Transcription
Of Acts and on the front of the book of Acts, let me just say that there are three sections to the book, classically that can be laid out. I'll put them as boxes up above.
The first seven chapters really deal with Jerusalem and Judea. And you remember in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, it says these words: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and Judea, then in Samaria, and then in the uttermost parts of the earth." That appears to be Luke's outline, so Acts chapter 1, verse 8, is divided into these three sections.
Now, on Jerusalem and Judea means Jerusalem, the city, and the surrounding outlying communities. Samaria is north of Jerusalem. The uttermost parts is largely the story of Paul. The players in the first box will be Peter and John. The player in the second box will be largely Philip. And then we move to the story of Paul. It's not only that I'm grossly oversimplifying the story. I mean, Bartholomew was still saved here, okay? He was doing something here. But really, the storyline follows what happened in Jerusalem and Judea under Peter and John's ministry, breaking out at the end with the death of Stephen, then moving toward Philip, and then the spread of the gospel into the whole world.
The point of the book is that the story begins in Jerusalem but ends in Rome. So, part of the theme of the book of Acts is to carry the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome. And what, what Luke is doing is showing you in the second part of his trilogy how the gospel started in Luke's Gospel with Jesus coming and giving us the redemption, and then there was a narrative of that redemption in Luke, and then it picks up the story of the acts of Jesus Christ through his apostles. So, this is Jesus alive in his church now. It's a detailed, orderly, eyewitness account of the birth and growth of the early church, the spread of the gospel immediately following the resurrection. Its narrative supplies the bridge between the Gospels and the life of the church, the lifeblood and the instruction of it in the epistles. So, Acts is kind of the backbone, and we fit the epistles into the book of Acts.
We're going to spend a lot of time, much of the remaining part of our year will be spent here, not in Acts, but in the events surrounding it, the letters that are written during that time. Later on today, I'll break that out for you, or perhaps the first class that after this. Authorship of Acts is attributed to Luke. Luke's name does not appear in the narrative. You need to know that. We believe that Luke is the writer. He is the only Gentile writer in the New Testament, and he writes 28% of the New Testament. Luke, by writing the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, wrote more than Paul. So, a Gentile wrote the largest single chunk. He wrote more than John, and he wrote more than Paul. That's important for you to know. He's, there's only one Gentile author, but boy, can he write. By the way, he was an educated man. Colossians 4:14, I write that on the opening flap of your Acts. Colossians 4:14 says he was a physician. So, it's not Luke, it's Dr. Luke to you. He was not one of the twelve. But I think it's worth making a note: 28% of the New Testament is written by this man.
How does he know what Jesus said if he wasn't a disciple? How does he know? Well, primarily based on the preaching and teaching of Paul, but also in Luke 1, verse 2, he says he collected eyewitness accounts. So, the authorship of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are both attributed to Luke. It's interesting because it's the oldest writings that we have concerning the New Testament, after the New Testament, in other words, written by the disciples of the people who wrote the New Testament. We have, for instance, the anti-marcionite prologue, which is from 150 to 250, and it says this: "Luke is a Syrian of Antioch, Syrian by race, physician by profession." Now, that's generations after Luke, but it does give you an early church remembering of what Luke was. And in fact, in that, we find out that he became a disciple of the apostles and later followed Paul until Paul's martyrdom, having served the Lord continuously, unmarried, without children, filled with the Holy Spirit, he died at the age of 84 in Bithynia, which is according to other Gospels. Matthew was written in Judea, Mark was written in Italy, but he was urged by the Holy Spirit to write the whole gospel. And among those in the region of Achaia, that's the southern part of Greece, and that's where he dies, that's according to this early document.
Does that mean it's true? We don't know. What we know is that's what we've been told by early church sources. We also know there was an old man in Milan, a Father Moratori, who was going through the, this, this is the time of George Washington. He was going through the library in Milan and discovered that there was a seventh-century Latin document that he found one page of. And that seventh-century document is the copy of the oldest known list of New Testament books. It is apparently, according to the Moratori fragment, the fragment itself, a copy. It's a seventh-century copy of a document that was from the fourth century, and we don't have the fourth-century one. But it proclaims that it is a faithful rendering of the earlier one. Okay, so in that seventh-century document, the fragment, we don't have everything. We have 85 lines of the fragment, but it actually lists not only the actual books of the Bible but who wrote them. And it lists Acts as written by Dr. Luke. So, we have an early rendering for that. That's one of the oldest lists of the New Testament that we actually have a copy of, called the Moratori fragment, was published in 1740.
