Introduction to Luke and Acts - Clothed In Power

Message from Steve Holt on 03/22/2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Steve Holt. I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast. Each week we go into God's Word. We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world. So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life. So I want to open with, um, and I don't know how far we're gonna get in this study because I've got a ton of notes. I've got way more notes than I can cover. So it could be that we only get halfway through, but I'm not gonna fudge on what I feel like I need to say. So it could be we pick it up again, we will pick it up next Sunday, but it'll I won't have to study as much on Monday because I'll already have my notes because I didn't get through the one for today. But um, in December of 2024, I was at a party. We had a Christmas party at our house with all our pastors and their wife, and we were going around praying for each pastor and wife, couple, and prophesying over them, whatever God gave us. And one of the prophetic words given to me was vintage church. One of our staff gave me vintage church. So vintage, I didn't know what it meant exactly, but it basically in a nutshell means something that's old or something of high quality. Something that's old or something of high quality, i.e., vintage car, you know, vintage wine. Well, God spoke to me, I don't know, six months ago, that the meaning of that, which was six months before, was the book of Acts. That if we were to look at what is vintage church, you can't move forward in any understanding of God's mission for the church without looking at in the scriptures, the vintage church that comes to us from the book of Acts. It's the Acts of the Apostles. As a matter of fact, it's the origins of the Christian church. That was the title for Luke and Acts, because they were combined together in the first two centuries. There was Luke, which was not called Luke. All of it was called the origins of the Christian church, the original name. And so as we launch out, and we're called the Road Church. Does anyone know why we're called the Road Church? Do you remember the poem by Robert Frost? So it's called The Road Not Taken, but we we talked about the Road Less Traveled. So I'm looking around at some of the original group, they would know that it was through the brokenness and the pain that Liz and I had gone through at Mountain Springs that it birthed this church. So let's so listen, guys, this is a road less traveled in the book of Acts. And what I mean is I've got I've got six commentaries on Acts. I study those commentaries a good bit, but at the end of the day, this I believe that we're gonna go through probably for the next year, is about the vintage church of what God wants. So let me give you some thoughts. I'm just gonna read these that I believe are three key themes. Okay? So if you're a note taker, which I can tell most of you in this room are, three key themes about the book of Acts. Number one, that the church is called to carry on the mission of Jesus. That's what we're gonna learn that. The mission of healing, exorcism, setting the captives free, and to the extent she is doing the ministry of Jesus, the closer she is to being God's vintage church. So you're gonna see that. And I'll explain it in the introduction today. Number two, that the church is to be and bring the kingdom of God from heaven to earth. We pray that. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Doing what Jesus did, speaking what Jesus spoke, praying as Jesus prayed, equipping the kingdom of God in men and women, citizens of the kingdom, you're a citizen of the kingdom as Jesus did. We will learn that when the church is in the presence and power of the word and the spirit, miracles happen. Number three, we are a city on a hill. We are a city on a hill, an outpost of the kingdom. We are a society of citizens of the kingdom in the middle of the city of man. So it was St. Augustine who talked about the city of God and the city of man. We will see that when the church is alive in the word and the spirit, she will make an impact that transforms culture. As one author has written, quote, this real-world visible community is the family of the Father, the body of the Son, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. It exists to transform and renew human societies inside and out, top to bottom. So what made me and this church so popular on the one hand, between 2020 2020 to 2023, was the stands that we took. What made us so unpopular were the stands that we took. So I could have added a fourth point, and that is every time you take a stand for the kingdom, you guarantee persecution. We will see that in the book of Acts that if you if you stand at work in your family, in the context of society as a whole, and become a kingdom citizen, really a kingdom citizen, just expect persecution. It's going to come your way. And the more you can handle persecution, the more God will anoint you with his power. So exciting. So I'm really, really excited about the book of Acts. So how many of you are into movie sequels? Anybody into movie sequels? Okay. All right. So let's talk about some flops. Let's talk about some duds out there. As I recall, in my biography, Batman and Robin was a huge fail. You don't know like most of you like, I don't even remember that. It's which should indicate that it was a bigger Speed Two was a huge fail, and Son of the Mask were massive fails. But then there were others that were huge mega hits, like Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, and the Avengers. Well, the Acts of the Apostles is a sequel. Okay, it's a sequel. It's a sequel from the Gospel of Luke. So the original name was the History of the Christian Origins, which included the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles in one volume. Well, then as the church grew, and don't listen to those naysayers that are out there that say we can't trust our canon of scripture, as the scriptures were being understood to be truly the scriptures, as they were at