Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
12 Feb 2011
Acts 1:1-3
“Series” God’s Vision and Power for Shell Point Baptist
Acts: A Church’s one Foundation
INTRO: The early church was mighty in its infancy.
The plague of apathy, the disease of inertness and indifference and unconcern, was not known among this church.
They were zealous, all fired up to carry out the Lord's will.
The freshness of the resurrection was reflected in every aspect of their lives.
What has happened to us today!
Aren't we in love with the Same Lord? Shouldn't we bear the same family likeness as the early church?
What made them vigorous-convincing in their witness can make us vigorous and alive also.
Through this series I want to share with you the things that made them different and the things that we have lost in the last 2 millennia
By studying the book of Acts we'll give ourselves a biblical STANDARD to follow.
This is important because the sad truth is many churches don't pattern themselves after God's original design.
Instead they organize themselves and operate according to the latest trend.
They copy what other churches are doing and if this continues to happen then churches eventually become less and less like the New Testament model and more and more like the fallen world around them.
It's the same sort of thing that happens when you use a Photostat machine and copy a copy of a copy of a copy.
Eventually you get a very blurred image-after a while you can no longer read the writing.
As any good secretary will tell you, the only way to get a good copy is to copy the original.
Well for a similar reason it's vital that churches always refer to the New Testament model-
otherwise over the years if they're not careful they will resemble it less and less and eventually they'll FORGET who they are called to be and what they are called to do as God's people.
Acts 1:1-3 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
I am glad that God puts it in the heart of some doctors to do more than medicine.
I thank God for that. But the doctor I am most thankful for in all the world is the doctor called Luke.
In Colossians 4:14 Paul calls him "the beloved physician."
We meet him for the first time in Troas where he joins Paul and Silas and Timothy on the second missionary journey (Acts 16:10, note the "we").
He may have been converted there and joined the missionary team as a kind of staff doctor.
But O how much more than a doctor he became!
It happened like this, Luke arrived in Jerusalem with Paul (21:17) and left with him on their voyage to Rome (27:10).
In between was a period of more than two years, during which Paul was held a prisoner in Caesarea (24:27),
Luke was a free man.
It would be reasonable to guess that he travelled the length and breadth of Palestine,
gathering material for his Gospel and for the early Jerusalem-based chapters of the Acts.
I find one of Paul's most moving sentences in his last letter (2 Timothy 4:11) during his final imprisonment in Rome. He says simply, "Luke alone is with me."
All these years in all these travels, including two years in Palestine, Luke is taking notes about the works and words of Jesus and the progress of the church.
Finally God moves him to write a two-volume work that makes up more of the New Testament than what any other New Testament writer wrote, including the apostle Paul.
Luke's Aim in Writing
He wrote the Gospel According to Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles.
And his immediate purpose in writing them was to help a man named Theophilus see the truth about what Jesus did and taught
and how the church spread throughout the Roman world.
It may help to see this first-hand. In Luke 1:3–4 he writes: 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Theophilus is probably some kind of Roman official because of the title "most excellent" which Luke uses only for Roman officials like Felix (Acts 23:26) and Festus (Acts 26:25), the governors of Judea.
Luke's aim was to give him a faithful account of what Jesus did and said and then of the progress of the church in the world.
This morning I want to begin a series of messages on the second volume of Luke's work, the Acts of the Apostles.
And I think if I just dive right in, you'll see why this is so relevant for us today. So let's focus this morning only on the first three verses.
First was the Beginning of Jesus' Deeds and Teaching
The key word for understanding the relevance of the book of Acts is the word "began” in verse one.
Luke says, "In the first book—in the gospel—I dealt with all that Jesus BEGAN to do and to teach until his Ascension into heaven after his resurrection."
The gospel of Luke ends (in Luke 24:51–53) with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven.
And Luke says that the story he told, ending with the ascension of Jesus into heaven, was the BEGINNING of the teaching ministry of Jesus.
It was the BEGINNING of the deeds of Jesus.
