Good evening. It's good to see you. It's good to be here. Let's pray together and then we're going to dive into the book of Acts.
Father God, we thank you for being so good to us. We thank you that we get to gather and assemble here tonight. Lord, that we get to hear from you, hear from your Word. Be taught by your Spirit.
So Father, I pray that the words I say would be the words that you want me to say and the words that we hear are coming from you that we may grow to become more like your son and that we would leave this place different, more equipped to be an effective disciple for you in this world, for your glory. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. All right.
So we are going over the book of Acts tonight. We have just a couple more weeks of this series as we're applying all of the Bible study tools that we learned the first six weeks of the summer to do in these book overviews, these last seven weeks of the summer, and we are in the book of Acts tonight. So Acts recounts the history of the beginning of the church and the explosive growth of Christianity. Now the traditional title is the Acts of the Apostles.
It's the traditional title. But upon reading the narrative, upon reading the book of Acts, what I would say and when we were kind of doing our bigger overviews, I believe Pastor Mark taught in this section when we were doing the New Testament stuff a couple months ago, that maybe a more appropriate title would be the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Because what we see is the Holy Spirit being the driver for everything that happens in the book. You know, the Spirit is the fuel for the engine of ministry that we read about through the book of Acts.
Now a couple of things I want to take note of. Acts speaks very loudly to us. It speaks very loudly to us today. We were actually, this kind of came up in the car with my kids on the way over here, that we don't quite understand the godless cultures that the book of Acts is taking place in.
Right? When you back up 2000 years, you know, in the Roman Empire and I mean these extremely polytheistic, many gods all over the place, very little value for human life. I mean, things were dispensable. You know, relationships were dispensable.
I mean, extremely over-sexualized culture as well. I mean, we really don't grasp how bad the culture was from a moral point of view, from a faith point of view, from a truth point of view. You know, and even as we do an assessment of our current society as America, you know, really does move more and more to a post-Christian society, a post-Christian culture. We still get the, anything Pastor Mark even talked about this this last Sunday, we still reap a lot of benefits of the influence of Christianity in our culture, don't we?
I mean, we do. And until we really start comparing, we don't understand how good we have it, but things do feel hard right now, don't they? Things do seem like they're getting dark, don't they? I mean, we've been praying through Chicago and, you know, and some of the darkness in that city.
It is easy for us to not have hope. I mean, it's easy. But here's what I want to tell you, that the book of Acts gives us great hope, gives us great hope. David, go ahead and kill those because no matter how dark the world may see, all it takes is a little light to pierce that darkness.
The darker it is, the brighter one light shines. Amen? Let's bring those lights back up. You see the light of Christ pierces the darkness and drives the darkness away.
And there is no greater testimony of that that we see in church history than these 30 years that we're going to look at tonight in the book of Acts. We also discover in the book of Acts, and this is speaking to some tragic turn events, the value of all people and the love that God has for them. That's what we see clearly. No matter their race, no matter what they look like on the outside, no matter what country they come from, we see in the book of Acts and all throughout this scripture that God loves everyone.
Acts not only shows us a gospel for all nations, but also the inherent worth of the people within those nations is what we see in the book of Acts. Racism in any form has no place in biblical Christianity, zero. Acts 1034 quotes Peter in saying, and this is part of when Peter got that vision of that sheet coming down with all these animals in it that were forbidden for Jews to eat, right? It's one of my favorite passions, the Bible because I get to eat bacon because of that passage.
He gets this, the sheets coming down, you know, and God gives them this revelation that no, the gospels for the Gentiles as well for all those who are non-Jewish and Peter says in response to that. He says, truly I understand that God shows no partiality. Paul says the exact same phrase in Romans chapter two verse 11. God shows no partiality.
So the book of Acts speaks very clearly, very powerfully to our world and our problems in our country today. That's what gives us hope and what gives us our marching orders as believers and how we are to live and treat and love people. Amen? So just one last thing to personally, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the book of Acts.
