-This book is titled ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ but as we’ve been working our way through it I think a better title would be ‘The Acts of the Spirit’ because I think what we’ve seen so far in this book is just following the work of the Holy Spirit. So this past week that made think about the way Jesus describes the work of the Holy Spirit in John 3. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit moves like the wind. Have any of you ever seen the wind? Part of the reason I was thinking that is because I took some time this past week to go to a cabin for some prayer and planning for next year, which meant I took long walks every day, and because we live in MN, that meant walking near a lake. And just for proof of life, I took a couple pictures for Cara. In one of these pictures, it was MUCH windier than the other, can you tell which one? The one on the right! How can you tell? Can you see the wind in the picture? No! You can see that there’s more waves on the water! It almost felt like I was at the beach because the waves were so high! None of us have seen the wind, but we have seen the effects of the wind. If this were a video you could hear the wind blowing into the mic on the phone, you could see the brush behind me waving in the breeze, and Jesus tells us that’s a picture of the Holy Spirit. We can’t see or predict where the Spirit is going to be moving, we just need to stay aware and follow where He’s moving.
-From last week’s text, I think we can get the impression that the HS is moving faster than anyone can keep up with! The wind has been blowing north and south, up to Samaria, down to Ethiopia, back up to the coast, and the disciples are chasing to keep up with His movement. One truth to keep in mind through this series is that God is always at work. In Gen. we read that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, but His hovering has never stopped! We’re not deists who believe God created everything to work and then stepped back and stopped engaging, we believe that God is at work moving and hovering over His creation, so as we work our ways through today’s text, be thinking of how we’re seeing the Spirit going ahead of the disciples to prepare the way for them to point others to Jesus.
READ/PRAY (pg. 975)
- Saul’s Conversion (1-19)
-In contrast to the disciples, this chapter begins with Saul who is “breathing” threats against the disciples. Think about what I said at the beginning of this sermon about the Holy Spirit. Throughout the OT, the word used to describe Spirit is the same word used for “breath”, so while Saul is “breathing” out death and destruction, the Spirit is “breathing” out life and resurrection. Satan constantly pursues the inverse of the ways of God, Satan breathes out death, while God breathes out life.
-This is the first time we’ve seen the disciples given a specific name here it’s called “The Way” which connects back to Isa. 40:3, a prophecy connected to John the Baptist & Jesus in Luke 3. Now that Jesus has come, this group is working to prepare “the way” for the Lord. Church, don’t miss this reality: at the beginning I talked about the Holy Spirit going out, but the Holy Spirit’s work is generally through people! It requires us being obedient and the Spirit working to save people.
-As Saul is traveling to carry out his attacks against “the Way,” a bright light surrounds him. This is in line with OT appearances of God, but specifically I think we see a connection back to Ezek. 1, where the prophet is given a glimpse of heaven, esp. 25ff. and look at how Ezekiel struggles to describe what he’s seeing:
-While Ezekiel only saw a glimpse, Saul sees the full thing, the resurrected Christ
-And look at what Jesus says: persecuting ME. Friends, do you understand what that means? It means that if we’re in Christ, any hurting, any difficulty, any suffering, any persecution we experience is felt by Jesus. Through the cross, all the difficulties we experience on earth have met their final end in Jesus. Jesus takes all those problems and puts them on Himself. That gives us hope to persevere here and now because Jesus is experiencing that hurt with us.
-The men traveling with Saul could hear the sound but couldn’t see anyone, this event is so important that it will come up 2 other times in our study through this book: Acts 22, 26 from Paul’s mouth himself. This is one of those places where scholars will point out the differences between the stories as evidence that this isn’t true. But that doesn’t account for each time giving different information about the same event because of the person being addressed. This is the shortest account in the book; each subsequent story will give additional details to what happened (we’ll look at those later). But the point in all is the same: this is a divine encounter where the resurrected Jesus appeared to Saul in brilliant light and changed his entire world.
-The irony of this account is that now that Saul has seen the light, he’s blind, and proceeds to fast, likely in preparation for something to come.
-This is pure speculation, the Bible doesn’t say this, but I think Saul is using these 3 days to think back through the OT and all his training and finally see how Jesus was the fulfillment to everything he had previously studied. I shared a couple weeks ago that a phrase I like in studying God is “faith seeking understanding,” we believe in God in order to understand the way He has revealed Himself to us. I think that’s what has happened here. It’s like the difference between someone who isn’t a believer who’s trying to read the Bible and figure out what’s going on and someone that has been reborn who has the spiritual eyes to finally understand the Bible.
-As I mentioned earlier, we see the Spirit continuing to work and move in multiple directions. He’s worked in Saul to open his spiritual eyes, now the focus shifts to another disciple named Ananias.
-In salvation the Spirit is working in 2 people’s hearts: 1 to be the proclaimer of the gospel, and 1 to be the receiver of the gospel. In this case, Jesus revealed Himself to Saul, and Ananias was called to welcome and affirm Saul’s new call. Different Ananias than we read about in Acts 5 who lied to the apostles! But this is the only story we have about this man in the NT, which is a demonstration of the way God normally works, using ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.
