More People to Love: The 10-Year Anniversary Edition (Revised and Expanded)
August 2, 2026
Preacehd by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Acts 1:8
8 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.
Discussion Questions
Do you tend to be more melancholy or upbeat? How is that a blessing to yourself and others? How is that a challenge? Are there ways God might be asking you to grow?
Have you read through the book of Acts before? What are some of your favorite stories from the book?
What fears do you have for our church in the next few years? Why? How are they related to the way you’ve experienced churches in the past? How does the (negative?) narrative of the church that exists in culture play into your feelings?
The main summary verses in the book are: 1:8; 2:46–47; 5:14; 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20; and 28:30–31. Read all of them briefly. What pattern do you see? What do you feel like Luke wanted you as a reader to get from these summary statements?
The disciples really wanted Jesus to sit on the throne of Jerusalem—now! How can you relate to this, meaning, what are places you’re frustrated because God doesn’t seem to be doing what you want?
How do you feel about the potential changes at our church (growth, adding services, moving, fundraising, etc.)? What part might God be asking you to play?
This morning we start our new sermon series, a six-week study across the book of Acts we’re calling “More People to Love.” The series starting today is actually Part II of the series. Part I happened in the spring of 2016, so I’m sure everyone remembers that series, right? Just a short decade between Part I and Part II. Totally normal, right?
Well, ten years ago, our church was positioned for change. We were in a different building and outgrowing it. In that series, I described us as a toddler wearing a onesie that’s too small. We were good for a bit, but soon the zipper was going to break. We were too full. So we preached “More People to Love, Part I” to prepare for the change, to plant a church, move buildings, and do hard things, which we did.
Well, we’re not toddlers anymore, and we’re not wearing a onesie. Maybe we’re teenagers now. However old we are and whatever we’re wearing, it’s all getting a bit tight. So this series—this Part II—is to prepare us again for something that will probably be harder than we expect, but, I hope, more exciting.
The full title of the series this time is, “More People to Love (Part II): How God Built and Is Still Building a Humble, Holy, Hungry, and Happy Church.” Let’s pray together, and I’ll explain more.“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
I don’t know how you would describe your own temperament, whether you’re a “glass is half-empty” sort of person or a “glass is half-full” sort of person. I don’t know whether you’re more melancholy, sad, and brooding, or more upbeat, positive, and happy. I was reading a book this summer, and in the novel one of the characters, a grandpa, fought in the Civil War and was injured. Everyone said that grandpa had lost an eye, which is one way to look at it. The grandpa, however, always said he preferred to say he kept one eye, which is another way to look at it.
Sometimes when I’m sad or discouraged, I like meeting with someone from church who also trends that way. It can be a wonderful gift to spend time with others who are not afraid to be sad, not afraid of lament, not afraid of being discouraged.
But, of course, there are other times when I feel sad and discouraged that I don’t want to be around other sad people at all. I just want to be around people who seem like they’ve never had a bad day, never seen a cloud in the sky, never worried about tomorrow because they know the sun will come up tomorrow. You say, “But I lost an eye,” and they say, “But you kept one!”
These two feelings speak to something central to what it means to be human. We want to know that the ultimate story of the universe can acknowledge the brokenness and the difficulties we experience in our lives. The story that makes sense of the universe has to reckon honestly with our brokenness.
At the same time, few of us would be content with a story that merely explains our brokenness. We want a story that is, ultimately, happy and hopeful. We want a redemptive arc to our pain. We want God to win in the end. We want his children to be vindicated. We want the restoration of all things. And in the gospel, the good news story of Jesus, this is the story we have, the ultimate story that makes sense of our broken world and yet ends somewhere better.
And so, with this sermon series, I want to name something at the start: we are intentionally going to focus on the happy and hopeful. We won’t be exclusively happy and hopeful, but we will focus on that because that’s where the book of Acts wants us to focus. I say that because the book of Acts has these amazing little summary statements the author placed in the book to give hope to readers like you and me.