I mean, quite literally, quite literally. About 12 years ago, when God was calling Don and I to deplant a church, I don't know if you guys know my whole story, but that's how I got to Springfield, we moved here to plant a church. And you know, and we were just really praying through of where God would have us do that, right? We had all these options we were praying through, seemed like doors kept closing.
And I heard about there was a small group of people in Springfield that wanted to start a new work, you know, and they, you know, and just the Lord had to provide the right leadership for them and me being a Chicago kid. I wrote Springfield off pretty quickly. But it never went away. And I was, I was, and I had talked to them a couple of times and everything.
And I was praying and reading the word one day and I came across reading Acts chapter 16. And Acts chapter 16, one of the stories in there is the story of Paul's vision of the man in Macedonia. They were going to go, they had plans to go somewhere else. Paul went to sleep, he had this dream, got given this vision of this man in Macedonia.
And the man was saying, come help us. Come help us. Preach the gospel. I read that.
I'm like, you've got to kid me. I mean, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, and I'm like, there's a group of people here that said, come help, we need help in sharing the gospel, living on mission here in Springfield. So quite literally, I wouldn't be here in Springfield without the book of Acts, which obviously means I wouldn't be here with us today.
So I'm very thankful. So let's jump in. Okay, open up your Bible to the book of Acts. You haven't done so yet.
So let's go over a couple of things. Acts is placed as the fifth book of the New Testament right after the four gospels. Acts is a sequel. We all love good sequels, right?
Acts is a sequel. It's the second book written by Luke, who was a doctor, who was a traveling companion to Paul actually. And another thing interesting in Acts chapter 16, as Luke is writing Acts, he moves in chapter 16 from writing, you know, and he stops using pronouns like they and them, and he starts using pronouns of us and we. Luke joins Paul on his missionary journeys as he's writing a personal first person from Acts 16 through the rest of the book.
It was very interesting. So we can't start off the book of Acts without starting off the book of Luke. So keep your finger in Acts 1, and then once you flip back to Luke 1, I really wish Luke would be right before Acts in the Bible, but they didn't do that. So Luke chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 says this, 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 regarding Jesus and the gospel.
Now we go back to Acts chapter 1, the verse 3 verses. 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, to them he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. Now what we find out in these two introductory passages in both these books is really important.
It's really important how we understand this. First let's talk about who it's written to. It's written to a guy named what? Theophilus.
Theophilus. Theophilus literally means you break that Greek word down, it means love by God. Love by God. It's a real person, some people say it's just kind of a figurative person, but most of what Bible people tell us, these historians tell us, is that theophilus is a real guy.
This was written to a person and most likely a ranking Roman official. He's a guy that has some sort of influence. That's who he's described as the most excellent Theophilus. That is a title that Luke is honoring him with, is acknowledging I should say.
So here's a couple of things that we learned from this. The book of Luke and the book of Acts, in some ways we've got to look at them together, they are personal. They're personal. This is not some cold historical account.
This is a letter written from one person to another addressing their questions and concerns and to build up and give them a strong foundation of their new faith. Okay, that's personal. We're looking into a relationship to some degree when we read the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. The second thing we learned is that Luke and Acts are an apologetic.
They're an apologetic. Now apologetics is the study, the practice of kind of defending your faith. Right? Guys like Josh Baddal, guys like Lee Strobel, guys like Robbie Zachariah, those types of guys, they're apologists.
So Luke and Acts are an apologetic. Luke and Acts are the greatest works of reason for the Christian faith. They're the greatest works of reason. I mean, Luke was a sharp, smart guy.
He's a doctor. He knows how to research. He knows how to study. He has great attention to detail.
Okay? That's who he is and that's what he does and that's what comes out in his writings. It's researched, it's historical, it's logical and here's the thing, it is written within the same generation of Jesus Christ's ministry. That's important.
