Doug McMasters: All right, let's take our Bible and go to the book of Acts, chapter one.
Doug McMasters: Have you ever read a book that stays with you long after you finished it?
Doug McMasters: You've picked up the book, and the title perhaps had had some interest to you, and you engaged it in the captivating beginning, and you started to walk with it through its long and perhaps even meandering middle until it reached a tension point that grabbed you, the resolution of which you couldn't figure out, until all of a sudden there it was, at the very height of it all.
Doug McMasters: And after that, you began to see everything beginning to coalesce into a resolution.
Doug McMasters: And as the pages began to end, you realize that though the story was concluding, the effect of that book wasn't concluding, that it was going to stay with you for a while.
Doug McMasters: And though you hadn't read the book perhaps for many, many years, you still mentally go back to it often because that book is still carried with you.
Doug McMasters: Well, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are those kind of stories.
Doug McMasters: They are messages about Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.
Doug McMasters: And it's meant to be carried with us.
Doug McMasters: But here's what often happens after we read the Gospels and after we discover about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: We can experience those things as past events.
Doug McMasters: We think about the resurrection on Easter, but something happens between one Easter and another.
Doug McMasters: We take what is meant to be placed in front of us and in which we are to be enveloped inside of, and we put it behind us, like it's history.
Doug McMasters: We think that it's a good foundation, but we leave it there beneath us rather than as a living force that is moving us and motivating us.
Doug McMasters: It's that temptation and that condition that the book of Acts is written for.
Doug McMasters: Because what happened that first day of the week, that day that Christ rose from the dead, that moment when the stone rolled away and Christ arose is not a conclusion and something to be left in the past.
Doug McMasters: Rather, it ignited something because the resurrected Christ ascended and he is still acting.
Doug McMasters: He is still forming his people, and he's still crossing every boundary that humanity has ever raised, and he is still glorifying himself for the good news that spreads everywhere, crossing cultures, crossing centuries, until that day when all of his people will be gathered around the throne.
Doug McMasters: Thirty years after the resurrection, a physician by the name of Luke took up his pen again to write a second volume to show the continuation of what he had started.
Doug McMasters: And he titled, and we understand this book as the Book of Acts or the Acts of the Apostles.
Doug McMasters: That's often how we think about it.
Doug McMasters: But I think by titling it those things, we forget something.
Doug McMasters: We forget that the story is not about the apostles.
Doug McMasters: They're simply the instruments inside this story.
Doug McMasters: And the real agent to this story, the one who's opening doors, the one who's turning persecutors into preachers, the one who's crossing all those boundaries, is none other than the risen Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: And so let's begin our journey through the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: And I'd like to begin by looking at verse one, because here Luke opens up the second volume with one word that could easily be passed over.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at it.
Doug McMasters: I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Doug McMasters: Luke is telling us here that his whole gospel, the gospel of Luke, was what Jesus began to do.
Doug McMasters: The whole story of Christ's life, his ministry, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension was all the beginning.
Doug McMasters: And what follows, the book of Acts, is the continuation.
Doug McMasters: You see, the reason Christ did not retire when he went to the throne of God, he only relocated his work.
Doug McMasters: And it is from that place that he is operating.
Doug McMasters: It's from his throne that he's sending his spirit.
Doug McMasters: And he is sending his spirit instead and working through his spirit instead of his own physical presence.
Doug McMasters: And so today we're going to walk through this book.
Doug McMasters: We're going to take a look at it so we can see all of its parts before we dive in deeply into it.
Doug McMasters: And so today we're going to take, I think, a high-level view, a 30,000-foot scan of what is the map of the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: And this morning I want us to see it in six movements as we progress through these 28 chapters.
Doug McMasters: We won't stay long in each of these, but just enough for us to feel the movements as they go from one to the next.
Doug McMasters: So if you're taking notes, you can follow this.
Doug McMasters: We'll stop at each of these in a moment.
Doug McMasters: I just want to mention them very quickly to us as we begin.
Doug McMasters: The first movement is in chapters 1 and 2, where we see the Spirit creating what the resurrection promises, creating a new community of people who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Chapters 3 to 7, we'll see the word speaking through suffering.
Doug McMasters: Suffering witnesses.
Doug McMasters: Chapters 8 to 12, we'll see the gospel crossing every boundary.
Doug McMasters: Every boundary that humanity has drawn gets crossed by the risen Christ through the gospel.
Doug McMasters: In chapters 13 to 15, we'll see the very center of the book in which the resurrection announces a freedom that the law could never bring.
Doug McMasters: And then in chapters 16 through 20, we'll see the gospel prevailing, not by human strength, but through human weakness, through disappointment, and through, as we'll see in a moment, midnight songs in a jail cell.
