looked at the two, you wouldn't have seen that. But if you were to go beneath the layers of that and give enough margin for the Holy Spirit to do something beyond what you think it might look like and look beneath the surface, you would see the Spirit of God changing people's lives in such a profound way.

I am so proud of my brother. He is the head of that charity. He runs it. And it has been amazing. They've been running it. He got there. It was on a shoestring budget. And they're trying to take it to the next level. And he's got an office in the central London. And from a peekaboo view, he looks straight to Westminster Abbey. And he is in the thick of it in London.

And I had a great time. And I was inspired. Matter of fact, I got tempted to think, what are we doing? What am I doing? I'm just a pastor of a church. I just preach people and get them fat on the word. What do I do? I don't do anything. Come on. What am I doing? I need to go to Africa. You know what I mean? I need to sell everything. We sell all of our possessions.

And I was like two days of like, I have no spiritual worth. The Lord said, you know what? You're equipping people to go do this on a much bigger scale. And people need a place to come in and recharge and breathe and feel peace and gather together and eat a bagel. And it's good. And so then my spiritual worth came back. Well, as we look at this, let me read the scripture right here.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Circle all together in one place. There's a deeper meaning there than they were just all together. They were in one place spiritually, emotionally. You'll see if you were to read through, continue to read through the book of Acts, that they were together more than just in proximity.

Proximity. Now, proximity is important. Come to church. Proximity is super important. But when you get to church, how far away are you? Proximity is one thing. And we can all be next to each other, but we can be very far apart. They were all together in one place, signifying one of the secret sauce, I believe, or one of the ingredients of the secret sauce, which is unity that we'll talk about.

And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house that they were sitting. Awesome. I've experienced things like that. I have felt, actually felt, and seen the wind of the spirit blow inside a building where there was no air conditioning and the windows were closed. I've seen a flag begin to blow on the front of a stage.

I have felt the wind of God in my face. This is not to tell you things so you can feel inadequate, like I've never experienced that, and I don't know why God let me experience that, but I have experienced that. And it was awesome. And I have enough margin to say I don't get it, and that's weird, but, man, there was peace that came along with it, and it was awesome.

They were sitting there, and it came in, the whole house. Verse 3, And there appeared to them tongues of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each of them. This was a visible presence of the Holy Spirit. God decided in that moment to give a visible presence. He did the same thing with Jesus at his baptism. A dove came down, and sometimes that visible presence will be a friend of yours who comes alongside to bless you when you're sick.

A visible presence. There's so many of us, and look, I'm coming out of a place where I believe I was personally in Pentecostal overload. Now, I like the things of the Spirit. Let me say it. I probably can't say it enough to not get an email, okay, from either side. I like the things of the Spirit. I want the things of the Spirit. I like when I see the wind blow in places where the wind shouldn't be blowing.

I like seeing people healed. I've seen them healed. I like all of these things that are happening. But we see that the Holy Spirit was distributing himself as he would see fit in that moment and in that place. What I want to do is I want to be open to those things, but not have to once again to say that these are the things that have to happen.

And so there appeared to them, fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. Now, this is really key. As the Spirit was giving them utterance, it was dependent on one thing, what the Spirit wanted to do. As the Spirit, just as you read in the book of Corinthians about gifts.

Who gets what gifts? It's according to who, to what? What God decides to do. I have been in places where they say, if you don't have this gift, you don't have the secret sauce. That's closer to cult, okay? That is closer to cult than it is to the true essentials of the first century church that came out and said, The unity of Christ belongs in the Apostles' Creed, where they nailed it down in the Apostles' Creed.

And if you don't know what the Apostles' Creed is, Google Apostles' Creed and read it. Those are the essentials. Jesus Christ, born on the third day, resurrected from the dead, coming back again. Those are the things. The virgin birth. These are the things I would die for. I would not die for an individual way that we say that the Spirit is going to work.

With that said, I want to see Him work in all ways. I've been on the streets, and I've seen God move in powerful ways. The first time I ever saw anybody slain in the Spirit, I was at my youth group. Carrie was there with me. I was with a group of kids, and I'd had a dream where I had a dream, and all my kids were gathered around me in England.

