Powered for Purpose | July 6, 2025

The Setup: Why We Started in Acts

Sermon number one was Pastor Justin's very first message as Senior Pastor of The Crossings, and he chose to launch our new church plant right at the beginning of the book of Acts. That was not an accident. As a brand new congregation trying to get off the ground, Pastor Justin wanted our foundation to come from the story of how that first rag tag group of Christ followers started small and multiplied fast, because Acts reads less like ancient history and more like a blueprint for planting and multiplying churches.

Before ever opening to Acts chapter one, Pastor Justin took time to explain why Luke, a doctor by training, wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts as a careful, two part historical account addressed to a man named Theophilus. Unlike Matthew, written for a Jewish audience, or Mark, written for Gentiles, Luke wrote as a meticulous investigator building a case for skeptics and deniers, determined to record exactly what happened so future generations would have solid ground to stand on.

That set up the first big idea of the whole series: Jesus is a historical figure, not a myth. Pastor Justin even quoted the skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, who concedes that Jesus was a real Jew with real followers who was executed under Pontius Pilate, confirmed by sources with entirely different biases than the Gospels themselves. The only real question left on the table, as Pastor Justin put it, is whether Jesus actually walked out of that tomb three days later.

From there the sermon moved into Acts 1:1-11 itself, where Luke reminds Theophilus of everything Jesus began to do and teach before He was taken up, having given His apostles instructions through the Holy Spirit. Jesus presented Himself alive after His suffering by many proofs over forty days, appearing to His followers and speaking about the kingdom of God, before commanding them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father.

That promise is the Holy Spirit, and Jesus tells the disciples plainly that they will receive power when the Spirit comes upon them, and that they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Pastor Justin lingered on that word power, because a scared, uncertain, newly planted group of believers was about to be handed exactly what they needed to do something they could never do on their own strength.

Then comes the ascension itself, Jesus lifted up before their eyes until a cloud took Him out of sight, and two men in white standing beside the disciples asking why they are staring up into heaven, promising that this same Jesus will return in the same way He left. Pastor Justin pointed out that even in that stunned, disorienting moment, the disciples were not left with an explanation, they were left with a mission and a promise.

That is exactly the tension Pastor Justin wanted a brand new church plant to sit in from week one. We do not get to see the whole plan laid out in advance any more than those first disciples did. What we do get is the same promise of power for the same purpose, to be witnesses right where God has planted us, starting in our own Jerusalem here in Brunswick before it ever reaches the ends of the earth.

Pastor Justin closed by reminding us that Acts was written on purpose to reassure a young, fragile movement that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and launched the early church was not a one time historical event, it is available today to any church willing to wait on it, trust it, and be sent by it.

This Week's Application

So this week, are you waiting for everything to make sense before you are willing to be sent, or are you willing to trust that the same power that filled that first small, uncertain gathering is available to you right now? We would love for you to join us this Sunday as we continue walking through Acts together.