SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
6/19/2017 8:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
3rd Intro to Acts
We want to continue to look at the sermon that John
MacArthur gave in 2014 as he introduces to us the book of Acts:
“And you might say, “Why do they need confidence? Why do they need assurance?” For one thing, Judas had killed himself, and another had to be chosen to replace him among the 12, and that happens in the first chapter of Acts. Judas was an apostle. Is that a preview of more disaster to come? But the message is that nothing can stop the purpose of God or the power of God from unfolding, not even the apostasy and suicide of an apostle.
Alan Thompson writes, “The dominant feature is that the sovereign plan of God has not been derailed by this most wicket of actions, a betrayal from among the ranks of Jesus’ own inner circle.” And then subsequently, the suicide of the betrayer. In fact, it is necessary. We’re told in Chapter 1 that it fulfills prophecy. Verse 20. God is at work. All the redemptive purpose of God continues.
So what do we call this book? The Acts of the Apostles? The only time the apostles appear is in Chapter 1 together, as a group, then you have Peter and John together for a while. And then later, you have the Apostle Paul who is really not part of the apostles. So kind of a push to call it the Acts of the Apostles, even though that’s probably what’s in your Bible.
Some have said it should be called The Acts of the Father because if anybody is at work unfolding his redemptive plan, it is the father, it is God, and you know what, you can make a case for that because the Lord opens the heart of Lydia because in Chapter 14 in Verse 27, when they arrive together, the church together, they begin to report all that God had done.
So you could make an argument that we could call it The Acts of the Father. You could also have an argument and we could call it The Acts of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit separates Paul and Barnabas, so the Holy Spirit is working to separate these men to send them on the missionary trip out of Antioch.
I kind of prefer the Acts of the Risen Lord because the theme of the preaching through the whole book is the resurrection. That’s the theme of the preaching. Starting with the message at Pentecost, Christ has arisen from the dead, and all the apostolic preachers feature the risen Christ. You say, “Well, it’s one thing to preach the risen Christ, but is the risen Christ acting?” Yes. Let’s go back to Verse 1.
The first account, the Gospel of Luke, was about all that Jesus began to do and teach, and so we could conclude that what he began, he would also complete. Alan Thompson, whom I quoted a minute ago, says this. This is his title for the book. “The Acts of the Lord Jesus through his people by the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of the father’s purposes.” So write that just under Acts in your Bible. That’s it. The Acts of the Lord Jesus through his people by the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of the father’s purpose.
Is Jesus involved in the Book of Acts? Is he continuing to be involved? Yes. He has gone back to heaven and been placed at the right hand of God, given a name above every name. He is the Lord. He is identified as the head of the church. Several times in the epistles, he is the head of the church, reigning from heaven as the head of the church as the king over his spiritual kingdom, he extends his kingdom through the history of the Book of Acts.
It is the Lord Jesus at work. You begin to see that in Chapter 2, Verse 47. And the Lord was adding to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. The one who is Lord, the one who is the Lord of the church, he is still at work. He is saving. He is adding people to the church. He is after all; remember now, the head of the church and the king over his kingdom.
In Chapter 11, I’m just giving you some illustrations, we’ll see it as we go, there were some of them, men of Cypress and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks, also preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and the large number who believed turned to the Lord. So they were preaching the Lord and the hand of the Lord, same Lord, was there.
They were preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord Jesus was causing people to be saved. So again, the king is on his kingdom. The king is over his kingdom. He is the head of the church. He is building his church. He is saving his people. One other illustration just for the sake of time would be in Chapter 16 in Verse 14.
A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, seller of purple fabrics, a worshipper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Some might argue that’s God. I would argue that where Lord appears in this book, given that it was the name of Christ, he is at work. There’s a negative indicator, too, of Jesus’ involvement. If you go to Chapter 8, you find Paul persecuting the church, ravaging the church.
And we all know the story. Who stopped Paul? Who stopped him? Jesus who showed up on the Damascus Road in Chapter 9 and stopped him dead in his tracks. Now Jesus is engaged both in the growth of his church and in stopping the destruction of his church. Jesus appears in the 18th Chapter in a vision to Paul and says, “Don’t be afraid any longer. Go on speaking, and don’t be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in the city.”
Jesus, the head of the church, says, “I’m going to reach people in this city who belong to me, and I will protect you. I will protect you. You have nothing to fear. Go on preaching.” So here is the Lord building his church, and the Lord of the church protecting his church. Chapter 23: Things are getting very difficult for Paul and persecution ampting up with a conspiracy to actually kill him. Verse 11, the Lord stood at his side and said, “Take courage, for as you have solemnly witnessed to my cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also. I’ll protect you until you reach Rome.”
