The Birth of the Church: Continuing Christ's Ministry

Acts 1:1-8

READ Acts 1:1-8

Introduction

The first two verses of Acts have made me question everything we do as the church.

They’ve put a metaphorical rock in my shoe, and they won’t seem to go away. And over the past couple of weeks, I just keep coming back to them and asking, “Really?”

Now, at first glance, you may wonder how this could be. After all, on the surface, they seem awfully tame and unassuming.

Luke, the writer of one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life and ministry, begins this way:

“The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen.”

Doesn’t seem like much, does it?

And yet, these two verses offer tremendous insight into how we should read Acts - and how we should live as the church today, in 2021 and in Granite Falls.

Now, before we venture too far in, I’d like to mention that my goal with this sermon isn’t to mine some nugget of truth from the Bible and send you on your way. I’m not going to offer three ways to do this or two secrets behind that.

My goal this morning is simple: I want to put the same rock in your shoe that’s been in mine. I want you to leave her with a handful of questions to mull over - this week, and in the coming weeks. I want you to walk out those doors back there asking, “What if…?”

So, let’s hear what the Holy Spirit has to say through his servant Luke this morning...

“The first account...”

Luke begins by referencing “the first account I composed...”

If you haven’t already guessed it, he’s talking about the gospel he wrote. If you go back two books, you’ll find that gospel, and if you begin reading it, you’ll discover that Luke begins his gospel in a similar manner to the way that he begins Acts.

READ Luke 1:1-4

So, it’s clear that Luke and Acts have a deep connection. These books are meant to be read and understood side-by-side. It’s really a shame that tradition separated them by putting John between them.

But that leads us to an important question: How are these books connected?

Are they merely two parts to one story? Are they nothing more than two history books - one referencing events from 4 BC to AD 30 and the other one taking up events occuring over the next 30 or so years?

Or could there be a deeper - more essential connection?

Let’s read on to find out...

“…about all that Jesus began to do and teach...”

Luke addresses this book to someone named ‘Theophilus.’ This is the person that Luke is writing to - both his Gospel and Acts are addressed to him. But that’s not really important for our purposes this morning, so let’s keep going and look at the next phrase:

“…about all that Jesus began to do and teach...”

Now, this phrase might not appear that significant, but if we reflect on it for a moment, it becomes clear that it’s really quite odd.

The way Luke writes this, he seems to be clearly emphasizing the fact that Luke’s Gospel was about the things that Jesus BEGAN to do and teach… We can see this even in the English translations we have, since it would’ve been just as easy to write, “The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus did and taught...”

But it’s even clearer in the Greek that Luke used.

He’s trying to drive this point home: The Gospel was only the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

But how could that be? After all, the Gospels tell the whole story of Jesus’ ministry. They all include his baptism in the Jordan river by John - which was the moment he started his ministry - and they end with his resurrection. Shortly after the resurrection, Jesus ascends into heaven. He’s gone.

So, how can Luke say that the Gospels only talk about what Jesus began to do and teach? To the casual observer, it appears as if Luke got things wrong. The gospels tell of Jesus’ ministry. Acts tells of the church’s ministry.

But that’s not the way Luke sees it.

Luke seems to be saying, “The Gospels tell of Jesus’s ministry until he was taken up to heaven. Acts tells of Jesus’s ministry continued through his Spirit-empowered people.”

Just look at verse 2… Luke says that his first book was about Jesus’s ministry until his ascension. And he begins this second book by saying that afterward, Jesus gave orders through the Holy Spirit “to the apostles whom he had chosen.”

In other words, Jesus is now commissioning his disciples to go out and continue the ministry he started. Jesus’s ministry isn’t ending with his ascension, it’s just getting started.

And this becomes even more clear when we read Jesus’s explicit command to these men in verses 8:

“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

When Jesus uses this word - witnesses - he’s not just saying that they will tell others what they’ve witnessed. He’s also saying that they will be the evidence that what they say is true. The word witness has both of these meanings - and it’s likely that Jesus has both of them in mind.

So, they won’t just say, “Hey, Jesus did such-and-such.” They’ll be the evidence that he has done - and is doing - that and more. This is why they need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Anyone can say, “Hey, I saw Jesus do this or that.” But if we’re going to continue the same ministry of Jesus, then we have to be empowered by the same Spirit that empowered him.

The Church’s Ministry is Jesus’s Ministry

So, here’s the big point of all this: Jesus’s ministry began when Christ was baptized. But it’s never stopped. After his death, resurrection, and ascension, that same ministry continued through the life of the church.

And the book of Acts exists to prove that point. This is why Luke begins it this way. He wants us to understand that the Church exists to continue Jesus’s ministry.

Now, you may be thinking, that’s an awful lot to hang on two verses. But it’s not just two verses. You see, Luke writes the whole book of Acts with this in mind. And he intentionally draws parallels between Jesus’s ministry in the Gospels and Jesus’s ministry through the church in Acts.

Let’s think about a couple of examples...

Baptism

Jesus’s ministry begins when Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan river. We read about that in Luke 3 and Mark 1 and John 1 and Matthew 3.

And according to Acts, the church’s ministry begins when they’re baptized by the Holy Spirit - and then, when people come to faith in Christ, their first act of faith is the same as Jesus’s - they’re baptized.

