Sermon on Acts 1:1–11: Finding purpose by stepping out of your own story into God's
Rev Harry Newton of SumRed Church preaches on Acts 1:1–11, using the opening of the Book of Acts to explore the question of life's purpose.
Summary
Rev Harry Newton delivers a Sunday sermon at SumRed Church in Sumner, Christchurch, New Zealand, working through Acts 1:1–11 as part of an ongoing series that has moved through the Gospel of Luke and now transitions into the Book of Acts. He opens with a brief canonical history explaining how Acts became separated from Luke and why it matters as a bridge between the Gospels and the writings of Paul. The heart of the sermon contrasts what theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar called the "ego drama" — a self-directed life centred on personal desires, status, and achievement — with the "theodrama," God's grand story for the world in which Jesus is the central character and every person is invited to play a role. Newton argues that the disciples' question about restoring the kingdom of Israel reveals the same trap many people fall into today: trying to fit God into their own plans rather than surrendering to something larger. He closes with a direct challenge to the congregation — regardless of their spiritual orientation — asking whose story they are living, and contending that true purpose, peace, and meaning are only found when the ego drama is abandoned in favour of God's plan.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Welcome and introduction
Rev Harry Newton: Welcome to church. My name's Harry. I'm the minister here.
If you've ever heard of a book called Ecclesiastes — anyone heard of that book? It was written thousands of years ago by a manic depressive named Solomon. And in it he says life is pointless, it's meaningless, it's like a chasing after the sun, after the wind. He's just really depressed about the purpose of life. I mention that because that's actually part of what today's reading is all about: the purpose of life.
Canonical context: how Acts got separated from Luke
But before we go any further, a super quick recap. If you're a visitor, what you might not know is that for the last year and a bit, we've been going through in segments what's called the Gospel of Luke — one of four accounts of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. It's written by a guy called Luke; it's named after him. And he wrote two books: the Gospel of Luke and what's called the Book of Acts. Part one and part two of the same series, essentially.
Around the second century, there was a guy called Marcion — anyone heard of Marcion? No? Awesome. He was a bit of a twit. He decided he was going to write his own version of the Bible. At this point there is no Bible, right? And he starts saying some really weird things. The church leaders all got together to discuss what he was saying and what they were going to do about it. He was saying some very strange things about Jesus in particular. And so to fix this, they took the four gospel accounts — the four ancient accounts of the life of Jesus, written by the authors Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — and they put them together in a little collection and started to circulate them around churches so people could read them. Around the same time, they did the same thing with a bunch of stuff written by a guy called Paul, who we're going to hear about in the Book of Acts.
Now, the problem with this is it meant Acts got separated from its prequel and kind of floated out there by itself. For about a hundred years or so, we think, Acts was almost irrelevant to the early church — they just didn't care. But then it became this vital bridge between the gospel accounts and the writings of Paul. And eventually, together, those three items became the bulk of what we call the New Testament — that is, the post-Jesus part of the Bible. With me so far? Alright, awesome. That's the Netflix recap of what we call the canonical context of the Scripture.
Luke's recap and the stage set for Acts
Acts is a bridge essentially between these two parts of the Bible, and it's really important. But right here, at the beginning of Acts, Luke gives us the Netflix recap of his first book — which was 24 chapters long — and he writes it in three verses. He says:
"In my former book, Theophilus..."
Who's Theophilus? We don't actually know. The theory is he was the wealthy sponsor of Luke, living back in Rome.
"...I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God."
And that's his Netflix recap. He summed up his entire book in three verses. That marks the end of that, and in the next verse he launches into the Book of Acts.
John the Baptist and the promise of the Holy Spirit
This is where Luke sets the stage for everything that's going to follow — not just in our reading, but in the next few chapters. We're going to see the disciples, Jesus' inner circle, and their expectations collide with God's plan, and see how they're not actually that compatible.
Luke begins by writing: "On one occasion..." Now, if you're like me and you grew up in the church and you're fluent in Christianese, that sounds great. But who is John? John is Jesus' older cousin. His name is John the Baptist, or John the Baptizer. John was the ultimate hippie — the Bear Grylls of the Bible. He didn't drink his own urine, as far as we know. But what he did do was eat locusts and wild honey. He wore camel hair as his clothes. He was pretty extreme. He was out there in the wilderness saying strange things like "repent and be baptized." And weirdly, people listened to him. People went to him in droves, and he dunked them in the river as a symbol of their desire for a fresh start and reconciliation with God. But as he did what he did, John kept telling people: "After me will come one whose sandals I'm not even worthy to untie. I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me comes one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
That's what Jesus is referring to here when he says, "John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." This promise — made during John's time — is finally going to come true. And it's going to come true next week, and it's pretty epic how it all happens.