Doug McMasters: And then last of all, in chapters 21 to 28, we'll see the gospel arriving at the center of the known world of that day in Rome.
Doug McMasters: The messenger will arrive in chains, but the message he brings will be unchained and unhindered.
Doug McMasters: In the weeks ahead, we're going to look at each of these movements in some detail.
Doug McMasters: We're going to spend some time with each one of them.
Doug McMasters: We're going to meet every person in the story and understand the shape of them all.
Doug McMasters: But today I just want you to see this map as we look at it.
Doug McMasters: And as we walk through it together, I want to show you one thing above all else that the risen Jesus Christ is the one who is doing all of this work, and he's still doing it now in our day.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection has not run simply in the past.
Doug McMasters: It's not run out of boundaries to cross.
Doug McMasters: It's not run out of consequences.
Doug McMasters: And Luke is not giving us the end of a story.
Doug McMasters: He's telling us a story that's not finished yet.
Doug McMasters: So let's take a look at it.
Doug McMasters: Let's begin with the first movement in chapters one and two.
Doug McMasters: The Spirit creates what the resurrection promises.
Doug McMasters: Acts begins where Luke's gospel ends.
Doug McMasters: It begins in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: It begins with a small group of disciples of Christ, people who've experienced Christ's life, death, burial, and resurrection, and who have just spent the last 40 days very, very disoriented as they've heard the risen Christ live with them and speak with them.
Doug McMasters: They've seen Jesus, they've witnessed his resurrection, they've touched his wounds, they've eaten the fish that he made for them.
Doug McMasters: And now here they are, after he's ascended, gathered in an upper room and waiting for something that their imagination can't even begin to comprehend.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts 2, Acts chapter 2, the day arrives.
Doug McMasters: The day of Pentecost, the day when people from all over the world are gathered together in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And then something happens.
Doug McMasters: The people walk out into the community, and there speaking the wondrous works of God, the people from all over the world are hearing those things spoken in their own language.
Doug McMasters: They can hardly believe it.
Doug McMasters: And by the end of that day, that small little band that was in an upper room gathered together, waiting, now became over 3,000 people who will be marked by the apostles' teaching, by the breaking of bread, by fellowship, and by prayers.
Doug McMasters: The day began early as Peter stood in front of the crowds who had gathered to see what was going on, and as they began to draw their own conclusions about what was occurring, he stops them and tells them precisely what's happening.
Doug McMasters: And he says to them, This Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised up, and we are witnesses of his resurrection.
Doug McMasters: And he begins to pour out to them, to this Jewish community, what the theological understanding is of what's happening.
Doug McMasters: And he says to them in Acts chapter 2 and verse 33, that he that is Christ, the risen Christ, the ascended Christ, has poured out that which you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
Doug McMasters: What is he telling them?
Doug McMasters: You thought that that Jesus that unsettled the crowds, who disturbed the religious community that had opposed those in the religious hierarchy, had been done away with.
Doug McMasters: You thought that by crucifying him and burying him that you had gotten rid of a problem.
Doug McMasters: I want to tell you something, Peter says.
Doug McMasters: That is not the end of the story.
Doug McMasters: The cross is not history, the resurrection has happened, and Christ is ascended, and he is not just gone, he is actually here, and he is doing something right now.
Doug McMasters: And what he is doing is exactly what the prophets spoke about.
Doug McMasters: And so he quotes Joel, in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
Doug McMasters: And so Peter says, This is that.
Doug McMasters: What God promised is being fulfilled right now.
Doug McMasters: And so every time a church gathers, every time a church is called into existence, every time a church meets for the word of God and the breaking of bread and fellowship and prayers is an indication that the resurrected Christ is acting from his throne every time.
Doug McMasters: And that means something very significant to us as we gather here.
Doug McMasters: This church was planted over 80 years ago during a time when world war was happening, when some ladies from the edges of Queens came to this place to teach a Sunday school to some children in the White Building just over here.
Doug McMasters: And within just a few months, a church was started.
Doug McMasters: But I want to tell you something.
Doug McMasters: The church wasn't started here because those women decided for it to happen.
Doug McMasters: It happened because the resurrected Christ energized his people, these ladies, to come with a gospel message.
Doug McMasters: It energized that church to see beyond the city boundaries to come to this village on Long Island and to share the glorious gospel.
Doug McMasters: And what I want to say today is that we must see ourselves still in that light, that we are still a people gathered by the resurrected Christ, that we are still a people inhabited by the same Spirit who's working through the gospel to bring life, that we are still a community of grace and truth in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: We're not going to be for the next several months a church that studies the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be a church that's inside the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: Because what happened then is what's happening now through the risen Christ.