The book of Acts is dated of being written around 64-ish AD, which is only 30-ish years from Jesus' ministry on earth. Right? People can remember a lot of things. You guys remember, I mean, we just did a couple months ago, we did a Pastor Mark's celebration for his birthday and four years of ministry.
All y'all were around for a lot of that. Telling a lot of stories, telling details, remembering things. Right? What are you talking about?
There were eyewitnesses still around other than the apostles that could account for everything in both the books. If the events in Luke and Acts didn't happen, Christianity would have never taken off. Never would have. Why not?
Because there were eyewitnesses around them and they would have debunked the whole thing. There was no one in heaven, those guys made that up. And then we'd be able to substantiate that, but that didn't happen. Did it?
You see, Paul did a very similar thing. About 10 to 12 years earlier, he wrote the book of 1 Corinthians. So in the early 50s. And he makes the same argument.
1 Corinthians 15 verse 6, Paul writes that he, Jesus, appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. Most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. So Paul is saying, you know, Jesus rose from the dead and within a period of 40 days he made all these appearances. And one time it was to 500 people.
And you can go talk to a lot of them still right now. You see what Luke did in Luke 1 and in Acts 1 and what Paul did in 1 Corinthians 15, they were just daring people to question the authenticity of it all. I mean, they put it out there. And the answers were circulated publicly.
Right? So there's daring people, anyone who had questioned the authenticity of Jesus and Christianity, all they had to do is just go talk to people who saw it all happen. This so when you look at it from a historical perspective of why, and he asked these questions, how did Christianity have such explosive growth? I mean, how did it do that in this time, in this culture, in this world?
And the only reason is because it's true. It's true. All of it is true. Which is awesome.
Which is just amazing to me. So that's kind of where we're starting off. The context I kind of mentioned already, Acts covers a time period of about 32 years. So in these 28 chapters, 32 years, it's generally dated to be written around 64 AD.
Both Peter and Paul were martyred around 67 AD as when they were put to death. And Acts ends relatively abruptly with Paul's imprisonment of Rome. So if Paul got killed, Peter got killed. I'm pretty sure Luke would have put that in there if he wrote it after those events happened, but he didn't.
So that's how it helps us date the book. Acts covers a lot of ground. Maybe that map, we can throw up. I feel like an old school, like old school, like a school teacher.
Like here's a map. If you guys have a Bible, if anyone has a Bible, humor me. Open up to the back of your Bible. That's what these things are for.
You can kind of see what's going on. So this is basically the area that Acts covers. So down in the lower right is where Israel and Jerusalem is. You could probably barely see it way in the corner there.
You could see where the sea of Galilee is. And you can remember, Jesus kept a very tight circle of ministry. He's walking everywhere. So it was a very tight circle of ministry.
So Jesus stayed in one place. He has where he grew up and then ministry for three years. And then over the next 30, Christianity explodes across all the Mediterranean. I mean, we need to have some scope of what happened in 30 years.
It's mind-boggling. What happened is 30 years. So I want you to be able to see that. So it starts in Jerusalem, goes through all of Southwest Asia, and then ends up in Rome, Italy, is where the journey of the book of Acts takes us.
All right. Where are we in the grand narrative? Creation, fall, redemption, new creation. We are solidly in redemption, aren't we?
But as the video even alluded to, which I think is great, we are seeing the first fruits of the new creation. Jesus is the first fruit of the new creation with his resurrected body. But I'll tell you what, every outpouring of the spirit, every miracle that we read, every new believer, every new church community is God restoring his creation, making all things new again, which we'll have an ultimate realization of when he comes back with a new heaven and new earth. Pretty cool stuff.
The literary style, how Acts is written. It is vastly a historical narrative. It's telling the story of history. But it's also, which is very interesting, it's a second type, because it's a collection of speeches or sermons.
It's a collection of speeches. Guess how many speeches are recorded in the book of Acts? Anyone got a guess? Throw some numbers out.
Come on. This is interactive. I like to do this. Not that, but that's a good gobbling number.