Preaching

When Jesus is ready to launch his public ministry - what’s the first thing he does? He preaches the Kingdom of God. We see it when he goes into the synagogues. And when he’s kicked out, we see him continue to preach wherever someone will listen.

And in Acts 2, how is the ministry of the church launched? It happens when Peter preaches to a crowd at Pentecost. And as we keep reading, we discover that the early church followed Jesus’s pattern. They went into the synagogues and preached. And when they were kicked out, they’d go wherever they had to to find a listening ear.

In other words, it seems as if Jesus never stopped preaching after he ascended. It’s just that he was doing it through the mouths of Peter and Stephen and Paul and others.

Healing

One of Jesus’s other major acts was to heal. We see him heal the lame, the blind, and even raise the dead.

And in Acts, what do we see? We see the church heal the lame and even raise the dead. So, Jesus never stopped healing after he ascended. It’s just that he was doing it through the hands of Peter and Paul and others.

Feeding the Hungry

Jesus fed the 5,000. The early church put deacons in place to ensure all of the needy among them were fed. And the church continued the ministry of Jesus.

Facing Religious Opponents

We also see the same response to the church’s ministry that we saw to Jesus’s. The religious leaders hated Jesus and his teaching. They tried to trap him. They stirred up opposition against him. And we see the same response in Acts to the ministry of the church.

Martyrdom

And we know how the story ends - Jesus is persecuted relentlessly until he’s finally martyred for his faithfulness to God. And we see this same end reflected in the life of the church. Stephen even mirrored Jesus’ actions on the cross, asking God not to hold their sin in killing him against them.

The whole book of Acts shouts: The church’s ministry is Jesus’s ministry continued.

And Jesus himself explicitly said this. On the night before Christ is betrayed and crucified, he looks at his disciples and says:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” - John 14:12

Could it be any clearer? Jesus says, “The people who trust me… who follow me… who come after me… they will do the things that I do. They’ll do even greater things than I’ve done.”

And the reason? Because Christ is going to the Father and sending his Spirit - the same Spirit that empowered him to do all of those things - to us. So that we can do those things.

I’ll say it again: The church’s ministry is Jesus’s ministry continued.

So what?

Now, at this point, you may be thinking, “Well yeah. We know that.”

And to that, I’d say, “You’re right. We know that. But do we really know that?”

Let me put it this way… Imagine someone showed up next Sunday morning at 10AM. But they’d never heard of Jesus before. They’d never read the Gospels. They knew nothing about Christ or Christianity. And imagine that their English isn’t great - maybe they’re a foreign exchange student. So, they can’t follow along with the preaching.

So all they know about Christianity - and more importantly - all they know about Jesus is what they see in us. After all, we call ourselves ‘Christians.’ We claim to represent Jesus. So this imaginary foreign exchange student is getting everything he knows about Jesus from our actions.

Now, here’s the question I’ve been asking myself: “What would he think about Jesus based on what he saw in us?”

I think he’d understand that Jesus was a preacher and a teacher. After all, we do a lot of that. But what about the rest of Jesus’s ministry?

Would he understand that Jesus went to the lost? That he cared about lost people so much that he was willing to go to places no respectable Jew would go - to Samaria? Into the homes of prostitutes and traitors to their country? Would he know that Jesus taught we should go into the highways and biways - find people who need help and bring them in? Or would he think that Jesus was the kind of person who put service times on a sign, waited for people to show up, and then complained about how nobody cares about spiritual things these days?

Would he understand that Jesus lived to serve others? That he fed the hungry? That he healed the sick? Or would he think that Jesus was the kind of person who might spare a couple of bucks for someone else to feed the hungry or heal the sick - but he couldn’t take time out of his busy day to do any of that himself?

Would this imaginary friend of ours understand that Jesus was devoted to private and public communion with the Father? Would he know that Jesus took time out of his busy schedule to withdraw and get alone with God? Would he know that Jesus was committed to praying with his friends - to making prayer a priority? Or would he think that Jesus was the kind of person who offered up a quick prayer here and there, but simply couldn’t find the time to make any larger commitment?

To put it simply, if our imaginary friend looked at Rock Chapel and our ministry… would he see the ministry of Jesus continued? Or would he see something else?

Moving forward...

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to begin looking at Acts and we’ll see the ministry of Jesus continued through the early church. We’ll see the underlying the principles that drove them. We’ll see the superficial adjustments they made to become effective. We’ll see the focal points that guided them as they went. We’ll see the practices that shaped them into the kind of people God could use.

As we go, I’d like for us to examine ourselves - and our church’s ministry. And I want us to ask… Are we continuing the ministry of Jesus? And then, I want to challenge us - all of us, myself included - to do some uncomfortable things for the Lord.

To seek to continue Jesus’s minstry even when it takes us places we don’t want to go and causes us to reprioritize some things.

And there will be times that you say… “But we’ve never done it that way.” When you’re tempted to do that, I want to invite you to lean into the Spirit, pray for his filling, and let him empower you to say, “Oh well.” There were a lot of things that Christ called his disciples to that they’d never done before.

[OPTIONAL] There will be times you think “I don’t have time for that...” [OPTIONAL]

And we’re going to conclude each week with a challenge. But first, I want to invite you to pray. And ask God whether you are continuing Jesus’ ministry. Not the church or someone else. But are you?