Acts in Forty Minutes

Alright, church, let's pray.

As we do, we're gonna come out of Psalm 149.

Lord, I rejoice in the Psalm.

It says, Praise the Lord, that is what we gather in your house to do.

To sing to your name a new song.

Your praise in the assembly of the godly.

Here we are, Lord, fulfilling this very verse.

Let your people today be glad in you, our Maker.

Let your children rejoice in you, our King.

Let us praise you.

Let us make melody to you.

For let us remember, you take pleasure in us.

You adorn the humble with salvation.

Your gospel is going forth, and as such, the godly can exalt in glory.

God, I pray that we would sing with joy for whatever is going on, whatever may seem like is failing in our lives, when we look to the gospel and the redemptive story that you are playing out, Lord, we see victory and we see encouragement and we see success of the gospel.

Even amongst amid suffering, sorrow, the gospel continues to go forth.

And so, Lord, let the high praises of you be in our mouths, and would your word be in our hearts?

Would you save the lowly?

And would you bring down the haughty?

That they might see their need for a savior rightly.

Father, would you multiply the benefits of this message under the good of the souls here and those listening?

That it might resonate in a disproportionate way in their souls for your glory and their good.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said.

Amen.

Church, you can actually be seated today.

You'll understand in just a few minutes why you're gonna be seated.

Good morning, Church.

Hope you're doing well.

My name is Scott, and the lead pastor here.

And uh, if you're here with us today or you're listening online, you are with us to start the beginning of a brand new series.

And uh, well, you see it here the book of Acts.

And so, yes, and so for all of you that were hoping all those months ago before the marriage series that we would do this, we're here.

And we made it, and I rejoice in that.

And the reason that uh I didn't read a particular text today is because of the title of the message, which is this, Acts in Forty Minutes.

And if you joined us in the marriage series and you haven't been to Doxa for a long time, you might ask the question, why the book of Acts?

And of course, you probably just heard me say, it's because we finish Luke, and guess who the author of Acts is?

Luke.

So, in a sense, you could say we've done volume one, but the work is unfinished, right?

We haven't dealt with volume two.

In fact, Acts chapter one, verse one says, in the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up.

So we haven't finished the work.

We haven't finished what Luke's been writing about.

We got volume one, but Acts is volume two.

Now you may ask, why Acts in 40 minutes?

And here's why.

Lord willing, this series will be shorter than Luke, Lord willing, but it's still gonna be about a year and a half to make it through this book.

And that's roughly three to four messages a chapter, which is not crazy and will take time.

And so here's what I want to do.

I do not want you to miss the forest for the trees.

Okay?

In an expositional series, this is what we're committed to at Doxa.

We're committed to preaching the Bible verse by verse, not to put on the Bible what we want it to say, but draw from the Bible what it is trying to tell us.

And as we do that, we can get so ingrained in any given text in the book of Acts that we can get so focused on a particular tree, we can miss the forest for the trees.

We can get so caught up in an amazing portion of the book of Acts, we lose sight of the message of the book of Acts, the movement of the book of Acts, the argument of the book of Acts, the unity of the book of Acts, and the shape of the book of Acts.

And so you say, well, why do you need the forest overview?

Well, if we get the forest overview, it reminds us why the trees are there.

It's gonna remind us why every passage is there.

And at the same time, it's not enough merely to just do Acts in 40 minutes and then move on.

Because the book actually has quite a lot in it.

So we want the trees and we want the forest, but we also want that moment when you're like in Acts 6 and you're like, I have no idea where we are, I thought the message was great, I'm not sure how this connects, to go back and have a message that puts in perspective the book as a whole.

Plus, you're human.

You get lost, you forget, you zone out.

You may have already zoned out this morning, and I'm three minutes in.

And I hear this on a regular basis.

And so what is this?

This is to get our hands, our arms, whatever you want to say, around the book of Acts.

Alright?

So, without further ado, Acts in 40 minutes.

