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We're going to study acts this morning. Let's begin with a word of prayer shall we Heavenly father. Thank you this morning Lord for this This place to meet in thank you lord that you've given us Such a good building this physical place in West Boylston to to meet in fellowship as Believers and lo we do look forward to to hearing your word this morning to hearing What you would have us to learn from the book of Acts as we begin Our tour as it were a journey through the early history of what you did in Salvation for your people the new church the church of Jews and Gentiles together depicted by Luke in the book of Acts and Lord.
We do ask you that you would bring to mind as we go through this lesson this morning things in each one of our lives that that need upgrading that need checking that need Lord improvement that by your spirit and by your grace you would make these things happen in us and bring them to mind as we Meet in Jesus name.
Amen. Well, I'm entitled this morning's or this this three week. We're actually gonna meet this week next week in September 9th. I've entitled this group of Messages tour de acts or the tour of acts as it were.
Recent tour de france, I don't know if you're familiar with bicycle racing at all, but tour de france is a stage race. It's it's a race where you know, it's not like here in America America. We do what's called criteriums where?
We just go around in circles a whole bunch of times. That's that's what we do as Americans in our culture and in our bicycle races. Well in Europe, this is very few like the Fitchburg long show bike race.
They do it different things every day one. They're racing against the clock as fast as they could possibly go. Another day they're racing up a Mount Wachusett another day. They're doing that roundabout down in downtown Fitchburg well Acts the book of Acts a little bit like a stage bicycle race in which Luke is.
If you've ever watched a tour on TV. They do it in stages and the coverage. Kind of hops a riddle around a little bit like you might look at the French countryside for a little while you might look at The leaders in the race it's a mountaintop finish you might if it's a time trial.
You might look at this guy and then they'll switch back to this guy. So the book of Acts is a little bit like that. It's not a motion picture. It's not a running Continuous coverage of the early church what it is is it's more like photographs or little pictures.
You don't get entire sermons. Somebody has said if they boil down all this 19 sermons in the book of Acts. The average sermon would be about 45 seconds. Now if we held mic to that standard, there might be a little bit of a problem or any of us for that matter.
But what it really is is giving us pictures what the Holy Spirit of God Wants us to know about the early church is right here in the book of Acts. You know as the again getting back to the bike race analogy as as You go watch the Tour de France or any bike race as it gets toward the end.
It's going towards this climactic finish and we'll also see in the book of Acts how the book of Acts finishes. It's kind of an abrupt finish. It's not Sort of looking ahead and it doesn't say okay. Here's what's happening next.
It just sort of says boom. It's done. And we'll look a little bit about what that means as well. You know, we have an announcer you have The dr. Luke who was a companion of Paul, you know again, if you ever seen a bike race on TV, you have your announcers with their distinct personalities and their distinct way of doing things and It's very much like our book of Acts where Luke has a certain point that he's trying to bring across certain purpose and Again, we'll look at that a little bit more in detail later finally, you know, it's also like a bike race or like if anybody watches Tiger Woods play golf or Golf exploded in popularity with Tiger Woods in 96.
Well, if you watch Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, a lot of people took up bicycling. Well, my point is that you know, you might take a bicycling but you know Lance Armstrong, you know pastor Mike likes the bike.
He's no Lance Armstrong, you know, he's good. He's not that good. We look at the book of Acts we see the Apostles we see Those who are going before us and this should inspire us this should inspire us to Do what they do?
But also not expect the same results that they got. Dr. Bill Cook at Southern Seminary Has made a few statements about how the book of Acts Contrasts with our church today. Let me give you a few of those.
Number one, he said in our age of isolationism and self-absorption. Today's church is weak compared to the living dynamic events of the book of Acts. For example number one in our age of isolationism and self-absorption Acts presents a church that is willing to die for the cause of Christ.
Okay, you think about our church today. I think these are pretty accurate assessments. Number two in our age of Madison Avenue evangelism acts presents a church that gave top priority to preaching the gospel.
Prayer and moral purity, you know when you look at a lot of the seeker friendly stuff today. Very different than what you see in the book of Acts see the power of God working. To make the church what it became and how it started out.
It's amazing stuff. Number three in our age of pluralism Acts presents a church that based its life on the objective truths of the gospel. The ancient Greek world and Roman world was also like this a lot of mystery religions.
