A Fragile Church, A Faithful Lord | Myles Holmes

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

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We began our series in Acts last week, and we began Acts in a note of triumph.

The risen Jesus had presented himself alive to his disciples by many proofs, we were told in verse 3, over 40 days.

And having presented himself alive, he then commissioned his disciples to carry the gospel, not just to their friends and family, but a small group of disciples was to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Jesus promised them the power of the Spirit, and then in dramatic fashion, he ascended into the heavens where he is seated now enthroned as the king.

It is this incredible scene of the glory of the risen Christ who is still at work in the church.

Now, what happens then in verse 15 is surprising.

Luke, then, maybe if this were a movie, zooms off of the risen Lord onto the church through which this mission is supposed to advance.

And as we get a picture of the church, the picture is not particularly impressive.

I remember attending an NHL game, and you're in this massive arena, and very clearly everyone is there to see professional athletes.

There's music blaring, there's a beautiful ice service, thousands of fans in attendance, a jumbotron, and before the game started, they opened up the tunnel, and out of the tunnel came skating Timbit's hockey players, little kids.

You ever seen that before?

The fans ate it up.

None of the kids were playing in position, they were falling all over their place.

There's fights breaking out.

It was amazing.

And it's amazing because of the stark contrast of what you see in professional hockey players against the backdrop of, I don't want to offend these children.

Let's at least say not professionals.

Now that's roughly what Luke is doing here.

Here is the risen Jesus reigning in power, ascended and sitting on the throne, having just announced his mission to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and all the ends of the earth, having announced such an amazing mission, you would expect to see then an unstoppable force.

Instead, he shows us 120 ordinary believers, led by 11 apostles.

Most prominent of these apostles is Peter, who had just recently denied Jesus publicly.

The other 10 had scattered when Jesus was arrested.

And now there's an empty place among the 12 because one of Jesus' own apostles had betrayed him.

You look at this team and you think, this team, this is the one that is to carry the gospel to the world?

The answer Luke will give us is a resounding yes.

But what we'll see over the book of Acts is that the reason why we can answer yes to that question is because the success of the mission does not finally rest upon the strength or the faithfulness of the team.

The success of the mission rises on the Lord who is clothed in strength, who is seated on the throne, who is unwavering in his faithful commitment to the church.

That's the tension we see in Acts, a tension between a fragile church and a faithful Lord and loved one, it is still the tension we see in the church today.

We say that Jesus is building his church, yet, left, right, and center church leaders fall.

We confess one Lord, and yet you look across the evangelical landscape, and churches are divided.

We even call one another to holiness, and yet Christians compromise.

You probably know very personally, Christians who once professed faith, then walked away from the faith.

Someone who claimed to represent Jesus but became an obstacle instead to others trusting in Jesus.

And the question that we still have today, that the early church had as well, is what are we supposed to think when the people of Jesus make the promises of Jesus appear weak?

If Jesus is risen and reigning, why does his church often look so fragile and weak?

That's the question that Acts 1 answers.

And the answer is that the failures of Christ's people are not evidence that Christ has failed.

Christ is unwaveringly faithful to his church and can be trusted.

But we're gonna see here a fragile church contrasted with a faithful Lord.

I want you to see it with me, and so I'd ask you to stand as we read God's word together, beginning in Acts chapter 1, verse 15 to 26.

Acts 1:15–26

In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers.

The company of persons was in all about 120.

And said, Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.

Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the field in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.

And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akildelma.

That is field of blood.

For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it.

And let another take his office.

So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

And they put forward two Joseph, called Bar Sabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias.

And they prayed and said, You Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry, an apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.

And they cast lots for them.

And the lot fell on Matthias.

He was numbered with the eleven apostles.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can grab your seat.

Loved ones, against the contrast of a fragile church.

Luke and the Holy Spirit this morning want you to see that Christ is faithful.

That when people fail you, Christ will never abandon his word.