And I said, Come Holy Spirit. And this fire came, and all the kids fell on the ground. And I was a dream. I've never experienced anything like that at the time. I was a vineyard pastor. I was new at the vineyard. And I'd never experienced anything like that. I woke up, I thought, that's weird. But I remember I said, Come Holy Spirit. And then I went to, we were staying in a lady's house, and I went to her bookshelf to get a book, because I just wanted to read on vacation.

And they had a book that said, Come Holy Spirit. And I was like, well, that's a weird coincidence. And then I went and had breakfast at the church cafe, which I think is so cool to have a cafe and a church, where people would come in off the street to eat. And there was a newspaper there, and the newspaper entitled, Come Holy Spirit. I thought, whoa, that's weird.

So I gathered my kids up in the circle. I've had no experience at this point. I was at Point Loma Nazarene University. Grew up Catholic, Methodist. Was at Young Life. God called me to a vineyard church. I didn't know what it was. Actually, I took the job. It paid pretty good, and it was in Newport Beach. And my wife and I needed a job. And I liked the head pastor.

I mean, come on. I was 27 years old getting married. I had no job. I was making $150 a month, you know, working at this other place, and I was a lifeguard. And so I circled these kids around me, and I said, guys, circle up. I'm going to try something. And I said, come Holy Spirit. I circled them around me, and there's about 30 kids in the room, something like that, the Reading kids and our kids.

And my wife will story tax me, by the way. If I don't tell the story right, you weren't in England? You stayed in bed. You slept in. Oh, okay, and I can tell any story I want. Doves filled the room. My wife, she story taxes me, okay, all the time. The other day, I'm totally getting off. The other day, I said, yeah, remember when I faxed that person?

No, you emailed them. I'm like, what's the difference? The story's the same. No one cares if it was a fax or an email. I said, come Holy Spirit. And immediately, like, two kids started, two, three kids started crying. And I was like, oh. And then you could just tell that the kids, the high school kids, were experiencing something. Like, something happened.

And I went over and I put my hand. I'd never, I wasn't, I'd never experienced anything like this. I put my hand on this kid's head. I said, Lord, just bless him. Bam! He fell to the ground. Just put my hand on his head. I was like, whoa, whoa. And as he was falling, he slowly fell. He was a big kid. And I remember, I put my hand behind his head so he wouldn't fall completely.

And I was able to lower him. He was like a board. And I was able to lower him to the ground with one hand. There's no way I could hold this kid like this. I lowered him to the ground. And it was almost like, I don't know what it was, but I was just able to gently lower him to the ground with one hand. And I, you know, so he wouldn't fall and get hurt.

I touched like three or four more kids. And every time I touched one, I was like, whoa. They'd fall on the ground. And I'd be like, no, let me tell you. I didn't show, I don't know what happened. I don't. I didn't, I wasn't trained. It wasn't part of my Nazarene seminary. I, it was just, all of a sudden God decided, this is what I'm going to do. And we saw the power.

I won't go into the rest of it. But God moved so profoundly the rest of that trip. We went on an evangelism trip up to Manchester. God continued to show up in my life like that for three or four years. It was fun. It was fun. And I got, and I had friends that were like, man, I'm praying for what you got and I don't have it. Holy Spirit gives what he wants to who he wants, when he wants.

The only thing you have to do is be open to it. And if that openness means that I'm not going to give you this, but instead I'm going to call you to a hospital to go be hands of love and mercy and be a voice of mercy. Because there's power in a voice. See, we seem to, we seem to downplay the ability for people to speak words of love and scripture over somebody and see that heal their soul.

If they don't get out of, of bed, if they don't throw the crutches in some amazing healing experience, we tend to say, well, often, you know, it's not really a powerful thing the Holy Spirit's doing. But when you go along somebody's bedside and they're depressed and they're down and they're thinking, do I even want to continue my life? And you give them a word of hope and they think, I can make it another day.

