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Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to our start of the study of
the book of Acts. This is a follow-up to our study of the book of Luke, because
Luke wrote both books. And following up on Luke, the story of Jesus, now we go
into Acts, the story of his church beginning in the world.

Let's just get right into it. In the book of Acts, we're going to study, like we
studied the book of Luke together, a chapter a day instead of a chapter a week,
with the idea that I want you to get a survey, a quick look at this exciting
story of Jesus coming into the world, Jesus giving his life for us, and then his
church beginning throughout the book of Acts. So Acts, chapter 1, verses 1 to 3.

Luke writes, "In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began
to do and until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions
through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he
showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.
He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

" It's interesting that the book of Luke ends with the ascension of Jesus, and
the book of Acts begins with the ascension of Jesus. It's the same ascension,
just one ends with that story, and then he picks up at the beginning of the next
book with the same story. Luke builds with tension, we saw as we went through
Luke, towards this explosion of joy and resurrection at the end.

Acts is a little different. Acts begins with an explosion of joy and of the Holy
Spirit at the beginning, and then we see the repercussions, the waves that go
out from that explosion throughout the entire rest of the book. So it's not a
book that builds with tension like Luke, it is a book that expresses the victory
of what God can do in our lives.

So in the book of Acts, we're going to take two days on these first two chapters
and then go a chapter a day from then on, because I want you to get how this all
begins. Acts is all about how to change your world, how God wants to change the
world through you. And as you look at this book, the supporting cast of the book
of Acts are people like Peter and Paul and Luke.

Peter, we're going to see in the beginning of the book, is the foundational
leader of the church. Paul, as we read through the book, becomes the missionary
leader of the church. And Luke, all through the book, is the missionary writer.

Remember, he was the physician. We're going to see some interest in Acts of the
things that a physician might be interested in. But he was also an historian.

And in both the book of Luke and in the book of Acts, you see his concern for
history, getting the details down of what happened in the life of Jesus and then
what happened because of the life of Jesus in the world through the book of
Acts. He also, we're going to find out in the book of Acts, he also was an
eyewitness to some of the things that happened in Acts. These are called the
"we", W-E, passages in the book of Acts, Acts 16, 10, for instance, where Luke
talks about him being there.

And this is a book that's written again, just like Luke, to Theophilus,
Theophilus, which means friend or lover of God. The idea of someone who not only
wants to be a friend of God, but wants to express their love of God in everyday
life. And in one way, as we said in the book of Luke, we are all a Theophilus.

We are all someone who wants to get to know God better, whether we admit that to
ourselves or not. And as you're studying through this book of Acts, my prayer
for me and for you both is that we will become more deeply in love with Jesus
than ever before. And out of that will grow a love for people and a love for
what he wants to do in our lives and through our lives.

The book of Acts, it's got Peter, it's got Paul, it's got Luke. There's over a
hundred other people mentioned in Acts. It's all about people, but none of them
are the main character.

They're just the supporting cast. The main character in the book of Acts is the
Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers and through
the lives of believers to make a difference in the world today. The spirit, the
word spirit is used 55 times in the book of Acts.

So it's not Paul or Peter that's the most important person in the book of Acts.
It is the Holy Spirit who is the most important person in the book of Acts. And
when believers are filled with God's spirit, they spoke in other languages, they
preached with courage, they spoke God's word boldly, they served others, they
did wonders and miraculous signs, they saw the glory of God, they brought great
numbers to the Lord, they helped people to see again, they confronted Satan's
power.

That's just the icing on the cake of all that happens in the book of Acts. At
the very beginning, in the first chapter, Jesus says that the impact of the
spirit's filling is our witness for him. I just want to say from the very
beginning, and sometimes when we study the book of Acts, we have arguments about
the Holy Spirit.

And the problems that come when studying the book of Acts come when we try to
tell people how the Holy Spirit has to come into or has to work in their lives.
That we have to follow this example from what happened in history. Somehow we
have to mimic what happened.

So Peter is shown a vision of some food that he should eat that comes down on a
sheet, something that looks like a sheet. And we say, if you don't have a vision
like that, you don't have the spirit. Or Paul is blinded when he comes to
Christ, and we say, if you're not blinded like that, then you don't have the
Holy Spirit.

Or the disciples spoke in tongues, and we say, if you don't do just exactly what
they did, then you don't have the Holy Spirit. And we make what should be a
cause of unity into a cause of disunity. Let it not be so as we read through
this book together.

Let's just see what God's Spirit wants to do in our lives today as we see the
example of what he did in their lives then. The main verse in the book of Acts
is the verse we're going to look at together tomorrow. As we look together at
how God wants to take through his Spirit, he wants to take each of us and send
us out into our world.

This is the story. The book of Acts is the story of how the good news spread
from Jerusalem to Judea to the remotest part of the earth. The personal
challenge for me, for you, as we read through this book, is how does God want to
use me to change my world?

How can I be a bold witness for Jesus Christ? How can I go out from where I am
now to my Jerusalem, to my Judea, to my remotest part of the earth? Now, as we
get into this book, I want to give you just a very quick outline of the book of
Acts based on the word "Acts," A-C-T-S.

Let's use those four letters to outline what happens in this book. A stands for
ascension, the ascension of Jesus. Acts 1, 1-11, it's a very short portion of
Acts, but everything explodes from there.

Everything happens from that moment. Jesus ascending to heaven. We're going to
look at that together tomorrow.

C in Acts stands for the church, the church is born. Acts 1-12 all the way
through 8-11, you see what's happening in this new church. From the upper room
in chapter 1 where they're praying to the day of Pentecost that begins in that
upper room then spreads out into the streets to Peter's first sermon and 3,000
people being saved all the way through to seven being chosen to help the widows
who are being overlooked in chapter 6, or the arrest, the preaching, the death
of the first martyr, Stephen, the church being spread out into the world.

The church is born in these chapters, chapter 1 through the beginning of chapter
8. T in Acts stands for troubles. In chapter 8 through chapter 12, troubles come
to test and to temper the church.

The troubles of persecution, the troubles of arguments, the troubles of
jealousies. They have to struggle with the realities of who we are as human
beings and who the others are and in that the church is actually strengthened.
And then A stands for ascension, C for church, T for troubles, and then S stands
for sent.

The church is sent into the world. And you read beginning in Acts chapter 12,
the last half, about the three missionary journeys of Paul. The first journey to
the Galatian region, the second journey to Macedonia and Asia, and the third
journey to Rome.

And it's all the story. All of it is the story about how the Holy Spirit is
working in the lives of ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference in
the world. My prayer as we study through this book together is that God will
speak to my heart and your heart and let us know that he uses ordinary people.

He did not write down the story of what happened in Acts so that we might think
that these were some heroes of the faith doing things that we could never match.
He's very honest about the life of Peter and Paul, for instance. They were men
with strong jealousies and strong passions and strong difficulties in their
lives.

But because they trusted the Spirit, God used them in extraordinary ways. That's
the story. That's my story.

That's your story as we read through the book of Acts. Let's pray together.
Lord, let that be.

I pray that as we read through this book together and study it, you would show
us how you want to use us in our world today. Where you want us to go, when you
want us to go, how you want us to go, who you want us to go to. Lord, help us to
see our own weaknesses as we study through this book, even as we see the
weaknesses of the first apostles.

But Lord, also help us to see your strength. Help us to see the strength of your
Spirit and what he can do in our lives. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to see that the disciples get an unexpected
command from Jesus.