Missio Dei
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
What makes The Mona Lisa so special?
It is maybe the most iconic painted of all-time? Why? Why is it worth so much money? Why is it considered to be Da Vinci’s best work?
Well, in many ways it is because it was something new.
People had not seen shading techniques be used to create such a realistic looking face
People had not seen an optical illusion be used by an artist to insinuate a smile even when the person in the painting isn’t smiling.
The Mona Lisa is popular because it reflects the glory of the artist.
It makes the observer stop and say, “The one who painted this has done a new and glorious work.”
With that in mind, consider these words from the French Reformer, John Calvin, at the beginning of his commentary on the Book of Acts.
Now, here is most lively painted out the beginning of Christ’s kingdom, as it were the renewing of the world…Here is, therefore, set down both the beginning and also the increasing of the Church of Christ after his ascension, whereby he was declared to be King both of heaven and earth. -John Calvin
What we have in Acts is a painting, inspired by the Holy Spirit, poured out through Luke’s pen—showing us how the kingdom of Christ began to grow and spread after Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father.
A painting that shows us the Father orchestrating His eternal plan,
through the risen and exalted Christ,
and through the power of the Spirit,
using the Word to bring about salvation,
creating the Church, who are then sent out as witnesses.
Way back in the summer of 2020, we started a verse by verse study of Luke that we wrapped up in January 2023.
This is Luke’s sequel to his gospel.
And in it, Luke is showing how Jesus’ Kingdom mission carries on after Jesus’ ascension. This is THE big picture of the book of Acts.
The period of time we will cover in Acts stretches about thirty years.
In that time, the Gospel will move from the Jerusalem—the epicenter of Judaism, to Athens--the epicenter of philisophy, to Ephesus—the epicenter of magic and sorcery, to Rome—the epicenter of the ancient world.
And as Luke tells us this narrative, he doesn’t just want us to how the church began. That is the big purpose in his writing, but underneath that purpose, he has other bullet points on his agenda.
Luke writes so that his reader would have certainty.
He wants us to have assurance that God is accomplishing His purposes through Christ, bringing salvation to Israel and to the nations.
He wants us to see how God is continuing to keep His Old Covenant promises in the genesis of His New Covenant Church.
Luke writes to relieve ethnic tension in the church.
When all of those non-Jewish people started coming into the church, there was not a purely receptive reaction.
People were hesitant about the idea, and even adamantly opposed to it.
We will see that in Acts.
But we will also see how God led the church through it and Luke knows that is important so he is accurately recording it all
Luke writes to glorify the Triune God.
Acts is a very Triune book.
The Father is governing
The life and death and resurrection of the Son is the subject of the church’s witness
And the Holy Spirit is the power behind their work
The power of the full Godhead in the earliest stages of church history is on display in Luke
Luke writes as an apologist.
Christianity was under attack from the very beginning.
As Luke is keeping his careful notes, he is also giving us a record of how the church defended herself against false pagan religion, against established Judaism and against the political powers in charge.
WHY SEAFORD AND WHY NOW?
WHY SEAFORD AND WHY NOW?
Now you might say, “All that is great,” but why do this at Seaford, now?
Well, the answer is not simply, “Because we did Luke and it feels like we should just keep going.”
We have had the plan to go from Luke to Acts from the very start, but when we made that decision, we didn’t know a host of things.
2020 was such a tumultuous time that there was a lot of uncertainty
One thing we certainly didn’t know is that we would be getting out of debt, just as the study of Acts was beginning.
But God knew that. And I think that is important.
See, Acts shows us a lot that we need at SBC as we enter into a new and exciting season of ministry.
It shows us how the Gospel spreads through the faithful witness of the local church
It shows us the purpose of the local church
It shows us what biblical community looks like
It shows us the elements that God uses to grow His Kingdom
And these are all things we need to be shown.
We do not know it all.
We had a heavy building debt here and through the faithful giving of our members, the Lord delivered us from it.
But we do not have it all together.
We need God’s wisdom. We need the historical context of early church history. We need the stories of God’s faithfulness.
We need Acts.
So let’s dive into it.