Now, Acts is a continuation of a unified story way before the book of Acts.

Jesus talked about this in the kind of transitional text in the end of Luke, Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 44, he said, Then Jesus said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

That everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.

The things written about me, those are the three divisions of the Old Testament talking about Jesus.

What specifically?

Well, the promises of salvation that would come through a Messiah that would extend to the ends of the earth.

Turns out the whole Bible has been pointing in this direction.

Let me give you something from each section: the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms to show this.

Here's the law of Moses, Genesis 22, 18.

Speaking of Abraham, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

And of course, we know in Galatians 3.16 the offspring is.

Good, we're taught well here.

Jesus! Jesus! That was an easy one.

We'll have more, hopefully, opportunities to really succeed today.

The prophets, listen to this, Isaiah 49, verse 6.

Isaiah 49:6

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel.

It's too light a thing to merely bring in Israel.

I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

The Psalms.

Here's one such messianic Psalm.

Psalm chapter 2, verse 8.

Psalms 2:8

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, speaking of the Messiah, and the ends of the earth your possession.

The whole entire Old Testament is pointing in this direction, and then we see, as Jesus said in Luke, that this is inaugurated in Luke.

Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 30, Simeon says, For my eyes have seen your salvation and that baby that was born.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

That you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel.

They had seen the Messiah, right?

They were convinced.

Luke 4, not too many chapters later, Jesus walks into a synagogue, throws down the Isaiah scroll, rolls, reads that piece out of Isaiah, and says, This is fulfilled in your hearing.

And then he begins in Luke chapters 4 through 9, his ministry in Galilee, right?

Luke 4 · chapter mention

And he does exactly what Isaiah was saying he's gonna do.

He's gonna preach to the captives, good news to the poor.

He's gonna bind up the brokenhearted, he's gonna give sight to the blind, he's gonna do all these amazing things, and we begin to see this play out.

And then if you remember in Luke 9, the book transitions and he begins a beeline.

Do you remember where?

To Jerusalem, right?

The primary part of Luke is Luke 9.51 to Luke 19.27, and it's this journey to Jerusalem.

And along the way, there's so much emphasis on who is included in God's kingdom.

And Jesus continues to broaden it.

We see that tax collectors are included in him, sinners are included, women are included, the poor are included, outsiders are included, the highways, the byways, everything.

You begin to see that there's almost no one, it would seem, that is excluded from the salvation that, of course, Jesus Christ brings.

And then you see Luke 19 through 24, Luke's gospel ends in Jerusalem, where he suffers and dies.

It's the crux of the gospel of Jesus Christ by which we are saved, that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose for our salvation.

And the bridge to Acts is in Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 46.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

And here's what it says.

Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead.

And that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses to these things.

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.

Like Luke has done the work to set us up.

And now Acts is merely the continuation of what Jesus began in the book of Luke.

And so I want to get you the big idea now that we're ready to enter into the book of Acts, and it's long-ish for me.

But this is the big idea for 28 chapters.

Can I not just give myself a subtle just pat on the back?

That's all I'm just saying.

One beefier sentence, but for 28 chapters.

Alright?

I'll give you even time for this.

No pressure, no stress.

Acts is the account of the risen reigning Christ.

Your Bibles say Acts of the Apostles.

It's far better to see it as the Acts of Christ by his Spirit through the Apostles.

Acts is the account of the risen reigning Christ advancing God's kingdom and building his church.

Through his spirit empowered witnesses to the gospel.

From Jerusalem.

To the ends of the earth.

I love it.

I just hear it.

Click.

Click, that just might be easier.

Just don't even try to write it down.

Just take a picture and roll.

So a couple different portions here.

Acts as the account of the risen reigning Christ.

That's a piece of this.

You can bracket that.

Advancing God's kingdom and building his church.

You can bracket that.

Through his spirit-empowered witnesses to the gospel.

You can bracket that.

From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

That's what the book's about.