that time in the first, second, and third century, they decided, the church fathers, we call them the patristic fathers, decided to place volumes of the books into a particular new order. So they had Matthew, Mark, and John, which were the gospels of the life of Jesus, and they knew that there was this origins of the Christian church that had a kind of a part one and a part two. And so this part one was the was very similar to Matthew, Mark, and John. It was called Luke. So they called it Luke after the author. That was that was cut out of the origins of the Christian church, and it became a different volume, and it was a part of the gospel. So listen to this. The church, I mean, it must have been a pastor that helped decide this because pastors always have rhyme schemes and three points and all that. But they decided to have the gospel and the apostle. Okay, the gospel and the apostle. So guess what? Gospel, Luke, went with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that became what you have in your Bibles today in the New Testament. And then the apostle is what we now call the Acts of the Apostles, which is misnamed. Acts of the Apostles is misnamed. Because the only apostles that are even really mentioned is Peter and Paul. But I mean, there's a little bit about Philip and some other guys, but really we've come to believe, as we look at it from the perspective of orthopraxy, the practical aspects of what we see in Acts, that it's the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit working through the body of Christ. So since Luke is volume one and Acts is volume two, turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter one. So let's just go to Luke, Luke chapter one, and I want to open today with the first four verses, and then we'll go to Acts 1 after that. Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, verse 3, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know with certainty of those things of which you were instructed. So the Gospel of Luke is actually the beginning of both volumes. Okay, and we're gonna go to Acts in just a second, and it's gonna sound very similar in volume two what he said here. But I want to give you five things about Luke. Five things about Luke for you to understand his perspective in writing this. Number one, he was a close associate of the apostle Paul and is indicated in the second half of Acts as we. So he changes from Peter said, Peter did, Paul said, Paul did, to we. So he was an associate with Paul. We believe he was saved by Paul. He came to know Christ probably through Paul, but that he actually accompanied him on those missionary journeys in the latter part of his life and the latter part of Acts. But he was not a part of the life of Jesus. So he was not one of the original twelve. He's not an apostle in that sense. We might call him a small A apostle, but not a capital A apostle, but he's a close associate of Paul. Number two, Luke was probably not an eyewitness to the gospel of Luke. So he's what he's doing, he's compiling data about the life of Jesus, and in part of the book of Acts, he's actually in the narrative with Paul. Number three, Luke is a preeminent historian. Really important, preeminent historian, probably the greatest in antiquity on the level of the Jewish historian Josephus. So a lot of what we know, men and women, about the early days of Judaism in the time of Christ came from Josephus, who was just a noteworthy Jewish historian. Well, anybody worth their salt theologically and historically will tell you Luke is in that category, that he's up there with Josephus. And what we have and what we know about the first 50 years or so of the early church comes from the book of Acts written by Luke. Number four, Luke was a physician. So Paul refers to him as Luke, the beloved physician, in Colossians 4.14. And during his second imprisonment, Paul mentions that Luke is the only one with me. So that's 2 Timothy 4.11. So Luke's uh well educated, he's a physician. And then number five, more than likely Luke is a Gentile. This is really interesting. So he's he's not Jewish, so he's the only Gentile writer in the New Testament. And the reason we think of that, and you might write this down, is Colossians 4, 10 through 14, where he's not mentioned as one of the circumcision. So we don't know for sure, but most people believe he was a Gentile. He was not considered one of the circumcision. And then he's writing, look what we look what we said here, look back at verse 3. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things, that from the very first to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus. So what and who is Theophilus? Well, his name means friend of God, Theo, Theophilus, so Theo, God, Philus, where we have get the word, that would be the root word for Philadelphia, which means friend, a city of friendship is what Philadelphia means. And it's believed that Theophilus was of the wealthy class, and he probably paid for Luke to write his history. Because here's what began to happen in the early church, and we'll talk more about this in the weeks and months to come that as the church became less and less Jewish and became much more Gentile-run and directed by the Gentiles, which at the beginning it's all Jewish, it's a Jewish sect, and that's why many believed at the beginning, especially in Jerusalem, that it was kind of a derivative of Judaism, and that caused problems later when Paul gets saved, and Paul begins to talk about justification by faith, not by works, and he begins to break away from the Jewish church. That there was this solid middle class. So in the Roman colonies, there was actually a middle class that had come out of Greece with the Greek culture and the Roman culture. But what was happening is there was this radical group of what they call Judaizers that were wanting to paint the Christian church, wasn't called Christian yet, but to paint this sect of Judaism into a Jewish part, a part of the Jewish religion, which meant that you had to become Jewish before you could become a believer in Jesus. That makes sense? So then when