Doug McMasters: And so this journey that we're looking at is not a journey of history, it's a journey of our story and helps us understand where we're at now.
Doug McMasters: And it's because of this.
Doug McMasters: And these people, just like the book of Acts, are characterized by awe, they're characterized by joy, they're characterized by grace, and they are a people who are surprised even among themselves of the kind of love that's spread abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Doug McMasters: Let's move to the second movement.
Doug McMasters: That's chapters one and two.
Doug McMasters: But now take your Bible and go over to chapter five.
Doug McMasters: This one begins in chapter three, however.
Doug McMasters: And the first two chapters talking about the formation of the community are beautiful, but what comes next is hard.
Doug McMasters: We get into chapter four and we see the word of God spreading.
Doug McMasters: We see the church growing, but there's also something else happening.
Doug McMasters: Opposition arrives.
Doug McMasters: The Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection at all find themselves confronted by a community that cannot keep quit speaking about one man, Jesus, whom they claim is resurrected from the dead.
Doug McMasters: And so they arrest the apostles, they threaten the apostles, they command them to stop.
Doug McMasters: But the apostles will not stop, because with their own eyes they've seen the resurrected Christ.
Doug McMasters: How could they stop when they've seen him rise from the dead?
Doug McMasters: And so in Acts chapter 5 and verse 41, after they've been released and warned never to speak about him, they regather with the church, and it says here, they rejoiced that they were count worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the name.
Doug McMasters: Did you hear that?
Doug McMasters: They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the name.
Doug McMasters: That's a complete reorientation of somebody's life.
Doug McMasters: To be able to take suffering, to be able to take shame, to be able to take the rebuke of people that in the community were held in high esteem, and to find it a touch point of joy and a touch point of rejoicing.
Doug McMasters: What's happened to these people?
Doug McMasters: Well, what's happened to these people is that they can be sincerely joyful because they watched Jesus Christ Himself suffer and die and yet rise from the dead and ascend into glory.
Doug McMasters: And they know that if the suffering Messiah rose from the dead, this resurrected Christ can take them through whatever sufferings they might face.
Doug McMasters: And so they're glad to be named with him because suffering is not the end of the story.
Doug McMasters: And then in Acts chapter 6, we're introduced to one solitary figure.
Doug McMasters: His name is Stephen.
Doug McMasters: Stephen is a man full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.
Doug McMasters: He's a deacon, he's not an apostle.
Doug McMasters: He's become in charge of the care of those who have been overlooked inside the community of faith.
Doug McMasters: And he's seized by the religious authorities.
Doug McMasters: He's dragged before the council, and he preaches one of the most sweeping sermons of the whole New Testament, in which he goes all the way back through Israel's history and begins to show how God has revealed himself to the people, and yet, over and over and time of again, they have hardened their hearts to God's gracious activity and the revelation of his truth.
Doug McMasters: And he says, You killed the servants then, and you've killed his servant now.
Doug McMasters: Well, they didn't take very kindly to that message.
Doug McMasters: And they rushed him outside the city, and they tore off their outer garments, and they picked up stones, and they stoned him to death.
Doug McMasters: And in chapter 7, in verse 55, have a look there.
Doug McMasters: Stephen sees exactly what Psalm 110 had promised.
Doug McMasters: He gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Doug McMasters: That is very much meant to be bringing our minds and hearts back to Psalm 110.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 110, however, has a distinct difference.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 110 says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand.
Doug McMasters: Here, Stephen at the end of his life sees Jesus standing.
Doug McMasters: In Psalm 110, Jesus is to sit in the place of authority, showing that he is sovereign over all things and will reign over everything, even his enemies.
Doug McMasters: But in Acts chapter 7, Jesus is standing.
Doug McMasters: He's not seated in sovereign authority, he's standing in service.
Doug McMasters: Because the resurrection and the ascension brought us a king who does not forget his people.
Doug McMasters: He does not forget the sufferings of his children.
Doug McMasters: The Lord Jesus Christ stands to receive his child into his presence.
Doug McMasters: The death of Stephen is not the end of Stephen, it's the beginning of his resurrection existence forever.
Doug McMasters: And so here Jesus is to receive his servant, to claim victory over death.
Doug McMasters: And again, let me pause for just a moment here.
Doug McMasters: And for us to find ourselves in the middle of this, because we live in a day in which the cultural pressures on our Christian witness are increasing.
Doug McMasters: And when the social cost of being counted as one of Christ's is becoming more and more a day-to-day reality for all of us.
