Moving to Samaria

Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention Acts 8 · chapter mention

We'll be reading down to verse 8. People of God, many things will be said from

here to there in this service, but what we're about to hear is God's holy and

inspired words, so do listen accordingly.

And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem,

and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Okay. I'm having trouble reading. My wife's gone, and she always tells me where

my glasses are, so I'm going to try to get through this.

Oh, I should have remembered. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was raging, ravaging the church and entering house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip

when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

But an unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had

them and were paralyzed or lame were healed so there was much joy in that city

this is the word of the lord let's you can be seated let's pray together.

And Lord God, we ask as we do that you would enlighten us now as we hear and see your word.

Help us by your spirit to understand it, to believe it, to love it, and to follow it.

And ultimately, not just it as the word, but Jesus Christ himself.

And we pray in his name. Amen.

So this is an interesting passage that begins with ravaging persecution and

scattering. and the people are fleeing literally for their lives.

It reminds me of so many times in church history when people have been in a

particular period of time.

This is one of them. I mean, you can imagine the people saying,

we're having to leave Jerusalem, we're having to flee the city of God,

the holy city because of persecution.

Stephen was killed and they're scattered and they're running.

You can imagine they're thinking it's over.

And yet onto Samaria they went and the kingdom of God expanded.

Reminds me of the time when the city of Rome was sacked for the first time in

hundreds of years, and the people of God and the people of Rome were saying, it's finished.

Rome was called literally Urb's Aeterna, the eternal city. The eternal city

has fallen to the barbarians. The end is here.

What will be next? Well, after that, missionaries began to move out and scatter

out from there and move into these barbarian lands, these naughty,

savage people that we now know as Europeans,

you know, our Germanic and Frankish forefathers and the Britons and those nasty,

difficult people, the Scots up north.

And at the end of this supposed disaster, God scattered his people and they prospered.

And they not only prospered, there was much joy where they went.

Entire civilizations were created as a result of what seemed to be the end,

what seemed to be really bad times.

I love to hear us think about the times we're in now.

Even Saturday, we were talking about that at the men's breakfast.

And these are good times to live. Why? Because it looks like the end is near.

It's not just some guy, you know, in New York City saying the end is near, life is over.

I mean, things in our civilization have been and are collapsing.

And there's legitimate persecution. Charlie Kirk was shot in front of our eyes, killed in public.

Churches are being raided by crazy radicals. You might be tempted to say,

it's over. The end is near.

Things are bad. And yet, and yet in those times, and we are in such times,

be encouraged that the kingdom of God is moving in precisely these kinds of

times, not just the best of times, not just when times are peaceful and easy,

but particularly in times of persecution.

And you see this almost focused, laser sharp in the book of Acts.

What you would expect, what you would want. And by the way, nobody wants to

have our church raided or people get shot in public or Stephen get killed. Nobody wants that.

Those are bad things. But as the people of God, as we look how the church prospered

in the midst of this, we should be greatly encouraged.

Remembering the context of the preaching of the gospel here is not the context

of just the city of Jerusalem coming under intense persecution,

but the promise of God from the Ancient of Days.

And they lived in those promises. And we also are to live in those same promises.

And man, it's good times to be alive, even in the midst of difficulty,

persecution, and literally civilizational collapse.

Civilizational collapse. Why? Because in that context, God scattered his people

and the preaching and evangelism of the gospel went out.

And in the context of the promise of God, given in ancient of days through Jesus

Christ, who was raised and seated at the right hand, the people of God were

scattered and they went out and they preached and they evangelized and people believed.

And the end says there was much joy in that city, much joy, kind of amazing,

but there was much joy. Now this is a transitional period.

I want you to pay attention. Luke does this all the time.

Luke will take us from Peter and his sermon and Pentecost to Stephen and to

Philip and then eventually to Paul and so forth.

We'll see those times of transition. And this is one of them.

We have the death and burial of Stephen, one of the many times in which Luke

both brings the event to a conclusion and then opens up a new chapter,

literally in chapter 8, but a new chapter in the story of the early church.