Jesus had instructed His disciples by both deed and word.
And Paul confirms this for us:
Paul is one of the main human heroes of the book of Acts.
Half the book could be called the Acts of Paul.
But listen to what was really happening in the ministry of Paul (from Romans 15:18–19):
18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what CHRIST HAS ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH ME in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God.
Whatever Paul accomplished for the kingdom, it was Jesus doing and teaching.
Note the same pair of words: Christ worked through me "by word and deed."
Jesus is speaking and acting.
He is alive, and he is building his church.
That is what the book of Acts is about. And that is why it is so relevant for us today.
Jesus is still alive. He will always be alive! He is still speaking and working.
He is building his church, wherever people come under the authority of his name and receive his forgiveness for sins and trust his power.
That is what we long to see happen more and more in this city and among all the unreached peoples of the world.
Don’t we long to see people come to know Jesus?
Shouldn’t that be our first priority?
It is axiomatic that those who would carry the message of Christ to the world must know what that message is.
You can’t teach somebody something that you yourself are unsure of…
There must be an accurate understanding of the content of Christian truth before any ministry can be effective.
Such knowledge is foundational to spiritual power and to fulfilling Shell Point’s mission.
The lack of it is insurmountable and devastating to the evangelistic purpose of God.
The apostle Paul was so concerned about this that it was central to his desire for all believers;
Listen to what he wrote for us: Ephesians 1:18-19
And the writer of Hebrews rebuked some of his readers’ ignorance of the truth….
Heb 5:12 “ In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!”
Mere factual knowledge, of course, was powerless to save those Hebrews, or anyone else, unless it was believed and lived.
You can go around all day long believing in Jesus and His word, but you need to live it.
The more you believe, the more you live it.
Your faith in Christ is a determinate to your lifestyle.
You see, if I say I believe I have faith, and then I continue to conform to this world,
my faith is not sincere or genuine.
Paul admonished believers to “adorn the doctrine” they had been taught by how they lived their lives.
He said “show yourself to be an example of good deeds….sound in speech…showing all good faith that you may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect” (Titus 2:7, 8,10)
What adorns that message, or makes it believable, is a holy life that clearly demonstrates God can save from sin.
The messenger (Shell Point) must manifest the power of the message they are proclaiming.
Jesus preached righteousness.
Shell point must preach the same message and strive to live it as perfectly as we can.
Two major factors contribute to the church’s powerlessness today.
First, many are ignorant of biblical truth.
They just don’t continue to enable God’s spirit in them.
They may come to church but never open the Bible up during the week.
They may not even know where the Sermon on the Mount, or salvation Scriptures are located in the Bible.
So how can you expect to live a Godly witnessing life without foundation in your soul.
Second, those who may know biblical truth all too often fail to live by it.
So proclaiming an erroneous message is tragic.
And so is proclaiming the truth but giving scant evidence that one’s life has been transformed by it.
Such people cannot expect others to be moved by their proclamation.
The work of Jesus Christ is both finished and unfinished.
His great work of redemption is finished, and nothing may be added to it.
His work of ministry and proclamation, however, is not finished.
That work He only started.
It is up to us as a church to continue His work.
It is only the Beginning of Jesus' Work
That is the point of the book of Acts and that is why we exist as a church.
The book of Acts is not just the Acts of the Apostles; it is the acts of the risen, living, enthroned Jesus.
He said in Matthew 16, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Repeat with Shell point in “church”
What's Needed to Be Living Instruments of Jesus?
What does Jesus give to people so that they become his fellow workers and fellow speakers in building Shell Point in the world until he comes?
Or: What does Shell Point need in order to be the instruments of the living Jesus today?
What did Jesus give to the apostles so that they could be his instruments as he moved through the Roman world spreading his reign?
And how much of this might apply to us?
There are three things mentioned in verses 2 and 3
1. Command through the Holy Spirit
Verse 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
Even after His resurrection, Jesus continued to teach the essential realities of His kingdom until the day when He was taken up, a reference to His ascension.