We will look at the first eight verses this morning and see from the outset:
The foundation of the apostles’ mission
The content of the apostles’ mission
And the power in the apostles’ mission
And these points will really provide a framework to understand the entire narrative that follows
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, 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 forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
THE FOUNDATION OF THE MISSION (v. 1-3)
THE FOUNDATION OF THE MISSION (v. 1-3)
We begin with Luke addressing this individual named Theophilus—the same one we saw him address in the beginning of his gospel:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
We don’t know much about Theophilus.
Some have argued he was a wealthy nobleman who actually funded Luke’s research because he was a believer and he desired the ordered account of things that Luke could provide.
That could be true, but we do not know.
The first book that Luke refers to in verse 1 is the Gospel of Luke.
In that, he dealt with the breadth of Jesus’ ministry on earth.
that is what “to do and teach,” means.
It is a summary phrase that encapsulates the work Christ did on earth.
He preached the message of the Kingdom and He did signs and wonders that confirmed His teaching and His claims
And Luke recorded all of that, right up to the day of His ascension and the commissioning of the disciples for their work of carrying on His mission (v. 2).
And then, in verse 3, Luke seems to go backwards.
In verse 2, we are talking about the ascension and the commission, but in verse 3, we are back to talking abut the resurrection and Jesus presenting Himself to the apostles and spending forty days with them.
Why would there be this reverse shift where Luke goes backwards and talks about the resurrection after already speaking about the ascension?
Well, I believe he is saying something about the mission that we will see the apostles on throughout the book of Acts.
To get this, look at the end of verse 2 again.
…After he had given commands through the Holy Spirit through the apostles whom he had chosen.
What commands are we talking about here? What command was handed out by Jesus in Luke, just before the ascension?
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations...
Each of the gospel writers record similar words where before Christ ascends, He is commissioning His apostles to carry on Gospel work:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
So going back to Acts 1, right after Luke tells Theophilus that Jesus gave these commands to the apostles He has chosen, Luke points to the resurrection.
Luke points to the reality that Christ rose from the grave and that all of the apostles were witnesses to this.
That Jesus proved His bodily resurrection to the apostles in a myriad of ways throughout these forty days and that He taught them about the Kingdom.
And Luke does this because the mission the apostles will go on finds its foundation in that resurrection.
Teaching Point #1: The foundation of the apostles’ mission is the resurrection of Christ (v. 1-3).
Teaching Point #1: The foundation of the apostles’ mission is the resurrection of Christ (v. 1-3).
The apostles will go on their mission in the authority of Christ, but the evidence they stand on that proves their truth claims is the empty grave.
They are going out and proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations.
You see in verse 8 how Jesus plans for the movement of the Church to spread:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
So as they witness to the ends of the earth, they are witnessing to what? To the resurrection as proof that Christ is the fulfillment of the Scriptures, the Messiah sent by the Father and the only hope of salvation for Israel and the whole world.
See, we are going to see the apostles making serious statements about the identity of Christ in Acts. Here are just three examples we will see before we get out of the first five chapters:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
What would make Peter and the apostles so audacious as to claim that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the only way to be saved from God’s wrath is to repent and put your trust in Him?
Because they saw Him murdered and then they saw Him resurrect and they spent forty days hanging out with Him and learning from Him and eating with Him in His resurrected body.
And they never recovered from that. In the most positive way, it messed up their lives.
And the ground they stand on as they leave everything behind for the sake of witnessing for Christ and building His church, is the resurrection.
Back in Luke 24, we saw the resurrected Christ coming to all of the apostles for the first time in the vesper lights of Easter Sunday.
Luke says they are “disbelieving for joy.”
So Jesus eats fish in front of them to prove He isn’t a ghost. He appeals to their logic.
He lets them touch His wounds and handle His body. He appeals to their physical senses.
He reminds them of everything He had taught them. He appeals to their hearts and minds.
And by the time we get to Acts, they not disbelieving for joy. They are witnessing for joy.
They are convinced and they are not going back.
TP #1 APPLICATION: Nothing has changed for us as the people of God.
We do not go into the world proclaiming the Gospel on the foundation of our own intellect and wisdom.
We do not go out into the world proclaiming the Gospel on the foundation of mere words, the way other religions go about proclaiming their false systems of salvation.
We do not go out into the world proclaiming the Gospel on the foundation of our talents and our abilities to market the message well.
No—we go out on the same foundation as the apostles.
We go out witnessing to the reality of the resurrection.