There is power in that. There is Holy Spirit power in that that is released in that moment where you have become the hands and feet of God and he shows up. How do we get ourselves in that place? This is the secret sauce of Pentecost. The secret sauce is unity for churches or unifying yourself with the things of God. If you're talking about you as an individual, it is you unifying your spirit, the things that you sin in, giving in alignment with God.

Getting in unity with the things that he is doing. God blesses the things that he is, that, that, that, that resemble him. For instance, if a businessman is not a believer, and I've heard a story about this, but he lives according to the principles of Proverbs, he will be blessed. Not because he is a believer, but because God is true. And if you get into the stream of the things that God is doing, you will have blessings.

Because the spirit of God runs in a current through those streams. If you are dishonest, you will move away from the, some of the blessing you can get. Now, if you're a believer, you're still going to have blessing in your life. Why? Because it's impossible to have the spirit of God within you without having, it's, it's almost like a Velcro suit, okay?

In, in, in a room of feathers. Does feathers stick to Velcro? I think it would. Walking in to the, to, to, to a room and running around. If you have the Holy Spirit, it's, you're going to get blessing. It's there. But we can increase the blessing that we have by getting more in alignment. Is your tongue in alignment right now with the Holy Spirit?

This week, my tongue was not in alignment. I realized I had conversations that were not honoring to God. I got to get my tongue back in alignment. I got to get my finance back in alignment. I've got to, you know, all these are not mine, but you've got to get your eyes where they go back in alignment. You've got to get your hope back in alignment.

Getting them back and unifying them as an individual. Now let's talk about the church. If you want to have a power-filled church to experience the things of God as he sees fit to release them, then we have to get unified. I don't know if you noticed Olin step out of the box this morning. Anybody notice Olin step out of the box this morning? Okay.

Man, I was high-fiving him afterwards, man. I just, he has been, and I'm going to call you out. Now, he has been continually to work against his personality to become the worship leader that God is calling him to be. Olin is an incredible musician. Music is math. Do you get that? Everything's math. Four count, math, math, math. He is phenomenal at that.

Click, click, click, perfect, on tap, boom, boom, boom. To step out and to release and say, okay, we're just going to let the Holy Spirit move here. Did you see that at the end of the service? He's been slowly cracking that door open and looking in, looking in, looking in. Hope I'm not embarrassing you today. Good, he's shaking his head no. But today he said, Holy Spirit, I know you're calling me to this.

I'm going to step out and do this. And we had that moment. That's the one thing I know about Olin. It's the reason he's still your worship leader here. It's because every time he leads worship, the Holy Spirit comes. I sense it. I sense it. There's a lot of worship leaders that are closer to a rock and roll style. You can see them. But the Holy Spirit doesn't always bless what they do.

That's the thing I know with Olin. And I said, the reason he's still your worship leader is because you will not have a worship leader here for very long if the Holy Spirit does not bless what they do up front. I'm not here to provide an amazing music sound system for you or some kind of experience, unless that experience is a Holy Spirit blessing.

Olin has gotten in alignment with what God has called him to do. And it's exciting to watch that. And I'm excited to see where it goes, man. Next week he's probably going to be like dancing up front, doing, you know, interpretive dance. I don't know. We're really going to get into it. Watch him come dressed like Jesus next week, grow a beard out.

It probably won't be every week, but I love it. Do the same thing. And how do we as a church get into alignment? Let's look at the essentials here. I'm on the first point of my message. I know what time it is. Good. Let's look at the first point here. First of all, you can read what Pentecost is there at the top. But basically it was a feast to honor the giving of the law.

And it's not a mistake that the giving of a new covenant came with the freedom of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has freedom. One of the things I found out when I was really going after Pentecostal expression and experience, which I still do, by the way, just differently, is the freedom I allowed others to not do it that way got less. I was all about freedom of doing it the way that I thought it should be done, where it becomes a formula.

Once again, Pastor Mark Foreman, you guys are all going to start going to his church, okay, up in Carlsbad. I encourage you to go, and I'm going to say it again. He said that when he hit that moment in his life after being at the vineyard for a long time, he realized that he had been trained in these classes that, okay, you do this, and then keep your eyes open, and then if you see this happening, do this, and turn their hands up, or do, and there was this formula.

