Start Here (Pt 1)
Acts 1:8
* As an SBC church, we are now partnering with the North American Mission board in an emphasis we call “The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.” This emphasis bears the name of a godly woman named “Annie Walker Armstrong” and the receipts from this offering go to missions in North America. Annie Armstrong was & is a hero among SBC churches for her commitment to the gospel & the mission of the gospel. She would be one who would be champion the concept which the NAMB has laid before us & summed up in two words, “Start Here.” Jesus’ final words were, “you’ll be witnesses in Jerusalem.” That’s “Start Here” (Vid)
* That last phrase is sobering, “It starts with YOU!” If people are to know Jesus they must first KNOW ABOUT Him and Romans 10 asks, “How can they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe without hearing about Him?” And the answer is, ‘they cannot.’
* It is just as true today as it was in Jesus that people are divided into 2 groups, ‘those who know Christ’ and ‘those who need to know Christ.’ It was Jesus who gave us the truth that there are only 2 roads to choose from, the broad way and the narrow way. If people are to miss hell & make heaven it will be because people who know Christ “START RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE” and share Christ. The starting point is clearly ‘those who know’ making it a priority to offer Christ to those who “need to know”. It starts here and it starts now.
* (Read Acts 1:8) Today, let’s consider the one word in this verse which is calling us. That word is Jerusalem! This is a geographic location, it is an emotional location, and it is a spiritual location. Our call from the Lord to give the gospel begins with Jerusalem! I submit that many ‘believers’ in the 21st century American Church have abandoned the call to reach the people in our Jerusalem with the gospel of Christ and have replaced it with the call to reassure people with the gospel of our culture. Christ’s message is far different than the message of the culture. It is easier to offer ‘reassurance’ than it is to offer ‘regeneration.’ To “Start Here” means that we start where we are with what we have and make a priority of presenting Christ (and His gospel) to all who need it.
1. Christ calls us to personally surrender to HIM while this culture calls us to personally surrender to THEM. Some might ask, “Where does He say surrender? I’ve never heard that.” I submit that surrender is written over many pages of scripture and has many stages. Stage 1: Salvation is about surrender. The first message Jesus spoke was simply, “Repent.”
* Before Jesus, the first message of John was “Repent” and after Jesus, the first message of Peter (Acts 2) was “Repent.” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Godly grief produces a grief which leads to salvation.” And Christ put the nail in the coffin when He said “Unless You Repent, You will all perish. Repentance is surrender. It is saying, “I have sinned & messed up before you Lord and I now surrender my will to yours. To surrender to an enemy is to place yourself at their mercy. Generally, they take you, their captive, and control everything you do. So to surrender (through repentance) to Christ is to become like Paul, “a slave to Christ.” Now, He control, He commands, and He directs. By the way, for those who have silently said, “I have not been an enemy of God.” The Bible says in James 4:4, “Adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.” This is what we are & were before we repent of our sin, surrender to Him, & trust Him.
* We also surrender in how we live. This would be stage 2: Discipleship. Being His disciple means walking, talking, and living LIKE HIM. It’s not just “What would Jesus Do”, rather it’s “What DID Jesus Do” & then do like He did. This would mean that we recognize our divine calling to be salt and light, to be HIS “Plan A” to redeem the world, & that our lives become HIS conduit for love and truth in this world.
* For some today who have been long time member of the church, there had never been a point of true surrender, complete repentance, & allowing Christ to ‘take control.’ For others, you can clearly remember that experience (because you will never forget divesting yourself of pride, arrogance, and sin) – yet today, the Spirit of God is telling you that something has taken His place in your life. This is why the call to start here in Jerusalem has become so unimportant. Honestly, when our hearts gets cold from little sin, our Jerusalem becomes veiled.
2. Christ also calls us to personally sacrifice. The three synoptic gospel records these words of Jesus, “If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” The idea of the ‘cross’ is of suffering and death. If that isn’t foreign to our thinking then grasp the idea of ‘denying oneself.’ This is not a top priority today. Our culture continually gives the message that “I deserve this!” Yet, to surrender to Christ is to deny one’s self, take on the mantle of suffering, & (as the teenagers sing and say) run hard after Christ. Sacrifice is not a word which we care to use because it speaks of ‘denying self’, yet that is the call of Jesus. We can sacrifice in matters of schedule, money, & talents.
* Have you ever wondered why Jesus requires us to ‘sacrifice?’ (and yes, for the believer sacrifice is required) All through the Old Testament it was ‘sacrifices’ which were called for by Jehovah God. Then, on the hill called Golgotha, Jesus sacrificed His life. Today, we are called by the words of Paul, “By the mercies of God, I URGE you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy & pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.” The worship God is seeking is not found in a style of music or a familiarity of a style, it is found in a ‘living sacrifice.’ Consider how many sacrifices survived the process. Normally, whatever was laid on the altar, died on the altar! We are called to present ourselves to lie down voluntarily on the altar before Him and sacrifice our lives to Him!! When we do this, the next verse come to fruition in our lives, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” This is a picture of what happens to us when we personally sacrifice on His altar.
* I submit that too many lives are being sacrificed on the altar of power, popularity, and position. In this culture there are more and more altars which have captured and killed the spirit of Christ in people.
* From the last statistics I have read, the USA is quickly becoming the largest ‘lost nations’ on the globe. We are losing our Jerusalem! And this is the very place where Jesus told us to begin.
* Make no mistake; we need to be faithful and diligent in meeting our goal for this mission offering because our Jerusalem, and more personally, people we know and are responsible to God for, will never hear the gospel if we don’t surrender and sacrifice. In a couple of weeks, the Worship choir will present a program of Worship and Praise music, in which all of are written by a man named Geron Davis. Geron is an anointed writer and literally put his own soul in every song he writes. You will know “In the Presence of Jehovah,” “Peace Speaker,” “Send it on Down”, and the grandfather of all his Songs, “Holy Ground.” About 15 years ago, we found and sang a song which, while not one of his more well known tunes, certainly speaks to us reaching our Jerusalem. (The words to “Tell-Em).
* By our surrender to Jesus, let us learn to live out the love of the Lord by sharing what He has given us with those we meet.
* By our sacrifice, let us say to those in our Jerusalem; you matter and you matter for all eternity.
(Words to Geron Davis’ song, "Tell Em"