And his witness will not be silenced.

I want you to see those things this morning.

And as we work through the passage, there's really one response that will keep coming back to one application of the passage this morning.

And that is that if Jesus is faithful, you can trust him.

I want you to see the first reason you can trust him this morning, and it's that his word has not failed.

His word has not failed.

When the early church here faced the devastating failure of one of its own leaders, it didn't cause them to question Christ's faithfulness.

We then look at this text and we ask why.

So often that happens with us.

Someone who follows Christ betrays our trust.

A church leader who has spoken so relevantly into our life, been so essential to our growth falls.

Someone who is passionate about the truth, once argued for the truth of Christianity, now has walked away.

And slowly that failure begins to shape how we view God.

In fact, I'm sure that there are some in this room who, on a regular basis, you grapple with someone who hurt you.

Someone who is in the church and you you wrestle with having been hurt by the church.

I've spoken to others who who you you wrestle with theology, you wrestle with some of the statements in scripture because maybe you've seen someone walk away from the faith.

And what happens is your experience with people begins to preach a sermon to you.

That's what's happening in the book of Acts.

They're looking at the apostles, and there's one who's denied, there's ten who have scattered, there's one who is completely betrayed, and his end has been horrific, and 120 disciples, and really the watching world is looking at these people and it's preaching a sermon to them.

If Christianity is true, why did this ever happen?

If Jesus were really at work, his people would not act like this.

If this is what Christians are like, how can Jesus then be trusted?

There's this tension in the passage.

Peter is standing in the wreckage that is left behind by someone who had lived closer to Jesus than anyone else.

But I want you to notice that as Peter leads the church and they wrap their mind around human failure, that they are neither willing to ignore the failure of Judas, nor to write off the faithfulness of Jesus.

Why is that?

Look down at your copy of God's word with me.

Look at verse 17.

This is how Peter looks at what has happened with Judas.

It is very honest.

Verse 17, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.

Peter doesn't sugarcoat what happened with Judas.

Judas walked with Jesus.

He heard his teaching, he had witnessed miracles with Jesus, he had ministered alongside the other apostles.

He was not a distant opponent to Christianity.

He was within the very walls of the kingdom that Christ had come to establish.

Yet Judas had used his proximity to Jesus to become, as Peter would say in verse 16, a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

So at the very outset, you need to understand that if you have ever been hurt by someone in the church, if you have ever been betrayed by someone who confessed Jesus Christ, you have ever ministered alongside someone who eventually wounded you, you are not alone.

Our Lord Jesus Christ knows what it is to be betrayed by someone close to him.

And from the very outset, the church has wrestled with the wounds it experiences from a faithless people.

Now notice here, notice what Luke does.

He does not allow us to look away from the wreckage.

Look down at verses 18 and 19 with me, where Luke describes the horrific end of Judas.

His betrayal led to death.

There's disgrace, public judgment.

We're told in verse 18 he fell headlong, he burst open in the middle.

Verse 19.

I mean, it's it's bad for the disciples who were told to carry the new good news to the gospel that the only news that's being carried to the world is verse 19, that there is a field that was called in their own language Akildama.

That is the field of blood.

This is what people knew about the Christian movement.

That one of the closest followers of Jesus Christ was this man who fell under public disgrace.

And Luke doesn't get into these details just because he loves to capture our attention with gore.

He gets in it because he wants you to feel the devastation of the public failure that the early church faced when they were called to carry the good news to the world.

This was the news that was advancing into the city.

This was the witness that people knew what Judas had done.

And one of the twelve had betrayed Jesus, that the others had scattered, that Peter had denied knowing him.

And now the church faces an empty place among the very men that Jesus had personally chosen.

It was these twelve that Jesus had picked out, and you can feel the question that is hanging over the small group of people that are meant to then reach the world.

Has Jesus failed them?

Has Jesus failed them?