And he began to think, I've put God into this formula. He goes, I'm going to try to pray with my hand. I'm going to lay my hands on somebody. He put his hand behind his back, and he laid hands. They didn't know it, but he laid hands that way to see if it would work. And he began to experiment. Well, God, will you still honor this? And he found out the reason God was honoring it when he prayed for healing, the reason God was honoring his evangelism was not because of the formula that he was doing, but because of the unity of his soul, believing that God would show up and honor him if he fully let God lead the process in whatever way it was.

As a church, you want to do that. And so we see this freedom coming at Pentecost. You can study more there, but that's a little bit of information. This is a life key. I really wanted to say this today. Here's a life key. And for some, I was going to start the message with this, but I didn't. And I knew if I would have started with it, we could have finished the message because it would have been enough, because it was enough for me.

Here's a life key. Knowing the difference between what is essential and what is not. What is essential for your life and what is non-essential? If you just went home this week and edit out of your life that which is non-essential and press into the things that are essential, you will begin to live in a clarity and a strength and a truth especially as we do those things in our spiritual life.

As a church, what are the essentials that we see in this incredible story that released the power and the providence of God with the people? And I would say it's this, that unity is the key component to experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit. You'll see that. That unity is a key. That if we are unified, where there is unity, God, Psalm 131, where there is unity, God commands a blessing.

Where the brothers dwell together in unity, it says, it says that it is like a sweet oil pouring down over the beard of Aaron. Where there is unity, you know, God wants to dwell in unity. Where there is disunity, God is opposed. Why? Because it goes against his nature. God has shown, as you've seen in the different poles, or you put two magnets together, that there are opposing forces.

And when you get two magnets turned in the right direction, what happens? They click together. Your life or a church is no different. And so look into the place where your life is disunified. Is it in a relationship? Is it in a marriage? And what are the things that are keeping your life disunified? I want to say, if you can get unity, don't get your fingers between a magnet.

Why? Because it'll snap them. My daughter had some magnets recently, some powerful magnets. Last year or two years ago, she got her finger, and she's pinched her finger. I was surprised at how badly you can get pinched from when the two poles, is that the right word? Polarities? Is that right? Looking? Yeah, close enough. Get together and get in alignment.

They snap together. One of the reasons we're seeing growth in this church, one of the reasons we're seeing God move, the reasons we're seeing people get saved and people want to get baptized, which we have more people that want to do that right now, that slow growth is because I believe that there's a spirit of unity, and there are people here that are committed to unity.

One of the things that Jim tells me on a regular basis, him and I are very similar in values, incredibly polar opposites in the way that we go about doing things. But one of the things he tells me on a regular basis, I have short toes. That if you're trying to step on my toes, it's going to be tough because I maintain short toes. I want to say, get short toes, especially in church.

What gets you upset about church, you know? Is it, oh, that window is never open and I want the breeze. If that one's never open, that should be, if they had their stuff together, that window would be open. I hear stuff like that. Short toes. Believing in each other. I want to say, maybe some of you guys have long toes, you know? I won't go any further on that.

A disunified church, look in your notes, will often forfeit their divine inheritance. Will often. Why do I say often? Because sometimes God does what he wants, even when it is wrong. God blessed Samson. Why? Why did God bless Samson? He was totally walking away from God. Why? Because God is God and he is sovereign to do what he wants. And so I say we'll often forfeit.

I would say the majority of the time we'll forfeit some of the divine presence and power that they have. If you want to go to a church that is powerful, that is making a difference, do your best to stay unified. I don't mean stay silent and never speak up when there is an issue that needs to be spoken about. But do you know how to have a conflict?

First day of seminary, Earl the Pearl, we call him Earl the Pearl because he's full of wisdom, walked up to the, my first day in class, walked up to the lectern down at Horizon, I was there, 19 whatever, and put his hand down and he said, conflict resolution is the key to longevity in ministry. Stopped. If there's one thing I want you to remember, it is this, or you will not last as a pastor.

