Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus made some absolutely amazing statements, as only He could do!
As you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus was able to pack into just a few words the most deeply profound theological truths, the implications of which have taken the most incisive theological minds centuries to unpack.
Case in point: This otherwise obscure little gem buried deep within the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, AKA “The Feeding of the 5000.”
Jesus said in John 6:44,
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me.”
An absolutely remarkable statement that underscores our gloriously precious theological proposition known as Divine Election, along with its sister doctrine of Sovereign Predestination—sadly, with all of its attendant questions and endless theological wranglings, divisions, and separations that these blessed concepts unnecessarily generate.
Trust me, courtesy of Philip and an unnamed Ethiopian Eunuch, this is a cause NOT of confusion, but of cerebration!
For as you are about to hear, this eunuch’s story is your story.
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As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, we have the privilege of meeting yet-another. A standout individual. A stellar human being. Though given his humility, I am sure that he would not be comfortable with my characterization.
His name is Stephanos. Significantly, a Greek name. (As we learned last week, a not-so-trivial factoid.)
A man affectionately known to us as Stephen.
A name that means “crown.” In Stephen’s case, a well-deserved crown that he is no doubt wearing in Heaven as we speak.
A man who stood as—and at—pivot-point of history.
There haven’t been many of those throughout human history. But the event about which you will hear certainly rises to that level of an event after which our world, let alone our lives, would never be the same again.
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Ironies abound, in the four verses I just read to you. A full compliment of ten ironies by my count. Ten!
The most soul-stirring and hope-producing irony being this—the takeaway of this PODCAST:
“Your most influential, inspirational, impactful life-message—greatest chapter of your story—will come not out of your successes, but out of your failures.”
To invoke Jesus’ masterful metaphor — “You ARE the light of the world.”
That being true, your brightest beacon of light will shine forth from the depths of your darkest hour.
And no, I am not referring to the failure of the thousands who gathered at the Temple on this day in Acts 3 to hear Peter indict them for their greatest failure, as stunning as that failure certainly was.
There is buried within the syllables of this story an even greater failure.
An absolutely epic fail, one that hinges on exactly one word—one word about which I will tell you as you get into this podcast. A failure that underscores the blessed reality that…
“Your most influential, inspirational, impactful life-message—greatest chapter of your story—will come not out of your successes, but out of your failures.”
Call it the backdoor blessing of this amazing story. A God-blessed reality that stands in stark contrast to the what was without a doubt the weirdest experience I have ever had when speaking in a seminary chapel…
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But as you will hear in this PODCAST, we surely know his story. As did some 5000 men plus countless women and children, whose lives—after hearing this man’s story—would never be the same again.
This one story—the first of fourteen separate and specific miracles recorded in the book of Acts—exemplifies why I sometimes refer to God as “The God of the surprise.”
Both then and now, God can and will—when we least expect it—apply His divine touch to our circumstances that seem to us to be impossible.
Trust me, to this man who had been lame from birth for now more than forty years (Acts 4:22), his tragic circumstance was definition of impossible. Yet, as Jesus once declared to His watching and wondering disciples (this in Matthew 19),
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
He is, and ever shall be, “The God of the surprise.”
Here’s the point. A grand and glorious point indeed: Within the boundaries of God’s perfect will, there is no such thing as a hopeless situation.
Once God enters picture,
“Hope always burns eternal.”
If we learn nothing else from this man, learn this: God can and will insert Himself into our most impossible-seeming situations any time He wants to.
For over forty years, this desperate man had no idea that this day would ever come. But come, it did! In God’s perfect timing, for God’s eternal purposes—including the eternal salvation of literally thousands of people.
Such is our hope! Our hope that with God there is ALWAYS hope. A glorious theme echoed throughout the entire Bible.
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These were exhilarating times indeed for that original company of committed Christ-followers.
In this PODCAST, and in the upcoming weeks, it will be our privilege to relive these salad days of the first ekklesia—in Jerusalem—as we join in a virtual sense these first precious believers, our ancestors in the faith.
Last week, we looked at the four foundational dynamics that characterized this first early church. Foundational for them; foundational for us. You will remember that we considered each of these in some detail—that marvelous biblical blueprint for every local church, both then and now! The elegant simplicity and sincerity of which was breathtaking for us to behold.
