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© 2024 More Than Bread
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It's not enough to get into God's Word, we need to let His Word get into us. "More Than Bread" is a podcast featuring Pastor Dan Nold from Calvary Church in State College, PA. It focuses on simply reading the Bible (with a few comments) in the hopes that listening to God's Word, learning from God's Word and leaning into God's Word will shape our hearts, minds, and souls to bring us life. As Jesus said, "We do not live by bread alone, we live by every Word that comes from the mouth of God."
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In Acts 5, a religious leader by the name of Gamliel, let loose with some wisdom on the Jewish religious leaders. He warned them to leave Peter and John alone because if this movement was not of God, it would die out. But if it was of God...they would find themselves fighting against God! The church in Acts was of God. It was filled with people who were experiencing the fire of the Holy Spirit filling their hearts and minds. A group of people who were bowing their hearts and bending their knees to give their loyalty and their love to Jesus. And God responded by filling them with his presence, empowering them with his Spirit and giving them courage and deep compassion. A compassionate courage so deep that they just could not stop talking about Jesus! When is the last time you felt like you just couldn't stop talking about Jesus?
To turn the world upside down, we must get real with our sin. We have to take off our masks and get real with our sin. When we get real with our sin, grace happens and life is transformed. If you grew up in the church, and you are wearing a mask of spirituality that hides the sin in your heart, then you don't like the story of Annanias and Sapphira, in Acts 5. You hear the story and you think, "God that was a little over the top, don't you think?" I mean it was just a little lie, who were they hurting? If you are a religious person, God's the bad guy in this story. But if you have ever got real with God and found forgiveness for your sins; if you have ever dealt with your junk, you know that God's not the bad guy. Sin is a cancer that hasno cure but grace and grace that doesn't come if we don't get real. But when it comes...it is simply gloriously good!
This episode is about stuff and our masks and getting real with each other and God. And a little bit about what sometimes happens when God gets real with us!One of the amazing things about people giving up their stuff is that stuff is one of the most secure and effective masks we wear. Right? Because if we have stuff on the outside, then people assume that we are good on the inside. But here's the deal. Stuff means nothing. It can be used for many things, but it means nothing. It defines nothing. We go through life collecting stuff, getting anxious about stuff, and hoping our outside stuff masks our inside stuff. In real church, real people get real with each other and God.
Some of you think that there is simply no way God can do anything of significance through you. You beg off every time He extends His hand of partnership, because you are just an ordinary nobody, a common anybody. You don't have the training for this or the experience for that. But the most important question is, "Are you willing to be with Jesus."The hearts of Peter and John were forever changed by spending time with Jesus. It left them with the kind of courage that is unshaken when you're exhausted, frustrated, and scared spitless, with absolutely no way in the known world for you to do what God calls you to do, unless he does it through you.Do you understand? It's ok to be unschooled and ordinary, as long as I've been with Jesus. How much have you been with Jesus?
When I read Acts 4, my first thought is this, "Before we turn the world upside-down, God may need to shake-up our church! In Acts 4, there's a prayer meeting that shook a building. We'll actually the Spirit of God did the shaking and I can’t help but ask, "God do you have it in you to do it one more time? Would You shake us until we become the church that you can use to turn our world upside down?"Because can we be honest? If we keep settling for the same levels of passion and commitment; if we keep placing multiple things in a higher priority than following Christ; if we keep loving stuff more than we love our neighbors and keep doing church like we've always done it, nothing is going to be turned upside-down, which means our world will never be right-side-up. I hope after listening to this episode you will join me in praying, "God shake us up!"
I want to dance, but even more I want to see those around me dance. When the crippled man of Acts 3 began to dance in the temple, do you understand his crippled place become the glory bookmark in the chapter of the story entitled, "When the Spirit was poured out." Where are the bookmarks in your life? What potential bookmarks are there in the lives of people around you? Places of brokenness external or internal, places of brokenness that when wholeness comes, they become bookmarks for the glory of God? Are we praying for the broken people around us. Are we praying that they dance?I know you want to dance. I want the crippled places in my life to become bookmarks for God's glory...but this story forces me to ask, "Am I praying that God will bring a dance of gratefulness to the lives of those around me?"