We go out saying that God sent Christ to do and to teach
And Christ never sinned, but was delivered into the hands of sinful men
And He was crucified in the place of sinners and bore their punishment
And this atoning, substitutionary, sacrificial death is the only way to be saved from God’s wrath
And someone says to us, “How do you know all that is true and Jesus is who He said He was and He can actually do all of that for you?”
Our response is, “He was dead in a tomb and He got back up and walked out and hundreds and hundreds of people saw Him.”
And since He is the only One to claim to be the saving Messiah who is in the flesh, who proved it by conquering death, we obediently go and spread the Word
If someone asks me how I know my witness is true, my response is not primarily:
Because I feel it
Or because I had an experience
Or because it makes me happy
No—I point to the objective evidence of the resurrection and say, “I know because that grave is empty.”
You see Peter doing this in Acts 2. His foundational proof of the Gospel’s veracity and truthfulness is the resurrection:
This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
THE CONTENT OF THE APOSTLES’ MISSION (v. 3; 6)
THE CONTENT OF THE APOSTLES’ MISSION (v. 3; 6)
Let’s keep going and move on from looking at the foundation of the apostolic mission to the content.
We know they stood on the resurrection as they preached and did the work of building the church, but what were they going to be preaching?
We get a hint of it at the end of verse 3.
…And speaking about the Kingdom of God.
As Jesus is spending that final period of time on earth with the disciples, teaching them in His resurrected body, He is teaching the about the Kingdom of God.
Now go down to verse 6. What subject matter are the disciples eager to understand just before Christ ascends?
The Kingdom. They want to know if the time has come for Jesus to restore the Kingdom.
They are still thinking politically. They want Jesus overthrow Rome, sit on His throne and to begin His reign.
In other words, they aren’t longing for Pentecost—the beginning of a mission...
They are longing for the Day of the Lord—the end of the world and beginning of the age of glory
They want the Kingdom--
They want it too soon, but they want it.
This brings us to our second teaching point this morning...
Teaching Point #2: The content of the apostles’ mission is the kingdom of God (v. 3, 6-7).
Teaching Point #2: The content of the apostles’ mission is the kingdom of God (v. 3, 6-7).
The reason the apostles are itching for the Kingdom is because:
a) They are Jewish and they don’t like Romans occupying the land
b) They believe Jesus should be the only One sitting on a throne and they believe everyone should bow down to Him
c) They believe this about Jesus and long for His reign, because He has been teaching them about the kingdom
I think verse 6 is happening because verse 3 has happened.
But the time for the Kingdom has not come yet.
In verse 7, Jesus says that it is not for the to know the times or the seasons because the Father has fixed those things by His own authority.
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Until that time comes, the apostles have work to do.
They are to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit and then they will be witnesses to the resurrected Christ to the end of the earth.
And as they go about that work, do you know what they will teach?
The same thing they were taught—the message of the Kingdom.
This is important for us to get today, so I want to take a few minutes on it.
It is important because if the kingdom is the message we will see the apostles spreading all throughout this book, they we better understand what it is or we are going to be a bit lost.
A nice working definition for the Kingdom of God would be a follows:
The Kingdom of God is God’s people, living under God’s rule, in God’s place.
So in Genesis, we see God’s people (Adam and Eve), living under God’s rule (He is issuing commands and they are carrying them out), in God’s place (Eden).
Sin and death have come in with Satan and disrupted God’s Kingdom design.
Now, God is recovering the Kingdom for His people through His Son, Jesus.
Jesus came to earth and showed us how we should be living as God’s image-bearing vice-regents who He has ordained to rule in His place.
Jesus lived under His Father’s authority, carrying out His will, never sinning.
He succeeded in doing what the first Adam failed in.
So when Jesus hits the scene in Luke, what is He preaching? The Kingdom, of course.
And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
What is the message of the Kingdom?
It is the Gospel.
Satan and sin and death have alienated you from God and made you an enemy of Him and His Kingdom.
He sends His Son, the King of the Kingdom, to come and rescue His people
Jesus lives a sinless life, submits Himself to a sinner’s death and dies in our place, as if He was the One who had rebelled against God and God’s rule.
And then He resurrected to step on the head of the Kingdom’s enemy and to show that the rescue He has provided for the citizens of His Kingdom is real.
