SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/20/2017 8:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 Intro to the Book of Acts
In this section we continue looking at the sermon that
John MacArthur preached in early January of 2014 on the intro to the book of
Acts, a sermon he entitled “Continuing Christ’s Word PT-1.”
“Chapter 9, Verse 31
moves the church throughout Judea and into Samaria and says at the end, the
church increased. You come to the third section. That would be from
9:32 over to Chapter 12, Verse 24. That section ends – and by the way,
that section includes the extension of the church to the gentiles, Antioch, and
that ends with these words. “Let the word of the Lord continue to grow
and be multiplied.”
This is the story of
the building of the church, the developing of the church, the addition of the
church from the beginnings of Jerusalem then to Judea and Samaria, and then
into the gentile world as far as Antioch. And that also includes the
salvation of Cornelius through the instrumentality of Peter. So the
gentiles are adding.
The next section is
Chapter 12, Verse 25 to Chapter 16, Verse 5, and this tells the story of the
church going way beyond Antioch, jumping into Asia Minor and the preaching tour
through Galatia by the Apostle Paul. And that section ends in Chapter 16,
Verse 5, so the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were
increasing in number daily.
These sections that all
end with the same sort of summary of the development of the growing
church. Sixteen six begins to tell the story of Paul reaching the great
gentile cities, like Ephesus and beyond Asia Minor even into Corinth, and this ministry
goes on all the way into Chapter 19, and it ends in Verse 20. So the word
of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.
That’s how all the
sections end. Final section, Chapter 19, Verse 21, goes all the way to
the end and tells the story of the final years of Paul’s ministry before his
imprisonment in Rome. And how does that section end at the end of the
book? He stayed two full years in his own rented quarters, was welcoming
all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered.
So that’s the overview
of the history of Acts. Got it? It’ll be on the quiz. The
quiz will be in 20 minutes. I wouldn’t do that to you. But it’s
important, isn’t it? Does that get your arms around this book that could
just be a lot of stories that you couldn’t quite grasp? It ends with Paul
in prison, and so Luke stops there.
Luke had lived through
30 miraculous years from the resurrection to the imprisonment of Paul.
He’d lived in those 30 years of the first fulfillment of the great commission
by the first force of apostolic preachers to the point where churches were
established, and the next generation was put in place by placement of
elders. In fact, Luke wrote a history, started in Jerusalem, and ended
when the gospel was penetrating Rome, the capital of the world, their world.
So I’d like to think of
this as 30 years in which Jesus continued his work ordained by the father,
energized by the Holy Spirit, and brought to fruition through the means of
apostolic preaching of the gospel. It’s a magnificent story. It’s
an incredible account. Let’s go back to the first chapter for the few
minutes we have. And in Chapter 1, we have some very essential
foundational elements given here because the Father’s plan worked through the
Spirit’s power by the Son, has some requirements.
And it’s quite
interesting that Chapter 1 sort of lays these foundational truths. The
narrative part doesn’t really start until Verse 12 when it says, “Then they returned
from the Mount called Olivet. So before we get into the actual action
here, there are some things that precede that, very important things. Let
me read 1 through 11.
“The first account I
composed to 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. To these, he also presented himself
alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period
of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”
“Gathering them
together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the
father had promised.” By the way, that’s how he ended Luke, and that’s
how begins the next volume, which he said, “You have heard from me.” In
other words, the Lord had promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. “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 were asking
him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to
Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It’s not for you to know the times or epics
which the father has fixed by his own authority, but 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.’”
“After he had said
these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received
him out of their sight, and as they were gazing intently into the sky while he
was going, behold two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also
said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus
who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as
you have watched him go into heaven.’ And with that, they went back to
Jerusalem. School was over. Initial lessons were taught.”
Six things appear in
those 11 verses that I read to you. In what you would call the final
lesson, the final preparation, this if you would like to call it is the last
will and testament of Jesus. This is the last talk he ever had with them before
he went back to heaven and it was very critical, very important.
And in these words here, and they are few, really, He gives to them all that
they need. He reminds them of all that is essential, and let me just
suggest there are six things here.
The first is He says you
have to have the proper message. You have to have the right
message. You have to have also the right confidence. Thirdly, you
have to have the right power. And then, interestingly enough, you have to
have the right mystery. You have to have the right mission, and you have
to have the right motive.
These are timeless. These we need to know because
we’re just continuing to be the instruments that he uses to finish what he
began. We need to make sure the message is right. We need to make
sure we have confidence in that message. We need power beyond ourselves.
We need the right mystery, and I’ll explain that. We need to have a clear
vision of the task or the mission, and then an overwhelming and overarching
motive.”
Ok we will look at the
last part of this sermon in our last SD on the introduction to the book of
Acts.
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “Cyrenius” (Acts 2:2).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘For unto you is
born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord’?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/20/2017 8:55 AM
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