Behold. Become. Banquet..

All right, guys. I think this is our last message in Acts, I believe. Nope, just kidding. We have one more. Are you doing that one, Sean? Nice.

The Book of Acts

Then we had Saul. He was the head of persecuting Christians, imprisoning them, and even murdering them. And yet Jesus saw more than that within Saul. He knew his true identity and brought it out of him over time. He transformed Saul into Paul. One of the most courageous, faithful, and instrumental leaders in spreading the good news.

Let's have Hannah come up and read our scripture for today.

From Troas, we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace. And the next day we went to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river where we expected to find a place of prayer. We went and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us into her home. "If you consider me a believer of the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.

Acts 16:11-15

Father, thank you so much that you brought us here today together. Thank you that you've given us recorded stories like this and so many others where there's just a person who maybe we can relate to in some ways. You just show your faithfulness. You show your handiwork, you show your majesty, and you display it through them.

We know that you're the same God of scripture. We know that you don't just stop doing incredible things. Jesus, we know that you actually said that we'll do even more amazing works than what you did.

Spirit, thank you for being our leader and guide. I just ask that you would guide this time together, whatever you want it to be. Just help us to be sensitive to it, to follow you. We trust you, Lord. Amen.

All right, thanks Hannah for reading that. Yeah, Lydia is kind of the main person that we're going to be using as inspiration today. She's pretty cool. If you want to glance back at your Bibles, I'm gonna pretty much go through that Scripture.

So this is Paul and Luke's first time in Europe, which is pretty exciting. It's a town called Philippi, and it was not exactly a Yahweh-fearing place. They're looking for a place of prayer instead of there being a synagogue. There's a river, a really beautiful river. And there's apparently a group of women at the river devoted to Yahweh and praying on the Sabbath, which is awesome.

Paul and Luke end up sharing with this group of women the gospel. Jesus has come. The Messiah has come. He died. He rose again. Our waiting is over. The kingdom is here.

Lydia is one person out of that group that we get to learn more about. But she hears that and something in her is just brought to life. She's like: okay, that is it. Yes, I'm in. She's with her household. The whole house is baptized. They all become like: okay, we got to do something here. Let's meet at my house.

Her house becomes one of the first documented house churches in Europe. Lydia ends up being a leader of a house church, and that house church most likely is one of the reasons a lot of us are here today. So good job, Lydia. You did amazing.

But I love this story because it serves as an inspiration of what a heart truly given over to the Lord can do. The thing about Lydia I remember from Sunday school is that she was a dealer in purple cloth. When I was studying this time, that was definitely not the thing I'm like: "Oh, that's what we should remember her for." This passage is very different.

The last time I preached on Acts, I had a cheat code. I was giving a sermon based on someone else's sermon. I pretty much just had to read what they said. It was amazing. But this time it's a story. How do I do this?

I would say the two things that continued to come to the surface as I was reading this text and praying are two themes, and they're connected. But there's teaching, and at the end I'm actually going to open up time for us to just be together. So there's going to be a little bit more time after worship and prayer.

But the two themes, if you're taking notes, would be: we become whole through beholding God. We become whole through beholding God. And we host the God who hosts us.

I haven't really done a sermon title. The banquet might be like a decent title because it's all B's, you know.

Behold, Become, Banquet

So our main scripture for today is Acts 16. The previous weeks, we've been looking at the book of Acts and the Holy Spirit guiding the local church through Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and now into Europe for the first time. We've gotten to see very ordinary, fractured, doubting people brought together in unity and power for like the first time.

We had people like Peter. Right, Peter was like the most and tens closest disciples. He was like: I'll never deny you. It'll never happen. They'll never take you from me. And then he's at a fire with a girl and he denies Jesus verbally three times that he even knows him. Probably one of the biggest fails in like the recorded scripture.

And yet the Spirit does not just throw him away. Jesus doesn't discard him. He's like, no, you're me, and do something amazing with you. And he becomes the rock of the church in his earlier times in terms of like things he was doing with the church.

