Brief Overview of the Book of Acts

Preached by Tomm Wilson on 8/18/24

Transcript

0:50

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We're startup church. We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together. And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more. You can visit Kalamazoo.church in order to do that. We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today. Jaron asked me to talk a little bit about the book of Acts. He says he thinks this would be timely for the Kalamazoo church. So I'm going to be a good follower of Jaron and give you a few things here. It's actually one of my favorite books. When Lori and I became Christians in 1982, we started studying a lot about the gospels to become Christians, because that's where you read about Jesus and gathering his followers and disciples following and all of that kind of stuff. But then shortly after that, we started studying the book of Acts where you learn about the blueprint for salvation, and you see this duplicated so many times throughout the book of Acts. It's where people became Christians. But it also gives us about a 35-year history of that first early church. Now the New Testament covers a longer period than that, but the book of Acts covers about 35 years. And what you see in the book of Acts is a lot of things stay consistent from the start to the end, but then you'll also see the early church go through some ups and some downs where they're focused and distracted, and this kind of mimics what you and I experience on a daily basis. You know, all of us that got baptized and we started to follow Jesus, I've never seen anybody come out of the water that was discouraged, depressed, and disoriented. Like what am I doing now? I guess I just had to do this. No, they're all super focused, and you know, they're so excited about this life, and the first time in their lives start to see how they are actually partnering with God, God in them and them with God, and it's a beautiful thing, isn't it? But let's also be honest, as we continue to live our lives as Christians, it's easy to get distracted and to forget about that very special moment when God brought us into his family. Michigan is notorious for people disappearing during the summer. I just got back from the Nordic Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, and then over onto this little island in the middle of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, and all the disciples were there with their children, and they were focused, but they were having a good time. The reason they do it is because over there, it's mandatory that everybody takes two months of vacation in the summer. So it's kind of like the whole country's marginally shut down. There's still stuff going on, but for the most part, everybody would disappear, and so even their worship services are a little sporadic. They meet primarily in house churches during the summer, but it's good, but there's also bad from us being away from each other, right? Without adult supervision, including myself, we all get in trouble after a short amount of time. You know, students that are going to be coming back, they've had a great time this summer, I'm sure, enjoying a life where they grew up. Sometimes they come back struggling because they spent the summer in the place where they probably committed the most sin of their entire lives, and now they're coming back to a spiritual environment. Hopefully, most of them were connected with churches in the area where they lived, but let's welcome them back with open arms and be a listening ear and give them opportunities. Amen? Amen. In Acts chapter 2, go ahead and turn there, as God brought people together for this special event, we read in verse 5, Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And then it talks about all these people from all these countries that had gathered there that day. It was a fulfillment of what God had talked about many, many years, thousands of years before about his kingdom, and when it would come, it would be literally for all nations, all people, all languages, all backgrounds, all skin tones, all intellects, all everything. God has this vision that every one of us can participate in that. In the Nordics, and also in the Baltics, where Lori and I have worked for Bianca, thank you sister, a true Christian. We've worked there for 20 years, nearly 20 years, and one of the things that you notice when you go over there, everybody is white. I mean, that's it. But if that's all you looked at, you would miss how different all these disciples actually are, because many of them are from their own local country, say Estonia, but then you have people that were, during the Soviet occupation, literally brought into those countries to occupy and actually displace local Estonians, and so they're Russian, but they grew up in Estonia, and so they have a lot of that. In all the Baltic churches, especially when the war started in Ukraine, you have a bunch of Ukrainians, well over a hundred now, that have settled in the Baltic churches, but they all look the same. But when you talk to them, and you get to know them, you find out they're actually very, very different people. And so there's some challenges with that, but also a blessing, because now this all-nations thing is actually being lived out. It's a little more noticeable in the US. Most of our churches are a mix of people. We have Indians, and Africans, and Filipinos, and we even have Spencer. I'm not sure what Spencer is. I do know I was really glad when I saw him get baptized, because you wouldn't have liked the Spencer before that. You know, we have so many different flavors of human beings in the American churches, where it's easy to see that, and sometimes our cultures