You had a lot of local deities. And again, we have that today. It's not that much different than today. But acts clearly presents Christ is the only way of salvation. Number four in our age of self-centeredness and materialism Acts presents a church that cared for the needs of one another.
In our age of self-centeredness and materialism acts presents a church that cared for the needs of one another. And that's a challenge to us today, isn't it at any age? Okay, we want to make sure that we measure ourselves against the Word of God and certainly an act you see a church that was Literally willing to sell everything to care for one another and finally in our age of spiritual lukewarmness Acts presents a church with a reckless abandonment to Jesus Christ.
So these are some of the thoughts of how we look at acts and it's sort of contrasts much of the church today. What I'd like to do is I'd like to do a little bit of introductory work a little background and we do a survey.
I know when Pastor Dave goes through books. He only has one week to cover a book. So what we're going to try to do today is we're going to spend a little bit of time today. Going through it's hard to do that and do all introductory and get background on the book and the author and so forth.
We're going to try to do today is give you a little bit of background on the author on the book and some of the big picture stuff again. Back to the tour, you know when you see a mountain stage of the Tour de France.
You know they do this the cool now that they have computer graphics. It's really cool. But they do this neat flyover where you sort of a it's all topographically correct and they do the mountain and you see this little line.
Okay, the roads going to go here and up the mountain and you go I'm not writing that, you know up these Alps like this and then it goes down again and you got this another mountain you go. Oh, well, that's not so bad.
Let's get this mountain. It just goes up beyond category. Well here that's what we're kind of going to going to kind of do this morning a little bit is get that super flyover. We're going to get that idea we start here and we're going to fly over a little bit just kind of look at the peaks.
A lot of these main points of the book of Acts as we go along. Well, there's mainly three ways of breaking down the book of Acts. There's three ways people generally do it scholars and so forth. One is around the two major characters of the book.
Who are the two main characters of the book of Acts if you were to say these two people these two guys Paul and Peter. Peter and Paul right in that order Peter first and then Paul that's correct. So we have Peter and Paul some people break it down as chapter 1 through 12 focus on Peter.
And then chapters 13 through 28 focus on Paul. So they break it down by these two personalities. What's another way you've heard of people breaking down the book of Acts anybody heard it broken down. That's right how it breaks how it expanded out very good Dallas Said and that's exactly what I've heard as well.
That in Acts 1 8 what Christ says is that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses where in Jerusalem right in the center where they were Judea and Sumeria.
Which is the next ring concentric ring and then to the outermost parts of the earth. So that's excellent way. That's another way that people break down the book of Acts. Good. So personalities characters expansion of the gospel and another one Bruce.
Well that is that is certainly a tendency. Bruce said miracles are very prevalent at the beginning of the book of Acts. And less so toward the end. That's very true. That is one thing that we'll cover a little later on.
How those those gifts for certain reasons and we'll discuss why that is that the miracles sort of. Towards the beginning are very pronounced and less so towards the end. That's not one way I was thinking but that's very good.
Another way that a tendency that we see but as far as breaking up the book of Acts. And this is the the approach of dr. Cook at Southern and I tend to agree with this. He said the book of Acts is divided according to summary statements.
Have you ever heard that when you get to the book of Acts is really five summary statements. Or six summary statements that break the book up into five sections. Chapter 6 verse 7 is 1 chapter 9 verse 31 chapter 12 dash 24 verse 24 chapter 16 verse 5.
And then the very end of the book and what you'll see if you turn with me quickly just to the very. The very first one in chapter 6 verse 7 of the book of Acts. We'll see an example of one of these summary statements.
These are very important because remember Luke has a certain personality. Luke has a certain structure in mind. And there are very important reasons why he uses these. So we read in chapter 6 verse 7 of the book of Acts the word of God kept on spreading.
And the number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. And you see that's not really describing the action. That's not you look at the verse before where it says.
And these people the people who were selected to wait the tables deacons. Were brought before the apostles and after praying they laid their hands on them. That's describing an event in the book of Acts.
A specific point of that book it's telling us what was going on. Well here in verse 7 we have what's called a summary statement. Where it's sort of saying the word of God kept spreading. We'll see this again and again and again.
The word of God kept spreading. Numbers of disciples continued to increase greatly. And even the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. This marks a key turning point. And then we see Stephen the martyr.
