Episode 233: The Unstoppable Progress of the Gospel | Andy Fetzer

I was walking in the back there and Barbara Babb saw me without my headset and she said, "You're on." And I said, "I don't have to do both sermons." And her heart just sank. She's like, "Do not start with me. I love you."

Last week, Steve preached. If you were here, you were blessed, and if you didn't see it or hear it, you can go online and watch it. When Steve preaches, he unites us in a way that's awesome. It encourages us. He told a story about receiving a bass guitar from his mom, from a lady named Mrs. Gillespie. It's a great story, and when he got that bass guitar, eventually he started to play it and it changed the way that he related to the Lord. It showed him ways in which he could worship the Lord and be brought closer to the Lord. And I was sitting in the pew and I was like, "Oh my, this is so—I'm preaching next week." I had a teacher once that gave me an instrument and it changed everything for me as well. Thank you. And what it was is the Lord saying, "No. Nope. I've got something different for you. Not music. Thanks, Lord."

We've been in Acts for a while now, and today is the last sermon in the series. And if you're keeping record at home, we're only at Acts 10, and there's 18 more chapters. So today, we're going to recap what we've done and I'm going to finish the last 18 chapters. But ironically, and I'm not joking, this will be the shortest sermon you've had in a while.

What Acts Is (and Isn't)

Acts has sometimes been referred to as the history of the early church. People go to Acts and they expect to find the history of the early church. Now, it is a historical narrative. You're going to get history in it, but you don't get the complete, comprehensive history of the early church. We don't know a lot. The author of Acts, Luke, leaves out a lot of the history. We don't know what happens with the church in Rome. We don't know what happens with the church in Ethiopia. There's a ton of stuff. So if we're going there for the history, we're going to be a little disappointed because it's not going to be complete.

Acts has sometimes been referred to as "the Acts of the Apostles." If this is completely true, then a lot of apostles don't get any ink whatsoever. We don't know what Thaddeus was doing at this time or Bartholomew. Only two guys really get most of the ink: Peter and Paul. And we do get a lot of what they were doing at the time, but it's not even what they were doing. It might be more about what the Lord was doing in them.

Acts is sometimes referred to as a manual for church formation and order and governance—a blueprint for church function. Here also, there are a lot of gaps. There are a lot of questions that we still have. If we go to Acts and we ask the question, "How do we do church?" we're going to be a little disappointed, not being able to see the author going, "Hey, this is how you should do it." There's a lot of different variety that we see in terms of the Holy Spirit and his role in the life of believers—how he manifests himself, the role of baptism, the role of communion, how often we should do these things, how we should do these things. So if we go to Acts for that purpose, I think we're going to be a little puzzled. Maybe that's not exactly what the author was intending when he wrote Acts.

So what is the purpose of Acts? Why was it written? It was written by Luke, the good doctor. He also wrote another book called Luke. And Luke actually has more words in the New Testament than any other author. A lot of people think it's Paul because he has so many letters, or John because he's got John and other stuff, but Luke really has more words than anybody else, and he has a lot to say about the gospel and how we relate to it.

In 1871, a French archaeologist named Charles Clermont found a tablet—a stone tablet that used to hang at the Jerusalem Temple. It read in Greek: "No outsider shall enter the protective enclosure around the sanctuary, and whoever is caught will only have himself to blame for the ensuing death."

At one time long ago, worship at the temple of God was exclusive—only to the Jewish nation. Luke's gospel and his companion book, Acts, in a sweeping way, washes that exclusivity away. Now, this wasn't Luke's idea. It didn't come with Luke. There were hints of this all along in the Old Testament that the good news is going to be for all people. We know that as we're looking at it from the other side, but when it gets to the New Testament and Luke is writing about this, this is mind-blowing.

But what Luke wants to do is proclaim that Jesus Christ is the savior for all people—not just the Jewish nation. Jew, Gentile, male, female, slave, free—all people. That's why in Luke, you find references to him using Isaiah 42, which talks about a light of revelation to the Gentiles.

You see an encounter that Jesus has with the Syrophoenician woman, where she's talking to him about the breadcrumbs falling from the table. That's why a centurion at the end, at the cross, in Luke's gospel, a non-Jew, looks at Jesus and declares his righteousness. And probably most famous of all in Luke is his parable about the good Samaritan.

