Acts chapter 1, we'll try to
look at verse 1 down through verse 3. And today we'll begin
a series of studies and messages through the book of Acts. I'm
sure it will take us several years to do so. I'm taking the
title for this message today from verse 1 down through verse
3, and I'm taking the title found in the last part of verse 3. Notice it says here, speaking
of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Now that's what the gospel
is all about. We want to make sure that we
are speaking of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Our message
here is not one of economics. Our message here is not one of
political issues. Our message here is not one of
vices or social ills. Our message here is Christ and
Him crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we're going to see
through our study in the book of Acts, the apostles carrying
out the command of the Lord to go and preach the gospel to every
creature, as we read in Mark 16, verse 15. Go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. And you know
they did just that. If you hold your place there
and find over here in Acts chapter 10, We find here the story of
Peter going to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius, and in verse
34 of Acts 10, well, let's back up one more verse, verse 33.
Immediately therefore, this is Cornelius speaking to Peter,
I sent to thee, and thou hast well done that thou art come,
Now therefore, we are all here present before God to hear all
things that are commanded thee of God. The gospel of God is
a command. And Peter opened his mouth and
preached the gospel. I'll turn to one other reference
here, one page over. In Acts chapter 11, when Paul
is recounting the story, Or Peter is recounting the story of preaching
to the house of Cornelius. Look at verse 14. Now here's
what we're to do. Who shall tell thee words whereby
thou and all thy house shall be saved. Now when we preach
the gospel, we preach words. that are understandable words,
and we communicate with those words a gospel message. And that gospel message is not
about me, and it's not about you. You know, the gospel is
not about you. The gospel is about the Lord
Jesus Christ. So we're not here to entertain
people. We're here to preach the gospel. Now, let me ask you
this. Think with me. What does this world need most? What would you say this world
needs most, foremost? Some would say, well, it's clean
drinking water. Well, I'm all for clean drinking
water. Some would say, well, we need to feed everybody. Everybody
ought to have a good meal, three meals a day. Well, I'm not against
that. But what this world needs foremost, firstmost, and utmost
is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ preached unto them. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. Now, you may give a man a drink
of cold water, and that's fine, but what he needs is water of
life and the drink of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, it's the
gospel of Christ that's the power of God unto salvation. Now, we hear all the promises
of our political leaders, and I'm not against politics, I guess
it's one of those necessary evils. Somebody's got to be in charge.
And I guess somebody has to run for office and we have to vote
for somebody. And I'm not opposed to voting.
But you can have the best health care. You can have the best health
care and still die in your sins. That's so. Our Lord said, he
that believeth not He that believeth not that I am shall die in your
sins. If you believe not that I am,
you'll die in your sins. So you can have the best healthcare,
it's not gonna help you with your salvation. And you can have
the best education. I'm not opposed to education.
Get all you can. But you can have the best education
and still die without the knowledge of the gospel of God. never coming
to the knowledge of the truth, and it is the truth that sets
us free. Now, educate your children. I'm not opposed to that. Send
them to school. Send them, and they'll need that
education to get along in this world, but you can have all the
education you want, and if you miss the gospel, you've missed
salvation. You can have the best job, And
I'm all about people working. I love to see people work, go
to work, make a living, earn a living, a trade or whatever
it may be. I'm all in on jobs, jobs and
jobs. And with that job comes a paycheck. I'm not opposed to a paycheck. And you can make all the money
and have the best job, but you will still die in spiritual poverty
without the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's what you need. You
need your salvation by Him and through His redeeming blood.