He launches right into the story of Stephen's martyrdom in verse 8. So this is another way of breaking up the book of Acts. I think it's a very helpful way of looking at it. And I think as we go through the book you'll see that it's very important For Luke to mark these off.
Now again the text as originally written didn't have any verses. Didn't have any capitals didn't have any punctuation. So Luke put this book down in a form. And in a way that you'd see clearly where these breaks were.
And these are why he breaks it up the way he does. The first section really breaks it up. The church in Jerusalem really 30 to 34 AD. And this is really the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. And you see that as Dallas mentioned earlier.
It's geographical as well but there's also some other implications. Of why he breaks it up this way. So the first part is the church in Jerusalem. The next one is the initial expansion. The three men that Luke highlights in the book of Acts.
Responsible for getting the gospel outside the walls of Jerusalem. And we'll look at them as well. So the second section is initial expansion. The third one is the first expansion of the gospel of the Gentiles.
That's the third section of the book of Acts. That's chapter 12 verse 24. And at the heart of the section is Cornelius who's a God fearer. And we'll see how Luke really highlights his conversion later.
The fourth section. Paul's first missionary journey. In what's called the Jerusalem Conference in chapter 15. And that whole episode ends in verse 5 of chapter 16. And the final section beginning in 19, 20.
Chapter 19 verse 20. The gospel is taken into Europe. And we have Paul's second and third missionary journeys. The westward expansion of the gospel. In that final section. The next to last section I should say.
Because the final section, that's the last break. But the final section takes Paul from Ephesus to Rome. Where he's in prison. And that's really where the book, as I said, is an abrupt ending. The book ends with Paul in Rome for two years.
Preaching to Caesar's household. And boom, it's gone. So you go, well we know that other things happened. Why didn't Luke deal with those? Well let's talk about that right now. Some people have suggested that Luke had already accomplished his purpose.
As we discussed earlier It was a geographic outline. The gospel made it, reached Jerusalem. The outer regions, Judea, Samaria. And had gotten to really at that point The outermost parts of the earth. So he'd accomplished his purpose so he stopped.
That's one theory. But again the problem is Paul was released from prison. And it's likely that Luke knew that. Why wouldn't he discuss that. And that he continue to preach in the area. That's one issue with that theory.
The second theory. Which is hard to prove. Is that Luke intended to write a third volume. Now one thing I didn't mention is Luke and Acts are really book A and B. So when you read Acts It's a good idea to read Luke first.
Because Acts follows directly from that. It's really a part one and two. Both Luke and Acts cover about 30 years. And both take a complete scroll. Back then they didn't have the nice publishers. You write too much.
You get a thousand pages. I don't know how much Mike's book is going to be. But probably less than a thousand. But here you had a scroll of 30 feet. Whatever it was at this time. You had a certain size scroll.
You had a certain writing area. Some people suggest He intended a third volume. And he didn't get to it. And it didn't happen to him. Well again it's very speculative. We really don't know. Did Luke have some personal hardship.
Couldn't get to writing it. We really don't know. Well the view that I prefer. And a lot of people hold in favor. Is that everything had taken place When he was done writing. So we find Luke the doctor Was a companion of Paul.
There's a lot of passages by the way At the end of Acts. That you see Acts switches from. They did this. And Paul did this To we passages. Right? So the Holy Spirit did this And Paul did this. And we went to Antioch For example I'm not sure Antioch is exactly He used we.
But at some point he switches to we. Meaning that the writer of this book Was part of the story. And so It's likely that When you Get to the end of the book of Acts That's the point. You can date the book of Acts.
Because that's when he was done. Paul was still in prison in Rome For two years. And so it's like if somebody Had written a book about Lance Armstrong In the year 2002 Lance Armstrong's won Four Tours de France.
By that time Scholars would say No, Lance Armstrong won seven. See it shows you That your book is inaccurate. That's what they say about the book of Acts. They say no, no, no, no, no. See other things happen.
Obviously this is made up Years and years later. Because we don't believe in the supernatural. And we want to discredit the book of Acts Or any other book. But you see if the person wrote that book In the year 2000.
Up to that point There's a reason. But here what he says The reason I think it stops Where it does. Is that the book of Acts. When he wrote the book of Acts Luke wrote it. That's as far as the story had gotten.
