Acts – Principles and Patterns for Christ’s Church
Good morning! I am so excited! We are about to embark on a journey through my favorite book of the Bible, the Book of Acts!
In June of 2012 we began a journey through the letters of the Apostle Paul in the approximate order in which they were first delivered which is different to how they are ordered in the Bible. We finished Paul’s last letter in April of 2019, seven years later.
We then started on the works of the Apostle Peter, beginning with the Gospel of Mark which was Peter’s perspective on the Gospel and then through his letters, 1 & 2 Peter. That took us through to the end of 2021.
In the beginning of 2022 we started on the works of Luke. We began with his Gospel which we just finished last week, now we are on to the Book of Acts. Hopefully after that we’ll go through the Book of Hebrews.
It has been a wonderful journey through the New Testament, one that I am excited to continue today!
Before we get any further, Let’s pray.
How many of you have a Baby Book?
Karole-Ann put in countless hours gathering pictures, designing layouts, and building the pages of baby books for each of our kids.
The Book of Acts is the Church’s baby book, with one major difference.
The baby books that we put together are full of pictures and details of events and memories and so is the book of Acts. However, unlike a baby book, the book of Acts does not stop with just a story of the early years of the Church it actually contains patterns and principles for what the Church is supposed to continue to do.
I’ve said it many times before, but one of the keys to understanding Scripture is to understand the author’s intent of any given book or letter, so I would like for us to work on that together.
Let’s explore what exactly the author intended to accomplish in writing this very important book.
First of all, who is the author? Who wrote the book? Luke. Brownie Points for saying the Holy Spirit…
Who was Luke? Greek doctor, disciple of Paul, from Troas in Asia Minor, wrote the book of Luke…
Where does the book start, where are they? Outside of Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives.
Where does the book end? Rome in about AD 61.
Luke finished this great work between AD 62-AD 64.
So why does Luke write the book, what was his intent? He tells us in Acts 1:1 that his Gospel was written to record what Jesus began to do and teach and after reading the book of Acts we can see that Luke was recording what Jesus continued to do and teach.
Luke gives us a great summary statement from Jesus in Acts 1:8:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Luke was writing to compile an accurate account of the birth, expansion, and establishment of Christ’s Church which Jesus accomplished through his Apostles as empowered by the Holy Spirit, in order to provide insight into the mission of the Church and provide a model for the Church to follow until Christ returns.
That is the purpose for the Book of Acts.
See, the Book of Acts is not just a description of events but a prescription for the Church, it provides not just true accounts of events but patterns and principles for us to follow. The Lord has written the best ever “how-to” book on church!
So our goal in this sermon series, I think, is to discover, with the Spirit’s help, what those patterns and principles are and how we can more closely follow them so we can be the kind of church He had in mind.
One of those principles can be found in Luke’s summary statement, his quote from Jesus in Chapter 1 verse 8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Where does the power come from? Does it come from us? Does it come from you? No, it comes from the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 3:13 says:
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.
Everyone who trusts in Jesus receives the same Holy Spirit that the Apostles did.
Paul says to the church in Ephesians 5 to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Picture this as like a sail on a ship being filled with wind, the Holy Spirit gives us life, He gives us motion, He gives us direction, and He gives us power.
The power to do what? The power to be faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? No!
He gives us the power to be witnesses for Jesus!
This is the whole mission of the Church, to be witnesses, to testify to the truth, to spread the gospel, to tell people about Jesus and what He did for us all!
Look at the end of the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 24:45-49
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 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.”
Perhaps this is all sounding a little foreign to you, this idea of power from the Holy Spirit. We don’t often see those spectacular displays of so-called “works of the Spirit” here.
We do, however, witness the power of the Holy Spirit at work when we are obedient to Jesus, we will experience His power when we participate in His mission as His witnesses.
So the Holy Spirit gives us the power to be witnesses, but to be witnesses for Jesus where?
Jesus said, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth.
Does that mean we have to move? If taken literally we would need to move to Israel, right? That’s where Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are. I’ve been there, some of you have been there, is this really where Jesus is asking us to go? NO!
What about the ends of the earth? Where is that?
Fun Fact: According to Google Maps if you were to dig a hole straight through the earth to the exact opposite end of the Globe from Jerusalem would put you within 100 miles of Marotiri in the middle of the South Pacific. Marotiri is a group of four uninhabited volcanic rocks protruding from the South Pacific, forming the southeastern end of the Austral Islands of French Polynesia. The rocks are part of the municipality of Rapa and are almost devoid of vegetation. They are important as a seabird rookery.
So if you like to take things hyper-literally you could rent a rowboat and be a witness to the birds on Marotiri…
But I’m not sure that’s what Jesus had in mind.
Think back to the author’s intent here for a moment, not Luke, but Jesus. He is the One authoring these words. Did Jesus know about Marotiri? Of course, He made it! Did Jesus think the world was flat and actually had an end? Of course not, He made it!
Do you remember where Jesus was when He said these things? The Mount of Olives just outside of Jerusalem.
This expression “Jerusalem and all Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth” simply means everywhere, you are to be witnesses for Jesus everywhere! Beginning with where you’re at right now!
You have been placed within your town, your neighborhood, your job, your family, to be a missionary, right now, that is where God has sent you, placed you, and called you to be a witness. You are all in full-time ministry.
Jesus doesn’t command us to be witnesses; He states a fact: we are witnesses.
We have witnessed what Jesus has done, because He has changed our lives!
We just need to choose what kind of witnesses we are going to be: trustworthy, credible, expert, powerful witnesses, or, uneducated, inconsistent, incognito, powerless witnesses?
So how do we tap into the power of the Holy Spirit?
Maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t ever figure out what the Lord wants from me, I have a bunch of ideas, how do I know if any of them are from the Lord?”
Now, we have the stock answers for discerning God’s will: Is it sinful? Is it wise? Does it bring glory to Jesus or something else?
But the real question is: Does your idea help accomplish the mission of the church? Does it bring people to Jesus?!
This is the role of the Holy Spirit:
To help us Love God, to help us love others, and to point people to Jesus, the Centerpiece of the church, to help accomplish the mission of the church, bringing more people to faith in Jesus. To help us make and mature disciples of Jesus together as a family.
If the thing you are thinking of doing doesn’t fall into one of these categories it may just be a distraction, not necessarily bad, but not part of the mission.
Paul said in 2 Timothy 2:4 “No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs-he wants to please his commanding officer.” We must focus our energy and effort on accomplishing the mission.
So what is the mission? What is the mission that the Apostles were working out in the book of Acts? They were the ones who had walked with Jesus; they had gotten their orders straight from His mouth. What was the order? Make disciples, share the gospel, be my witnesses.
The mission of the Church is to spread the gospel and plant new churches.
C. Peter Wagner, former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and founder of Global Harvest Ministries said:
"The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches."
As we work through the Book of Acts we are going to be taking a look at just how the Disciples worked out how they understood the mission that they had been given by Jesus, and by examining those patterns we should be able to find out just how we as a church family can participate in that same mission.
Amen.
