Tour de Acts, Stage 1

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We're going to study acts this morning. Let's begin with a word of prayer shall we Heavenly father.
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Thank you this morning Lord for this This place to meet in thank you lord that you've given us
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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
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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
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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
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In Jesus name. Well, I'm entitled this morning's or this this three week
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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
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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
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It's it's a race where you know, it's not like here in America America. We do what's called criteriums where?
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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
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Well in Europe, this is very few like the Fitchburg Long Joe bike race. They do it different things every day one
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They're racing against the clock as fast as they can possibly go Another day they're racing up a
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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
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Luke is If you've ever watched a tour on TV They do it in stages and the coverage
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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
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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.
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It's not a running Continuous coverage of the early church what it is is it's more like photographs or little pictures
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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
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Now if we held mic to that standard, there might be a little bit of a problem or any of us for that matter
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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
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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
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It's kind of an abrupt finish. It's not Sort of looking ahead and it doesn't say okay.
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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
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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
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Tiger Woods play golf or Golf exploded in popularity with Tiger Woods in 96
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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
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Lance Armstrong, you know pastor Mike likes the bike He's no Lance Armstrong, you know, he's good. He's not that good
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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?
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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.
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Let me give you a few of those Number one he said in our age of isolationism and self -absorption
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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
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Acts presents a church that is willing to die for the cause of Christ Okay, you think about our church today?
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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
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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
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To make the church what it became and how it started out. It's amazing stuff number three in our age of pluralism
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Acts presents a church that based its life on the objective truths of the gospel
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The ancient Greek world and Roman world was also like this you had a lot of mystery religions
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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
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Christ is the only way of salvation number four in our age of self -centeredness and materialism
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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?
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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Tour de France You know, they do this the cool now that they have computer graphics to really cool But they do this neat flyover where you sort of a it's all
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Topographically correct and they do the mountain and you see this little line Okay The roads gonna go here and up the mountain and you go
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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
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Oh, well, that's not so bad. Let's get this mountain that just goes up beyond category Well here that's what we're kind of gonna gonna kind of do this morning a little bit is get that super flyover
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We're gonna get that idea where we start here and we're gonna fly over a little bit just kind of look at the peaks a lot of these
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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
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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?
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Paul and Peter Peter and Paul right in that order Peter first and then Paul that's correct So we have
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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
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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
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Dallas Said and that's exactly what I've heard as well that in Acts 1 8
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What Christ says is that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses where in?
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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
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That's another way that people break down the book of Acts good so personalities characters expansion of the gospel and another one
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Bruce Well that is that is certainly a tendency
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Bruce said miracles are very prevalent at the beginning of the book of Acts and less so Toward the end that's very true
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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?
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Sort of towards the beginning are very pronounced and less so towards the end That's not one way.
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I was thinking, but that's very good It's one 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.
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Cook at Southern, and I tend to agree with this He said the book of Acts is divided according to summary statements
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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
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Chapter 6 verse 7 is 1 chapter 9 verse 31
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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
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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
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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
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So you see that's not really describing the action. That's not you look at the verse before Where it says and these people
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The people who were selected to wait the tables deacons were brought before the Apostles and after praying they laid their hands on him
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That's describing an event in the book of Acts a specific point of that book. It's telling us.
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What was going on Well here in verse 7 we have what's called a summary statement where it's sort of saying
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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
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Stephen the martyr he launches right into the story of Stephen's martyrdom in verse 8
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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
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When as we go through the book you'll see that it's very important For Luke to mark these off now again the text is 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
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Up the way he does the first section really breaks it up the church in Jerusalem really 30 to 34
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AD And This is really the the beginning of the church in Jerusalem And you see that as my brother as Dallas mentioned earlier, you know, it's it's geographical as well
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But there's also some other implications of why he breaks it up this way So the first part is the church in Jerusalem.
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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
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So the second section is initial expansion The third one is the first expansion of the gospel of the
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Gentiles. That's the third section of the book of Acts that's verse chapter 12 verse 24 and at the heart of the section is
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Cornelius is a God fearer and We'll see how Luke really highlights his his conversion later the fourth section
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Paul's first missionary journey in what's called the Jerusalem conference in chapter 15 and That whole episode ends in in verse 5 of chapter 16 and the final section beginning in 1920 chapter 19 verse 20
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The gospel is taken into Europe and we have Paul second and third missionary journeys the westward expansion of the gospel
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In that final section the next the last section
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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
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Caesar's household and It's gone So you go well, we know other things happen.
