Sermon Tone Analysis

Does my life make a difference?

What am I here for?

What is my purpose?

What does God want from me?

As we continue to look at the Book of Acts this weekend, we are going to try and answer some of these questions.

See Jesus was the original Difference Maker.

He came 2,000 years ago and He made a difference.

He changed the world.

Why did He do that?

Why did He come and live and teach and die and rise again?

Because the world was broken.

Because it was wrong.

The world wasn’t what God created it to be.

Jesus came and He willingly gave Himself, the Bible says, and He became a difference maker, and then He established the church.

I’m so excited about this series.

We’re going to study the church because it began with Jesus.

Then it began with just a ragtag group of people.

Here is God’s plan.

I’m going to tell you upfront what my desire is...

We have about 45 people that attend church here off and on.

What if we could mobilize every one of us?

What if we all would go wherever God has called us to...in the place we live in out towns and the workplaces and the schools, whatever?

What if Jesus could live through us, and we could be difference makers, and He could change the world through us?

See I’m just radical enough to believe that if you’re a Christian, if you’re a Christ follower, then your family should be better off because of it.

If you’re a Christ follower, the school you go to should be better off because you’re in it.

If you’re a Christ follower, the place where you work should be a better environment to work because Jesus is living through you by the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you’re a Christ follower, your neighbors should be glad you live there.

Randolph ought to be glad that this church is here because the church makes a difference in the lives of those who matter to God...which is everybody.

See that’s the vision and that’s what happened in Acts, chapter 1.

Acts 1:1–3 (ESV)

1In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

2until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

3He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Why did He appear to them from time to time?

It says,

Acts 1:3 (NLT)

3… he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive…

What difference did that make?

That meant He was God.

He was who He said He was, and He appeared to hundreds of them from time to time...as many as 500 at one time.

appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

What we’re going to do today is we’re going to study one of these occasions when He sat down with a group of believers and He talked to them about the kingdom of God.

"This is what your life is going to look like in the next few days and weeks," He says.

"You’re going to be a world changer.

You’re going to make a difference.

You’re not going to believe the difference your life is going to make."

Well, I want to be a world-changer.

I trust that you do too.

God has called every one of us to it.

I hope by the end of the message you will realize that.

How do you change your world?

The first thing is kind of surprising.

The first instruction that He gave them and that is this...you take a timeout.

Take a Timeout

You don’t get started right away.

You take a timeout.

Look at the next verse, verse 4.

Acts 1:4 (NLT)

4Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before.

He had a mission for them that was going to reach, not only Jerusalem, but the surrounding area and the entire world.

And He said, " Don’t get started too quickly.

You need to take a timeout."

Timeouts are good, aren’t they?

When do you need a timeout?

You need a timeout when the world is coming at you too fast.

You need a timeout when you don’t understand things.

You need a timeout when things are changing quickly.

You need a timeout just to stop and to think.

Every once in a while, we need a timeout.

Jesus says to the new church, "Don’t get started yet.

Things are crazy right now.

Take a timeout."

See timeouts were important to Jesus.

Jesus took timeouts before every major challenge He had.

When He first went into ministry, He took a 40-day timeout in the desert...a time of fasting and prayer.

Then He started His ministry.

When He chose His first disciples, He took a timeout.

He went away by Himself, and He prayed, all through the night it said, before He did it.

Before He went to the Cross, you know what He did.

He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and He took a timeout to get perspective.

Timeouts are important.

Some of the best things I’ve received from God have been during timeouts.

I try to have little bitty mini timeouts every day.

Do you do that?

I try to have a timeout before I go to work, before I face the world...pray just a little bit, listen to my audio Bible just a little bit because I don’t know what’s going to be coming at me that day.

Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s challenging.

Do you guys have those kinds of days?

So, I take a mini timeout, try to take a mini timeout.

Then during the day sometimes when life is going fast or you know, I don’t know what to do.

I take a mini timeout and I’ll just whisper a prayer.

A lot of times, for me, it’s just claiming Scripture in the Bible...James, chapter 1, verse 5, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask."

God will give it... and I claim it, have a mini timeout.

It just gives me a sense of perspective and a sense of God’s power flowing through my life.

Then every week I try to take a kind of a Sabbath timeout on a day I don’t have to work, where I don’t think about the things I normally think about...just kind of reflect, meditate, veg, kind of just take a timeout so that God can reenergize and refill.

There have been several instances in my life when I was getting ready for kind of the next season of my life and timeouts really helped me to hear God.

Before Moved to Saipan to start a church, my family and I took a few weeks off for a time out.

Before I went to Whiting, Vermont to minister at that church, I took a time out the April before.

Just a week to pray and search God and His will.

Before I went to minister out in California, I took a time out.

I had nothing else going on so I went to the beach with my family and talked to God while I fished!