The Story Continues 1:1-26

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Prayer

Tonight, we are moving from Tad’s incredibly practical preaching about hurry and busyness to a sermon tonight that is much more foundational and academic - a teaching sermon, not a preaching sermon. (hopefully that doesn’t make everyone groan!) The purpose of tonight's teaching message is to “set the stage” for the preaching that is going to follow in this series. So, please be patient as I attempt to help provide some framework for our series on Acts.

Roughly 2 years ago (almost exactly) we finished up a 3-year series on the Gospel of Luke. This past year, for the first time in GCC’s (albeit short) history, we spent an entire year doing a topical series called Foundations for Evangelism where we covered:

Worldview (Civility, Critical Theory, Spirituality)

The Bible (Inerrancy/Inspiriation, Where did the Bible come from?)

God (Can we prove God exists? Omni-attributes, Character of God)

Difficult/Hard Topics (LGBTQ, Hell, Contradictions)

Unity (Within GCC and within the larger Church)

If you’ve joined with GCC in the last year or so, you may not know it, but our normal pattern is to pick a book of the Bible and work through it chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We preached the Foundations for Evangelism series to 1) give everyone a break from exegetical expository style preaching (3 years in Luke was a pretty long time!) but also, 2) to prepare everyone for our next book of the Bible - Acts. Starting today with Acts, we are going back to that mode, generally, but instead of delving in to the minute details of each verse, we are going to look at the bigger picture of Acts.

Where as the last year has been preaching foundational topics for evangelism, in this series on Acts, we are going to see those topics in action. In the pages of Acts, we will see Worldviews come into conflict, the Bible used, arguments about God, Difficult topics addressed and Unity of the Church protected.

Acts has 28 Chapters, and we are going to try to work through the entire book in roughly 1 year - though I suspect this is going to take somewhere between 1.5 and 2 years as we have decided to have dedicated sermons for Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and an Advent series. And, as Tad alluded to last week, at some point we are going to stop and do a series on the Sabbath.

Today will be a little bit different than the rest of our sermons in Acts. We will be covering the entire first chapter and looking at the bigger picture of Acts as a whole.

As you may have noticed, the title of this series is “Acts of the Holy Spirit.” The book itself is not titled, but the title Acts is short for the historical title of the book, “Acts of the Apostles.” While the book is certainly full of acts of the Apostles - two in particular - Peter and Paul - the elder team wanted there to be no mistake that the real actor, the real focus, of this book by Luke is the Holy Spirit - hence, Acts of the Holy Spirit.

So, about Acts...

Who wrote Acts? There is no secret here. Acts is the second installment of Luke’s two volume historical biography/autobiography of Jesus and the Church. You might ask why I say autobiography, well, because it is. If you have your Bible with you, please open to Acts 16. If you look in Acts 16:10 , subtlety, and without any fanfare whatsoever, Luke shifts from writing in the third-person, to writing in the first person, by saying “we” in reference to Paul, Timothy and Luke himself...

Acts 16:10 ESV

And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Paul also confirms this by his reference to Luke as the beloved physician in Col 4:14.

When was it written? The simplest and most logical date for Acts is roughly AD 62-64. Why is this? Because of the ending. There is a rather anti-climatic ending of Acts where Luke simply says, speaking of Paul in house arrest in Rome, “He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.” It is as if Luke decided it was time to publish and he just ended the work where he was - in Rome, with Paul. This view is also corroborated by Paul’s reference to Luke in Colossians. An earthquake devastated Colossae around the year 60-62 AD. Paul is in prison when he is writing Colossians, yet there is not mention about the city of Colossae being devastated. It is logical, and likely, Paul was wrote Colossians while in prison in Rome (though it is possible it could have been during one of his earlier imprisonments.)

Who was it written to? Acts was written for Theophilus, but to the Church as a whole.

Is Acts reliable? Absolutely, positively without reservation or equivocation! (Do I seem a little excited?!) You may be saying, “Well, duh, Jay, it’s the Bible, of course it is reliable!” Fair enough, but Acts is one of the books that has silenced secular critics over and over again for the past 150 years or so. So much so that today, no legitimate scholar can refute Luke’s historical accuracy. Names, places, language, travel routes, ports, cities - Acts is choc full of them - it would be near impossible for someone who was not personally familiar with it all to write Acts without making multiple mistakes. Beginning about the mid 1800s, it became popular in academic circles to say Acts was written in the late 2nd century and, therefore, couldn’t possibly be accurate about what it records. That myth has been demolished by archeological discovery after archeological discovery for the past 150 years. Here are just a few examples:

Locations:

The proper port (Perga) in Pamphylia for a ship crossing from Cyprus. (13)

The proper location of Iconium in Phrygia rather than Lycaonia (as was previously assumed). (14)

The proper port Attalia, returning travelers would use. (14)

Names:

Form of name “Troas” which was current in the 1st Century. (16)

City authorities were called politarchs (Greek word used) in the 1st Century in Thessalonica (17)

Governors Felix and Festus (24 and 25)

Gallio as proconsul (18)

The correct title of the town clerk/magistrate in Ephesus - grammateus (Greek word used). (19)

Culture:

(both of these finds confirm the description given in 21)

Inscriptions prohibiting Gentiles in inner areas of the Temple. (21)

Roman soldiers permanently in the tower of Antonia with responsibility to surpress uprisings. (21) (this was a fortress built by Herod the Great to protect the temple mount)

The list could, and does, go on and on. All of these, and many more, were, at one time, thought to be incorrect but later proven correct by archeological discovery. The accuracy of Luke in his recording of names, locations, language and culture is simply unassailable.