Then we had Saul. The head of like persecuting Christians and imprisonment and even murder. And yet Jesus saw more than that within Saul. He knew his true identity and he brought that out of him over time and he transformed him into Paul. One of the most courageous, faithful, and instrumental leaders in spreading the good news.

Like the book of Acts is more so about the acts of the Holy Spirit. He does amazing things in people regardless if they're broken or fractured.

The Father delights in us now and he's committed to our transformation just as he delighted in his church in Acts. So if you're here today and you're feeling slightly broken or fractured, or you're going through fear or anxiety or whatever it is, just know your Father. He's not going to abandon you. He doesn't leave us broken.

I love Philippians 1:6. It says:

Being confident of the dawn to completion until the day of the Lord Jesus. Or it says, I'm fully convinced that the one who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

So we have that confidence today that whether you're in here and feeling just amazing about everything and like you're just super passionate and on fire, or if you're like maybe a little bit broken or like you feel disjointed, it's all good because he's not done. He's just getting, he's just getting going.

We Become Whole Through Beholding God

So if someone were to describe you with two attributes, right? Lydia was kind of brought to our attention as a seller of purple cloth and a worshiper of God. Those are like the two kind of, what two of the attributes that were given.

So if someone were to describe you with two attributes right now, and you're to be brutally honest about it. Close your eyes and imagine what those two attributes might be. Just be as honest as you can. Don't tell anybody, just internally. Okay.

Now picture yourself in 5, 10, 20 years. But this time, imagine the two attributes that you want to be known for. Okay, so close your eyes. All right. Okay, so I don't know about most of you, but for me, they were not the same. Okay, it might not even be that the two attributes now are bad. They could be good things, but it could be that what your heart really wants of your life for yourself is maybe something greater or like more or just different than what is actually happening right now.

And I feel like becoming whole is a great topic because I feel like a lot of us are actually partially fractured and that's part of the human experience. So that's what we're going to talk about to start off.

But the best scripture, I feel like to just sum this up really quickly, this like gap is Paul saying in Romans 7:15:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

Romans 7:15

And this is Paul. So like converted, you know, transformed Paul saying this. So, you know, he's the guy that wrote like 25 percent in the New Testament. So if he feels that, we are likely to feel it as well.

But the reason that, again, that we're bringing this up is just because it's good to recognize that we are whole in Christ and yet we are also becoming whole. Right? So, why does this happen? Why do we often find ourselves in a place where we're doing what we don't want to do and then not doing what we do want to do and there's like this mismatch between intentions?

I believe the short answer is that we have souls that are being healed and saved but are still fractured. And a broken soul is a state of being where the core aspects of a person, so your mind, will, feelings, and body are incoherent and functioning apart from a right relationship with God and themselves.

So again, kind of a mismatch of intentions, like your body might want one thing, but your mind wants something else. And this is actually, I feel like this is super easy to slip into.

And what's interesting about it for us as a church is that we are all about the rule of life and daily rhythms. And this is an amazing tool. We're going to actually go back to this later as a tool that will help guide us into what I feel like the heart is. But if it's misguided, if you have a misguided view or a reason why you're doing practices or why you have a rule of life, that could be the easiest way to become fractured.

Because if you really want to do the rule of life, like you really want a Sabbath, you want to pray every day, you want to read scripture every day, but then you don't do it, it's so easy for the enemy to go in and be like: oh, see, yeah, you're not good enough. Like you can't do it. You're not good enough. And in that lie, like if we let him say that and we believe it, that will just make us feel like we have to strive more and work more and purify ourselves to get back into God's presence.

But that's actually the opposite of what's supposed to happen, right? Like once we're broken, the Father is actually like right there waiting for us to just turn back. And then he just wants to wrap us up in his arms and heal us in his presence.

So I feel like the rule of life is super helpful because it guides us into his presence. But if we forget that the end is him and is his presence, that can actually be damaging. So like we have to make sure we have the right kind of end in mind when we're using these means.

