A Garden in the Desert

Sep 13

Acts 19:1-41

WHAT IF WE’VE GOT IT BACKWARDS?

There are times in culture when we get it exactly backwards.

Example: Food recommendations in the 90s vs today.

What if it’s the same spiritually?

What if you’ve got it backwards spiritually?

What are the things you might consider nonsense now that are actually the substance that your soul is deeply longing for?

What are the things that you consider life-giving that are actually the very things killing you inwardly?

What if the Christianity that seemed dead was actually the only thing that brings true life?

GOD BRINGS GARDEN LIFE INTO A DESERT OF DEATH.

There are only two options today: The World or the Word.

We too often mix up which brings about life and which is full of death.

THE WORLD OR THE WORD

Nolan’s personal story of finding:

Life
Hope
A spiritual Garden

We too often mix up which brings about life and which is full of death.

PAUL IS HUNTING FOR HEARTS

Acts 19:1

“And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.”

This is Paul’s 3rd Missionary Journey.

What is Paul doing?

Paul was traveling around hunting for hearts.

He’s entering the spiritual wild to cultivate new life where there was spiritual death.

To plant churches. To grow disciples of Jesus everywhere.

Why do guys hunt?

I think that’s not too far off from why Paul and his team went out on their missionary journeys.

God sent them on an amazing, terrifying journey into the wild to drag home not dead animals but hearts.

THE HUNTER IS A HEALER

Acts 19:8

“And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.”

πείθω — peithō

To persuade:

To induce one by words to believe
To make friends
To win one's favor
To gain one's good will
To seek to win one
To strive to please one
To tranquillise

Two sides to this term:

Intellectual persuasion
Calming emotional/spiritual turbulence

This is the weapon used to tranquilize wild animals in danger.

The point of a tranquilizer is not to destroy, harm, or eat the animal, but to pacify it long enough to save them from danger.

THE HUNTER IS A HEALER

JESUS ISN’T TRYING TO HURT YOU, BUT HEAL YOU.

Here at the Garden, we are trying to see you come to the intellectual conclusion that Jesus really is God and Lord, but also alleviate the turbulence in your soul with that truth of His death in your place.

We are actively engaged in softening people to the only Truth that can set them free.

“A place for skeptics and saints to consider the claims of Jesus.”

We’re here to announce the good news that God is willing to save them from their sin through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Some of you think God is a vindictive dictator in the Sky seeking to zap you for doing wrong or unfairly subject you to a boring religious life devoid of fun.

But in reality Jesus comes not to rob your life of joy but to offer you the most joyful life.

RELIGIOUS VS. REGENERATE

The RELIGIOUS HEART believes God’s ways are a burden.

The REGENERATE HEART discovers God’s ways are a blessing.

When your heart is regenerated, God installs new desires in you.

You stop looking at God’s ways as burdensome and instead as a blessing.

Some Christians even describe sinfulness as freedom and Christ-following as slavery.

They’ll hear of someone who lived a sinful, indulgent life and then got saved on their deathbed and ask:

“How is it fair that they GOT to live however they wanted but still go to heaven? Meanwhile I spent my whole life following God’s ways!”

But do you see what you’re doing?

You’re ascribing value to the life of sin and devaluing the life of following Jesus.

That’s backwards for those who truly know Jesus!

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Paul is convincing them of the “Kingdom of God.”

What is that?

The Kingdom of God is the sphere where Jesus’ rule is obeyed and enjoyed.

Jesus’ rule is not tyrannical but life-giving.

It’s like a garden in the desert.

Isaiah 51:3

“For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD.”

Isaiah’s vision imagines a future time when God brings life from death:

A multitude from a barren couple
A great nation from the wreckage
A new Garden of Eden in the middle of the desert

We are in a culture of extreme darkness that it feels like society can’t come back from.

But that’s just God’s game.

He is in the business of bringing about:

Order from chaos
Life from death
Gardens from graveyards

Our vision is to see people set free from lifelong slavery to sin by an encounter with the beauty of Jesus.

When this happens, it’s like beauty emerging from the ashes.

KINGDOM ROLE TO PLAY: JOIN A TEAM

HEALING COMES THROUGH HEARING

Acts 19:9–10

“But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. [10] This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”

HEALING COMES THROUGH HEARING.

For TWO YEARS Paul taught and reasoned.

Evidence suggests Paul taught from approximately 11:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M.