collide with one another, our opinions clash with one another, but we've got to understand that this is all part of God's plan to bring us together as one, amen? And so we see in Acts 2, God actually did this at the very beginning of the church. All of those countries that are mentioned in Acts are represented here in this little map. So you can see how God brought all these people in for that very special day when Peter would introduce the gospel for the very first time, and he brought them in for a purpose. They're not all the same. They even practice Judaism differently in some of these places. They were different colors or tones. They were different languages, different cultures, and yet God brought this unbelievable conglomerate of people together to help them all hear the gospel at the very same time. Now it's interesting, because later on in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 8, verses 1-4, after the church had established itself in Jerusalem, it started to grow and spread, and more and more people were becoming disciples, thousands actually. All of a sudden, this great persecution breaks out in Acts chapter 8, and it says all except the apostles were scattered, and we can only assume that when they left, they went back to the areas that they came from. And so now you have God's unbelievable perfect plan to take this strange group of people that all became Christians at the same time, and then through his divine providence, he allows this persecution to take place, but it's with a purpose. It's not to punish. It's with the purpose of sending them out, so then they would start to preach the word wherever they settled, and all these little pockets of Christianity started popping up. Later on in Acts, we read about how the apostles went around and started churches, strengthened churches, and so on and so forth. In the book of Acts, all of these things, if you read, let's turn to Acts chapter 1, in verse 7, he said to them, it's not for you to know the times and dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And so that little section of scripture that Jesus said shortly before he was taken up into heaven, all gets lived out in the book of Acts. All that stuff starts to happen in these chapters. Chapter 2 through 7, the church begins and grows, the persecution in Acts 8, which sends the church to Judea and Samaria, and then you have this unbelievable thing that happened that blew everybody's mind where Gentiles were allowed to become Christians, God worked it out for this miraculous thing to happen, and from what I'm looking at, we should all be praising the Lord that he allowed this to happen. I've known a couple Jews throughout my life that became Christians, amen, but most of the people I know are Gentiles. I don't know if you, that's not a derogatory term, it's just a statement of fact, alright? Don't get offended Ingrid. And then the church goes on from there in Acts chapter 12 through 28. I do want us to focus on one thing here for the rest of our message. In Acts 5, it says day after day in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. And then in Acts chapter 20, as Paul's saying his farewell to the elders in Ephesus, he says in verse 20, you know that I've not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house. This is a pattern that you see in the New Testament. We live in a time where there's a lot of technology. I've learned how to embrace this stuff. I think COVID kind of forced us into using things like social media. I remember back in the day it was a big deal if you were serving in Kingdom Kids, you would be given a little cassette tape of whatever the sermon was that day. That was the extent, I mean we were cutting edge technology back then when you got a cassette. How many of you remember the cassette days? This was when Jaron and Bianca and Laurie and I were still in Milwaukee together, but Jaron stumbled across some cassette recording that Laurie and I did a class at a Chicago conference one day and then he bought me a little recorder because you can't find those things anymore. Anyway, that's another story I'm getting off task. These things are good, but I want to just let you know that technology might be a tool, but it's always going to come down to what it was in the very beginning, people interacting publicly from house to house, face to face. This is where it happens. The technology and all this kind of stuff might get people's attention and it might get them in the door, but the thing that's going to help people become Christians, just like it did for you, is somebody that you developed a friendship with, there was a level of trust that was established, you saw some credibility that this person is a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, and you knew that because when they shared things with you, they didn't just share opinions, but they opened up the Bible and pointed to scriptures. The couple that did that with us was a couple named Dave and Teresa Vaughn, still faithful to this day. We met them publicly at a church service, but then we also went to their home and they opened up the Bible with us, and that's how Laurie and I became a Christian, and that's how you became Christians, and it's how everybody in the future will become Christians, by interacting publicly and from house to house. Amen? These are just some examples of that. We'll skip over that one. I'll give the PowerPoint to Jaron, so if you want a copy of the PowerPoint, you can have it. We've got a party to go to for Andrea after this, so I don't want to go too long. And then we see this house to house stuff unfold too. Let's turn to Acts chapter 19. In this, we read a number of different things, but one of the things that we see is an amazing conversion of some people. In verse 19, we'll start in verse 1. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, and the story goes on from there. Here's an example of Paul out there publicly, and he stumbles across some people that he identified as disciples. Now, one of the things that we also have to realize is there's a lot of people in this world that have a great spiritual background. Maybe they were brought up that way, or they had some type of conversion experience throughout their life, and they adopted many of the principles of what it means to be a disciple. They lived good lives. In fact, I've found over the years that some of the people that I've actually studied with and other disciples have studied with live better lives than some of the disciples that are in the church. This is convicting. It's humbling. But it's not to say that this doesn't happen. But just living a good life, as you know, is not enough for someone to be welcomed into God's family. There is no amount of righteousness that we can do, no amount of lifestyle changes that we can do that make us worthy of receiving salvation. Two of the main words in the New Testament are grace and mercy. Grace is an unmerited gift. So the fact that you've been given salvation, and I've been given that, it is an act of grace. Grace, it's not something that I deserve, but God gave that to me, and he gave it to you. Amen? And then mercy, the simple definition, is withholding due punishment. And so when I read that word, I realize that because of the life that I lived, and even the sins that I've committed as a disciple, I don't deserve what God has given me. It's only because of his mercy that that is not going to be held against me. So when we come across people from a very spiritual background, I would say, let's face it, we live in a very religious part of the world, kind of the Midwest Bible Belt, especially as it runs up through Grand Rapids. West Michigan is particularly known for that. We're going to come across a lot of people that are very spiritually minded. Many of you were just like that before you understood what God expected as far as the plan of salvation and when your sins are forgiven. And so Paul, as he interacts with these people publicly, he had the courage, but I would also say the love, to engage this group of people that he did not know, and he started asking them some questions that would lead to the revelation of whether or not these people really are believers as we find out in the Scriptures. And so what we find out is they had so many things on straight, but they had a misunderstanding of how baptism actually works and what God's plan is for that. I grew up in a, I won't tell you the name of the denomination, but it was a denomination, and there was a lot of things that I learned from my mother that were absolutely good and right, and I still hold on to those things today. That there is Jesus, and there is God, and they interact, and Jesus was from God, and he died on the cross, and you know, there's right and wrong, and there's consequences if we choose bad behavior. All of these things I learned from my mother growing up, and I still hold on to those today, but there were some things that I was taught growing up that weren't found in Scripture, and in fact, some things that were taught that sounded like Scripture, but actually were nowhere to be found in the pages of the Bible. And so there's a lot of good-hearted people in the world that we live in, and when we interact with them, if we just automatically assume that they're all right with God, they could be missing out on the missing piece that they never quite came to grips with, just like these people that Paul interacted with here. You and I are human beings. Did you know that? Yeah. We have a lot of strengths in our own personal characters. We have a lot of gifts in our own personal characters. Some of us are very outgoing and can interact with anybody, anywhere, at any time. Some of us are more inward and shy and find that more difficult. It doesn't matter. God puts us all together. Some have some gifts. Some have other gifts. But what I want to suggest to you is, God wants us to continue to grow in our ability to interact with people in public settings. Because without that, there's a whole chunk of the population that may miss out on hearing the plan of salvation as God prescribed it. Amen? Let's turn back one chapter to Acts chapter 18. Let's start in verse 24. Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he only knew the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. Some translations have more accurately. So, we saw Paul interact with these people in public. Now we see Priscilla and Aquila inviting this man, Apollos, into their home where they interact with him more privately. Once again, we find a person that had so much conviction that he was out there publicly teaching about Jesus. And let's face it, this was a scary thing to do, depending on what part of that Middle East you were in. There was persecution. Certainly God brought about great victories, but there was a lot of persecution. And so for someone to speak like this, publicly or privately, there was a risk to their own personal safety. Lori and I were in Riga, Latvia. Actually, we stumbled across Jaron there in Riga. We knew he was going to be there. But Jaron's easy to stumble over. He's so big. His feet are like size 37 or something like that. But Lori and I were staying at this hotel, and right outside was this little walkway area. They had some tables set up, and then these concrete planters spaced along there. And we were sitting out there just kind of enjoying a little time before this couple was going to pick us up. This young girl walks out of the hotel, and she's standing in front