We have talked about sacrifice. We have talked about surrender. We have talked about commitment. When we have pursued these three essential elements of seeing God’s kingdom advancing work increase and expand in our midst, there’s just one thing left to do: Celebrate. But how we celebrate matters. As we wrap up this teaching series and enter together into the glorious future to which God is leading us, let’s talk about the best way to celebrate kingdom successes. Spoiler alert: It is an entirely more active process than we might imagine.
Doubling Down
So, my baseball team is not playing in the World Series right now. We could have. Our pitching was certainly good enough. Our manager definitely deserves great credit for his part of the effort. The Royals are one of three teams in baseball history to have gone from losing more than 100 games in a season to making the Playoffs the next. That kind of a turnaround doesn’t happen on talent alone. And for most of the season, we hit the ball pretty well. We were way ahead in the runs scored versus runs allowed statistic. Almost 100 ahead in fact. That was a pretty dramatic change from last year all by itself. In fact, we scored more total runs this season than Cleveland who won the division. If we had won as many games as our runs scored versus runs allowed stat suggested, we would have won the division instead of them. But from the All-Star break forward, we gradually hit the ball less and less, and as a result, we scored fewer and fewer runs. We didn’t do the things that had propelled us to first place in the division more than once earlier in the season. As a result, our success waned. And our Cinderella run ended.
When we experience success of some kind, the best way to respond to that success is not merely to sit back on our laurels and enjoy it. The best way to respond is to double down on the things that brought about the success in the first place in order that we can experience more of it. The Royals experienced more success than they have at any point in nearly the last decade. This was the first time we had finished above .500 since we won the World Series in 2015. But then our bats went cold. We coasted as long as we could on the success of the first half of the season, but when you cut the engine out on the plane while it’s in mid-air, it’s only a matter of time before it hits the ground. The only question is how hard the landing will be.
Today we are witnessing and celebrating together God’s work in our midst. We are seeing some of the fruits of your faithful labors for the Gospel come to bear. We have seen it in the baptisms we delighted in a little while ago. We experienced it as we remembered where all of this activity comes from in the first place with the Lord’s Supper. We can rejoice together at the fruits of our collective commitment to sacrificial generosity. You have so far committed to give almost a quarter of a million dollars to our effort to expand and renovate our old sanctuary building over the next three years, and the commitments haven’t stopped coming in. If you haven’t yet made your commitment to this effort, and if God is so leading you, last week was not a one-shot affair. Don’t miss your chance to be an active part in God’s provision for us to continue to be a part of His work unfolding in our midst and going forward to see His kingdom expand outward from here.
All this month, we have been talking about how we can experience and continue to extend that very thing. It starts with a commitment to living a sacrificial lifestyle. Growing God’s kingdom requires us to walk a path of sacrifice. But it’s not enough to simply say no to the things that could prevent us from doing that. We have to actively surrender ourselves to God’s call, willing to follow His lead instead of our own. The way forward when we do this isn’t always immediately clear beyond the first step or two, but God’s record of faithfulness is clear. Surrender means saying yes even when we can’t see how. Yet while saying yes is necessary, it’s not sufficient on its own. We have to follow through on that yes with a commitment that holds up over time. As we talked about last time, God always blesses this kind of a commitment from His people. God honors a life of commitment to His kingdom.
If we do all of these things, kingdom success will never be far behind. But doing them just once, while good, only gets us so far. We have to be willing to continue doing them again and again and again over time. If we want to continue experiencing the success we have enjoyed, we have to keep doing the things that contributed to the success in the first place. In order to help us see this together, I want to take you to one of the most powerful stories in Luke’s history of the early church we call Acts. If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you, find your way with me to Acts 4. This story is as powerful as it is incredible. And it all starts with a church that was experiencing some pretty potent Gospel success.