So in summary, the Lord Jesus reigns over his kingdom from heaven. The Lord Jesus is engaged in building his church by adding people to the list of redeemed, saved souls. He is fulfilling the father’s plan, and he’s doing it by the preaching of the Gospel and the power of the spirit working through the preaching. But make no mistake; it is the Lord continuing the work he began.
The gospel is preached, sinners are saved, the church is established, leaders are chosen, saints are edified, witnesses given for Christ, and all along, the believers are suffering for their noble effort and being rejected by the world, but the Lord is protecting them so that the gospel can be preached, and the elect will be gathered, and this is the history of the church until he returns.
Acts is the first volume in that history where Christ continues the work that he began when he was on earth. By the way, we’re writing Volume 21 if we just count centuries, but it’s the same work. What’s going on? The Lord Jesus is reigning from heaven. He is the head of the church. According to the father’s plan and by the Holy Spirit’s power, he is continuing to do what he began when he was on earth.
The Gospel is being preached, sinners are being delivered, the church is being established, leaders are being chosen, saints are being edified, witness given for Christ, and all along, the saints are suffering but being protected so that they can do the work of bringing in the elect. This will go on until he establishes his rule on the earth when he comes to reign.
Now Luke is not an apostle, but he’s a close friend. Essentially, he was a close associate of the apostles for 30 years from 30 AD to 60, it appears. And he knows the story. He knows the history. He knows the history, from the death of Christ on. He was part of it. So he knows what happened in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and beyond because he was there.
The Book of Acts, I want to tell you, sometimes people ask the question – in fact, I was asked this question recently. Is the Book of Acts descriptive of prescriptive, which is a technical way of saying is it just history for the sake of information, or is it theology for the sake of edification? The answer is yes. Of course it’s descriptive. Like all narrative texts of scripture, it is descriptive history, but it is also prescriptive theology because its history is our theology. It is our ecclesiology. It is our pneumatology. [The Study of the word of the Holy Spirit.]
It is our Soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] because they preach the gospel we preach. This is the church of which we are a part. So in a sense, what began to be in the Book of Acts still is, and on the same basis, we’re living this history, which while not written down in the New Testament is written down with the same exact precision in heaven. Kind of exciting to be a part of that isn’t it? I think there’s another message that you need to understand was very, very important to be communicated in this pattern of growth, and it is this: That the gospel is universal, and it goes beyond Israel.
Even the disciples were pretty stuck on the fact that all the promises of God were theirs and maybe theirs alone. They had the traditional, typical attitude toward gentiles that the Jews had developed through centuries, and toward half-breed Samaritans, it was even worse. And Jesus, after all, came to Israel and really never went beyond Israel, other than journeying a little bit into Decapolis, an area around Galilee where gentile towns had developed.
The Jews were very provincial about the promises of God belonging to them, but the Book of Acts just blows that to pieces. You could go back to the Old Testament, and I could show you passages in the Old Testament where the messianic promises relate to the world and the nations. There are many of them. Somehow the Jews missed that.
You’re not very long into the Book of Acts until you realize that Philip is preaching to the gentiles, but a gentile eunuch is converted, that Peter is preaching to a gentile soldier named Cornelius, that the church is established after Jerusalem in a gentile city called Antioch, and that Paul takes the gospel to the gentiles all over the Mediterranean world of Asia Minor.
And that leads to a discussion in Acts 15 about, wait a minute, how does this work. This is such a hard sell that when the first gentile conversions happen, God allows the same miraculous phenomena of tongues to occur so that the Jews don’t think this is some kind of a second class event to Pentecost. So there was a very important message to proclaim to the Jews through the Book of Acts, and it starts in the very first chapter in the eighth verse.
“Go preach in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the world, that Christianity is global.” And we will see that. You could divide the Book of Acts into six sections. You won’t remember this, so I’m not going to give you detail on it, but Section 1 ends at Chapter 6, Verse 7 tells the story of the church at Jerusalem and the preaching of Peter.
And it finishes by saying the word of God increased by the number of the disciplines multiplied in Jerusalem, a great multiplication, a great number of priests were obedient to the faith, and that’s the end of Section 1, and the gospel expands. From Chapter 6, verse 8 through Chapter 9, Verse 31, the gospel spreads throughout Israel, Judea, all the way to the martyrdom of Stephen, all the way to the preaching in Samaria by Philip.
And that section ends this way, Chapter 9, Verse 31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up, and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. So Chapter 6, Verse 7 ends the first section by saying the church increased.”
We will continue to look at these different sections in our next SD. I really don’t want to put too much material on each SD but kind of spread this sermon out perhaps for a couple of more days so it is easier for everyone to read it, a little at a time.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “To arrest the Christians there” (Acts 9:1-2).
Today’s Bible question: “Who was governor of Syria when Christ was born?”
Answer in our next SD
6/19/2017 8:56 AM
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