Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: Several years ago, we had some good friends that lived in a rental house. As he told me the story about the rental house, it just seemed like it was too good to be true. It was this enormous house in this really nice neighborhood, and the rent was extremely cheap. But there were a couple of catches to it, a couple of caveats to this rent. Number one, the house was for sale. If at any time the realtor called my friend and said, "Hey man, I'm on my way to show the house," within an hour, he and his family had to clean up the entire house and be out of the door.

The other part of it was that as you walked through the house, the walls were cracking and the floors were sloped. It was evident that there was something significantly wrong with this house. Even for the fire-sale price that they were asking for this house, anybody that would purchase this house would have some significant trouble in their future. It reminds me of a few years ago, another house that was in the neighborhood near where my mom used to live in Mississippi.

One Christmas, we went back home to Mississippi to go see her. We got there after dark and we pulled into the neighborhood. The neighborhood had this straight street that headed in and T-ed at the other street. Before we turned right to go to her house, right at the T of the entrance to the neighborhood was all this light. You could see it when you turned down the road. All these lights were shining on this big piece of plywood that had a message painted on it. It said, "Do not buy a house in this neighborhood. Call me before you do."

Come to find out after we asked, this person had had a ton of trouble with the foundation of their house. They had all sorts of work done and they couldn't get it fixed. I guess enough was enough for them. But there was a common denominator in both of those situations. For whatever reason, both of those houses were built on a foundation that could not withstand the pressure of the house that was sitting on it. The foundation shifted and thus the house shifted, and the houses both paid the price.

The foundation of your home determines so much for your house. But that's such a great picture as well of your spiritual life and mine. If you start with a good foundation, if you build your life and your world upon a solid foundation, you'll experience God's power at work in your life and through your life in some incredible ways. If your foundation is not really built upon the truth of God's word and who God is equipping you and empowering you to become, then when you face the difficulties that you're going to encounter in life, it often spells trouble.

Do you remember how Jesus said it in Matthew chapter seven? Matthew 7:24, he says, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise." That's what we've been talking about the last few weeks. It's not enough to just hear it. It's not enough to just be familiar with it. To truly follow Christ is to listen to it and then to follow it, to do it. He says, "This person is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock." The foundation is good.

"Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it's built on the bedrock." It's built on a good foundation. But he says conversely, "Anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and the floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash." Jesus' point is that your life and mine, everything that is built in our lives, who we are, what we do, what we think, the things that we're a part of, it's all to be built on a solid foundation.

If you want to see a movement of God in your life, the power of God in your life, if you want to be wise and no matter what kind of rains and storms and winds come against you to be able to stand, to not just stand but to be able to thrive and experience God's power, presence, and work in your life, it requires a firm foundation. The beginning of the church in Acts chapter one, we're going to look at the early church, and I believe there's something we can learn from them.

There is this foundation, this picture that begins the very book of Acts that encourages us, that challenges us, that's going to call us to truly make sure that we have the right foundation for our lives. The reality of the early church is that they didn't have much. They didn't have elaborate buildings. They didn't have air conditioning, projectors, lights, and all the things that we have. They didn't have seminaries or Bible colleges. They didn't even at this point have professional clergy. They didn't have technology. They didn't even have a printed Bible.

Yet we're here today still talking about them, and we're gathered in large part because of what we're going to learn from them today. Although their world looked a little bit different than ours does today, I do believe that the story of the early church, in particular in the beginning of the book of Acts, is a word for you and for me today. I believe we're going to talk about how the church experienced God's movement in the ways that it did.

Here is the secret. You may want to write this down. Here is the secret of how they built the early church. How they started from nothing and they built it into what we now experience. They didn't. God did it. They didn't build the church. They didn't do their stuff and pray that God would bless it. God moved and they were faithful to be who God had called them to be and then to do what God had called them to do. But make no mistake, it was God and His strength and His power who did it through them. God built His church.

For some of you, you may be thinking Bayside Baptist Church, this building, this brick and mortar. That's not what the early church is speaking of. When we see the story of the early church that we're getting ready to read, I want you to think people. The kingdom of God expanded, people found the hope and life and what all God offered through Jesus Christ as a result of the early church. That's what I'm praying for us.

I recognize God is at work in our church. God is moving in our church, hearing your stories of God answering prayer and coming to faith and the way that God is at work in our midst. It's an incredible sight to see. But I do believe that there is more that God wants for you as we build upon the foundation that God has for us. From Acts chapter one, we're going to talk about three pieces to the foundation that you and I need to have in place if we want to see God move powerfully in our lives.