Doug McMasters: But what this passage is telling us is that our witness for Christ does not need the permission of our culture.
Doug McMasters: It does not need the goodwill of those who oppose us.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't need the approval of anyone outside at all.
Doug McMasters: It's a message that will flourish in spite of suffering.
Doug McMasters: That the risen Christ, who is sat at the right hand of the Father, who stands to receive Stephen, also stands in service to all of his suffering children who stand for his name and who bear the cost of his message.
Doug McMasters: And some of us know exactly what that's like.
Doug McMasters: We know what it is, perhaps not to the level or the degree where we wouldn't be here right at the moment.
Doug McMasters: We haven't died for Christ as Stephen did on that day.
Doug McMasters: But we've been in family contexts where we've had to suffer because of the name of Christ.
Doug McMasters: We've been in the middle of that when those who are the closest ones to us are in a place where our relationship is the most strained because of Christ.
Doug McMasters: We find ourselves in a place.
Doug McMasters: Where we might be at work and the door is closed because we name Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Doug McMasters: I remember talking to some men in Russia who talked about the persecution that they faced because of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And if they did not renounce Christ and embrace communism, they were not allowed to go to college.
Doug McMasters: They could not go to university, which meant that they were given lives of hard, difficult labor instead of perhaps by their giftedness and abilities to be in a spot where they could advance intellectually and contribute at a higher level.
Doug McMasters: Because of Christ, they couldn't even go to college.
Doug McMasters: And they would talk about their fathers and their grandfathers, some of whom were preachers for the gospel, who were sent to Siberia and put into work camps because of the message of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Some of us feel the temptation to be silent because we know what the cost will be if we speak.
Doug McMasters: Some of us have already suffered.
Doug McMasters: When I first came here, there was a dear lady who had come, and her husband did not want her here.
Doug McMasters: And after a while, she refused to allow her to come.
Doug McMasters: And it was agonizing as she pleaded to be able to arrive here and to be here.
Doug McMasters: And eventually he absolutely forbade her to come.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection does its deepest work for those who suffer on Christ for Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: And that's what this second movement teaches us.
Doug McMasters: Let's move to the third movement.
Doug McMasters: Let's go to chapter 8.
Doug McMasters: And here we see the resurrection breaking every human boundary from Acts 8 to 12.
Doug McMasters: Because of the persecution that arose after Stephen's death, the church begins to scatter.
Doug McMasters: And wherever they go, they carry a message with them: the message of Jesus Christ who died for sins and rose again from the dead.
Doug McMasters: Philip takes the gospel message to Samaria.
Doug McMasters: We see that in verse 4 through 8.
Doug McMasters: We also find out a little later in chapter 8 that he meets an Ethiopian government official who happens to be reading the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, and who has a question about it.
Doug McMasters: And as Philip is there, brought into this man's presence, he begins to proclaim that this person in Isaiah 53 is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Doug McMasters: And this man believes, and he carries the message of the resurrected Christ to Africa.
Doug McMasters: In Acts chapter 9, we run into a man by the name of Saul, Saul of Tarshus.
Doug McMasters: He's going down to Damascus to persecute those who have brought the message there.
Doug McMasters: And on his way, he meets Christ himself, and Christ says to him, Why are you persecuting me?
Doug McMasters: And the man who is the gospel's greatest opposer in just a short time becomes the gospel's greatest proclaimer.
Doug McMasters: And if there's any doubt about the power of the gospel to change anybody, Acts chapter 9 is the place to read.
Doug McMasters: Because there is a man who completely hated the gospel, now becomes one of its greatest proponents and proclaimers.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts chapter 10, let's flip over there.
Doug McMasters: And he receives a vision that he doesn't understand.
Doug McMasters: There's a sheet that's descended from heaven and is full of all kinds of animals that the law of Moses says is unclean.
Doug McMasters: And he hears a voice.
Doug McMasters: God says to him, What I have called clean, do not call unclean.
Doug McMasters: Three times.
Doug McMasters: Peter's, I like Peter.
Doug McMasters: He's one of those guys I call a two by four Christian.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes you need a two by four hitting you before the message sinks in.
Doug McMasters: I'm a two by four Christian too, so I like Peter.
Doug McMasters: He needs it repeated.
Doug McMasters: And he hears this and he's puzzling over what it is, and he's told to go talk to a man who's just come to him.
Doug McMasters: And before long, he's invited into the home of a Roman centurion by the name of Cornelius.
Doug McMasters: And as he's proclaiming the gospel to Cornelius, this man, Peter, a Jewish fisherman, a man whose life has been wrapped up in delineating the boundaries between his ethnic and religious heritage and the Gentiles' ethnic and religious heritage, where there was no crossing of the lines, where the promises were for him and his children alone, and his understanding of that.