you begin to see especially, jot this down, especially the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians defines the Christian church, and then after that, Romans became huge, and I've been so fascinated with Romans again recently, studying Romans again, just going all the way through chapter by chapter and verse by verse through Romans, because that's where your doctrinal foundations are of the church. So here's what I'm saying: Theophilus probably had a vision for reaching the middle class. He wanted to reach that middle class, not Jewish, not hyper-Jewish. They were already, they already hated Christianity. And then the Greeks had their own set of issues that we won't go into as far as the their view of the gods, but there was a solid middle class that was being missed in those early days of the church. And Luke Acts, I'm gonna just say Luke Acts, the history of Christian origins. That's the target. That's the target audience is going after that middle class. And we believe that Theophilus paid for this, for the writing of this narrative that we have. So now turn to the book of Acts. So let's turn to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 1, and we'll just dive right in. And very similar, sounds very similar to Luke chapter 1. So here he says, the former account I made, oh Theophilus. So here's Theophilus again. So the former account means the gospel of Luke, of all that Jesus began. Now, I like to underline sometimes and I like to circle sometimes. So I circle began in my study Bible. That Jesus began both to do and teach. That's huge, you guys. You don't even know, probably, how huge that is in understanding this bridge between Luke and Acts. Until the day in which he was taken up, after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. Now, this is important. We are continuing the ministry and the teaching of Jesus in the 21st century. The book of Acts is a continuance of the ministry of Jesus. He only began his ministry in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But now he's continuing it. But it's now going to be through the church. So men and women, we have 28 chapters in Acts. We're writing chapter 29 right now. This is Acts 29 now. This is a continue. It only started with Jesus. And then he's going to release his Holy Spirit upon the citizens of the kingdom, you and I who believe in him and put our faith in Christ, and his works flow through us, the church, now. So the church is not this building, the church is not an organization, as we would tend to think of it, the road church as an organization. No, it's the road church as an organism. It's you and me. We're the church. So we're the citizens of the kingdom. So we bring Jesus to work. We bring Jesus into our marriage. We bring Jesus into our deepest pain. You bring Jesus into your cancer. You bring Jesus into the battles that you have relationally. Because all that the gospel of Luke is, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all of those, all of those narratives of the life of Christ, that's just what he started to do. And now for 2,000 years, he's been flowing, continuing to flow across the globe with the greatest movement the world has ever known. The Church of Jesus Christ. In all kinds of stripes and in all kinds of liturgies. And I mean, people do communion differently. Some people call it the Lord's Supper, some people call it communion, some call it the Eucharist. Baptism, somebody sprinkle them. I was sprinkled with baptism as an infant. But here we dunk them. And it doesn't count, and they don't get all wet. Some of you have been around with me even when I was at Mountain Springs, and you've probably seen me do this. Like, you didn't do that right. I've said that to my pastors. And they go, what? He says, there's there's the top of his head is still dry. Get that guy back in there again, you know. You know, and you have you have churches you go to and you're standing and you're sitting and you're standing and you're seeing the pastor says this and you say that, and you confess your sins every week and all that. That's that's the universal nature of the church. And hopefully you come to the road church because we do it the way we do it. But that's beautiful, it's all beautiful. But it's it's the church is citizens of the kingdom who are continuing the ministry of Jesus on earth, and that's how we pray. A kingdom come, they will be done on earth. We're bringing the kingdom from heaven down to earth in the way we live. The finished work of Jesus is the cross. But the unfinished work of Jesus is his work in us, the church. You guys are all unfinished business. It's okay to be unfinished. Because sanctification takes a lifetime. It's the walk of faith. Hope to hope. Day by day. Glory to glory. It's not a hop of faith. It's not a jump of faith. It's a walk of faith. Sanctification is a process. It's an unfinished work. The cross is the finished work. Good Friday. We're going to come in here and there's going to be some centurions at the doors. And it's going to be super dark. Anybody not done? Not done. Good Friday with us, raise your hand. All right. So if you haven't done it, you need to come. It's going to spook you out a little bit. And we do that on purpose. But it's dark, the whole room's dark. Dark music. Because we want you to feel the finished work of the cross. And we conclude Good Friday with, it is finished. Jesus' words, it is finished. Meaning that he'll never have to go to the cross again. You don't have to go to the cross. He went to the cross for you. He went to the cross and forgave all your sins if you put your faith in him. You put your faith in him, resurrection begins. Because it's on resurrection day, we call it Easter, on Sunday, three days later. That's why we did the Apostles' Creed. That's the finished work. But God's not finished with you. Right? We're all unfinished business. So that's the church. That's the church, gang. That's who we are. We're unfinished works. All of us are. He finished it all there. But it's as we grow to apply the cross to our lives that we become more like Christ. Galatians 2.20. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who was delivered up for me. So it's that walk of faith with him that we're saved, and it's the walk of faith with him that we're sanctified with him. So this is the story of the church. Look at verse 3. In whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs. Underlying many infallible proofs. That's a preview of Resurrection Day. That's a preview of Easter, you guys. So look at Luke 24. If you just turn to Luke 24, this is the very last chapter of Luke. I felt like we should look at it because this is what he's referring to. He's referring to his first volume, where he actually wrote down as an historian what those infallible proofs are. So give you another little hint of what I do. Put brackets. I'll take a passage and put brackets around it. Put brackets with a pen, verses 36 down to 41. 36 down to 41, and write in the margin, write infallible proofs. Infallible proofs that Jesus rose from the grave. This is not subjective. This isn't a feeling that they had. This isn't this idea of the swoon theory, which became very famous in the first few centuries. Jesus actually wasn't dead. He kind of swooned. Okay. I mean, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be super convinced that he rose from the grave if I've got a Savior in front of me that's kind of, you know, he's kind of half dead and half alive, mostly dead. No, he came and there were infallible proofs that were given. And Luke describes it. Look at verse 36. Now, as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, Peace be to you. Verse 37. But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit, and he said to them, Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold, look at my hands and my feet. That it is I myself. Handle me, see, touch me. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. But while they still did not believe for joy and marveled, I mean, look at this. How many of you struggle with believing sometimes? Right? Don't you? It's okay. They're seeing the resurrected Christ. They've been with him for three and a half years. He's showing them his hands and feet. He says, handle me, you can touch me. And it says, some of them don't believe. So any of those days in your life where you're going, why do I struggle with faith and believing? Look what God's done. Go back to a passage like this and realize there's grace for that, there's grace for you. They're actually looking at the resurrected Jesus and they have struggled believing. Verse 41, so, but while they stood and did not believe for joy and marveled, he said, Have you any food here? So they gave him a piece of a borrowed fish and some honeycomb, and he took it and ate it in the break. See what Jesus is doing? He's showing them that he's really, really physically there. That he is the one who physically died. Now he's physically alive. And what we're gonna see in Acts chapter 1 is what he does over the next 40 days with the early church to wake them up to this incredible calling. They have no idea about of how God's gonna use them in a mighty and powerful way. So not subjective, infallible truth for 40 days. Being seen by them, go back to verse 3 in Acts, being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Well, Jesus is just fascinated with the kingdom of God. He's always going back to the kingdom of God. He speaks over a hundred times in the Gospels of the Kingdom of God. He tells us to pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He tells us to seek first the kingdom of God over anything else. So Jesus continues this school of the Holy Spirit, this school of the kingdom for the next 40 days. Get it? So when I was at Karis Bible College doing a program with Andrew Walmack, I was in the back with the director of the Karis Bible College, and he was fascinated by the answers that I gave because when we were talking about this church, talking about you guys, I talked so much about the kingdom. So then that led to us discussing the fact that Keris didn't have any kind of a course on the kingdom of God. So many of us have heard about the kingdom, but we haven't been taught the things of the kingdom. And so what Jesus is doing is preparing them for the importance of the kingdom of God. Verse 4. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You've heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. This is crazy. Guys, this is crazy. Can you imagine resurrected Christ standing in front of you? He shows you his hands and his feet. He eats with you for 40 days. He's with you, talking about the things of the kingdom. All right. That's pretty powerful stuff, right? And then he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. He's saying, Go, go, go. And then he says, wait. Don't go. What is that? Commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. Wait on the power. Well, I'm going to stop here for today. Is it just too much here? I needed to do the introduction. So next week, we're going to talk about what are you waiting on? What are we waiting on? Because this becomes the cornerstone, this becomes the theme of everything in the book of Acts. What they're waiting on is the power of the Holy Spirit. So here's our question as we conclude. Can you live the Christian life? Can you live the Christian life? The answer is no. You don't have what it takes. You can't be good enough. You can't be righteous enough. You can't have the best morals enough to ever earn the kingdom, to ever earn heaven. But Christ is good enough. And Christ is the righteous one. And Christ and his blood is the power that we need to set us free. So for many of us in this room, we've lived our lives trying, trying, trying. That's called religion. And Jesus challenges us to trust in him and let him be our salvation. That's what next week's about. It's the power of the Holy Spirit, not the power of self-effort, that gets us into the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast. We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world. For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org. That's theroad.org.