Over the course of His final conversation with the disciples before the ordeal of the cross, one of the more stunning things Jesus told them was that they were going to do even greater things than He had done. Given the kinds of things they had seen Him do, this had to seem to them to be a pretty far-fetched claim. How were they going to heal people like He had? How were they going to teach so powerfully? How were they going to meaningfully advance God’s kingdom? And yet, early on after the church exploded into existence, the disciples found themselves doing just what Jesus had done and more. They taught powerfully. They faced down the religious elite of Jerusalem. They healed people. There were even reports that people were healed merely by having Peter’s shadow pass over them as he walked past.
All of their miraculous activities and charismatic teachings were starting to attract quite a following. The Jewish religious authorities were not a fan of all of this. After overseeing the crucifixion of Jesus, they figured they had dealt with the problem of His troublesome but far-too-popular heretical ministry. Now His followers were out doing and saying the same sorts of things. Didn’t these fools realize that if the religious leaders had had their Teacher crucified they could oversee their own deaths as well?
Luke tells us in the beginning of Acts 4 that the Sadducees had Peter and John arrested while they were preaching in the temple for being annoying to them. After letting them rot in a cell overnight, they brought them to their chambers the next morning for questioning and a thorough dressing down. For their part, the pair responded with incredible conviction and courage. These guys hadn’t had any of the formal training that should have been necessary for them to be able to defend themselves and in deeply scriptural terms as they were. The only explanation the members of the Sanhedrin could come up with is that they had been with Jesus. Besides, the man whose healing started this whole commotion was standing next to them still healed. The council members had themselves seen him lying lame along the entrance to the temple complex so they couldn’t very well deny the truth staring them in the face.
They warned Peter and John to keep quiet about all of this Jesus stuff from now on, but the pair retorted, “Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide; for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” In the end, all they could really do was to warn them again, threatening them with even more punishment if they didn’t toe the line. Rome wouldn’t let them go any further than that. So, after doing that much, they let them go.
When Peter and John were released, they went back to the rest of the believers to tell them what had happened. The group had been gathered and praying fervently for them. The report of the two courageous disciples spurred them on to even more prayer. Luke managed to find someone who remembered the prayer that was prayed. Matthew was probably there taking notes. Look with me at Acts 4:24.
“When they heard this, they raised their voices together to God and said, ‘Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them. You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David, your servant: ‘Why do the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot futile things? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against the Lord and against his Messiah.’ For, in fact, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your will had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand for healing, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
Now, we have talked about this before, but this is a remarkably powerful prayer. It is a remarkably bold and courageous prayer. The people could have prayed for a lot of things here given what Peter and John had just been through. They could have prayed for protection or preservation or caution. They could have prayed for God to keep any bad things that the Jewish religious leaders had planned for them from happening. But they didn’t do any of that. They prayed for boldness. More specifically, they prayed that God would enable them to speak His words with all boldness. They had gotten a taste of the results of Gospel boldness and they wanted more.
Again, though, we have talked about all of that before. What I want to draw your attention to this morning is what happened when they prayed. When God’s people, the members of the very first church, got together and prayed in response to the challenges they were facing from the religious authorities of the Jewish people, something happened. Luke tells us about it in v. 31: “When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.”
So, what is this? The people prayed for boldness in response to the ministry successes, but also challenges they had been facing together. In return, God answered their prayer. Boldness had gotten them into the trouble they had just made it through. But it was a kingdom-directed boldness. Jesus had told the disciples that this kind of response would be coming when they sought to proclaim His kingdom. He had told them that responses like this were evidence they were on the right track. And so, as a result, when they did what Jesus said and experienced what Jesus told them they would likely experience for doing it, they doubled down on it and asked God to help them experience more. And so He did.
What Luke is describing here is not something like a physical earthquake. It isn’t something physical at all. He’s talking about a powerful movement of God’s Spirit among them. In filling them with the presence of His Spirit, in giving them by that the assurance that He was indeed with them, He was equipping them with the courage to continue boldly proclaiming the resurrection to anyone who would listen. And so they did. They began to speak the word of God boldly. And wouldn’t you know it, the church kept on growing. God’s kingdom kept on advancing. There was more pushback and persecution. Eventually one of their number was martyred and many of them had to flee the city so they weren’t killed as well. But they couldn’t stop speaking about what they had seen and heard and experienced with gracious, courageous, gentle boldness. And the more they did, the more people believed it; the more God’s kingdom grew.