Anyone else got a guess? It's lower than that. 50, a little lower. One more guess.
41, close. So 32 speeches. 32 speeches are recorded over 28 chapters. That's good.
That's really good. Not as godly as 77, but that's good. That's good. We read the book of Acts.
We read with two lenses. We read descriptively. What happened? Just what happened?
Some things happen to the books of Acts that were crazy unique. But we also read with a prescriptive lens of things that we should do through these speeches and how we see the Holy Spirit working and those kinds of things. So we read it most faithfully, descriptively, and prescriptively. Now let's talk about the structure.
I think this is in your notes. We have it on the screen. We're going to look at the structure in two ways. We can look at it as a timeline.
Let's go ahead and throw all those things out there. We've got a few slides. So you have Acts 1 through 9 covers a period of about four years. You have chapters 9 through 10 which cover another about five years, 11 through 14.
Cover eight years and within that is Paul's first missionary journey. Then 15 through 18 cover another four years. Paul's second missionary journey, 18 through 21, six years. His third missionary journey.
And then the last seven chapters cover a period of five years. So to know that a lot of stuff happens and we are getting a lot of highlights is really important with the story. We're going to break down the book of Acts in a different way for you. Because we read this stuff and it's bedtime.
So here's a really cool way. Put up our next slide. Let's read this all together. Acts 1, 8.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Awesome. So here's what's really cool.
You look at chapters one through seven, we see ministry happening in Jerusalem. When we look at chapters eight through 12, I guess what we're seeing, ministry happening. In Samaria and Judea. Touch them with me.
And chapters 13 through 28, we are aware the ends of the earth. My things are locked down. So I think, you know, this is a really cool way to see how this book is put together. Because as this book unfolds, we see the great commission of Jesus taking place.
That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And without that, we wouldn't be here now, would we? So it's a really cool way to see how the book of Acts is broken down.
So let's jump into our themes. Let's jump into our themes. Okay. First big thing we see throughout the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit without a doubt is the main character of the book of Acts. Acts begins with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in chapter two at Pentecost. When we see the birth of the church and it highlights, it continues to highlight, we see the filling of the spirit with the Samaritans in chapter eight.
And we also see the filling of the spirit being unleashed on the Gentiles in chapter ten when the Romans and Turian Cornelius and his household were filled with the spirit. So we see the Holy Spirit having a lot of activity on these big people groups that Jesus talks about in the great commission as it's recorded in Acts one. And here's what you need to understand here too. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing happens in Acts without the Holy Spirit giving guidance or making it happen. Nothing does. The Holy Spirit is the cause, is the fuel, is the power for all the ministry and mission that we read in the book of Acts. The book of Acts highlights the following of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Four points that we can see about the Holy Spirit and this is not exhaustive. I'm not going into all kinds of gifts of the spirits. We're doing other teachings on that that we've done that are coming up. So here's some things that we see here.
The Holy Spirit is God. Another person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is God. We have a very clear example of this in Acts chapter five and a very disturbing passage. Let me say, this is when Ananias and Sephira got.
But here's what Peter says to Ananias. He sold a field, he held back some of the money, he was lying. This is what Peter says. Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?
You have not lied to men but to God. So Peter right here, he is saying, Holy Spirit, God, same thing. Third person, third person of the Trinity, Holy Spirit is God. Second thing we see about the Holy Spirit, we have all these speeches and sermons in the book of Acts.
The Holy Spirit empowers people to preach. Example, Acts 4-8. Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, and it goes on about his speech. Okay?
Acts chapter four verse eight. The third thing we see, the Holy Spirit sends believers out on mission. Since believers out on mission, Acts 13, 3 through four says this, 13 through four. Then after fasting and praying, they, the church leaders, this is before Paul and Barnabas went out, laid their hands on them and sent them off.
And then it goes on, it says, so being sent out by the Holy Spirit. Okay? So the Holy Spirit, and in this case, through the laying on of hands of these church leaders, is sending people out on the mission and ministry. Another observation, the last observation we'll make about the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts right now is that the Holy Spirit establishes church leadership.