Doug McMasters: He is now walking into the home of a Roman military official, and he's now proclaiming the Messiah of the people of Israel, and he is shocked to find out that the spirit falls on this man just like it had on him.
Doug McMasters: He can't believe it.
Doug McMasters: How could this be?
Doug McMasters: And he says with wonder in verse 47 of chapter 10, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who receive the Holy Spirit just as we have?
Doug McMasters: What Peter was about to discover, and what the rest of the church was about to discover, was that this was God's plan from the beginning.
Doug McMasters: When God called Abraham, some two thousand years before Peter is alive, he said to Abraham, You, in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Doug McMasters: Two thousand years before he walked into Cornelius' house, God announced that the covenant was never meant to stop at the border.
Doug McMasters: Every Gentile that we see in the book of Acts, and every non-Jewish person we see today, and every Jewish person we see today who believes on Jesus Christ are wrapped up in that promise given 2,000 years before Christ.
Doug McMasters: A promise that God made before the law of Moses, a promise God made before the temple was ever erected, a promise God made before the nation of Israel was ever delineated as a people.
Doug McMasters: The risen Christ is not improvising when he crosses these boundaries.
Doug McMasters: He's arriving and doing what God always said he was going to do.
Doug McMasters: Reach the nations.
Doug McMasters: Because the risen Christ is not a Jewish property.
Doug McMasters: It is not a Western civilization property.
Doug McMasters: He is not the property of any culture or any people or any tradition or any nation.
Doug McMasters: He's the Lord of all people.
Doug McMasters: And he's actively engaged in reaching everybody, in calling people from every tribe and every family, tearing down every wall that we as humans have erected, because those things will never stop him.
Doug McMasters: Ever.
Doug McMasters: And again, let me pause for a moment and for us just to find ourselves in this moment.
Doug McMasters: Just as these Jewish believers had to really wrestle with the question of did this actually mean what God said?
Doug McMasters: And the answer should have obviously been yes, but they had to wrestle with that and to understand that the boundaries and the borders that they had put up were not the boundaries and the borders that God was going to respect.
Doug McMasters: That he actually wanted to see himself Lord of all and not just them.
Doug McMasters: So we too have to ask ourselves some things here.
Doug McMasters: And conceptually we get it.
Doug McMasters: We can say faithfully, Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is for all peoples.
Doug McMasters: He reaches into every nation, tribe, and tongue.
Doug McMasters: But ask yourself, and I'm you don't have to say it to me at all, but ask yourself in the depth of your heart, are there neighborhoods you've kind of marked off as not reachable?
Doug McMasters: Are there people perhaps walking around our park here behind us that you look at and say, well, that's a different kind of person.
Doug McMasters: They're bringing their religion here.
Doug McMasters: Or perhaps you've met someone at work and you're thinking of an individual there, or perhaps even someone in your own home, and you're saying the gospel won't reach that person.
Doug McMasters: Um you know, that person might be the very one God's at work in right now.
Doug McMasters: These people were stopped with that very question, and they had to say, We have been wrong to think that the word of God and the good news of Jesus Christ would not go there.
Doug McMasters: So we need to reorder how we think about those neighborhoods, about those people who look different and act different and talk different and who worship differently than we do at the moment.
Doug McMasters: We need to think differently about that person at work or that family member or that neighbor.
Doug McMasters: Because God is not at all bound by any border or any boundary.
Doug McMasters: He does not characterize anybody outside like that, untouchable.
Doug McMasters: Let's move to the next section, chapters 13 to 15.
Doug McMasters: And here we see the resurrection announcing freedom.
Doug McMasters: The church at Antioch at the beginning of chapter 13 sends Paul and Barnabas out on the first missionary journey.
Doug McMasters: And they preach the gospel as they go.
Doug McMasters: And they start in the synagogues.
Doug McMasters: And we see in Acts them moving from synagogue to synagogue and even outside the synagogues, preaching Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: They proclaim the same message wherever they go.
Doug McMasters: And in chapter 13 and verse 38, we get to see a bit of what that message looks like.
Doug McMasters: This is what Paul says.
Doug McMasters: Through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
Doug McMasters: And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Doug McMasters: What a glorious message that is.
Doug McMasters: Yeah, we we love that movie with Mel Gibson where he's crying, Freedom! Right?
Doug McMasters: This is Paul's message right here.
Doug McMasters: Freedom through this man.
Doug McMasters: Everyone who believes is freed from everything that couldn't you could not be freed from by the law of Moses.