As we dive into Acts 3, we encounter one of favorite early church moments, a truly iconic miracle, the story of a lame beggar who became a dancing cripple. In fact, I’ve used that as my user name on more than occasion, because in the end, aren’t we all just dancing cripples? And I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but when a cripple dances, a crowd begins to form and the church begins to matter.See I believe that's why Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until God gave them the gift of His Spirit. He told them to wait until they got what He had to give, because without the Spirit, church doesn't really matter. Without the Spirit we don't have a whole lot to give. But with the Spirit we have more than we know.
"Wait for the Spirit," Jesus said. Then the Spirit came and the church was birthed. It was a church of humble power and courageous generosity, a church that lived against the grain of society but loved so deeply many in that culture were compelled to join them. It became a church that beat down the gates of hell to rescue neighbors from darkness. This was the church birthed and empowered by the very Spirit of Christ.There are many different descriptions, different words, the Bible paints many different pictures to help us understand the Spirit. But one of my favorites is the "breath of God" the wind. It's the Hebrew word, Ruach. It is the breath of God that breathes life into our deadness, that blows fire into our hearts, that brings power for living. And that breath, the breath of God is so for you!
I want to live the uncommon life that comes from an uncommon encounter with the living God. And as much as I want to see signs and wonders like the healing of bodies; even more I hunger to see the healing and renovation of hearts. I hunger to see the healing of 10's of 1000's of hearts; the kind of wholesale renovation that would lead God to be pleased to pour out a blessing on central PA that cannot be contained in oneheart, one valley, one school, but spills over and draws people from all over world to Central PA to be shaped by God at workWhat will it take to get there? A full-on heart devotion to Jesus.
Acts 2:42-47 is the original destination for the church. Don't get me wrong, the Acts 2 church was just as full of imperfect people as we are today. The Acts 2 church would make mistakes just like we do today. But there was a freshness of Spirit and when that Spirit is let loose in the church, I believe the church is the hope of the world. I don't mean a building or a Sunday morning gathering. I mean followers of Jesus let loose in the world; loving God, loving each other, and loving their neighbors like they love themselves. Because listen, as another pastor once said, "There is nothing like the local church when it is working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited."If we aren't that kind of church...we have to ask...why not?
What if it's true that God offers us His presence in the same the same way, he offered it at Pentecost? What if a group of people could be so filled with the Spirit that the world was changed...turned upside down? What if what happened in Acts 2, could happen today? Would we want it?That day in the upper room as the Spirit came, tongues of fire sat upon each head. Fire is a dominant metaphor when talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. The followers of Jesus saw 120 flames of fire, one on each person. The Spirit gave them a fire of passion for God, for each other, and a passion to share Jesus with others. An encounter with the Holy Spirit will cause our hearts to burn.Lord would you do it again?!!
We can be filled with many different things...good and bad. What are you filled with today? It's an uncommon call to be filled with the Spirit of God. We're not exactly sure what it means, but we do know what it's like to be filled with something. If someone says that they are filled with grief, or filled with fear, despair, anger, ambition or joy...of filled with love, we understand. We know that what fills us dominates our thoughts, dictates our actions and perhaps even describes who we are. What fills us, shapes our hearts. So let me ask a "what if."What if it's true that God offers us His presence in the same the same way that He offered it at Pentecost? What if a group of people could be so filled with the Spirit that the world was turned upside down? What if what happened at Pentecost, could happen today? Would you want it?
Imagine you had a chance to be there in the upper room on Pentecost when the Spirit of God came...but you missed it. Imagine you missed it. You weren't there. You didn't join the group. Got distracted. Got scared. Other things were more important. You missed it. What did they have to do in order to receive the promise? Just wait. Be there. 120 men and women waited. They prayed. They didn't have to earn it. They just had to be there, they just had to join in. I know there are times when we are called to wrestle in prayer, to travail and battle in prayer, but what if sometimes we just need to be there. I read the book of Acts and I envision extraordinary events. Things that make me go, wow! And then I look around me and I see spaces filled with ordinary people. I look within me and so often I feel like I'm even less than ordinary. There's extra-ordinary and there's ordinary and then there's Dan. 120 people were in that room that day; each and every one of them...ordinary. But what God can do through ordinary people submitted to the Spirit of God...now that's extraordinary!Don't miss it!
When God asks us to wait, it's always a word of hope. When God says, WAIT, He's promising you that there will be a tomorrow. Wait is a word of hope. God's Wait is always tied to a promise, which simply means there is still more to come.Some of you have been waiting on promises you believe God gave you years ago, maybe decades ago. God put something in your heart and then you waited. And as you waited, and waited, you began to wonder why, you even began to doubt the outcome. But God's waiting room is not like a hospital waiting room. When God asks us to wait, the outcome is never in doubt. It's simply the timing that's unknown. So let's keep asking Him for more, even when He tells us to wait!