Anyone who repents of sin and trusts in the death and resurrection of the King is brought into the Kingdom.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
And one day, the King will return to establish the physical Kingdom once and for all.
Any enemies of the King will be destroyed, while the citizens of the Kingdom will be vindicated and will reign with the King forever.
That is what Jesus proclaimed and that is what the apostles are to proclaim. And Luke’s narrative in Acts is mapped out by the Kingdom.
First of all, Acts has Kingdom bookends.
We saw the kingdom mentioned right off the bat in Luke’s intro in Acts 1:3
Acts 1:3 (ESV)
appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And then as you get to the end of the book, with Paul in Rome, what do we see?
He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
The Kingdom message has gone all the way from Jesus and the apostles in Jerusalem to the political capitol of the known world at the time—Rome.
So at the beginning, we have the Kingdom being taught by Jesus.
By the end, it has made it to Rome in the mouth of Paul.
Those are important bookends.
Secondly, Acts has Kingdom milestones.
In verse 8, we the Gospel will move geographically from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the end of the earth.
This will happen throughout the narrative of Acts.
And as it does, the mention of the Kingdom will serve as a milestone to see how the Gospel is breaking each geographical boundary.
So in Acts 1-7, we are mainly dealing with how the Gospel is working in Jerusalem and Judea. Then in Acts 8, Phillip is preaching in Samaria.
But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
The Gospel is on the move into Samaria and what is Luke sure to remind us of? The Kingdom.
Then, the Gospel begins moving beyond Samaria to the nations in Paul’s missionary journeys.
And with each stage of Paul’s ministry, Luke is there to remind us of what Paul is preaching:
At the end of the first missionary journey, Paul is traveling back through the places he has been evangelizing and he is encouraging them to be steadfast and he says:
strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
The last time you see Paul as a free man is in Ephesus in Acts 19. It is a turning point in Paul’s story. Listen to what Paul is doing there:
And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
And then, as Paul says goodbye to the Ephesian elders and he is about to head to Jerusalem where he will be arrested, there is Luke again to remind us of the purpose of it all:
And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
So every key portion of Luke’s narrative has this Kingdom reminder.
It is a baseline that runs throughout Acts so that the reader doesn’t forget what the church is doing all this for—it is to proclaim the Kingdom and advance the Kingdom.
Application for TP#2: Our church is no different. Everything we do—from our Sunday gatherings to Midweek meals to local mercy ministries—it is all about the Kingdom.
It is about proclaiming and advancing the Kingdom.
And we do that because we understand that while Christ established the Kingdom in His death and resurrection and ascension, He has not yet consummated the Kingdom.
That will not happen until He returns.
And that means the Kingdom work is not complete.
Jesus has told us of a day that is coming when the Kingdom will be complete:
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
As He institutes the Lord’s Supper with His disciples, He looks forward to that day:
I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
But that day has not yet arrived.
God’s rule is not fully established on earth yet.
When it happens, it will be more glorious than you can even imagine:
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
God has not saved you for an eternity where you float around like Casper the friendly ghost singing, “Victory in Jesus,” over and over in a blue and white field of sky and clouds.
God intends to create for his people a new world, free of sin and death and sickness. War will end, oppression will cease, and God will dwell with his people forever. Never again will any of God’s people suffer death, and never again will tears burn our eyes at a graveside. Never again will an infant live but a few days and then die. Never again will we mourn, or hurt, or weep. Never again will we long for home. -Greg Gilbert
But until that comes, God is adding to His Kingdom one citizen at a time.
One day, the final citizen will repent and be transferred into the Kingdom and that will be it.
The trumpet will sound. The skies will open. The Lord Jesus will return in glory for His church and lift her up and then set her down in her eternal home.
We count down the days, but we do not simply twiddle our thumbs and wait and pray.
We work. We go on mission. We carry on the same Kingdom-preaching, Kingdom-advancing work that Christ was doing.
He has ascended, but He has left us to be here as the Body of Christ, representing Him on the earth.
Proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins to the nations, until He returns.
We cannot drift from this mission or we will find ourselves detached from the divine purpose God has given the church.
We will lose our identity and morph into something other than a community of ambassadors representing Christ.
We will just be religious people working on our own agenda.
