God Is All About God
Download MP3Invite you to open your bibles to Acts chapter 11. Acts chapter 11. I wanna pick up where we left off. Last in our series on acts. And I'm going to read the first 26 verses.
Joel Brooks:Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. But Peter began and explained it to them in order. I was but Peter began and explained it to them in order. I was in this city of Joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision. Something like a great sheet descending being let down from heaven by its 4 corners.
Joel Brooks:And it came to me. Nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven, What God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times and all was drawn up again into heaven. Making no distinction.
Joel Brooks:These 6 brothers also accompanied me and we entered the man's house and he told us how he had seen the angel stand in the house and say, Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter. He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved. You and all your household. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they heard these things, they fell silent. And they glorified God saying, Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. And life. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews.
Joel Brooks:But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Helenists, also preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number who believed turned to the Lord. Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
Joel Brooks:When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man, when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Our Lord God, we are thankful that we can be here. Thank you for providing a place for us to where we could come and we can freely worship. We can come and, and learn from your word and Lord, hopefully to come and be transformed, to become more like you. So God for that to happen, we need your spirit to fall on this place, to open up our hearts, to open up our minds, to receive truth, to be transformed by truth. God, no one here needs to, to hear from me because my words are death and your words are life.
Joel Brooks:And so we need, we need life. And so we need to hear from you. So may my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. I don't know about you, but to me it feels like forever since we, have last been in acts. Actually, the last time was before Thanksgiving. So many, many meals or many, many days ago, however you count during the holiday season. I'm certain that a few of you have probably forgotten just a little bit of some of the things that we've studied.
Joel Brooks:And so we're going to take tonight to have somewhat of a large recap before I dive into the passages right before us. Even if you remembered everything we had talked about in acts still these last 5 weeks or so, you've been bombarded with messages that are contrary to everything we've looked at. Over the holidays, you have been bombarded with commercials, with billboards, with radio announcements, saying that you deserve many things, that you deserve many things. I personally, in the last month, I wrote down all the things that I have been told that I deserve. I deserve new furniture.
Joel Brooks:I deserve a new leather recliner, and some kind of new ice cream. I even deserve ice cream. And although I was not told I deserve a new TV, many many people told me that I needed a new TV and that I couldn't go without the latest one. I was told that I needed to get traveler insurance discounts that I deserve. McDonald's told me that I deserve a break today.
Joel Brooks:A lawyer told me that I deserve justice. Another lawyer said I deserve every bit of money that is coming to me. In the mail a few days ago, I was told that our church, this is what we deserve, we deserve top quality professional commercial video production. I was like, we use an overhead projector, okay? Finally, I was told that when dishwashing, I deserve perfect results every time.
Joel Brooks:And I agree with that one. So I was told I deserve all of these things. That is a toxic message to us. I'm not saying, you know, that as Christians, you know, all advertisements should be, you know, you deserve hell, not ice cream, you know, or but but when we constantly are being built up about how great we are and how much we deserve, it's toxic. You begin to feel like you are the center of the universe, that everything happens for you.
Joel Brooks:Satan would have felt quite comfortable using a lot of the advertisements that that are around today. You know, Eve, you you deserve the best fruit in the whole garden. Eve, you deserve all of the knowledge you deserve for no one to hold back for you. Eve, you deserve to be like God. It would have felt quite comfortable in the garden.
Joel Brooks:This kind of advertising has crept into churches. It's crept into many sermons. Preachers tell their congregations all that they deserve and that God exists in order to make them happy. That's what God's here for. He's, he's here to meet your every need.
Joel Brooks:He's here to give you what you want. He's here to make you happy. The the reason that God created all of the universe, the reason that God created more stars in the heavens than than sands or grains of sands in all the earth, The reason that, that he created things like chocolate and your and your ability to taste it. The reason he created all of that is because of you. That's That's what they're gonna tell you.
Joel Brooks:That God wants to serve you. God wants to make you happy. That you are the the center of the universe of God. And let me tell you when when you're bombarded with this, and I mean bombarded. Everywhere you go, you're hearing it.
Joel Brooks:It's being reinforced. It's being reinforced. You begin to believe that message. But then the word of God comes and it shatters that myth like a hammer shattering a rock. And we went over many of those verses at the start, of the service.
Joel Brooks:God speaks through Isaiah in Isaiah 43 says, bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Later in verse 25, it says, I I am he who blots out your transgressions. For my own name's sake, and I will remember your sins no more. And so God created us for his glory.
Joel Brooks:God forgives us for his own name's sake. Isaiah 48 says, For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned?