How are we doing?

Do you need some more time to write that down?

Yes, no?

Great.

This is important.

You guys can work on this this week, think through this.

A big, big piece of Acts is that so many people, theological persuasions claim this book as their own to prove their positions and butcher the book of Acts as they're doing it.

It may be, I'll come back to this perhaps, it may be the most butchered book of the whole Bible, in my personal opinion.

Alright, should we get to the outline here?

Alright, Acts architecture is laid in Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

This is the framework Luke gives us for the entire book.

The way it plays out, the way it is arranged is based on Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

Listen, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

The book is arranged as that gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit goes from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.

So here's the thing.

I just have three points in my outline for the book.

The gospel going to Jerusalem, and then the gospel going to Judea and Samaria, and then the gospel going to, you guessed it, the ends of the earth.

So jot this down if you want to take notes on the framework of the book.

The gospel blessings flow to and through Jerusalem.

This is Acts chapters 1 through 7.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

So quiet today.

I love it.

We're just dialed in.

We're ready to learn this book.

Let's go.

All right.

Acts 1 through 7, we have to understand a new stage in redemptive history is dawning, right?

Jesus ascends, but he's still central throughout the book.

The Father and the Son send the Spirit, and the Spirit glorifies Jesus.

The apostles are sent to preach the gospel, and that gospel preaches Jesus.

The church suffers for Jesus.

The church has a mission and a message because Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead.

And he now rules and reigns as the ascended king of the cosmos.

And as such, we preach him as the crucified and risen king who is ruling and reigning, and therefore able to save any sinner who comes to him by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

And he will in no wise cast out anyone who comes to him.

This is the message of the gospel.

Won't you come and receive Jesus Christ?

Now, this gospel begins to move, starting with Israel, right?

The focus of the first seven chapters is on Jerusalem and the temple.

God's temple blessings flowing from and through Israel as promised.

So, Acts one, you get Christ commissioning his witnesses with a promise.

You will be my witnesses.

Not you might be, not I'd like you to be, you will be.

Acts two, the promised spirit comes at Pentecost with power.

Showing the same spirit who empowered Jesus now empowers the church.

Bringing into fulfillment that last days eschatology we see in the Old Testament.

Where remember in the book of Ezekiel, the spirit departs from the temple in Ezra does not return, but now the spirit, listen, descends again on a new temple.

And it's not an actual building, it's the people of God.

It's all of God's people and dwelt with his spirit.

And so the making and the renewing of Israel is the gathering, right?

When Pentecost takes place, it's a gathering of the scattered Jews from all these different countries, right?

Speaking all these different languages, but Israel is but Jews, right?

And God begins to gather them.

How?

Peter preaches Jesus Christ, Acts 2 says, to the house of Israel.

And we begin to realize that this Israel that's being remade is defined around relationship to Jesus Christ.

Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

And as many as 3,000 people turn from their sins, put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Thousands.

Now others reject the Lord.

We'll come to that later.

But the church begins multiplying.

And one of the things you begin to see in the first few chapters is that the gospel is not bound.

You cannot threaten the gospel and cause it to shut down.

You cannot arrest the preachers of the gospel like happens in Acts 5 and have the gospel shut down.

Even more as the church is gathering thousands at the beginning.

Can you imagine a church just instantly a megachurch?

Do you know how much chaos comes in that?

Let me just say I have a little bit of an understanding of this.

I'm so thankful that in Acts 5, the Lord just straight up purifies the church by killing some folks.

Alright?

I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

Everyone's uptight about, oh, they do church discipline.

Alright, well, what about Acts 5?

Alright?

Just give thanks to the Lord that we aren't doing that, alright?

He purifies the church.

Like, hey, we're gonna hold the holiness standard high.

As the church grows, the dilution can take place, and the Lord made sure it didn't.

Got you listening, that's good.

Acts 6, Christ preserves the unity of the church when there was that little tiff between widows that were getting favored and some that were getting overlooked.