Self-effort towards Christlikeness is an amazing way to actually see Christ. But it's also an amazing way, if misguided, to end up being more broken. So the good news is: we're whole, right? And we're becoming whole. The Father already sees us as healed, righteous, and perfect in Christ. But the Spirit is also patiently forming us into who he already sees.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says:

And we all who with unveiled faces behold the glory of the Lord, we're being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

One of my favorite teachers, if you guys ever like listen to sermons on Spotify, I would recommend him. His name is Damon Thompson. He says:

Whatever you behold, you become. You were never designed to white knuckle transformation. You were designed to be fascinated with Jesus until his nature overtakes yours.

Damon Thompson

I love that. You were designed to be fascinated with Jesus until his nature overtakes yours. That like, think about Mary and Martha, right? What does Jesus say to Mary and to Martha?

When Mary is the one that's just doing nothing in that moment to serve or to help or anything she just sitting there just being with Jesus receiving him. And he said: this is the thing that matters the most.

Like she gets it. It also why he tells us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. We have to like be consumed with him. Hearts on things above where Christ is seated, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

So beholding Jesus isn't passive. It's not doing nothing. It's an active attention, but it's fixing our, as much as you can, fixing your entire being on him.

One of my favorite books on beholding is a book called Beholding. Great title. Strawn Coleman wrote it. And I remember I was, I just finished this like coffee pop-up thing. So I was like doing all the dishes, but I was listening to it as I was doing dishes. And I got like so wrecked as I was doing dishes because he said this quote. This was the quote that I think really got me because I just knew that I was like not doing it.

But he says:

Our souls are formed by what we gaze at. We become what we look at the longest. Prayer is not so much about speaking the right words, but about looking at the right face.

Strawn Coleman

Oh my gosh. Like, that's crazy. We become what we look at the longest. Like, what are you looking at? You know, like man this week I had to get off social media this week because it was a wild week and I have friends like all over the kind of political map and like it was so easy to start getting pulled into like all of all of the hate, all of the anger, all of like the radicalization. Um, just by being on there for like five, ten minutes.

So I'm like man, if I'm on there for like three hours, like if I were to do that, what would my mind be consumed with? It would just be consumed with that. And then what kind of person would I become? Probably like what I'm consuming.

So like it was just, as I was studying this, it was such a good time, uh, because I was able to like teach this to myself through the word. Just like, okay, let's not look at that. Um, for very long at all. Like, let's just glance at the news and just gaze at the Lord, you know?

Um, just so helpful. But I love that book. I would really recommend Beholding. If you like this topic of just like, it's called contemplative prayer is like the practice of it, but literally just gazing at God, gazing back at you, gazing at him is like the whole thing.

So like, you don't even need to say any words. It's just literally being with God. But his book Beholding is incredible. It's on Spotify. If you don't read physical books.

So when we look at him, the broken parts of our souls begin to align. Our desires reorder, our shame lifts, our fears cast out.

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

Amazing verse in 1 John, probably my favorite book. Actually, definitely my favorite book of scripture. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

I love that verse. Uh, Abbie and I actually, when we had our second kid Eden or Jackson. Wow, our second kid is Jackson everybody. Okay. Um, we so we had two home births for each kid. Uh, Eden's birth I feel like we initially were startled and really like freaked out. You know, because it wasn't exactly a part of the plan. But like the Lord started giving us so much like love for her before she was actually born that we were just excited. We were like ready to do it. Abbie was like, felt very knowledgeable. She was like, let's go. This is going to be great. And then Eden's birth was awesome. And it was amazing.

And then we had, you know, where Jackson was coming. What is pregnant? That's the word. Pregnant with Jackson. And then we're going to do another home birth. But for some reason, so Abbie had this like really intense, very specific vision one night. Like she couldn't go to bed and she had a vision and she saw like the whole birth play out and it was all like perfect. Like amazing. Right.