Joel Brooks:I will not give my glory to another. And so throughout scripture, there's this this avalanche of scripture that kind of buries you saying that God is all about himself. He is all about his glory. He does everything for his own name's sake. Every good thing he gives you, every sin that he forgives of you, every time he heals you, he does it all not for you, but for his great name.
Joel Brooks:So God is ultimately all about God and not ultimately all about you. I've heard that really you're kind of a distant 3rd. I mean, because because it's first there's god and then god wants you to serve others. And then think of yourself, you know, you're you're a distant 3rd. You're in the bronze.
Joel Brooks:Okay? This does not mean that God doesn't take care of you. He doesn't guide you. He doesn't love you because he does all of those things. And he loves you so deeply.
Joel Brooks:He has to use all of these metaphors to describe the kind of love. He loves you like a shepherd, loves a sheep. He loves you like a mother hen, loves her chicks, loves you like a father, loves a son, loves you like a groom, loves her bride. And so he's describing I love you. I love you with such affection.
Joel Brooks:I love you with such devotion. I love you with such faithfulness. I love you in all of these ways. So God does love us. But his motivation behind all of that love is not because he thinks you're great.
Joel Brooks:And he thinks you're the center of the universe. It's about his glory. Can you can you remember I don't know. Maybe none of you can remember this. I certainly can.
Joel Brooks:Can you remember the first time you saw your elementary school teacher, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, the first time you saw that teacher outside of school? Do do you remember that? You know, maybe you you see her with her husband at a restaurant, and you just kinda what you just kinda stare. Like, this is your teacher. She's at a restaurant.
Joel Brooks:She's she's with a man. She's laughing. She's having a good time. And or or maybe for me, I I saw my teacher playing tennis. One time I was like, playing, playing tennis.
Joel Brooks:And, and it was like, my, my world kind of imploded because I thought, no, Her her world's about me. I mean, she exists to teach me. She exists to serve me. Her whole world is that classroom. And I remember the first time I saw my teacher outside of that, I was just so shocked and so stunned that they could have a life, a good life apart from me.
Joel Brooks:Some of you need to come to that realization about God. You need you you need to maybe have a have your world flipped upside down. Those of you think you are the sinner. You know, God created billions of galaxies that no human eye will ever see. God created, caves with, you know, gyms in them that no human eye will ever see no hand will ever hold.
Joel Brooks:Why did he do that? He did that because he was glorifying in himself. Look what I can do. Look what I can create. He wasn't doing so you would notice you will never notice.
Joel Brooks:You will never see these things. And God said, but I'm so glorious. I display this for my name's sake. And God has this life apart from us. And that is really good news.
Joel Brooks:God is rejoicing in himself. And then he invites us to come and rejoice in that. The last time we looked at the book of Acts, we saw how this was good news for us. That God being about himself, God's mission being to glorify him self and not you is actually really good news. Because that means that God doesn't want you to worship him out of a sense of duty.
Joel Brooks:That's not what he wants, because duty doesn't glorify him. It it doesn't glorify him. You felt this maybe when you were giving some gifts this Christmas. You know, there's, there's gifts you love to give and then there's gifts you have to give. Maybe it's that second cousin who, you know, you're going to be awkwardly in the same room with, you know, during Christmas or it's your, your brother's girlfriend and you're like, we're spending all Christmas.
Joel Brooks:I got to get something. And so you, you, you feel obligated to give a gift. It's not that you really want to, but you have to. And so you're there and you and you give this gift. That kind of giving does not honor the person.
Joel Brooks:It honors you. That that's a world different than when you gave a gift to your spouse or to a really close friend and you put so much time and thought and joy into it And you can't wait for them to unwrap it. And when you give it to them and you are filled with joy, it honors them. And that's what worship is that that when God is all about himself, when God wants to glorify himself, the way he receives glory is if you joyfully celebrate him. Not when he come forth and you think, you know what?
Joel Brooks:It's time for me to serve my time. It's Sunday 4:30. So I gotta sing. I gotta pay my tithes. I gotta do all this.
Joel Brooks:I got, I gotta do my duty. God is not worshiped. He's not glorified in that. You are. So God being all about his glory and you wanting to pursue joy are not at odds at one another.
Joel Brooks:They're beautifully wed together. As, many of you have heard John Piper say that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And that rings throughout scripture. To realize that we are not the center, is actually pretty liberating to realize that you are not the center of the universe. If you are, if you you're wholly convinced that everything revolves around you and that you deserve everything when, when somebody steps in front of you, you know, at Chick Fil A and they step in front of you in line, you're gonna get ticked.