The Scriptures teach this. He that hath the Son hath life. Now, if you've missed Christ,
whatever else you have in this life, You can have all the education,
all the wealth of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, but if you
miss Christ, you've missed everything. Because this flesh is going to
die and you're going to put it in the ground. Then you're going
to have to face God. Face God. He that hath the Son
hath life. Now, with that being said, the book of Acts takes
up where the book of Luke ends. as my favorite news commentator
used to say, now here's the rest of the story. You remember who
that was? Paul Harvey. Love that old man. Loved to listen to his news commentary
every day. He really made sense to me. But
he had a series of things called the rest of the story. The book
of Acts is the rest of the story. After the Lord ascended to glory
and sent those apostles out into this world. I mean, this world
was a cruel, still is a cruel, harsh world. And how the Lord
Jesus Christ used these sinful men Sinners saved by grace to
tell other sinners how God saves in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now hold your place there. We're
going to be looking at a few references here. If you'll find
Acts chapter 15. when they had the first Bible
conference there in Jerusalem, and they had much debate about
whether the law of God was involved, or law-keeping was involved in
a sinner being justified, and Peter stood up, and it's recorded
here in Acts 15.11, but we believe that through the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they. In other words, he's saying that
God's going to save the Jew the same way he saved the Gentile
by grace, grace, grace, grace alone. No works. Not at all. One preacher friend of mine used
to have this saying, preaching, what is it anyway? Preaching
is one sinner telling another sinner where the bread of life
is found. I have a picture of him in my
study here. You go in there sometime and
look at it, a picture of Pastor Scott Richardson. He's with the
Lord now, but he was blessed in his ministry And he says,
it's written on that photo in there, if I can recall it. He
said, a preacher is a nobody who tells everybody about the
One Somebody, capital F, Somebody who can save anybody. And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes you go in my office
and look at it. Brother Scott Richardson, faithful, faithful
servant of the Lord. So preaching is one sinner telling
another sinner where bread is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is the bread of life.
He says this, our Lord says this, I'm the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Christ is all and in all in salvation. Now the narrative or the treatise
or the account called the Acts of the Apostles could rightly
be called this, and I really prefer this name better. What
would you prefer this to be called? Well, it really could be called
the Acts of the Holy Spirit, because that's what's going on
here is God, the Holy Spirit, sending these men out and blessing
them. Just notice, for example, in chapter one, verse two, until
the day in which he was taken up After that, through the Holy
Ghost, he gave commandment unto his apostles, whom he had chosen."
And then again, down here in verse 5, John truly baptized
with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost,
with the Holy Spirit. And then down in verse 8, he
mentioned again, He is mentioned again, the third person in the
Trinity, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost
or the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Now, the narrative of this
book of Acts covers a period of about 45 years, 45 years in
these chapters, chapter 1 through chapter 28. Now, I want you to
turn to the last two verses in Acts 28, verse 30. Acts 28, verse 30. And you can
see here that I'm taking my time here in this introduction. I'm
doing so on purpose. Acts 28, 30, And Paul dwelt two
whole years in his own hired house, and received all that
came unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence,
forbidding no man. Now, we're going to see in Acts
chapter 2 that Peter stood up and preached the gospel. And
all the way through the rest of these chapters, we're gonna
see the apostle preaching, preaching, preaching. And Paul, when he
is in prison, waiting on death row to be executed for preaching
the gospel, what do we find him doing? The last two years of
his life, what's he doing? Preaching the gospel. Now, in
Acts chapter 28, notice this verse 23. Back up just a little
bit. In verse 22, it says that this
sect, or this religion, we know that everywhere it is spoken
against. And when they appointed him a day, there came many to
him in his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified of the
kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of
the law of Moses, out of the prophets, out of the prophets,
from morning till evening. Some believed the things that
were spoken, And some believed not. What did he do? Three things.