You might expect that Stephen's death would be followed by an account of the

men who buried him with a concluding note of Paul's persecution.

There is, however, a mixture. It's both the beginning or the end and the beginning.

There's a conclusion, but that conclusion doesn't end there.

The conclusion pushes God's people out unto Samaria.

And remember, that's what they were supposed to do anyway.

That was the promise. Go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends

of the earth, to the whole world.

That was the promise. They were comfortable in Jerusalem until persecution came,

and then God brought them, and God sent them away. He scattered them.

The word we sometimes hear commonly used of refugees who are scattered by war

is what's called the diaspora.

It comes from this passage. It comes from the word, literally, that means scattering.

And here, Luke says that it came as a result of mega persecution.

I love that. The word persecution is followed by the great word megas.

Mega. You know, if I said, I got a mega deal for you, you'd say,

it must be a big deal, right?

Because the word mega means it's huge. So this is no small persecution.

This is persecution that literally ended the life of Stephen.

And it has Paul going, breaking into houses and dragging men and women out.

There's an emphasis that Paul indiscriminately was persecuting the church because

when you see Paul's even later, it will say he's even dragging men and women and children.

This is, Paul is raging mad. Paul is like the people who killed Stephen.

Remember, it says they were gnashing their teeth.

There's a rage that's going on. And the rage is directly to Christ and his church.

You see that in the conversion of Paul.

If you could jump ahead to his conversion, Jesus said, why are you persecuting me?

It's not just the church and his people, but Paul's rage was against Christ himself.

What does that kind of rage yield? We read about it in Psalm 76.

Even the works of the wicked, even the raging of the wicked will praise you.

Notice that the sovereignty of God is smack dab in the middle of our tax because

the people of God weren't just, well, why don't we go to Samaria?

As you'll see in a moment, there's no way they would have gone to Samaria.

No way. It was a terrible, bad place.

No respectable Jew would ever go to Samaria on their own, but God put them there.

And the word he used is diaspora.

It's a word that's interesting because it's also used of the spreading of seeds,

right? So persecution comes, the church is hammered.

Again, it's a negative. It's bad. It's terrible, but it's not what you think.

Remember I've said, and I love this quote from one theologian.

I think it was Herbert Schlossberg in his book, Idols for Destruction.

Good book. You should get it. Where he said, you know, a lot of times the triumphs

and victories of God are cleverly disguised as disasters, right?

This is the end. This is over. Stephen's dead. The main spokesman at that point is dead.

And under this intense mega great persecution, people are scattered,

but not randomly scattered.

It's not just like they were running for, well, they may have been themselves

running for their lives. Let's go. Where do we go? Let's go here.

But in God's sovereignty, God was scattering them. Like the sower of the seeds,

you know that parable where some seeds went on certain soils.

Scattering would take place like that, or you take it and you would put the

seeds where you wanted to plant them. That's exactly what God is doing here.

He's scattering his people through the use of persecution exactly where he wants them.

That's a comfort, actually, in times of difficulty and persecution,

because you are exactly where God wants you to be, in his sovereignty and in his plan.

So here the church comes under intense persecution. God takes them,

scatters them. Looks like a disaster. It looks like they're fleeing for their lives randomly.

Instead, God is simply taking them to the next stage of his promise,

to Samaria. And they go on to Samaria.

God is about the business of scattering or casting siege in the regions that

he promised to conquer. And this is a region that was conquered 722 BC by the

Assyrians and abandoned by the Israelites.

It was a hated place. There's an irony to persecution that we have to notice

as we fold our way, roll our way through the book of Acts.

I mean, persecution is a strange thing from the out, though.

Nobody wants it. I don't want it. I want all of you to love me.

I don't want any of you to persecute me. I promise you that it's true.

But there's an irony to persecution that spurs on the church's mighty works.

It's true, when I was a missionary, most of us who went out as missionaries

were oftentimes spurred on by guys who went out and died. Like, well, that's weird.