Joel Brooks:You're going to be angry because when you think you invaded my space, Chick Fil A exists for me. The, the, how may I serve you? They're talking, they're talking to me. They want to serve me. Okay.
Joel Brooks:You're invading my world. And so you be, you begin to get ticked and offended. How dare they? That, that, that, that person doesn't know that everything exists around you. And you could go through all of life thinking that somebody cuts in front of you as you're driving.
Joel Brooks:You're furious. Why? Because they invaded your space. They cut off your lane. But when you begin to understand that you are not the center that God is, I mean, very few things begin to offend you because they're not cutting into your world Because you realize you don't deserve that lane.
Joel Brooks:You don't deserve to be in that line. It's not all about you. And it frees you up to serve. Contrast your attitude, our attitude with what we have seen so far in acts. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Contrast everything you have seen and you have heard over these last 5 weeks with, with what we have looked at in the book of acts, because these early Christians had everything that we think we deserve taken away. The things that we've been told we deserve, the things that we've come to believe that we deserve, they've been taken away. Their property was taken away as, as their, some of their goods or their very homes were stripped away from them. Their freedom was taken away as they were carried off to prison. Their health was taken away as many of them were beaten and tortured.
Joel Brooks:For some of their very lives were were taken away as they were stoned and they were killed. So all that we strive for, everything that we think is rightfully ours, everything that we deserve, you look at those early Christians and it was all taken away from them. All that we think we should have. And yet their response was joy. It was joy because they knew they were not the center.
Joel Brooks:God was the center. It's all about God. They knew that they existed to glorify God, whether they had a lot of money or they had a little, whether the person gypped them off or whether the person didn't jip them off, they exist to glorify God. And so there was so much joy in this early church because they embrace their mission. And you're going to find so much more joy in your life when you actually forget about yourself and you embrace the glory of God.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna have more joy than you could ever imagine. Let's look at our mission. We've seen throughout the book of Acts what our mission is. Your mission is a great commission, is to go and make disciples of all nations. For as Acts 1 puts it, you have been given the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy spirit in order to go out into Jerusalem, Judea.
Joel Brooks:You're to go to all the ends of the earth. That's why he's given you your spirit. His spirit is to be witnesses for him. This is what acts 10 and 11 is about. It's about Peter people going to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:People fulfilling their mission for the glory of Jesus. Recap of chapter 1011. If you remember, God sends Peter a vision. He says, I want you to go. I want you to go to Cornelius, this this non Jew.
Joel Brooks:And I want you to, to preach the gospel to him. And so he goes and he preaches the gospel. And when he goes there, it's so interesting. The reason he has to share, is somewhat surprising or why he shares is surprising because Cornelius is a good person. It says he's a man of good repute.
Joel Brooks:He's a man who prays continually. He's a man who gives alms to the poor. This guy is better than most of us here in this room. Cornelius is. And God says, alright, he's great, but I'm gonna send you to him not to tweak a few things, not to tell him to keep do it going, you know, the way he's going.
Joel Brooks:He only needs to maybe change a couple of things. You need to go and tell him that he needs to repent and he needs to be converted. He is a good, moral, happy man, yet he is lost and he has to be converted. And so Peter goes to him. And we looked at last time in Acts how much this this teaches us about the nature of our mission.
Joel Brooks:And we don't share our faith in order to make people better people. Cornelius was about as a good of a person as he could get, yet he still needed to hear the gospel. We don't share our faith in order to make people happy. Cornelius was a pretty happy guy. We go because we are passionate about the glory of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And we want to see everybody submit to the lordship of our King. That gives us such incredible joy to see others joining us and praise. And that's what we see here in acts chapter 10 and acts chapter 11. The worship of Jesus is our fuel for evangelism. Hear me.
Joel Brooks:So so the best way that I can make sure we are a mission minded church is not for me to get up here and do a little PowerPoint presentation on on how we could be more global focused, how we can have a more effective strategy for reaching the world. It's not for me to get up there and kinda hammer guilt on you for why you're not on the mission field or why you're not giving more things like that. The best way that I can make us a mission minded church is to constantly hold up Jesus as supreme. And the more and more you see Jesus as beautiful, the more and more, every time you open up the word, you see him as a more glorious, you will share. I pray that would be true of us.
Joel Brooks:Real quick, I wanna look at it a few things. Five bullet points for us to pray through for this coming year coming from Acts 10 and 11. Things that I hope for for us as a church. One, I hope we would be people who chew on his word. I don't know if you've ever wondered this, but why does God speak to people in visions?
