An Unstoppable Force
A Study in the Book of Acts
This document contains:
· Part One: What good is the church? (Acts 1-4)
· Part Two: Dishonesty and the Church. (Acts 5), page seven
· Part Three: The Power of a Story (Acts 5), page fourteen
· Part Four: Testimony by Christine Ruth only available on audio.
· Part Five: Addressing the Threat of Complaints (Acts 6), page twentyone
· Part Six: We’ve Got it All Backwards (Acts 6 & 7), page 27
· Part Seven: God Set Free (Acts 8), page 34
· Part Eight: Paul, Transformed to Serve (Acts 9), page 41
· Part Nine: Are you the “but” in somone’s life? By Amy Burns, page 47
· Part Ten: Breakthrough! Page 52
An Unstoppable Force
Recapping Acts 1-4
Remy Diederich
Cedarbrook Church
6.21.09
I think today is the first Father’s Day when none of my kids could make it home. Lisa and I have enjoyed having an “empty nest” but this is taking it too far! But I can’t complain because I’m going to visit my oldest daughter in Milwaukee this week. I’m taking her to a Brewers/Twins game. And this past week I got to take a road trip with my youngest daughter, Becca. We flew down to Tampa to get my mom’s car and then we drove back on Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, I won’t get to see my son until August when he joins us for a week at our family cabin.
I love getting a chance to hang out with my kids for extended periods of time. It’s so much easier to talk to them now that they are adults! Driving back from Florida my daughter and I talked about a lot of things. We had a long talk about God and church and what she thinks now that she’s an adult and can decide for herself about what she’s wants to do.
And that got us talking about the value of church and why we even bother with it. Have you ever given that much thought? I mean, why are you here? What keeps you coming back? Is it really worth your investment of time and money? How long are you going to keep this up? Maybe this is it just a phase you are going through and you’ll move on in time. Or… is there a bigger reason for church other than what you get out of it?
You know, so often we look at church from our perspective. What’s in it for us? (That’s not always bad…especially in the early days when you are looking to connect with God or solve a life problem). But have you ever thought about church from God’s perspective? What does God get out of your being a part of the church? Do you think he even cares? Does it matter to him? I mean… as long as you believe in God and live a reasonably good life isn’t that what counts? Do you really need to do the church thing or is that just something that religious people made up to control us and get our money?
Today I’m starting a summer long series that I’m calling “An Unstoppable Force”. We’ll be reading through the book of Acts and taking a look at what the church was meant to be from the beginning. And I hope that you’ll gain a whole new appreciation for church and be able to answer some of these questions. I hope you’ll see the church for what God intended it to be and not for what it’s become.
I started this study last summer and we made it through the first four chapters of the book of Acts. But before I pick up in chapter five I thought I should recap chapters 1-4 for those of you that are new and those of us that were here but don’t have photographic memories. If you pull out your notes I’ve got seven points from last summer to remind you about.
Luke wrote the book of Acts
The first reminder is just a practical one and that is that the book of Acts was written by a doctor by the name of Luke (as well as the Gospel of Luke).[1] Luke was a traveling companion of the early church leaders and what makes his writing so interesting is that he gives us either his own eye witness accounts of what happened or at least second hand accounts as he relates what other eye witnesses told him. Let me give you an example here…
After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. Acts 16:10-13
Jesus’ teaching sets the agenda for Acts
The second reminder is that Jesus’ teaching sets the agenda for the book of Acts.
He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:3
This one sentence is often overlooked. But after Jesus came back from the dead he stayed around for 40 days and continued to teach his disciples. Do you think they listened a little closer after he was raised from the dead? I bet they did. And what did he talk about? The kingdom of God. The kingdom of God happens wherever someone obeys God. But it’s more than that.
Acts is about the Kingdom of God coming to earth
Last year I compared the kingdom of God to an American embassy in another country. When the president of the United States sends out an ambassador to another country they set up an embassy where they bring a little bit of the United States with them.
Inside the walls of that embassy it’s just like being home. They speak English there. They acknowledge the president of the United States there. They abide by the laws of the United States. For all practical purposes, when you are in an American embassy you are in the United States. When an embassy is established the kingdom of the United States has come to that country.
So, before Jesus left the earth he charged his followers with doing the same thing. Jesus charged them with establishing an embassy for the kingdom of God on earth. Their job was to live life “on earth as it is in heaven” or as I kept saying last summer, their job was to bring heaven to earth in tangible ways.
And that’s our job too. Our calling as God’s people on earth is to give the world a window into heaven. We are to model what it means to have God at the center of our lives. For example, last week I talked about how living a life of forgiveness helps people understand who God is. Whenever we forgive someone we bring heaven to earth in a tangible/visible way. We help people understand God by the way we live.
Or another example might be generosity. Whenever we are generous with our money or time and willing to help someone in need, we bring heaven to earth.
I think we especially reveal God’s kingdom when we work together in community. I’ve been keeping in touch with both the Hartz and Stender families over the last two months. Brian Hartz is recovering from a bone marrow transplant and Farrah Stender is battling brain cancer.