You go out as a missionary, you think, actually, you think about this.

Like, I thought about this because, you know, there were a couple of times where

I got super sick. I thought I might die.

And I thought, that's not the way I want to die as a missionary.

I want to die like, I want to be killed by a Muslim, you know,

or even bit by a poisonous snake. That would be a cool way to die as a missionary.

But when you go out as a missionary, you do think about that because you're

in situations where you might die.

And there's an irony to persecution because many people are inspired.

Jim Elliott, how many of us have heard the story of Jim Elliott, right?

The missionary who went and died. And what happened?

Multiplication of the seed of his work. In that region, actually,

not to mention the story after story after story and Elizabeth Eliot's story

and the way it just spurred on hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people,

all over the world to be missionaries, to go preach to the evangelists because

of the death of those men.

It's ironic. It's not what you want. It's not what you would expect,

but it's the way God works in the midst.

What evil men mean for evil, God will use for good. Joseph, we all know that story.

What men mean for evil, God will transform into good.

And here he does so by scattering the seeds, even the death and the imprisonment

of other people meant that the scattering would yield fruit.

It reminds us of the passage of John 12 that we read earlier,

and it's central to the gospel.

And remember, when we talk about witnessing now, if you remember from our studies

so far, I've been gone for only two weeks, not that long, but to witness is to be a what? A martyr.

Martureo is the Greek word, eyewitness. I testify. I give my testimony.

It's way more than handing out tracts or knocking on doors. It does involve that.

But most centrally for the book of Acts and for the early church and throughout

for us, it means giving up your life.

That's why to me, I love the book of Acts as it presents the gospel in a different

way than I heard it as a child.

I heard the gospel. I heard the words, you know, John 3, 16,

all the time, almost every Sunday.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever

believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Just believe in him, accept him in your heart and you won't go to hell and you'll

go to heaven. Hallelujah. That's only part of it.

It's only part of it. If you weren't always told, you know what,

if you give your life, you may die, you may lose it. In fact,

central to giving your life to Christ is giving up your life.

Give it up. You're dead now to self. You're dead to the past.

You're dead to your flesh. You're dead to all of that. Now you're alive in Christ.

And that's exactly what Jesus himself said about his ministry.

Now we're seeing it in the apostolic ministry, and we see it in the ongoing

ministry of the church. We have to.

Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, I grew up, boy, I can hardly think

of this verse without the old Southern preacher saying, verily,

verily, I say unto thee, right?

I don't know. You grew up on the King James too. Okay. find,

but most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground

and dies, that's the conditional, it remains alone. It can't live.

But if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit, right? That's what the king did.

It produces much grain for he who loves his life will lose it,

but he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. That's the gospel.

It's not easy, but it's simple, very simple.

Give up your life and follow Jesus Christ with all you are and everything you

have, and dedicate your whole life to him.

Die unto self and live unto Christ, and you'll have eternal life.

But it's very difficult.

There's a difference between simple and easy, and this is not easy.

And in the context of persecution, the people in Acts, the church in Acts, knew it wasn't easy.

Their lives were literally at stake, as ours may also be, right?

Their lives were at stake. And even though our lives aren't deliberately hit

by persecution, someone wanting to kill us, Satan and the flesh and the devil

and the kingdom around us of this world would like to destroy us because we're at war.

He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will

keep it for eternal life.

If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am there, my servant will also be.

If anyone serves me, my father will honor It's the gospel.

A powerful call and i hope you see the power of it

in this context of persecution because we see

also the apostle paul who is now called saul

you can't miss the sovereignty of god in this as well

you can't you can't see saul here as the the wrath of this world order against

the church and against christ he's seething he's gnashing his teeth he can't

wait to arrest and destroy and persecute people and terrorize them and get a confession out of them.

Saul is particularly evil towards God and his people. There seems to be a heightened

contrast statements between the brave and devout men who buried Stephen and Saul.

By the way, the men who took upon themselves the burial of Stephen were putting

themselves in great danger.

