The Mandate for the Church (Gospel on the Move #1)

Have you ever had the sense that you simply had to do something?

You couldn’t explain it, but you felt compelled. I’m supposed to do that.

Maybe it was attending a certain college. Applying for a certain job. Asking a certain person out. Going out for a specific sport. Reading a certain book. It could be almost anything. You just knew.

Anyone had a moment like that? Good — for a second there you scared me. I thought I was going to be the only one.

I’ve had a small handful of those moments. I used to talk about them fairly freely, but over time I’ve become hesitant, because for me they turned out to be very personal. They were what I’d call God moments — a moment where I strongly sensed God saying, “Here’s what I want you to do.”

Part of my hesitation is that when I’d share those stories, I’d sometimes discover it made other people feel like God must not love them as much, since they’d never had a moment like that. Which isn’t true. The cross is the evidence that God loves everyone.

The other part is that I know of situations where someone claims a God moment when really it’s just a cover for selfishness. Well, God told me… — and they use it to manipulate and grab whatever they can.

So over time I’ve grown reluctant to say, “God told me.” And yet I’d be lying if I claimed I’d never experienced anything like it. Because I have. There have been key, significant moments in my life where I sensed God saying, here’s what I want you to do.

Some people would call that a divine mandate. Some call it a God moment, or an epiphany. But it’s a moment where you simply know you’re supposed to do this.

One of those moments for me was the call to plant a church. I wrestled with it. I prayed about it. I cried about it. I tried to get out of it. I did not want to do this. But about two years later there finally came a day where I gave in — where I realized I was supposed to do this, and I’d rather attempt it and fail than keep fighting against it.

It was a mandate.

What a Mandate Is

Today we’re going to see a mandate God gave the church. Something they had to do.

The definition of a mandate is an official order or commission to do something. If you’ve served in the military, you know exactly what that means. Your commanding officer says, “Here’s what we’re doing.” You don’t get to say, “You know what, I don’t really feel like it. I had different plans.” You have to do it.

God has given a mandate to the church. It isn’t something we get to look at and say, “That sounds nice — others can handle that, I think I’m fine.” It’s something we have to do.

However — because God created us, knows us, and loves us — He hasn’t given us a mandate designed to twist our arms and make us miserable. It’s a mandate that, when we live it out, brings us genuine freedom and genuine joy.

That’s why we need to learn it.

And I believe this isn’t a mandate God gave only to the early church. It’s a mandate He’s given His global church. And because Riverwood is a small sliver of that global church, this mandate is for us too. So if we’re going to be the church God calls us to be, we have to learn this mandate and learn how to live it.

Which is why we’re studying the book of Acts.

Open your Bible to Acts 1. We’re doing verses 1 through 11 today, starting with 1 through 5.

Heavenly Father, we come now to Your holy Scriptures and ask that You would be our teacher. Lord, we come with all sorts of ideas and thoughts and biases, and I pray that today would not be us trying to get those biases confirmed. Instead, let it be us coming to hear what You have been saying to countless Christians across generations, and what You have for us. For those of us struggling in our faith, would You speak today? For those of us heading a certain direction, help us see — are we going the right way? Are we following You? And for those who may not even know You, as we look at the mandate You gave the church, may they hear Your heart for them and Your love for them, and realize they’re invited to give their life to You, become part of the church, and live this out as well. Father, help us find joy in fulfilling the mandate You’ve given us. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:1–5)

Who Wrote This?

Any time you begin studying a book of the Bible, it’s worth taking a journalist’s approach — stopping to ask the who, what, where, when, and why.

So: who wrote Acts? A man named Luke. His given name was probably Lucian or Lucius, shortened to Luke. We met him last week as we finished Colossians, where he’s described as a physician. So he was a very well-educated man.

We believe Luke was a Gentile Christian. He wasn’t one of the original twelve disciples, and he wasn’t Jewish. At some point later in his life he came to understand the gospel, and it changed everything for him.

What’s interesting is that Acts is the only historical book in the New Testament. You could count the four Gospels as history, I suppose, but as far as a book of history goes, Acts is it.

Now, many historians of Luke’s day identified themselves prominently. They were proud of being well-educated and well-researched, of gathering all this information and putting it on parchment for people to read.