If you want to see God work in your life, there are three pieces to this foundation. The first one is this: You and I need to learn to wait on God through prayer. You need to learn to wait on God through prayer. For some of you, you're like, "All right, I'm going to wait on number next." That just doesn't sound very exciting. But what I want you to see is in the beginning of the book of Acts, that's exactly what the followers of Jesus were doing. Look in Acts chapter one, beginning in verse one.

Luke kicks off the book and he says this: "In my first book," which is speaking of the gospel of Luke, "I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day that he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the 40 days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive."

He wasn't just a ghost. He wasn't just a figment of their imagination. He wasn't just a dream that they were having. Jesus, once he died and was resurrected, came and walked among his disciples, and he demonstrated to them that he truly was alive. And he talked to them about the kingdom of God. Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them and he said this: "Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

What is Jesus talking about? This gift that he had promised and that they are to wait on this gift that he had promised them? This speaks of Luke chapter 24, verse 49. At the end of the gospel of Luke, which Luke wrote and then volume two is the book of the Acts that he wrote, he says this. Jesus speaks and he says, "And now I will send the Holy Spirit just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven."

Jesus says, "I told you guys to go and make disciples." That's the Great Commission. "I've told you what it looks like to live a life of faith. I've told you." He said, "I've sent you out two by two and in multiple different iterations to go and to bring the kingdom, to heal people that are sick, to cast out demons, to teach the word, to spread the kingdom of heaven and invite people into it." He says, "Now that I'm leaving you, here's what I want you to do: I want you to wait. Don't do anything just yet. Wait."

The people in the book of Acts, many of whom had walked with Jesus and been given these directions explicitly from him, they had experienced an incredible movement of God's spirit. If you read through the rest of the book of Acts, after this moment where they're waiting on the power of the spirit to come, the spirit does come in Acts chapter two. But they experience His power and His movement over and over. It says that they were filled with wonder and awe and amazement.

If you ask those people in the early church, "Is there anywhere else you'd rather be?" They wouldn't have said to the golf course or out on a boat or doing something else. They'd have said, "No, this is it right here. We're seeing God move in incredible ways." I believe it's because the foundation that they had for their lives was right. The foundation for their faith was in place, and it set the table for what was going to come in the future. It says the church was gathered together, the people of God were gathered together to wait on God in prayer as they waited on His spirit to move.

Think about it. Jesus had told them, "You're going to do greater things than I did once I leave." Now he was gone. All the go-getters in the crowd are probably like, "Let's just go, let's go, let's go, let's do it. Let's come up with something. Let's create a program. Let's create a ministry. Let's start this, let's do that." But Jesus had told them to wait. I'm sure they could have done a lot of good things, but they didn't. They did exactly what Jesus told them to do. They waited for the gift, they waited for the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

I think they recognized what you and I sometimes forget: that we are completely dependent upon God for what He wants to do in and through our lives. A lot of times we just get in this little spiritual church autopilot and we're just doing our stuff, doing our things. We forget that waiting on the power of God, waiting on the spirit of God to move, is where we experience God's power and presence like never before. Jesus had told them they're going to do greater things, and I'm not really sure they fully believed it at this moment.

I do know that they recognized they didn't have the strength or the power or the ability to do what Jesus had challenged them to do. So their first instinct was to pray. Can I tell you that's a huge part of the reason why we pause in our service, not really pause, but we have a part of our service where we slow down and we are learning to grow in praying together? It's why every year, at least once a year, we do 21 days of prayer where we just put a parenthesis around everything else in our lives and we're like, "Lord, would you teach us how to pray?"

Prayer is so important for us learning how to live. So as the early church, as these people were gathered together, their first instinct was to pray constantly, and that's how they waited. If you skip down to verse 14, the waiting together, it says they all met together and they were constantly united in prayer. They were of one mind, seeking God. When it says they were of one mind, it doesn't mean that they were all chanting the same things or saying the same things or saying the Lord's Prayer real quick like you do at the end of practice.

They were intent on one purpose. They were waiting on God for the spirit of God to bring the power of God in their lives. Waiting can be hard, especially when you can go do something. Waiting can be difficult. You may be in a season of waiting right now where you're asking God to move and he just hasn't yet. You just have a sense that God wants to open up a new door for your career or for this or for that, and it's easy to grow impatient.