The author of the book was a man named Luke, a good friend and doctor to the apostle Paul. If you know anything about Paul, he often needed a good doctor. Luke crafted the book of Acts so that, when we read it rightly, we can’t miss the happiness and hope he offers to readers. He did this by placing summary statements at key moments in the book, times when things could look pretty bleak. At these very moments, Luke says something like, “and yet the word of the Lord increased, and many were added to the church.” There are about a half dozen of these, and we’re going to look at one each week. That’s why we called the series, “More People to Love (Part II): How God Built and Is Still Building a Humble, Holy, Hungry, and Happy Church.”
As God’s people seek to follow him throughout the book, we can rightly suspect they often felt overwhelmed and afraid, just as we do when we face huge, God-given tasks. That was certainly true at the start of the book of Acts, the place where we’ll begin the series. As we look at this passage, I first want to point out the many challenges God’s people faced. Then we’ll talk about the many comforts. First, the challenges.
1. The many challenges to God’s people
So far, we’ve only read Acts 1:8, but let me read it again, this time with the surrounding context so we can better see what’s happening. If you have a Bible, keep it open to the book of Acts. I’ll read vv. 6–11.
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 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.” 9 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. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 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.”
Note the many, many challenges they faced. Consider, of course, the most obvious one: the loss of their leader, Jesus. For those newer to the Bible, the book of Acts tells us the story of the early church. It’s the sequel to the gospel of Luke, which recounts the life and teachings of Jesus, as well as his death and resurrection. The book of Acts continues this story. But this was not an easy transition for the disciples.
In the Gospels, Jesus anticipated the challenge of this transition and gave them a comforting promise. He told them, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away” and then explained how he would send the Holy Spirit to them (John 16:7ff).
The disciples, I’m sure, wanted to believe Jesus; they wanted to take Jesus at his word—just as we do. But we understand how they might have struggled to see how it would be better, how it would be an advantage, for Jesus to go away. Wouldn’t it have been better, they wondered, if their resurrected Lord had stayed and ushered in his Kingdom, had he stayed to sit on a throne in Jerusalem, and led these men back to health after such a significant betrayal? It was challenging for them to see how losing the physical presence of Jesus was better.
And that relates to another challenge: not only the loss of a leader, but the aftermath of a betrayal. If you glance at what happens in the rest of the first chapter, one of the first steps is to replace the disciple named Judas, who betrayed not only Jesus, but also them.
You’ll remember that the disciples did not see this betrayal coming. At the Last Supper, when Jesus said that one of the twelve would betray him, none of the disciples pointed at Judas and said, “Oh, it’s got to be him.” Instead, they had no idea, each wondering if it was himself who would betray Jesus (Matt. 26:22).
Some of you know the surprise of betrayal, whether from a ministry leader who failed in a significant way and the church had to pick up the pieces. Or the betrayal of a friend or spouse or relative who left the faith and committed a significant moral failure. How do you go forward in the aftermath of betrayal? It’s a challenge.
There was also the challenge related to the confusing timing of God’s redemption. When you put together the resurrection appearance in Luke 24, which we preached a few months ago, along with this passage, it really seems like the disciples want to be done with Rome. They are tired of the oppression. Which is why they ask, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). The delay of God’s full restoration was a confusing challenge to them. And, again, that’s not so strange. We’ve all questioned Jesus when he appears not to be willing to sit on the throne of some part of our life and make it better. That’s what they wanted him to do; yet he said no.
Also, their new roles in missions would have been challenging. In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were primarily in what we might call a “come and see” obedience. But now we are part of a “go and tell” obedience. In the Old Testament, if you wanted to learn about God, well, great. Come and see what he is like by traveling to Jerusalem, beholding the sacrifices, and partaking in the feasts and festivals. But now—now that Jesus is the risen Lord—he commands us primarily to go and tell, to be his witnesses. It sounds great that the temple curtain tore and the Spirit came in glory, giving tongues of fire. And it is great. But it was also new, different, hard—like going to Sameria.
Not to mention that they had to wait for this power. Waiting can be so hard. I don’t mean waiting in a line at a store or at a stoplight; I mean waiting for days. If you have a biopsy taken on a Friday and are told to wait over the weekend for results, that’s hard.