If they say their mission is to reach the world and this is what they look like, can Jesus be trusted?

Can his promises be trusted?

Would the failure of one of these servants unravel the whole entire thing?

That's why what Peter does next is so instructive.

What do you do?

What do you do when that you hear yet again the failure of a pastor who for so long has proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ, but is now a part of public scandal?

What do you do when your experience in church begins preaching a sermon to you that people just cannot be trusted even inside the church?

I want you to notice what Peter does.

Peter, he reaches for the word of God.

So often we look at people and use our understanding of them to make judgments about Christ.

Peter will not do that.

He looks at Christ and through the lens of God's word, he then looks at people.

In other words, Peter is unwilling to allow the church to judge Jesus by Judas.

Peter will look at Judas and judge him by Jesus.

The application is simple.

Do not allow the worst Christian you have known to inform what you believe about Jesus.

Bring the failure of Christ's people beneath what God has already done.

Now let me say what that doesn't mean.

That doesn't mean that we ever minimize what someone has done.

Doesn't mean that we ever protect a leader or hide evil or pretend that there's no wounds inside the church.

In fact, one of the things I often say to new people when they come to our church, and maybe I should stop saying this, but but I often say, you're probably gonna get hurt here too.

I bring them over to some of our most offensive members.

I say, this guy, it won't take long.

Okay?

Probably in this conversation.

No, I don't do that, but but it is a reality, isn't it?

Like if we are a group of 120 believers who are trying to do life together, who are sinners, there's gonna be relational bloodshed here.

And so notice here that Peter does not protect Judas's reputation.

Peter does not look to the world and say, Don't look at Judas, don't worry, we're just gonna sweep this under the rug.

He describes its consequences, he announces God's judgment on it, but he refuses to allow the unfaithfulness of Judas to become the final verdict on the faithfulness of Jesus.

A failure of Christ's servant does not mean the failure of Christ.

Notice what scripture enables Peter to see that though Christ's people can be faithless, Christ is faithful still.

This is what the God's word does.

When we are tempted to use our circumstances to tell us what we believe about God, God's word tells us what to believe about our circumstances.

That's what God's word does, doesn't it?

Every time we we read God's word, it is like the pastor's voice or the pilot's voice that comes over the intercom and tells you there's gonna be turbulence ahead.

We're gonna face some shaky times.

Isn't God's word like that?

When you open up God's word, aren't you constantly confronted with how wicked and faithless God's people can be?

It doesn't take long, does it?

You're reading through God's word, and you know, Genesis 1 and 2, that is a real blissful time where you're in the garden and everything's good, and then there is a record screech and you hit Genesis 3.

From there, everything is really downhill for God's people.

I mean, I'm reading Ezekiel right now.

Have you ever read Ezekiel?

When you read Ezekiel, every chapter is a new discovery of God's people.

Did what?

What are they doing now?

This past weekend, just yesterday, we met with the men.

The men's ministry gathered at the church office at seven in the morning.

We opened up 2 Timothy.

We were reading Paul's admonition to this young pastor in Timothy, and he tells Timothy how to pastor the men in the church who are sneaking into people's homes and capturing young women.

And I looked around to the room of men and I said, put your hand up if you're doing that.

And nobody, you'll be glad to hear nobody put their hand up, okay?

Some of you are like, Who was doing that?

I mean, you read God's word, aren't you confronted with the messiness then of God's people?

God's word is the pilot's warning.

It is going to be turbulent for God's people.

So the Pilate will not lose control.

We open up God's word and we're reminded that God's people are often a faithful people, faithless people.

God's people are often a people with a cold heart towards God.

Loved one, we need that.

I needed it just this morning.

I opened up my my Bible for my own personal reading, and in Psalm 70, the psalmist says, I am poor and needy.

I am poor and needy.

And I needed that as I prepared to preach.

I needed to be humbled, to be reminded of who I am before God.