Now, we will consider a day in the life of these very first committed Christ-followers. The precious and precarious first hours of this first church’s delicate-if-exuberant infancy.
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After a wonderful week ministering at Hume Lake, it’s so good to be home. And so glorious to be back in the amazing book of Acts.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the elegant simplicity of what God intended His local churches to look like, and how He intended for them to function, coupled with unencumbered sincerity of His biblical blueprint for every local church ministry, is breathtaking to behold.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, this fisherman-turned-preacher’s initial foray into the world of sermonizing is memorable in extreme.
And whether you realize it or not, Peter’s first sermon out of the gate is all about… Grasshoppers. As in locusts. Lots and lots of locusts.
A plague of locusts. A past-plague of locusts. A coming plague of locusts. And a future (even future for us) plague of locusts. See it there in Acts 2:14-16?
Listen as I read it to you, and see if you can hear ominous chomps of locusts:
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel.”
See any locusts in that? No? Well, then, keep listening. Because as you are about to hear, it is vital that we do.
His name is Joel. He is one of so-called 12 “Minor Prophets.” But make no mistake about this: Joel may have been a “Minor Prophet.” But there was absolutely nothing minor about his message.
Let me ever-so-briefly remind you of structure of the Old Testament…
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So it is with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye that in this PODCAST we bid adieu to Jesus in HD.
Lest you regret that we will now no longer hear all-things-Jesus-related, fear not, my friends. For as we now break the seal on the amazing book of Acts and our study of Peter in HD, which of course will then pivot to Paul in HD somewhere around ch 13, and as I will demonstrate in mere moments, the book of Acts is very much a book all about Jesus primarily; Peter, Paul and other apostles secondarily.
In this podcast, our goal is to lay the foundation for this entire study.
A study that will include:
1. Entire of book of Acts; the lives primarily of both Peter and then Paul, along with an entire array of some of the most interesting individuals you’d every want to meet;
2. The birth, growth, and establishment of what Jesus called in Matthew 16:18 His ekklesia — this when He declared for all the world to hear,
“I will build my ekklesia, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”
3. The non-stop-yet-failed attempts of “all the powers of hell itself” to conquer it, destroy it, and in any way possible to frustrate its expansion to the whole world.
4. The way in which redemptive history unfolded in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
5. The glorious heritage that is ours as the present-generation of Christ-followers, with a direct link all the way back to these amazing men and women of faith. Individuals who literally put their lives on the line in order to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission that we detailed for you last week in our final Jesus in HD podcast.
This is our heritage. You and I are standing on the shoulders of giants: the fathers and mothers of our faith.
I can assure you that they would not have seen themselves as anything but frail, faltering, certainly faith-struggling individuals; never as giants. Yet, giants they were. People who lived literally day-to-day as they tried to navigate the shark-filled waters of their spiritually-hostile, Rome-dominated world.
What an example they set for us; what a legacy they left for us as they humbly bore the name of Jesus before a watching, often unwelcoming world. We cannot know, nor appreciate, who we are as CCFs, nor what this is all about, nor where this is all going, unless and until we understand from where we’ve come. That is what this study will provide.
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Caiaphas, the high priest that year, must have been fit to be tied.
Well, somewhat so.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was Passover. The Holy City, Jerusalem, was teaming with pilgrims. The all-important 3 PM Passover sacrifice at the Temple was fast-approaching.
It was arguably single most financially-flourishing day of the year (second only, perhaps, to the Day of Atonement) as far as the corrupt Temple Industrial Complex over which Caiaphas presided was concerned. There was money to be made this day. Lots and lots of money.
But the heavens seemed to conspire against Caiaphas.
Of all the luck (bad luck indeed), a most-rare, hauntingly-eerie atmospheric anomaly threatened to diminish severely Caiaphas’ shady haul of ill-gotten shekels.
At 12 PM, high noon, a mere three hours before the afternoon sacrifice, the sky turned ominously dark. If it stayed that way, there would be no 3 PM Passover Lamb sacrificed that day.
Well, according to Matthew 27 — Read ’em and weep, Caiaphas.
“At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until 3 o’clock.”
A darkness that drove everyone away from the cross as they scrambled for shelter from the encroaching gloom of that midday backness.
Coincidence? No way!
Now there would be no Passover Lamb sacrificed at 3 PM on this day.
Or would there?
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Dewey Bertolini 