We have experienced the movement of God’s Spirit in our midst here lately, and it has been really powerful to behold. Challenges have come and will continue to come. No, no one has attacked our church, but I know many of you have experienced personal challenges that were aimed and designed to throw you off your faithful track. Some of you still are. Some of you encountered new ones just this week. Yet we have persisted together. We have boldly walked forward even to the point now of publicly committing our resources to seeing His kingdom advance through the expansion and renovation of our facilities here.
My friends, now is not the time to sit back and rest. Now is not the time to simply idly enjoy what God has given us. Now is the time for us to continue to push forward together toward His kingdom. Now is the time to double down on the efforts that have brought us to this place with God’s abiding presence and help. Now is the time to celebrate by committing to even more kingdom growth together. The best way to celebrate God’s work is to commit to even more of it.
Let this be a moment that whets our appetite, not satisfies it. God has done great work. He’s done it in our past. We are experiencing it together in our present. There’s not a single reason in the world to think He doesn’t have more planned in our future. We want more. So, let’s pursue it. Let’s make our pursuit of it the substance of our celebration. The best way to celebrate God’s work is to commit to even more of it.
And how do we do that? By continuing forward with the same boldness that has gotten us here with God’s help. Remember? That’s what the church here in Jerusalem did. Boldness got them into their mess. God got them out of it. So they kept moving forward with more boldness. They prayed for boldness. They actively sought out more and more opportunities to grow God’s kingdom, to proclaim the message of the risen Christ in word and deed. They gained the favor of all the people around them who weren’t already committed to opposing them by living out the love of Christ with faithfulness and boldness. These same approaches even started to convince their biggest critics. They celebrated their Gospel success by boldly pursuing more of it, and so more of it was exactly what they got. The best way to celebrate God’s work is to commit to even more of it.
So, let us commit to it together. Let us commit to engaging with the Scriptures regularly and consistently wherein we find the words of the Lord that reveal His identity and purposes to us so that we can align our own with His and Him. Let us commit to engaging with God through prayer regularly and consistently so that we can come to know Him more as He reveals Himself to us as individuals and as a group. The more we know Him, the more we’ll trust Him. The more we trust Him, the more we’ll be willing to do life His way. The more we do life His way, the more the people around us will see what kingdom life looks like and be drawn to it. Let us commit to engaging with the church regularly and consistently by being here. God will give us all the resources we need to accomplish all the ministry and missions He has planned for us to do. A major part of those resources is sitting and looking at me right now. We can’t do what God has called us to do without you. And you. And you. All of us together as one pursuing the bold advance of God’s kingdom. The best way to celebrate God’s work is to commit to even more of it. Let us do that and rejoice in what He does together.
The Nexus 
Interestingly, or to be honest unsurprisingly, Intercessory Prayer has been demonstrated to have no positive effects whatsoever. In fact in the largest study of its kind conducted by the Templeton Foundation the health of some patients who were aware they were being prayed for actually suffered.
As Harris pointed out in the video on the previous post, over nine million children die each year, (4.9 in 2022) many from preventable diseases and many while their Christian and non-Christian parents prayed for them til they cried metaphorical tears of blood. And all the whole your loving (sic) god, Yahweh did Diddly Squat.
Under such cruel and horrendous circumstances and completele callous indifference why the Gehenna do you think Yahweh is going to give your piddling little congregation one iota of attention?
The mere thought from you that prayer would illicit any sort of positive reaction is the height of disgusting arrogance that beggers belief.
In fact, even if your god were real a good sign of this would be for him… oh, I’m sorry.. Him to reach down and give you and your pew warmers a resounding wack alongside the ear, with the admonishment:
“If I can’t do a damn thing for all those poor kids or their parents what the Hell makes you think you are so chuffiing special that I would bother answering your piss – willy, whiny prayers? Grow up, for My sake and have some humility.”
