The Transition of Acts — Acts 28

0:00 Alright. We look forward to being able to look at the scripture this morning. And I'm going just give you a little bit of overview before we pray. We are going to work work in and out of the book of Acts today. We we just completed the twenty eighth chapter last week, and as far as tracking through the narrative and all the verses, this may be kind of a summary.

0:24 But here's what I really hope to do is that we would take all the things that we've been learning and observing and and seeing in the book of Acts, and we kind of build on those. We want to draw some practical applications, some life lessons for us, some daily things that we can incorporate into our Christian life today as we've been examining the book of Acts. So let's pray, and feel free to pray along with me as I pray here and commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our heavenly Father, we give thanks for this opportunity to be here this morning. We're thankful for the scripture.

1:01 We've been spending a lot of time in the book of Acts as we've been trying to learn it and to seek to understand it better. Father, we pray this morning that you would give us insight once again into your word. We do recognize the power and the role of the Holy Spirit in each one of our own hearts and lives. We're giving permission... We're asking, we're giving permission for you to impress on our hearts the things that you'd want us to see from your word today.

1:34 Father, we pray this now, recognizing our dependence on You and praying this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, you would take your Bible and go ahead and go to Acts chapter one. Not that we're starting there per se, but I want to give you a little bit of review. So go ahead and flip over to Acts.

1:55 Here's some things that you may or may not have latched onto as we've been tracking through the books of Acts. It covers about thirty eight years, over the time span about thirty eight years. We've got our chart that's over there on the wall, and we see the different divisions or periods in the book of Acts, but it covers approximately a 38 time span. You may remember we started in Jerusalem, we ended up last week in Rome. The book starts with Peter speaking to the Jews and ends up or closes with Paul speaking to the Gentiles.

2:33 The book begins with Israel and ends with the church, the nucleus, the beginning of the church. I would say the development of the church. Israel to the church. It starts with the Lord's commission as he tells them to go and it progresses with the power to continue through the Holy Spirit. It starts with Judaism, ends with Christianity and in it we see the believers called Christians for the very first time.

3:09 The gospel is presented and its messengers are persecuted. Those are some things that we see as we... Remember we call it the book of transition and you see how all those things transitionary steps. Okay? Now, who are some of the people, I'm going to, you you guys feel free to raise your hand or speak out loudly where I can hear you, as to what are some... Who

3:36 Who are some of the characters or some of the people that we come along in the book of Acts? Think about that as we... We've been thinking through Acts. Philip? Philip. Philip?

3:46 Philip? That's right. Yep. Who else who else comes to your mind? We think about. Barnabas.

3:51 Barnabas. Barnabas? Yeah. Son of encouragement. Alright. Apollos.

3:55 Apollos. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Apollos. I

3:58 I love that name. Yeah. How about anybody else can you remember? Paul. Paul.

4:04 That's right. Yeah. So we have these p words, Paul, Philip, Peter. Yeah. Who are going to say? Stephen.

4:11 Stephen. Stephen. Yeah. So how about any females that you remember in the book of Acts? Dorcas.

4:19 That's right. Yeah. And... Lydia. Lydia.

4:24 Yeah. See? So like we encountered these people and we kind of see how they fit in in the transition from leaving Judaism into going into this New Testament church age. And so we're going to come back to maybe some of the people a little bit. But let me do another kind of a big picture thing with thinking about this as the Word of God.

5:15 This former treatise I have made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. So I'd like to suggest to you that there's three beginnings that I just mentioned. In Genesis, creation, that's the beginning. In John chapter one, we have the beginning of the incarnation, Christ becoming flesh and dwelling among mankind. And then you have in the book of Acts, beginning of the church.

5:43 All that Jesus both began to do and to teach. And this is this is the this is the thing that we talk about transition. You're going from old to new. It is a beginning. Acts is right there on the on the...

5:59 Right there at the start, launching out. And so we definitely have this as we see this. Now, some people have called this the acts of the Holy Spirit, which is a good title, a good name too. When I think about these beginnings, I'm reminded of Philippians chapter one and verse six. It says, He who has began a good work in you will complete it until the end.

6:30 We can say that true of the church as well, can't we? He began in the book of Acts and he's continuing through the ages and one day he's going to end up with a completed church, a full bride. And so we see that type of progression. Does anybody remember Truett Cathy's... The name of Truett Cathy's first restaurant?

6:58 Or does anybody know that? No. That was not it. The first restaurant that he opened up. Truett Cathy opened up... You

7:08 You might not know this. It was a weird name. The Dwarf's Grill. I mean, it probably would have been Libby's favorite restaurant. So the Dwarf Grill started in 1946.