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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.
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It was a geographic outline the gospel made it reached Jerusalem the outer regions
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Judea Samaria and had gotten to really at that point the outermost parts of the earth, so He'd accomplished his purpose.
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So he stopped that's one theory But again, the problem is
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Paul was released from prison and it's likely that Luke knew that why wouldn't he discuss that and that he continued to preach in the area?
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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
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One thing I didn't mention is Luke and acts are really Book a and B. Okay.
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So when you read acts, it's a good idea to read Luke first because acts follows
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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
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Okay, and back then when they didn't have the nice publishers we could you know, you write too much you get a thousand pages
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I don't know how much Mike's book is gonna be but you know, probably less than a thousand But here you had a scroll of 30 feet.
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I think it whatever it was whatever it was at this time You had a certain size scroll. You had a certain writing area
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Some people suggest well, he intended a third volume and He didn't get to it something that happened to him.
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Well again, it's very speculative We really don't know Luke have some personal hardship Couldn't get to writing it.
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We really don't know well The view that I prefer and a lot of people Hold in favor is that everything?
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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 act
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That you see X switches from they did this and Paul did this to we passages
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Right. So the Holy Spirit Did this and Paul did this and we went to Antioch for example?
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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
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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
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Paul was still in prison in Rome for two years. And so it's like if somebody written a book about Lance Armstrong in the year 2002
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Lance Armstrong's won for tour de France's by that time So wait a minute scholars would say no
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Lance Armstrong 17C It shows you that your book is inaccurate. That's what they say about the book of Acts.
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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
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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 that's exactly what had happened in his career
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He hadn't won a seven yet. You could say well, I think he's gonna win seven But here what he says, it's the reason
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I think it stops Where it does is that the book of Acts when he wrote the book of Acts?
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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
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And obviously the Holy Spirit wanted it to stop there. So we must understand there's
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God has reasons. We don't always understand Well, there's issues that we need to discuss again the author the author was
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Luke who was a doctor Again he wrote a two -volume work and the prefaces of both
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Luke and Acts are written to one person a gentleman named Theophilus Some people take this to mean it was just you know, a lover of God meaning all disciples sort of metaphorically
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But I believe this was to a certain person named philosophy Theophilus who was a wealthy patron who probably commissioned the writing of the book perhaps or asked for more information about The early
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Christian Church want to make sure these events that he was told about and that was the reason the book was written
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The style and the vocabulary of Luke and Acts are very similar There's common themes in both particularly prayer, you know, if you look at Luke Jesus is praying a lot in the book of Luke he turns to his father in prayer throughout
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Luke and You see him get empowered for ministry at the beginning of his ministry after an extended period of prayer, you know
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Jesus went out, you know 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
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Well Luke acts rather Focuses a lot on prayer a lot of things happen. The disciples are praying.
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The Holy Spirit is poured out The disciples are praying someone gets released from prison. So you see the effectiveness in prayer of prayer in both acts and Luke Well, who's
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Luke the doctor a little bit more about him? Tradition tells us that he was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul again.
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We see these we 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.
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Do you know what the prison epistles are? Ephesians Philippians Colossians Philemon are all the prison epistles written as his first stay in Rome And so he tells us in at least one of those that Luke was with him
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Luke the doctor And we believe that this is the same person it fits well with the fact if he was with 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
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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, you know, we have a
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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
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To stretch out a little bit and understand the background of the book of Acts to get context because again
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This is the only record we have of the early Christian Church We really have no other first -hand eyewitness accounts of what
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God was doing as the church was founded So in Acts 1 4 again Luke sorry
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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
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Luke telling I'm sorry acts telling Theophilus of those things
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Let's start in verse 1 in as much as Many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us
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Just as they were handed down to us by those from the beginning where eyewitnesses and servants of the word
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So he is a second -hand accounter but He's relying on eyewitness first -hand accounts of those who are actually with Christ and again in the book of Acts Except for those we passages toward the end
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Luke is relying on first -hands accounts particularly of the Apostle Paul of whom he was a companion, so Another interesting thing about both the author of Luke and Acts the dr.
