Intro to Acts Alive Acts Alive - Series from Acts of the Apostles: Dave Rajoon

Make me a worthy vessel. Make me a worthy vessel. Let me be a vessel in which Christ can dwell. Because when Christ dwells within me, the world will see and know that he's alive. He's the one who is dead and is alive and is alive forevermore. That's my purpose, God. My only purpose here is to give glory and honor to you, God. So father, as we move this week, oh God, let this be a week of waiting, oh God. Let this be a week in which we wait on you. Wait on you, oh God, to fill us afresh, oh God. We are reminded of Paul said, be filled with the spirit. Be filled with the spirit. Not to be drunk with wine, but to be filled with the spirit of God. So we know it's an ongoing process. [01:51:18] (48 seconds)  #WorthyVessel

I want you to understand something. Now Jesus ascended into heaven, that was not the end of the story. And disciples may have felt at one point that this is where it's in fact, after the resurrection, they kind of felt that this is the the end of the story. You just had to call him back and say, no. That's not the end of the story. There's a second part to this whole, and you're gonna be a part of it. You're gonna be a part of that story. You're gonna be a part of the mission going forward, and I wanna encourage you. I wanna empower you. I wanna give you the facts so that you can go forward. The thing that we need to understand about the gospel of Saint Luke and the and and the book of Acts is that the gospel story is true. Somebody say amen to that. Amen. [01:12:46] (37 seconds)  #BePartOfTheStory

We know that you're with us, oh God. Holy Spirit, you are with us today. I know that you're with us, oh God. But every now and again, we need to be reminded who we are. We need to come back to the filling station like we are here today on this Sunday morning, oh God. And ask you to restore us, to fill us once again so that we could continue this journey, so we can continue the mission, so that we will not fall short, oh God, so that we can take up the whole armor of God, and that we can stand with the righteousness of God upon us, with the helmet of salvation, with the belt of truth and our feet shot with the preparation of the gospel. [01:52:06] (37 seconds)  #RefilledByTheSpirit

You see, because we our job is to persuade men, but you can't pursue no one if you don't believe it yourself. Yes. If you don't believe the gospel story, if you don't believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ yourself, then you have no business trying to tell people and trying to convince people. So you have to believe it. You have to believe that it is true and to know that it's true. And Jesus says, you know what? I'm gonna give you the proof. I'm gonna show you for yourself that you will know. Amen. And then those forty days, kept the said that he went about speaking about the things of the kingdom of God. [01:26:22] (30 seconds)  #BelieveToPersuade

The apostle Paul said this. He said, we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of Christ may be of God and not of us. In other words, he's saying that there's something that you have, there's something that you have within you. You know, we don't understand what it means for God to dwell within us. But it's important to understand that that is what happened on the day of Pentecost. But when God comes and he dwells within us, then we have to get rid of all the other stuff. There's a lot of things that has to be removed. Amen? Now a lot of times people say, well, you know, I've got the spirit of God dwelling in me, but, you know, what if God says that, you know, you can't have clean water and dirty water in the same vessel. [01:50:10] (44 seconds)  #TreasureInEarthenVessels

You see, because unless the king don't sit on the throne, which is your heart, don't expect him to sit on a physical throne. He has to sit on this throne that's out here for us. Amen? And in order for him to sit on that throne, everything else has to remove. That brings us in the next week to what Pentecost is all about. You see, the day of Pentecost, in order for god to sit upon that throne in our hearts, then everything else has to be removed. How many of you understand that here today? Amen? Jesus is preaching the rest of the kingdom because because throughout his ministry, throughout the year, three and a half years of his ministry, Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. You know, we preach a gospel of salvation to all the world. During the time of Jesus' ministry, he didn't preach a gospel of salvation the way we preach today. He preached a message of the kingdom of God. Right? [01:30:12] (52 seconds)  #FaithOverDoubt

And Luke being more of a researcher because we know that he's a physician. He's someone who has certain skills, certain training. The others didn't have that kind of training that Luke has. So Luke says, you know what? I want to write everything down in an orderly way. I want you to know in a chronological fashion what happened, the things that happened among us. So he said, it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first. It appears again that Luke was there from the beginning. He knew all that was happening. He saw. He may have walked with Jesus. He may have been may have been among the people that followed Jesus on a consistent basis. Remember, not only 12 disciples followed Jesus. There were many, many disciples who had followed Jesus. 12 were chosen, and they were made into apostles. But we had many disciples, hundreds of disciples of Jesus. And Luke may have been one of them from the very beginning. [01:06:37] (57 seconds)  #GlobalKingdom

That's that's what a real father does. That's what a loving father does. Makes a promise that he keeps it. So I wanna tell you about the promise of the father. God has made a promise. If the father has made a promise to you, he will keep it. So here's what I want you to do, guys. Wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the father, which we spoke about. And then in order to give them context and help them to understand the promise of the father, he says, John baptized you with water. But when the holy spirit comes, the promise of the father, you will be baptized with the holy spirit from on high. In other words, there's gonna be a new spirit that's gonna be placed in you. So [01:34:37] (37 seconds)