7:21 Truett Cathy and his brother started that restaurant in Hatfield, Georgia. Well, it wasn't until 1976 that Truett Cathy and his brother discovered the way to cook this chicken breast that made it just crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. And so the concept of Chick fil A was born there. And they had not franchised or anything else like that. But...

7:51 So why do I bring this up? I want you to think about it. I'm drawing this comparison or analogy. Like how Chick fil A had its beginnings. They came on this unique way of cooking chicken and then it franchised. And

8:05 And now it rivals McDonald's as the largest fast food restaurant in America if you put Chick fil A in the category of fast food. They surpassed McDonald's by revenue because you have to pay $30 for a sandwich. But McDonald's still has the most locations, I believe. Alright, somebody can fact check me on that. But anyway, you see what happened?

8:36 It began. It began there and it grew and it go. And what are we talking about? God created. There was a beginning.

8:44 God sent himself to dwell with all mankind. There was a beginning of of Jesus on on this existing with mankind on the earth. And then there was a beginning of the church, the church age. And the church is to... He began to do and to teach so that means that what he started has grown and multiplied and replicated and is still going on today.

9:10 And so we look at like business successes and things that grow. We need to think about you and me in two different ways. One, God's church is growing. Okay? But you and I are also growing, maturing, learning more. And

9:27 And so when we look at the book of Acts, we need to see like, okay, these people, we we understand. We can relate to a Lydia or a Dorcas or a Peter or a or a Philip. We can relate to these people. We can see these people, and we can we can start to say, okay, like, hey, look at how God developed Peter through this. Look at how God developed Paul.

9:49 Look at how these people became sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit in their own life, and they were not only following what Jesus began to do and teach, now Jesus is working in them and through them by the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember that the spirit comes at the day of Pentecost and indwells each new believer? And now that to do, to teach and to do, to do and to teach, now that's been going on by you and I. By you and I, we're carrying on that work. And so you realize that the Holy Spirit is very much throughout the book of Acts.

10:56 At the point of salvation, the Holy Spirit does multiple things. That's a whole another study. But one thing... Well, one of the things I want to bring to our attention and remind us about is that when we are saved, when we accept Jesus Christ as our savior, we are baptized into the body of Christ. That's what we refer to as the baptism of the spirit.

11:18 We are brought into Christ's body. Now we see several different analogies used. One's a building. We're like a stone put into a building. We're like an appendage or an arm placed into a body.

11:38 We are part of the bride. We see those three things mentioned. Now... But because we're baptized by the spirit into the body of Christ, that right there creates unity. That's a foundation of unity.

11:54 And so we say as a collective group of believers, we are unified by being baptized through the spirit into the body of Christ. We have unity. Now we read in the epistles, we're to keep the unity. Right? Therefore keep the unity.

12:14 Strive to keep the unity. Don't break the... So we've got that. So we've got this as the church is working now. The church is working. There

12:23 There is unity. The unity of the church is that of the baptism of the spirit. Now there's not only unity, but there's also function of the church. Okay? We see the unity of the church displayed in the book of Acts. We

12:37 We also see the function of the church. And the function is the carrying on of what Jesus began to do and to teach. The function of the church is exactly what we read in verse one of chapter acts... Of chapter one of acts. All that Jesus began to do and to teach. We've

12:55 We've got the unity of the spirit. We've got the power of the spirit. We've got the... Now we've got the the function. The function is to start carrying these things out.

13:09 Now life in the spirit is the life of Christ worked out in me by the spirit. So I don't want that to be confusing, but you understand that like we're dealing... You and I are dealing the flesh. We're here in the physical. We are mortal.

13:37 God is deity. God deals in eternity outside of time. And... But then there's a spiritual component of each of us. And then we have... We're...

13:47 We're... God's spirit and our spirit do have this union, this relationship. And so now we start to yield to God and his spirit, and God's spirit works his will through us. And so that's all happening in the context of the church. The spirit...

14:17 I guess I should clarify that and say it happens in the context of the church. It also happens in the context of us individually. We're always two kind of... And you're part of the church and you're you're an individual. We come together as part of of that church.

15:03 When bondage of the past is always the result of lack of confidence in the spirit in the present. Let's go back and connect that with what we were talking about with the Jews in the early part of the book of Acts. Remember, they're leaving Judaism. They're leaving their six thirteen laws that they have. They're leaving the feast.

15:32 They're hearing about a new covenant. Jesus is ascending, no longer going to be with them. And so they've got to work through all these type of things. And so if they stay connected to the past, then they miss what the spirit's doing in the present. Does that make sense?