The disciples' misunderstanding: the ego drama
Now, while this is all going on, Luke tells us that Jesus has spoken to his disciples about something called the kingdom of God. And the question, of course, is: what's the kingdom of God? He's not talking about a kingdom in the way that we think of kingdoms — with borders, armies, a golden throne, and Queen Victoria, who I don't think is dead. I love that — it's my favourite conspiracy theory. She is, let's be honest, but it's my favourite conspiracy theory: the Queen cannot die, she's just retired somewhere. It's a good theory.
But the disciples were imagining a kingdom like the ones they knew. They were holding on, I think, to this small hope that perhaps Jesus' plans for the future might just include them — as his faithful followers — attaining some sort of power, authority, and military might on his coattails. And so when Jesus spoke about the coming of the Holy Spirit, it seems the disciples thought Jesus was talking about something political — that Jesus was going to make Israel great again, to quote Trump, free from Roman rule, put Jesus on a throne in Jerusalem, and they would be there alongside him. They were expecting a visible, earthly kingdom.
And on one level, they were right — Jesus was talking about something pretty big, something pretty epic. But they didn't realize how much bigger Jesus' plan really was. He wasn't talking about restoring the economic and military might or fortunes of one nation. He was preparing to send them into the world to share his message and to change it — to bring healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, and new life into the darkest parts of the world.
And even though we are in really sunny Sumner, and it's beautiful and it's great, we know how dark it can be here. We know from the news what's been happening up on the cliff. We know that people are in despair, and the world is a dark place. It's not just something that happens out there in the news in Ukraine or in Gaza or Sudan or whatever. The darkness of the world permeates everywhere, and Jesus calls them to go share his message into those dark spaces.
So with all this in mind, they come to him and they say, "So Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?" In other words: are you going to do something great and we can be on your coattails?
Von Balthasar: the ego drama versus the theodrama
And this is where it becomes personal — for you and for me — and why we should actually care. Because the tension the disciples experience is the same one I think a lot of us live with.
Right here in this verse, we see what a theologian called Hans Urs von Balthasar — how great is that name? I'm thinking my name Harry is not very good. Hans Urs von Balthasar. He referred to something called the ego drama. The ego drama is this thing that I direct. It's this life plan that I write, I produce, and I star in as the key person. It's the drama which is all about me — about my desires, my hopes, my felt needs. And we can see this ego drama thing at play with the disciples: they're still thinking about their place in the story, their hopes, their visions for success. They're hoping that God might just move in a way that will suit and fit into their plans and aspirations.
Von Balthasar compares this to what he calls the theodrama. The theodrama is the great story told and directed by God, in which Jesus is the central character — not you, not me. Jesus. And you and I are invited to play a role in God's story for the universe.
Part of what makes life awesome, part of what makes life great but also satisfying, is finding and discovering our purpose in life. Isn't it? Because otherwise it's all just a meaningless chasing after the wind. What's the point? And we do that through the power of what we call, as Christians, the Holy Spirit. Jesus wasn't just giving the disciples the Holy Spirit so they could gain some wealth, prestige, power, some good vibes — all those things that characterize the ego drama. Jesus was talking about baptizing the disciples with God's Holy Spirit so they could be empowered to play their part in God's plan for the world.
Which is why Jesus answers their question about restoring the kingdom of Israel — and the implied question about whether they're going to get rich and powerful and all that kind of stuff — by essentially saying: no, you've missed the point. But nonetheless: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
What happened when the Holy Spirit came
And when that happened — when the Holy Spirit came onto those guys in this really spooky, incredible, over-the-top kind of way that we're going to hear about next week — when Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to empower his followers, two things happened. The first thing is they realized that they had a role to play in God's plan for the world. And two, they found their ultimate purpose.
My best friend's mum died recently, and I watched her funeral online. And Luke got up and said, "When we were kids, people always asked us what we wanted to do when we were older. And Harry — me — would always say, 'I want to be a pilot.' So I just copied him and said I wanted to be a pilot. I went off and trained to be a pilot and really didn't want to be a pilot. I just wanted to be like my mum. I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to make a difference in the world."
And I think that's what the disciples found as well. They found their ultimate purpose in life through Jesus. And it was a purpose so compelling that they were willing to give up everything — their family, their wealth, their honour, their culture, their prestige, their religion, everything, even their own lives. Because of the twelve blokes, only one of them didn't get murdered for his faith. And when they discovered their role in God's plan for the world, they discovered their divine purpose in life. And they went on to change the world.
You are sitting here, in part, because of them — a bunch of nobodies who I guarantee most of you in this room don't know by name, and yet their legacy lives on because they found their place in God's plan for the world.
The problem with the ego drama
Now, here's the thing. Like the disciples, we need to decide whether we want to focus on our own plans for the future or on God's.