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you," Jesus said. "And you will be baptized, immersed in the Holy Spirit. You will receive power and you will be my witnesses everywhere you go." I love my church. I see God at work here. But if there's anything that I know we need more of, it is the power of God. So if we want to turn the world upside down, we have to change the preposition. Change the preposition and you will change the world. What do you mean by that Dan? I mean that in the case of the disciples before Jesus death and resurrection, they were doing life "with Christ." They were expanding the Kingdom "with God." And when you read the gospels we see what amazing stuff, a group of people can do "with God, with Christ." But Jesus said, just wait...there's more, there's more than "with God." Wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, wait to be immersed in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because you cannot even imagine what it's like when you stop doing life with God, and start doing life in Christ.The promise worth waiting for is that we can change the preposition from "with" to "in" and find the power to turn the world upside down.
We want to live in an upside down world because what we have come to experience as right-side-up is all wrong. So let's start with that moment when we were first called, "those who turned the world upside down." It happened a few years after the resurrection, and it's recorded in Acts 17:1-6. That's why every time I read the book of Acts, I'm praying, "Lord would you do it again?"But here's the reality, we can't turn the world upside-down, if we are desperately striving to keep our feet on the ground. And many of us are; we're trying to keep our feet on the ground, because being turned upside down feels so out of control. It sounds so uncomfortable and not very safe. It sounds like a carnival ride without seat-belts that has no red-stop button.But what if, that’s what it takes to turn the world upside down?
This is an utterly simple reality. Jesus does not have my heart if He does not get my time. I am not an apprentice of Jesus loving like Jesus, and sent like Jesus if I do not long to be with Jesus. And it’s a journey, not a curriculum; it’s a journey. This journey you are on, of apprenticing Jesus, is a life-long journey. It’s not a two-day retreat, or a semester long curriculum or even a one-year course, it’s a life-long journey that involves like Paul said, finishing well. I want my life to count. That's why we do what we do, we want our lives to count. It's not enough to count our lives. We want our lives to count. And it all begins be being with Jesus!
The ascension tells us who Jesus is today and where Jesus is today. The ascension tells us what Jesus is doing today. Who is he? He is the Lord of heaven & earth; ruler of all the nations, King of the Universe, and the Head of the Church. Where is he? Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, a position of authority and power. What is he doing? Besides ruling, Paul in Romans and the author of Hebrews both say that that Jesus is interceding for us. He is praying, speaking to the Father on our behalf. Jesus -- ascended -- holds the answer to all our prayers and the fulfillment of all God's promises. Jesus. King. Christ. Messiah. All power and authority has been given to him. He has the name that is above all other names. Right now at this very moment, Jesus is King over all the earth's presidents, prime ministers, kings, military leaders and tribal chiefs. And in his time, through his means, by his strategies, he is leading the events of my life, AND the events of the world toward his glorious purposes.And so we prayer, "Father of Heaven, through Jesus would you make it down here, like it is up there!"
This may be a difficult episode for some of us to love. It's all about the ascension of Jesus. The ascension is that moment described in the gospels and the book of Acts when Jesus went up to heaven. But the language of ascension is not just a “going up” language. That language is used, Jesus going up, coming up, ascending. But it’s not just directional, it’s primarily positional. Ascension is the language of Jesus becoming King. He ascended to His throne. King of Heaven and Earth, head of the Church. He is the King of the Kingdom of God. God has delivered to Jesus, through his death and resurrection, all authority and all power. Here is the part that might be hard to love. If He’s not your King, He’s not your Savior. Is He your King? Have you bowed your knee to Him. Have you surrendered your heart to him? He’s not your savior if he’s not your King. If he’s not your king, you’re not following Jesus. You're just going to church. It's not the same thing.
In this episode we will ponder two different groups (and two specific people) who interacted with the resurrected Jesus, women and family; specifically Mary Magdalene and James. If there was anyone there for Jesus in the hardest moments of his life it was Mary. If there was anyone's change of mind that proves (at least for me) the resurrection, it was James the brother of Jesus.I am desperately convicted of how much today we need courageous, stick-with-it women like Mary Magdalene and men like James the brother of Jesus, the skeptic turned believer who would spend so much time on his knees, that he gained the nickname, "Old Camel Knees." We would do well to aim our lives in the direction of either one!
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