I got to Psalm 71, and there you read the psalmist who's wrestling with his weakness and asking God for his strength not to depart from him.

Lord, give me your strength.

And I'm reminded of who I am in my flesh.

I am weak.

I need strength.

But but not only am I humbled, my vision of who God is is increased.

He's glorified.

And we need both of those things.

This is what the word of God does.

Reveals not only the weakness of our flesh, but the strength of the Lord.

Notice that's what happens in verse 16 as Peter addresses the church.

Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas.

The phrase he uses is had to be fulfilled.

It's a phrase that carries the weight of Peter's confidence.

Brothers, this was this had to happen.

As I interpret this circumstance through God's word, I want you to understand that what happened here was not a surprise to God.

It's this is not God's plan B now that Judas has betrayed Jesus.

The Holy Spirit had spoken about this beforehand through David.

Now, what Peter then does is he does what we just did.

He turns his attention from Jesus to David to say this.

David was betrayed too.

Peter then quotes two Psalms written by David.

In their original settings, these Psalms, in their context, describe God's anointed king suffering at the hands of evil men.

David himself was chosen by God, yet rejected, opposed, betrayed before entering his kingdom.

And now the fulfillment of what happened to David finds itself in Jesus.

Who is the greater son of David?

Peter looks at the betrayal and says, listen, this is nothing new to God's anointed kings.

It was true for Jesus that before the crown would come the cross, that before exaltation would come humiliation.

That before resurrection would come death.

Judas's betrayal did not prove that Jesus was not the promised king.

In fact, his betrayal did the exact opposite.

What appeared to be the collapse of God's plan was, in fact, the accomplishment of God's plan.

The betrayal of Judas led to the arrest of Jesus.

The arrest led to the cross.

The cross led to the doorway being opened for sinners to find eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Judas was unfaithful.

Jesus remained faithful all the way to death, so that on the contrary, Judas's un his failure, his unfaithfulness does not cancel the faithfulness of Jesus.

In fact, it actually becomes the dark background against which the gospel of Jesus Christ shines even brighter.

You know that remains true whenever someone who claims to represent Jesus fails?

The hypocrisy of people cannot make Jesus a hypocrite.

The dishonesty of God's people at time does not make Jesus a liar.

Didn't we hear it this morning in 2 Timothy?

Though we are faithless, he will be faithful.

And so we look at the hurt that we might have faced from experienced from the hands of other Christians, and we can call it out for what it is.

We can say that it's evil, we can care for the wounded, we can bring the evil into the light.

Yet at the same time, loved one, do not judge Jesus by Judas.

Peter's calling us to judge Judas and every human failure by the word of Jesus.

Now these Psalms do more than explain what happens next.

There certainly is a prophetic tone in them.

May his camp become desolate and there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office.

Notice that the word of God doesn't just interpret what's going on for Peter, it also guides them to what is next.

And so the second prophecy here says, let another take his office.

And this then is what guides the apostles.

Where Judas has failed, Jesus has not, he will restore the twelve.

That's where the second place that we see Christ's faithfulness here.

It's the second reason why you can trust him, because his people have not been abandoned.

The people of God have not been abandoned.

That's the second thing I want you to see this morning.

Notice that the issue we're facing here at the ends of the end of Acts 1 is that there is an empty place among the 12.

That is a big deal for the church.

The question is then, why?

Why is this a big deal?

You can imagine there are 120 people in this room, there are 11 apostles.

That sounds like more than enough preachers and leaders, doesn't it?

Some of you guys are like, our church is about the same size.

We got one preacher.

That's enough for me, okay?

We don't need any more.

It's enough leadership to begin the mission.

Why then does this church, does this chair need to be filled now?

In fact, later in Acts, James will be killed and the church won't replace him.

There's something significant going on here.

Why does this chair need to be filled now?

Why does it need to be filled before Pentecost, before the Spirit comes?

It is because the number 12 is not just a headcount of the apostles, it is a theological statement.

