SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/21/2017
8:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
5th Intro to the book of
Acts
We have here the final part of John MacArthur’s sermon on
his introduction to the book of Acts from January 2014.
Now we’re not going to
cover all of this tonight, we never intended to. This is for us to work
on over the next few, but let’s just take a look at the message. To
effectively carry on Christ’s work, you have to begin with the message.
The message has to be right. And if I can piggyback on what we were
saying this morning, it all starts with the words of Jesus.
Correct? It all starts with the words of Jesus.
That’s why there are
four gospels. So we can get as many of the words of Jesus as the Holy
Spirit wants us to have. Plenty of people running around with the wrong
message. They are wearisome. Aren’t they? Cults and corrupt
versions of Christianity, misrepresentations of Jesus and the gospel.
It’s important to have the right message. I’m not talking about biblical
ignorance here. I remember there was a test given to college students
some years ago to try to find out how they – what level they were familiar with
the Bible.
The answers were really
incredible. Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers on some answers. Who
were Sodom and Gomorrah? Lovers. Who was Jezebel? One answer
was Ahab’s jackass. Who was Eve? She was a woman created from an
apple. One college student said Jesus was baptized by Moses. I’m
not talking about that kind of ignorance. That’s everywhere and far worse
today than it’s ever been. Biblical ignorance is at an all time
high.
Sadly, there’s an awful
lot of ignorance about the message, the gospel message, even in, quote unquote,
the church, evangelicalism. I don’t need to belabor the point, but when
Jesus began his work, it included teaching Verse 1. It included
teaching. And Luke is a great model for this because Luke wants the exact
truth. I love that about him. He is the precise historian.
“I’m writing,” he says,
“So you have the exact truth.” And the only place we can go for this is
the scripture. And when you have that confidence in the scripture, that
it is the exact truth, you’re launched as an effective communicator of the
gospel. When you know the word and you believe the word, you’re powerful
because you’re not equivocating. There are all kinds of people who write
books that critique Christianity, call things into question, deny the
inspiration of scripture. These are from so-called Christian writers,
Christian scholars. I would remind you that those kind of people are
impotent. They’re just another guy with another opinion.
When you hear powerful
preaching, when you hear powerful representation of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
you know one thing for sure: There is a preacher who believes in scripture
because he boldly proclaims it. That’s where the ministry has to
start. If we’re going to build the church, we can only build the church
on the truth of the gospel. Right?
Faith comes by hearing
the truth concerning Christ, the word of Christ. Romans 10. How will
they hear without a preacher? But the preacher has to preach the message
concerning Christ. So I don’t need to beg that issue any further.
You get that. You know that. Everything begins with the
teaching. That’s why there’s a seminary across the patio because you have
to get it right.
If anybody preaches
another gospel, let them be what? Let them be damned, cursed. If
anybody preaches another Christ, let them be cursed. But there’s another
little word there, too, and it says that Jesus began to do and teach. And
while we can’t do what Christ did, miraculously, that’s not what it’s talking
about. What it’s talking about is the power of his life to draw
people. You remember it was he who said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw
all men to myself.” He was attractive not only because of his teaching,
but because he personified what he taught. He was consistent with his
message. And I simply want to make that an issue for your thinking that
if the Lord is going to use us, there’s going to have to be the right message
in the right package, the right messenger.
And always remember
that statement by the German philosopher. Show me your redeemed life, and
I might be inclined to believe in your redeemer. Pretty hard to make the
gospel believable unless it’s believable when somebody looks at you. Not
that you have to be perfect, but you have to demonstrably be committed to the
truth you teach. There are lots of people who talk about Christ but don’t
live a life that points to his power.
I remember reading an
article year ago where a writer said, “Personally, I’ve discovered that Jesus
probably had a lot more class than most of his agents.” It is a familiar
knock on Christianity that I wouldn’t want to be a Christian because there are
so many hypocrites, and while that’s a pretty lame excuse, and it won’t stand
up before God, there’s some truth to it.
Powerful preaching
comes from the overflow of powerful demonstration of the transforming
gospel. So that’s where you have to start. You have to start with the
right message, clearly. And so Jesus, until the day he was taken up to
heaven, Verse 2, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles
whom he had chosen. What is that saying
That is saying that
Jesus continued to live the message and teach the message until the
ascension. Until the ascension, he was the personification, the
incarnation of everything he preached and taught. This was the
priority. I just would like to make the point that Jesus didn’t spend
those final 40 days feeding poor people, although that’s a noble thing to do.
If you look at the next
verse, end of the verse, for 40 days, he was speaking of the things concerning
the kingdom of God. This school was in. I would have loved to have
been in that seminary, 24/7 for 40 days with a risen Christ. You’d hang
on every word. You’d absolutely hang on every word. But this is
where all of our work begins. It begins with the right message.
Understanding the truth
of the gospel, the truth of the kingdom, and living it as we proclaim it so
that from the time that Jesus arose and met with his disciples in that upper
room on the resurrection night, for the next 40 days, he had those chosen
apostles with him, instructing them in the things concerning the kingdom of
God. That’s what they’re going to be doing if they’re faithful.