Luke doesn’t identify himself at all.

It’s almost as if he’s saying, “I’m not the star of this story. Jesus is.” So he puts all the attention on Jesus, and here in Acts on what happened after Jesus ascended.

And yet even though Luke never names himself, there’s essentially no question that he’s the author.

In the second century, virtually all the church fathers identified Luke as the author of Acts. Beyond that, what we know about Luke fits. As a physician he would have been extremely well educated — and the language of Acts is written by someone extremely well educated. He uses medical terminology, which makes sense for a physician; someone outside the medical field would have chosen different words. And while there’s clear awareness of Judaism throughout Acts, he doesn’t write from an especially Semitic perspective. He writes like a Gentile, like a Greek.

Also, as a physician he’d have needed to be meticulously detail-oriented. And Acts is incredibly detailed. Over the coming weeks and months we’re going to encounter a lot of places, a lot of people, and a lot of specific official titles.

The Detail That Nearly Sank It

Here’s what’s fascinating: those details almost caused people to conclude Acts was a fraud.

Middle school and high school students, don’t listen to this next part. Seriously, don’t.

You can often tell someone is lying when they start piling on extraneous details, because they’re trying to make fiction sound true. And that’s exactly what a lot of scholars thought Luke was doing — larding the story with titles and specifics to make people believe it.

The problem was, people looked at those details and said, “There was no one in the Roman Empire with a title like that — this can’t be right.” Or, “No one by that name lived there at that time. That person lived over here. This is all fiction.”

There was a nineteenth-century English historian named Sir William Mitchell Ramsay who had an admitted anti-Bible bias. He read Acts, thought it was ridiculous, and set out to prove it wrong — to show these Christians what poppycock the whole thing was.

But the more he read, the more he studied, and the more he learned about what archaeology was uncovering, the more his view shifted. Eventually he wrote: “There are reasons for placing the author of Acts among the historians of the first rank.”

He went from believing the entire thing was false to believing Luke was one of the finest historians of his day.

Archaeology has confirmed the historical details of Acts again and again. Where critics said, “No one ever used that title,” archaeology later revealed that title was in fact used in that exact place. Where they said, “That person worked over here, not there,” archaeology revealed another person by the same name in that location.

You may not agree with Luke theologically about Jesus and the significance of the cross. But when it comes to historical accuracy, he has it.

And for me as a Christian, that’s a real comfort. If he was that precise and accurate on the small things, it gives me far more confidence in the big things — and it makes me want to listen and learn from him.

Who Is Theophilus?

Notice in verse 1 Luke says “in the first book,” referring to the Gospel of Luke. So the Gospel is part one, and Acts is part two.

And he addresses it to Theophilus. We don’t know who that was. The name simply means “lover of God.”

It’s possible there really was a man named Theophilus — maybe his family were Jewish God-fearers and they named their son “lover of God.” Or maybe it was a nickname. In Acts we’re going to meet a man named Joseph, but we don’t know him as Joseph — we know him as Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” So maybe this man loved God so deeply he picked up the nickname. Perhaps he was wealthy and commissioned Luke to write. He wanted to know more about Jesus, so he commissioned the Gospel of Luke — and then wanted the sequel.

Or Luke may simply be writing to anyone who loves God. If you love God, you’re Theophilus. This book is for you. Even if it was written to a specific gentleman by that name, it’s still here for you to learn from.

What, Where, and When

Realizing Acts is part two helps you understand the what. If part one was all about Jesus, part two is about the church.

In English the official title is the Acts of the Apostles — which is a mouthful, so we usually just call it Acts. But as we get going, you’ll notice only two apostles really get highlighted: Peter and Paul. Other apostles get named, but we don’t see many acts from them. So it’s a little odd to call it the Acts of the Apostles when it’s really about two of them.

I think a better title might be the Acts of the Holy Spirit. We’ll be bumping into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit throughout this entire book. Or it could be the Acts of the Church, since we watch the church expand. One Greek manuscript apparently called it the Acts of the Apostolic People, which might be the best of all.

What you need to realize is this: part one is about the start of the gospel. Part two is about the movement of the gospel. It’s all about Jesus — and now about how word of Jesus spreads.

