Foundations - [Acts 1:1-5]

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I like structure. I like order. I like things to be just so, to a certain extent.
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Don't look at my bookshelves. And when we come to the book of Acts, there's some fundamental questions, some things that we have to ask.
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Like, maybe, how do you start a church? How do you grow a church?
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Well, there's one answer. It was in a book that was reviewed by Tim Challies 18 years ago.
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The book is The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren. And I'm going to read just a little bit of what
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Tim Challies had to say about the book. He says, Overall, I found this book both inspiring and disappointing.
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Warren has many, many things to say that are of great value. I have spent many years in churches that had, listen, no purpose and no direction.
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I think that describes many churches. Certainly, a purpose has to be of great value.
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In the end, though, I believe the book to be predicated on some false and potentially dangerous ideas.
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Many of Warren's ideas are imported directly from the business world. Time and time again, he refers to concepts found in the marketing and business world.
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His view is that the church needs to run like a business. Whatever the customer desires, that would be you.
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It would be all the people around us. Whatever the customer desires or demands is what we have to give him.
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Listen, in Christianity, the exact opposite is true. It is
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God, not the consumer, who is sovereign. He says to place ultimate importance in the results is a grievous error.
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Numbers are not necessarily indicative of God's blessing. We need to refer everything to God's word.
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Only by using the scripture as the ultimate test can we have complete confidence in God's will.
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It doesn't really matter here. I almost said Grace Community Church. I don't know why.
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If I'm preaching to Grace Community Church, yikes. If Bethlehem Bible Church is 75 people, 275 people, or 7500 people, that's not the point, is it?
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The point is being faithful to the word. And that's what we want to do. So as we begin this study in Acts, I want us to just see.
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I'm going to lay out this morning, and I don't want to give away my proposition first, but we're going to see kind of big picture.
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That's why I said the title of it is Foundations, right? Because I want us to see what the foundations of the church are.
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Text, our text is Acts chapter 1, verses 1 to 5.
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In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up.
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After he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
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And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
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Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the
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Holy Spirit, not many days from now. Now today as we begin this study of Acts, and by the way, when
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I mentioned Mike would ask me from time to time, he'd say, what are you going to teach next? And I think about various things that I might do, and finally
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I said one day, I said, I don't know, what do you think about Acts? And he says, well, that's not even on my radar, which is good for me, right?
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Because if it's going to take me six years or seven years or something to work through the book of Acts, I don't want to be in overlap with Pastor Mike, so it's good that he's staying away from this.
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But as we begin our study of the book of Acts, or as some call it, the
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Acts of the Holy Spirit, or I like this one from R. Kent Hughes, he calls it the
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Acts of the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit working through the church. A little long, and it might not fit on your table of contents, it would be several lines there.
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But he says this, Hughes says, Acts forms the perfect counterpart and contrast to the
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Gospels. In the Gospels, the Son of Man offered his life. In Acts, the Son of God offered his power.
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See the contrast there, his life versus his power? In the Gospels, we see the original seeds of Christianity.
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In Acts, we see the continual growth of the church. The Gospels tell us of Christ crucified and risen.
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Acts speaks of Christ ascended and exalted. The Gospels model the
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Christian life as lived by the perfect man. Acts models it as lived out by imperfect men.
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So in a lot of ways, Acts is great for us because we get to see what God can do through fallen people.
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And in a sense, this book gives us a bit of a roadmap for a church. It's not an instruction book, though, right?
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We have instruction books. We have the pastoral epistles. We have the other epistles to the churches.
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But when we look at Acts, it's a roadmap in this sense. Not this is how we should do things because we can't do them exactly like the apostles did.
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But the roadmap is this. Preach the word. Trust the
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Holy Spirit. Watch what God does, right? Jesus Christ builds his church by the power of the
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Holy Spirit through the word preached. So this morning, as we begin this study,
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I want you to see four foundations that run through the book of Acts. There are more, but these are some basic foundations that we can see in our text, and it also will be themes that kind of repeat throughout the book of Acts.
