The Power of a Changed Life
“Reaching Our Potential in Christ”
Acts 1:12-26
Dale Carnegie wrote the book titled “How to Win Friends and Influence people.” It was an overnight success selling over 15 million copies. Dale Carnegie was a master at identifying people with great potential. He was once asked by a news reporter how he had managed to hire 43 men who were all millionaires. He said well it’s simple, none of them were millionaires when I hired them. All of them became millionaires while they were working for him. He said you find potential the same way you find gold. Several tons of dirt must be moved to get one ounce of gold. But you don’t go into the mine looking for dirt....you go in looking for gold. You look for potential.
Discovering and living out our potential is the same way today. You may have heard of the young boy who was drawing a picture...his parents asked him what he was drawing. He said well I’m drawing a picture of God. They said well you can’t do that. He said well why not. And they said well no one knows what God looks like. He said well they will when I’m finished.
We could ask the writer of this passage. What are you drawing here: what are you picturing? He says I have here a picture of a believer who has reached his fullest potential in life. We might then say you can’t do that...no one knows what that looks like but he says well they will when I am done writing down this scripture.
So let me ask you this morning, have you discovered your full potential in Christ? If not do you want to do so? I believe that most of us settle for mediocre lives. We can be very average people, we can be an average church. But I believe God has so much more for all of us.
Now look with me at some ways the NT church apostles achieved their potential. The Bible tells us that they constantly spoke to God. v. 14. One of the cornerstones of the early church was prayer. Without it the church could not have been established. Look at the variety of people who were in this group. Eleven men are named here in v. 13. There were women, we don’t know how many. Mary the mother of Jesus was there and also his brothers were there. The Bile tells us that Jesus had brothers and sisters. That may be new to you. Four brothers are named. The Bible tells us he had sisters. But we do not know their names or how many. But what we do see here is that all of these are focused on Jesus and they are focused on the common goal of building the church. You see one of the things that will quickly keep us from reaching our potential in the church is division. When a group of people are working together and they come from different backgrounds-they are not exactly alike...they can be easily divided. They don’t know the same things, they don’t think the same way and so there is a strong opportunity for division. One group might even begin to think they are superior to another. There were all kinds of opportunities for this to happen.
* one group stands up and says we are the brothers of Jesus. We were raised in the same home. We’re special.
* John was there. He could have reminded everyone that he was chosen by Jesus to care for his mother Mary. Right at the foot of the cross, Jesus chose him.
* Mary was even there. She could have said look I’m his mother. I rocked Jesus to sleep at night-I raised him-I deserve special treatment.
But none of this happened. With all of these people who were so significant in the life of Jesus they still all managed to work together. How could they do that? Well it was never about them...it was always about Jesus.
Whether they were leader or follower they supported each other. You see they not only believed in Jesus, they believed in one another. The KJV says they were all in one accord, this version says they were joined together constantly...the Greek says they were of one passion. Their passion was Jesus. To reach our potential Jesus must be our focus.
There are several applications here. They were not just together in one location, they were together in their thinking....their beliefs. Now will all of us in the church think alike? Absolutely not. We are very different people. Turn to the person next to you and say you’re different!
But you see it is a necessity in the NT church that we think alike on the things that matter. How do we find salvation? Through faith in Christ. Is Jesus God or just a man? He’s God. Is the Bible inspired by God or just the ramblings of men. Does the Bible have errors? Absolutely not. On these things you see we must agree for the church to reach her potential. We must be of one mind. We must be of one passion.
In marriage two people come from very different families and they come together in a physical union but not always in a spiritual union. They don’t share the same passion for Christ and unfortunately division can take place. And when division starts , growth stops. This is why the scripture says we are to be unequally yoked in marriage. Believers are to marry believers and they are to worship and grow together to reach their fullest potential. The church likewise is a family.
In a marriage we can look at this is a 3 sided relationship. Look at this triangle. Here is the man and then the woman and here is God. If one, let’s say the woman is growing in Christ, the closer she gets to God she actually moves away from her husband. But when both are growing in Christ they not only grow closer to Christ they grow closer to one another. That is God’s plan for us.
Here were 120 people...again very close to the number we have here today and they are given one job, just one-take the gospel to the entire world. Let that sink in. It’s a huge assignment. That is why they had to work together. The early disciples had to learn how to do that effectively. This was new to them but it is exactly what Jesus had been preparing them for. To reach our potential the Bible reminds us of a principle here: prayer is a necessity, not an option. The church cannot reach it’s potential without a vibrant prayer life. You cannot find your potential in Christ without prayer and the church can never reach it’s potential without it. We must be connected with something bigger than we are.
You see prayer is both the thermometer of the church and the thermostat also. When someone is sick the first thing a doctor does is stick a thermometer in their mouth. By doing so they are able to tell whether that person is healthy or not. You can tell whether a church is healthy or not based on how much the people pray.
But it is also the thermostat of the church. The thermostat is used to control/adjust the temperature. It will make the spiritual temperature of the church go up or down depending on how much the people pray.
In this passage we also get a clear picture of a man who wasted his potential. His name was Judas. Heard of him? Chosen as one of the 12 disciples to sit at the feet of Jesus for 3 years, watch as he healed people, performed one miracle after another. To learn the scripture from the one who inspired it. To get wisdom from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and Judas wasted his opportunity. He could have stood in the same ranks as the John, Peter and all the others. He could have left a strong legacy just as they did. But he wasted it. Parents today still name their children after the disciples. Peter, John, James, Matthew. But not Judas. Who would name their child Judas? It would be like naming your child after Hitler.
His potential was completely wasted and Judas finally realized that. He sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Wasn’t even gold. We really don’t know what it was worth but we do know it was enough to purchase a field because that it was he did with the money. The Bible also tells us that it where Judas died. Quite descriptive. Hung himself. Apparently the material he used likely his robe broke and he fell headfirst causing his intestines spill out. Isn’t that nice right before lunch. In fact you wonder why was Luke so explicit. The only reason I can come up with is that he meant to be. He wanted to make it plain. He wanted us to understand the ugly truth that it is a despicable thing to waste our lives. To do anything other than live life to the fullest is a waste of the gift God has placed in us.
Judas took the 30 pieces and bought a field and he died and was buried in that very place. The book of Psalms prophesied in fact 1000 years before this that “his place would be deserted and they were not to let anyone else dwell there and then that another would take his place of leadership. God is most pleased when we live to our potential but when we run in the other direction there will be someone who can take our place, the place we were intended to have in history.
There were 120 believers. There were about 4 million Jews in Palestine at this time. That is 1 out of every 33,000 people who were believers. Yet they changed their world and ours. God has an awesome plan for you and he has a plan for this church. I do not want to miss any of it. Today if you have not found God’s plan for your life you can. It all starts with making a life-changing commitment to Jesus Christ.