As for where: all of the events in Acts occur in the Mediterranean region. We start in Jerusalem and watch things slowly expand outward, eventually landing with Paul in Rome. There are mentions of places in Africa, but it stays in the Mediterranean world.

People often want to know where it was written. Honestly, it doesn’t matter here. With some books it helps — when Paul wrote certain letters he was in prison, and knowing that illuminates his point. But for Acts it makes no difference whether Luke wrote it in Rome with Paul (which makes sense to me, since we saw at the end of Colossians that Luke was with Paul, and we hear a great deal of Paul’s story here), or somewhere else entirely.

What matters more than where he wrote it is what he included, and how accurate it is — historically and theologically — so we can learn from it.

As for when: with most books of the Bible there’s debate. Consulting a number of sources, the best answer seems to be sometime in the early to mid-60s. Some argue earlier, some later. Those arguing for a later date have to explain why certain major events aren’t mentioned — most notably the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which isn’t in there. Some say Luke ended where he did for literary reasons. It’s a large debate, but early-to-mid 60s seems best.

More important is the span of time covered. Across twenty-eight chapters, Acts covers roughly thirty years — starting around AD 30–33 with the resurrection of Christ and ending somewhere around AD 60–62 with Paul under house arrest. He was released for a time, ended up back in custody, and was martyred a few years later. So as we work through this over the coming months, know that we’re going to make some huge jumps in time.

Why Luke Wrote It

But the most important question is why.

Was it only because Theophilus commissioned it, or is there something more?

I personally believe Luke wrote this not just so we could see the expansion of the gospel and what God continued doing after the ascension, but to put it plainly before the church: here’s your mandate. Here’s how the early church did it. Here’s how you can be part of it too.

Luke wasn’t one of the original twelve, which means he probably never met Jesus in person. Yet somehow this gospel message reached him, and he came to believe it — the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. He essentially thought: if this man could prophesy His own death and resurrection and then pull it off, if He has that kind of power and authority, then this is someone we need to listen to.

Which is why Luke opens with words from Jesus.

Wait for the Spirit

In verse 5, Jesus says John — meaning John the Baptist, His cousin — baptized with water, but “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

This isn’t the first time Jesus mentioned the Spirit to them. In John 14, 15, and 16 He tells them He’s going to send a helper. The Greek word is paraklētos — some translations render it helper, some advocate, some counselor. He tells them it’s better that He go away, because as a man He can only be in one place at a time, but He will send His Spirit.

Which is how He fulfills the promise of the Great Commission: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. He’s with us through His Spirit.

He’s told them this repeatedly. And now, right before He ascends, He reminds them one more time.

And these guys still don’t get it.

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

I want you to appreciate how audacious that question is.

This is a group of fishermen, a former tax collector, a bunch of average guys. And they now believe they’re about to get a front-row seat to the overthrow of Rome and the reestablishment of the kingdom of Israel. And who knows — maybe, being such close friends with Jesus, they’ll get cabinet seats too.

Imagine you have a friend who’s remarkably thoughtful. He or she speaks so clearly on so many subjects that other friends start taking notice. So they start a podcast. Pretty soon there are thousands of listeners, then hundreds of thousands, then a couple million.

Then suddenly Canada invades. Look out, Minnesota.

Your friend starts talking about it on the podcast. Politicians tune in and realize this person is saying remarkable things. Before long your friend becomes one of the leaders — not military, but the thought leader — and helps America stop the Mounties from taking over. I can use Canada because we’re safe from them.

Now your friend is one of the most famous people on the planet. When the election comes, it’s a landslide. Your friend is president of the United States. And little old you, from little old Iowa, gets invited into a cabinet seat. Front row for a world-changing event.

You’d feel like a pretty big deal.

That’s these guys. Average men from little Galilee in little Israel, expecting a front-row seat to watch Jesus overthrow Rome — because they’d been told since childhood that the Messiah would come, overthrow their oppressors, and reestablish Israel. And now they believe Jesus is the Messiah, and He just raised Himself from the dead. There’s no way Rome stops this guy.

So they ask: is this the time?

And Jesus essentially shakes His head and says, “Guys, you’re thinking too small.”

The Mandate

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:7–8)

These disciples are thinking about the eight thousand square miles Israel occupies. Jesus is thinking about the entire globe. They’re thinking about the roughly two million Jews living under Roman oppression at that moment. Jesus is thinking about the billions of souls who will live across this planet.

