Last week, we continued in our study on the book of Acts, covering chapters 9-15. The title of the message,“Forcefully Advancing The Kingdom,” comes from Matthew 11:12. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” Our first study focused primarily on the start of the church and its growth in Jerusalem. In chapter 8, we see that the disciples leave Jerusalem and preach wherever they go! This is the start of the spread of Christianity “To the ends of the earth!” (Acts 1:8) In order to be a part of the forceful advancement of the Kingdom, or Church, we must be very zealous for God, His righteousness, and his Kingdom! In last week’s study, we looked at 5 different areas in which we need to have zeal:
Zeal for the Truth:
Acts chapter 9 is the account of Saul’s conversion. Saul (later Paul) had been very zealous for God! He believed he was defending God by persecuting, arresting, and killing Christians. I believe he probably thought of himself as a Phinehas (Numbers 25), who killed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman because of their blatant disobedience to God’s commands, or Elijah (1 Kings 18), who killed 450 false prophets of Baal and 400 false prophets of Asherah! Both of these men were very zealous for God and his honor, and God was pleased with their actions! Saul probably thought of himself like one of these men, and thought he was being righteous by persecuting the church! Jesus had to appear to Saul personally to show him that he was wrong. “ ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’ “ (Acts 9:4-5) Jesus blinded him and sent him to Damascus where he would have his eyesight restored, and be baptized by Ananias. Immediately after
he was baptized, he went out preaching “that Jesus is the Son of God!” (Acts 9:20)
Today, we understand that, like Saul, we can be very zealous for God, and yet, be very wrong! We need to also be very zealous for the truth; not waiting for Jesus to confront us personally and tell us that we are wrong, but we need to compare our lives to the Bible, and change where our lives don’t match up to the Bible! “Do not merely listen to the word, and
so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:22-23)
Zeal to Preach:
Acts 10 and 11 primarily focus on God making it clear to Peter and the other Apostles that God
has called the Gentiles as well as the Jews. “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.’ “ (Acts 11:18) We saw in Acts 11:19, where some disciples went to Antioch and began preaching to Gentiles! They accepted the message, and a “great number of people believed and turned to the Lord!” (Acts 11:21) Many scholars believe the Church in Antioch to have grown to 25,000-50,000 disciples! Those certainly are great numbers! In Acts 11:26, there is a simple statement: “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” This is actually one of only three times that the word “Christian” is mentioned in the Bible, and is the only time that a comparison is made between a “Christian” and a “Disciple.” Today, in our society, many people believe that there is a different standard
or expectation for someone who wants to be a disciple than there is for someone who wants to be a Christian. According to Acts 11:26, the words are simply different names for the same people. In other words, there is no difference between a disciple and a Christian! They are exactly the same. If one is a Christian, then he is a disciple, and vice versa. Conversely, if one is not a disciple, he is not a Christian! This is a high calling, as there are over 270 scriptures which talk about the requirements of being a disciple of Jesus! Many of them are very challenging, because we see that being a disciple, or a Christian, takes so much more than having a
simple faith or belief in Jesus! Luke 14:33 states, “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” And James confirms that faith alone won’t save you when he says, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24) In order to forcefully advance the Kingdom of God, we must have a zeal to preach not only “Christ crucified,” (1 Corinthians 1:23) but also “that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.” (Acts 20:21) There must be a visual change; repentance is necessary in addition to faith. In Acts 26:20, Paul says, “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” This can be a challenging message, but we must preach it!
Zeal to Pray:
In Acts 12, the Apostle James is put to death and Peter is arrested. I think we are all challenged when someone, who we consider to be a good person, dies unjustly, but we should be encouraged in our faith when we consider the deaths of the Apostles. After Judas commits suicide and is replaced by Matthias, we see that all of the Apostles, except John, die for their faith in Jesus! Now, John was boiled in oil, and should have died, and was also exiled to the Island of Patmos, but he did die a natural death. The other faithful Apostles were all martyred. According to church history, about half of the Apostles were crucified when they
were killed. This brings a whole different meaning to Jesus’ words “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Now, the reason that all of this should be encouraging to us is that people are only willing to die for something they truly believe in! And all of the men, who walked with Jesus,
willingly chose death because they would not deny that Jesus was the son of God! This should
encourage us today in our faith because we know that their testimony was true! Back to Acts 12: we left off with James just being killed and Peter in prison. The Disciples all gathered together to pray for Peter’s release. I believe that there was a great deal of uncertainty to these
people whether God would answer this prayer. God after all, had not spared James. Peter, however, was released by an Angel! He came to the place where they were praying and knocked on the door and a servant girl went to answer the door. When she heard it was Peter, she rushed back, without opening the door, and told the disciples who were praying for him at that very moment! At first they didn’t believe it was him, but then they opened the door and were astonished to find Peter standing there! If we want to see miracles in our lives
today, we also must have a zeal to pray!
Zeal for the Mission:
In Acts 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas are sent off on the first missionary journey, accompanied
by John Mark. They traveled through portions of Asia (modern day Turkey) and preached in the different cities. They encountered much opposition. In fact, in Lystra, Paul was stoned and dragged out of the city. He then proceeded to get back up and go back into the city. Because of their zeal to preach, and their zeal for the mission, “the word of the Lord spread through the whole region.” (Acts 13:49) John Mark unfortunately deserted them during the journey and went back to Jerusalem.
Zeal for Unity:
In Acts 15, we find that a dispute broke out among the disciples whether circumcision was necessary to be saved. This dispute could easily have split the church, had it not been dealt with. Some thought that it was necessary to be circumcised, while Paul and Barnabas taught that is was not necessary in order to be saved. After some discussion among the Apostles, James, the brother of Jesus, spoke up and made the decision that it was not necessary. He referenced scriptures and recent events to show that God had called the Gentiles, and that they should not make it difficult for gentiles to become Christians by making them obey the Law of Moses in this matter. He then decided that the Church in Jerusalem would send out letters to the other churches to tell them the decision that had been made, so they could follow it. There was not a vote or committee to make this decision, but a godly man using the scriptures; and everyone followed the decision made. This is God’s plan of leadership and authority: the leaders lead, and the people follow. This is what brings true unity! In the first century, the Kingdom of God certainly did forcefully advance! We want to imitate what we read about in the book of Acts, and we hope to duplicate the results! To do this, I believe we will need to have Zeal in the 5 areas we spoke about: Zeal for the truth, Zeal to preach, Zeal to pray, Zeal for the mission, and Zeal for unity! If we can do this, I believe we will see God’s Kingdom forcefully advance today just like it did in the first century, and we’ll see the world evangelized in our generation! And all the glory will be to God!