So, if you are a skeptic, what do you do? Attack everything else. The resurrection, the nature of the early church, Paul’s theology, etc. The question one must ask is this, “If Luke was so accurate in all matters we can confirm, does it make sense that he would be inaccurate in all other matters he recorded?” This doesn’t just go for Acts - remember Acts is the second installment of a 2-part series, Luke-Acts (which is unfortunately separated in most printings of the Bible by the Gospel of John). Luke is a master historian.

When you read Acts, you are reading accurate history.

How did Luke structure or lay out Acts?

Acts is a chronological three decade tour of the early Church. We visit Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Syria, Cyprus, many cities in Asia minor, Macedonia, Greece and, finally Rome. Everything from evangelism, to preaching , to teaching, miracles, jailbreaks and shipwrecks.

The title of this series is The Acts of the Holy Spirit. If I were to ask you how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Acts, what would you guess? 10, 15, 20... 50? The Holy Spirit is referenced 39 times in Acts 28 chapters. (Jesus is mentioned 73 times) Yet, if I weren’t coming to the text thinking of the Holy Spirit, I think most of our answers would probably be lower - for the sole reason that, as the historical name of this book implies, we tend to focus on the Apostles and the miracles surrounding their ministries.

Speaking of miracles, the only places in the New Testament where we see miracles recorded are in the Gospels - and Acts. Did you know that? Why do you think this is? In all of Paul’s writings, he never records having done any miracles. Why? What is the purpose of miracles? Consistently throughout the Bible, miracles validate the message of God, or the messenger of God, or both. They are not random. In the OT, God the Father, Yahweh, controls the miracles. In the Gospels it is God the Son, Jesus, and in Acts it is God the Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Spirit. Its a Trinity of miracles! When we see miracles in Acts, we can know their purpose is to validate the message, the messenger, or both.

The two primary messengers in Acts are Peter and Paul.

The two primary sections are chapters 1-12 for Peter and chapters 13-28 for Paul.

Another way to look at Acts is by geography; chapters 1-12 are primarily Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and chapters 13-28 are primarily the “ends of the earth.”

Or, 1-12 is primarily of Jewish focus and 13-28 is Gentile focus.

Acts is focused on the Elements or Four Points of the early church: Prayer, Breaking of Bread, Fellowship, Apostles Teaching.

The overall purpose is edification of the Church.

Edification is accomplished through the Holy Spirit who empowers, calls, fills, restrains, convicts and instructs.

This edification brings unity to the Church.

You may wonder why I say edification brings unity. The early church was very divided. Scripture tells us there was a very sharp divide between a conservative Jewish theological outlook, and a more “liberal” Gentile focused theological outlook. You may think I’m overstating this, but it was a real issue in the early Church - See 1 Cor 1:10-17 and Galatians 2:11-14. These writings of Paul (Cor and Gal) were written during the three decades while Acts was being written by Luke. So, what do we see on this topic of Unity in Acts? The rift or division between Peter and Paul melts away. Peter is “Gentilized” and he becomes the initiator, supporter and defender of outreach to the Gentiles (See chapters 10, 11 and 15). On the flip side, Paul, who was once the judaizer of all judaizers and, who had done a complete 180 - walking away from his Jewish roots - is “Judaized” in Acts. We see Paul accept the council decree, he circumcises Timothy, takes Jewish vows and claims to be a loyal Pharisee.

[Walk through Acts 1 and discuss]

Acts 1 (ESV)

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

(Jesus refocuses their attention on the Holy Spirit, not the literal incarnation of the Kingdom)

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Luke 9:30, 24:4;

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

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 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 Akeldama, 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.’

Matt 27:3-9

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 Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, 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 and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Luke has brought us back to the end of his first book, the Gospel of Luke; Jesus is resurrected and ascended, the apostles and disciples believe and are witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (this is very important as people do not risk their lives for a lie - and this reliability has carried through to all of us for the past 2000 years), and, the problem of Judas is solved. Now, we are ready for the introduction of the Holy Spirit to the life of the Church - Jesus is “gone”, and now the Holy Spirit will take center stage - which is where Don will pick up next week.

As this is the first Saturday of the month, it is our week to celebrate Communion - prayer, breaking of bread, fellowship and, the Apostles’ teaching.