Notes on Acts 3 - Bruce & Stott

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man (lame from birth, see 3:1-10) strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
Acts 3:13-16

All that they (those who killed Jesus) had to do to avail themselves of this salvation was to change their former attitude to Jesus and bring it into line with God’s attitude. God had clearly shown His verdict by raising Him from the dead. Let them therefore repent, let them repudiate (refuse to have anything to do with) with abhorrence (strong opposition) their acquiescence (acceptance) in the murder of the true Messiah, let them turn back in heart to God, and the salvation and blessing procured by their Messiah’s death would be theirs. Their sins would be wiped out, even that sin of sins which they had unwittingly committed in clamouring for the death of the Author of life.

And not only would their sins be blotted out; those times of refreshment (respite from judgment) and blessing which the prophets had described as features of the new age would be sent to them by God. Jesus, their Messiah, invested with this holy office by God Himself, had been received up into the divine presence, and would remain there until the consummation of all that the prophets, from earliest days, had foretold. The gospel blessings that were to flow from His death and resurrection must spread abroad throughout the world, and then He would return from the right hand of power.

Bruce, F. F. The Book of Acts. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. (1970) Eerdmans. Pages 90-91.


Looking back over Peter’s Colonnade sermon, it is striking that he presents Christ to the crowd ‘according to the Scriptures’ as successively the suffering servant (13, 18), the Moses-like prophet (22-23), the Davidic king (24) and the seed of Abraham (25-26). And if we add his Pentecost sermon, and glance on to his speech before the Sanhedrin (4:8ff.), it is possible to weave a biblical tapestry which forms a thorough portrait of Christ (my emphasis). Arranged chronologically according to the events of his saving career, the Old Testament texts declare that he was descended from David (Ps. 132:11 = Acts 2:30); that he suffered and died for us as God’s servant (Is. 53 = Acts 2:23; 3:18); that the stone the builders rejected has nevertheless become the capstone (Ps. 118:22 = Acts 4:11), for God raised him up from the dead (Is. 52:13 = Acts 2:25ff.), since death could not hold him and God would not abandon him to decay (Ps. 16:8ff. = Acts 2:24, 27, 31); that God then exalted him to his right hand, to wait for his final triumph (Ps. 110:1 = Acts 2:34-35); that meanwhile through him the Spirit has been poured out (Joel 2:28ff. = Acts 2:16ff., 33); that now the gospel is to be preached world-wide, even to those afar off (Is. 57:19 = Acts 2:39), although opposition to him has been foretold (Ps. 2:1ff. = Acts 4:25-26); that people must listen to him or pay the penalty of their disobedience (Dt. 18:18-19 = Acts 3:22-23); and that those who do listen and respond will inherit the blessing promised to Abraham (Gn. 12:3; 22:18 = Acts 3:25-26).

This comprehensive testimony to Jesus as rejected by men but vindicated by God, as the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy, as demanding repentance and promising blessing, and as the author and giver of life, physically to the healed cripple and spiritually to those who believe, aroused the indignation and antagonism of the authorities. The devil cannot endure the exaltation of Jesus Christ. So he stirred up the Sanhedrin to persecute the apostles.

Stott, John. The Message of Acts. The Bible Speaks Today. (1990)
IVP Press. Pages 94-95.

John Newton

Alas! I knew not what I did,
But now my tears are vain;
Where shall my trembling soul be hid?
For I my Lord have slain.

A second look He gave, which said:
“I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom shed;
I die, that thou mayest live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue;
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief and mourning joy
My spirit now is filled,
That I should such a life destroy,
Yet live though Him I killed.

Please answer this question

I am longing to hear people respond to this question.

What should the Church expect of you?

Please see the Church as people not an organization. What should your fellow followers of Jesus Christ expect of you?

I would love to hear your responses.

Desiring God's Will - Benner

The following are excerpts from David Benner’s book, Desiring God’s Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God.

Surrendering to God’s will makes little sense if we are not first convinced of the depths of God’s love for us. (14)

The problem is that when we approach the task of choosing anything other than our own self and its immediate gratification, most of us automatically turn to willpower and resolve. Choosing God then becomes more a matter of grim determination than joyful surrender – closer to deciding to cut back on eating enjoyable foods than to following our heart to the Source of abundant life. (14)

. . . We fail to recognize that our problem is not so much knowing God’s way as being utterly convinced that choosing God is choosing life.

While the choices we make can be very important in our spiritual journey, we shall see . . . that how we decide can often be as important as what we decide. Willpower, determination and discipline are not enough in Christ-following. The close interconnection of will and desire means that if Christ is to have our will, he must first have our heart. (15)

Discipline, spiritual or otherwise, is a good servant but a bad master. It is not the summum bonum – the supreme good. When it is valued in and of itself, the disciplined life easily leads to rigidity and pride. (25)

Jesus showed nothing of this rigidity. Although the strength of his resolve and consistency of his spiritual disciplines are striking, he lived a life characterized by flexibility, not predictability. He was constantly surprising people – always capable of spontaneously embracing opportunities of the moment, never compulsively grasping the safety of the habitual. His discipline served to align his will and his spirit with God’s will and God’s Spirit. But this discipline was not dependent on external rigidity. It sprang from a heart that was aflame with the love of God, not a will striving for self-control. (27)

Discipline was, for Jesus as it should be for us, grounded in relationship and shaped by desire.