I could go on about the challenges here at the start of the book, but because this is the first sermon in the series, allow me just for a moment to mention some of the many challenges across not the first chapter of the book, but across all 28 chapters of the book of Acts, which are full of so many challenges.
First, there is the challenge of rapid growth. Sometimes thousands of believers were converted after a single sermon. Cool, right? Awesome, right? But where do you put all those believers on the Christmas Eve service? How do you celebrate Easter with two thousand people when your church only has room for two hundred? And who will pastor and disciple them when their marriages get hard? Who will pray for them when they are sick? Rapid growth was a challenge.
The church also faced the challenge of the collision of differing ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds. Yes, the gospel of Jesus Christ knocks down every wall of hostility between believers—and that’s wonderful. But that now means people with very different life experiences come to the same communion table. Awesome, right? But also a challenge.
And, of course, we can’t overlook the persecution. We hardly move through a chapter without encountering some form of persecution, whether from Roman officials, Jewish leaders, or another group. Peter and John go to prison. Stephen gets stoned. James gets killed. And that’s just in the first third of the book.
There is also the challenge of lots of leadership transitions. We’ll look at one of them next week when I preach chapter 6. Churches often struggle when pastors change. Can you imagine the challenges of leadership changes they experienced in the first thirty years of the church, which is the time covered in Acts?
There were challenging theological conundrums, like how the people of God would now relate to meat sacrificed to idols and circumcision and eating unclean food and sabbath keeping. These might not exactly be our burning questions, but we can understand what it’s like to divide over theology.
There was greed and power struggles, as with Ananias and Sapphira, as well as Simon the magician, as well as jealousy from the Jews.
There was also the challenge of poverty and famine.
There was also the challenge of demonic opposition. Lots of it, actually.
The book is full of travel misadventures, quite famously in the examples at the end of shipwrecks and snake bites.
Finally, very little of what I mentioned so far had to do with the ordinary struggles of sinful hearts, struggles with pride and lust and ego and doubt and insecurity, all of which were present then and all of which are still present now.
And so this is a long way to say that the people of God had and still have many, many challenges. And yet, somehow they grew and thrived.
I like to think about it like growing bananas in Nova Scotia. When you read the book of Acts, you’re supposed to feel that the church isn’t supposed to grow in this environment. Bananas and coconuts and pineapples and oranges and lemons do not grow in Nova Scotia. It’s a nice place, I’m sure. The pictures I’ve seen of that eastern edge of northern Canada look awfully pretty.
But there’s a lot of snow for about 10 months of the year. If it reaches 70 in the summer, that’s a hot day. And if it’s only zero degrees in the winter, that’s a warm day! Which is why tropical fruit doesn’t grow there. Just as the fruit of the Spirit shouldn’t grow in the Roman Empire.
2. The many comforts to God’s people
But to read only the book of Acts this way, to see only the glass half empty, to see only the many challenges, is to read the book poorly. Even in this chapter, there are so many comforts given to God’s people. Let me point out a few.
I mentioned that they had to wait for the Holy Spirit. Yes, okay. But note the exact wording. Look at v. 8 again.
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. (1:8).
Jesus offers the comfort of his powerful promise: you will have power and you will be my witnesses, he says. You see that parallel structure, right? Certainly, Jesus could command us to go make disciples. The risen Lord can command us to be his witnesses. And in other places in the Bible, he does make that command. But here it’s not so much a command as it is a promise. You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and you will be my witnesses. It will happen, he says.
This confidence reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I remember when I first arrived here as a pastor and met with the youth group. They asked me what my favorite verse was. In the context of hard things, God says to his people in Malachi 1:11, “My name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.” It’s not a hope, a wish, or a desire. The promise of God to build his church is a steamroller moving across history, building and blessing people who don’t deserve it. I think of Jesus’s words to his disciples in Matthew, where he says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
“My name will be great. I will build my church. You will be my witnesses,” he promises.
We see this comfort implied in the first verse of the book. Look with me at Acts 1:1.