And so what does God do?

He establishes church leadership to serve the advancement of the gospel by protecting the unity within the body.

So as the church is growing and the gospel is going forth, you need these internal elements that are taking place, purifying and preserving the church as it grows in Jerusalem.

The turning point in Acts chapters 1 through 7 is chapter 7 through chapter 8, verse 3, which shows us that the gospel advances through persecution.

Acts 1 · chapter mention Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

Following the very pattern of Jesus, Stephen is falsely accused.

Stephen gives spirit-filled testimony.

Stephen's testimony is rejected.

Stephen prays for his enemies like Jesus prayed for his enemies, and Stephen is ultimately stoned and killed.

And it's showing us that Christ's suffering becomes a pattern of his people's suffering.

It shows that no matter what the enemy wants to do, no matter what the nations want to do, they think they can snuff out the church by putting a few of us out.

Here's what happens in the book of Acts Persecution doesn't silence the church, it scatters the church.

Tertullian said it like this the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

We do not get discouraged when people try to silence the church because the church multiplies through the scattering.

In fact, the beginning of the next section in Acts chapter 8, verse 4 says, those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Acts 8:4

Here's the thing: they got pushed out of Jerusalem, and guess what they took with them?

The gospel.

They took it and they proclaimed it as they went.

Listen, we are not the heroes of the book of Acts.

It's not a bunch of bold, brave missionaries.

It's a church that probably wouldn't have moved unless God did one of these to us.

We get out there and then we share the gospel that's in us.

It's far more about him than it is about us.

And so begins the movement of the gospel.

It flows to and through Jerusalem.

Now, the second portion is the gospel goes to the fringes and expands into Judea and Samaria, which is Acts chapter 8 through Acts chapter 12.

Acts 8 · chapter mention Acts 12 · chapter mention

Church is being established.

Israel, but think about it in the temple.

Now the fruit of the gospel is expanding to the outer courts, if you will.

Right?

And if you remember the temple design, the outer courts were for the outcasts.

For the fringes.

The fringe people, right?

And we see God beginning by the proclamation of Christ extending beyond the borders of what Israel's comfortable with to kind of the fringes, right?

The half-breeds, those Samaritans.

The in-betweeners with the eunuch.

Is it is he a boy?

Is he a what is going on there?

Enemies in Paul.

And then even Gentiles by Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

You see, this is kind of what the gospel begins to do.

It begins to spread.

So you got the crazy cousins, the tainted folk up north, remember?

Where you got the Samaritans, and they had inner bread, and they were kind of seen as not pure and frowned upon by Israel.

Enemies in their own right.

God's bringing them in.

Acts chapter 8, verse 8 says the Samaritans received the word with much joy about Jesus Christ.

Acts 8:8

You got an Ethiopian eudic later in chapter 8, fumbling around with Isaiah 53, wounded for my transgressions.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought peace.

Can you tell me what this is about?

And remember, Philip goes and proclaims the gospel.

It's about Jesus.

Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, and he gets saved, and he gets baptized, and it's a great moment, right?

So you got these in-betweeners, you got these half-breeds, you got, then you got Paul getting saved in Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

You got enemies, right?

Probably the greatest persecutor of the church becomes the greatest preacher of the church.

This is what the gospel does, and it shows us that the gospel is so powerful, no one is beyond the reach of gospel grace.

Paul is radically saved, totally transformed, and he'll begin to be a part of the movement as we go into the last section.

Chapter 10, the gospel goes to a God-fearing Gentile.

This is about as far as some Israelites would be comfortable with going with.

Like, ugh, all right, we're okay with the God-fearing Gentiles, but not beyond that.

And yet God is greasing the skids to understand that he shows no partiality.

That the gospel's bounds, if you will, are boundless.

And if that wasn't clear in the salvation of Cornelius, we get to Acts 11 and it becomes even more in your face.

The gospel is for the nations.