And Paul was still in prison. And he wanted to get this volume out. And there are several reasons Why he wrote this book by the way That we'll discuss. And I think that's exactly why It stopped where it does.
Because we don't always understand. Well there's issues That we need to discuss Again the author. The author was Luke Who was a doctor. Again he wrote a two volume work. And the prefaces of both Luke and Acts Are written to one person A gentleman named Theophilus.
Some people take this to mean It was just a lover of God Meaning all disciples Sort of metaphorically. But I believe this was Theophilus Who was a wealthy patron Who probably commissioned The writing of the book perhaps.
Or asked for more information About the early Christian church Wanted to make sure of these events That he was told about. And that was the reason The book was written. The style and the vocabulary Of Luke and Acts are very similar.
There's common themes in both. Particularly prayer. If you look at Luke His father in prayer throughout Luke And you see him get empowered For ministry At the beginning of his ministry After an extended period of prayer.
You know Jesus went out Before it was yet dark. I love the way the King James says that. And he goes out and he prays. And he spends extended periods in prayer. Well Acts rather Focuses a lot on prayer.
A lot of things happen. The disciples are praying. The Holy Spirit is poured out On Jesus and Luke. Well who's Luke the doctor. A little bit more about him. Tradition tells us That he was a traveling companion Of the Apostle Paul.
Again we see these wee passages later on. He was a doctor, physician. From what we can tell Tradition tells us that And he was with him in Rome. Paul mentions in his prison epistles. Do you know what the prison epistles are.
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. Are all the prison epistles Of his first stay in Rome. And so he tells us In at least one of those That Luke was with him, Luke the doctor. And we believe that this is the same person.
It fits well with the fact. If Luke was with Paul at that point That he would have been able to be with him. Get all these details And pen the book of Acts at that point. He was well educated. He had an excellent grasp of the Greek language.
He was not an original disciple of Jesus. If you look at Luke. Let's go to Luke 1 .4. And again while you're turning there Just a reminder. We have a couple more weeks To discuss the content of the book of Acts.
So you'll forgive me for going through An extended period of introduction here. But I think this is helpful to understand To stretch out a little bit And understand the background of the book of Acts To get context.
Because again this is the only record we have Of the early Christian church. We really have no other first hand Eyewitness accounts Of what God was doing. Luke 1 .4. I'm going to do that a lot In these next two weeks.
Luke 1 .4. So that you may know The exact truth about the things You have been taught That is Luke telling I'm sorry Acts telling Theophilus Of those things. Let's start in verse 1. Inasmuch as many have undertaken To compile an account of the things Accomplished among us By those from the beginning Who were eyewitnesses And servants of the word.
So he is a second hand Accounter. But he's relying on eyewitness First hand accounts Of those who were actually with Christ. And again in the book of Acts Except for those wee passages Towards the end Luke is relying on first hand accounts Particularly of the apostle Paul Of whom he was a companion.
So another interesting thing About Luke and Acts. The Dr. Luke Was that his Old Testament Comes from what's called The Septuagint. The Septuagint for those who don't know Was a Greek translation Of the Hebrew Scripture.
It was the Old Testament Written in Greek. Because at that time Not many people spoke Hebrew Out of church. Aramaic was the general language Of that time in that area I believe it was about 300 years.
Something like that When Alexander conquered the area There was a Greek translation Made. I'm looking at Scott. And I'm not going to put him on the spot. But sometime prior to Christ being on earth There was a translation Called the Septuagint.
And the Septuagint Was used by Luke. So he was a Gentile most likely Who were raised as Hebrews Raised as Jews. And they many times quoted From the Hebrew Scriptures From the Masoretic Text. And so another thing about Luke Is he was Greek.
We know that from his use Of the Septuagint Luke also had an excellent grasp Of the political and social conditions Of the middle first century. And his hero is the Apostle Paul. It's quite obvious When you tell us That he was a participant In the events of the Book of Acts.
Well let's get into The major purposes of Acts. The major purposes are. I have six major purposes. If you're taking notes. The first purpose of the Book of Acts Is historical Historical. The first reason why Acts was written Was to assure the readers That what they were learning Was historically accurate.
Historical account Of actual events Of the early church. That is one of his points. He establishes the narrative Of events of all the events. Of the many, I'm sorry Not all of the events. But many of the key events.