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Theophilus was likely a wealthy patron who commissioned Luke to write his two-volume work, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Notice how he describes his first book. He wrote about “all that Jesus began to do and teach.” What is the implication, church? The implication is that Jesus is still doing stuff, good stuff, gospel stuff, happy, and hopeful stuff with his people. He’s growing bananas in Nova Scotia. He’s growing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in Harrisburg and to the ends of the earth.
And, of course, I love v. 11. Look how the two angels comfort the disciples.
11 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.”
A few of you will have been here when I did the return of Christ seminar back in June, and we looked at this verse. But let me just say some of that again. The promise to God’s people is that this same Jesus will return. I love that phrase, “this Jesus.”
This Jesus, the one in whom the fullness of deity is pleased to dwell in bodily form.
This Jesus, the one who calms the storms with a word: Be still.
This Jesus, the one who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of the servant.
This Jesus, the one who cleansed lepers, opened the sight of the blind, resisted the proud and gave grace to the humble.
This Jesus—the one who is so high and exalted that he upholds the universe by the word of his power but is yet also gentle and lowly that he understands our human frame and frailties and invites us to take his yoke, which is easy and light.
This Jesus, not a different Jesus. Not another Jesus. The Jesus we know and love and read about in the Gospels will return.
But not just this Jesus of the Gospels. Yes, this Jesus of the Gospels. But not just the Jesus from the beginning of the Gospels. But he is the Jesus from the end of the Gospels, the Jesus who laid down his life and took it up again.
This Jesus, who now and will always have the power of an indestructible life. This Jesus raised in glory.
This Jesus, who came to Peter after Peter had absolutely failed Jesus on the night leading to the crucifixion, and yet this Jesus forgave Peter and reinstated Peter, because this Jesus is a forgiving and reinstating Jesus.
This Jesus, the one who will ride the white horse across the clouds, with feet of burnished bronze, a sharp, two-edged sword coming from his mouth, eyes like flames of fire, and a voice like the sound of many waters. The one who doesn’t just sit on the throne in Jerusalem, or on the throne of our health, or on the throne of our relationships or career, but on the throne of the universe.
Again, what comfort do the angels offer? “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Except when he comes again, this Jesus will come to never leave. And we will always be with the Lord.
So, yes, there were and there are always still many challenges to building a church that is humble, holy, hungry, and happy. But don’t miss that the one who died for sins, rose to life, ascended, and pours out his Spirit, also built and still builds his church.
Conclusion: “More People to Love” email
It’s fair to say I don’t always see it this way, though. When we first preached this sermon series, I told a story worth retelling here. Sometime in 2012, maybe fifteen years ago, another pastor sent me an email that simply read: “More people to love. Thanks, John.”
That email changed things for me. When I received it, the church I served was growing rapidly. Someone needed to assess current trends and develop a plan to accommodate that growth. I drew on my former career in engineering, opened Microsoft Excel, and took a close look at our attendance data. I created pretty graphs and conservative growth projections for the next few years, and I sent them to the staff and elders.
At that time, I was primarily viewing new people as more of a problem than a blessing. As the pastor responsible for connecting newcomers to the church, I saw them as new problems. The attendance line on the graph might as well have been labeled “Benjamin’s workload.” For every fifty new people, could I really keep adding five hours to my workweek? At some point, simply trying harder wasn’t going to solve the problem. (Again, there’s that word, problem.)
Then, just a few minutes after I sent my concerned email, I received John’s reply: “More people to love.” That was all it said. I remember staring at my computer screen. The contrast between my approach and John’s was stark. He was ready for adventure, ready to see his story and our church’s story in light of God’s story.
I don’t know whether you’re ready for what our church might experience over the next few years, that of fundraising and moving and adding services and making room for more people to love. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m ready either. And that’s just our life as a church. Who knows what the next ten years will bring in our personal lives.
I hope this sermon series, as we hang out with Luke’s story for six weeks, will be like hanging out with an upbeat friend. A friend who knows it’s good to be happy today because the sun will come up tomorrow because Jesus is on the throne and he’s building his church and his name will be great among the nations. And this Jesus will come again.
Pray with me as the music team comes back up. Let’s pray…