Doug McMasters: What is that freedom?
Doug McMasters: The forgiveness of sin.
Doug McMasters: That's the freedom.
Doug McMasters: Because on the cross, Christ paid for that sin.
Doug McMasters: On the resurrection, we see that that death of Christ was accepted, and the verdict is in on all who believe.
Doug McMasters: Justified, declared righteous in the eyes of a holy God, without condemnation, made a child, given an inheritance, given the hope and the promise of glory, to enter into the presence of a holy God, spotless, without blame, full of joy.
Doug McMasters: That kind of freedom.
Doug McMasters: A freedom not earned, not deserved, but given.
Doug McMasters: How?
Doug McMasters: On those who believe, on those who believe.
Doug McMasters: It requires no supplement.
Doug McMasters: It's not asking for human performance to secure it or to maintain it.
Doug McMasters: It stands finished by the one who accomplished it himself, Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: However, let's go to Acts chapter 15.
Doug McMasters: The Jewish council has to gather.
Doug McMasters: And they're gathering for a very, very important reason.
Doug McMasters: They're not gathering to find out what kind of color the carpeting should be when they make the renovations of the building that they're about to worship in.
Doug McMasters: The stakes could not be higher.
Doug McMasters: Jewish teachers have traveled to the Gentile churches and they've told the new believing Gentiles something.
Doug McMasters: In verse one.
Doug McMasters: That they have to be circumcised.
Doug McMasters: And so the council gathers to take up this question.
Doug McMasters: And Peter says it pretty plainly.
Doug McMasters: Why are you trying to put a yoke upon their neck which we and our fathers could not bear?
Doug McMasters: Why are you doing that?
Doug McMasters: Why are you telling them to carry this burden?
Doug McMasters: And he says in verse 11, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the same way they are.
Doug McMasters: It's not about adding anything, it's the freedom that's announced by the resurrected Christ, that they are adamant to preserve.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah talked about it when he prophesied about the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 61, he said, and Jesus picks up these words at the beginning of his ministry: the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he's anointed me to preach what?
Doug McMasters: Liberty to those who are captives.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus, after he had read that passage, said, Today this scripture is fulfilled before your very eyes.
Doug McMasters: Christ came to preach freedom.
Doug McMasters: Freedom.
Doug McMasters: The gospel of freedom.
Doug McMasters: And this is what is being preserved here and being proclaimed here.
Doug McMasters: They're telling us something, that the resurrection has made the good news free, that the yoke of performance has been lifted, that the burden of earning a standing before God is gone because of the cross.
Doug McMasters: We don't add to the gospel, we don't improve on the gospel.
Doug McMasters: We are accepted in the one he loves.
Doug McMasters: That's the good news.
Doug McMasters: Now let me pause again here for us, because I think there is a tendency sometimes in Christian circles, and not just our congregation, but in congregations all over the world, in which people come into a church and they think that their standing before God is somehow dependent upon how good they do or how bad they do on any given day.
Doug McMasters: And they've got this ledger in their mind.
Doug McMasters: There are the things that I do that are good, and the things that I don't do that I should do, and the things that I shouldn't do that I keep on doing.
Doug McMasters: And they think that they're going to take that ledger before a holy God and hope that one day the plus side is bigger than the negative side.
Doug McMasters: I have to tell you this: that is not the message of the cross.
Doug McMasters: That is not the good news.
Doug McMasters: This isn't about whether or not you can add up your better days and see that they have more weight than your worst days.
Doug McMasters: It isn't about that at all.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures say that we are delivered from all things that we could not be delivered from by the law of Moses.
Doug McMasters: Did you hear that?
Doug McMasters: So all those things that the law prohibits that you say, Well, I'm not doing that, and I'm not doing that, and I'm not doing that, those things cannot save you.
Doug McMasters: They cannot deliver you.
Doug McMasters: Believing on Christ is the only thing that delivers you.
Doug McMasters: Bringing yourself to Him.
Doug McMasters: But even after we become believers, we can turn that same structure into I'm having a good day spiritually, I'm having a bad day spiritually, God is closer to me on my good days, God's further away from me on my bad days.
Doug McMasters: He's your father.
Doug McMasters: And yes, he will care for you just like a father does.
Doug McMasters: And there will be days when you will feel the warm sensations of his presence and the promises soak deeply into your soul to your delight through the day.
Doug McMasters: And then there are other times where duties or even your own determination, you feel distracted from his presence, but he will never ever leave you or forsake you.
Doug McMasters: This isn't about him going, no, not today, buddy.
Doug McMasters: No, you did your devotions today.
Doug McMasters: Oh, you forgot to pray this evening.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't do that.
