Sermon Tone Analysis

Resurrection Power

Acts 1: 1-3

By Billy Jones (Adapted from Geoff Surratt)

We are starting a new series this weekend.

We are going to take an undetermined amount of time to gradually make our way through the book of Acts.

Acts is where the church as we know it today all started.

There is a lot we can learn about our faith as we practice it from the book of Acts.

We will be taking a few breaks here and there because of the holidays, but I plan on making it all the way through.

In 1939, a guy named Leo Szilard...a Hungarian...they described him as kind of eccentric, kind of a charming little guy, and he had fled Hungary, he was a physicist, and when the Nazis began to take over Europe, he fled to America.

In fact, he started working as a researcher at Columbia University.

In his research, he realized that a process that some of his colleagues were developing, called nuclear fission, he realized that if they took that process and they applied it to uranium, that theoretically, it could set off a potentially unbelievably explosive chain reaction.

And as he began to think about this, he began to think about the implications.

So he went down the hall, and he talked with his friend, Eugene Wigner.

Eugene was also a Hungarian physicist, and as they talked, they began to realize this was a lot bigger than the two of them.

It was bigger than Columbia University.

So they knew they had to share this with someone else.

They decided the best person to share it with was another Jewish refuge from Europe named Albert Einstein.

They had heard that Einstein was in New York where they were.

In fact, they had heard he was vacationing in a cabin on a lake in upstate New York.

So without any further preparation, the two of them jumped in a car, and they drove up to this little town.

They didn’t know where Einstein was.

One of them had met him before; the other one had never met him.

So they just began looking for Albert Einstein.

They saw a little boy walking on the road.

They stopped, they rolled down their window, and they said, "Do you know where Albert Einstein is staying?"

He said, "Sure, I’ll show you."

So he showed them to the little cabin.

They walked up to the cabin unannounced, knocked on the door.

When Einstein came to the door, they introduced themselves, and they said, "There’s something we have to share with you."

And uninvited, they walked into the cabin.

They spent about 15 minutes explaining to Einstein this theory, this chain reaction theory that was based on work that Einstein had done about 30 years previous.

After 15 minutes, Einstein realized that this could have huge implications.

In fact, he realized that this could have implications that could change the course of mankind.

So he and Szilard sat down and they wrote out a letter to President Roosevelt.

They said, "Here’s the deal...there are some scientists working on something that you need to know about."

That letter then led to the Manhattan Project, which eventually led to the development of the first atom bomb, and that little conference in that cabin in New York still has implications 70 years later.

We’re still talking about Iran getting a bomb, North Korea getting a bomb, and it all goes back to these guys in this cabin in New York.

Now, if we go back in time 2,000 years, we meet another group of Jewish men and women, and they have just gotten information that they realize has implications that could change the course of history.

In fact, they realize that the information they had would change mankind as they knew it.

So they had to figure out...What do we do?

How do we handle this kind of information?

If you look in your Bible, you’ll see in the book of Acts, that’s where this group of people gets together, and they began to deal with this new information, this revolutionary chain reaction power that will change mankind.

So that is what we are going to do in this series...is look at the history and the beginnings of this revolution that we know as the church and how it all begins in Acts, chapter 1.

If you have your Bible, go ahead and open it to Acts, chapter 1.

Acts, chapter 1, verses 1-3 says this,

Acts 1:1–3 (ESV)

1In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

2until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

3He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Okay, this is audience participation.

I’m going to read those verses again, and I want you to see if you can pick out what you think is the key nuclear power, chain reaction phrase that is going to change history, and it’s in these first three verses of Acts.

Let me read it again.

Acts 1:1–3 (ESV)

1In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

2until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

3He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Did you get the phrase?

I want you to turn to your neighbor right now, and I want you to tell them what you think the key phrase is in there.

What is the key phrase?

Right now.

I’ll tell you what the key phrase is...okay?

The key phrase...the nuclear power, the chain reaction is buried in the middle, and we read it so many times that it becomes common place to us.

But there is so much power that it changed mankind.

It’s this phrase: "He presented Himself alive."

He presented Himself alive to them.

So what’s the significance of that phrase?

Well, you see, two months earlier, Jesus was dead.

He wasn’t kind of dead.

He wasn’t like in Princess Bride, "mostly dead."

He was Wizard of Oz, really, really dead.

His disciples had seen Him beaten, almost to death.

They had seen Him crucified.

They saw Him stabbed with a spear until blood and water ran out.

They saw Him sealed in a tomb for three days.

He was dead.

In fact, no one who ever witnessed a Roman execution walked away saying, "I wonder if the victim survived."

They didn’t survive.

Jesus was dead..., 50 days before this...Jesus was dead.

No doubt about it.

And now, He’s alive.

Jesus just got up out of the grave.

He was dead for three days.

Do you hear what I’m saying?

He got up, okay?

He quit being dead.

He just said, "I’m done."

He walked out of the grave.

He found His friends.

He said, "Hey guys, how’s it going?

I’m alive!"

To get proper context of this, we hear it so many times that we don’t think about it.

Imagine this...imagine your favorite uncle...Uncle Bob...dies.

Don’t you love Uncle Bob?

I miss Uncle Bob already.

I mean...wow!

He was such a great guy...

So we go to the funeral home, right?

And we do the mourning thing, and we do the viewing deal, and then the next day we have a funeral, and there’s Uncle Bob, and he’s in his best suit.

He’s in the casket.

At the end, we do eulogies, and there are flowers.