We know that a second-century writer named Irenaeus, a second-century writer named Clement of Alexandria, both of those say that it was Luke that wrote the book of Acts. I only make this point because somebody's going to come back and go, "Well, it's not in there, so how do you know?" Well, the early church didn't have any other, there was nobody else who was mentioned as the writer. There was only Luke. So, if somebody's going to come up with a new one, they're going to have to understand that the, the testimony was over and over and over, Dr. Luke, Dr. Luke, Dr. Luke.
Now, one thing I want you to know about the book, this is incredibly important and skipped over in the Sunday school version of the book. There are three "we" sections in the book. "We" sections don't mean little people walking around like it's not that. "We" sections meaning where the pronouns are no longer "they did this, they did this." It's "we did this, we did this." Let me give you those sections in Luke and in Acts. 16:10-17 is the first of the "we" sections. The second one is 20:5 to 21:18. And the third one, and I'll make sense out of why these are important, is 27:1 to 28:16. 27:1 to 28:16. And these are the, this is the reason these three sections are important. These "we" sections mean the author is with Paul in the journey. He doesn't, there are no "we" sections in this part, but there are three of them in this part in Paul's ministry. Three times the whoever's writing it says, "we did this," not "they did this." This is "they, they, they, they, they." "We, they, we, they, they, we." And when you find those "we" sections, look for who else is in the narrative. As best we can tell, and what you'll come up with is Luke is the right person. In fact, he probably goes to Rome as the personal physician of Paul. In other words, under Roman guard, Luke could travel because you were allowed, wealthy people were allowed to travel with their own physician, especially if he was Greek, because the posh thing to do. It was kind of like having a British butler, you had a Greek doctor, and he traveled with you. Talk about making house calls. I mean, he comes with you on vacation. This is really cool.
At any rate, the important thing is that the writer is distinct from the other people that are mentioned in the text. So, we know it can't be Silas, it can't be Timothy. So, Peter, our starkest, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus, because those are all mentioned. So, the "we" has to be somebody who's none of those eight, and you're left with Luke. And that's the reason I say it, it's a very strong case for Luke and authorship for for the book of Acts. Personally, I favor the dates between 62 and 67 as the events that are being recorded. It can be a little bit later, but I don't think, I think that the book is written before 70. In the fall of the temple, surely if Luke was writing and the temple fell, that would be like a 9/11 moment. Everybody around the world heard the temple fell. By the way, don't get the idea that was just a Jewish event. Remember, in the downtown center of the Forum of Rome is an arch with the pieces of the temple being carried away as decoration. How important was it to Rome? So important that it was in the downtown district. "We conquered the God of Abraham and the Temple of the Jews." So, it was important to everybody. A 9/11 moment of the first century was the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of the temple. And the important thing is that it's not in this book. So, the earliest date for the book is probably the two-year imprisonment in Acts 28, which would have been 61 or 62. That's the earliest date that you can get for that. The latest date for the book of Acts is probably 70, because it would have mentioned the events of it. The abrupt ending of Acts probably says that there was going to be a continuation in Luke's mind, a third book, but we just don't know. Acts 20, verse 25, hints at Paul's death, so it may be that it's after Paul died, which is 67-68, that he's writing this to recount it. I don't think so. I actually think that that's a more of a prophetic thing because he spoke in Ephesus prophetically that he was going to die. And now, behold, I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face, he said to the Ephesians. So, it's really possible that it's him saying, "Guess what? I'm going to die." But that doesn't mean it was after his death. It just means that he said that.