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I mean, it's amazing to think that a relative handful of believers spread the gospel of Jesus Christ across the known world, and that's what we're going to see.
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Ultimately, this is a book that calls us not to the spectacular, which we will see, but to faithfulness, to do what the
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Lord has called us to do. So four pillars, four foundations of truth upon which the church is built.
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First, the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. That's a pretty good pillar. The person and work of Jesus Christ, right?
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The life and teaching. Look at verse 1 here. In the first book,
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O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.
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Now, a few things here. What is the first book? The first book is the gospel of Luke, right?
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He began, the text tells us, to deal with all that Jesus did and what he taught.
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Well, what does that imply? If he began in Luke to deal with these things, then he's going to continue in the book of Acts.
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Now let's talk a little bit about Luke and who he was. Many of you will know that Luke was a
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Gentile, a physician, a companion, as we'll see later on in the book of Acts, to the apostle
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Paul. As a physician, he was well -educated. In fact, I enjoy this part because it says, you know, they're rating all the different books of the
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New Testament, and they think, in the opinion of the experts, Hebrews is probably the best
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Greek, and then Luke and Acts. So this is very well written.
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And we know here just from history and other things that Theophilus, first of all, is a real person, that he is likely
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Luke's patron, meaning he said, you know what, Luke? I really don't know about Christianity.
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I really don't know if I believe all of it. Here's what I want. I trust you, though. We don't know what their relationship was, whether they were just friends, whether he found them in a want ad.
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Okay, we can pretty much assume that wasn't the case. But he trusted Luke. He knew what
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Luke was like, and he wanted him to compile this, first, a biography of Jesus, and then a history of their early church.
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And it's helpful for us to see how Luke worked. So turn for a moment back to Luke chapter 1.
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Luke chapter 1, and the first four verses, the introduction to Luke, really interesting, because they're written in a different style than the rest of the book, the rest of the gospel.
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And it's very much personal, very much written in a different, almost, language, different style.
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Luke writes this. He says, So again, what exactly the relationship between the two is?
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We don't know. It's likely that Theophilus was some sort of proselyte to the, in other words, a
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Gentile who had become a God -fearer, and then had become either interested or convicted or somewhat convicted of the things of Christ.
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And so this relationship developed, and Luke is commissioned to do this, to write these books.
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The text here tells us that Luke had been following the actions of Jesus and his followers for some time, and sought to take these kind of eyewitness testimonies and these accounts and gathered them together in his own orderly account.
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The word orderly means to be careful, to be accurate. And it's so good for me because I think, you know, as those of you who don't know,
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I was in, I was on the, I was about to say I was in the army, I don't know why. I was on the sheriff's, I was in the army, but that's neither here nor there.
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I was on the sheriff's department for 21 years. I wrote a lot of reports. Probably one of my strengths.
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And I like this, orderly, accurate, careful.
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He takes all these eyewitness accounts, and this is what you do as a police officer. You take all these witness statements and you put them together in an orderly fashion into a report.
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No speculation. Like Jack Webb used to say many, many, many years ago in an old police show, just the facts.
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Why? He tells us. So that Theophilus could know for sure that what he had been taught was true.
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This is a great benefit to us, to know the accuracy and the carefulness with which
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Luke proceeded. It helps us to understand that we can trust what we're reading here. His methodology of gathering the information and then writing a coherent and accurate narrative is very helpful to us.
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You can go back to Acts. It helps us to trust it from a human perspective. I mean, from a divine perspective, we should already trust it.
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Why? Because it's in the Bible. And all scripture is theanoustos, that is to say, breathed out by God, breathed out by the
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Holy Spirit. It is trustworthy and true, not because Luke was a careful and attentive writer, which is good, but more so because of the divine superintendence.
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God got exactly into the Bible what he wanted, including this book. But again,
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Luke is only the beginning. Acts is the continuation of the doing and teaching of Jesus Christ.
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If we just think about it this way, Jesus said a few weeks ago,
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I taught this, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. This is Jesus building initially his church.
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Daryl Bach said this. He said, without Jesus and his work, one cannot make sense of the church's existence and activity.