of the door. Lori's looking this way, I think, or maybe looking that way. Anyway, I have this clear shot of this young gal, and she's holding her laptop. And this guy comes up, grabs it, and starts running down the street. And I go, hey! And start yelling at him. And in my mind, what I wanted to do was jump up, throw out the clothesline, knock this guy down, and stand over him. That's what I wanted to do. If I was 10 years younger, I might have been able to do that, but I still had to deal with a concrete planter. And Lori says, Tom, Tom, what are you doing? You saw what happened, didn't you? And she says, look over there. They're filming a movie. And so there were some people with cameras, and yeah. Yeah, I'm going to get some royalties from Latvia if they use that scene. I saw a portion of that whole scene. Lori saw the whole picture. And this is where we get tripped up a lot of times. We see a little bit of what's going on, but we don't really see the whole picture. You may see the consequences. Oh, what do I do if I share my faith? What's going to happen? But God sees the big picture. And maybe there's some persecution that'll come that way. But isn't it also true that maybe God in his divine wisdom and nature sees that you could be the one connection to this individual that if you would just have a little bit of courage and take a step of faith that they too might become just like you, hear the message, respond, be baptized, and be saved. Amen? As you think about this, all these conversions were being lived out for the very first time in those 28 chapters of the book of Acts. I love Paul's last scene that we have of him. Let's turn to Acts chapter 28. In this, Paul's under prison guard, being watched, probably not long before he's taken away. And then we read in verse 30. For two whole years, Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance, he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't know how much time he had left at this point. I don't know for sure how old Paul was at this point. But I know I want to be like this when my time on earth is winding down. And that could be any time for any of us. Nobody knows how many days or weeks or months or years we have. But I want to be like this. Lori and I have been faithful now for 42 years. And we're excited about that. But if the Lord allows us to stay alive for an extended period of time, like maybe we meet 90. My mom turned 90 this last spring. It's in the genes. I don't know if those were passed on to me or some of the crazy stuff from my father was passed on. I don't know. But it means that maybe we're two thirds done living our lives as disciples. And for some of you that just got baptized this year, last year, five years ago, you've got a long time to stay faithful. I don't mean that to discourage you, but to help you realize that if this is what's in your heart, then you will have the wherewithal and the desire, the love for God to stay faithful no matter what the circumstances, no matter what great things God brings to your life, or what great things of challenge and hardship come to your life. You will stay faithful and weather the storm. I just want to say this, and I'm just going to be embarrassingly honest. It saddens me to see how many young Christians give up so quickly when they haven't fought the fight at all. But to be honest with you, what saddens me more is when a lot of people my age, even less than my age, 40, 50, 60, 70 year olds, they say, that's it. Like if Lori and I did that now, Lori turned 70 back in May, she's awesome. She looks great. I'm only 69 and a half. But if we cashed it in now, that would have been 42 years of our lives absolutely wasted. People that we've helped along the way would still benefit from that, but it would be for us personally a wasted life to cash it all in and quit and go off and do something else with our lives. I want to encourage us, especially those of you that are a little bit on the older side, and in the Kalamazoo church this is all relative. Like if you're 30, you're on the older side right now. But we've got to stay involved in each other's lives. When sin grows and builds up and then sin sets up shop and it hardens our heart, then we become susceptible for every challenge that's out there and the likelihood of giving it all up becomes more realistic. I think one of the things, and I'll pass this on to Jaron, but we've done, I think in every church that I've ever been in, we've done an exercise for a midweek and it's called writing your conversion story. We'll look at a conversion story in the book of Acts, and you'll find out that these conversion stories don't take up chapters. They're only little sections of a chapter where Paul or others are explaining how they became Christians, a very concise format, and then this is on our heart. We've kind of rehearsed it. It's in our mind, and we can share with others how we got involved in this in the first place, and it not only helps them, but it helps remind us continually that God has done amazing things in our lives, and He wants to do them in theirs as well. All nations, publicly, from house to house, everything that happened in the book of Acts happened because one person spoke to another people or a group of people, and they in turn did that. The Kalamazoo Church will rise or fall depending on how we put these things into practice as well. When each one of us, regardless of how weak or how strong you are, share what God has told you to somebody else, you will thrive and it'll be amazing. Amen. Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast. If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected. Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on. In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.