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You’ve mentioned the Templeton Foundation study before. Twice. And both times I explained as far as demonstrating something about prayer goes, the study was entirely worthless because it was rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of prayer.
The assumptions your comment here seems to be running on are that suffering can have no enduringly positive purpose, and that God couldn’t possibly have a good reason to allow it to exist. I understand why those two assumptions are so easy to make, but they are themselves rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of God as the Christian worldview has always held to (most notably that He exists in the first place). As long as you insist on operating from such a standpoint, you’ll think pretty much what you lay out here. I don’t operate from such a worldview standpoint, so this whole comment comes across as little more than sound and fury without any substance to it.
By the way, I haven’t watched the Harris video yet, but I’d be lying if I said I expected it to move the needle very much for me. The arguments against religion he makes that I’ve encountered so far have generally been pretty unimpressive.
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The Templeton Foundation is a Christian Based organization.
It isn’t my misunderstanding of your god, Yahweh. But yours.
I merely relayed the outcome of said experiment.
I am surprised you didn’t investigate it?
Anyway, the fact is if you Christians can’t get it right and need to run tests/ experiments and cannot agree on the premise / purpose of intercessory prayer or how your god works then it would seem the fundamental missunderstanding is all yours, does it not?
Be this as it may, perhaps you could explain why your god, Yahweh is so callous or at best indifferent to the 4 million plus under five children who die every year?
I would seriously be very interested in hearing your take.
Harris’ approach is well thought, erudite with a comprehensive understanding of the real world problems involved including the claims of supernaturalism and reality.
By the way, you still have not properly addressed my question regarding which is the best worldview that comports with reality and why.
Another answer I am keen to hear your take on.
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While I do appreciate the irony of your insisting to me, a Christian pastor, that you as an atheist understand the nature of God better than I do, you’ll have to excuse me for remaining somewhat unconvinced on the merits of the argument there.
If I honestly believed you were genuinely interested in exploring together a Christian understanding of suffering and God’s character, I could probably be persuaded to engage in one. As of yet, I’ve seen no such evidence and a great deal of evidence to the contrary, so, no thank you on that one.
I’m sure you were very convinced by Harris’ arguments. You wouldn’t have otherwise shared the video with me.
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I did not insist such a thing at all. You need to read a more closely.
I merely related the info from the Templeton experiment which is what you disagreed with.
You then asserted I lacked understanding, or I missunderstood, when in fact the misunderstanding is yours because you disagree with the results that came out of the experiment run by Templeton.
They wanted to test the power of intercessory prayer. Not me. I already consider it is all bullshit.
Maybe you should do your own experiment?
What evidence could possibly mitigate the preventable annual deaths of around 4 million children a great many of whom are Christian, under five, while you arrogantly expect your god, Yahweh to intercede in some fashion on your behalf?
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You know Jonathan, I made an earnest, genuine effort in fair sportsmanship to engage you here on blog-site (on Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3) with you and yet when I post on my blog an invitation for you to return the favor (in fair sportsmanship) to engage me over on MY site, you completely ignored me. This is very disappointing and reflects poorly on your integrity. It also implies that YOU never had any intention of taking me seriously—a slap across the face.
I must be honest with you sir, you are NOT what you portray to your congregation or your blog followers. Sorry. 😒
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If you’ll recall, I said to you at the time that I appreciated the offer, that I would gladly read the piece, and that I would share my thoughts, but that you were going to have to be patient. My last couple of weeks have been exceedingly busy. The little bit of time I have available for this is almost entirely taken up by the time necessary to reply to comments on my own blog. You can thank Ark for eating up most of that time. I haven’t ignored you partially or completely. You have simply grown impatient and rather than accepting what I said to you have chosen to attack me and my character. If one of us is being uncourteous to the other, it seems like you are the only one who has crossed that line. I will still gladly read the piece and share my thoughts. But it will happen as soon as I am able to make time for that and not before. My family gets my first and best attention, then my congregation, then my own blog. You will have to get in line and be patient. If you don’t like that, I really can’t help you. But I will indeed stand by my word, your doubts about my character to the side.