The world doesn’t need any more of that. They need the Gospel of the Kingdom. They need to know the King.
We cannot drift from this. Not for a moment.
THE POWER IN THE APOSTLES’ MISSION (v. 4-5; 7-8)
THE POWER IN THE APOSTLES’ MISSION (v. 4-5; 7-8)
Now, let’s wrap up this morning with our final teaching point.
Teaching Point #3: The power in the apostles’ mission is the Holy Spirit (v. 4-5; 7-8).
Teaching Point #3: The power in the apostles’ mission is the Holy Spirit (v. 4-5; 7-8).
At the end of Luke 24, Jesus gives very specific instructions to the Eleven:
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
What is the “promise of my Father” that He will send upon them? What is this “power from on high?”
Well Acts 1, tells us plainly.
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
This is an important moment in the history of redemption.
When John was baptizing at the Jordan, he told the people that his water baptism was a precursor to a different type of double-edged baptism that was on the way:
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Jesus will baptize with the Spirit or with fire.
Charismatics have interpreted this to mean that Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit, which results in the tongues of fire resting on the apostles in Acts 2, but that is not what is being talked about here.
If you keep reading in Luke, that is clear:
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
You either get baptized with the Holy Spirit or you get baptized in the judgment of the fires of Hell.
That is what John was saying—Christ will come and you either receive His gracious baptism of the Spirit or you receive His just baptism of fire.
So then, the “promise of the Father,” that the apostles are waiting on is the Holy Spirit.
“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the 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.
And it is the Spirit who will empower the apostles for the work of taking the Gospel from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the end of the earth.
That reality is underlined by the fact that the Spirit is mentioned three times in the first eight verses.
TP#3 APPLICATION: In the same way that the church still witnesses with the resurrection as our foundation, and we will preach with the kingdom of God as our content...
The power in our ministry is still the Holy Spirit.
I think we forget this sometimes. I think we can so easily start to think that the power lies in our hands and our abilities and our wisdom.
EXAMPLE: We live and serve on the Peninsula and there are a lot of churches on the Peninsula.
Some are big and booming and seem like they are doing all the right things
Some are small and thousands of people drive past them every day and don’t think twice about them
Sometimes the members of smaller churches will come to the pastors of the smaller churches and say things like, “Why don’t we do what they are doing at the big church? It works for them.”
Do you know that people are telling on themselves with that suggestion?
What is tucked away in that question is a mindset that says, “Success in ministry lies in doing the right programs in the right ways.”
Brothers and sisters, that is not Kingdom advancement, that is consumerism.
That is how retail execs talk around board meeting tables.
That is not how we should talk around church table.
Our power for the mission does not lie in programs and planning.
Those things can be nice vehicles for Kingdom work, but the power is in the Spirit.
That is who advances the Kingdom.
That is who opens eyes to the beauty of Christ. That is who regenerates the dead heart.
We do the extraordinary ordinary things:
Preach
Pray
Serve
Disciple
And we just God to take those ordinary things and resurrect the dead.
I really don’t fret about numbers. I fret about faithfulness.
As long as we are faithful, God’s Spirit will grow His people in His power, on the Father’s timetable, for the glory of the Son.
We just have to be yielded and obedient. Willing to change the method for the Gospel’s sake, but never willing to change the Gospel.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, as the band comes back up, right off the bat, we see the work that lies ahead of the apostles in Acts:
Go on mission, witnessing with the resurrection as their foundation
Preach the Kingdom of God as you go
And rely on the power of the Spirit as you do it
Here’s the thing—that isn’t just the work that lies ahead for the Apostles—that is our work.
The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul teaching in Rome.
You don’t learn of his fate.
You don’t get a nice wrap-up statement.
It is like the finale is mid-episode and it just ends.
And that is because it isn’t a finale.
Luke ends and Acts begin and the apostles carry on Jesus’ work.
Acts ends and church history begins and the church carries on the apostolic work.
And here we are. We will leave here today and enter our mission field and the task has not changed:
Go on mission, standing on the empty grave
Proclaim the Kingdom and advance it
Trusting in the power of the Spirit for every inch of ground we gain for God’s glory
So our understanding Acts is crucial because we are truly living in the 29th chapter.
We are carrying on the work.
Therefore, we must understand the first 28 chapters.
I pray today was a good start.