15:53 And so we we want to look at the past, observe the past, learn from the past, but we want to live with God in the present and looking forward to the future. The spirit of God will always break down traditions by doing new things. And isn't that what we saw in the book of Acts? Like, so if anybody wanted to stay just locked in to their old Jewish habits or ways or traditions, Well, the spirit of God's doing something new. And so these...

16:36 We we, you and I, want to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit's doing. This gives us a wonderful object lesson in a in a larger sense of like, okay, we can read the book of Acts and we see like now people are receiving the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, if I go away, I will send the comforter. I will send the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when he was living here on this earth, he he somewhat...

17:04 Well, he was only in one place at one time. He he took naps. He ate food. We... I don't want to make it... I'm

17:15 I'm not trying to... I don't want to create any kind of confusion. I'm not saying Jesus was not God. He was God in the flesh. But in some ways, he allowed himself to be limited to some of these physical constraints. Would

17:29 Would you agree with that? Like, and so now Jesus says, if I go away, I will send the Holy Spirit. And so I'm thinking about it in this way. It's almost like when Jesus was here on... In the earth, he was he was subjected himself to the limitations of some of the flesh, never sinning. Okay?

17:50 Okay? You gotta be careful when you walk through these things. But but now the spirit... And so look at the... It's like the it's like this the flesh versus the spirit.

18:02 And now we take Jesus says, now you will... That's got to be what he was referring to when he says, greater works than these will you do. I'm going to give you the power to do it. The Holy Spirit's going to be within you. And that's huge.

18:19 And so now now he gives all these illustrations through the book of Acts. We track through the book of Acts, and we have signed gifts to mark a change. We have signed gifts to validate the truth. We have continuing gifts that go through and help the church grow. But while there's a while there's a sense of God gives order, he gives a sense of church government, he gives a sense of of church practice, But you notice that it's...

18:55 In the book of acts, we don't we don't get to chapter 29 and say that, oh, here's the three three steps that you have to do to establish a New Testament church and it's got to have this, this, this, and this. We don't see that, do we? There's a lot of liberty, a lot of flexibility, a lot of freedom. And I'm going to say this phrase, there's a lot there's a lot of sensitivity to the spirit that's needed. So we don't want to stay stuck in the past and miss what God's doing in the present.

19:29 And we we don't want to hold to some form of tradition and not be agreeable to what the Lord's doing in the present. And so this is this is a this is a... I think a major lesson in the book of Acts, a takeaway if you will. G Campbell Morgan calls them the the living message of each book. He goes through and and writes that there's a living message that's for each each Christian in every church age of the book. I

20:03 I think this is one of them. That the acts of the Holy Spirit. How would you and I yield to the Holy Spirit? How are we going to recognize what the Holy Spirit's doing in our life and in our group among us? You know there's some competition to the Holy Spirit.

20:34 Prejudice, passions of the baser sort or evil passions, and pride. Those are three enemies of the Holy Spirit. And we saw those all creep up. Well, we saw creep up. They were they were like there all the way through the book of Acts.

20:54 What do what do I mean by prejudice? I mean, you you get right on the scene and and what do the Jews want to say when Peter stands up and preaches that message? Or or when when the when the holy spirit comes, what do the Jews say, the prejudiced Jews say? Oh, these men are drunk. These men are drunk. And

21:15 And Peter has to stand up and say, these men are not drunk. It's only 09:00 in the morning. These guys are not drunk as you suppose. This is what was taught beforehand. But there was a strong prejudice, if you will.

21:29 The Jews hold on. And you saw how... How did he have to break down the prejudice? Well, the Jews get to hear the message. It's it's the message for them.

21:41 They reject it. Then they... The good news spreads to the Samaritan, the half breed Jews. We don't wanna go. We don't... We're

21:50 We're not... I'll never take this message to the Samaritans. They don't deserve it. That's prejudice. Right? Then

21:55 Then the Gentiles? Surely not. And so you see this all through the book of Acts, how God works and moves and breaks down these barriers, these social barriers or the prejudice that existed. How about the... We saw the different classes break down.

22:17 And so prejudice is is is being removed. Now here's the thing. You and I can have biased or prejudice that that restricts or competes with the working of the Holy Spirit in our own life and in our own group among us. What's the solution to prejudice? Oh, let me say this. Oh,

22:50 Oh, well, the solution is to have confidence in the spirit. If there's a lack of confidence in the spirit, then there's more likely to be prejudiced of saying, oh, I wanna stick to this. I wanna stick to what I know. I wanna stick to this. So you understand how, like, when we when we come to a point of salvation, we come and realize, like, oh, I can't save myself.