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Mr. Waits, I think there are four things you have observed wrongly or are skewed about in your response:
P.S. I am very disappointed that you did not keep your word to leave our dialogues alone on “Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3” as you said you would. That was a lie Mr. Waits, nothing less, plain and simple. I hope you find it in your heart to resolve that betrayal by you.
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You said there were four things wrong and went on to list five. I’ll assume you meant five at the beginning. I’ll respond to each in turn.
1. Honoring my word. If a comment is no longer present, you can blame WordPress for that. I have not ever deleted a single one of your comments, and don’t plan on it. I have not ever fallen short of honoring my word to you or anyone else in this regard. Unless and until you have all your facts straight, perhaps refrain from making accusations in the future. The post you searched to find our dialogue (Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3) went live yesterday. You never commented on that post. Or, if you did, the comments never reached my comment inbox. We certainly did not ever have a dialogue on that post. Perhaps you are thinking of another post from sometime last week or further back in the history of our interactions. If so, I will accept your apology for accusing me unjustly and incorrectly of dishonesty.
2. Patience. You don’t have the slightest idea what my normal rhythms and schedule are like. If you took it upon yourself to frame out expectations on what would be a timely response from me for a request like you made without seeking my input, that’s on you, not me. If you would like to frame out a reasonable timeline for patience that actually includes my input, just let me know.
3. Response Times. I almost never engage with anything on my blog on the weekends. Those are for family. That leaves four other days, not including this one. I only rarely engage with my blog in the evenings unless a comment will only require a short response. I write in the early mornings, and don’t often give attention to responding to comments then. That leaves the few hours of the workday left for offering the kind of engagement you are seeking. While I will regularly take a few seconds to respond to a comment that requires only a short response during the day as a welcome thought break from the other work I am doing, longer engagements get prioritized down the list. Your articles are typically long. Far longer and more detailed, in fact, than a cursory read can satisfactorily consume to be able to offer a constructive, thoughtful engagement. The time I have available to do that kind of engagement is exceedingly thin whether you wish to believe that or not. And, now that I have felt the need to respond more thoroughly than I normally would to yet another negative assessment of my character, the time I might have had today to give to reading your piece and offering a thoughtful response has now gone to this which means you’ll have to just keep on waiting. If you don’t like that…well…I guess that’s just too bad.
4. Ark. Ark is a very regular and very active commenter on my blog. I try to respond to as many of his comments as I can on my blog, although I don’t hit every single one of them. Responding to Ark eats up most of the time I am willing to give to this exercise simply by virtue of volume. Going and reading other posts on other blogs from other writers is something I do very infrequently. Commenting on other blogs is something I do even less frequently. I don’t plan on changing that. Ask Ark. He’s been asking me for months to come and comment on one post or another on his blog. I have yet to accept his invitation. As you noted, I accepted an invitation once from Gary, and other than a very short reply to Ark’s subsequent comment, I did not response to anything else that was said. I don’t plan to. I don’t have the time for those kinds of interactions. What I do on my own blog eats up all the time I am willing to give to it. I have neither embellished nor exaggerated anything about my workload. You’re operating without the benefit of actual facts beyond simple observations that are entirely one-sided in nature.
5. My Character. You made a negative assessment of my character in your complaint to me that I had not yet read and commented on your own blog. I chose the word “attack” to characterize it. If you would prefer a different word, I suppose you are welcome to do so. And you are welcome to assess my character however you feel you need to. With respect, that’s not an assessment with which I am going to greatly concern myself. In this case, you are basing much of your negative assessment on my having deleted comments on a post on which you never even commented in the first place. So again, do your homework a little more closely, get your facts straight, and then come back and we can talk again.