This is how he did things. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in ministry. Let me say it again. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in marriage. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in your business. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in, add the word, here. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in ministry.

If you are tight-fisted on your opinions and you are holding yourself to your own opinions, they can become a bondage. Do not become a prisoner of your own opinions. I regularly want to say maybe I'm wrong. I told my elders this week, I said I will, I said never, because I never say never. But I said I can't, and I choose not to go against, if you guys were all voted against me, I'm not going to go in the opposite direction.

I'd probably leave before I would go in the opposite direction against my elder board, because I want unity. And the Lord gave me a verse out of Zechariah. He says, you will leave this church when I, you will lead this church with a rod of unity. And you know what the other word is? Anybody know? In Zechariah? Favor. Favor. You will lead this church with a rod of unity and favor.

And what I want is unity. And we want to see unity, because unity, we see here in the Scripture, gives a divine inheritance. I'll tell you what, if you are not unified in your marriage, it's time to fight for unity. It's funny, I was with a couple recently, and they were together. They fight about cheese. And I remember, 15 years ago, we would do, this is what our conversation would look like.

Walk in. Hey, I went and got the groceries. Here they are. Ah. You didn't get the cheese I wanted. You know I can't eat that cheese. I don't like that cheese. Well, I did all this shopping this week. Yeah, but I mean, you should know by now that there's, you know, familiar, on and on. I was with this couple recently, and they're fighting about cheese.

And I just went, oh, I remember the day. Slam the door because of the cheese. You know what I mean? I wanted Javiarte. Come on. That was funny, actually. You should have laughed more than that. Tetamon. Anybody know what tetamon is? Yeah, it's Belgian cheese, I think. You know how it goes now in our home? Hey, I did the groceries. Oh, thanks, sweet. Oh.

You know, I can only eat goat's milk. I can't. You know what? Let me run back. No, you don't have to run back. It's totally. No, I want to run back. No, you don't have to. It's totally fine. I'm going to go in the morning. No, I want you to have it. I want you to have it. I want to serve you. I want to love you. Okay. Is that how it happens? That's right.

That's exactly how it happens. Well, I'm not going to give her applause. I'm just not going to lose my marriage over cheese. And besides that, I love serving my wife. I don't know what happened. I don't know how I got there. I literally, I can't write a book on it because I don't know. I just know if my wife wakes me up at three in the morning and says, can you go to the store and get me some sparkling water?

I'm getting out of bed and I don't know why. I don't know. We're just unified. We're just, you know, everything's not the same. But it's saying in church, it's the same thing. And there is a power that comes with that. If you've been in a unified relationship, there's a power that comes from that. And let me say, don't let the enemy tell you that that's not available in your relationship.

He will lie to you. Hope never what? Disappoints. If you don't know, pray. When we had a time 10, 12 years ago where we couldn't even pray together anymore because it would be, what's that supposed to mean? You're trying to control me because I, you know, try to control me with your prayers. Well, yeah, I kind of am, but that's why I pray. To get what I want.

We couldn't even pray. And we got this book by Stormy Omardian called The Power of a Praying Husband, Power of a Praying Wife. She sold like 12 zillion copies for a reason. And we said, we commit to praying for each other with this every day, but we can't pray together. That's where we were. Now we're here. And I don't know what's ahead. The one thing, as I can say, is I don't have a formula because I don't, you never know what's ahead.

That's the thing about marriage. If you're going to get married to somebody, everyone, you know, I talk to singles all the time. They always want to figure out that it's going to be, they want to know that it's going to work. You can't know it's going to work because something will happen along the way. The loss of a child, the loss of a job, the success of your job.

Success is just as hard as failure. Even harder to manage, I would imagine. You don't know what's ahead. All you can do is step forward in faith and say, does this person have less baggage than I can, or more baggage than I can carry? I said, everyone has baggage. Some is Gucci and some is Samsonite. You choose, you know. Unity. Jesus prays for unity.