The important thing for me is that there's no specific word in the gospel, in the book of Acts, about the oppression of Rome. But that's an argument from silence. That doesn't mean it hadn't started yet. It just means we don't have anything. Let's, let's get into the book because I really want to do that. But I just want to mention to you that there are some primitive expressions of theology, like "Christ" instead of "Jesus Christ." There are some of the expressions used in the book that show that it's a very early book. So, for instance, the word for Christians in the book is often "disciples" as opposed to "Christians." They're first called Christians at Antioch halfway through the book, and there that begins to be more important. The earliest name for the Christians is "the people of the Way." It's simply "the Way." And so, this is a very early book, and it captures a very early idea.
It's written to Theophilus. How do I know? Because Acts 1:1 says it's written to Theophilus. And the important thing is, Theophilus means "the one who loves God." And you can put that next to verse one: "the one who loves God." History and historians aren't sure who that is. But it may be that he was just a Roman with intense interest in the newly forming Christian faith. I actually think he's probably the lawyer for Paul. And so Luke is giving the background in law and in a legal form to say, "You're probably wondering how a doctor and a balding Jew ended up here in Rome waiting on Nero and getting adjudicated." Well, let me tell you, it all started with this guy named Jesus. And he goes back and he tells the story. And then he says, "Now, let me tell you what happened as the gospel went from Jerusalem and Judea into Samaria and all the way into Rome. And let me show you how the gospel progressed to where we are."
If you want to put some landscape marks on the book, like where it was, Jerusalem is in it. It starts, the whole story starts in Jerusalem in chapter 1. So, you start off in Jerusalem in chapter 1. But interestingly enough, by chapter 13 and 14, you, you start off and you get to Cyprus. Cyprus is, of course, the big island in the middle of the Mediterranean. And by 18 to 21, you have a mission journey that takes the gospel into Asia Minor and all the way up into Europe. The gospel makes its way to Greece. And you know, in 15 to 18, it's in, it's in Greece. If I can learn to spell it. And it will end up in Acts 27 in Rome, or on the boot of Italy. So, you can see the progression just in geography.
The major features of the book, I think, are probably the mission journeys. And we're going to highlight those mission journeys from 13 and 14, 15 to 18, and then 18 to 21. Those are your three mission journeys of Paul. We're going to, we're going to highlight those, and you're going to become familiar with them. For right now, for today's class, here's what you need to know: Acts 1:8 is the outline of the book, and that moves from Jerusalem, Judea, to Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. If I ask you, "Where does the gospel go in the book of Acts?" what I'm asking you is from Jerusalem to Rome, which to them is the center of the world. If you're a Roman, the center of your world is Rome. Okay, all right.
Let's get, maybe I should do something with the theme before I get into the text itself. The theme is the gospel is, is making its way to the Roman world. That's the theme. Okay. How the gospel started with the outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem and affected the entire Roman world in Rome. Jews don't hear about how it went to the Gentiles. And so this actually expresses how it went from being a primarily Jewish message to being largely a Gentile message. In the first century, something happened when Paul went out. What people group did he reach first, every time he went out? Why? Romans 1:16 says, "What about the Jews? 'I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is a power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jews first, then also to the Gentile.'" Okay.
Now, when he goes out, I want you to take a look for a moment in Acts 13:46. Someone read it out loud. Okay, I want you to make a note next to Acts 13:46, and I want that note to say, "See Acts 18:6 and see Acts 19:9." And here's why I want you to do that. Many students of the Bible falsely conclude that in Acts 13, they were going to the Jews, and in Acts 13:46, he said, "That's enough, I'm going to Gentiles. I quit going to Jews." That's not what that verse says. Because in the next journey, guess where he goes? Go to Acts 18:6. Again, he's saying, "I came to you Jews, you're not listening to me, so I'm going across to the Gentile across the street. I'm not talking to you anymore because you don't want to listen." Now go to 19:9. Read it out nice and loud. Okay, this is the first journey. This is the second journey. This is the third journey. Is there not an underlying theme in the book of Acts that the gospel went each time to Jews, they rejected it, so it went to Gentiles? "I'm not going to tell you anymore, so I'm going to go to Gentiles. I came back to you again, and you still don't want..." Three mission journeys, three started with Jews, three ended with Gentiles. An underlying theme is, "You're probably wondering how this began as a Jewish movement and ended up as a largely Gentile deal." It's because I brought it to the Jews as I was supposed to, since they were the ones who already had atonement, they should have understood atonement's completion and justification as a replacement of it. But instead of that, they rejected the message, largely. Some of them came, Aquila, Priscilla, others, but many of them rejected it. So, I ended up with Gentiles.