I appreciate that in this room we've got lots of different spiritual orientations, and regardless of your spiritual orientation, I'm genuinely stoked you're here — you're more than welcome. But I want to ask you a question, regardless of whether you call yourself a Jesus follower, a skeptic, a Buddhist, spiritual, an atheist, whatever: is it possible, in your opinion, to truly experience peace if you're focused on yourself? Is it really possible to have true inner peace if you're fully focused on yourself?
I would contend no. Because I think we gain an element of our peace and fulfilment in life through our purpose in life. And that's a problem if you focus on yourself. Because if you're focused on yourself — on your ego drama — much of what you end up seeking, your meaning and your purpose every day, is ultimately vacuous and meaningless. If my life is about me and my desires, my hopes and my felt needs, if my life purpose is based around accolades, wealth, good vibes, nice holidays, having a hot partner, whatever — if that's what my life is about, then in the grand scheme of things, my life is pretty meaningless.
Now, those are good things. My wife is smoking hot. She is referred to on my phone as "my hot wife." I actually don't know how to change it — I did it once as a joke and I don't know how to undo it. And I have this AI voice on my phone, a sultry Indian voice, and she says, "Your hot wife is calling you." I'm like, oh yeah, great. And I say, "Call my hot wife." She says, "Okay, calling your hot wife." Awesome. Sorry for the bad accent.
But there's nothing wrong with having a great partner who you're attracted to. There's nothing wrong with a nice holiday. I went to Hanmer two weeks ago — it was awesome. My wife took the kids to the hot pools and I went mountain biking. It was amazing. This morning I had a coffee and a New York cookie while Richie biked past me being healthy and fit, and I'm standing on the side of the road having my calorie count for the day. There are good things in life. Life is good. But these things are meaningless if I'm seeking my purpose in them, because there is no purpose beyond myself, is there? And one day I will die. And one day my name will be forgotten.
Legacy, mortality, and the limits of self-centred purpose
I've discovered that for Kiwis, that seems to be one of the most ultimate unspoken sins. When I was a minister up in the North Island, I took a funeral roughly every ten days — a lot of funerals, because it's the local church and everyone came there. The funeral director just shot everything my way. One thing I noticed is a pattern. As people would get up and say, "So-and-so was a good bloke, or a good woman. They were fantastic. And we're never going to forget you. Your name's never going to stop. We're always going to remember you. You'll live forever in our hearts. You made this massive impact on our community." All these kind of good things.
It's not really true, is it? I bet none of you can tell me the name on the plinth halfway down the walkway between the Surf Lifesaving Club and Shag Rock. And yet that guy — if you go read it — was the local mayor, a councillor on the council, also the local schoolteacher, became a diplomat, and ended up having a massive impact on foreign policy. And yet I guarantee you don't know his name.
The point is, no one lives forever. When I was in the army, they used to tell us there are two times you die: the moment you stop breathing, and the moment your name is said for the last time. Which is why every day someone reads the names of every soldier who died in the First and Second World Wars at Waiouru Museum — their names are always being read on repeat. Because they genuinely believe that if they don't do that, those guys die forever. Their names drift off.
But here's the thing. One day your name will disappear into the sands of time. Mine will. My great-grandkids won't know my name, I'm pretty sure. Most of the stuff I've worked so hard to get will be in the rubbish. Some of it might be on someone's shelf. If I'm lucky, it might go to the op shop and someone might think it's cool and trendy — doubt it. But that'll be it. And it'll be the same for you.
And I wonder if an obsessive modern focus on the self before all else — what Sigmund Freud referred to as the centrality of the self — I wonder if this focus on the self before all else is the reason why so many people, so many of us, struggle with a low-grade anxiety, a sense of discomfort that flows out of a deep-down despair and desire for meaning and purpose. The problem with the ego drama — the problem with making ourselves the centre of our purpose in life — is that we become spiritually impoverished and life will lack ultimate purpose.
This is not a new idea. The manic depressive Solomon said it thousands of years ago. If you go down to Paper Plus, there's a whole shelf about this. If you go on YouTube, there are entire videos from people like Jordan Peterson and others all about this thing. Lots of people think about this, regardless of their spiritual orientation. You've probably thought about this too.
The wrong places people seek purpose
And so people either consciously or subconsciously start to find their purpose in things beyond themselves — but they find them in the wrong things, the things that will disappoint.
If you place your ultimate hope in your kids — I love my kids, they are awesome, also annoying at times — they will ultimately disappoint you, because one day they will individuate and they'll leave home. My grandmother was a wonderful woman, fantastic. My dad's quite open to the fact that the hardest thing in his life was trying to individuate from his mother, because she almost lost him as a baby — he almost died a couple of times due to ill health. And as a result, she kind of clutched to him and made her whole purpose in life centre around my dad. And then my dad grew up, married my mum, and she came to my mum at the wedding and said, "David likes his clothes ironed and hung facing from right to left with the hooks on the inside." And my dad goes, "Yeah, I actually do." And my mum said, "That's wonderful, Rona. He can do it himself." And what happened for the rest of my grandmother's life is she struggled with the fact that my dad had a life beyond her. You will find the same thing if you make your kids the centre of your life.