And remember, the church gets established in Antioch, and Antioch becomes kind of the first missionary center.

It becomes that church that's like, we're gonna plant churches.

We're gonna send people out of here.

They're the first mother church model, right?

When a church plants another church, that church is a daughter church, and you are the mother church.

Antioch is a big deal.

It gets Gentile missions on the map.

And furthermore, some of you would know that the first term, and it's actually not used very much at all, the first time we ever hear the word Christian used for Christians is in Antioch.

And before we're like, I love the name Christian, just so you know, it was probably derogatory in its use, just like all the good names are Protestant, Puritan, Christian, you're those little Christs.

And so continues the message.

Going forth.

Then in Acts 12, you have what seems like a ba-bump-ba-bomb thing because James is killed, right?

James is killed, Peter's put in prison, Herod dies before putting up a fight at the beginning.

He gets taken out because he's going after the glory, and it shows us again, it doesn't matter what happens.

It doesn't matter who the persecutor is, God will take care of that.

Doesn't matter which preachers die, it's the next man up, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

It's not the messenger, it is the message, and the message cannot be stopped.

And so we mourn and we're sad when our heroes die.

But here's the thing: the gospel does not die with our heroes.

The gospel does not die with our heroes.

It moves on and it presses on in a boldness, welcoming outcasts and incorporating them into the people of God.

If ever there was an outcast in this room, you are warmly invited to come into the family of God through Jesus Christ.

He's a fan of outcasts.

In fact, you could say if the gospel was turning any direction, it'd be turning towards the outcasts.

And thus continues the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem, expanding into Judea and Samaria, and now we get this.

The gospel number three advances to the nations by sending.

The gospel advances to the nations by sending.

Well, you have thousands of people that get saved, right?

And it's a big deal in Jerusalem, and then it begins to spread even more.

What you see kind of happening in the background as we get to chapter 13 is that Israel's rejection, though many are saved, many are rejecting the message of the gospel.

They're rejecting Christ.

Not abnormal to the rejection of Christ today.

However, there's something redemptively significant about the rejection of Israel.

Here's how it's put in Acts 13, 46.

Since you, speaking of Israel, thrust it aside, the gospel, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

I'm gonna leave that there for you.

But that's good stuff.

We'll get there when we get into the trees of Acts 13.

To be clear, this wasn't plan B.

This isn't God abandoning Israel, it's God fulfilling his purposes.

It was never just about Israel.

I just gotta say, in the Old Testament, it was never just about Israel.

Can I say it again?

It was never just about Israel.

Israel's problem was it was kind of a became about Israel, right?

It was never just about Israel.

All peoples are welcome.

The gospel is for all peoples.

Please do not tire, church, of hearing the gospel is for all peoples.

By the way, you are the all peoples.

It's for everyone.

Look at the way this plays out.

It's for everyone, right?

It's for islanders.

Hey mom.

The gospel goes to Cyprus in Acts 13.

The gospel's for islanders.

The gospel is for country folk.

I'm not even going to do an accent on that one.

Because it goes to Lystra, which is you're like, I don't know, you're rural folk.

Got a lot of land.

I don't know, Wheatland or something.

I just made eye contact with someone who lives in Wheatlands, so that was that was enjoyable.

The gospel goes to Roman households in Acts 16.

The gospel goes to philosophers and the intellectual elite.

So here's how profound the gospel is.

The gospel can reach the least educated, and the gospel can transform the most educated, as the gospel goes forth through Paul in Athens at the Areopagus.

He's preaching to the philosophical and electual elites.

The gospel can hold up to even them.

And then of course we know that the gospel goes to the seat of political power in the heart of the empire in Rome.

And Paul gets it to a number of different high, high-ranking officials.

The gospel is this pervasive, this powerful.

Are we getting the trend here of the gospel?

Now, chapters 13 through 28 are divided into chapters 13 through 20, and we could say 21 to 28.