The hall of Tyrannus may have been available during the hottest part of the day when work ceased.

Tyrannus: Virtually nothing is known about Tyrannus himself, though some scholars suggest he was a Greek rhetorician or sophist sympathetic to Paul’s preaching.

One of our prayers is to be given a mid-week space.

WORD — WAY — WITNESS

TWO STORIES: WORLD vs. WORD

Some people think we’re in the middle of a culture war.

But it’s deeper than that.

We are living in a war between:

Two stories
Two ideologies

The story told by Heaven and a story told by Hell.

Truth revealed from Heaven.

And the lies unleashed by Hell.

Why Paul was so passionate about reasoning with people through the Scriptures—and why the core mission of this church is to be a Bible church—is because the most fundamental war in humanity is whether we believe the story told by the World or the story told by the Word of God.

The worldview of emptiness

Maybe the most pervasive lie today is the worldview of EMPTINESS:

We’ve come from nothing, we’re going nowhere, so live for yourself or seek the power of this world.

The World seeks to drag Hell upward.
The Word seeks to bring Heaven downward.

Which story do you believe in?

When the power of the Word is deployed the stronghold of darkness is destroyed.

A WORLD OF EMPTINESS NEEDS A WORD OF SUBSTANCE.

WHERE THE POWER REALLY IS

Acts 19:11–20

God was doing extraordinary miracles through Paul.

People were healed and evil spirits came out of them.

Then:

“Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.”

And:

“A number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.”

They counted the value of them and found it came to:

FIFTY THOUSAND PIECES OF SILVER.

And:

“So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.”

Magic

In the Greco-Roman world, many used magic to:

Heal
Curse
Control evil spirits

Paul showed how Jesus’ power greatly surpasses any magical spells.

They have discovered where the power really is.

They turn from magic because it turns out to be powerless.

And they burn the books.

WE DUMPSTER-DIVE THE WORLD

Paganism in a nutshell is channeling the powers of the world—in their day through demonic deities, but in our day through our own devices.

Maybe you’ve been seeking:

Healing
Meaning
Purpose
Fulfillment

But in all the wrong places.

Money + House — The economy is broken and there’s joy money can’t buy.

Job + Success — There’s always another hill and it’s never enough.

Family — Even the best families come with challenges and you need from above to lead a family.

Discipline — Even the strength of young men fails, the Bible says, but the Lord alone raises us up on wings like eagles.

Self Discovery and Health — People pursue divorce and sexual liberation.

Substances — They never bring the escape you’re seeking, and when you come down, they leave you more empty than before.

WE DUMPSTER-DIVE THE WORLD TO TRY TO FIND WHAT GOD OFFERS FOR FREE!

Fifty thousand pieces of silver.

If Jesus really is who He said He is, then everything we once counted valuable is worthless and the Jesus you once considered worthless is worth everything.

There is a young woman in our church who burned her magic books.

This is how Jesus has demonstrated His power among us at The Garden.

THE STORY OF THE GARDEN

Small sovereign alignments

God provided

More than 412 baptisms in the last three years.

GOD MAKES A WAY IN THE WILDERNESS

We planted this church for many of you who, like my family, moved here alone to find a better home but don’t know anyone.

God has woven so many of your lives together almost out of nowhere.

Many of you are building deep, life-altering friendships here.

Every weekend is a display of the power of God.

And every weekend this happens because of heroes of the faith!

Paradise Honors → Shadow Ridge

Psalm 91:1

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

I was deeply moved because that was my grandma’s favorite verse, and it was on her car my whole life—even when I was unsaved.

THE LAND

There was a time when I was almost certain there was no land we could secure in the West Valley as giant corporations buy it all up.

One day I even shared that with the current pastor of Saddleback Church.

He gave me a prophetic word in tears:

There is a piece of land God already has it set apart for you.

He provided 8 and now maybe 10 acres of land when we were sure it seemed impossible when we simply asked.

The Financial Campaign

This year, when we knew we needed to launch a financial campaign to secure this rare opportunity to get land, I was nervous about what would happen.

We were and are a young church that, on paper, lacked ability to raise serious money.

But we saw hundreds and hundreds of you give sacrificially as one army.

We’re still on track to secure that land right now.

STORIES OF LIFE

The man in the wheelchair

God saved one young man from suicidal death.

One dude who was considering it is not only alive but got engaged this last weekend!