They think they’re thinking big. We’re going to build a twelve-bedroom mansion! And Jesus is saying, “No, guys. We’re building a football stadium.”

They think they’re thinking big. But really they’re thinking small. So Jesus shifts their perspective — and He does it by giving them a mandate.

The first shift is verse 7: Don’t get distracted. I have something bigger for you. The restoration of Israel will happen in God’s time and God’s way. He holds authority over that. It’s not yours to know. And besides, if you get consumed with it, you’ll miss what I actually have for you.

Then verse 8: instead of worrying about Israel, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

What That Means Here

We talked about this a few weeks ago near the end of our 21 Days of Prayer, so I won’t belabor it — but it’s worth reminding ourselves how we interpret this at Riverwood.

We don’t live in the Middle East. We’re not in Jerusalem. And yet we still believe this is the mandate.

So our Jerusalem is Waverly, Shell Rock, Janesville, Denver. It’s your community. It’s right where you live.

Our Judea is the region around us — the Cedar Valley, northeast Iowa, all of Iowa. For those disciples from Galilee, Judea meant Jews who thought like them, looked like them, dressed like them, talked like them, and worshiped like them. Bringing the gospel there was going to be relatively easy, because they already shared a framework.

Samaria was different. Samaria was the region just north of Jerusalem, splitting the nation, and the people there were half Jewish and half Gentile. Which caused a great many Jews to look down on them. I’ll just say it plainly: they were racist toward Samaritans. So much so that people traveling from northern Israel to the south would go entirely around Samaria rather than deal with them.

And Jesus says: those are people. They matter to me. Yes, their culture is different. They dress a little differently. They think a little differently. And you need to go be my witnesses to them. Let them know what you’ve seen and heard — how you watched me die, how I rose from the dead, how God’s love is for them too.

But even that isn’t enough. Go to the ends of the earth.

For them, “the ends of the earth” mostly meant the Middle East. But over the course of this book we’re going to see them reach Rome. We’ll see the gospel reach Africa. And it kept spreading around the globe.

Jerusalem. Judea. Samaria. The ends of the earth.

That Would Overwhelm Anyone

I don’t know about you, but standing there in that moment I’d be flabbergasted. Whoa. I just wanted Israel to be cool again. You’re saying we have to reach the whole world?

I’d feel overwhelmed.

When God called me to plant a church, that alone was overwhelming. I can’t imagine being told to start an entire denomination — which, first of all, is probably the last thing our world needs, but second, one church was already too big for me.

So I can’t imagine what these guys felt. This is going to be too much.

But notice Jesus did not say, “And you have to do this in your own energy and strength.” He said at the start of verse 8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

This was never about their own resources, their own energy, their own wisdom. He’d already told them the Spirit was coming and would give them the words. Later we’ll watch them stand trial, arrested and hauled before courts — and suddenly the words come. They stand up and immediately start preaching. I have to spend an entire week getting a message ready; these guys stand up and go.

The Holy Spirit was going to supply everything they needed.

A Word About the Holy Spirit

While we’re here, let me give you a heads-up. We’re going to bump into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit throughout this whole series, and we’ll dive in properly in three weeks. But as we begin Acts, we need to acknowledge something.

The American church is not good at this topic. We tend toward one extreme or the other.

Some churches ignore the Spirit almost entirely, as if He doesn’t exist. That’s why Francis Chan wrote a book called Forgotten God — because we simply don’t think about Him.

On the other end, the Holy Spirit becomes so central that it’s as if Jesus is His little brother. Sure, Jesus put on a great performance — He deserves supporting actor. But the Spirit is the star of the show.

We cannot go to either extreme.

We can’t ignore Him, or we’ll miss enormous portions of Acts. But we also can’t pretend it’s all about Him, because He is not more important than Jesus. He’s a member of the Trinity — Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Just as essential as Jesus, but not more important and not more powerful. Just as the Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit.

So we need to enjoy the Spirit and understand Him without elevating Him in a way that treats the cross as “that was a nice thing Jesus did, but now we’re on to better things.”