And then at the end, as she like first holds Jackson in the vision, things start to like fade out to white. And like the, the enemy used that as like a seed of fear to say like: Oh, like you guys are in trouble. Like this isn't going to go well. And we could not shake it for like the longest time.

Um, for whatever reason, like we just, we knew that like the Lord had us and like he doesn't want any harm to come to us. But at the same time, we were like, yeah, like, I mean, things do happen. And we had a really hard time, like leading up to Jackson's birth.

But for whatever reason, I hadn't considered just like reading. I knew this verse, but like, there was just a moment in time where we were like with the Lord about it. And I feel like he revealed this verse again to us. But like, since he revealed it to us, it just like, it was all we needed to like, literally the fear was completely gone in like a moment where we had been wrestling with it for like a month.

So like, something about him revealing his love to us really does cast out fear. And it was actually really, really wild. So anyway, that was a tangent, but it was a good time.

So yeah, perfect love casts out all fear.

We Host the God Who Hosts Us

All right, moving on to the second theme. We host the God who hosts us. Good job, Brittany. Nice work.

So, okay. As we behold him, right? As we look into the eyes of the one who loves us and knows who we are, we see ourselves rightly. But then what happens? What happens as we become whole?

I think Lydia is a nice template because it just goes exactly as it should go. Like she becomes whole and then that wholeness spills out and it spills out for others.

So like the gospel, right? It's for us absolutely. Like our salvation, transformation is for us. Our relationship with the Lord is for us and for him. But then it will naturally spill out and it'll be for the sake of others. And Lydia shows up in this way with um hospitality primarily and I lost my notes okay I'm just gonna read because I don't know where I am.

She doesn't just believe quietly in her heart. Lydia's heart and mind is open to the reality of the kingdom. And once she sees Jesus rightly, she acts. She opens her home, persuades Paul and his companions to stay, and becomes the leader of the first church in Europe. She says:

If you consider me a believer of the Lord, come stay at my house.

Acts 16:15

So the movement is beholding, becoming, banquet. Lydia's decision to follow Jesus and submit to his leadership and reign overflows into her worship. And when I say worship, I mean like her life. Because all of life is worship.

I love Michael Miller. We do a lot of Upper Room songs here. Shout out Bradley, Upper Room. Michael Miller is the pastor there, and he talks about worship this way. He says:

That every time we gather, we're laying out a table of love, adoration, and praise before the Lord. When we worship, we're not performing for God. We're preparing a meal for him. Worship is the table we set for the king.

Michael Miller

So what Lydia does, she does this in a very physical sense. Like her whole life is laid out. Like she's not known anymore. At least she shouldn't be as a seller of purple and a worshiper of God. Like her entire life after that is devoted to him. Everything that comes out of it is for the kingdom.

And I don't doubt that she probably I still ended up selling purple and like doing amazing business things. That was probably part of it, but it wasn't the driving focus of her life, which I love.

Rosary Butterfield she has a great book called The Gospel Comes with a House Key. So if you like the idea of hospitality which I hope you do because it pretty much our whole essence of being a human. But she says:

Radically ordinary hospitality is the basic building block of belonging in God's family. Those who live it see strangers as neighbors and neighbors as family.

Rosary Butterfield

Her book has been really helpful for me. I've been working in like the coffee hospitality world for like the last five, six years. And I feel like having like a kingdom mindset around hospitality is simply the best because it's so freeing. It's so easy because there's no guidelines on who you're supposed to love or who you're supposed to welcome. It's just literally everybody.

So it's like I've had coworkers that like, and this is not, I'm not speaking up about myself here. I think this is just the way it's meant to be as humans, but coworkers will ask me like: how are you so kind to everybody? And then like to me it's so obvious. I'm like: well, like Jesus is kind to everybody. So like therefore I'm kind to everybody. But like it's just so freeing. It's so easy when you can see people that you don't know as someone that God views as precious and like as worthy of love. And then we can see just random strangers as our neighbor, like our true neighbor that we care about. And then once you like invite people into friendship, they can become family, which is so special. That's why I love hospitality. That's why I still work in coffee. I do love coffee too, but different love, different kind of love.

