The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the spread of the church.
It shows how God is using the news of the Gospel to take back the earth.
But to understand what God is doing in these last days, we’ve got to go back to some of the first.
We’ve got to go back to the book of Genesis.
For when God made Adam and Eve, he made them in his image
and gave them the privilege of taking the light of God’s visage to every corner of creation.
All of earth’s inches were to be covered with God’s image.
That was their mission.
For God’s intention was that the whole world would become a place
where his created ones could enjoy fellowship with the one they love.
Where humans could dine with the divine.
Where the earthly and celestial could share the same table.
Where mankind would fellowship with God as they were meant to.
And earth was to be the venue.
So, God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful, to grow the garden, to fill the planet,
to take his light and his presence to every place on earth they could possibly inhabit.
But Adam and Eve wouldn’t have it.
So, instead of spreading God’s image to the nations, they decided to spread their own.
So, they were separated from God and from their shared home.
But God would not leave his creation alone.
So, in our image he came.
For our sins he was maimed and earned us back a place in the garden by rising from the grave.
But before Jesus ascended back to heaven, he told his disciples what would be the scope of their work.
They would take the good news of what Jesus had earned to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria,
and then to the ends of the earth. But something else had to happen first.
They were to prayerfully wait until the Holy Spirit came
to give them the power and authority that was in Jesus’ name.
And on the day of Pentecost in an upper room while the disciples prayed,
they heard the sound of a mighty wind and saw the Holy Spirit rest on them like a flame.
Now the presence of God that was lost in the garden, the light of God that we tried to darken,
had come near in a new way to fulfill an old mission to cover creation with God’s image.
So, he came to the disciples to make them his witnesses and to spread his church
to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Now, this threefold project not only shows how the Gospel would go to every country and continent,
but in the book of Acts, these three locations also serve as a table of contents.
Part one.
The Gospel goes to Jerusalem where Peter and the disciples begin the Gospel’s distribution.
Part two.
The Gospel expands to Judea and Samaria where Phillip and others bring
Israel’s divided kingdom back under God’s united rule over the area.
Part three.
The Gospel goes to the ends of the earth as Paul and his fellow workers plant church after church.
Now this three-part table of contents shows us the movement that should have been present
in book of Genesis: God’s presence taken out by those who were near it.
But what Adam and Eve failed to do in their flesh, God accomplished by giving his spirit.
But what is it that spreads this presence?
What is it that performs this reversal work?
What action is enacted to secure this worldwide reach?
It is this: Everywhere the disciples went, the Gospel was preached.
Whether it was Peter’s Pentecost sermon or his plea before the rulers.
Whether it was Stephan’s testimony and martyrdom or Phillip being the Ethiopian’s tutor.
Whether it was to God-fearing Gentiles or in Pagan Greek rings.
Whether it was Paul in every synagogue or before any king.
Their message was about one thing.
That Jesus is the promised savior the scriptures promised God would bring.
That he died for our sins and rose from the grave to finally set humanity free.
But something else happened.
In all three of the regions the disciples would visit,
there was one work of God that would make his presence explicit.
When the Gospel was preached and the people would hear it,
the event was marked off by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
For Jerusalem, the Spirit came at Pentecost to show
that the power who raised Jesus from the dead is now with us.
For Judea and Samaria, the Spirit came through the preaching of the Gospel and the laying on of hands
to show that those who seemed to have worked themselves out of God’s grace
were still within God’s plan.
And when the Spirit poured out on the house of the Gentile Cornelius,
God was showing that this good news was not just for one group, but was for all of us.
The Holy Spirit covers page after page of the church’s early story
to reveal the glory of this fact:
That humanity is no longer separated from God as they were back in the garden of Eden.
For they have been made into the new house of God for they have God living within them.
And something else happens as God’s spirit goes out universally.
It’s that the people of God start to be filled with diversity.
Jews and Gentiles, Bareans and Ephesians, God Fearers and Pagans, Romans and Judeans
start to come around the table with other nations and regions.
For that is the reason God told the disciples to go, to leave Jerusalem,
so the whole earth might become the new garden of Eden.
Now this church on a mission has come to us, so that we may continue
taking the Gospel to the whole world until it is the venue
where people from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation, can come around
the table and break bread with the God that made them.
The acts of the apostles now continues with us, the church.
So, may we take the good news of Jesus to our neighbors and to the nations,
until the light of Jesus fills the ends of the earth.
Thank you so much for watching our introduction to the book of Acts.
This concludes our series in the gospels and Acts.
And next we are turning our attention to the wisdom books.
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