Acts

Passage: Acts 15:19-35

Chapter 15 of the book of Acts is the center point of the book, we have crossed the halfway point in this book of 28 chapters. Chapter 15 is also the center point theologically and spiritually. As I pointed out last week, there is a radical shift in focus, leadership, and mission. We are turning from Jews to Gentiles, from works of the Law to grace, from James and Peter to Paul, from Jerusalem to Antioch and to the ends of the earth. In order to do all of this two important questions had to be answered and settled once for all.

Passage: Acts 15:1-19

Our country is cracking. A house divided cannot stand. Just in the past year we have been confronted with three major, contentious, dividing issues: racial tensions, Covid restrictions, and a presidential election. Three huge battles waged in our country in just the past year. And the battles haven’t stayed out there in the country, they have come into our community, into our church and even our homes. God in His perfect providence has visited these things on our nation, and He wants us to live in these time with faith, wisdom, humility and grace, not faithlessness, doubt, fear, and anxiety. Christians are just as divided as non-Christians. We need the Gospel now more than ever. Our only hope is found in Jesus Christ. Our divisions can’t be healed by politicians or violence. This is nothing new or strange. Controversy, strife, division and tension have followed the church of Jesus all through history. Let’s consider this great moment in church history and see what lessons there are here for us.

Passage: Acts 17:10-13

When I was just a little tike in first and second grade we lived down in Newport, Oregon and my parents attended First Baptist church. And they were good Baptists, they did what all good Baptists did. They carried their Bibles to church every week. They encouraged Scripture memory. In Sunday School and VBS they taught Bible stories. They made a game out of knowing your Bible and all the books of the Bible. I remember playing a game called a Sword Drill. You would hold your sword closed and the teacher would call out a verse and you tried to be the first to find it. I think this was back before they invented Bibles with those thumb tabs on the side. You had to know your Hosea from your Hebrews and your Chronicles from your Corinthians. Baptists like to talk about the Bereans, about being a Berean or becoming a Berean. Since it is my custom to begin each new year with a reminder and call to prayer and Scripture reading, I have decided to skip ahead in our Acts series and preach on the Bereans this morning to encourage us to take up our sword as eagerly and seriously as they did.

Passage: Verses from Acts on Prayer

You will recall we have been working our way through the book of Acts off and on over the past couple of years. This morning I am going to preach through the entire book of Acts. Sounds daunting, sounds overwhelming, sounds crazy, sounds really long. I am going to preach through the entire book of Acts this morning, but I am not going to play all the notes, I am going to play only one note, one note that is played over thirty times in the book of Acts, and that note is prayer. As you have come to expect at the beginning of each year I challenge us to take up the habit of praying and reading Scripture, to renew our efforts, God helping us. And to the extent that all of us have fallen short or failed to do this, I urge us to fail forward, to make an intentional effort no matter how faulty. In the book of Acts Dr. Luke describes in some detail the beginning history of the early Christian Church. There is one thing that stands out about the early church and it is prayer. The early church was a praying church. The early church didn’t talk about prayer, they didn’t expect just the leaders to pray, they didn’t hold conferences on prayer, they didn’t just “say their prayers,” they didn’t just open and close their meetings with prayer, the early church prayed. The early church had a clear sense of desperate dependence on the triune God.

Passage: Acts 14:9-28

You will recall from last week Paul and Barnabas were barely able to keep the people of Lystra from sacrificing to them as gods. Don’t miss the irony here. They are stoning their gods. It was with great difficulty that Paul and Barnabas restrained the people from making sacrifices to them as gods. It was with no difficulty that some Jews from Antioch and Iconium persuaded them to stone Paul and Barnabas. One day they were sacrificed to, the next day they were the sacrifice. One day they are ready to bow down and submit to anything they say, the next day they hate what they have to say and stone him to silence him. Crowds are fickle, mobs are easily manipulated. Today they shout hosanna, tomorrow they shout crucify. We usually read over this passage quickly and casually. What was it like to be stoned, to be pummeled by rocks, bruised and battered, in terrible pain until mercifully he finally went unconscious? There is more than just the physical pain, there is the mental anguish and utter humiliation. Then to be dragged out of town and thrown on the town trash dump for dead.

Passage: Acts 14:1-18

What is the hardest thing you have to do? What is your biggest challenge week in and week out? What presents you with the most daunting obstacles? Is it seeking to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, or resisting some sin or temptation, or loving someone hard to love, or striving for a Christ-centered marriage, or raising godly children in the home, or doing your work with integrity, or serving others, or engaging the culture in a war for morality and truth, or taking the Gospel to the lost? The most serious challenges we face in life are never just one skirmish or one battle, it’s continual warfare. To quote my favorite motto: “It is a sore fight to the end, laddie, a sore fight to the end.” It is a hard fought battle and it is to the death.