He expounded, he testified, and then he persuaded them to believe. That's what preaching is involved,
those three things. Now, back to Acts chapter 1. We know that this narrative,
called the Book of Acts, was penned, written by Luke, and
of course we know it was given by inspiration of God. It was
penned by Luke who was not, now listen to me, someone wanted
to argue with me last time we went through this ten, eleven
years ago. Someone wanted to argue with
me and insisted that Luke was an apostle. He was not an apostle. It was penned by Luke, who was
not an apostle. Luke was not even a Jew by birth. He was a Gentile. But certainly
one chosen in electing love and redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ
to write out this blessed, inspired word concerning the acts of the
Holy Spirit or the acts of the apostles. Now, it's interesting
that Luke Luke, Paul called him, my beloved physician. Paul was
beaten and harassed and jailed so many times that he had to
have a traveling doctor to minister to his wounds. But it's interesting
that Luke stayed with Paul, stuck with Paul, all the way through
his imprisonment and then his journey from Jerusalem through
his shipwreck all the way to Rome. And he's with him in Rome
still ministering to the Apostle Paul. What a faithful man. That
tells you something of his integrity, tells you something of his faithfulness
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's beloved physician. It says that in Colossians 4
verse 14. Now the theme of this book we
know is this, the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ with a special attention and special emphasis upon one
aspect of the gospel. And you know what that was? the
resurrection from the dead. We're going to see almost in
every instance of the preaching of the gospel that they emphasize
the resurrection from the dead. Now let me show you that in chapter
2 and in chapter 3. 17 times through the book of
Acts we read of the resurrection of Christ that is mentioned.
In Acts chapter 2 verse 24, Verse 23 declares, "...him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken him by wicked hands, and have crucified and
slain, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because
it was not possible that he should be holding of it." Now, chapter
3, turn over there, verse 14. Peter said, you denied the Holy
One, the Just One, and desired a murder to be granted unto you.
You've killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead,
whereof we are witnesses. So they emphasize the fact, not
only that he died, died by God's determinate counsel,
died by their wicked hand, but more than that, that God raised
him from the dead. Now, I love this scripture over
in Acts 17, where they were complaining about the apostles coming and
preaching. And they said of these men, these
men have come here, these men who have turned the world upside
down with the preaching of the gospel. And that's what happened.
That's what happened in that day. Now, to me, I always try
to find a key verse. And to me, we could look at many
key verses. But to me, chapter 4 verse 12
was one of my favorites. Chapter 4 verse 12, if you want
to turn there and look and read this with me. Neither is there
salvation in any other, for there is none of the name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. Now that's the key. Salvation in no other but the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one other important note
here. And this is most interesting. Most interesting. We hear much
today of the theme, and I'm going to call it a silly notion, we
hear much today that people in religion say God loves everybody
without exception. Isn't that what we hear today?
That's what this religious world is saying. Now, so we see in
the book of Acts all the preaching of the apostle sin of God. You
know how many times that the love of God is mentioned through
all their preaching? How do you think? Now, if that's
what it is, if that's what the gospel is all about, You think
the apostles would be talking about that universal love all
the time, but you know how many times the word L-O-V-E is used
in the book of Acts? Zero. None. Isn't that quite
interesting? I think it is. Now, the apostles
preached Christ. as all of God's love to us to
demonstrate that love by sacrifice. That's what they preach. And
that's what the sacrifice of Christ tells us. Here is love,
John said. Here is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and that he gave His life for us
as a sacrifice for our sin. And in that, we see what? Well,
we see. We see the love of God, don't
we? But they didn't go around telling everybody. I had a dear
couple, I was out here Friday working in the garden. And when
I work in the garden, I just get, I mean, I'm in the dirt.
My dad was a dirt farmer. My granddad was a dirt farmer.
My great-great-granddaddy was a dirt farmer. When I garden,
I get in it. I get dirty. I get down and dirty. There was a car pulled up out
here, and I didn't recognize the car. And a couple got out,
an older couple, started walking over toward me. And I finally
recognized the man. And it was a man who helped us
lay the block here and over at the house. And I got in a conversation
with them, and it led me to say these three things that everybody
in religion says, that God loves everybody, and Christ died for
everybody, and that God's doing a dead-level best trying to save
everybody. And I told them those three things
are an absolute lie. That's not so. That's just not
so. The love of God in Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ died for his people. And my soul, if God is
God, does he try to do anything? And a puny creature says, no,
you can't save me. I don't want that. Next time you see someone dying
on their deathbed, And if they are a promoter of a free will,
why don't you just say, well, I will not to die. You know how
puny we are. You remember the last time you
had a toothache? You ever had a toothache? I mean a real toothache. Well, you just will it not to
hurt. You better go get that sucker pulled out. And I've had
a few of those done, too. The love of God is revealed in
Christ. Having loved His own, He loved
them to the end. And that's what these men preached.