If you make your ultimate purpose in life your job — it doesn't matter what your job is, you could be the CEO of World Vision, you could be the new Mother Teresa — I had a mate who sold everything. He was quite wealthy, here in Christchurch. He became a Christian, decided he was going to sell everything, and moved to a very poor neighbourhood in the North Island — funnily enough, where my dad's from, the poorest neighbourhood in the wider Wellington region. And he moved in there and said, "I'm here because this is my purpose in life, to live among the poor, to be essentially like a new-age hippie." He burnt out. Why? Because he was trying to put his purpose in his role, in his job, in his function.
But here's the thing: regardless of what your job is, one day you will retire, and you will be replaced. At your retirement function, people will say lovely things about you, and they'll mean it. And then they'll forget you, because you'll get replaced and you'll move on. And then you run the risk of spending the rest of your time on earth desperately seeking validation for things you have done, and living in the past rather than living for the future.
The invitation into God's story
And none of this is new, is it? The disciples were grappling with this exact same problem in our story 2,000 years ago, wondering how God is going to fit into my story. But Jesus, thankfully, never offered to fit into their stories. Instead, he invited them — and he invites you, and he invites me, everyone — into his amazing, grand, epic, awesome, beyond-all-comprehension story for the world.
When Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth" — part of what he was saying is that when you abandon your ego drama and step into God's story, into God's plan for the world, he's going to empower you to play the role he has for you. And through that, you are going to find your ultimate purpose in life. And when that happens, all the anxiety that comes from constantly seeking validation and significance on your own terms will fade away.
Because here's the hard truth: if your story ends with you, it's too small. It's insignificant. If your life is about what you can achieve, what you can own, what you can feel, then your story will die with you.
But the story of God — that story doesn't end. When we talk about God, we talk about Ipsum Esse Subsistens — it's Latin, it means that God is the essence of being itself. The idea that God is not a being amongst others; God is the essence that underpins reality and lives outside our ability to comprehend. What that means is that regardless of your view on the Big Bang and evolution and all that stuff, God is. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God — God just is. Before time and space and temporal constraints as we conceived them existed, God was, because God just is. When the world ends — be it nuclear holocaust or the sun blowing up in a billion years, whatever it is — God still will be. God's plan is bigger than anything you can comprehend in your finite space and your finite manner, and you are invited to have a role in God's story, whether you recognize it or not.
But to find your role, you need to let go of your ego. You need to let go of your desire for control and your self-scripted future. You need to trust that when you lose your life for Jesus' sake, you'll find the life you were created to live. Jesus himself said, "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. Whoever loses their life for me will save it."
Closing challenge: whose story are you living?
So with all that in mind, I'll leave you this question this morning. Whose story are you living? Regardless of your spiritual orientations — whose story are you living? Are you spending your energy trying to script your own success? Trying to control your future? Trying to make your name known? Trying to find a sense of significance in your kids, your job, whatever it is that defines you? Or are you ready to surrender and step into something bigger, bolder, and more beautiful than you could ever imagine or write on your own?
Because when you step out of your ego drama into God's drama — into God's plan for the world — you don't just find your purpose. You also find peace. You'll find a life that matters. You'll find a role that lasts.
And you'll be just like the disciples. Those twelve blokes — they were nobodies. And part of the reason you are sitting here today, as I said earlier, is because of them. They went on to change the world. What you take as justice and rules and ethics, the fact that you even think of the concept of human rights — "I have rights," all that kind of stuff — it all stems from them. It stems from their work, taking the good news of Jesus, the light of Jesus, into those dark spaces. Not just in Jerusalem, not just amongst their community, but beyond — into Judea, into Samaria, into what we call the ends of the earth. Aotearoa, New Zealand, here in Christchurch, about as far away as you can get from there. They changed the world.
Now, if you find your role to play in God's plan — if you give up your ego drama — that doesn't necessarily mean you are going to achieve something grand by the standards of the world. I had someone come to me last year, and you may not believe in this kind of stuff, but a guy came and gave me what you call a prophetic word. He said, "God is calling you to achieve something great in your life." And the person who was with me said, "Oh, that's awesome, Harry. I wonder what you're going to do. I wonder if someone's going to turn it into a megachurch." Genuinely what they said.
My response was to say: doing something great in God's kingdom might result in me being the vicar of Invercargill for the rest of my life. And that would be just as great as becoming the equivalent of the pope. There is no such thing as promotion in the kingdom of God.
But when you find your role in God's story for the world, you find meaning, you find purpose, and you find peace.
So — whose story are you living? Yours or God's?