Doug McMasters: You don't bring your ledger into the days in which you feel closer to God and mark it down because you did your devotions, you did your daily prayer, you spoke about the gospel to the person at work that you've been meaning to talk to.
Doug McMasters: And all of a sudden God's saying, Hey, that's great.
Doug McMasters: I'm gonna let's spend some time together this evening.
Doug McMasters: It's not like that.
Doug McMasters: We are accepted in the beloved.
Doug McMasters: His attitude toward us is not warmer or cooler based upon whether or not we did what we think we should do every day in our spiritual disciplines.
Doug McMasters: Let's move on to the next movement.
Doug McMasters: The fourth movement tells us that the resurrection announces freedom.
Doug McMasters: The fifth movement, in chapters 16 to 20, shows us that the resurrection prevails through weakness.
Doug McMasters: I'd like for you to turn to chapter 17.
Doug McMasters: Paul begins his second journey as a missionary, taking the gospel now into Europe.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts chapter 16, he finds himself in Philippi, and things look good for a while.
Doug McMasters: Prayer meeting by the river, he engages, a merchant woman that the Lord opens the heart of and she believes, a slave girl delivered, all looks good.
Doug McMasters: But then an angry mob, and then a public meeting, and then a prison cell.
Doug McMasters: And yet, even in the middle of that, Paul and Silas are singing.
Doug McMasters: They're not singing because they're strong, they're in a prison, they're singing in the middle of weakness because they know in the middle of that dark place that Christ is with them.
Doug McMasters: But we get to Acts chapter 17 and verse 5, and we find that Paul begins to bring the gospel forward, and things are troubling.
Doug McMasters: Philippi's not just the end of it, he's driven out of Thessalonica, he's mocked in Athens, he's worn down by opposition, he's isolated in his missionary life and journey, and he's tired.
Doug McMasters: And he gets to chapter 18 and verse 10.
Doug McMasters: And there he is, not triumphant, but worn out.
Doug McMasters: Not fearsome as a preacher, but fearful.
Doug McMasters: And in Acts 18 and verse 9 and 10, he hears something from Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Do not be afraid.
Doug McMasters: You ever think about Paul being afraid?
Doug McMasters: Do not be afraid.
Doug McMasters: But go on speaking.
Doug McMasters: Do not be silent.
Doug McMasters: It probably was.
Doug McMasters: Do not be silent, for I'm with you.
Doug McMasters: And no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city.
Doug McMasters: No, notice what Christ doesn't say to him.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't say, you know, you've you've had a good run.
Doug McMasters: Why don't you take a vacation now?
Doug McMasters: Doesn't say that.
Doug McMasters: He also doesn't say, hey, remember your calling.
Doug McMasters: Come on.
Doug McMasters: Pick up pick pick yourself up and get going.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't say that to him either.
Doug McMasters: What does he say with him to him?
Doug McMasters: I'm with you.
Doug McMasters: I have many people in this city that you haven't even met yet.
Doug McMasters: And no one's going to harm you because I'm going to send you to those people.
Doug McMasters: What is he saying here?
Doug McMasters: That God is able to use weak, frightened, even tempted to silence servants when they're tired and worn out and feeling like that they're they're at the end of themselves.
Doug McMasters: Because the servant who came to accomplish the salvation of the world did not enter into this world full of power.
Doug McMasters: He entered into this world as a baby.
Doug McMasters: He entered into this world like Isaiah 52 and 53 talk about.
Doug McMasters: He was despised and rejected of men.
Doug McMasters: And what Acts chapter 16 to 20 shows us is that the Spirit who energized Christ to be the suffering servant to bring salvation to the world is still working through suffering servants to bring the message of salvation to the world.
Doug McMasters: That the gospel is advancing through a beaten missionary.
Doug McMasters: That the gospel is advancing just like the pattern that was laid down by Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: That the resurrection prevails, even though the messengers of the resurrection are weak people.
Doug McMasters: That God advances his good news through ordinary, flawed, sometimes frightened, and often exhausted people.
Doug McMasters: And guess what we are?
Doug McMasters: Ordinary, flawed, sometimes frightened, and often exhausted people.
Doug McMasters: And guess what?
Doug McMasters: God moves through us just like He did Paul.
Doug McMasters: Because weakness does something.
Doug McMasters: What weakness does is it removes any handhold on human ability or human ingenuity or human achievement.
Doug McMasters: And so when the earthquake happens and the doors of all the jail cells open up, and one man cries out of the midst of that earthquake, save me! There's not a single person looking over at Paul going, Boy, what a mighty missionary you are.
Doug McMasters: Not a single one.