23:17 Jesus had to die on the cross for my sin. He paid a debt I could not pay. And some people call this a step of faith or that's... We we got to put all of our faith in Jesus Christ for that salvation. And so how about with the spirit? The

23:34 The working of the spirit, are you willing to put all of your faith in... And and are you willing to have full confidence in the spirit? Like, I I sense the Lord is leading me to do this. Do you have confidence to do that? You know what? Peter,

23:50 Peter, when he stood up for that day to give that message, multiple times, I don't know if anybody has caught this, like, was Peter or Paul and Stephen. They all... It it makes reference that and with the motioning of their hand, you know, it says, and Paul stood up and motioned with his hand. These guys are standing up and they are convinced. They're confident in the spirit.

24:15 The Lord has laid this on me and I'm going to carry it out. The Ethiopian eunuch. He was being sensitive to the spirit and says, here is water, what does hinder me to be baptized? And he gets up and he takes action on that impression that the spirit was giving him. Lydia, the seller of purple, the same way she has this...

24:41 You see these people, she's got confidence in the spirit. Hey, you and I, so maybe we think like, oh, that's too presumptuous to say that I'm confident that the Lord is impressing this on my heart. Or we think that that's that's too bold or that's like, well, that's that's out of here. I gotta have scripture in verse before I make a move. Well, now listen, I wanna say something point point of order is that we all... The

25:05 The scripture will... Or the spirit will always agree with the scripture. Okay? You'll... They'll... Those

25:11 Those two things move in unison together, but the spirit will prompt or lead you into things that you need to take action on. So there's there's liberty for that. There's there's opportunity for that. We stay kind of naive or unaware to what the spirit's doing in our own heart. So here's a thing for us to think about today.

25:38 Am I... Do I have confidence in the spirit? Confidence to move forward in this New Testament Christianity? Hey, did you have confidence in coming to the meeting today? Would you have confidence in sharing your your testimony with another person?

25:58 Would you have confidence to go and say, we we we read multiple times in the breaking of bread this morning about the Lord Jesus Christ as the intercessor. And we would say like, do you have confidence to go before God and say, I know Christ is interceding for me. I know the spirit dwells within me. I know I can come boldly before the throne of grace. Do you have confidence in these things?

26:22 Confidence in the spirit's walk, in the spirit's work in your own life. You see, you are you are the continuation of the book of Acts. You are the continuation of of these ones. All that Jesus began to do and to teach, you're carrying it out. You're you're you're a disciple.

26:45 You're a Christ follower. You can have confidence in the spirit. Prejudice and confidence in the spirit work against each other. It shuts down the spirit. What's the number... The

27:13 Like they're wanting to... They're lying to the Holy Spirit. And so that is a passion. And we see them all around. We got all these type of passions around us. We're

27:23 We're flesh in a world and so these things compete against us. So what's the solution to the evil passion? What would the solution have been for Ananias and Sapphira? Well, would be yielding, yielding to the Holy Spirit. If I yield to the spirit, I don't give in to the passions of the flesh.

27:49 I yield to the spirit and the spirit keeps me in a healthy path. You know, when we... I have... This is one of my pet peeves. That I am all... I

28:02 I am I am very thankful for lines that are on the road. Okay? The the yellow line and the white line. I am also very thankful for the rumble strips. Okay?

28:12 On the... But the rumble strips need to be on the outside of the white line. Okay? Because you got to have a little bit of variance there, you know, like... And it drives me crazy when the rumble strip is in the white line and you think I should be safe, but I'm...

28:30 You know. But it does keep me awake, and I appreciate that. Now... But we need these white lines. In in the Christian life, we need the white lines. We

28:39 We need the yellow line. We need the rumble strip. This is what the word of God, the Holy Spirit... We yield to the path. We yield to the Holy Spirit.

29:08 You know, one of the statements that kind of gives me a check is... It was back in Acts chapter 13, and you'll this statement. They judged themselves unworthy of eternal life. And you read the context of that passage. It was the Jews that they said, we don't want this man Jesus Christ to rule over this. We

29:32 We don't want what he's got. He he was a liar. He was a a thief and died the death of a thief and we don't want him, we don't want him, don't want him. And they judged themselves unworthy of eternal life. That man, that's pride.

29:50 We saw the same pride that put Jesus Christ on the cross displayed in the Jewish culture in the book of Acts to reject the message. We saw the pride of the Jews when Stephen was preaching and they stoned him. We saw the pride of the Jews when Peter gave his message and they rejected it. We saw the pride of the Jews when Paul gives his testimony multiple times and they reject it. The pride of man stands in the way of the work of the spirit.