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We're going to develop that some more, but think about that. From a human perspective, if you were writing a book, you would think this is improbable.
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In fact, there's no natural explanation for the existence and the growth of the church.
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Very few followers, persecution from all sides, and an improbable, some might say, like the apostle
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Paul, foolish message. It's a shameful message that a crucified
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Messiah arose from the grave and that forgiveness of sins is available, what?
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Only through him. Paul wrote this in 1
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Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 22 to 24, for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
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But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
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But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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verse 25, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
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For consider your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards.
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Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. And as we see throughout
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Scripture, I mean, I just think about Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night.
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And what was it that drew Nicodemus to Jesus? It was the signs. He said, no one can see the signs that you do and not know that you are from God.
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That's my paraphrase. The Gentiles, the Greeks, wanted wisdom.
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But the gospel is foolish. I mean, when you speak, when you tell people the gospel, unless the
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Lord is working in them, unless the Holy Spirit is convicting them, they'll think that's folly, that's foolish. What can account for the growth of Christianity?
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Only the continuation of Jesus' work to build his church. So, first foundation, the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
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The second foundation, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. The faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
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First, I want to draw your attention to the ascension in verse two, the ascension, which we will talk about in a few weeks, until the day when he was taken up.
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This is what he was doing until the day he was taken up, teaching the disciples, the apostles.
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This brief mention of the ascension bridges the gap from the end of Luke to this book.
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So, again, that idea of continuity between Luke and Acts. Let me read
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Luke 24, verses 50 to 53. And he, Jesus, led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting his hands, he blessed them.
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While he blessed them, he parted from them, and listen, and was carried up into heaven.
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What was their response? They worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing
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God. What does the ascension result in? Worship, awe, joy.
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Why? If the resurrection was surprising, right?
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I mean, they just didn't get it all the way through. They were disjointed. They were disappointed.
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They fled when he's arrested. The only one who even went to the crucifixion was
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John. They're just filled with disbelief when he is risen, when the women come and everything.
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They just can't believe it. But the ascension, it's one thing to see the risen Christ, but to see him actually lifted up into heaven right before their eyes, that's motivating.
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That's fascinating. They are filled with awe and with joy, continually in the temple, blessing
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God. Just imagine to be part of this. Then he gives instructions to the apostles, talking about his faithfulness, after he had given commands through the
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Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. These commands here, or instructions, likely refer to what we call the
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Great Commission. Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.
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In other words, what's your battle plan? What are you guys supposed to do? This, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
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This is a supernatural command given through the Holy Spirit. Notice also that it says that these are his chosen apostles, the twelve minus Judas Iscariot.
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Next week we'll talk about filling that slot. The twelve minus Judas Iscariot.
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They are whom? They are eyewitnesses. They've seen what he did.
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They'd heard what he said. They'd seen the resurrected
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Jesus. These are the men that you want to go out and talk about you.
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Why? Because they knew. They'd been there. They could talk from personal experience.
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But when you think about them as preachers, right? They've got this Great Commission. When you think about them as preachers, it's pretty hard to even imagine.
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God uses the weak. God uses broken vessels. Because it's not about them.
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I can't help but wonder. We have recordings of men like Machen and men from the early parts of the 20th century.
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Not many recordings, but a few. It's just fascinating to me to hear Martin Lloyd -Jones and some of these men preach.
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I can't help but wonder what it was like to hear Peter on the day of Pentecost. Did he just sound like...
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Was it like listening to somebody with a Scottish accent or an Irish brogue?
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I wonder if our sound guys could kind of do that for me. Can you just give me an Irish thing so I just sound really great?
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But we would never think of these men as great orators because we never see them preach in the
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Gospels. All we see are their sins, their doubt, their worry, their what -about -me moments.
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They're arguing over who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. We see a lot of their sins, a lot of their follies.
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We don't see men that we would go, man, I bet that guy is just going to be a great preacher. But these are the chosen apostles.
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Remember Jesus said, I chose you. You didn't choose me. When I was thinking,
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I want some preachers, I went to find some fishermen.