All of the key events in fact Of the early Christian church Documents what happened. Who was involved. Names names. And how the church grew. Without Acts we wouldn't Really know about the Circumstances of Stephen's martyrdom.
And the fact that Saul was there Giving approval to his death. We also wouldn't know How the Gospel first came To those who were not Jewish. You know you had Judaism. Christ was a Jew. The Apostles were all Jews.
How did the Gospel get From Jerusalem and a Jewish audience And Jewish believers. Over to the Gentiles. Is this something that We as Jews should accept. Or as we as Gentiles Is this real. Or do we have our own new religion.
This shows how the continuity Between the Jewish faith Of the early church To the Gentile faith. We wouldn't know anything About that without the book of Acts. So he gives us that history. We know little about Paul's conversion.
You know if you go to any good Western civilization class A large opponent of Christianity A devout Jew Became one of the great Spreaders of this new Christian religion. If you take a Western Civ class That's what you'll find.
They know about it too. But you wouldn't know Exactly what happened. You wouldn't know about the voice. You wouldn't know where he was going. You wouldn't know that God Blinded him and sent him To this man Cornelius.
And he talks about Well we went to here Timothy and I did this. And so you're able to match up A lot of what's written in his epistles With the chronology in the book of Acts. Well some have criticized Luke's speeches Again a historical matter.
They claim they're not Historically accurate. Again I said As I told you before Acts is made up of a lot of speeches. About 25 of the book of Acts Is actually made up of speeches. And if you read them all through It would take a lot of time.
And this message this morning. So what are we to make of that? There's no complete record Of any of the one sermons recorded. But you know what? It is a faithful record Of what was actually said. And there are some people Who say well There was an ancient historian Named Thucydides Who said well he wrote.
And he said well You know I didn't have Actual first hand eyewitness accounts For some of this stuff. But when I didn't I basically made it up And captured the flavor Of what was going on. I made up my dialogue.
You know you see these Historical novels Historical based on real facts. Well that's kind of what Thucydides did. Thucydides said Well I'm going to base my story On what Thucydides did. Was he made great pains.
Again in Luke chapter 1 He says we made great pains To certify To track this stuff down. Luke was a very good recorder A good historian. And he was a top level historian. If you compare it with any Of the other historians In ancient Greek and Roman times You'll find out that he was A really really good historian.
Because he does A lot of work. I don't know if you remember A few years ago They used to say Oh there's a lot of Historical inaccuracies. Of course skeptics always say that. But one of the things Was if you remember Jesus when he was Taking a pilot Remember he was Taken to what's called A praetorium.
Do you remember that. That's the thing that Referred to the praetorium. And Luke was vindicated. And you find this again And again and again Luke as a historian Was first class. He was right up there With the best of them.
And so we can rely One of the purposes To bring an accurate Historical record. We can be confident As Christians Which a lot of Liberal scholars Like to accuse us of. Well Luke's second purpose Is pastoral.
And according to some This is Luke's main purpose Luke says. One scholar said this Luke's primary purpose Is to edify Christians By recounting how God's plan Coming to fulfillment in Jesus Had continued to unfold In the history of the early church Not only of his age But of all ages.
And so sort of a pastoral Feel and encouragement. And it is a great encouragement To know that God's spirit Came when Jesus said It was going to come. And the apostles were emboldened Not to cower in the upper room.
We have the resurrection Accounts but then you see Early in the book of Acts How Pentecost happened To converts and believers. So it's just a wonderful Encouragement to us To see the power of God at work Not just in Christ.
Ok we can understand the Old Testament. Yes there were prophets raised up And there was the greatest prophet And our Messiah and our Savior Jesus Christ. Ok I can understand why miracles Worked there.
But again to validate the message And to validate what was going on. We see again that God worked And it was a powerful encouragement From Luke. The third one is theological. And it is a theological purpose That Luke has.
One of the things he is stressing Theologically is the continuity Of the message of God's salvation In the early church. He unfolds the new implications Of this message In its phase after Jesus And the apostles.
As we said earlier He reflects that it was broader In a lot of ways. It moves away from a distinctly Jewish flavor And the temple And the law of Moses To a more universal orientation Where the Gentiles.