They simply went about like Joseph of Arimathea.

We see similar patterns. Remember, always look at those patterns in Christ's

life, the apostles' lives and in our lives.

And don't forget how easy it would be for any of these people to simply say,

no, Jesus is not Lord. I'm with you.

Very easy. In the early Roman Empire, shortly after this, all you had to do

is drop a pinch of incense on a little altar and you're free.

Many of our forefathers were tempted to this. Many of them even said,

well, I'll tell you what I'll do. You know how you did as a kid,

like, okay, I don't believe in Jesus.

My fingers to cross. And then once I get my family, I'm going to run away and

be okay. That would be easy.

All you had to do is, and it wasn't just you, by the way, there were stories

and stories of people who were persecuted, where husbands were arrested and

forced to watch his children and wives killed in front of their eyes until they finally got to you.

Do you tempt me to say, okay, okay, I'll renounce Jesus and I'll run away,

keep my wife and my family alive. Very easy.

Polycarp, remember the martyr that we talked about a few weeks ago,

Polycarp had the same option. They're like, look, old man, you're what, 83 years old?

Just say no to Jesus. We'll let you go.

Go off and die in peace. No, 80 some years, my savior has been faithful to me.

How can I not be faithful?

What would it take for you to say the words, okay? What is it taking perhaps

for you to say, okay, you know what? I'm not fighting this fight.

Keeping my mouth closed because I'm going to get in trouble.

I might lose my job. I might lose friends. I might, what?

What would it take? What is it taking?

Because we're in times where we sometimes need to say, no, no, I'm not, I'm not along.

I'm not along with abortion. I'm not along with the transgender agenda.

I'm not, I'm not, no, no. And you know what? Never.

No. And that's what the church has to say. And that's what we then move to see

Philip begin to say. Philip begins to go preach.

Stephen is dead. Now Philip sort of takes his place, and we're moving to Samaria.

Not willingly, but because God's sovereignty scatters the people,

he throws the seeds into Samaria.

Stephen and Philip are transitional figures from Peter to Paul.

His ministry is like that of Jesus. Again, just like Peter's was,

also Philip's, and also the apostles, and also us to some extent.

Samaria and the Samaritan people are not new to the Gospels.

We all know the great parable of the Good Samaritan, which is a huge irony.

When you're in seminary and you start to study the different geographical regions

of the world, biblically speaking, you realize that the Samaritans were,

the Samaria was this place that we today think is pretty cool because of the

parable of the good Samaritan.

I mean, if you stop along the road and help someone, they'll say,

thanks for being a good Samaritan.

It's almost inconceivable because the Samaritans were the most despised,

rejected, and hated people group in that region.

And that's where God was wanting them to go. And that's where Jesus went.

John chapter 4, the woman at the well.

John 4 · chapter mention

Where there he chose a bride for himself. The story that we miss,

it's not just about Jesus witnessing, but it's about a story about a man who

meets a woman at the well.

We've seen before with Jacob and with Moses and with our forefathers.

Where they meet their wives and they're asked, remember the story, go fetch some water.

And Rebecca, who young man, that's who you should be looking for.

Rebecca goes, gets the water and says, let me feed you camels.

But this woman says, who do you think you are?

She's very disrespectful. And through the process, Jesus exposes that she's had five marriages.

Marriage is the central issue there. And at the end of it, she runs off telling

her friends all about this Messiah.

And Jesus has chosen her as his bride. That's us, right?

But the people it says In Luke chapter 9 But the people did not receive him

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Because his face was set towards Jerusalem And when the disciples James and

John saw it They said Lord do you want us to tell This is a great story Telling

you the context of how much Samaria was hated,

The disciples when Jesus was affronted By the Samarian disciples said I like

the way he put Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven And consume them please,

You ever been like that Had some political figures that I wouldn't mind and

seeing some fire come down, but that's how much they hated the Samaritans.

Jesus was offended by them and said, let's burn them, burn them.

Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, the woman at the well and so forth.