An underlying theme of Luke is, "I know I'm a Gentile doctor. I'm aware of that. And I know that Paul is a Jew. I'm aware of that. And each time he went out, Paul started with Jews but ended with Gentiles." Why? Because the gospel was being pushed away as the veil fell over Jewish eyes, but it was being enlightened by people who came from pig-eating, pagan backgrounds and saw the reality of Jesus, and their old life was stripped off of them, and a new life was given to them. They were born again. So, that's obviously one of the underlying features.
I want to give you one other underlying feature that I think is really important for you to know before we get into the book, because the book has a lot of spiritual content, but I don't want you to lose the bigger historical frame. Remember that if this is written to the lawyer, what would be his purpose? It would probably be, "Float this idea: Christianity is not subversive. Hence, Rome, it's not going to hurt the Romans." I think that's one of his major themes. And you know what? There are no less than nine defenses of the Christian message presented in the book of Acts. Nine times, a complete defense. And do you know what keeps showing up in the defenses? "It won't hurt Rome. It won't hurt Rome. We're not anti-Roman. We're not against the Roman system. You guys are going to frame this like we're against Rome. We're trying to overthrow Rome. Jesus can be Lord, and Caesar is fine. We don't have to overturn Caesar to follow Jesus." That's one of their big background comments. And nine times they'll be a defense of Christianity. And by the way, seven of those will be Paul defending himself. Why does Luke include the full and complete defense of Paul? Because he's probably writing to the lawyer, and he wants to tell him what happened in each of the trials or defenses that he gave prior to that.
Remember that this, the major theme of Acts is this: it picks up the work of Jesus through people. In other words, Luke was the work of Jesus through his physical body. Acts is the work of Jesus through his spiritual body, the body of Christ, meaning the church. Okay? Let's get into the book itself and start off just by kind of understanding that the very opening of the book is the commissioning work of God.
Let me pose some questions very quickly. We're going to fly through this, okay? Are you ready? Acts chapter 1, I think, is a series of questions to pose before you commit to following a leader. This is God starting off with a group of people, establishing the work. So, let me ask you some questions in Acts chapter 1. Write down the ones that strike you or things you would use.
Acts 1:1 says, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after he had, by the Holy Spirit, given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God." We just saw those 40 days and the 12 times he shows up. Now, here's the thing. The question I would pose after verse 1 is: Jesus intended to begin a work that continued in other people's hands when he left. That's what I think 1:1 says. Right? If that's true, is the nature of the ministry objectives of the leader that says he's going to lead me in harmony with the kinds of ministry Jesus began? Follow my thinking. If I'm going to follow, if I'm going to join this church or this movement, is what they're about what Jesus was about? Because this says, "I want to tell you how Jesus began ministry and how they continued it." My question is, if they're all about something Jesus was never about, let me give an example. Was Jesus about standing with placards at someone's funeral, deriding them for their beliefs? Yeah, the, the kind of people are standing outside a military funeral saying, "If you didn't have guns, this guy wouldn't have died." Or, you know, was Jesus about the condemnation of people at their funerals? Then really, those dear folks at Westboro Baptist should maybe pay attention. Before I can join a group, I need to know if the kind of ministry they're doing is a ministry that continues the spirit of what Jesus was doing. If it's angry, and it's mean, and it's nasty, and it's frustrated, it's not Jesus. It's not what he was doing.