The Holy Spirit establishes church leadership. Acts chapter 20 verse 28, this is in Paul's final, final going away speech to the Ephesian elders whom he loved dearly. I mean, it is, you can feel the emotion when you read chapter 20. So in verse 28, Paul says to them, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.
So the Holy Spirit is the one that made them overseers elders, pastors, leaders in that local body of Christ in Ephesus. Okay? So Holy Spirit, massive theme, overarching theme in the book of Acts. Second theme that we see in the book of Acts is this, is about mission and witness.
Mission and witness. The activity that we read in Acts is mission activity. It's mission activity. Well, one world's mission.
We do missions around here, right? We have a whole week of missions. We support missions. You know, we have teams going everywhere and doing all kinds of things.
But what is it really? The vision is purposefully engaging people with the gospel, purposely engaging people with the gospel. It means living with a clear conviction that you are one cent. Not a penny, not sent with a C, sent with an S, that you are one who is sent.
You know what the video said in the end of the book of John, when Jesus was John 2021, I think it is, when Jesus, he says he breathed on the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit. And then what do you say? As the Father sent me, so I send you. It means that you have a clear conviction of living as one who is sent.
Where? You know, really, where is kind of like the wrong first question. It's not bad question, but it's the wrong first question. Because really, who?
Who are you sent to? Who? I would say you're sent first and foremost to the family that God put you in. You are sent to your neighborhood, the place where God has you living.
You think you picked your house out? You didn't pick your house out? God put you in that house. So your neighborhood, your workplace, your school, your city, this is where you are sent.
It means also that God may send you to a specific person. Okay? Think of the story in the book of Acts where Philip was like Star Trek transported crazy. I don't know how that works.
He didn't have a resurrected body, but like there he was Ethiopian unit who's reading Isaiah, doesn't know what it means. Philip tells him that he says this is about Jesus, there is water, baptizing, he's transported back to where he was. I don't get that. He's not a science fiction in the Bible.
Like 2000 years ago, it's crazy. But God may send you to a specific person or to a specific people group or specific place. It means that too. It means within this you need to learn about that person, that people, that place so you can communicate the truth of the gospel effectively to them.
Okay? There's a beautiful example of this in Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17, Paul is an Athens and he goes up to this place called Mars Hill and he speaks to these Athenian elders, these philosophers, these leaders of thought. But before he went there, you know what the book tells us he did?
He walked around the city. He took notice. He was assessing. He was learning their culture, learning their city, learning their context.
And he used, he knew their poets. He quoted their own poets to them and how these poets were really talking about the ultimate truth of the gospel. Amazing. Okay?
Paul wrote, you know, where he writes, I become all things to all men. Why? What's the rest of that verse? So I mean what?
Win some of them. Okay? So, mission is living purposefully engaging people with the gospel. Now what about witness?
Witness, mission and witness. Witness gets a little bit more specific. Witness is proclaiming the gospel in both word and deed. For claiming the gospel in word and deed.
You have no witness without words. Okay? How many people have ever heard this quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi?
Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words. Okay, absolutely unbiblical. Okay? Don't quote that saying, oh, I'm living my life and people are going to see Jesus through God.
No, that's a lie that Satan has used to make the church ineffective for hundreds of years. It's not true. It's not biblical. And secondly, St.
Francis of Assisi didn't even say that. You can't find any source that actually has him writing that down. You have no witness without words. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Hearing happens when someone speaks. That's what happens. So what do you speak? You tell who Jesus is.
I mean, it's real simple. We try to make this really complicated. When you read Peter's first sermon in Acts chapter 2, all he did was tell the story of Jesus. That's all he did.
And then he blamed them for killing them. You don't go figure and that kind of hell-firing grimstone message, three thousand people got saved that day. But he just told the story of Jesus. Stephen in Acts chapter 7, the first martyr did the same thing.