Do you believe that?
He, our blessed, adorable Lord Jesus, was taken up;
But before He was taken up He gave instructions to the apostles He had chosen.
He told them what He wanted them to do after his ascension.
So first, he gave them instructions.
To be the instrument of Jesus as he works and speaks in the world, the apostles needed instruction,
or an authorization that came with the validation of the Holy Spirit.
With a true genuine experience in salvation.
Not a false sense of salvation. The disciples were truly and genuinely changed with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Just as some of us are…
Notice the role of the Holy Spirit here in John 20:21-22.
Jesus said to them again, 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
You have the same breath of Jesus upon your soul through genuine salvation.
And when you have that you see a genuine change.
There was a real ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles.
In that moment there was a real understanding and processing of their commissioning.
That is what I suggest Luke means when he says that Jesus gave them instruction through the Holy Spirit.
It was through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that he spoke,
and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that they received, the word of instruction.
For it was only in and through the Holy Spirit that they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45).
And through that impartation they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luke 24:52).
And they stayed continually at the temple praising God.
And this in no way contradicts that on the day of Pentecost something more happened,
something deeply empowering for the fulfillment of the commission that Jesus had given them through the Holy Spirit.
So to be the instrument of Jesus as he works and speaks in the world,
the first thing the apostles needed was instruction that came with the authentication of the Holy Spirit.
That's the point of verse 2.
The importance of this instruction is preparing these men for finishing the Lord’s work cannot be overemphasized.
Our Lord was building into them the teaching that is later called “the apostles’ doctrine in Acts 2:42
The organized body of truth that established the church.
The effectiveness of every believer’s ministry in large measure depends on a clear and deep knowledge of the Word.
Verification That Jesus Is Alive and Triumphant
2. The second thing they needed from Jesus was verification—verification that he is alive and triumphant over death.
Verse 3: 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
You can't be an authentic instrument in the hands of a living Christ, if you do not think he is alive.
The apostles needed not only the proper message but also the confidence to proclaim that message even if it cost their lives.
Until the apostles were profoundly persuaded that Jesus had broken the power of death and that he was alive with indestructible life,
and could never be defeated and his cause was unstoppable—until then, the apostles were ready to go back to fishing for a living.
They needed to know that He was alive and would fulfill His promise of the kingdom.
So for 40 days Jesus appeared to them again and again.
And Luke 24:39–40, 42–43, tell us the sorts of things he said and did:
"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me, and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" . . . they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.
So when 40 days of appearances and conversations and meals were past, the apostles were beyond doubt.
They had many infallible proofs and at the level of persuasion they were ready for their ministry.
Until you reach that point, you will not be effective in the ministry Jesus would call you to do..
That assurance gave them the boldness to preach the gospel to the very people who crucified Christ.
The transformation of the apostles from fearful, cowering skeptics to bold, powerful witnesses is a potent proof of the resurrection
But they needed something more.
3.The third thing mentioned in verse 3 is that they needed instruction of the Kingdom of God.
They needed deeds and words; they needed verification of Jesus' life and power after his death;
Then they needed more instruction about the kingdom of God.
You see this at the end of verse 3: “. . . over a period of forty days, and spoke about the kingdom of God."
The apostles had been so slow of heart to understand and believe during the ministry of Jesus on the earth.
Now they needed a crash course in post-resurrection kingdom theology.
The Lord wanted them to know that the crucifixion did not nullify the promised millennial kingdom.
The apostles no doubt had difficulty believing in that kingdom after the death of the king.
The resurrection changed all that, and from that time on they proclaimed Jesus Christ as the King over an invisible, spiritual kingdom.
The kingdom will be manifested in its fullness at the second coming.
The kingdom of God encompasses much more than that though.
God’s universal kingdom is His sovereign rule over all of creation.’
God’s mediatorial kingdom is His spiritual rule and authority over His people on earth through divinely chosen mediators.
