BOOK PREVIEW - ACTS COMMENTARY

I love the book of acts. Not because it is filled with miracles and signs and wonders. Though I do love the supernatural, it is not the most important variable in the Kingdom of God. More than power, more than miracles, more than the anointing is the person of Jesus being exalted in all the world. Which is why I love the book of Acts. It is not just an exhortation to step out and preach the gospel, though I will admit that we often need such an exhortation before we will actually step out and do it. However that is not why Acts exists. The book of Acts is a demonstration, and example, of the design of God for His people.

Acts was written to be a historical account of the activities of God through a select group of men who walked with King Jesus and came to be completely conformed to who He is. It is centered around the early days of the Church, where God’s Apostles were boldly preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and making Him known among a people who desperately despised everything to do with Him.

The book of Acts is a recorded demonstration of the life the rest of God’s Word is working to develop in you.

It is not about miracles, it is not about power or glory or even our struggle to build a fruitful Church. In fact, I would suggest that it is not even about people. The book of Acts is about God. The book of Acts is about the activities of the Holy Spirit among a people who had died to themselves and offered their bodies as temples through which He could facilitate the invasion of heaven.

It is the detailed account of the continued occupation of King Jesus upon His return to the throne of God.

Many people look at the book of Acts as the beginning of a new day in the work of God. However, that is not how the writer of the book intended for you to look at it. He opens this book with the thought that his last book, the Gospel of Luke, was just the beginning of the work of Jesus. It wasn’t a different work, or a previous work…it was the beginning of the work! The book of Acts takes up right where the gospel’s left off. In fact, it was meant to be a continued account of the work of Jesus. In fact, if there is one major thought to be learned from the first chapter of Acts, it is this: The Work of the Church is God’s.

The story begins in the Gospels with the life of Jesus, and it continues in Acts with the people of Jesus. The story is not about the Apostles or about the Church. It is about the work of Jesus being accomplished through His people as they rely on His Holy Spirit. Acts one sets the stage for us. Jesus has ascended to heaven, and commanded His Church to wait in Jerusalem until they have been clothed in power. Without a doubt, the writer of Acts wants us to know that everything we will read in this book happens because the Church was clothed in power…because the Holy Spirit was coming to continue the work of Jesus.

This is the message of the first chapter of Acts. Let’s take a minute to just break down the chapter and to explore a couple of deeper nuggets of truth that I believe will help to empower you to step into this most holy design of God for His people.


                              The Continued Work…


In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven… (Acts 1:1-2a)

All around the world, the Word of God is preached. Men and women are taught about the nature of God and the workings of God; but a great disservice has been dealt. You see, the gospel has been preached with an end.

Our preachers open their Bibles and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, believing that the good news ends with the Cross. They tell about the desire of God for humanity, and about the nature of sin and death that divided us from the life of God; and then, with tears in their eyes, they reverently paint a picture of the Cross and ask us to respond.

Let me make it clear that I am not mocking the presentation of the gospel. It’s truth! God loves you desperately and has pursued you throughout history, bringing His Son to the cross to ensure that His pursuit could continue in victory!! Jesus died on the Cross so that God could be free from His responsibility to condemn you. Jesus died so that His Father could draw you into Himself. If that’s true, then the gospel doesn’t end with the cross.

An end means that the story is over. Friends, Jesus died so that the story wouldn’t end. The cross is not the end of God’s pursuit, it is the highway of God’s pursuit. God - the Holy Spirit travels by way of the Cross to draw men to Jesus, who then presents us to the Father as His Bride. The Cross is the method of God’s salvation, but not the highlight of it. The highlight of God’s salvation is the person of Jesus. It’s the life of God. It’s redemption! It’s reconciliation with God!

Let me say it in one more way, just to make sure you get it.

Before the death of God’s Son, there was no way to God. Man’s path went from birth to death. It ended in the grave. However, the Father wanted mankind! He wanted us to reach Him! He loved us so much that He literally sent His only Son to walk down that path, and to enter that end place of death and to redirect the grave. By satisfying God’s justice and dying as a man for the purpose of paying the penalty of humanity’s crimes against God, Jesus extended the path of humanity, so that the grave was never again the end of the story for those who would follow the path He, at that moment, began to pave. For those who believe, the grave is no longer the end, but a door to glory.

The Cross was the end of the road…but only for three days.

What I am trying to show you right now is one of the most significant truths you will ever learn in your life, because any man who makes the Cross the end of the gospel will never see the power that was released after it. Friends, Jesus did not come to glorify the cross. He came to break it!! He came to demolish death and to make a way for you to find life.

You all know the verse. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). Did you catch that Jesus wasn’t sent to die so that He could die? If that were the purpose, He would have stayed dead. No! Jesus came to die so that you could live…the purpose of the Cross was to make way for life.

With this understanding, Luke’s very first words in the book of Acts bares a whole new significance. Luke wasn’t just writing the book of Acts because Theophilus had some questions. No! Luke began the book of Acts because his gospel wasn’t finished…

For the rest of this book, for the rest of this study, look to this example of the early Church as the gospel, and not as a history book. It is not just a fun story that is meant to inspire us. It is the story of Jesus. It is the continued story of God’s pursuit of a mature and healthy Bride.

The God-head created mankind to walk with Him and to rule through Him, however, at the sin of man, death became a wall between mankind and God as the just punishment for sin. Jesus, as God, came to demolish death by taking the judgment of the Father upon Himself. Demolishing death and freeing God to continue His pursuit of mankind, the Holy Spirit came to work through the Church in order to draw all men unto God. The book of Acts is not a new study…it is the continued gospel of Jesus Christ.



KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR THE FINISHED BOOK: GLORY GENERATION - COMING SOON