They didn't preach universal atonement. You don't find that
there. They didn't preach universal
love. They didn't preach God trying to do anything. God speaks
by command. Now, I've gone 20 minutes and
not even hit verse 1. See, this is going to take a
long time to get through this book. Now this is the third time
we've gone through this book of Acts, 1996 and 97, and then
again in 2006 and 2007. We begin today for the last time
that I'll be going through the book of Acts. And when we finish up, I'll be
70-something. And maybe, I wrote down here
a note to myself, maybe it's time to consider calling a younger
pastor. I don't know if my days, my days,
I think, I know they're numbered. They're limited. I'll give you
what I got, but I tell you, the gas tank's about empty. And I'll
give you what I've got. But I think it would be good
in four or five years or so that we, if I'm even here, there are
some excellent young men right now that are very capable of
preaching and pastoring. And maybe the Lord would be pleased
to send one here when my ministry's done. And I just have a few years. I'm not announcing my retirement
or anything like that. I'm just saying it's something.
I'm getting old. You are too. And it's something
we need to consider down the road. Now, having said all that,
let's look at verse 1. The former treatise, which is
an account, account given of God, have I made, I've made, Or Luke said, I've made this
by the will of God, by the inspiration of God. And he's writing here
with a note to this man, Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do
and teach. Now, if you turn to Luke chapter
1, I'll get Acts and Luke here mixed up for a while. Luke mentions this man again
in Luke chapter 1, down at verse 3. It seemed good to me, this
is Luke 1, 3. It seemed good to me also, having
had perfect understanding of all things, from the very first
to right unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus. So whoever this man was, his
name seemed to indicate a name of excellency. Excellent Theophilus. He must have been a man that
was a very close associate of Dr. Luke, but his name, Theophilus,
means friend of God. Friend of God. That's a good
thing to be called, is it not? A friend of God. Theophilus was
Luke's dear friend. His name also means loved of
God. His name also means lover of
God, and certainly the word of the Lord is written to the Lord's
people, who are loved of God, and who are loved by Him, or
who are lovers of God and loved by Him. Here in His love, not
that we love God, but He first loved us, and we are called,
Abraham was called the friend of God. Now, wouldn't that be
something? To be a friend of God? To be
an heir of God? A friend of God? Our Lord said
this, you are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. And we'll talk about that in
just a moment. What are we commanded to do? Notice Luke writes to
us about all that Jesus Christ began to do and teach. You see
that verse 1? Of all that Jesus Christ began
to do and teach. We know this, all scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and all scripture is about the
person and work of Christ. Now, turn back one page to John
20, of all that Jesus began to do and teach. Now, did he write
about every little detail of everything he taught and did?
Well, look what John says here in John 20, Verse 30, and many other signs
truly did Jesus and the presence of His disciples, which are not
written in this book, but these are written, that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
you might have life through His name. Everything we need to know
about the way of salvation, forgiveness, being justified, is found in
this book. Now, stay in John here, look
in John 21, Verse 24, this is the disciple
which testified of these things and wrote these things, and we
know that his testimony is true. This is what John says about
himself. He's a witness who's testified. His testimony is true. Now look
at verse 25, there are also many other things which Jesus did.
The witch, if they should be written everywhere, I suppose
that even the world itself could not contain the books that are
written therein. So when he says of all that Jesus
began to do and teach, it certainly is all that God wants to have
revealed unto us of all that he said, which was true, and
all that he did, which demonstrates that he is who he says he is.