We Gentiles, we all Gentiles Share equally in the blessings Of God in the gospel. And we look at Particularly it is highlighted With the conversion of Saul The apostle Paul. Well the theological themes Throughout the actual survey of Acts Real quickly.
The six major theological themes Throughout Acts we will look at During these three weeks. And we will try to highlight And pick and choose as we go through. Number one, the plan of God. The plan of God.
This theological theme Goes all the way through Luke. Let's actually go back to Luke For a second And look at the plan of God. Luke chapter 1. Verse 32. Of Luke chapter 1 In verse 32 Here is Jesus' birth being foretold.
And here is what the angel says He, meaning Jesus Will be great And will be called The Son of God Most High. And the Lord God will give him The throne of his father David. And he will reign over The house of Jacob forever And his kingdom will have no end.
And let's skip over to Verse 54. In verse 54. Here is Mary's Magnificat Or Mary's song of praise In verse 54 She says He has given help to Israel his servant In remembrance In remembrance of his mercy As he spoke to our fathers To Abraham and his descendants Forever.
And now skip down to Verse 68. This is a slightly longer passage In Zechariah's prophecy. And again we are looking at The plan of God as it unfolds In the New Testament. Verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.
For he has visited us And accomplished redemption for his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David his servant As he spoke by the mouth Of his holy prophets From of old Salvation from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us.
For his holy covenant The oath which he swore to Abraham our father To grant us that we Being rescued from the hand of our enemies Might serve him without fear In holiness and righteousness Before him all our days.
And you child Will be called prophet of the most high. For you will go on Before the Lord To prepare his ways To give to his people The knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins And the mercy of our God With which the sunrise From on high will visit us To shine upon those Who sit in darkness And the shadow of death To guide our feet Into the way of peace.
And you see there in verse 79 That to shine on those Who sit in darkness. That's clearly from Isaiah 9 Where it says unto those Living in darkness A great light has dawned. And Luke particularly Makes that transition To the book of Acts.
And we see that again and again In the book of Acts That this is fulfillment Of Old Testament prophecies. You know this isn't something new That's coming out of left field. This is something that God has promised From ages old all the way back to Genesis That he would send you this savior And that God would bring together His people the Jews The Jewish nation And make a plan.
Secondly the second theological theme Is a dawning of the last days. You know we're in the last days now. We're in the last days. The last days were inaugurated With Christ's coming And atoning death and resurrection.
Now we're in the last days. And that's mentioned again and again In the book of Acts. Let's turn to Acts 2 .16. Anytime you do a survey We have to flip a lot. So we go over to Acts 2 .16. And again look at the mention Of the last days here.
In verse 16 of chapter 2 Peter's sermon He says this. But this is what was spoken of Through the prophet Joel. And it shall be in the last days. God says That I will pour forth of my spirit On all mankind.
And your sons and your daughters Shall prophesy. And your young men shall see Visions and your old men Shall dream dreams Even on my bond slaves. Both men and women I will in those days Pour forth my spirit And they shall prophesy.
It sort of brings that picture That Jeremiah brings Of no longer will a brother Teach his brother Saying know the Lord That all of them From the greatest to the least Will know me. And the third theological theme Is salvation.
And most scholars consider this To be the central theological theme Of both Luke and Acts. The salvation of God Brought through Christ And then worked out In the message of the early church. And we'll probably highlight these More than any others as we go through We think of.
If you go to chapter 4 verse 12 For example Acts chapter 4 verse 12 Not only to the exclusivity Of the gospel But also to God's salvation. 4 .12 in Acts. And there is salvation In no one else. For there is no other name Under heaven That has been given among men By which we must be saved.
And so we see again and again The preaching. The early church's preaching Centered around the salvation of God. And this is perhaps Another theological theme Is the word of God. Luke stresses many times That the growth and strengthening Of the early church Happened through the preaching Of the word of God.
Growth, salvation, everything That happens spiritually. For the Christian church Happens through the spirit of God Via the preaching of the word of God. You know this is something that The reformation thankfully Recovered for us all.
That the preaching of God Is central to what the church does When we meet together. The teaching of the word The preaching of the word The listening to the word The hearing and the reading of the word That are the marks of the early church.