Now, Acts chapters 13 through 20 are about Paul and Barnabas, starting really with Paul and Barnabas being sent by the church, right?

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And they go through Galatia and Macedonia and Greece and Asia.

And by the way, if you thought that was all of Asia, like you look at on a map, think more Turkey when you see Asia and Ephesus and Corinth.

And here's the thing that happens in chapter 13.

You begin to see that Paul becomes the central missionary figure, showing yet again the same spirit empowering Jesus, was the same spirit empowering Peter, is now the same spirit empowering Paul.

And with Paul, you have three major missionary movements in Acts chapters 13 through 2021.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

The first one is in Acts chapters 13 and Acts chapter 14.

Acts 13 · chapter mention Acts 14 · chapter mention

And one of the questions is, how does the gospel get to the nations?

And the answer in those texts is when God's church sends out their best to take the gospel where it isn't.

Right?

And this is again one of those things that we can glean from and learn about churches that don't hoard their best in the church, but raise up their best in the church and send their best.

And as the fruit of the gospel is going forth in Acts 13 and 14, you get wind back of that all the way to Jerusalem.

And in Jerusalem in Acts 15, there's a very important council by which God preserves the purity of the gospel.

Because as you can imagine, as it goes to the Gentiles, there's all these trappings, these additions that seem relevant, especially from a Jewish background, to add upon the work of Christ.

So think about it as a gospel of Jesus plus Mosaic law.

Jesus plus being a Jew.

The question really becomes: must Gentiles become Jews in order to be saved?

Now this is a gospel question.

We cannot add to the work of Jesus Christ.

It has to be protected and defended for its purity on its own.

You can't add to the work of Jesus Christ, even in your own heart.

You go, well, God, you know, Christ died for me and Christ rose for me, but I've been doing the rest since then.

No, it's Jesus Christ all the way.

From your justification all the way to your glorification.

And we could go back to election as well, but on this side from our vantage point.

So they address that in Acts 15, smoothing out what could have been an incredibly bumpy, dangerous, terrible ride.

And then they get into Acts chapter 16, and we begin to see the gospel spreading more.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

The second and third missionary journeys.

And you see the gospel starts to confront every idol in every culture, which is crazy because in an upside down world that believes it's right side up, they look at gospel preachers as turning the world upside down.

Isn't that interesting?

We live in a world that believes they're right side up when they are the ones upside down, but they look at us as if we're the ones upside down.

And as the gospel takes root, they go, those are the ones that turn the uh uh turn the world upside down, like Acts chapter 17 says.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 18, you see the gospel enduring through courageous witness.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 19, you see the gospel triumphing over spiritual darkness, putting idolatry as it were out of business.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

There's a huge bonfire in the front area, and all the magic books that they had contributed so much money to were getting burned up for the sake of forsaking what was to follow after Jesus Christ.

And then Acts chapter 20 is all about the gospel being worth the cost.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Now they had endured suffering, now they had seen persecution, now Paul had been beaten and stoned, and all these things had happened.

And here's his refrain about the gospel being worth the cost.

It's one of my favorite verses in all the Bible.

Paul says, I don't account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course in the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of grace.

What a perspective, huh?

I don't consider my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of grace.

That's that's it.

That is exactly how I want to live.

And then Acts 21 to 26, Paul begins his road to Rome.

And what you can think about in Acts 21 to 26 is that Paul is living a little microcosm of Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

That the gospel would go from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

Paul starts in Jerusalem and he goes to Rome, which in that sense was about the ends of the earth, out towards the west.

And so you see this little movement.

And what do we find?

We find in Acts 21, Paul's journey begins.

Acts 22, we get the testimony of Paul, right?

And we find that the gospel changes people, and those people have a story to tell, right?

It's your testimony.

If the gospel has changed you, you have a story to tell.

And you should tell it with boldness.

And some of you haven't yet told it through the waters of baptism, haven't yet shared your testimony, haven't yet professed faith in Christ and enjoyed the sign of God's grace to you in the waters of baptism.