He just told the story of Jesus starting way back in the Old Testament, by the way. He showed how all of scripture points to Christ, which is hopefully something you guys have really grasped onto this summer because we've been beaten that like crazy, right? So you just tell who Jesus is the first thing you do. You tell the story of Jesus in your life.
Tell the story of Jesus in your life. What he's done and what he's doing, what you were and what you're becoming. That's what you tell. It's your story.
Paul did this two times in the book of Acts that we have recorded. Acts chapter 22, he does this in Jerusalem to some Jewish leaders. He told the story. At the end of the story, they wanted to kill him.
That will happen to you sometimes in so many words. Okay? Because really in the big picture of this, let me tell you something. It's about your faithfulness and leaving the fruitfulness of the God.
But in Acts chapter 26, Paul is talking to King of Rippa. He tells his story again, who he was, what Jesus did, and then who he is now. And the king's interest was, he says, are you trying to make me a Christian in just one day? It wasn't combative, but you just tell your story and you trust God with the results.
So you have no witness without words and you have no witness without deeds. You have no witness without deeds. Your words have no power without matching deeds. If your life doesn't match your words, your words don't matter.
They just don't. In Acts, what we see is this. We see that the sick are healed. We see that the dead are raised.
We see the poor are embraced. We see people's entire net worth being given to the church for ministry and the care of people. We see unbelievable deeds accompanying the words that they're saying, your life, the way that you live should demand a gospel explanation. Do you live in such a way where people are just like, what in the world?
You really believe this stuff you talk about all the time? Yes, I do. So I will keep giving. I will keep serving.
I will keep sacrificing. I will keep speaking. Your life demands a gospel explanation. That's chapter 4 verse 13.
Love this passage. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, this is before a bunch of Pharisees and stuff and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized they had been with Jesus, demanded a gospel explanation. All right, let's keep moving. The third theme, suffering and persecution, suffering and persecution, questioned, cast out, beaten in prison, stoned to death, put to death by the sword.
These are common themes throughout the book of Acts that happen to be apostles and the disciples. If you are sent by the Holy Spirit on mission as a witness, at the very least your life will be and should be uncomfortable. At the very least it should be uncomfortable. Right?
I mean, as I read this book and I read what they did and I, you can't argue it. Is that true for you and me? You see, as believers began to witness more and more, the more feathers got ruffled, the persecution that started in Acts 5 didn't stop and it hasn't stopped for 2,000 years. But here's the thing.
Can I tell you this? The persecution expanded the gospel faster. It expanded the gospel faster. If you, can I tell you something?
If you just look at raw numbers, numbers of believers, do you know what country has the most amount of believers in it? China, where it's illegal, where they have to be underground, all those Asian countries blow us out of the water in so many ways. Let's not be afraid, I mean, I'm not saying, hey, let's go out and seek out persecution. I'm not saying that.
Let's not be afraid of it either, okay? Acts 5 verses 40 through 42. And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And the apostles left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
And every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as a Christ. Acts 20 verses 20 through 23. Paul says this, man, you've got to respect this guy. And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem.
Paul says, everyone said, you don't want to go there. Paul says, I'm going there because the Spirit's telling me to go there. Be and behold now I'm going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit. Not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await for me.
Not that my ministry will be fruitful and there's going to be a great harvest of believers. Didn't say that. He said, I know when it, wherever I go, I'm going to be thrown in prison and I'm going to be afflicted. I know that the Spirit told me so.
That's humbling. I mean, props to this guy. Oh my gosh. But this is the attitude of Paul and the entire church because we go back.
They were eyewitnesseses to something that really happened. It really happened. Because it really happened because Jesus really is the Christ. He really is God.
He really did die for our sins and raised from the dead. How can you not tell everybody about that? Their attitude was this. It was, can't stop.
Won't stop. No matter what happens. Hit me again. I'm going to keep preaching Jesus.