Here were recovered During the reformation for us. And we are beneficiaries of that now. Before the medieval times The Roman Catholic church The focus was really The sacrifice of the mass To be there on your behalf And re-sacrifice Christ In the Eucharist every week.
That is really If you go to Catholic mass You go to a wedding You go to a funeral You go to whatever. Or if you grew up in a Catholic church As I did You will see that the focus Is upon this doing of the mass Upon atoning for the people's sins With the mass every week.
I'm not here to slam Catholicism At the Lord's Supper today. But we know it as a different meaning. It's a celebratory rite Not a rite of grace Where grace is imbued to you By taking in this element of bread.
And so The preaching of the word of God. We will see that Luke stresses again and again The word of God In the growth of the early church. The Holy Spirit. Of course Bruce touched on that The Holy Spirit is one of the main persons.
The Holy Spirit is a person. He the Holy Spirit Is one of the main characters And one of the main persons In the book of Acts. That we will look at. And finally The theme of the people of God. This is a theological theme.
Who are the people of God? Is it just the Jews? Jews would wake up in the morning And they would pray a prayer Three times a day sometimes. And they would say God. I thank you that I am not a Gentile God.
I thank you that I am not a woman. Jews would pray that Back then. But in Ephesians we know That he says there is no longer Jew, Gentile, slave or free Male or female. That's not saying We need to have female preachers.
That's not what he is saying. That's ripping it out of context violently. I appreciate women who do teach In their proper context. Absolutely. But what he is saying. Look you Jews That used to be ethnocentric.
That used to be. I am glad I am not a Gentile. Like that unrepentant Republican. Thank you that I am not like this sinner. I tithe all my stuff. That was the attitude That most Jews had. And that's why Jesus' parables Were so stinging to them And so rebukeful to them.
Is that it was true. That they were prideful In their ethnic heritage. Think about it. You are 50 AD or you are 60 or 70. Whenever you got this book in your hands. And you see yes God has brought us Gentiles Into his people.
Now how does that affect the Jews. Well we will see that. Okay you are not on this pedestal anymore. You are even. Now the race is even with everybody else. Well that's enough. Do we have any questions at this point.
I just want to make sure. Yes question over here. Do you pray. Sometimes there is evangelistic praying When you pray. And you can pray the gospel. As you are praying with this person. Because you are praying God's word.
You are praying to the Lord. You are thanking him. For example for sending Christ To die on the cross for our sins. And thank you for raising him To eternal life. That by believing in him We can know that we can also be raised To eternal life.
That's what we realize. If somebody doesn't feel comfortable If they ask you to pray. Certainly anybody ask you to pray with them. Pray with them. If you are a Christian And somebody asks you to pray.
Please pray with them. And certainly any chance you get. Whether in your prayer or not. If that's what's on your heart. You want this person's salvation. You can pray for their salvation. Right then and there.
Absolutely. We don't really have time. We'll get into the text a little more next week. And in the 9th when I'm back. But let's go to chapter 2. This is Peter's sermon. Chapter 2 of the book of Acts Verse 42.
And let's look at 4 4 marks of the early church As seen in Acts 2 42 to 47. And we'll just end here today. Chapter 2 of Acts Verse 42 to 47. And I'll read This is speaking of the disciples. Again we've just had Peter's preaching.
We've just had 3 ,000 people come to Christ. And these people Were continually devoting themselves To the apostles' teaching And to fellowship To the breaking of bread And to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.
And many wonders and signs Were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed Were together And had all things in common. And they began selling their property And possessions And were sharing them with all As anyone might have need Day by day Continuing with one mind in the temple And breaking bread from house to house.
They were taking their meals together With gladness and sincerity of heart Praising God and having favor With all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number Those who were being saved. Well right now I just want to mention a couple of things From this passage.
First of all What was the church like? What were the marks of the church? First of all The early church was a learning church. The church devoted themselves To the apostles' teaching. They were committed to the word of God And to praying together.
So they were a learning church. As you mentioned It is taking a passage of the word of God. You know a lot of times We zip through this book so fast. This is God's book. And we just zip right through it.
Well meditation is slowing down. It's chewing on the word of God And many times through prayer As we take consideration And we say What is God's word telling me here? And we pray through a passage. That's a great way Personally to meditate And to get the word of God in our lives.
In the early church To being a learning church. Secondly the early church The second mark Is that the early church Was a loving church. They were sacrificial. They were caring for one another. I can speak as a guy Because I am a guy.