It is a theological statement about who God is.

God is a God of promises.

And he had promised to Abraham that his seed, his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And if you could count every grain of sand on the ocean, that's how numerous the people of God would be.

Now, from Abraham, that promise began to take shape.

There was Jacob who would be renamed Israel, and Israel would have 12 sons who would become the 12 nations of God.

The promises of God were beginning to take their shape.

They were delivered from Egypt, going towards the promised land.

But as you read through the history of the Old Testament, what you discover is that the people of God never fully receive the promise of God.

Though it happens in little spurts, they never totally become the people, the nation that God had promised.

Then Jesus comes after Israel is completely scattered, the 12 tribes are divided.

Jesus comes and he deliberately chooses 12 apostles.

And when Jesus chooses the 12 apostles at the beginning of his ministry, all of the Israelites who watch his ministry do an audible gasp.

They look at Jesus and they know exactly what that means.

Jesus is here to restore Israel.

It's why the disciples' question in verse 6 is this, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

They know exactly what will happen.

Jesus even said as much in Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

He said to these very apostles, Judas included, you are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

Judas's betrayal there didn't just create a vacancy.

Judas's betrayal fractured something that Jesus had deliberately built.

Jesus had purposefully chosen twelve apostles to sit on the 12 thrones for the 12 tribes of Israel.

Now you begin to see the issue.

There's 11 apostles, and there is an empty throne chair.

And it's declaring something theological.

Asking a theological question: would God still be faithful to his people?

You look again at the picture of these people, and one had betrayed them, ten had scattered.

The leader and Peter himself had denied them.

These were not impressive men.

The early church leaders were not faithful men in many regards.

But what's happening here is Peter is drawing our attention from the strength of the men, from the impressiveness of the men to the faithfulness of the risen Lord and loved one.

That is what the Holy Spirit wants you to see this morning.

Not to look past the church, to see the often darkness of the church, the failure of the church, as the dark backdrop amongst which the glory of Jesus Christ shines.

Do you see it?

Do you see the faithfulness of Jesus in these verses?

Look what happens in verse 21.

Look down at your copy of God's word with me.

Peter says that one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

So practically then in verse 24, having placed these two men in front of the church, notice what he does.

They prayed and they said, You Lord, you Lord, know the hearts of all.

Show which one of these two you have chosen.

Do you hear where the confidence of the early church rests?

It rests in the risen Jesus.

The Jesus who chose the first twelve.

Now they ask that same risen Jesus to show them the man that he has already chosen.

You'll notice in verse 25 and 26 that they cast lots to decide this.

The lots are not the primary feature of this chapter.

It's not to tell us how hard decisions should get settled.

That doesn't happen in this church, the elders' meetings, we don't just sit around and play dice to decide how to handle the future of the church.

And a unique time before the Spirit is poured out, before the apostolic foundation is complete.

We find the casting of Lot.

The point that Luke is drawing our attention to is that this is the man that the Lord has chosen.

It's the Lord.

The risen Lord loved one is still at work in his church.

The risen Jesus is still directing his people.

The risen Jesus is still preserving his people.

The risen Jesus is still repairing what human failure has fractured.

If 11 was a broken symbol, if 11 was saying Jesus has abandoned his people, 12 says God has not abandoned him.

God has brought restoration.

And the incredible reality of the restoration that God brings into his life, loved ones, is what we read in verse 24, that he brings it into our lives knowing our hearts.

Isn't that amazing?

Isn't that amazing that God chooses us despite seeing what he sees in our hearts?

You know, through the ministry of Jesus, he had almost no patience for people who seemed like they had it all together.

Have you never noticed ever noticed that about Jesus?

For the ones who had built a system of religious display who could keep that system running, to the ones who could produce the right answers, to the one who could pray and sound like they really knew what they were talking about, Peter would look at them and say, Inside you are dead.

You were like a whitewashed tomb.