And I'm going to go to the next place, get thrown in prison, preach to those guys while I'm in there. I mean, it is amazing how they lived. And I keep thinking how soft we are in this country to be quite honest. I don't want to be us all up too much tonight.
But my goodness. And let's get after it. The church is the last big theme of Acts. The church.
The church is birthed by the Holy Spirit and acts chapter two. There is no church without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and individual believers. There's no church without that. There was such a powerful outpouring of the Spirit through Peter Sermon that 3,000 were saved that day.
You read another chapter or so later. 5,000 were saved. Exponential crazy explosive growth of the church. The word church in the Greek, the term is echlecia.
And it means assembly. Just means assembly. The gathering of people. And assembly of Christians.
What we have done, I get it, we've hijacked the term and made it mainly about bricks and mortar. That's what we've done. That's how language has changed. But here's what I want to tell you and here's what we need to understand in this book and what we need to understand when we look around the world in 2017.
Understand I'm going to say I'm going to bring a salt and contextualize a little bit, alright? Buildings are optional. They're helpful. They're very helpful.
But they're optional. PowerPoint, white stage. We can go sit, we can go see how in the field and do this. We can.
Buildings are optional. People are indispensable. People are indispensable. Nowhere in the book of Acts or anywhere else in the New Testament is Paul or any of the apostles sent out to plant churches.
I'm telling you this as a former church planter. Nowhere is the city called plant churches. They are sent out to make disciples. That's what they're sent to do.
If I did anything wrong in coming to Springfield and starting my church, I just did what I knew to do. So we gathered some people and we started doing events and programs. Not bad. But you know what?
Not really maybe what should have done. I don't know. I don't know. I mean this is something we all have to wrestle with.
But the point is people are sent to make disciples. That's what Jesus told us to do in Matthew 28. Therefore go and make disciples. Go and make disciples.
And then those disciples assemble together. And when those disciples assemble together in those communities within those homes, they became an ecclesia. They became a church. Then they appointed pastors and elders to lead them, guide them and teach them.
And people were encouraged. Find your gift. Use your gift. Build the body.
That's the model that we have in the book of Acts. Too often we plant programs and events instead of making disciples. Now I want you to be encouraged with what we're doing, what we've started this year. This is the first fruits of.
This is the first fruits of a disciple making movement through our church. So we're getting after it. We're getting after it. Be encouraged with that.
Here, I haven't written much. Let me write something. Just because I'll feel better. So in one sense, you have disciples.
Right? Disciples is greater than church. And please make note of how I'm writing this. In one sense, disciples is greater than church.
But here's the other thing we understand too. Disciples is equal to church. Okay? I think this is distinction we really need to kind of get and understand.
All right? Because here's the thing. To we, us, are the church. We're the church.
And we are to be the church and not just do church. That's too. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul.
And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together. They had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved is the church. That's us.
That's what we are growing and striving to. So while the book of Acts ends nicely, you read the end of chapter 28, it ends nicely. It's a little unfinished. Not just because we don't get the complete story of Paul in Rome.
We don't know about his trial before the emperor. Although we do know he died of martyr's death just a few years later. Acts is unfinished because we are still writing it. Acts is unfinished because we're still writing it.
Christianity has continued to push over the centuries to the ends of the earth. And for you and for me, the end of the earth may be the end of your block. It may be the end of your hall at the office or the end of the lunch room table at school. Or it may be in the mountains of El Salvador, a conversation room in Vietnam, or a vacation Bible school in South Africa.
As a follower of Christ, you are commissioned by Jesus himself and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses and bring the light and hope of the gospel to Springfield, to central Illinois until the ends of the earth until the end of the earth. Amen? Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your tremendous book, tremendous story of the book of Acts, Lord, that we can read and find hope and find encouragement and find purpose.
God, it's a great gift to us. Help us not read it as history, but help us to read it as motivation for what you can do today. We thank you and we love you and we look forward to coming back together on Sunday morning. Your name, we pray.
Amen. All right, you guys have a good night. Love you.