All things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law
and the Prophets concerning me." Then he opened their understanding.
Now, our message of all that Jesus began to do and to teach. To do and to teach. Now, that
is our message. His person and His work. Now,
when we preach the Gospel, we preach Him. We preach who He
is. We preach what He did. We preach
why he did these things, and we preach where he is now. Of
all that the Lord Jesus Christ began to do, both to do and to
teach, who he is? Who is the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, he's a prophet from Nazareth, right? He's called the Son of
Man, right? He's also the Son of God. He's
also the Word made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory. He's also God manifest in the
flesh. That's who He is, which gives
infinite value to what He accomplished. Now, when we talk about what
did He do? Did He come down here and try
to make an effort? to put people in a savable state,
or did He come here to accomplish their salvation? Now we know
what the answer is, don't we? The Lord said, John 19, 30, it
is finished. He finished the work for us.
He glorified the Father by finishing the work of redemption. He accomplished
all that He purposed in saving us by His redeeming blood. He obtained for us eternal redemption
with His own blood. Who He is? God Almighty, the
God-man, mediator, God, totally God, man, totally and fully man,
without sin, in one blessed body. That's who He is. Without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. So we preach of all that He began
to do and to teach. And Paul said, remember in our
study in 1 Corinthians, we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ
the Lord, and ourselves, your servant, for His sake. Who He
is, what He accomplished, His redeeming work, why did He die? Why did He die? Those mean Jews,
they ganged up on Him. And those ungodly Romans, they
just ganged together on Him. And poor Jesus, He couldn't do
anything about it. They just arrested him, they
beat him, they misused him, and they nailed him to a tree. And
he didn't know why he died, he didn't know why he was here,
and he doesn't know where he was going. Now that's the religion
of this world. It's not the teaching of this
book. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel of God, they did what God determined before to be done. Why did he die? Father's eternal
purpose. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Why did He die? To put away our
sin, to enable God to be just, and to justify the ungodly. Why
did He die for our sin? According to the Scripture, that
God might be just, and the justifier of them which believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And fourthly, where is He now? Where is He now? We're going
to see in the last part of Acts chapter 1 that He brought them
out as far as Bethany and blessed them. And then He ascended to
glory. When He by Himself purged our
sins, He sat down on the right hand of the throne of God. Where is He now? ever lives to
intercede for us, seated in the throne of glory, they're interceding
for us right now, pleading not our merit, but pleading His righteousness
of all that Jesus began to do and to teach. how God in his
grace justifies sinners. The Lord plainly and powerfully
demonstrated that he is the Christ of God by his mighty words and
his mighty deeds. Now, Turn to John chapter 5. And I'm going to quit with this
right here. I've already gone 32 minutes, and if I give you
everything I've got prepared here, we'll be here another 32
minutes. And I'll save this for next week
so I won't wear you guys out. I know you can only endure so
much, but all that he said and all that he did was verified,
not only by his resurrection, but notice what it says here,
these witnesses. John 5, 32. And there is another
that bears witness of me. He said, if I witness of myself,
verse 31. John 5, 31. If I bear witness
of myself, my witness is not true. Remember, according to
the law of God, every word must be established by the mouth of
two or three witnesses. There is another that beareth
witness of me, and I know that his witness which he witnesseth
of me is true. You send unto John, and he beareth
witness unto the truth. Now, what was John's message?
Behold the Lamb of God that takes away our sin. But I receive not
the testimony from man. He bear witness of the truth.
But these things I say that you might be saved. He was a burning
and shining light, and you were willing for a season to rejoice
in his light. But I have greater witness than
that of John, for the works which the Father had given me to finish,
the same works I do, they bear witness of me that the Father
hath sent me." So John bear witness of his coming, and his works
bear witness of his coming, and the Father said, this is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased. So yes, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Messiah sent of God to accomplish all our salvation.