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Luke was that his Old Testament comes from What's called the Septuagint the
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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
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Not many people spoke Hebrew out of church Aramaic was the general language of that time in that area most people spoke
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Greek and so what they did the year I believe it was about 300 years something like that when
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Alexander conquered the area There was a Greek translation Made I 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
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Septuagint the Septuagint Was used by Luke so he was a Gentile most likely we look at others who were raised as Hebrews raised as Jews and they many times quoted from the
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Hebrew Scriptures from the Masoretic text and so Another thing about Luke is he was
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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
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Apostle Paul It's quite obvious by his intimate knowledge and the way he presents Paul and finally the we passages the we sections at the end
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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
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I have six major purposes if you're taking notes the first purpose of the book of Acts is historical
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Historical the first reason why acts was written was to assure the readers that what they were learning was historically accurate and It was a faithful of count of actual events of the early church
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That is one of his points he establishes The narrative and events of all the events of the many
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I'm sorry not all of the events But many of the key events all of the key events in fact of the early
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Christian Church Documents, what happened who was involved names names and how the church grew
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Without acts we wouldn't have a record of Pentecost and what happened in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit Without acts we wouldn't really know about the circumstance of Stephen's martyrdom and the fact that Saul was there giving approval to his death
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We also wouldn't know how the gospel first came to those who were not Jewish. You know you had
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Judaism Christ was a Jew the Apostles were all Jews How did the gospel get from Jerusalem and a
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Jewish audience and Jewish believers over to the Gentiles? We would have no idea Was that legitimate was that something that we as Jews should accept
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Or as we as Gentiles is this real or do we have our own new religion this shows how it is the
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Continuity between the Jewish faith of the early church to the Gentile faith wouldn't know anything about that without the book of Acts So we gives us that history
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We don't know little about Paul's conversion. You know if you go to any good Western civilization class they do discuss
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The conversion of the Apostle Paul. He was once a staunch opponent of Christianity Devout Jew Became one of the great
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Spreaders of this new Christian religion if you take a Western Civ class that that's what you'll find they know about it, too
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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
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Cornelius a number of things without acts And also his missionary journeys nice thing about that is you're able to match up his letters his prison epistles his other epistles
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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 a chronology in the book of Acts Well some have criticized
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Luke's speeches Again a historical matter they claim. They're not historically accurate again.
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I said as I told you before Acts is made up of a lot of speeches about 25 % of the book of Acts is
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Actually made up of speeches, and if you read them all through it would take a lot of time than this message this morning
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So you know what are we to make of that? There's no complete record of any of the one sermons recorded, but you know what?
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It is a faithful record of what was actually said and there are some people there are some people who say well
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You know there was an ancient historian named Thucydides Who said well he wrote about the
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Peloponnesian War and he said well You know I didn't have actual firsthand eyewitness accounts for some of this stuff but when
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I didn't I basically made it up and captured the flavor of What was going on I made up my dialogue?
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You know you have to see these historical novels historical. You know based on real facts Well, that's kind of what Thucydides did
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Thucydides said well I'm gonna base my story in real facts. I'm gonna make up dialogue and this cool event
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I'll put in here a lot of people say well, that's what Luke did But that's not true at all Luke did was he made great pains again in Luke chapter 1
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He says we made great pains to certify to track this stuff down Luke was very good
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Recorder a good historian And he was a top -level historian if you compare with any of the other historians in ancient
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Greek and Roman times You'll find out that he was a really really good historian
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Because he does he takes time to record little details that If you're making up a story you wouldn't bother with From I don't know if you remember a few years ago
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They they used to say I was a lot of historical inaccuracy of course you know skeptics always say that One of the things was if you remember
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Jesus when he's taking a pilot remember He was taken to what's called the Praetorium remember that Well they had no ancient historians had no record there's no such thing as a
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Praetorium obviously Luke made that up well What they found out archaeologists a few years later found an ancient
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Place down there in Jerusalem of course they found out something that Referred to the
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Praetorium and Luke was vindicated and you find this again and again and again Luke as a historian was it was first class he was right up there with the best of them
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And so we can rely One of the purposes to bring an accurate historical record we can be confident as Christians that that's what
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Luke has done for us We can know that this is how the church started and our faith is based on reality in fact in history
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Not just on some subjective faith which a lot of liberal scholars like to accuse us of well
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Luke's second purpose is Pastoral and according to some this is Luke's main purpose
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What Luke says One scholar said this quote Luke's primary purpose is to edify
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Christians by recounting How God's plan coming to fulfillment in Jesus had continued to unfold in the history of the early church end quote?
