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Acts

The Gospel in Greece: Athens

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The Gospel in Greece: Athens

Idols are not limited to primitive societies; there are many sophisticated idols too. An idol is a god-substitute. Any person or thing that occupies the place which God should occupy is an idol. Covetousness is idolatry. Ideologies can be idolatries. So can fame, wealth and power, sex, food, alcohol and other drugs, parents, spouse, children and friends, work, recreation, television and possessions, even church, religion and Christian service. Idols always seem particularly dominant in cities. Jesus wept over the impenitent city of Jerusalem. Paul was deeply pained by the idolatrous city of Athens. Have we ever been provoked by the idolatrous cities of the contemporary world?

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The Gospel in Greece: Philippi

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The Gospel in Greece: Philippi

When’s the last time you found yourself in a dead end? You’re trying to move forward, but it seems that every door is now closed to you, no opportunity has presented itself. You try pushing on one door and it won’t budge. So you try another. And another. You call out to God, “just show me what to do already”. Your issue isn’t obedience - you’ll do whatever it is God’s leads you to - its just that right now you’re stuck. But if you’re in that place long enough, and enough doors close, you might even begin to doubt as to whether you’re even pursuing the right things in the first place. Have you been there?

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Send People Out on the Way

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Send People Out on the Way

 It’s hard to be a church that sends people out. It’s hard to be sent out. We know this as a congregation, because we’ve had to say goodbye to some dearly-loved brothers and sisters, who’ve left our congregation either because they have moved, or because they’ve felt called to join another ministry, or for whatever reason. It’s really hard. Paul himself, even though he was called to this work, of which leaving was part of the work, it was still hard. 

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Preserve the Way for Those to Come

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Preserve the Way for Those to Come

The missionaries raised up a plurality of men called elders who would preserve the way for those to come. This work of equipping and entrusting the churches to these elders was so important the the work wasn’t considered fulfilled until they had done so. Paul understood that he had to ensure that the churches be well established under faithful men that the church might stand firm as a pillar and buttress of the truth. This would allow the missionary team to continue on its way into new cities, new fields, because the churches were left in good hands. Those who stayed behind and led the churches were to guard the deposit of faith that was entrusted to them and pass it on to others, preserving the way for those to come.

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Encourage People Along the Way

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Encourage People Along the Way

Today we’re going to focus on the second part of this work, the work of “strengthening the souls of disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” The word here translated “strengthen” is also translated, “to establish” - and it means to set right, to make strong. It is like if you break your arm, the doctor has to set it right so that it can heal and become strong again, and then as it heals the doctor also helps you through physic to make it even stronger. That’s the idea, to establish is to set right and make strong. So when we say we exist to “help people walk the way of Christ”, The second part is to “encourage people along the Way”. Calling upon the power of the Holy Spirit, we together devote ourselves to prayer and to the teachings of Christ and his Apostles, trusting in the scriptures as our sole authority for faith and life. We admonish, encourage, help and bear with one another, considering how to stir one another on to love and good works.

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Point People to the Way

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Point People to the Way

Our culture seems to think that choosing a religion is like shopping. I look for the shirt that suits me, you look good in that one. And we go around flattering each others wardrobe, and it would be absurd to say “Plaid is the Only Way”. But choosing a religion is not like shopping. Choosing a religion is more like drowning. For a person drowning, when they are thrown a life preserver, they do not ask whether or not this suits them, they hold on because its all that they’ve got. They hold on and live, or let go and die.  We’re not shopping for gods, were drowning in gods, drowning in a sea of religions, drowning in a sea of world views, nothing solid under our feet, nothing holding the universe together, and Jesus jumps in to save us. And so we point to Him not as a fashionable sweater, but as the life preserver thrown into this world to save us. For the bad news is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and therefore stand condemned under his wrath, but God offers forgiveness of sins to everyone who calls upon Him.

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Mission: Church on the Move

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Mission: Church on the Move

As I’ve already said, as Christians we receive as one the benefits of knowing God, the assurance that the universe has a purpose, that life has meaning and that our individual and collective lives are being lived in fulfillment of God’s intent for us. “We are,” the scripture says, “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Yet its not only the sense of overriding meaning and purpose that God gives to our lives, but also, as we are part of the Body of Christ, we become part of God’s mission in the world, to exalt his Son Jesus Christ in every corner of the globe, and to seek and save a people for himself from every nation. He shares this mission with His Son, when He sent Him into the world, and His Son then shares that same mission with us: “As the Father has sent me”, He said, so now i send you”, and in the very first chapter of the book of Acts, the book we’ve been studying, Jesus gathered the disciples around him and told them, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.” So we, the church, the called out people of God, are given not only a purpose, but a mission. 

 

The first major section of Acts was to set in front of us the Jerusalem church as a model church, a church for all ages. The second major section of Acts was to demonstrate for us the new people that God is calling us to become, a church for all people. This section is not focused around a specific church or a specific city, but the focus of these chapters is the mission itself - we now see the church fulfilling the words of Jesus that we will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. 

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The Final Word

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The Final Word

Today we’re skipping ahead a few chapters because I want to show you how what God started in Antioch we continued as Paul and Barnabas were sent out from there to go and take the message of the gospel of Christ to the rest of the world. In every city, the initially preach the gospel among the Jews, but facing opposition from them, they turn their preaching to the Gentiles and find a hearing among the Gentiles. And so when their missionary efforts are concluded they return to Antioch, “14:7 And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”

The winds of change have blown in Antioch, and now those same winds of change have been blowing throughout the Roman world. Whenever there are winds of change, there is always blowback. And that’s what we have in Acts 15. there is going to be one last push against the idea that Gentiles can be included in the church as they are, and so I’m skipping ahead to this chapter as it is in a very real way, God’s final word on this issue of whether His Church is to be a church for all. 

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They Were Called "Christians"

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They Were Called "Christians"

This whole sermon series has been building toward the formulation of this church in Antioch: A Church For All, and we finally here come to the start of this church. This is not so much about a label, as it is about an identity. Who are we as the people of God? They question were are looking at this morning is what is unique about Antioch that the disciples would first be called Christians there?  

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Holy Spirit or Hunger Pains?

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Holy Spirit or Hunger Pains?

Luke records the interesting note that “He became hungry and wanted something to eat” and then he has a vision about food. The entire ethnic makeup of the early church hinged on a hungry person’s daydream about food. How do we know this “vision” is from the Lord? And so a big part of Luke’s purpose in these chapters - and he takes at least three chapters to tell this one story - is to show, step by step, how the Holy Spirit led the church into the conclusion, confirming Peter’s vision.

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