30:25 And so we're talking about New Testament Christianity. We're talking about the book of Acts. We're talking about the acts of the Holy Spirit. We're talking about wanting to continue on with God's work, all that Jesus began to both do and to teach into the future generations until Christ returns. And it's gotta be done through the work of the spirit. You

30:46 You see? It's gotta be done by us yielding to the spirit. And so we we we first have confidence in spirit. We second have... We yield to the spirit. And

30:57 And what's the third thing that we do to combat the pride? Obedience to the spirit. Obedience to the spirit. A step of obedience. All that Jesus began to do and to teach. To

31:12 To do is action. There's gotta be action that follows obedience. Action follows obedience. So if I I say... I can talk I can talk to God. I

31:28 I can talk to the triune God and say, alright, I want to obey the spirit. I have confidence in the spirit. I'm yielding to the spirit, and then I'm obeying the spirit. You see, the the confidence in the spirit is that that that freshness. I'm reading the word of God.

31:49 I've got the spirit indwelling in me. Jesus Christ is making intercession. All these things are working for me. There's a confidence that I have. The the yielding of the spirit is like I'm wanting to go...

32:03 I'm I'm trying to get off path and yet I'm I'm I'm yielding back to the path the spirit's laying out before me. And then the obedience is the actual steps, taking the actual steps. When I... Well, in a in a younger in a younger day, we'll say, There was a there was some CMML missionaries named Baring and Lois McDowell. They served in E10 day in the in the in the Doctor Congo.

33:03 And I stayed in the same compound with Berrien and Lois McDowell. It was a great experience for me. And so I was there with them for a week, and I got to to live and sit at their table to see how they operated. He was 83 years old when I was there, And she was in her upper eighties. And I was just blown away by how they carried on life in Africa. Remember,

33:31 Remember, this is 1996. And so he still carried water every day from there's their water sort like five gallon buckets of water. It's 83 year old man. Like one day, looked out the window and he's up on this cistern. It's like about 10 foot high. There's

33:46 There's a ladder made out of sticks and twine... Or sticks and vines. And he's climbing up there and he's got these five gallon buckets and bringing them down. I'm like, this guy's incredible. Know, like, what in the world?

34:00 And so he... In fact, they were here. Does anybody remember them being here? And so, yeah, I remember him praying at the breaking of bread. Was like, woah.

34:11 So like maybe I... As a younger man, probably idolized him. But I'll tell you this, they were they were godly people. And when we... They stayed with us.

34:25 When they were visiting here at Westlake, they stayed with us. And he left me a book. He has beautiful handwriting, you know, like amazing handwriting. But he left me... He wrote me this note in this book. And

34:39 And you know what the book was? It was Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Simbola, his story. And it's kind of took me back a little bit because you got to understand like, Barry McDowell was old school. And what we would... What some people might call stodgy, although I would never put that label on him. Okay?

35:00 Okay? But what... Here he is. And at this time, he's probably in his... He's like 85 or something when he's when he's here visiting us in Westlake.

35:08 And he hands me this... An 85 year old man is on the cutting edge of Jim Simba's new book, Fresh Wind Fresh Fire. And you know what it's all about? Yielding to the Holy Spirit. Living New Testament Christianity in today's society, being aware that I'm not prejudiced, that I've got confidence to follow God, being aware that there's passions that are overtaking my sensitivity to the spirit and I need to yield to the spirit and to keep me on track.

35:45 Being aware that pride is going to quench the spirit and that I need to be obedient. I need to be obedient and say, you know what God, I think you know better than I do. And I'm going to lay down my plans and be obedient to what you have for me. And so, by the way, I would recommend Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire even if it's 30 years old. You know, it's still a good book, still a good concept. I

36:38 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all that came unto him. Note 31, Preaching the kingdom of God, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. I'd like to suggest to you that Paul, as we we conclude this Acts study, that Paul gave us the example of of the very one who was willing to be under the Spirit's control to continue to do all that Jesus did and taught. Paul was that fella. He had a...

37:25 We read it. He had a confidence in the spirit. He he he had an ability to be sensitive to sin in a way that kept him on track. And he he he was obedient to the spirit, even so much so that he spent his last years in prison but still being used mightily for God. Our heavenly father, we give thanks as we've been able to consider some more thoughts from the book of Acts and we pray father about this work of the spirit.

38:00 We truly want to be subject to the spirit in such a way that that you are able to work in and through us. So we pray this now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.