Acts of the Apostles — Building the Church

Date: 2019-05-19
Topic: Acts of the Apostles — Building the Church
Scripture: Acts 1:1-20
Speaker: Lead pastor

(Summary by Freedom D.)

After Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, the disciples — having just lived through a spiritual climax — had to figure out how to carry forward the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven and build the church.

Luke, the author of Acts, was not one of the Twelve apostles, but faithfully recorded in writing the key turning points of the early church’s development. In coming Sundays we will turn again and again to Acts, to understand the disciples’ winding story of church-building.

The book opens with Jesus’s promise: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” (Acts 1:8) Luke then proceeds straightforwardly to describe the apostles’ reliance on the Spirit alone — for mission, for signs and wonders. In fact, the word “Spirit” appears more than fifty times in Acts. Without question, the Spirit is the church’s most essential foundation.

The principle is plain. To rely on the Spirit, however, is anything but easy. Our past experience teaches us: unless we have fully understood the whole plan, before walking by Spirit we will instinctively reach for assurances of our own.

A Picture: the Boat of the Church

The early church is like a boat in stormy seas. Every disciple is a rower. If one disciple rows against the current — or rests, or slows down, or rows out of rhythm — the boat at best spins in place, at worst capsizes with all aboard.

The early church faced daily fear of persecution and martyrdom. Yet, by the unanimous prayer and one-spirited submission to leadership of this small community, the church endured wave after wave through history to reach this day. If the church must one day face another such storm, can we be in it together?