And let me just encourage you, that's where your story begins.

You start to learn how to tell it.

You start to learn how to articulate it to the benefit of others.

Acts chapter 23, the gospel ensures, I love this, that you are immortal until God's work is done with you.

Acts 23 · chapter mention

Because there's all kinds of threats from what Paul is preaching, and God goes, hang on a second, you're not going down right now because I need you to testify in Rome.

So it doesn't matter what's coming against you, if God hasn't appointed your day to die in that moment, you are not going to die.

You are immortal until God's work is done with you.

And what a confidence we should walk in.

Acts 24, the gospel reminds us that every powerful person and mighty king will stand before the actual king of kings.

No one will be exempt.

Acts 25 tells us the gospel goes where our Lord wants it to and to whom the Lord wants it to reach.

Acts 26, the gospel calls for a response.

It's not merely enough to hear the truth.

God wants you to respond to the gospel.

Have you trusted in Jesus Christ?

Have you rested in his finished work?

Are you still looking to your own performance to secure some kind of assurance before God?

Do you put a condition between you and the gospel?

I have to clean up my life.

Let me get a few things ready first before I take Christianity seriously.

Get rid of all of that.

There is no condition in coming to Jesus Christ.

Just come.

He will do the rest.

He will change you.

Acts 27.

The gospel is unstoppable.

You can try to drown the greatest preacher.

You cannot drown the preacher God wants to live into Acts 28.

And then Acts 28.

Paul is in chains.

But what do we find?

The gospel isn't.

The gospel isn't bound.

In fact, it ends like this.

Acts chapter 28, beginning in verse 31, that Paul was proclaiming the kingdom of God.

Acts 28 · chapter mention

That made our big idea.

And teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

Dot, dot, dot.

Anyone else think that's abrupt?

Feels like one of my sermons, right?

Sometimes I have no conclusion, just so let's just end.

Boom.

No, the end.

Right, we're we're used to reading stories.

Happily ever after, the end, mission accomplished.

What's the point where Luke is leaving us?

Here's the point.

The work's not finished.

The work's not finished.

The gospel's still going forth.

Jesus Christ is still building his church.

The Spirit of God is still empowering his word and his witnesses, and he's doing it right now.

And the gospel is still powerful to save.

As I said, Acts is arguably the most butchered book in the entire Bible.

The charismatics claim it as their own.

The house church movements claim it as their own.

The Christian socialism communal living claims it as their own.

The church growth movements claim it as their own, and they all make the exact same error.

The charismatics will go, well, let's make tongues the universal evidence of spirit baptism, because it seems to be there until you see when those delays and the spirit descending and the tongues happening take place.

Interestingly, along all of the redemptive lines, Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 10, Acts 19.

We'll talk about that as we get into that.

But to here's the issue.

Let me just give you the error that is made in the book of Acts with all of these different groups.

Taking what is descriptive and making it prescriptive.

Taking what is recorded in Acts and preaching it as if it's required in Acts.

That is not how Luke was intending us to learn about that.

That is not the way you should push a house church movement, which, by the way, have been among the most unhealthy churches I've ever been a part of, and yes, I have been a part of a house church movement.

I've helped lead a house church movement.

By the way, in the book of Acts, you see they also meet in temples, synagogues, lecture halls, and public spaces, just for the record.

The question we have to ask is why does Luke tell us these things?

Is he saying this is something that must happen?

Or is he saying it is something that happened?

Big, big difference.

Y'all excited?

I can't wait.

Let's not lose the forest for the trees.

Amen?

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for this morning.

Thank you for getting us dialed in with at least the flow of the book.

Father, we pray and ask that you would work by your spirit through your gospel in the lives of the people today.

Your spirit still energizing your word, the gospel still going forth in power, your church still expanding to places that it is not currently present.

Lord, we pray for all these things, confident that you will do the work, Lord.

And we are merely your servants for your sake.

May it be, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.