Proclaiming the Gospel – Page 2

After a couple of weeks off, this week we are picking back up in the incredible story of the church in Acts. My Minister of Students walked the congregation through Acts 12 last week (click here and tune to the 35:30 mark to catch his excellent treatment of it), so this week we are on to the next part of the story in Acts 13-14. This is where we find the travelogue of Paul’s first missionary journey. Travelogues like this can make for tough point-seeking, but as the story unfolds on Paul’s disciple making efforts, we discover a series of principles worth considering in our own similar efforts. Let’s explore these together as we see that merely making converts to the Christian faith is not our goal.

Not Merely Converts

For nine weeks now we have been working our way through the story of us; the story of the church as told by Dr. Luke in the incredible narrative of Acts found in the Scriptures. And we’ve learned all kinds of things along the way about how we should be doing church if we are going to rightly stand in the long history of tradition that stretches out behind us. We’ve learned that people best connect to Jesus through the three-fold ministry of powerful words, loving actions, and an attractive community. We’ve learned that the way we survive the myriad of challenges all churches face is by being boldly committed to advancing the message and mission of Jesus and by taking the church as seriously as it deserves. We’ve learned that sometimes this kind of boldness sparks persecution, but also that the only response that will get us through these challenges is to double down on Gospel boldness. We’ve learned that when we do our part, pairing our efforts with those of our Father who always does His part, the church grows, and that having as many people as is possible in the church is the point of the whole endeavor. Indeed, if we’re not reaching people with the Gospel message then what on earth are we doing wasting our time and money on all of this for? We’ve been impressed by the fact that our whole identity as Jesus followers is built on the idea of including everybody. “Christian” is an inclusive identity. Just last week, after taking a week off to hear about all the work God did among our students this summer at camp, Nate walked you through the remarkable story of Peter’s miraculous escape from prison, and helped us see that when we pray big, bold prayers, God just may answer them and we need to be ready for that.

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For the last three weeks we have been talking about the initial explosion of the early church and the boldness with which they pursued the advance of Jesus’ mission. We’ve talked about just how seriously they were taking the church in those early days. Along the way, though, a question has started to bubble up without much of an answer just yet: what happened to them? So they did all this bold Gospel work. What happened? How did things go for them? In this next part of our series, The Story of Us, we’re going to get an answer to that question. It may not be what you expect. Read on to find out how things went.

P.S. My family is taking some downtime this next week, so this will be the only post for this week. Enjoy, and see you in a week.

The Fruit of Boldness

A few years ago, I picked up a copy of David McCullough’s book, 1776. It’s a gripping story of the events of that incredibly consequential year in the history of our nation. The story, however, is not what you might expect going into it. When we think about the year 1776, our thoughts are mostly shaped by the momentous event that happened on July 4th and which we are in the midst of celebrating, with the main events coming on Tuesday. That, of course, was the day we officially declared independence from the British crown, establishing ourselves as a sovereign nation.

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