Guys like theory Come on Give me an amen. Guys love to say Let's parse this Greek verb When it comes to Applying the word And saying what are we going to do about this? My wife is 100 times better than I am.
And I bet you most of you guys Are going yeah that's true. Because women are more practically oriented. I tell you there are some smart women. Most of you women are super smart That attend this church.
I have spoken to you I know. But let me tell you one thing Guys lack badly In much of the practical application Of God's word. We have figured out How that verse works together. We have taught it perhaps.
But a woman will say Why don't we bring a dish over to so and so. Why don't we love that person By showing our love And doing something that they need. And so the early church Was great at that. That was one of the marks of the early church.
And my prayer for us. Is that we too would become like Acts. In that we see a need Out of love for our Savior. To feel loving. Because I don't always feel loving But to be loving to one another. Thirdly they were a worshipping church.
You see how the whole church It says here were in awe. They were in awe of God. I know we went to the Shepherds Conference Several of us a few years ago. And I'll never forget R .C. Sproul's sermon On God is in this place.
And we were at the Shepherds Conference. And he just talked about it. Do we really think Wow God is in this place. With an expectation That God is going to do some great things. I'm not talking about Spectacular signs and wonders.
That is not really the point Of the book of Acts either. But what I'm saying is Do we believe that God's spirit Is teaching us. Do we have this awe filled vision. Like the people in the book of Acts The early disciples had That God is in this place.
Somebody once said That we go to church. I don't have any way to say it. But we have everything down to a T Which is wonderful. We should do things in order. But do we really expect God To do something in our lives When we hear the sermon.
Good question. And finally it was an evangelistic church. If you look at the early book of Acts And the early church They were an evangelistic church. It's another reason why I'm glad Missions at BBC is up there.
They had in their mind That God died to save sinners The entire world To bring Jews and Gentiles together. There's nobody excluded anymore. We have this message. And yet so many times We forget that. How good it is.
We forget that this is the message. CNN isn't going to take it to anybody. The Wall Street Journal Is not going to take it to anybody. We have to take it to people. And so I'm constantly challenged When it comes to evangelism.
When I get out there I need to be more bold And to say look. I know you're not going to want to hear this. But you're a sinner. I'm a sinner. You need Christ. And so we look at the early church And we're emboldened.
Let me just conclude by this. As I mentioned earlier Try to bring the whole bike riding And Tour de France. It's inspiring. Paul wrote to Timothy He said this is of value In all things Both now and in the life to come.
Paul says I beat my body And I make it my slave So that I might not be disqualified For the prize. We have this opportunity When we read the book of Acts To be challenged personally. This isn't just wow.
I know the history of the early church now. But watching the Tour de France Maybe you're inspired To get that old rusty. If Paul could get beaten up And flogged And half eaten by wild beasts. I don't know if that was men or beasts.
I don't really know. But anyway you get this. And you go what have I given up. What hardship have I endured. Have I ever gone hungry To go preach the gospel to somebody. And so we're inspired Whatever God's given us to do Wherever God's put us To reach out with the gospel And to serve Here and now.
And whatever gifts Whatever energies God has given you He has enabled you to do that. A favorite pastor of mine once said Most churches are kind of like We like our leaders to do all the work. We like Steve and Mike and others.
They're taking care of it. They're serving, they're preaching They're doing their thing. He said most churches are like A football game. You have 22 people on the field In desperate need of rest And 40 ,000 in the stands In desperate need of exercise.
I like that. And so let us not make the mistake Of letting the pros Or letting our leaders do all the work. Let us serve with all the energy God has given us As we live for him. As we go through the book of Acts Let's keep these things in mind And let's turn to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father we thank you For this time together Lord I'm so humbled by reading this book And I know that There are some here Lord Who perhaps have gotten burned out In the past in ministry Or some of those who are just scared To get involved and serve.
But Lord our feeble efforts Are not what's important. It's your grace And your powerful Holy Spirit That makes the church grow. And Lord we do ask your blessing. On this morning We do ask any service Lord not just Mike's preaching But the Sunday schools Lord With just cleaning up the kitchen Lord that you would be glorified And people would serve with joy.
And that through that Your church might be built up For your glory And in your name we pray amen.