As for your last part about where Jesus directed His followers to focus their Gospel-advancing time and energy, while we are certainly encouraged to go out into the world and make disciples, when the message gets rejected in one place, we are not called to give undue attention to trying to gain a hearing from an individual or group who aren’t interested in the message. We are to refrain from casting pearls before swine and go on to the next opportunity. So, no, my choosing to give my first and best attention to the congregation I have been called to lead instead of taking more time than I already give to engaging with atheist commenters on my blog who have already long since rejected the Gospel message (not to mention the whole of Christianity and religion more generally), who by all observations I’ve been able to make are not honestly interested in going back on that rejection, and who spend most of their time trying (in vain) to convince me to abandon my own faith is not even remotely inconsistent with Jesus’ direction for His followers. Nice try.
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😄 Well, at least I brought out another side of you. I’d imagine it is a side rarely, if ever seen at your church. 😉
Nevertheless, I hope you keep this dialogue posted rather than delete it—that’s the gentlemanly thing to do. I also hope you put back up our entire dialogue over on Digging Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3.
P.S. Thank you for responding so fast! 🙂
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There was never any dialogue between you and me on that post. You are mistaken in thinking there ever was. I’m not sure which dialogue you are looking for, but it wasn’t ever there. And, no, I won’t take this dialogue down any more than I have any other.
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Would you like me to post all of it, every single line between you and me on “Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3? I’d be happy to show you that it is no longer up on that post.
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If you have proof of a dialogue between you and me on yesterday’s post, I would be glad for you to share it. I have looked and seen that there is no dialogue between you and me on yesterday’s post. However, I don’t have the first record of it anywhere on my blog’s back end. Nor do I have any memory of our dialoging on that particular post. So, yes, if you have proof to the contrary, please share it.
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Ahh, my bad, my mistake… you’ve got several/many “Digging in Deeper” posts of multiple Exodus passages. I got lost in all of them. 😄 Or you’ve been juggling them around everywhere; who knows. I am now going back thru your plethora of Exodus passages under “Digging in Deeper” to see if you’ve removed them… or shuffling these posts around to play magic tricks on me. 😉
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I’m going to assume that’s an apology. If so, I’ll accept it.
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Yes, that was indeed an apology. I didn’t realize that I was inside a thick jungle of Exodus passages everywhere. 😉
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Accepted.
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👍 My invitation still stands over on my blog post for you and my followers, if you can find the time and courage. 😉
Laugh. Humor. 🙂
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See, even you are confused too. Of course I am not talking about “Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 29:18. If you recall, we started dialoguing on Oct. 17 under the post “Digging in Deeper: Exodus 34:15-16” Page 2. Hahaha.
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There was no confusion on my part. I was very clear in my confidence that you were incorrect and unwarranted in your accusation that I had been dishonest in my saying that I would not delete your comments. I maintained this clarity when after my challenging your assertion you responded by doubling down (ironic given the title of the post where this is unfolding) on your accusation rather than getting your facts straight. So again, if what you are doing is issuing an apology, I accept it.
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Well, I better adjust my over all assessment of you from human to human perfection of confusion-lessness, ever. 😉
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Oh, I’m plenty confused on some things. Just not this one. I tend to know my limits 😉
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And now I’ve skimmed your post. I don’t have anything I feel the need to comment on there, and so I don’t plan to. If at some point in the future I find myself with sufficient time to read it more carefully and more thoroughly, perhaps I will, but don’t expect a comment either way.
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Well, thank you for staying true to form Mr. Waits, true to your character. Sorry we wasted so much time for each other and for YOUR blog audience. I’ve seen how you engage Ark. He and I engage Christians differently, whether they’re ministers, scholars, or laypeople. My gut tells me I make you very uncomfortable with my own Christian background, study, and experiences. I had hoped that would’ve put you more at ease. Sorry you are bugging out.
I hope you’ll put back up our previous dialogue over on Digging in Deeper: Exodus 35:1-3.
Best regards to you
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You have yet to make me uncomfortable. But my integrity is something I take seriously. So, if I sound somewhat irritated, that’s because I am. You made a very specific charge that is not true and accused me of lying about it. I wish you all the best as well.
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👍 I rightfully and respectfully disagree. I think my charge was spot on. 🙂
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