You're clean on the outside, but the inside is dead.

But then all through the four gospels, what do you see Jesus doing?

He sits with the sinners and the tax collectors.

He lets a sinful woman weep at his feet in a room full of men who said, This woman doesn't belong.

He tells stories about Pharisees and tax collectors who call out before God, and one of them says to God, God, be merciful to me, a sinner who knows he doesn't belong there.

And Jesus said, Is this man who goes home justified?

It was Jesus who said, I came to seek and save the lost.

That the those who are well off have no need of a physician.

Jesus sees what is in our heart and he draws near to us.

If you are in Christ this morning, do you remember how that came to be?

Do you remember that it wasn't the moment you came to Jesus and said, Look what I have to show you, Jesus.

Look what I can give to you with my life.

It was the moment that you came to Jesus and you were broken.

He said, I have nothing to give you, Jesus.

I have nothing.

I bring nothing to the cross but my own sin that made the cross necessary.

And what did you find in Jesus?

Not reluctance, not a man who's just tolerating you, a man who calls, he says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

For I am gentle and lowly in heart.

It is this Lord who knows the hearts of all.

It is the same Lord who fills the empty chair at the beginning of the establishment of the church.

That's who Jesus is.

And loved one, in light of who Jesus is, we need to ask ourselves this question: why do we so often make church about pretending like we have it all together?

Remember, I mean I grew up in a church where I don't know if this was just my perception of it, but it just seemed like everyone in that church had it together.

I looked at marriages, I said, I don't think anyone, I don't think they ever argue in that marriage.

I looked at people's faith in the Lord, I mean, they must they must read their Bible every single day.

They never miss a devotion, I'm sure of it.

And they probably always feel the nearness of the Lord, and you look around, and what you start to do is you start to learn how to act like that's you too.

And eventually we can sort of build this performance as a church as though nothing is really wrong.

It's this performative religion.

Maybe you're looking around at people right now, you're looking at that person.

I mean, they have got it all together.

And yet, whenever we build this polished versions of our ourselves and one another, we are rebuilding the very thing that Jesus came to dismantle.

We are building ourselves up into something that Jesus rejected in his ministry.

He said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden.

I love, I love that recently I spoke to a new person in this church.

I can't remember exactly what they said to me, but they said something along the lines of I'm just a young person who's made a lot of foolish choices and made a lot of mistakes.

And I could look at this person in the eyes and say, You have a home here.

You have just described what our church is all about.

Let me introduce you to this guy.

No, I'm just kidding.

I didn't introduce him anyway.

I mean, we're all like that.

I mean, maybe we're not so young anymore, but we've all made foolish mistakes.

We've all messed up.

I had the privilege of looking at that person saying, I mean, you this that is what unites us in many ways as a church is our need for a savior.

Jesus didn't come for those who have no need of a savior.

It's your sin and your shame that make you the recipient of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

And if that is true, then as Jesus gathers his church, you know the people that he's gathering, it's those who have sin and shame.

And I wonder if you have been living in your life with maybe decisions you regret with a with a marriage that's struggling, wounded by someone who claimed to represent Jesus, and Jesus looks at uh you and he looks at this church, he says, You have a home here.

It's not because sin doesn't matter.

Sin needs to be confessed and repented of.

The grace of Jesus doesn't make sin small, but you know what it does do?

It makes Jesus great.

I pray that the culture of Redemption Church continues to be a culture of people who are together, not because we have it together.

Who are together because Christ came to seek and save the lost.

Can I tell you, loved one, if you're messed up, if you feel like you're beyond grace, if you feel like it, like sometimes you just look at your life and you just feel like there's no way out of where you're at right now.

Can I tell you you have a home here?

I mean it's all of us.

And and if you're here and you're perfect, can I ask you something?

Could you leave?

Just get out of here because we got a really good thing going here.

You're gonna ruin it.