I want you to look at this right here. The early churches, they're gathered together. They're not going and trying to make stuff happen and tagging God's name on it, praying that he'll bless it. They're truly waiting on God to move. They knew that what Jesus had given them to do was this incredibly enormous task. It was impossible to spread the good news of the kingdom. Yet when he gave them these words, they didn't panic and go try to start something on their own. They got on their knees to pray.

I see that happening in our church each week, and I think we're growing in this. But I think it's an area where we need to continue to lean in, church, to where we learn to wait on the power of God to move. You don't have to run ahead of God and fix it for him. He wants us to wait on him. Not a passive "let go and let God" waiting where you just do nothing. The church here, they're faithfully living for Christ, but they're gathering together. "Lord, you've promised that you're going to do this. You've promised this gift of the spirit. Lord, we're waiting on you until you move."

So many of you right now are waiting on God to answer. You're asking for direction, you need help and healing and hope, and we gather together and we call upon the Lord to help and we trust his timing. Even in this moment in our culture, God is moving in significant ways throughout our land, in our city, in our church, our community. It's such a large task and overwhelming at times to think how the tide of evil and darkness is turned back.

How can you advance the kingdom of God through us? How can people's lives be changed when there are such confusing, conflicting messages constantly inundating us? Yet God is at work, and he wants us to wait on him to move and follow in step with his spirit. Jesus was telling his disciples in one of the most critical moments since his resurrection to wait. I don't like to wait. Anybody else feel me in here?

I don't like to wait in traffic. You don't like to wait either. You don't like to wait behind that person at the light who finishes sending their text message just in time for them to go through the yellow light and you to have to stop at the red light, right? Is it just me? No, I know it ain't just me. You don't like to wait in line at the gas station or at the grocery store. You don't like to have to wait in line, and nor do I, when you place your order at Walmart or whatever grocery store and it takes them a little bit longer than you think it should to deliver your groceries that they picked out for you and put in a shopping cart for you and brought to your car. We don't like to wait.

Often times, when it comes to your spiritual life and mine, we don't like to wait either. But Jesus told his disciples, "Wait on the power of God to move." It's not a passive waiting where we sit on our hands and wring our hands and just sit by and play video games all day long. It's an active waiting. You're not waiting in line at the DMV. You're living faithfully while you're waiting on God to move in that moment. You keep waiting in prayer, bowing our hearts and our knees before God together. Learn to wait on the power of God, to depend on God.

The second principle, the second piece of the foundation is this from the book of Acts chapter one: You and I learn to depend on the Holy Spirit as a way of life. We depend upon the Holy Spirit as a way of life. Do you remember what Jesus told his disciples in the upper room? He said, "I'm going to send you the promise of the Holy Spirit." Acts chapter one, he tells them a little bit more about what's going on. Acts chapter 1:6, the apostles, when they were with Jesus, they kept asking him this question: "Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?"

Can I just say a word about that? There are still people today saying, "Lord, is it time? My flip chart right here says it, the newspaper says this, that person on Instagram says this is what's going to happen." Jesus is asked the same question. Often times you and I are asking the same question. People get all up in arms, "Oh, the end of the world is tomorrow." Jesus said the Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know.

You know what that tells me? Somebody that says they know, they don't know. Can I just say that to us? I appreciate all the flowcharts and the flip charts and the flannelgraphs and the videos and the newspaper articles and all the compelling whatever. But Jesus says right here that the Father alone has the authority to set that, and then he says, "That's not for you to know." He says, "But what is for us to know, what is for me to know, for you to know, is in verse eight."

He says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. "Men of Galilee," they said. "Why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go."

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of about a half a mile. When they arrived, they went into the upstairs room of the house where they were staying. Then he gives the names of the folks that were there: It was Peter and John and James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all met together and they were constantly united in prayer along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus.

They were depending upon the Holy Spirit as a way of life. Jesus told his disciples in the book of John in the upper room, he talked with them and he was telling them, "I'm going to be leaving you, but it's to your benefit that I leave. I'm going to send you another counselor, the Spirit of truth." John 15:26, Jesus says, "This is what I'm going to send you. Here's who I'm sending you: the advocate, the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me."

Jesus continued in the next chapter, John 16:13: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future." Jesus goes on to say in the rest of this passage, "And you will know him, for he lives with you and he will be in you." He said, "Look, the Holy Spirit, everything I've taught you, the Holy Spirit's going to remind you, and he's going to guide you and direct your steps. He comes to convict of sin and to lead in righteousness." Then he says, "It's my peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you."

He said, "Guys, it's to your benefit, but I gotta go, and when I go, the spirit is going to come." So it's now in Acts chapter one that they are awaiting on, depending upon, this promise that God has made.