Because God is unified, he doesn't bless disunity. He might still allow the overflow of who he is to shape your life. But even as you go back to Deuteronomy 6.4, it says, the Lord our God is one. I don't know if that one comes up there. But if you look at Deuteronomy, the entire Jewish faith hinges, and Jesus mentions it, on this verse. It's called the Shema.

And it says, the Lord our God is one. And when I studied it, and you'll see it in your notes if it's not on the screen. When I studied it this week, it said that this word, or this passage in Jewish understanding means that God is not just one God and there's no other gods. It does mean that. But it also means that he dwells in the highest order of unity.

The highest order of unity. The world has yet to see what a unified church can look like. We know that Jesus, this was one of his, in his high priestly prayers, one of the things, he had to have a list of prayers before he went to the cross. And on his list was a prayer that has still not been answered. But we know it will be. And it says this, as you see, that one was on the screen.

In John 17, 3, he says, I am in them, and you are in me, that they may be perfected in unity. That there would be a perfection in your unity. That's one thing you can do perfectly. Because if you submit to the Holy Spirit to unify yourselves together, the unity between you will be, you'll be submitted to the Holy Spirit, and he is perfect. And you can have perfect unity.

Do you get that? We can't do a lot of things perfect. But if you submit to the Holy Spirit together, to what he is doing, then we submit to him, and the perfection is within him, not within you. Does that make sense? Might not. But we see here that it says that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know. Why do we want to have unity in the church?

So that the world will know. What do they point to all the time? Hypocrites. People that brokenness of the church. You know, all the church splits. I was getting a little bit of the history of the church trauma that has happened in La Jolla. I don't think there's a city in San Diego that has experienced, and look, I'm not a church historian, but I'm from San Diego, and I've been in the church world here for 25 years.

I do not see another city in San Diego that has had as much divisive trauma as the Christian churches in La Jolla. That's my personal take. We hear about it in other parts of the town. I don't hear about La Mesa. I don't remember hearing about Chula Vista. On occasion, you'll hear something. But I knew multiple stories about churches in La Jolla.

I don't know whether the word got out or what it was, but that's just my take. And one of the things I want to do is I want to have a unified church. I want to have a church that fights for each other, not against each other. And this is what Jesus prayed for. Why? So that the world may know. We're back to the main premise of the work of the Holy Spirit, which I said last week.

It's that people may know who Jesus is, that everything the Holy Spirit does, whether it's tongues of fire or a word of compassion out of bedside of the dying, leads to people knowing Christ and Christ Jesus being glorified and salvation. That's where we want to go. That they will know that you sent me, and this is awesome. This is a blessing of unity that you need to see.

That you have sent me and you love them. I say unity will give you the overflow of knowing you're loved. Unity. I don't know how he does it. There's no A plus B plus C. I just know that if we are unified in our marriages, in our businesses, you know, in whatever it is, that we're fighting for unity, we're blessing other people, you will feel loved.

And they will experience, they will know that they are loved by God. By being unified, what does that take? Some of you see a giant hill in front of you right now. I want to say that prayer moves what? Cast it into the sea. Speak to the mountain. The Bible says when you see that mountain, how am I ever going to get unified with this business partner?

How am I ever going to get unified with this partner, with my spouse? Prayer. Prayer. Pray. And speak to that mountain. And say to the mountain, be thrown into the sea. And it says the mountain will throw itself into the sea. You do not get a shovel. You understand that? You don't move mountains as a Christian with a shovel. You move it by speaking in faith to the mountain, and the mountain will throw itself into the sea.

Put your shovel down. Now, last week I said dig for Jesus. You've got to pick your shovel up, okay? Different metaphor. But on this one, if you need a mountain in your life moved, pray into it. Pray for unity. Because when you pray for unity, you will be praying the actual prayers of Jesus. And when you pray the prayers of Jesus, let me tell you, I don't know what it is, but something kinetic begins to happen.

Fireworks or lightning sparks start to happen at the throne of God. And it begins to insert that into the kingdom of God upon earth. If you want to pray powerful prayers and you don't know how to pray, pray Jesus' prayers. Pray for unity. As a church, for this church, pray for unity. If somebody is making you angry, pray for them. Pray for unity.

