A Task Unfinished Series

A Task Unfinished

Acts 1:1-5

Rev. Brian Bill

September 7-8, 2019

Play Gospel Project Video: Acts

BTW, a longer version of this video covering the first half of the Book of Acts is available on the “Sermon Extras” tab on the Edgewood app or website. If you don’t have Right Now Media, you’ll need to sign up for your free account.

Shortly after we moved here six years ago, our daughter Megan and I went for a drive. Beth was out of town and Megan’s older sisters were living in other places. We were both feeling a bit down so I thought a drive would be helpful. We had no plan; just jumped in our trusty Cobalt and headed east. As we meandered down roads we stopped at various destinations – one place was shady (a Pawn Shop), one was boring (a museum) another place was fun (an apple orchard) and one was a blast (we both got Harvest Chippers at Whitey’s). But since we didn’t have a plan we really weren’t sure of our destination.

It’s so easy in life to just start driving without any sense of where we’re headed. Without a plan we can move from shady to boring to fun to exciting…but we ended up going nowhere.

We’re beginning a road trip in a book of the Bible that describes God’s unfolding plan.

I’m often asked how I pick different sermon series. In simple terms, I listen to the Lord and look at what our church needs related to our gather, grow, give and go values. Our recent summer series called “Glad You Asked” was designed to equip us to give biblical answers to unbelievers who ask about our beliefs. In that sense, it had both evangelistic and apologetic elements to it, which helped shore up both our “grow and go” values. All 18 sermons are available on the Edgewood app.

Our “Laboring in Prayer” services last weekend came about when a group of people wanted to have a “concert of prayer.” Sensing the need for all of us to pray more, we decided to incorporate intercession into each of our services on Labor Day weekend. This enabled us to give attention to our “gather and give” values as we focused on offering ourselves to the Lord.

As I prayed about where God wanted us to focus this fall, I kept coming back to the Book of Acts. While we’re excited about all the facility changes taking place, we need to remember Grow Time is all about growing our faith, our family and our future for the glory of God. We must remain on mission by focusing outwardly, not inwardly. I thought it would be good for us to go back to what the church is all about.

We’re calling this series, “On Mission,” because we need to be constantly reminded of our purpose and of God’s plan to reach the world through His witnesses. BTW, “On Mission” is the name of our Sunday preaching program heard on Moody Radio (WDLM) twice on Sundays – at 11:00 am and 7:30 pm. I want to give John Gunther a shout-out for his outstanding editing and production work. I marvel at how he can take a 45-minute sermon and turn it into a 23-minute message (some of you wish he would do that for our weekend services). Here’s part of the introduction for each episode: “Welcome to On Mission. My name is Pastor Brian from Edgewood. When we gather together we meet on 38th Street in Rock Island and when we’re scattered, we strive to live on mission all over the Quad Cities area.”

With all the construction going on, I’ve heard a few people wonder if we’re trying to become a mega-church. I want to answer that as clearly as I can. Our goal is to bring glory to God by going with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. I want us to reach and teach more people not because we’re trying to be big, but because God is big. We want to be a mission-church, not a mega-church. This project is all about maximizing our space for ministry purposes. Our facility is not the focus; it’s simply a tool to train more disciples to live on mission for the glory of God. Buildings don’t change lives but what happens inside them does. Once we’re changed, we’re to take the gospel outside these walls to those who need to know Jesus.

While this book is known as, “The Acts of the Apostles,” I prefer a more descriptive title: “The Acts of Jesus Christ through His church by the power of the Holy Spirit.” The word “Acts” comes from the Greek word praxis, used to describe the deeds and incredible actions of Christ-followers. As we will see, Acts is a book of action.