I realize some of you, like me, come from a charismatic background and are comfortable talking about the Spirit. Others come from that background and are uncomfortable, because of things you saw done in His name. Some of you come from traditions where the Spirit was simply never discussed, so it feels awkward. And some of you come from no church background at all and are trying to figure out what on earth the Holy Spirit even is.

I’ll be honest — the Spirit is mysterious. We get Jesus. He had a body. He was visible. He got tired. He got hungry. He was even killed. The Spirit has no body. He speaks, but not with lips. He can’t be stopped, can’t be killed, can’t be blocked at the front door. He is spirit, and He moves wherever He wants.

And yet we too often think of Him as an unseen, impersonal force that only Jedi can manipulate.

The Holy Spirit is a person.

When my wife and I lived in Venezuela teaching at a missionary kids school, I was assigned to teach ninth grade Bible. We spent one quarter on God the Father, one on Jesus, one on the Holy Spirit, and one on the church. I taught the first semester — God and Jesus — and then we had a teacher switch, and someone else picked up the Holy Spirit unit.

I found out the students were arguing with him. He’s not a person. He’s a force. And it got genuinely contentious.

Sadly, all I had to do was walk in and say, “Guys, He’s a person,” and they believed me — but they wouldn’t believe him.

He’s a person because He has personality. We too often equate “person” with “body.” The Spirit has no body. And yet Scripture shows us He can be grieved and saddened. He has emotions. He moves — He isn’t stuck in one place. He knows things, and He can be known.

He is a person. The third member of the Trinity.

I want you to become like Jesus — to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. But the way that happens is through the Holy Spirit, because the Father, Son, and Spirit are one. It’s the Spirit who makes you more like Jesus. So we need to understand His role. Throughout this series we’ll see the role He played in helping people understand who Jesus is, in spreading the gospel, and in the expansion of the church — which will help us see the role He wants to play in our lives individually and as a church.

The Ascension

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9–11)

The global church calls this the ascension.

In the church I grew up in, we didn’t talk much about the ascension itself. And keep in mind this is a kid’s understanding, so I may have some of it wrong. But what I walked away with from this passage was: we need to be watching for the return of Christ.

We were all about the return of Jesus. We had books about it. We talked about it constantly.

Have you heard the phrase, “so heavenly minded you’re of no earthly good”? I don’t think we were quite that extreme, but we were close. It was all wait until Jesus comes back and then we are out of here. We could not wait for the rapture.

As an adult, reading this, I’ve come to a different conclusion.

It’s not that we should ignore the return of Jesus. I believe He is going to return, in His way and His time. But I think the angels are doing something else here.

Because what had just happened, immediately before Jesus ascended? He gave the mandate. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Then He lifts up in front of them and disappears into a cloud. The men are standing there staring. And two men in white robes walk up and essentially say, “What are you looking at?”

Didn’t you see? He just levitated. He vanished.

“Yeah — He’ll come back. In fact, He’s going to come back the exact same way He left, on the clouds. So why are you standing around staring? Jesus just gave you a mandate. Let’s get to it. Let’s head into Jerusalem. Let’s go be witnesses.”

I don’t think they’re trying to make them so heavenly minded they’re of no earthly good. I think they’re saying, “He’s coming back — don’t worry about that. In the meantime, He gave you a command. Let’s go fulfill the mandate.”

You Are a Witness

I believe that mandate is for us.

Yes, it’s worth wondering when Jesus will return. It will be a great moment. But let’s not get so caught up in that that we miss the call right in front of us. And let’s not get so caught up in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit that we miss how the Spirit wants to work through us to help a dying world understand the gospel.

But I’m not an evangelist.

That’s okay. Some people do have the spiritual gift of evangelism. But even if you don’t, Jesus didn’t say, “You will be my evangelists.” He said, “You will be my witnesses.”

I realize you didn’t live in the first century, so you weren’t there when Jesus hung on a cross and walked out of the tomb alive. But neither was Luke. And Luke was so convinced of its truth that he took the time to write it all down — because he was a witness to what it meant to him and to how he watched it change others.

If you’re a follower of Christ, you have witnessed what God has done in you. That’s all you need to talk about.

It is not your job to convince anyone. You don’t have to construct the perfect argument. All you do is share. Here’s what God means to me. Here’s what I believe. And then extend the invitation.