Philip's arrival in the city of Samaria was part of a much larger program whereby

the persecution of the churches scattering the saints into an area they never

otherwise would have gone.

Listen to Acts 1. Again, I mentioned it, but you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

in Judea, in Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth.

Acts 1. And so the church was born in Jerusalem, spread through persecution

to Judea and Samaria, and then abroad to the rest of the world likewise.

Those who were scattered may have fled Jerusalem in fear, but the message of

the gospel was brought with them.

That's interesting. They fled in fear, and there's nothing wrong with fleeing.

There's nothing wrong with moving

to a red state if you get out from under certain types of persecution.

But along the way, the gospel must be brought, and that's exactly what they did.

And there's something of what we see now, a Samaritan Pentecost.

We've seen a Pentecost in Jerusalem, and now we see a Pentecost in Samaria,

where Philip begins to preach.

Signs, miracles, and wonders begin to occur, and the people see it and believe, and there's much joy.

It emerges here. God makes progress in redemption, brings signs to confirm his

wondrous works in Christ, signs to the apostles, signs that the end of the age

was coming and this new age was beginning.

And at Pentecost, God poured out his spirit on masses from all parts of the world.

Here, he's pouring out his spirit in the area of Samaritan.

And the Samaritans, again, were a small tribe.

I guess there's still some Samaritans that exist today, a very small area in

the Middle East. The only number, maybe about a thousand people Who mostly live

near a town that was called Shechem Near Mount Gerishim or Gerisim.

They were a people who were conquered by the Assyrians in 722 and scattered.

And then the Assyrians, their method of conquering people was to bring their

people and other conquered peoples into the newly conquered areas so that they would intermarry.

So that's why the Samaritans were never considered really Jewish people.

Furthermore, they created a different mountain on which to worship.

It's what the woman at the well is talking about.

Said, you worship on that mountain, we worship on this mountain,

etc. So the Samaritans were considered half-breeds, racial mixture,

which was an affront to the Jewish blood that was supposed to go back purely to Abraham.

They were religious people who were rebellious, and they created this new religion.

The city of Samaria is where they ended up going. The great F.F.

Bruce says that the ancient city called Samaria had been rebuilt by Herod the

Great and renamed Sebast in honor of the Roman emperor. but it was more of the

Greek city and the impression given by the narrative is that the people to whom

Philip preached were genuine Samaritans.

So he goes to these people. In other words, they're broken and needy people.

The Lord in his mercy and persecuting the church sends his church to an area

they otherwise wouldn't have gone or wouldn't have been inclined to go.

They didn't love the Samaritans. They were hated.

It's really difficult to introduce how hated the Samaritans were,

which is why by the way in the parable of the good Samaritan remember at the

end the Jewish Jesus said well who was the neighbor he didn't say the Samaritan

did he couldn't even bring himself to use the word he said the one who had mercy.

That's how hated Samaritans were. And that's why Jesus introduced the Samaritan

into that parable to affront the Jews with their arrogance and their self-confidence.

So this was a pitiful place, but that the Lord loved.

The Lord loved that place full of needy, broken, pitiful people.

Because why? It says constantly in the scriptures that that was always the goal of God's promise.

For the poor will never cease from the land. Therefore, I command you saying,

you shall open your hand wide to your brother to your poor and your needy in your land.

Over and over and over in the Old Testament, God's people were told,

show pity and kindness to those who are needy.

Deuteronomy 24 says, you shall not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy,

whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates.

Job 24 says, they push the needy off the road. All the poor of the land are forced to hide.

When God would oftentimes chide the people of Israel, one of the things that

are in this long list of things they did, Yes, it was idolatry,

but also you'll see in that list, almost always, you didn't care for the poor.

You didn't care for the needy. You overlooked people who were not worthy of looking at.

Psalm 37 says, the wicked have drawn the sword and have bent their bow to cast

down the poor and the needy, to slay those who are not upright in conduct.

Psalm 72 says, oh, do not let the oppressed return to shame.