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so one of the main things Luke is trying to accomplish is encourage believers 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
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That God's Spirit Came when
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Jesus said it was going to came and the Apostles were emboldened Not to cower in the upper room.
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We have the resurrection resurrection accounts, but then you see early in the book of Acts how
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Pentecost happened and how they were emboldened and you get thousands of new converts and Believers, so it's just a wonderful encouragement to us to see the power of God at work.
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Not just in Christ, okay We can understand the Old Testament Yes, there were prophets raised up, and there was the greatest prophet and our
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Messiah and our Savior Jesus Christ, okay? I can understand why miracles work there, but again to To validate the message and to validate what was going on we see again that God worked in a miraculous way in the book of Acts so a great pastoral encouragement from Luke third one is theological and There's a theological purpose that Luke has one of the things he's stressing
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Theologically is the continuity of the message of God's salvation in the early church
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He unfolds the new implications of this message in its phase after Jesus and the
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Apostles as we said earlier He reflects that it was broader than the
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Old Testament faith in a lot of ways It moves away from a distinctly
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Jewish flavor and the temple and the law of Moses to a more universal orientation with the
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Gentiles we Gentiles we all Gentiles share equally in the blessings of God in the gospel and We look at particularly it's highlighted with the conversion of Saul the
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Apostle Paul Well the theological themes and we'll we'll go through this before we get into our actual survey of acts
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Real quickly the six major theological themes throughout acts we'll look at during these three weeks And we'll 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
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Some of you are still there Luke chapter 1 and beginning in verse 32 of Luke chapter 1 in verse 32
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Here is Jesus's birth being foretold and here's what the angel says he meaning
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Jesus Will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High and the
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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
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Here's Mary's Magnificat or Mary's song of praise verse 54 she says he has given help to Israel his servant and remembrance
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In remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and his descendants forever
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And now skip down to verse 68. This is a slightly longer passage Zechariah's prophecy
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And again, we're looking at the plan of God as it unfolds in the New Testament verse 68 blessed be the
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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
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Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant
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The oath which he swore to Abraham our father to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies
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Might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days and You child will be called prophet of the
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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
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Because of the tender mercy of our God with which the Sun rise from on high will visit us
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To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet
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Into the way of peace and you see there in verse 79 that to shine on those who sit in darkness
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That's clearly from Isaiah 9 Where it says, you know unto those living in darkness a great light has dawned and it describes the divine qualities of Messiah So again the plan of God as it unfolds
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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
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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
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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
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Jews the Jewish nation and The Gentiles into one people of God and that's what we see this new plan
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Secondly the second theological theme is a dawning of the last days, you know, we're in the last days now Did you know that we're in the last days the last days were inaugurated with?
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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 17 to 16 rather Anytime you do a survey we have to flip a lot.
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So we go over to Acts chapter 2 verse 16
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And again, look at the mention of the last days here in verse 16 of chapter 2
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Peter's sermon He says this but this is what was spoken of through the prophet
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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
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Even on my bond slaves both men and women. I will in those days pour forth my spirit and they shall prophesy
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You know, it sort of brings that that picture that Jeremiah brings of you know
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No longer will a brother teach his brother saying no the Lord That all of them from the greatest to the least will know me
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And so this is the signal that the last days are upon us that were spoken of in the
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Old Testament third major theological theme is salvation and most scholars consider this to be the central theological theme of both
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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
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Acts chapter 4 verse 12 a verse familiar to most of us speaks to the exclusivity of the gospel, but also to God's salvation for 12 and acts and there is
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Salvation and no one else for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved
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And so we hear we see again and again The preaching the early churches preaching centered around the salvation of God and this is perhaps the greatest theological theme of both
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Luke and Acts Skipping down the next one. The fourth theological theme is the
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Word of God Luke stresses many times that the growth and strengthening of the early church Happened through the preaching of the
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Word of God growth salvation everything That happens spiritually for the
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Christian Church Happens through the Spirit of God via the preaching of the
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Word of God you know, this is something that The Reformation thankfully recovered for us all the marks of the church that the preaching of God is
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Central to what the church does when we meet together the teaching of the word the preaching of the word
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The listening to the word the hearing and the reading of the word that are the marks of the early church here