-Ananias’ initial response is the same that we read about Samuel the prophet in the OT: here I am! Ready and willing to be obedient, until he finds out what the command is, then he has some questions.
-In this case, he’s not chastised for questioning, it’s a legitimate concern! Is Ananias being sent on a suicide mission?
-No, the one who will suffer in the ultimate twist of irony, is Saul. He was the one leading to suffering for others, now he needs to suffer for this name. And this is the case for us all, we’ll all need to face some kind of suffering in our lives at some point, the only question is do you want to deal with it alone or with God?
-Don’t jump over that this meeting takes place in a house. We saw the Holy Spirit descend on a house at Pentecost in Acts 2, we’ve seen Saul entering into houses to drag people off to prison, and this house now is the place where Saul’s life is forever changed. The temple is moving into homes.
-“Something like scales” remember when I said I like tracing themes throughout the Bible? One of the ones I listed was snake language. Saul, who thought he was being obedient, had been deceived by the serpent, but Jesus has defeated the serpent and truly opened the eyes of Saul! And he was obedient through baptism
-I think this is not only a description of what happened to Saul, but a great picture of what it looked like for all of us when we were saved. We were blind to the realities of who Jesus was and what He had accomplished through His death and resurrection. We had no hope of finding our way, but God removed the scales from our eyes and allowed us to see! It reminds me of a story in the Gospel of John where Jesus heals a man who had been born blind. The Jewish leaders hated that Jesus was getting the recognition, so they interrogate him, his parents, and then him again. And when asked the second time he replies:
-This is getting to the importance of sharing your story of how God saved you! Could you imagine being in a church meeting where Saul gets up to share his testimony: I went to the best schools, had the best teachers, was relentless in my pursuit of Yahweh, or so I thought. I was so zealous in my pursuit that I persecuted the church, putting followers of the “the Way” to death. But God met me on a road when I was trying to go put more Christians in prison and my life has never been the same. Friends, Saul would NOT pass a background check for any of our ministries here! But God can save anyone. Don’t be ashamed about your past (or present) sin. Jesus died for you, so bring them into the light and proclaim the wonderful news that Jesus has made a way for you to have new life!
-Which is what Saul immediately starts to do:
- Saul’s Ministry (19-31)
-There’s some timing questions to what happens after Saul’s baptism, because in Gal. 1, Paul recounts his conversion where he says he went to Arabia, then back to Damascus before going to Jerusalem after 3 years, which you can see on this map. But do you see how close Damascus is to Arabia? It’s not a big stretch to think that Damascus was his home base while he spent time meditating and praying in Arabia, then coming back to Damascus to debate and proclaim the gospel. Which is exactly what the text says he does.
-One brief note, because I mentioned the supposed inconsistencies on Saul’s testimony earlier: when people try to tell you there are major inconsistencies or problems in putting together the Bible, don’t take the bait! Many of the things that at first glance seem to be inconsistent turn out to have a fairly reasonable explanation, as long as you’re not approaching the text overly skeptical and looking for ways to try to prove it wrong. That’s not true in every case, but anytime someone says the Bible is full of mistakes, ask which one! I’m guessing someone in the past 2,000 years has thought about that issue and has a legitimate proposal for how those “inconsistencies” could work together.
-Saul goes from trying to wipe out “The Way” to becoming its chief proponent, at least in Damascus, and people are getting so frustrated with him that they decide the only thing they can do is kill him. Does that sound like anyone else we’ve read about in this story? Sounds to me exactly like Philip!
-So Saul escapes by being lowered through the wall like the spies in Josh. 2:15 and David in 1 Sam. 19:12, putting Saul in the same lineage as God’s people in the past who were used to save and redeem His people.
-The ironies continue in the text, as after arriving in Jerusalem, Saul tries to join the disciples, the same group he had forced himself onto previously to capture and throw in prison, but instead of welcoming him in, they’re still afraid that he’s going to turn them in and persecute them. And that seems to be a legitimate concern, right? It seems like a valid human response.
-But there’s 1 person who was willing to give him a chance: Barnabas. Remember him? His name’s actually Joseph, but his nickname became Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”) because he was so encouraging to everyone that they started calling him by the way he lived, the guy who’s always encouraging. I think every single one of us needs a “Barnabas” in our life who’s always willing to encourage us through whatever’s going on. In this case, Barnabas goes beyond just encouraging, he goes to bat for Saul in front of the Jerusalem church and provides the connection point between Saul & the disciples.
-And apparently Barnabas’s recommendation worked, because it says he was coming and going with the rest of the disciples in Jerusalem, and continuing to speak boldly about Jesus.