Let the poor and the needy praise your name. That's us.

So the Lord is going to Samaria, people that are hated, a land they never would have gone to.

He forces them to go there. And as they go there, they bring the love of Jesus

Christ to that place. And people believe it. It's amazing.

It's something that surprised the Jews. They wouldn't imagine Samaritans could

be converted. And I'm sure you have people on that list in your mind as well.

Someone like Saul. Saul.

A guy you can imagine being converted worth a

book worth reading is Rosario Butterfield's book you know

a surprising narrative of a well a surprising

narrative of conversion or something where she was a lesbian gender studies

professor university head of the department and the kind of person you say that

person's off the list you're going to hell and yet the lord saved her and the

lord does save and how does he do it well it says in our text over and over again.

As we go through certain books like Acts, you're going to hear me say things over and over again.

It's not just that I don't know what to say, I couldn't prepare this Sunday,

but because it's in the text.

And over and over in the text of Acts, you see preaching and evangelism as central

to the growth and blessing of the church.

It says the two words, they went about preaching and evangelizing.

The word preaching is the first time it's introduced in our text.

Up to now, Peter addressed people and spoke, it said.

And Stephen addressed them and spoke But now we see that they're going into

Samaria And it uses the word preaching Which is a pretty powerful special word

It's the word keruso Which means to herald or to proclaim.

Another bit of irony I mean how do people who are fleeing for their lives Go

about proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ.

They did. They heralded it. They announced it. It reminds you of an ancient

world when a king would want to make a message known to the people.

He had a spot in the city, sometimes multiple, and they would go and they would

blow the horns, and they would unfurl.

You've probably seen it on shows. They would unfurl the message and said,

hear you, hear you, thus says King James, blah, blah, blah.

And everyone would listen because that herald was proclaiming a direct message from the king.

And that's exactly what the church began to do. They began moving out,

preaching and evangelizing.

And you'll notice in Acts, and this is important to us today,

they weren't just saying, smile, God loves you and has a plan for you.

They were proclaiming a body, a substance of gospel message that was a powerful one.

So much so that they would later in Acts and other places use,

the word in Greek is kerygma.

Kerygma is a noun form of the verb K. Russo. What were they proclaiming?

What were they heralding? What were they messaging?

Is the central message of the coming of Jesus Christ as Messiah.

And it wasn't just an individual message. And I'm thinking about the conclusion

of the sermon, even as I was on my way home on the plane, like,

I don't want to criticize modern evangelical churches too much, but I do want to a little.

And I don't want to criticize them just for criticizing. But when you go through a book of Acts.

When I was growing up, all I heard was this, accept Jesus Christ into your heart

as your personal Savior, and you'll be saved.

Where do you see that in the Bible? You don't.

It's part and parcel of the message. It's true, but it's not what they're proclaiming here.

They're not just saying Jesus loves you and wants you not to go to hell as an

individual. This is a covenantal message.

It's not just about getting individuals saved. When it says they went around

evangelizing, we oftentimes confuse evangelism with sitting down one-on-one

and saying, if you die tonight, Would you go to heaven or hell? Gotcha.

The gospel, and there's nothing wrong with that question, by the way, you should ask that.

Not against that question, but if you reduce the gospel to that simplistic individual,

you can get saved if you believe in Jesus.

That's not what's being proclaimed in the book of Acts.

This is a much more powerful message of this. This is a message that includes

the fulfillment of prophetic words from the ancient of days to the beginning of time itself.

When Adam and Eve fell at the garden, God said, I will bring someone who will

stop this war, who will crush the head of the serpent.

So it's a kingdom message that they're proclaiming. It's a kingdom gospel that

they're evangelizing people with, which means it's more than just getting individuals

saved. It's the building of the church of Jesus Christ.

And they had this central message, the fulfillment of prophecy,

the message of who Jesus was and what he did.

He came, he lived, he performed these signs and wonders. He died on the cross,

and he rose again on the third day.