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Were recovered during the Reformation for us and we're benefits beneficiaries of that now before The medieval times the
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Roman Catholic Church. The focus is really the sacrifice of the mass You want to do that? You want to have the priest stand up here on your behalf and Resacrifice Christ in the
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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
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Catholic Church as I did You will see that the focus is upon this
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Doing of the mass upon atoning for the people's sins with the mass every week. I'm not here to slam
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Catholicism or Catholics, you know, Martin Luther was a Catholic, you know A lot of these guys came out of that tradition and we still celebrate the
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Lord's Supper today But we know it as a different meaning It's a celebratory right not a right of grace where grace is imbued to you by taking in this this element of bread and so the preaching of the
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Word of God will see that Luke stresses again and again the Word of God in the growth of The early church the Holy Spirit, of course
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Bruce touched on that The Holy Spirit is one of the main Persons the
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Holy Spirit is a person. Did you know that? We have a triune God Father Son Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is not an it
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Holy Spirit. So he Okay, he the Holy Spirit is one of the main characters and one of the main persons in the book of Acts that we'll look at and Finally the theme of the people of God, this is a theological theme again
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Who is the people who are the people of God? Is it just the Jews, you know Jews would wake up in the morning and they they pray a prayer
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Three times a day sometimes and they'd say God. I thank you that I'm not a Gentile God, I thank you that I'm not a slave
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God, I thank you that I'm not a woman Jews would pray that back then but in Ephesians We know that he says is no longer
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What Jew Gentile slave or free male or female? That's not saying we need to have female preachers
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That's not what he's saying. That's ripping it out of context violently I appreciate women who do teach and they in their proper context.
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Absolutely But what he's saying and this people of God idea that Luke is saying is that look
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You Jews that used to be ethnocentric that used to be I am glad I'm not a Gentile You know like that unrepentant
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Republican. Thank you that I'm not like this sinner. I tithe all my stuff I do all it that was the attitude that most
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Jews had and that's why Jesus's Parables are so stinging to them and so rebukeful to them
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Is that it was it was true that they were prideful in their ethnic heritage now, there's no racial boundaries
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There's no ethnic boundaries to the people of God and that's great You know If you're the brand -new church think about it your 50
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AD or your 60 or 70 Whenever you got this book in your hands and you see yes, God has brought us
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Gentiles into his people Now, how does that affect the Jews? Well, we'll see that.
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Okay, you're not you're not on this pedestal anymore You're even now the race is even with everybody else Well, that's enough.
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Do we have any questions at this point? I just want to make sure yes question over here That's a great.
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Yeah, that's a great question that yeah, you know when you pray Sometimes there's evangelistic praying right when you pray and you can pray the gospel as you're praying with this person because You know, you're praying
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God's Word You're praying to the Lord You're thanking him for example for sending
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Christ to die on the cross for our sins And thank you for raising him to eternal life that by believing in him
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We can know that we can also be raised to eternal life things like certainly, you know When you meet with anybody whether you speak to them whether you pray with them.
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I think that's a great way to Evangelize if somebody doesn't feel comfortable if they ask you to pray certainly anybody asked you to pray with them
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Pray with them. If you're a Christian and somebody asks you to pray, please pray with them And certainly any chance you get whether in your prayer or not, that's what's on your heart
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You want this person's salvation you can pray for their salvation right then and there. Absolutely Yeah, good question.
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Great question. Thank you Any other questions at this point? I'm probably gonna have to cut it short.
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Let's just take a quick look Again and I'll summarize we don't really have time. We'll get into the text a little more next week and in the 9th when
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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 for Four marks of the early church as seen in Acts 2 42 to 47 and we'll just end here today
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Chapter 2 of Acts verse 42 to 47 and I'll read They were continued.
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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
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Apostles teaching and to fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer
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Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and Many wonders and signs were taking place through the
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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
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As anyone might have need day by day Continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house.
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They were taking their meals together with gladness and Sincerity of heart praising
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God and having favor with all the people and the Lord was adding to their number day by day
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Those who are 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?
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What were the marks of the church? First of all, the early church was a learning church The church devoted themselves to the
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Apostles teaching they were committed to the Word of God and to praying together So they were a learning church as you mentioned as you pray you learn you do you take?
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Also, let me just mention meditation. What was meditation? It is taking a passage of the Word of God a lot of times we zip through this book
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So fast, this is God's book and we just zip right through it. Well meditation is slowing down it's chewing on the
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Word of God and many times through prayer as we take a Consideration and we say what is
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God's Word telling me here? We pray through a passage. That's a great way personally to meditate and to get the
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Word of God in our lives and so we Must be committed as the
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Apostles were 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.