You may know some, Adam, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, etc that God reveals His will and mediates His authority to His people.
In the church age, then, God mediates His kingdom rule through believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit and obedient to the Word.
Repeat using “Shell Point” in church age.
How would the kingdom show itself now in the life and ministry of Shell Point?
We Need Much of What the Apostles Had
Now, I affirm that we do not stand in the place of the apostles.
They were unique in the history of redemption.
They had unique face-to-face contact with the living Christ.
They had unique inspiration and authority as the foundation of the church.
But that doesn't mean we don't need much of what they had.
We do—especially if we are going to be instruments in the hands of the living Jesus who today continues working and teaching to build Shell Point.
We need a Spirit-authenticated commission on our lives from the living Christ.
We need a deep mind-persuading, heart-gripping verification that Jesus is alive and triumphant over all his enemies,
and that his cause is unstoppable.
Do you see what this means Shell Point?
It means it’s not about us-I mean if God calls us to build a multi-million dollar building-He will empower us to do so.
If God says, you need a new staff member and we wonder who is the best person for the job-
He will guide us to the right individual.
If God calls you to witness to a neighbor or co-worker and you wonder how you'll find the courage or the words...
He'll give them to you.
If your friend is grieving a medical diagnosis and you don't know what to do or say-pray-
ask God's Spirit to give you the discernment to KNOW what to do or say and He will.
As I have repeatedly said-when it comes to the Christian life,
it's not about us-it’s not about our ability-
it’s about our availability to God's Holy Spirit.
There is nothing we can't do as long as we rely on the power of God's Spirit living within us.
This fact is VITAL for all churches to understand because the sad truth is most of the time we DON'T rely on God's power.
This caused the late A. W. Tozer to say, "If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today 95% of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference."
Well, I don't want that to be able to be said about our church!
We want to be a people who are known for doing things that would be impossible apart from the power of God.
Last Sunday after the Vision service, Someone came up to me and said, "Exciting times are ahead." and I agree!
They will be-as long as we trust God-and obey Him in doing impossible things-
things that REQUIRE the power of His Holy Spirit.
And this leads to one other vital lesson we can learn as we study this book..
You see, when we come to the end these 28 chapters we'll discover that this book is UNFINISHED.
I mean, there is no formal ending to the book of Acts.
There is no climax. It just stops after recording about 34 years of history from A.D. 30 to A.D. 64.
In fact, it ends with the hero (Paul) in prison. We are left wondering what's going to happen next.
Well, that's the way the book of Acts is. It's unfinished.
The story doesn't come to an end. And the reason it doesn't is because God is not done ACTING.
He is still working in and through Shell Point.
In fact the literal Greek translation of the title of this book of Luke's is this:
"Acts of Apostolic People" - no definite article, just ACTS...as if there are more ACTS to come.
And there ARE because as Christians, WE-you and me-
WE are apostolic people! We are just like Peter and Paul and the others-in that we are people who know Jesus personally-
who bear personal witness to His presence and power in our lives.
You and I are living out the subsequent chapters of "The Acts of Apostolic People" and we will continue to do so until Jesus returns to take us home.
We are chapter 29 in Acts….the future of the unregenerate souls out there are in our hands, our commission, our destiny..
Invitation:
We come now to our time of invitation and as we do I would challenge you to begin a new chapter of the Acts of God in your life right now.
Commit to always listen when His Holy Spirit speaks-pledge to trust in and rely on His power-instead of your own.
Decide right now that you will always ACT when God tells you to.
Like young Samuel even now say, "Speak Lord for Your servant is listening."
And if God tells you to respond publically as we sing then do so.
Come and join our church family-profess your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior or just come to the altar and pray.
But come-ACT-on any prompting of God's Spirit.
And we need to understand the kingdom of God and how it came, and how it is now coming, and how it will come.
And my prayer is that in this series of messages on the book of Acts Jesus himself will speak and act and give us just what we need to be the instruments of his power in the world.