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I didn't go to the seminaries.
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I didn't go to the great universities. I don't know how many great universities there were, but the logical thing to do would have been to go into Jerusalem and to raid the
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Sanhedrin, to raid the Pharisees and take the best out of those and go, okay guys, here's what we're going to do.
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That's not what He did. He didn't take the wise. He took the foolish. He took the simple.
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Why? So that it didn't depend on the men, but on Him, on the message.
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So firstly, the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Secondly, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
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Third foundation, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Verse three, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering.
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Now he told them that he would rise from the dead, but they didn't get it.
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I mean, we know even as soon as John chapter two, that he predicted his resurrection.
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He said, destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. But the disciples didn't get it.
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They despaired. They were morbidly despondent even after his arrest.
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Whatever their hopes were before he went on trial, they had none.
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When he was tried, convicted, beaten, and then crucified. But there were evidences.
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He gave them of his resurrection, even more than just showing up. Many proofs to them during these 40 days, 40 days that he was with them off and on, right?
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How about these appearances that are listed by Hendrickson in his commentary? 10 of them, the women at the tomb in Matthew 28,
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Mary Magdalene in Mark 16 and John 20, two men on the road to Emmaus, Mark 16 and Luke 24,
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Peter in Jerusalem in Luke 24 and first Corinthians 15, five, 10 disciples in Luke 24 and John 20.
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Remember that first night when Thomas isn't there? Then the next week, 11 disciples because Thomas is there in John 20 and first Corinthians 15, five, number seven, seven disciples fishing in Galilee in John chapter 21, 11 disciples in Galilee in Matthew 28 and Mark 16, 500 persons, which is presumably in Galilee.
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And then James, the brother of the Lord in first Corinthians 15, seven.
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Now, was Jesus constantly with the apostles for these 40 days? No, even as we studied through John chapter 20, which is this fascinating, sorry to just divert for a moment.
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But as we think about Luke and what he wrote and then Acts and we look at what
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John writing around 90 AD, which is long after Luke was written and long after Acts was written, looking and just thinking, you know what?
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Luke refers to these things that he did. I'm going to put them in.
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I mean, this is just speculative, but I think that's right. I think he looks at these things and goes,
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I'm going to fill some of those gaps in, right? So I digress.
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But at the end of John's gospel, when he adds these things in, Jesus just kind of shows up and then he disappears.
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He shows up and then he disappears. So off and on for 40 days.
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And then he tells the apostles to stay in Jerusalem until Pentecost, until the promise of the father comes true.
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So this is 50 days from Passover to Pentecost. Can you imagine sending these men out?
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Not because of who they are, but can you imagine asking anybody to do this without the sure knowledge that Jesus had risen from the dead?
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How could they be expected to do it? Even as we think about the motivation that Paul kind of gives in 1
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Corinthians 15. Listen to verse 14. He says, If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain, right?
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I mean, it was true after the book of Acts or after the day of Pentecost and it was true before that.
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If Jesus Christ is not raised, how do you convince these men to go and to preach Jesus Christ, the resurrected savior?
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You can't do it. Who could go out and do this without sure knowledge?
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And the answer is nobody would. They had to know or they'd be thinking that their preaching, their effort was in vain.
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Who wants to hear about a savior, somebody who died for your sins and then stayed dead?
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How would I know that he's actually a savior? How would I know that he actually paid for my sins? Who wants to preach that savior?
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But the good news is in 1 Corinthians 15 again, but in fact, Jesus has been raised from the dead.
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Listen, the first fruits or the first of those who have fallen asleep. In other words, the first raised glory.
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For as by a man came death, that's talking about Adam. By a man,
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Jesus has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
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Notice also in verse 3, the exhortation that Jesus gives these men, the exhortation and speaking about the kingdom of God.
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Resurrection, surely a sign of the kingdom of God. When we think back to Matthew chapter 3,
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John the Baptist bursts on the scene. What does he say? In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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That kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, same meaning. It's an already not yet proposition, meaning we are experiencing it and we have been since the day of Pentecost, this new work of God, this joining together of the
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Jews and the Gentiles. It's a spiritual kingdom and the people or the gospel is at work in the people of God, winning the elect to faith in Christ.