Now, go on to verse 2. "Jesus's plan was exposed in his spirit-empowered teaching to leaders that he chose as his messengers." Here's my question in verse 2: Do people claim to be leading by God's direction? And if they do, do they have a track record of knowing the teachings of God's Word? See, it says in verse 2, "He was taken up after he had given the Holy Spirit and to the apostles whom he had chosen." Is this person exhibiting that God chose them? That they have the Spirit of God? And that they understand the record of what had been done before? Let me say it this way: If you don't know the Word, then I can't follow you. Why? Because you're going to lead me in the ministry of Jesus without knowing where it came from. I give the greatest respect to people who come with an argument with texts. I sit in rooms with pastors who give me emotional arguments, not textual ones. I, within the last 48 hours, sat with a number of pastors, and I said, "That's a, that's a really insightful idea, but it doesn't have any biblical support." I was just talking to a guy yesterday, and he said, "Well, you know, these guys in their 20s and 30s, these younger pastors, they're really wanting us to go this direction." And I said, "Can somebody show me a verse in Scripture where it says the older shall be led by the younger?" Can somebody just tell me why that's important to you? "Well, brother, we don't want to lose them." Wait a minute. You will lose them if you don't follow the scriptures. And if you gain them without the scriptures, you haven't gained anything at all. So, my question is, where in the Bible does it say to do that? Can anybody think of the opposite? Where it says it's dangerous to let the young lead? Think of a Bible story. Rehoboam. That's the classic. And then in the New Testament, "not a novice." You don't lay hands on another, on a young believer. I'm not saying they can't pastor. I'm saying that they shouldn't determine the direction because it's "coal relevance" is not more important than the text. And the problem is, look, I was a young pastor before I got to be an old one. Okay? Here's what I know. When I was a young one, I didn't know as much of the text. The older one should be leading the younger ones, not the reverse. If the argument is, "People are going to leave our church if we don't do this new relevant thing," I'm going to look at them and I'm going to go, "Where in the Bible does it say that's what should drive us?" That was my issue. I have no problem with a person's age. I just want them to bring text. See, a guy who's 25 who brings text gets my attention. I don't care if he's 25 or not. But a guy who brings an emotional argument to me and says, "It's relevant, and you guys are just not relevant," I'm looking at him going, "And I care about that." Why? That's pretty hard. But that's, I just came out of long discussions where guys were just, "If they, if those young people want it, we should do it." No. If they want something biblical, then it's not about their youth. When somebody comes up to Ben after a message and says, "Well, that was a great message for your age," I'm going to go, "Wait a minute. It was a great message. It doesn't have anything to do with your age. The question is, is it biblical or not? Not was he 25 when he said it."
Now, when you get to chapter 1, verse 3, I see these words: "To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering." Here's the question: Jesus spent time carefully instructing the apostles, even convincing them of his resurrection with specific evidences for a period of time. So, here's my question: Before I join your church or movement, do the people that would lead you spiritually have real and measurable time invested in considering the claims of the Messiah? Are they convinced of the truth of Jesus? I'm not following a group of people that are not convinced of the truth of Jesus.
If you go to verses 4 and 5, it says, "He gathered them together, commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father has promised, which he said you heard from me. For John baptized with water, you will now be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Here's my question: Jesus instructed the men to sit there and wait at Jerusalem. How many of you think that's what they wanted to do after the resurrection? They did not want to sit there with the message of the resurrection. They wanted to run home and tell their, their families. He says, "Stay right here." Why? Why did he tell them to wait? The Spirit of God is going to descend on them and empower them for the ministry. If they go out right now, they go out in the flesh. If they wait for the Spirit of God to empower them, they go out in the Spirit, which is going to be more effective. Okay? So, here's my question: Before I sign on to being part of your group, do you give evidence that you will follow Jesus even when he asks you to do things that are hard for you to do? Because he asked them to do something that was hard: "Sit here, don't do anything, wait for me." Remember who's the great quintessential guy in scripture who can't wait? Give you a hint. Has something to do with "wait for me until I get there and then offer your sacrifice." Saul. He's the "can't wait" Saul. And this is all about, "Did you demonstrate when Jesus told you to sit there and wait, did you sit there and wait?" I want to see a pattern of obedience to Jesus Christ. Well, I can't sign on to the leader. By the way, I expect you to do that to me. If you don't see an obedience pattern to Jesus Christ, you shouldn't go here. And the fact of the matter is, in verse 6, he goes on and says, "So when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, 'Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?'" Now, look, after 40 days of