So just you gotta get out, because we gotta really you can find another church, you'll be great for it, okay?

This is a place for the broken.

This is a place for the weary.

This is a place for the heavy laden.

And Jesus has made this a promise.

He will not abandon you.

You know, you know what his promise is?

Whoever comes to me, whoever comes to me, I will never cast it out.

Everyone, hold on to that promise.

Because there are no qualifiers to it.

Whoever comes to me, I will not cast it out.

Christ is preserving his people.

He will not abandon his people.

As weak as they look, as sinful as they look, as fragile as they look, he will not abandon his people.

But I want you to notice, lastly, that you can trust Jesus because his witness will not be silenced.

His witness will not be silenced.

Peter says that the man who fills Judas' office, verse 21, must be a man who accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry and will become then a witness to the resurrection.

So what's happening here is not just that we need 12.

Peter's not just OCD.

There's actually something greater happening.

This chair is filled so that the resurrection will be proclaimed.

And it's it's an amazing contrast.

The reason why one of the chairs is empty is because Judas came, became a guide to the enemies of Christ, leading them to Jesus.

Now the chair will be filled because Matthias will become a witness of Jesus and go from Jesus to the world with an announcement that Jesus has risen from the dead.

The scandal of Judas, the weakness of the church, the fragility of the church will not have the final word.

Instead, it will be a backdrop on a beautiful painting that is the glory of Jesus Christ itself, to which when the world looks at the painting, they cannot see the background because the picture is so glorious.

Isn't it true of this church?

Isn't this church a great illustration?

I mean, specifically the building.

When you walked into this building, you did not say, Wow, what a beautiful building this church has.

You can say, I mean, this is just wonderful that there's no parking.

It's great.

It's wonderful that the bathroom, I can talk about the church like this because we're leaving in a few weeks, okay?

It's wonderful that the bathroom smelled.

This is just awesome, okay?

He didn't.

What was it?

It was the people, was it not?

Was it not the people?

And all of a sudden you begin to forget about some of the lesser things and you see what's important.

And love when that's the gospel.

That that's the way that the fragile, weak church disappears as the glory of Jesus Christ shines brightly against the backdrop of it.

And scandal would not have the great, the final word.

Jerusalem would hear something greater than the story of the apostles who betrayed Jesus.

It would hear the testimony of the apostles who had seen Jesus alive.

And as Acts unfolds, one of the things we're gonna see is just how unwilling Jesus is to let his witnesses be silenced.

Think for a moment, if you know the story of Acts, think for a moment about the primary man that Jesus would use to be a witness to the disciples.

If you were assembling a missionary team, who would you pick to reach the Gentiles?

I can tell you, it wouldn't be Saul of Tarsus.

He would have been the last man you chose.

When Christians heard the name of Saul, they did not think, here's a man who's going to advance the gospel.

They knew, I mean, Saul, he had been in the headlines.

This is the man who persecutes Christians.

This is the man who approved the stoning of Stephen.

He had entered homes and dragged away believers who were afraid of him.

When he became a disciple, they did not believe that it was possible.

So hardened was his heart, so persecuting of the church was Paul that they didn't believe it was possible.

They were afraid of him.

But Jesus looked at the man that everybody else thought was an enemy, and he said, He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

The man who tried to silence the witness of the church would become one of its greater, greatest witnesses.

Paul, throughout his ministry, never hid his early story.

He said, Christ, Jesus, came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.

And he said elsewhere, I received mercy for this reason that in me Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience.

Paul then did not become evidence that Jesus could not use him.

On the contrary, he became evidence of how powerfully Jesus could save.

Loved one, I want you to know that your life is the exact same.

It is a witness not to your strength, not to your greatness.

It is a declaration of the greatness of Jesus Christ, of his power to save.

We often believe that our weakness will silence as witness.

We often look at ourselves and think I'm uh there's just too much wrong with me to be able to be a witness to Jesus Christ.