Everything that Luke is doing is he's communicating that Jesus is for the outsider, for the outcast. Those that are on the outside who think they're on the outside—they're actually on the inside. And those who think they're on the inside, they're actually on the outside. There's a reversal, a flip, and Luke does it beautifully. We read Luke 14, where it talks about the guests. We'll talk a little bit about that at the end of this, but have that in your mind as Luke's purpose for writing his gospel and his companion book, Acts—to show to the world, and specifically to the Gentiles, that the gospel is for us.

The Unstoppable Progress of the Gospel

So what is Acts? In a word or a sentence: Acts is the unstoppable progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ through his church by the Holy Spirit. This thing is unstoppable. Nothing is gonna stop this from advancing.

When we read Acts and we go through systematically—Acts one, two, three—we keep seeing these things that would throw a wrench into the plan. At what point would you throw your hat in and say, "Nope, I'm out"?

In Acts one, the disciples and apostles still don't understand what's going on. They say, "Is now the time you're gonna restore Israel to the kingdom of God?" Like, they're still a little confused about what that's gonna look like.

In Acts two, the apostles are accused of being drunk. Their reputations are now on the line. You know, that doesn't seem like a significant thing, but how many people don't want to have anything to do with the truth because of the reputational problem with that?

I had a conversation with a high school friend of mine just last week, and I presented the gospel to him. We've been talking for a while, and I said, "Is this something that is stirring in your heart? Do you want to surrender your heart and your life to the truth of Jesus Christ?" He looked at me and he said, "I'm not willing to sacrifice that now. I have too much going on in my life." I really appreciated his honesty, but my heart broke. And I know there's gonna be a day, soon, that it's gonna be something he can't resist. But for right now, his reputation is on the line.

In Acts three, we see Peter and John at the temple. They don't even have enough gold. They don't have resources to feed the hungry. How are they gonna change the world when they don't have any money? Well, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they healed the guy. That's pretty awesome, but it does shine a light on the fact that we don't have much to offer except the Lord—and that's enough.

But every single time in Acts, we see some opposition. Yet it's not time to throw the hat in. In Acts five, there's a story of Ananias and Sapphira. They lie to the Holy Spirit about how generous their hearts are, and they get killed by the Lord. You would think at that point, people would be like, "I'm out. The stakes are way too high. What is going on? This is crazy talk." But the exact opposite happens. More people are drawn into the truth of this gospel.

Later on in Acts five, a Pharisee—I think Tim preached on this a few weeks back—Gamaliel. He's a Pharisee and he stands up at the Sanhedrin. These guys had gotten arrested and they were trying to figure out what to do with them. As a side note, they got arrested all the time. Is that the point where you would throw the towel in and say, "Nope, I'm out. I'm just getting arrested. I don't want that. That's too much for me. I got too much to lose"?

As a side note about my own life, it is an irrational fear. It's my biggest irrational fear—to be accused of a crime I didn't commit and then go to jail for it for the rest of my life. And it stems from the idea that my mom had twins when I was born and didn't tell me about the identical twin who is doing evil stuff and committing crimes, and I'm going to be accused of that crime and go to jail. I know it sounds stupid, but it's irrational. That's why it's called an irrational fear.

But going to jail is one of those things these guys do all the time. They're arrested, they go to jail. And Gamaliel, he's like, "Hey, leave these men alone. If this is from man, it's gonna fail. But if it's not—if it's from the Lord, if it's from God—you're not gonna be able to stop these guys. You're not gonna be able to stop them."

And then right after that, you would think the biggest opposition to this movement, and the movement ending right away, is the persecution and actual murder of the followers. We see that in Stephen. When Stephen is stoned to death. You would think, logically, I don't know how much I could take for the gospel, but what man intends for evil, God intends for good. What happens is people roll out. They leave, but they take the truth of the Lord with them. The church grows the most through its persecution.

If you turn to Acts 11 with me, in Acts 11 starting in verse 19:

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. — Acts 11:19

This gospel is going out. This unstoppable progress of the gospel is going out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. In Acts 1, 2, 3, and 4, it stays in Jerusalem, and we're told in Acts 1:8:

You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. — Acts 1:8

We see this geographical progression of this gospel—this unstoppable progress of the gospel—throughout Acts. It's from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and then in the second half of the book, Paul takes this gospel in missionary journeys to Galatia, to Europe, to Asia, to Rome. It's going all over the place.