Another Damon Thompson quote. He says:

When you're truly whole, you start guarding yourself and start giving yourself. Which I think is also a great little word and exactly what happens with Lydia. Her wholeness turns into welcome.

Damon Thompson

I'm going to go for just a little bit longer. I want to have some time here for us to just practice beholding God. So actually, Sean, you want to hop on keys? Thanks.

Okay, these are some good like scriptures about like banquet language. All right. So we just read Psalm 23 and Team Rally, which is a fantastic Psalm.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Psalm 23:5

Isaiah 25:6.

On this mountain, the Lord almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples.

Isaiah 25:6

Matthew 22:2.

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

Matthew 22:2

Revelation 19 tells us that it all culminates in the wedding supper of the lamb.

So God, he is like the triune God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are in themselves a community of love. They are perfect love, loving, perfect love, loving, perfect love. And that is just an infinite loop. And then out of them, they welcomed us. So like the first act of hospitality was them like deciding to create humans to just simply love. And then we can love them back, which is an amazing gift.

But he's like laid out this incredible banquet for us. And then he invites us to lay one out for him.

I don't usually, I don't, I like Bill Johnson. I don't quote him very often, but he says:

The greatest privilege of the Christian life is to host the presence of God.

Bill Johnson

And I have to agree, I think. Yeah. The greatest privilege of the Christian life is to host the presence of God.

I didn't exactly know where this fits in, but I think I'll share it now. Probably one of my favorite verses in the last three months has been 1 John. Again, my favorite book. 1 John 1:5.

John writes, This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light. In him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5

And I love that because he's a God that's worthy to behold. Because we can trust him. Because there is no darkness in him at all. No darkness at all. That means if you ask him for something, if you like ask him to tell you something about yourself or about something around you, it'll be good. His response will be good, because he is only good. He can do no evil. He can do no wrong. It's only good, only light.

He's worthy to behold. He's worthy to behold. I'm tempted to just keep on reading 1 John, but I'll get back to this.

Yeah, so what does all this mean for us, right? Like what is the greatest privilege of the Christian life? To host the presence of God.

Like, what does that mean? What does worship mean? It's not just about singing songs, is it? Singing songs is a phenomenal way to worship because God gave us voices and he loves music. Amazing way to worship. But it's not just about singing songs. It's setting a table. It's laying out a banquet of love for the Lord. It's saying with our lives that Jesus, you're welcome here. Come feast on the affection of your people.

So close your eyes for a second if you will. What are you beholding? This week, what have you been beholding? Whose gaze has your attention? And do you like that answer?

I hope for many of you, it has been the Lord. I hope that throughout this last week you've just been finding moments of every day to just behold him, just be mesmerized by him. As much as he's mesmerized by you. But we live in a world of a lot of distraction and a lot of pain and darkness. And it's easy to get your eyes locked on other things.

So the reason I wanted, that was a shorter teaching, I wanted it to be shorter so that we could have time because we're all busy and right now we're all together, which is super special. So for the next like five, 10 minutes you can really stay as long as you like, but usually we end at about 12:30.

So we're just going to have some music that's just like ministering to us and helping us lay out a banquet of love for the Lord. We'll have a prayer team in the back. There'll be three people back there to pray for you if you just need prayer. But I just encourage you to just sit down. If you want to spread out in the room you can. Just whatever you want to do. Get your body into it, whatever the Lord's asking of you. But just behold him for a little bit. Just like find his eyes and if you haven't done that before ask him to help you find his eyes and he will.

He says that he only gives us what we ask for so if we ask for a good thing, he's not gonna give us a bad thing. If we ask for an egg, he's not gonna give us a snake. I think is the exact moniker, but so yeah, let's just behold them together for a little bit, okay?