-His conversing includes the Hellenistic Jews. Do you remember where we last read about them? Acts 7, with the stoning of Stephen. Stephen, even though he was a Hellenistic Jew was killed by a mob of Hellenistic Jews for speaking about Jesus. So what do you think is going to happen to Saul when he tries the same thing? Do you see how this story has come full circle? Last time Saul was on their side, approving of the stoning of Stephen, this time he’s the one on the hot seat, so the disciples take him to the coast and send him back up to Tarsus to escape his potential death.
-But the church continues flourishing, in all the places Jesus had said it would! Kept growing and flourishing, marked by peace and the fear of the Lord. Are we marked by those same things today?
-And I think it has to start with all us being like Barnabas, encouraging each other in the ways we’re seeing the gospel take root and flourish in our lives. As I’ve shared before from Rom. 12:10, we should look to outdo each other in honoring and encouraging each other. It’s not hard! Send someone a text for the ways you’ve seen God at work in them, thank someone who has supported you in your walk with the Lord, find something in the people around you to encourage, be intentional about honoring your brothers and sisters in the Lord! As I said earlier, the Holy Spirit generally uses ordinary people to carry out His work, which means the encouragement in the Holy Spirit comes from flesh and blood people like you and me, and I have yet to meet a single person who is struggling with the burden of being “too encouraged.”
-But we’re not done!
- Peter’s Ministry Expands (32-43)
-Luke now takes us back to Peter, who has been carrying out an itinerant ministry traveling and preaching the gospel. But remember back a few weeks to where we saw that the preaching of the gospel is always accompanied by practical ministries where people are healed. Eventually, Peter makes it to Lydda.
-Here’s a map of Peter’s travels: you can see going to Lydda, in a few verses he’ll be in Joppa for a while, and then in next week’s text he’ll make his way up to Caesarea.
-The importance of Lydda is there’s a man name Aeneas who had been paralyzed for 8 years. And just as he did for the beggar in Acts 3, Peter heals this man. But notice what Peter says: who does the healing?
-It’s not something he can do on his own, Peter is just the messenger on behalf of Jesus, who does the healing, we’re supposed to see this as the apostles carrying on the ministry of Jesus. It’s not something they invented or came up with on their own, it’s Jesus’s work that they get to be the messengers of.
-The phrase at the end of vs. 35 (turned to the Lord) is used throughout the OT prophets to talk about a national repentance, the whole nation following after Jesus, not sure if that’s hyperbolic (which will come up later in this book) or if the entire area really did turn to the Lord, but either way it’s a mass revival taking place.
-And because there’s all these people who are talking about Jesus, word travels to all the surrounding cities, including Joppa. In Joppa, there’s already a contingency of disciples, one of whom is Tabitha (aka Dorcas), who is known for her acts of service and generosity.
-As happens to every human, she dies. But since the disciples know that Peter is nearby, they send 2 people to get Peter and come to Joppa immediately. We’ve already seen that Peter has been given incredible gifts of healing that people were trying to get his shadow to touch them. And what the disciples do with her body is weird. One commentator said this practice for Jews was unheard of. The general Jewish practice was to bury the body before sunset. This may be signifying that the disciples were anticipating a resurrection of Tabitha.
-When he gets to the house, some of the weeping widows show him the gifts they received from Tabitha: robes and clothes. And by walking into the room, Peter automatically becomes unclean. Dead bodies were supposed to be avoided, but not in this new work that Jesus does. Instead of sickness and death spreading, this whole book traces the spread of holiness and resurrection power.
-His phrasing echoes a resurrection Jesus performed in Mark 5, yet another reminder that this is a continuation of Jesus’s work!
-Once again, word spreads. And Peter remains in Joppa, staying with a tanner. A pastor friend of mine recently told me when his wife was growing up she didn’t know there was a different kinds of tanners, she thought this was someone who laid out in the sun all day getting tan. And yes, they grew up in CA. Thankfully, our translation specifics leather tanner.
-This verse is setting the stage for next week, because a leather tanner is someone else who would have been considered unclean by the Jews because he was working with dead animals all day. But that’s the end of this section, you’ll need to come back next week to find out why it’s a set up for next week!
-What does this text mean for us today? 2 reminders for us:
-First, don’t ever discount or discredit the work of the Holy Spirit. No one is too far from God’s reach. But an implication of that for those of us who are saved is that we also need to be faithfully sharing the work God has done in our lives. God generally uses incredibly ordinary means and ordinary people like you and me to carry out His extraordinary work and it requires looking to see where the wind of the Spirit is blowing around us. Just like Jesus appeared to both Saul and Ananias, we need to be on the lookout for people the Spirit may be working in around us, and then taking advantage of those opportunities to share about Jesus.
-Second, I think all of us should work to grow in being a Barnabas to each other. I need to be encouraged to remain faithful to God’s call in my life. I come to Sunday morning tempted to turn my gaze off of Jesus and onto my life or difficulties, but when I gather here with you, I’m encouraged to remember what’s truly true. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and provided an end to all the sufferings and difficulties I experience in between Jesus’s two comings.