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Jesus taught the apostles about the kingdom of God and it wasn't about, he had to clarify a lot of things, you know, are you going to establish your kingdom now?
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It wasn't about the overthrow of Rome, but the defeat of sin, Satan, death, all the concerns that we mortals have.
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One day, we will experience the kingdom of God fully in the presence of Jesus Christ, but that day is not yet.
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And also, I want to just mention this because we're going to see it in the weeks to come. It's not in this text at all in Acts chapter 1, verses 1 to 5, but his promised return.
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Jesus is coming back. It is a consistent theme of Acts that he died, rose, and is returning to judge.
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For example, in Acts 10, 42, and he, Jesus, commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
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That was Peter preaching. So, three foundations so far, the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and fourth, the
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Holy Spirit promised by Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit promised by Jesus Christ, and he's going to first appear in Jerusalem, and while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem.
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Why? Because spreading the gospel, as we'll see, as Jesus tells them, is going to happen first in Jerusalem, then in Judea, in other words, in southern
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Israel, then Samaria, and then all the earth.
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Now, if you think about it, where's the last place that if you were starting back then, where's the last place that you would probably want to start a church?
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I would argue that Jerusalem was a pretty tough place to go. This is 50 days, again, after Jesus has been put to death and then risen from the dead.
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And if you recall, during the trial, during the trials, Pilate says to the crowd, look, you can release, you could free
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Jesus, and who do they choose? They choose Barabbas instead. Jesus was publicly ridiculed, beaten and forced to carry his own cross until he collapsed, then crucified.
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So 50 days later, you're going to show up in Jerusalem and start preaching about this Jesus, who's been put to a shameful death, as a business plan, as a business model.
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This is not something, it's not something as an investor you'd look at and go, yeah, I want to invest in that.
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That's not going to work. But that's where it starts,
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Jerusalem, because it's not about the wisdom of men, it's about the power of God.
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Look at verse 4 again. It's interesting how it's framed here.
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For, but to wait, stay in Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me.
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Now, some here will probably think, well, wait a minute, it's Jesus who promised the Holy Spirit. Well, yes, it is
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Jesus who promised the Holy Spirit. John 15, 26, but when the helper comes, whom
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I will send to you, okay, from the Father, the
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Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about, or he will bear witness about me.
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And then Acts 2, 33, this is the Pentecost sermon.
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Peter says this, being therefore exalted at the right hand of Father, of God, and having received from the
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Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
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One more. Is it the Father, or is it the Son pouring out the
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Holy Spirit, or is it both? John 14, 26, but the helper, the
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Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
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It's both, right? The Spirit proceeds from the
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Father and the Son. Our Statement of Faith says this, the Father is of none. In other words, there is no sending of the
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Father, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the
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Father, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. That's the working of the
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Trinity. Now let's talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That will be controversial when we get there.
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It's not like, well, it won't be here, but it's not like John's baptism.
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When you think of John the Baptist because he was a Baptist, what do you think of? If you're like me, when you don't know anything, you kind of think
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John the Baptist as opposed to John the Presbyterian or, you know. What was
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John's baptism? And we tend to think about it. Some of you might remember this, but we tend to think about it as a baptism like we do, right?
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The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Well, there's a problem with that. That wasn't what it was about.
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It wasn't a symbol of belief in Christ. It was a symbol of believing
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John's message that the people needed to repent, that they needed to be prepared for the coming
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Messiah. They needed to be ready for the arrival, essentially, effectively, of God.
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And this baptism was a Jewish ritual. It was a way of saying, I am ceremonially unclean.
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I'm acknowledging that before God, and I want to be clean. What's interesting is the typical means of doing this was self -baptism.
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And yet, John the Baptist comes on the scene and says, well, you know, basically, that may be the way some of you do it, but this isn't what
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God wants. He wants me to do that. He wants me to give this message, and then you would be baptized.