The things we often proclaim in our creeds are worth proclaiming in our creeds

because they remind us of the kerygma, the basic stuff of the gospel,

which is bigger than just getting an individual saved.

Building families, it's building a church, it's building communities.

All of that is a part of the gospel.

The ministry of Jesus. And also, don't forget, the book of Acts starts out with

Jesus being raised from the dead and then seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

When they were telling their fellow Jews and the Samaritans,

look, the Messiah you've been looking for has already come and he's not what you thought.

Going to build an ethnic nation anymore. He's going to build a people group

from all over the world, a powerful kingdom built on his church,

built on his promises, the fulfillment of prophecy, the ministry of Jesus,

the death and resurrection of a crucified Jesus who rules in heaven.

And they would be going about telling them he even rules now.

And they're like, yeah, but you're running away.

It's so we could come here and tell you this message.

The exaltation of Jesus sitting at the right hand, serving him,

which is exactly who the apostle Paul saw when he was knocked off his horse and blinded.

Heard from heaven, from whom? From Jesus Christ.

And it's a call to conversion. Of course, repent and be baptized.

It's more than just, you see that, accepting him to your heart as your personal

savior. Whatever they mean by that, I'm not sometimes sure.

I really am not, and I don't try to mean just to be sarcastic.

I really don't know what they mean.

But when I look at the apostle Paul, or the apostle Peter, and Stephen,

and now Philip, Philip went about and said, this is Jesus Christ,

the one who was promised to serve all the needs that we've ever needed from

the beginning of the fall and the beginning of time.

He is the one. He will now be your life. You see that? Accept him into your heart.

Not sure what that means, but Philip would say, submit to him in everything.

Live your life for him. Give up everything for him.

Repent and be baptized. Remember the sign of baptism that we've seen.

Baptism means that Jesus Christ has reached down from heaven and washed you

with the waters has touched you has set you apart you belong to him you belong

to him your children belong to him your family belongs to him everything you

have belongs to Jesus Christ.

Of the message they're sending. You see, that's more than just, let's get people saved.

Beloved, I want to get everyone in Wilmington saved, by the way.

I hope you know that. If you're not here saved this morning and you're here, I want you saved.

But by saved, I don't just mean get you out of hell. I want to bring you to

Jesus Christ, and I want you to give up your life for him and follow him.

And if you do, you'll finally have purpose for living.

There's no other way to live. These preachers are proclaiming this gospel, this basic message.

They're preaching to bring this world and all of its kingdoms to an end and

bring all of us to Jesus Christ, the one who is already seated and reigning

over all of these kingdoms.

This is apostolic preaching. It's pretty powerful.

I'm gonna keep reaching back to Peter's sermons, Stephen's sermons, and Philip's sermons.

And then when we see Paul's sermons and the way he addresses people,

it's far beyond just getting an individual saved.

Even yesterday at our men's meeting We talked about We live in an extremely

individualistic culture,

It's all about me, myself, my rights It's so absurdly central to who we are

That people think they can just define themselves To be whoever they want to

be Even a different gender.

Crazy message. The message that the apostles are bringing to the world is,

if you will follow, if you'll be who Jesus Christ will make you to be,

you can live and die for him and have a life worth living and eternal life awaiting

for you in your Savior, Jesus Christ.

The gospel in this context is full of kingdom promises.

Yes, individuals need to get saved, of course. And when they get saved, when they come to Jesus,

they give their lives and they begin to build themselves and their

lives and their families fathers are different fathers mothers

are different mothers husbands are different husbands that's where

these people were going we'll see that as they go in the early roman

empire as the church was persecuted and scattered they went to different communities

and the people looked at them and said you speak the same language you eat the

same food you've been dressed the same you are completely different what is

it about you that's so different it's jesus christ he has centrally redefined

my life now as a husband i don't beat my wife.

I don't hate my wife. I don't boss her. I love her as Christ loved the church.

And wives submit to their husbands as unto the Lord.

And children are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right.

This is the gospel making and remaking us and giving us a life worth living.