intense training, here's what I love: they still don't know what he's talking about. They still don't get it. They don't comprehend the program of God. So, here's what I don't expect them to have perfect understanding of the Bible. I don't leave a church because a guy gets something wrong in the Bible. That's dumb. None of us have a perfect sense of what's in the Bible. But I do ask, are they pursuing it? Are they trying? Did the guy prep his message or just wing it? If he prepped it and he got it wrong, okay, we all get it wrong sometimes. I don't want to make you so critical that you walk around going, "That guy had the wrong message on such-and-such, and therefore I left that church." Well, there are 1,189 chapters, and you're not going to get them all right. Okay? I'm not giving an excuse for poor theology. I'm saying, give the guy a break. Give the gal who's leading the Bible study a break. I mean, come on, don't leave the first time they get something wrong. We all get stuff wrong. But if they're not pursuing it, and they're not working at it, they're not diligent to preach the Word, then that's what I want you to point out to them. Love on them. I get people call me and say, "Well, my pastor, he's just boring, and so I'm just thinking I'm going to leave." Well, have you done anything to help train him? I mean, to just send him to some seminars or something where he could learn to do it better? What? Why is it okay to just write the guy off? Don't write him off. Work with him. Love on him and pray for him. Get in his corner. Tell him, you know, "Hey, I really appreciate you're really good with the illustrations, but I'm not getting enough text to tell me to, you know, explain the Bible to me. Don't just talk around it."
How about this? In verses 7 and 8, Jesus told the disciples not to put their emphasis on trying to decipher how God works. Watch this. He said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest parts of the earth." Here's what I want you to see: Jesus said, "You don't get to know how God does what God does." By the way, how many times this year have we crossed this? "You don't get to know how God does what God can." Do you understand what they're saying? They're saying, "Jesus, what's the right chart for eschatology and end times?" And he says, "You don't get to know everything the Father's going to do and how he does it." Here's my thing: When I'm posing the question of what kind of leader I'm going to follow, if he's caught up in theoretical theology but not caught up in the empowered service for Jesus, I'm not signing on. By the way, lots of churches are caught up in theoretical theology. They think they're teaching the Word, and what they're actually teaching is a theological version of it. Let me show you how the, how God does what God does in his Word. And the interesting problem with that is, it's not going to help you if you don't know God's Word. I get rooms full of guys who can tell me the Romans Road to salvation, but they can't tell me the life of Abraham. They know what the Bible means, they just don't know what it says. And that's a problem. So, one of the questions I ask is, is this guy caught up in theoretical theology?
Now, can I just make a note about 1:6 before we go flying way past it? Did the disciples think God was done with Israel? So, in Matthew 21, when I told you it wasn't about Israel being replaced by the church, it was about a generation of rulers who are being replaced by a later generation. How did I get that? The disciples were in the room when Jesus was teaching, and they saw a future for Israel. Mark out and box around that, and make sure that you note that the disciples thought that Israel as a nation had a future. And then Mark Romans 11:32: "But one day all Israel will be saved." It's not true to say that the disciples thought, "Okay, Keith, if you drop down to verse 9 through 11."
Jesus was lifting off from the Mount of Olives, and the apostles were standing there, gazing upward, looking into the clouds. And they were going to stand there like this. It's wonderful. That's a really wonderful moment of worship, gazing into the clouds. That can't be your church. There are lost people all around you, and they have needs. Here's, here's my question: Before I'm going to follow a leader, I want to know if he has any sense of where Jesus is going now, not just a great wonder about Jesus. Does everybody know a disciple who's caught up in wonder? If you don't, you need one of these people in your life. They are incredibly wonderful people. But if you're led by them, you won't have any standards. In the extremity of worship, you're caught up in a vision of God that ought to produce something that is practical. But I found that many artistic people, forgive me if you're one of them, aren't terribly practical. That's why I have a friend who's this wonderful painter. She does marvelous work. Her electricity shut off all the time. You know why? She has plenty of money. She doesn't remember to pay the bill. Now, she can paint. She can do things on canvas I could never do. But you've got to pay your electric bill. You'll come in sometimes, and you'll go to her studio, and the place is just a mess, and there's a half-eaten sandwich over here, and food, I looked in a coffee cup one time, I don't know what was growing in there, but it was like a terrarium. And I said, "What are you doing?" She says, "I've been so caught up in my painting." You know what? Take the trash out. You know, seriously, you stop for bathroom breaks. Come on. So, my point is that that sometimes people can be caught up in one thing and lost in it. They're great people. They're inspiring. They're rich. They help your soul. But they're not the leader. And when that becomes the leader, it usually goes badly.