If they believe, praise God — that’s His work in their life. If they don’t, it isn’t your fault. The power comes through the Holy Spirit, not through how impressive you are.

So go be a witness. A witness through your words. A witness through your ways. A witness through your very being. And when God brings the moments, just talk. Just share what He means to you, what He did on a cross, and the difference you believe that makes in the world.

That’s the mandate.

Not Guilt — Love

And please don’t walk away thinking, great, now I’m being guilted into sharing my faith.

No. If you understand who God is and what He’s done — if you understand His love — how could you and I take that love and keep it to ourselves?

There are people out there hurting. Crying. Fighting all sorts of things. And maybe exactly what they need is to know how much God loves them and how much He is for them.

But I’m struggling with those things too.

Then just as they need Jesus, you need Jesus. So come to Him.

I’m not going to promise He’ll perform the miracle immediately. Maybe He will in these next holy moments. Maybe during communion God does something in your heart and mind — and if so, we’ll give Him all the praise, and you’ll walk out of here on cloud nine, and it’ll be easy to go be a witness to what He’s done.

For some of you, it’s going to take a while. Keep seeking Him. Keep running to Him, because He is for you, He is with you, and He is working.

Sometimes it takes going through the hardest winter to truly appreciate the greatest spring. So if you find yourself in winter right now, hang on. Go to Him. Run to Him — so that when He brings spring, you can be a witness to His goodness.

And even if you never get out of this winter in this life: if your faith is in Christ, you have eternity with the Father, and it will make you appreciate it all the more.

If I were God, I’ll be honest with you — I’d fix it for you. I’d just make it all better. And I’d probably ruin something. I’d probably rob you of something better.

So go to God. Trust Him. Because if Luke — who wrote with such intimate detail and such accuracy — is pointing us to the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s heart for us, then may you and I keep going to Him, running to Him, and trusting Him. And as we watch Him work in our lives, may we go and be witnesses to it.

Because that is the mandate.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, take the things I’ve said and use them as You need to. Lord, if anything I said was manipulation, or was inaccurate, would You wash all of it away — and may any compulsion anyone feels come from You and Your Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, I thank You that there is no organization, no country, and no building that can be closed tightly enough to keep You out. So we know You are here and You are with us. I invite You to work and do what You need to do — because I firmly believe that You, our triune God, have a heart for us. You created us in Your image. That image was shattered by our sin. And yet You came, Jesus, to repair it. And You use Your Holy Spirit to open our eyes, open our hearts, convict us of our sin, and draw us into the life You have for us.

So God, help us bring our questions to You. Help us bring our doubts. Help us lay all of it before You and let You minister to us. Holy Spirit, do what You need to do in these next holy moments — as we take communion, as we sing, as we pray. Be in our midst. Minister to our hearts. Touch us mentally and emotionally, because You are for us and You are with us.

Father, for those longing for healing, out of Your mercy would You grant it. And for those You are choosing not to heal yet, may they still turn to You and trust You — that even in their weakness You are strong, that even when You will not remove the thorn in the flesh, Your grace is sufficient. May each of us wholeheartedly trust You.

And out of that trust, out of knowing Your love, may we become the kind of people who can share it. Because there are others who are hurting, who are lost, who feel broken. What they need isn’t another chemical fix. It isn’t binging another episode. It isn’t running toward dangerous things. It’s finding themselves wholly surrounded by You, understanding Your love and Your heart for them.

God, I believe You can use anything to communicate that. You can use a song. You can use a book. But so often what You choose to use is people. So help the people of Riverwood be those people. Help us follow Your mandate. Help us feel compelled to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved, out among a people You love deeply and desperately.

Father, would You work now? Show us what we need. Keep teaching us. Keep humbling us. Keep filling us with awe at who You are and what You’ve done through a cross and an empty grave. In Jesus’s name we pray it, amen.

As we come to the table, if you’re a follower of Jesus, take the bread and remember it represents the body of Christ broken for you. Take the cup and remember the juice represents the blood of Jesus.

And as you take it, realizing Jesus was sent for you, you’re now saying: Okay, God — now send me. Send me to work. Send me to my friends at school. Send me to my neighborhood. Send me to my team, to my service club. Send me to be Your witness. And may You impact people because of what You’ve done in me.

Let us do this now in remembrance of Him.