Doug McMasters: Weakness creates the absence of human resources.
Doug McMasters: Weakness creates the absence of any human explanation for what's happening.
Doug McMasters: And so what does happen, everybody without fail and without reserve and without questions can say, that's God at work.
Doug McMasters: That's God at work.
Doug McMasters: This morning I sent these words over to Kevin Cooney.
Doug McMasters: Because last night when we were talking, he said, I'm being sorely afflicted.
Doug McMasters: And so this morning I said, read these words for your encouragement.
Doug McMasters: God's not asking you to remember your calling and to stand up and get yourself moving.
Doug McMasters: He's telling you, he's got you right where he wants you because he wants to move through you despite how weak you are, despite how hard it is.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't matter.
Doug McMasters: And so we too should not despise our weaknesses, but embrace them.
Doug McMasters: Because through those weaknesses, the scriptures tell us that God is strong and his grace is sufficient to meet us in those moments.
Doug McMasters: Now that brings us to our last one.
Doug McMasters: And I just want to close with this one.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection cannot be chained.
Doug McMasters: The last movement in the book of Acts shows Paul in prison in many different places and ways.
Doug McMasters: He's arrested in Jerusalem, he's accused falsely, he's tried before the governors and kings.
Doug McMasters: He's in the middle of conspiracies, he's in the middle of bureaucratic delays, he's in the middle of a two-year imprisonment because someone who's in charge of his freedom is waiting for a bribe that he doesn't give.
Doug McMasters: And then he's eventually brought to Rome.
Doug McMasters: But first he has to go through a storm that looks like it would kill everybody on the ship.
Doug McMasters: And he gets on the shore, and there's a snake that bites him that should have killed him.
Doug McMasters: But eventually, in Acts chapter 28, he arrives in Rome.
Doug McMasters: He arrives there.
Doug McMasters: And look in Acts chapter 28 at how Luke finishes this book.
Doug McMasters: Acts chapter 28, he says these words.
Doug McMasters: Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and he welcomed all who visited him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
Doug McMasters: No limits.
Doug McMasters: What a weird way to finish a story, huh?
Doug McMasters: Starts off with this blaze of the ascension of Christ and the work of the ascension of Christ to move his people to be proclaimers with boldness of a gospel in the middle of a city that had just crucified their Lord.
Doug McMasters: And it ends with a man in a house teaching all who come.
Doug McMasters: But the last words without hindrance.
Doug McMasters: What Acts chapter 28 is telling us is that Acts chapter 28 is not the end of the story.
Doug McMasters: Acts chapter 28 is only the beginning of a story that's going and has gone from that day until now.
Doug McMasters: That the gospel, though its messengers might be in chains, is not in chains.
Doug McMasters: And though the messengers might be held in a house, it's not hindered by anybody's house.
Doug McMasters: That it's a message that keeps going.
Doug McMasters: And as we've read the book of Acts, no Sanhedrin, no Roman governors, no emperor, no storm at sea, no snake on the beach is going to make that good news hindered at all.
Doug McMasters: It's going to go forward.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because it's energized by the resurrected Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: And so here we are, 2026, New Hyde Park, gathered together.
Doug McMasters: Acts didn't end in Rome, and it didn't end here, but has been brought here.
Doug McMasters: And we can say about this message that we carry the same thing that Paul could say: it is unchained and it is unhindered.
Doug McMasters: And so as we go through this message, let us read what Luke has to tell us.
Doug McMasters: That we stand not on the foundation of this story as though we're reading a history.
Doug McMasters: We are in this story, vibrantly and alive, and still experiencing what God is doing through the good news of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: If you've been a believer for a long time, just find yourself in that story.
Doug McMasters: If you've been drifting as a believer, find yourself brought back to the realities that this story talks about.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your Savior, the same message that brought life to every single person that we meet in this book is still alive today.
Doug McMasters: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
Doug McMasters: That is a message today that comes with the good will and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ who is in heaven, sending it out through his messengers to your ears this morning, so that you might believe and be saved.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for this journey that we're about to embark on.
Doug McMasters: We thank you for showing us the map today.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, as we begin to make our forward steps through it, we pray that every movement of emphasis will be felt deeply and experienced well by us and understood completely.
Doug McMasters: We pray, Father, that we might find ourselves afresh and anew before the resurrected Christ, knowing that there's not a distance between heaven and the peace of earth in which we step, but that Christ, who is Lord over all and there ascended, is still operating, still working, still moving through weak, tired, even frightened, and often silent people to bring all of his good will and purposes to bear.
Doug McMasters: And so we pray, Father, may your will be done on earth as it is also in heaven, and give us as we do so our daily bread.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.