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They were sacrificial They were caring for one another, you know as I can speak as a guy because I am a guy guys
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You know guys like theory Come on, give me an amen
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Guys love to say let's parse this Greek verb or let's discuss this deep theological point but I'll tell you when it comes to Applying the word and saying what are we going to do about this?
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My wife's a hundred 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.
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I'll tell you there's some smart women Most of you women are super smart that attend this church. I've spoken to you. I know but let me tell you one thing guys
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Lack badly in much of the practical application of God's Word. So when it comes to you know, we may know okay
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We should do good to others and we we can figure out how that verse works together We've taught it perhaps but a woman will say why don't we bring a dish over to so -and -so?
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Why don't we love that person by showing our love and doing something that they need and So the church was 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
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And that we see a need Out of love for our Savior out of love for Christ out of love for one another
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That we would be motivated to serve and to act in love not just to feel loving.
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I don't always feel loving But to be loving to one another Thirdly they were worshiping church.
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You see how they the whole church. It says here. We're in awe They were in awe of God. I know we went to the
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Shepherds Conference Some several of us a few years ago, and I'll never forget our
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C Sproul sermon on You know God is in this place and we're at the Shepherds Conference and he just talked about it.
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Do we really think? Wow God is in this place We meet with an expectation that God's going to do some great things.
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I'm not talking about you know spectacular signs and wonders and things That that is not really the point of the book of Acts either by the way
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But what I'm saying is that do we believe that God's Spirit is teaching us do we have this off filled?
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Vision like the people in the book of Acts the early disciples had that God is in this place, you know somebody once said that we go to church and We wouldn't even notice if God didn't show up, you know
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I mean, it's kind of a funny way to say it, but we have everything down to a tee, which is wonderful We should do things in order, but do we really expect
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God to do something in our lives when we hear the sermon for example today? Good question And finally, it was an evangelistic
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Church. If you look at the early book of Acts in the early church, they were an evangelistic Church It's another reason why
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I'm glad missions at BBC is up there. They had in their mind that this is the greatest message on earth
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This is in the history of the world and we have it We have a Savior that died to save sinners the entire world to bring
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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?
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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, you know, it comes to evangelism.
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I'm a wimp. I Am really a wimp When I get out there,
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I need to be more bold and to say look, you know I know you're not going to want to hear this but you know, you're a sinner.
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I'm a sinner You need Christ. And so we look at the early church and we're emboldened
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Let me just conclude by this, you know as I mentioned earlier you know try to try to You know bring the whole bike riding and tour de
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France, you know, it's inspiring Paul wrote to Timothy he said Physical training is of some value but godliness is a value in all things both now and in the life to come
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Paul says I beat my body and I make it my slave So that I might not be disqualified for the prize
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We have this opportunity When we read the book of Acts to be challenged personally, you know, this isn't just wow
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Gee, I know the history of the early church now But like watching the tour de France, maybe you're inspired to get that old rusty free spirit 10 -speed
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You know and you're inspired gee. Well if Paul could get beaten up and Flogged and you know half eaten by wild beasts.
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You see I don't know if that was men or beasts I don't really know. But anyway, you know you get this and you go what have
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I given up? Hardship of high endured have I ever gone hungry to go preach the gospel to somebody and so we're inspired to to whatever
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God's given us to do wherever God's put us to Reach out with the gospel and to serve and to live for Christ here and now
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And whatever gifts whatever energies God has given you he has enabled you to do that favorite pastor
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My one said that most churches are kind of like, you know, we like our leaders to do all the work
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We like Steve and Mike and others up. 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 and stands in desperate need of exercise.
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I like that and So let us not make the mistake of letting the pros or letting our leaders do all the work
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Let us serve with all the energy God has given us as We 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
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Lord in prayer Heavenly Father. We thank you for this time together Lord I do
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I'm so humbled by reading this book, but Lord you don't want to discourage us Lord you want to encourage us with this book?
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And I know that there are some here Lord who perhaps have have gotten burned out in the past in ministry or some of those
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Who are just scared to get involved and serve but Lord? Our our feeble efforts are not what's important It's your grace and your powerful
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Holy Spirit that makes the church grow and Lord we do ask your blessing on this morning We do ask any service
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Lord not just Mike's preaching or pastors preaching Lord but all the service everywhere in the classrooms with the kids with the
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Sunday schools Lord with Just cleaning up the kitchen Lord that you would be glorified and people will serve with joy and that through that your church might be built up for your glory