They’re going to be
instructing others. That is discipleship at its most profound
point. And they had a lot to learn. Didn’t they? You go back
and look at how they lived and how they were so confused all the time and how
he taught them lessons – the same lesson, again and again. They didn’t
seem to get it. They were so ill prepared for what was going to come that
even when Jesus was arrested, they all fled and scattered.
They were hard pressed
to believe even when he appeared to them risen from the dead. Thomas who
wasn’t there said, “I’m not going to believe that.” They didn’t believe
on the road to Emmaus. They were beleaguered. John’s gospel ends
with them going back to their fishing nets even after Jesus had appeared to
them and taught them, to some degree, some of those 40 days.
They were hard to
communicate to, but these were desperate times. This was it. This
was it. When the 40 days were over, it was over. How urgent it is
that the message be communicated. That’s the priority. So for 40
days, he taught them the message they would have to preach. But by the
way, even with the right message, they weren’t ready to go yet. They
weren’t ready to go. That’s why he had previously said, “Don’t go.
Stay where? Stay in Jerusalem until you’re empowered from on high.”
So the message is
essential, and the living of the message is essential, but I will promise you
one thing. Even with the right message and doing your best to conform to
that message, your own human power isn’t going to make the difference. I
love what Spurgeon said. “We might preach until our tongue rotted, until
we exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the
Holy Spirit uses the word to convert that soul.”
So it is blessed to eat
into the very heart of the truth until at last, you come to talk in scripture
language, and your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord so that your
blood is bibline, and the very essence of the Bible flows from you. But
you still need the Holy Spirit. School was in, and the truth was
taught. There’s one other thing that I would add, and then we’ll
stop. A second point. You have to have the proper confidence.
Now remember, they
didn’t have a Bible, except the Old Testament. They knew now because they
had the gospels that the prophecies of the Old Testament had been
fulfilled. And what did I tell you was the marked characteristic of the
early apostolic preaching in the Book of Acts? Their use of what?
The Old Testament. They get it. Made that point in the first
message we talked about Acts. You see quotes from the Old Testament all
over the place that you never see in the gospels. They didn’t know that
the Old Testament was being fulfilled until here. Now they know.
And so you – they all
of a sudden start using Old Testament prophecies and saying, “They’re
fulfilled, they’re fulfilled, they’re fulfilled.” So they did have
confidence now for the first time that scripture was fulfilled in Christ.
But where was their confidence that the plan of God would go to the next
generation, the next level of fulfillment? Here it is. Verse
3.
“To these, he also
presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs,
appearing to them over 40 days.” Where did their confidence come
from? The what? What event? The resurrection. The
resurrection. Over a period of 40 days between his passion and his
ascension, Jesus appeared to them. Not all 40 days, but in intervals during
those 40 days. And manifested himself to them not as some kind of
apparition, not as some kind of ghost, not as some kind of ethereal being, not
as some kind of a vision, but he appeared to them alive after his suffering
with the wounds by many convincing proofs.
He really was alive
from the dead. He really did live. Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians
15 the urgency of the resurrection. If Christ is not risen, we’re of all
people most miserable. If Christ is not risen, all gospel preaching is
foolish. If Christ is not risen, we have no hope. Everything is
lost, and that’s what they were saying on the road to Emmaus. “We thought
he was to be the one.”
So he keeps coming back
over 40 days and appearing to them in infallible, incontrovertible convincing
evidence that he is alive. That’s a critical reality. That’s their
confidence. And you say, “Well, what does that do for me?” What it
does for you is it gives you the very same confidence because the record of
those proofs and appearances are given in holy infallible scripture. So
you have the same experience.
Only difference is you,
loved one, you have not seen, whom having not seen you love. Is there
ample proof in the New Testament for the resurrection? Yes. If you
have any questions about that, go look at the litany of sermons on resurrection
Sunday that have been preached here in the last 40 some years. The proofs
of the resurrection are all recorded in the gospels, written down for us.
That was an absolutely
essential confidence. They were so exploded into joy by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ that that’s what elevated them. That’s what loose them
from the despondency and the fears and the doubts and the questions and all the
wondering about whether Jesus was the messiah. So if you’re going to be
effective in carrying on the work that Jesus began on his own and then passed
onto the first generation and every other generation until we got to century
number 21, you start with knowing the message, the right message, which is of
course the word of God and the gospel, and having the right confidence that
Christ is alive.
And he is building his
church, and he wants to use you to do that. That’s how the history
goes. Well, that leads us to the next and really what is the compelling
point. You have to have the right power. We’ll keep that for next
Sunday. Let’s pray. Father, thank you again for your word to
us. I say that almost every time because I’m so overwhelmed with
gratitude for the shear blessing of scripture. No matter how I search it
and search it and mine it and think about it, study it, it never
disappoints. Never.
It always fulfills its promise to be alive, transforming
truth. We’re so blessed to be a part of what you’re continuing to do of
your unfinished work. We thank you that you finished the redemptive work,
but you’re not finished with the redeeming work. You continue to do it
through us. May we be useful and faithful. Thank you for such a
privilege. Amen.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Angel” (Luke 2:10-11).
Today’s Bible
question: “The king of what country
called Balaam to curse Israel?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/21/2017 8:17 AM
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