Joel Brooks:Have you have you ever wondered? I mean, he's a pretty amazing communicator and yet he does not go to Peter and say, hey, Peter, go to a man named Cornelius and share your faith with him, which would have been pretty straightforward. Instead, he sends a vision of a blanket with, like, pigs and reptiles and stuff and it comes down. And and God says, alright, Peter, go. I mean, what what the heck does that mean?
Joel Brooks:I mean, there there's a sort of blank. Why does God do this? And all throughout scripture, he sends visions. He communicates that way. It tells us something about the nature of God and what he wants us to do.
Joel Brooks:Look at chapter 10 verse 17. This is the comforting verse. It says, Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, I spend a lot of my time there. A lot of my time when I'm studying scripture and I'm coming to something, I am inwardly perplexed. I have no idea what I'm actually reading.
Joel Brooks:Verse 19, and while Peter was pondering the vision, the spirit said to him, behold, 3 men are looking for you. And then Peter gets it. And so you have God communicating himself in this perplexing way. And Peter takes it, and he ponders it, and he chews on it. And then the spirit of God illuminates it, and then he goes, I want that for us as a church.
Joel Brooks:To take the hard truths of God, to dig into his word, those perplexing truths, and to keep digging into the spirit of God illuminates them and tells us to go. 2nd, I want us to go outside our comfort zones. Actually think we're in a better position to do that meeting here than than we were at Girls Incorporated. I I think we're at a great place that can reach many different classes, many different, people of educational backgrounds, many different races, better than we were there. This is hard.
Joel Brooks:Do you realize Peter should have gotten this message at Pentecost when everybody's speaking different languages? He doesn't get it. So God sends him a vision. And, so he he gets his vision and, and he's still perplexed. Still doesn't know what it means.
Joel Brooks:And finally, when when he does figure it out and he does go ahead and he shares a Cornelius, later he's gonna forget the message and Paul's gonna have to go to him and rebuke him to his face because he's still refusing to meet with people not like him. So Peter gets it, forgets it, gets it, forgets it, gets it, forgets it Over and over. This has to be pounded in Peter throughout his life. 3rd, I want us to be a people that simply declare the glory of Jesus and the gospel. Nothing else.
Joel Brooks:I love it. Then when Peter goes and he talks to Cornelius, he, you know, he, he simply tells him about the lordship of Jesus. Spirit of God falls. I mean, he he didn't he didn't beat around the bush. He didn't try to make Jesus somehow relevant.
Joel Brooks:You know, he he he didn't feel the need to go to all that. All he he realized he needed to do is I need to clearly present Jesus and nothing else. And when the spirit of God sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus, he will fall. And I want us to be a people that clearly present Jesus in the gospel. 4th, it'll be kinda hard for me to explain this one.
Joel Brooks:I want us to be a people who, who kind of have meetings like they had asking, is God allowed to do this? We we have to see if God is allowed to do this. And you find that all through acts, God works in power and you're like, guys, get together. Alright. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Can God do this? Here, God falls here. First thing that happens, God falls on these Gentiles. It's like church leaders gather together. We got to decide, is God allowed to do this?
Joel Brooks:I want us as a church to see God move in such a way. It shakes us, shakes us. It it makes us think, wow. God, you're different than how I'd originally thought. I want god to move in such power in our midst.
Joel Brooks:It shakes us. 5th, this comes to chapter 11 verse 21. Do a whole message on this. Says, and let's write 2 pages. And the hand of the lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the lord.
Joel Brooks:I hope you see that there is a distinction between belief and turning to the lord. There. A great number who believed then turned to the lord, which is what we want to turn to the lord. I think that there are many Christians sitting in churches who believe, but they haven't turned to the lord. They they they've grown up in Sunday school.
Joel Brooks:The stories of the bible are I mean, they could they could recite them backwards, get hidden meanings out of them. They, they, they, they know the stories. Yeah. When it comes to a day by day, turning your life, looking at the Lord, it's not there. They just simply believe these things, but they've yet to turn to the Lord.
Joel Brooks:I am certain there are many people here in this room that describes you. I want us to be a people who not only believe these things, but then once we believe them, we now turn to the Lord. I believe this. Now what Lord, I want to hear from you. I want to serve you.
Joel Brooks:I want to worship you. I want to go wherever you tell me to go. I want to do whatever you told me to do. Do. I turn to you.
Joel Brooks:I want to see that happen in our midst this coming year. I want to see those 5 things happen all for the glory of Jesus.