Let me go back and say, after the guys get their head out of the clouds because the angel smacks them around and says, "Hey, oh, oh, right here, Jesus is coming back, and you have something to do between now and then." Verses 12 through 14: "They return to Jerusalem." And so they took advice of the angel from the Mount of Olives, which was near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey anyway. When they had entered the city, they went up to the room where they were staying. That is Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. What's interesting here is the apostles returned to Jerusalem, and they meet together. And look at what the room sounds like. What's the buzzing sound in the room? What are they doing? Constantly praying and standing together. Here's the question I ask before I join a group: Is the leader self-willed and divisive, or does he have a team around him? Is he prayerful? Is he a guy that, that it really, it demonstrates that he's willing to work prayerfully with other people? They didn't all walk away from the experience on the Mount of Olives and go home to their own homes. They went together. I'm looking for people who were team people, not so important as individuals they don't have a team and don't want one. You know the word that scares me on the front sign of a church? "Independent." There's something about that. "We're an independent church." There's something about that that doesn't feel like you want to be connected to believers. Now, there's nothing wrong with having, having a church that isn't a denomination and is its own church. I don't care. But that word sticks out like, "If you know anything about me, know that I'm independent." Does that sound like a Christian connection? It always bothers me when I see "independent, fundamental, Bible-believing." That tells me, "We think we got everything right, and no one else." That's what it communicates to me. Now, maybe I'm being too harsh because I am tired.
But get down to verses 15 to 26. The question I ask is: Do the leaders see themselves as accountable to one another, or feel above the law? Watch out for this one. This is the ninth and final question in the passage. Do leaders feel the law in that group? Listen, every cult is characterized by one thing: the leader feels above the rules. If you watch for a cult, you'll know that the leader, the leader says, "You have to be absolutely pure," and he's got seven wives. I mean, just look at these cults and how they work, and what you'll see is that they feel above the law. Where do I get that? Well, look at verse 15. It says, "At that time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, gathering about 120 persons." Well, we're there, brethren. "The scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry. Now, this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all of his intestines gushed out." There's an interesting thing here. In Luke's Gospel and in Matthew's Gospel, he just goes out and hangs himself. Here it says he fell into a field and his guts busted. I think what happened was that the sides of the Hinnom Valley there are trees that grow right out of the side. I think Judas went and hanged himself on a tree, and the tree pulled out. Here's the deal, though. He's getting up and he's explaining to them that they've lost Judas. If you drop down in the narrative, it says, verse 21, "Therefore, it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." We need a guy to fill Judas's slot. That's what he's saying. But we need not just a warm body. We don't just need anybody who's willing or somebody with cash. What kind of person do we need? Guys, a team player. He knows scripture. He's been with us since this time to this time. He knows the story already. We didn't go out and find somebody because he was rich or influential in the community. We found somebody because he was invested in the story of Jesus and knows it well. So, they put forward two men: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, meaning this guy's got more names than you. And then Matthias, who is kind of anti-climactic. The other guy's got three names, and he's only got one. It's like, anyway. They prayed and said, "Lord, you know the hearts of men. Show which of these two you have chosen." And what did they do? In verse 26, to choose him, they drew lots, which is how priests at the temple determined the jobs in the temple. They used the pattern of the temple. It's not like they went to Vegas and gambled. The next guy in, it's they used something that was incredibly important to them. Now, here's my point. My point in this whole story is: Do the leaders of a group you're going to join feel above the law, or do they feel like they need to follow certain rules? Peter's giving some parameters. They don't just choose somebody because he's important. They choose somebody who fits the parameters of what they are told. I don't have to you.