And so we're then afraid to speak about Jesus because we know we've not always been the best example.

Isn't this often so true of your family?

You share the gospel with your family and no one knows you better than them, and you just think, I mean, they know how.

Maybe just yesterday I burst out in anger, I said something wrong, and there's no way that I I mean, who am I to tell someone else about Christ?

Now, if there's sin in your life that needs to be Confess, if you've wounded someone, you need to seek forgiveness for those things.

But do not believe that you need to have a spotless history in order for Jesus to use you.

Quite the contrary, because the foundation of the Christian witness is not, I've always been good.

Look at me.

The foundation of the Christian witness is this: I was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see.

I was an enemy, but I have received mercy.

Love one, you are not a witness of your own strength.

You are a witness of the grace of Jesus Christ.

You proclaim a message, and the message is not look at me.

The message is look to him.

Look to Jesus.

Look at the King who remained faithful when his servants failed.

Look at the Savior who died for sinners.

Look at the Lord who walked out of the grave.

We loved ones, we are fragile witnesses.

From the very outset of Acts, Luke wants us to see how fragile we really are, how weak we really are, to be convinced of our numerous reasons for humility, but to know that we have been entrusted with an unshakable message.

Jesus is alive.

And he has been resurrected.

And I am a witness to the historical reality.

Not only that Jesus was resurrected in time and space, but that the resurrected Jesus is working in me.

And though I am not perfect, he is transforming me.

And loved one, if we ever can point to our lives, is not the boast, it's not in our strength, the boast is in our weakness.

The boast is in look how insufficient I am.

And yet the Lord loves me.

I'm a witness to this incredible reality that Jesus is alive.

This morning we celebrate communion together.

Communion is where a fragile church bears witness to a faithful Lord.

It is Paul who said, As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Notice that we do not proclaim our faithfulness, we proclaim the Lord's death.

We proclaim that his body was broken because of us for our sin.

That it was our sin that held him there, that the reality of this communion table is a it is a reality because our record is not clean.

We've transgressed against him.

You should have received the elements on your way in.

If you didn't, the ushers are going to come to the front right now and you can flag one of them down and they'll get it into your hands.

And as we participate in communion together, it's necessary that I remind you of a few realities.

The first is that this is a meal for those who have turned from their sin and trusted in Jesus Christ as their savior.

If you're not a Christian yet, we would ask that you don't participate in this.

And there's no embarrassment in not taking this, but perhaps you could use that sign to meditate on the reality of what it points to.

Would you consider this morning the Savior that this cup is pointing to for so many in this room?

A Savior who shed his blood for you.

Scriptures also warn us about taking communion in an unworthy manner, that if you are knowingly holding on to sin without repentance, that you should allow the elements to pass and to use this time to turn back to the Lord.

Not that we don't struggle with sin.

Struggling with sin is not the same as refusing to repent of your sin.

If you hate your sin, if you're fighting your sin, if you know that you're neat you need Christ's mercy, loved one, this the communion cup is for you.

As we take communion together, let's take a moment to examine ourselves, confess our sins, and to look again to Christ now.

All right.

When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Let's take the bread together.

In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Let's take the cup together.

Did you pray with me?

Father, we praise you for the faithfulness of your Son Jesus Christ.

Lord, we thank you that your word has not failed.

We thank you that your people have not been abandoned.

And God, we praise you because your witness will never be silenced.

Lord, that it is preached loudly by the presence of your church who comes to declare, Lord, I was lost, but now I have been found.

I was blind, but now I see.

Lord, that we have encountered the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That being a broken people, we have found redemption and wholeness in Him.

God, it's our prayer then that you would use our lives to be a witness to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And that, Lord, when your church appears fragile, when redemption church appears broken, that our proclamation, that our boast, that our song would be not that we are strong, but that we worship a God who holds on to us with great strength and who will not let his people go.

God, we give you all the praise and we pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and worship with?