That you have loved them and even as you have loved me. The scripture says that if you're in unity, you will understand the love of the Father in the same way Jesus understood it. Powerful. Let me say that with a better P. Powerful. Finally, circling the tower, coming in for the landing. The first church at Jerusalem experienced the blessing and power of unity.

Now that the full numbers of those who believed were of one heart. Now this is all the way to chapter 4. Okay? I'm skipping to chapter 4 to show what happened. And what happened because of the unity that they had. It says, now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Now remember at the beginning I told you as we read chapter, go to the front of your notes right now.

It says they were all together in one place. Now I told you that that just wasn't proximity. How do we know? Because as we look at the rest of scripture, scripture interprets scripture. You need to use other scriptures to interpret scriptures. One of the reasons I know that every church doesn't have to look like the church of Acts is I don't see when Paul talks to all the other churches that he is saying this has to happen.

Corinth. When the tongues of fire come upon you, it has to look like this. Or Philippi. When this happens, it has to look. There's no formula to the rest of the churches other than love, joy, peace, hope, evangelism. He doesn't give a recipe to the other churches for that to happen. But he does talk about being unified over and over. So scripture interprets scripture.

So how do we know that this first church in Acts was more than just together in one place? That they were unified? We know because as we look further on at scripture, it says now the full number of those, the full number. Full number. I love that. Every single one of them. Now remember two chapters earlier, it says they were all together. Which means no one left because of an argument.

Okay? We're later on down the road now and no one has gotten upset because the bagels were cold. No one has left because they didn't get a phone call when they heard that someone else did. Or someone else was a priest. Whatever the bickering is. They were all there. I want us all to be here. Together in one place. And suddenly, excuse me, go back to chapter 4 there at the end of your notes.

It says, now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. And no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own. But they had everything in common. And I love that. That was special to their church. That was unique. They became communal in the way that they worked. And many communes do that today. Some of us in this congregation have lived for years and years in this type of environment.

And I love that type of environment. I don't think every church has to have that type of environment. But they did have unity. And the things that they were going after, they all went after it together. Did you see that? And as a church, I want to get better at saying this is what we're going after. After a year and a half here of getting to know you, God is beginning to show myself and the elder board what we are going after.

Local transformation, global impact. You know, we're going to be unveiling this at the end and through the fall for our next year. After two years here, I want to begin to lay out what we are doing as a church. And I want to ask you, small groups is one of them, to get on board if you can. It's a great little promo for small groups. Small groups is one of the things we're doing.

And I want to challenge you. They're inconvenient. I get it. Okay? They're inconvenient sometimes. But if you can, be a part. Doesn't mean you have to. And if you don't, no guilt. You're free. But let's all get on board with these things as they were. And it closes with this. And this is verse 33. And with, oh, I love this. Because this is the result of unity that I think is upon.

This is the stuff that is essential, that comes from the unity. The first stuff I mentioned, the tongues, the sharing everything in common, that was unique to them. But this other part is all throughout Scripture we see it. And I think it's available to all churches. And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Once again, evangelism. And great grace was upon them all. Imagine that in your life. Imagine your marriage. Imagine your life. Imagine your business. Imagine your church. Imagine this church. If we had power. In whatever form it looks like. You know what? I might pray for people. You might pray for someone in the back. And they might fall down under the power of God.

I don't know. Okay? I'm not probably going to go create a clinic on how to do that for you. I don't know what God's going to do. Or we might have a church that is full of people that go out into this community and just care for people. Maybe that power is going to look like that. It might look like a nuclear explosion. It might look like a circuit grid that lights up all of Rio de Janeiro.

Actually, that goes out a fair amount. Let's say New York City. Lost power again. Great power. Giving testimony. A church that gives testimony. I want us to be a church that testifies. Testify. Testify. Testify. Everyone has a story. It takes God to have a testimony. Tell your story. Testify. A church that sees people get saved. And finally, great grace.

Oh, grace. Thank God for grace. Let's drown in it as a congregation. Let's ask the worship team to come up.