Both families recently told me how much they appreciate the love and concern people from Cedarbrook have shown them in practical ways. You see, they’ve been able to experience a little bit of heaven on earth because we are living out the kingdom values of love and compassion. (I appreciate the way we’ve taken care of our “own” in this way but I’ve been especially blessed at the way I’ve seen people care for people outside of Cedarbrook, friends of friends who are going through hard times too. I think that’s taking things to the next level and I like to see that!)
And what do we call this community of people that is committed to bringing heaven to earth? The church. The church isn’t a meeting on Sunday. It’s not a building. It’s not a group of religious people that follow rules. The church is a community of people dedicated to revealing God’s kingdom on earth. We are an embassy from heaven. When people encounter us they should experience a taste of heaven.
I see that the “Taste of Minnesota” is coming up soon. That’s where all the restaurants get together and offer the best of their menu and the customers can come and taste all that Minnesota restaurants have to offer. Well, when people encounter us, they should “taste” at least some of what heaven has to offer too.
That’s what we see in the book of Acts. Story after story talks about the kingdom of God coming to earth through the church. And that’s why I’m calling this series “An Unstoppable Force” because that’s what God’s kingdom is. It’s like that wave. It’s powerful. It’s relentless.
And nothing is going to stop it. God’s kingdom is coming. That’s the recurring theme that we’ll be seeing this summer.
My hope is that reading about the kingdom this summer will fire us up about what it means to be the church. When the story is written about Cedarbrook I hope it’s not a story about a building or a person or our meetings or the teachings. Our story should talk about how God’s kingdom was advanced through us…how the cities we live in and the people we know were impacted in lifechanging ways…that people turned to Jesus because they saw God in our midst.
You see, that’s why God wants you in the church. God’s purpose for you goes way beyond learning the Bible or living a moral life or singing a few songs each week or giving your kids religion. God’s purpose transcends any kind of self-serving reasons why you might join a church. God’s called you and me to bring heaven to earth in tangible ways.
As I was talking to my daughter the other day I told her that church changed for me when I realized that church wasn’t about pleasing me. I reached a point when I suddenly realized that church wasn’t about the sermons or the music or the Bible studies. And, as a pastor, it wasn’t about pleasing the congregation by offering more programs or better sermons or cooler music.
Church was about how we work together to show people God’s love by serving them. That’s why we put such a big emphasis on service around here. Because, if after all is said and done, if lives aren’t changed, if there is no transformation, if there is no restoration, no freedom – if people aren’t brought to a better place because of what we do, then we are just playing religious games. And I don’t have time for that. There are better things to do.
You see, if church is just about meeting our needs…we will drop out eventually. I guarantee it. It will get boring. And that’s true for everything we do that’s self serving. It’s like going to your favorite restaurant all the time. At first you think it’s great. You want to eat there every time you go out. You can’t imagine a better place to eat. But after a while it loses it’s edge… it’s just okay. The food doesn’t have the same attraction that it did at first.
Then you start finding fault with it. You wonder why they don’t change the menu more often and spice things up. At first you quit going quite as often but slowly, over time, you quit going altogether. That’s just human nature. And the same thing happens with church. I see people cycle in and out of church like that all the time. They don’t necessarily go looking for another church. They just quit church altogether.
But what if that restaurant I was talking about didn’t just feed you? What if that restaurant showed you how to help starving people? What if they quit trying to meet all your needs and helped you meet the needs of others…like they send you out with meals on wheels? Suddenly that restaurant would take on a whole new meaning for you, wouldn’t it?
The place you used to go to have your needs met has now given you purpose, a reason to live. And it’s placed you in a community of people who are not only serving but being served. You used to eat alone but now you are connected to hundreds of people in your mission to serve others. And every time you return from delivering meals you have this overwhelming sense of accomplishment; like your life really matters because you know you are changing lives.
You wouldn’t look at that restaurant the same way anymore because now it’s about serving others instead of being served. And when you sit down and eat in that restaurant you aren’t there for the food anymore. You’re not so critical anymore because the quality of the food isn’t the reason you are there. You are there because it’s family. You share so much more than food. You share a common purpose.
That’s a picture of the church folks. We aren’t here for ourselves. We’re here to bring heaven to earth for others. When we figure that out, church will take on a whole new meaning for us.
So, those are the kind of things I think Jesus talked about when it says that he spoke about the kingdom of God. Jesus helped them envision how they should live their lives when he’s gone.
Now, last summer I spent a lot of time talking about what Jesus talked about in chapter one where he said…
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:4,5
Jesus made it clear that we can’t live out the kingdom on earth in our own power. We need God’s power and we get that by being filled with the Spirit.
In chapter two it tells the story of how the Spirit came upon the believers gathered at the Jewish festival called Pentecost. The Spirit of God filled every believer giving them the power they needed to follow Jesus. You see, the kingdom is powered by the Spirit that came at Pentecost.
I took one whole sermon last summer to talk about how the Old Testament prophets anticipated the day when God would pour out his Spirit on all people. The imagery that was most often used was that of rain in the desert. For example, the prophet Isaiah said this…