Look what happens right here. Before Paul even goes on his missionary journey, they were telling the message only to Jews. Well, that's good, but it gets better. Some of them, however—men from Cyprus and Cyrene, and by the way, Cyprus is a real place on earth. Some of you might have gone to Cyprus. These are real places with real people and this really happened. Men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and they began to speak to the Greeks, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.

We get a little taste of this last week when Stephen was talking about Cornelius, but it's going beyond—at first to the Jew, but then to the Gentile, to everybody else. It's going to go through the Jews to the Gentiles.

The Lord's hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. — Acts 11:21

This gospel's moving in time and place through people, and it's unstoppable. I mentioned that the second half of Acts describes Paul's evangelism, taking it to the ends of the world. The meat and potatoes of evangelism is Paul's desire to go to the world with the good news of the gospel. It gives details about places that he went, people that he encountered, significant events that happened to him and his companions, and he takes the gospels to the ends of the earth.

We're not gonna finish Acts here from the pulpit, but you should finish Acts. If Sunday morning is the only time that we read scripture, or scripture's permeating our hearts, it's probably not enough, and I think we're missing out on a lot of what the Lord has for us. Start small, but start today. If you're looking for something to read, you can start in Acts chapter one. Read a chapter a day. Or better yet, go to Luke and start there and read Luke chapter one. Every day, read a chapter, and in two months, you'll be done with Luke and Acts.

Write down things that you don't understand. Write down observations, things that you never saw before that you're like, "That's pretty interesting," and then have conversations with people about what you read. I promise you, it will be a blessing. Fall in love with God's word. Let God's word be a lamp unto your feet and a song in our mouths.

The Gospel's Progress in Our Personal Lives

I'd like to show you in another way how the progress of the gospel in our lives is unstoppable. Last week, Steve preached a sermon of God orchestrating things in his life specifically and personally—on how he was brought to the Lord. The Lord searches after us like a man who found treasure in the field. He searches after us like a woman who lost one of her ten coins and she searches her house. God's relentless in his pursuit of us.

Why would he not? After all, you are his favorite person ever. You are. When he thinks of you, a smile goes across his face. You might think, "Well, that's great. He probably thinks of me every now and then." No. He thinks of you every second of every minute of every hour of every day, and he's been doing that since forever ago.

But there are others and he wants them to know that he also loves them and that they're his favorite too. And he uses you and he uses me and he uses his church to get that message out to a lost and broken world, to give them hope—the only hope that they can have—Jesus Christ, the unstoppable gospel, moving through time and place through us, his church.

We're his plan A and there is no plan B. He's like, "Hey, this is it. I don't have a backup plan. It's you guys. I'll be there with you, but it's you. You're going. I'm sending you. Go."

By the power of the Holy Spirit, orchestrated by God, the kingdom of God is advancing and it's unstoppable. And God is playing a song and he's inviting us—with our unique gifts and strengths that he has given us—to join in that song.

Last week, Steve played bass. He got the note and then he started to sing acapella, and if you were here, you could hear a pin drop. It was beautiful. Nobody dared join that because they didn't want to ruin it. But at the end of Steve's sermon, he got the note and the words were up there and the church started to sing. And I'm telling you, if you ask Steve, it was better the second time because it was more full, it was more complete. It felt right.

Just to be a participant in it wasn't enough. To be an observer wasn't enough. We were invited to be participating in it. When we play the song together, it's more complete. It's more full.

If the good news of salvation was only for the Jewish nation, it would still be beautiful, honestly, but it wouldn't be complete. God had a better plan to include us in that as well.

We read Luke chapter 14, and Tim stood up here and read it, and I hope that you've already drawn that connection—that we, in a sense, are the servants. We are the servants in that parable that have been asked to go out and get the crippled and the lame and the blind, of which we belong to as well, and invite them into this banquet. And if that's not enough, go out into the country. Go out into the bushes. Shake every bush.

I'm gonna play a song and as you listen to the song, it starts quiet and simple and it grows. And as you listen to this song, fill in—imagine the gospel advancing in acts—of what you know. But at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, the book of Acts is still being written, and we have a part to play. So I want you to listen to this song.

Prayer

When you refuse to play, something's missing. What we're gonna do right now is open up the rails for prayers of the people. The round rails right now will be used for people that want to come up by themselves and pray, connect with the Lord in a unique way. The rails at the sides will be a place where you can go and have prayer for you, for some other folks.

And thank you, thank you for leaning into this. Let's play. Let's play that song.