And when they preached that, by the way, in this context, people believed it.

That's why there was much joy in the city. Finally, they had a reason for being

there and for living and for existing.

We exist. What is our chief end? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And that's what they began to preach. It's a crazy thing, actually.

It's a crazy thing to think that that's how the church and the kingdom of God

has been, is being, and will be built.

By what? By proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's it.

This church, by the way, doesn't have any other thing to offer.

Even if you said, well, we need some programs. I read a book that I'll be referring

to you from And time to time throughout the book of Acts, it's called Patient Ferment.

About evangelism and the life of the early church. It's written by a Mennonite.

And one of the things he argues, and I think he proves pretty well,

is that the church, and you'll see this, by the way, what program did they develop to reach Samaria?

What technique did they use? You know, churches can't grow without programs and techniques.

What programs, they left, they fled for their lives. That's hilarious, actually.

They fled for their lives and there was much joy in that city.

And the kingdom of God grew and flourished. What program did they develop?

They didn't have a program.

They preached the gospel.

If there is a program that you could summarize for the church,

it's that, preach the gospel. That's what Paul tells all the ministers.

I tell you this, in season and out of season, proclaim, preach the gospel.

That's the message of the church. That's the program of the church. It's crazy to the world.

It's crazy even to most churches, right? Churches, that's what,

his name's Greider, K-R-E-I-D-E-R.

I don't agree with everything he says, as I don't with any book,

but he makes a powerful case.

It's like, if you think that the church needs techniques to grow and this program

and that program in order to prosper, you miss the whole history of Acts,

he says, and the whole history of the first four centuries of the church.

By the time of Constantine, Christianity was one of the largest religions in the whole world.

They were hated and persecuted and killed and scattered.

What program did they have? They preached the gospel.

That's our program. And i'm excited about that program because that's the program

that god is using to build his kingdom.

Amen That's the program god is using to bring joy to people's lives to transform

lives to give meaning and purpose.

Chapter 4 verse 32 says now and this

is how they lived when they went now the full of the number of those

who believed were one of heart and soul and no one

said to any of the no one said that any of the living things

they had that he had belonged to him but they shared everything in common and

with great power the apostles were given giving their testimony to the resurrection

of the lord jesus christ and great grace was upon them all there was not a needy

person among them for as many as were owners of lands and houses sold them brought

the proceeds as that were sold and laid them at the apostles'

feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

This is the life of the early church. Sounds like a big program,

big technique to evangelize.

No, but it was.

Acts chapter 2, earlier we saw this and we spent some time on it.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

What's the heart and life of the church? Acts chapter 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship,

the breaking of bread and prayers and awe. What?

Youth groups, no praise bands, no rock band. What?

No, it says they just got together, loved Christ, and loved each other,

and developed a community focused on the kerygma, the gospel,

the apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayers.

And guess what? All came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being

done through the apostles. And all who believed were together,

and they had all things in common.

They lived a simple, quiet life

full of joy in Christ, and they prospered and the kingdom of God grew.

That's foolishness to the world. Paul says this, and I'll close on this.

He says, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to those of us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing

the understanding of the prudent.

God saves the humble like he was saving the Samaritans, like he's saving us,

and he's built his kingdom on the preaching and evangelism that comes simply

through the message of Jesus Christ. That's what we need.

We see what they had. We see what they needed. That's what we need in our very own context.

And that's how this church will prosper, grow and bring much joy to this city.

Amen. Let's pray together.

Lord, our God, we thank you for the simplicity of the message of Acts.

We need this message, Lord. We need to remember that our lives have been given to Christ.

And as we give up our lives, we gain our lives.

If we seek to hold back, we'll lose them. Lord, I pray in Jesus' name that we

give to our church that very same sense of humble spirit that we simply love

Jesus Christ with all our heart, our soul, our strength, and our mind.

We dedicate ourselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread and prayer.

And we ask by your spirit that you would do the same among us as you did among

your people in the days of the apostles.

Bring much joy to this city.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.