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But the Holy Spirit's baptism is different because it's not a request for cleansing.
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It's not an acknowledgement of the need for cleansing. This is an empowerment to do the impossible.
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It's not about rolling on the floor, growling, roaring like a lion, laughing in the
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Holy Spirit, all that kind of nonsense, right? The text says, but you will be baptized with the
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Holy Spirit not many days from now. Well, what's going to happen on the day of Pentecost? The impossible is going to happen.
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This is going to be a work of the Holy Spirit. These men are going to be empowered to do what is humanly not possible to do.
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We're going to see it at Pentecost where thousands are going to come to faith in Christ and all these people are going to be enabled to speak languages other than their own, not fake languages, not made up languages, not babbling languages, but real languages.
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Then Cornelius and the Gentiles are going to receive this baptism. They're going to be welcomed into the family of God.
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But the point of being baptized with the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues.
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And we'll talk about that more, but suffice to say for our purposes this morning that it is to empower those whom
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MacArthur called ordinary men because that's what they were, right? These were not the elites, the scholars.
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It's empowering these ordinary men to do the extraordinary. Jesus taught them what they needed to do and why, but the
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Holy Spirit enabled them to do it. And one thing I'm going to stress over and over again as we go through this book is that this is a historical narrative.
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The significance of that is this, the things that we see are descriptive, meaning they're just descriptions of what is happening, what the
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Lord is doing. Not prescriptive, meaning, you know, go and do likewise. We shouldn't expect if we go out into West Boylston Town Square and start preaching that y 'all are going to start speaking in different languages.
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I don't know why you would anyway, but maybe there'd be some Romanians or something out there for all you
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Romanians listening today. But we shouldn't, that's not the point.
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We shouldn't expect the miraculous. And miracles are what?
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They're God intervening in the space -time continuum and doing what only God can do.
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And we're going to see miracles in the book of Acts, but their purpose isn't so that we could think these are normal practices.
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We can just count on the Holy Spirit to do these things in our presence all the time. No, they were specifically meant to authenticate both the message,
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Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and the messenger, which was these 12 ordinary men.
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And we don't have those miracles today because we have the more sure word.
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Right? We don't need the spectacular. We don't need to see Jesus on the
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Mount of Transfiguration because we have scripture. So, the foundations.
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We've seen the four foundations today. And what I, again, as we're introducing this book,
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I just want us to see the big picture. Think about the big agenda.
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The categorical difference between the religions of the world and Christianity.
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Focusing on the resurrection, the ascension, and importantly, trusting in scripture, particularly in the gospel.
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What are we going to see these men do over and over and over again? They're going to preach
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Christ and Him crucified, and they're going to trust the Holy Spirit. Not in some business plan, not in some tried and true technique, but just preaching the gospel, trusting the
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Holy Spirit. So, the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the
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Holy Spirit promised by Jesus Christ. And my reminder to you is we can't be pragmatists.
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We can't be focused on what works. We can't be focused on purpose.
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We're not a business. We have to be focused on a person, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. His spotless life. His vicarious death, and His glorious resurrection.
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Our message has not changed. We have the same message today that the apostles had back then.
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And it cannot change if we are to be faithful to our task. Well, let's go ahead and close in prayer.
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Father, we thank you that we have the book of Acts, that we have this carefully put together formulation of the history of the early church, that we can look to it and stand in awe of the work of the
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Holy Spirit, of how the Son poured out the Holy Spirit upon His people, that they might do the work that they needed to do.
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We think even of the idea of preaching the gospel in a place where they had put the
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Lord Jesus Christ to death, had refused to set Him free, of the shame, the agony that they put
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Him through. But Father, what seems reasonable to us, what seems plausible to us, and what seems impossible to us, those things are meaningless to you.
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You do as you will. You turn the hearts of people.
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You transform people by your power. It is only by your
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Spirit that we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you, and we praise you for that.
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Father, if any are here today who don't know you, we pray that today would be the day that they come to believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ, flee to the cross, trusting in Christ alone for salvation, we pray.