Spiritual disciplines should always be means to spiritual ends, never ends in themselves. They are places of meeting God that do not have value in and of themselves. To treat them as if they did is to develop a spirituality that is external, self-energized, and legalistic. (30)

The life that Jesus came to bring is a life that does not depend on willpower. It flows out of the Spirit of God, energizing and transforming our spirit. It’s a life based on transfusion – God’s Spirit transfusing my spirit, God’s deepest desires, longings and dreams becoming mine. This is the way – and the only way – to the freedom and fulfillment of preferring God’s will to mine. (31)

Love One Another - Sittser

Here are a few excerpts from Gerald Sittser’s book, Love One Another: Becoming the Church Jesus Longs For:

. . . the church’s success in this endeavor (to be the incarnation of Christ to the world) depends on only one thing: not great wealth, political power, sophisticated technology, superior organization, great preaching, public rallies, big buildings or creative programs, but the mutual love shared within the community of faith. The quality of relationships among Christians makes the church an effective witness for the gospel, for it creates the kind of community into which others are naturally drawn. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus told his disciples, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). (17)

We wield the power to enhance or destroy people’s reputation simply by how we talk about them. The Bible is brutally direct in its warnings regarding the tongue (Luke 12:1-3; Matthew 12:36; James 3:2-12; Ephesians 4:29). Too often we make up our mind about people before meeting them because we listen to – and sometimes seek out – the “informed” opinion of others. We don’t give people a chance to show us who they really are, especially if that impression differs from their previous reputation. (31)

Forgiveness

I chose to write about forgiveness before confession because we are called to forgive even when no confession has been made. Forgiveness is a manifestation of mercy, given when it’s undeserved. Ideally it’s offered to people who are truly sorry for their sin so the broken relationship can be mended. But sometimes we must forgive when there is no sign of repentance. As Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

True forgiveness comes hard, especially for the church. I think that’s true for two reasons. First, we expect more from Christians. . .

Second, Christians often find it more difficult to admit they are wrong. . . Christians can be stubbornly self-righteous when they believe they possess God’s truth. Their religious self-assurance makes them unreachable, no matter how convincing the evidence against them. (65-66)

Unforgiveness condemns us to live forever in the dungeon of the past. The memory serves only to remind us of what went wrong, of the hurt we received. We caress that painful memory. We find a strange happiness in thinking about it. It finally poisons us.

Unforgiveness leads to wrath, which makes us quick to accuse and ready to explode the moment we’re crossed; wrath makes us quick to punish; wrangling engenders quarrelsomeness; slander is the crude attempt to turn other people against the offender; malice makes us wish evil on another person. Unforgiveness may get its way. It may cause hurt, inflict punishment, heap blame. Yet its greatest victim is the unforgiving self. (72)

These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things – anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourself with the new self . . . Colossians 3:7-10a

Forgiveness does not absolve offenders from guilt. Only God has the power to absolve; only he can decide that fate of every person’s soul. Human forgiveness does not bestow divine forgiveness. . .

We forgive in a relative sense; we have the power to restore the broken relationship between ourselves and the offender. God forgives in an ultimate sense; he has the power to restore the broken relationship with himself. The Pharisees were furious with Jesus because he assumed a prerogative that belongs only to God. He forgave people for sins they had committed against other people (Mark 2:1-12). That’s something only God can do, which of course is why Jesus could – and did – forgive. (73)

Forgiveness means releasing offenders from the consequences of their behavior as it affects us. It cancels the debt they owe us and saves them from having to pay us back. It absorbs the wrongdoing. Forgiveness reestablishes the relationship, at least from our end. It restores communication and under the right circumstances, can restore friendship. It uses the past as a means of strengthening the relationship, not destroying it. Forgiveness is like the growth of a tree that envelops a wound in the trunk, so that what once threatened the tree’s life becomes its place of greatest strength. (74)

Confession

Confession levels the playing field of the church. It mitigates conflicts that threaten to destroy us and disarms our opponents by demonstrating the way of humility to them. It reduces us to the needy people we are, regardless of where we come down on the issues. It reminds us – everyone, really – that weakness in the presence of God has dignity and integrity that human strength cannot comprehend. (78)

. . . confession and prayer pose the greatest risk to ourselves and perhaps the greatest hope for the church to become a loving community. Controversy and conflict engender a defensive and accusatory spirit in the church. We criticize our opponents’ weaknesses and applaud our own strengths; they do likewise. We forget what sinners we are, however right our particular perspective might be. We forget that being right is not the only goal of Christians – especially not at the expense of Christian virtue.

Confession forces us to own up to our sin and not to use others’ wrongdoing to excuse our own. Confession reminds us that we desperately need the grace of God. It makes us weak and vulnerable, exposing our underbellies to the church and revealing that we are not so high and mighty after all. (80-81)

Confession exposes; prayer heals. Confession takes responsibility for wrongdoing; prayer asks God to help us do what is right. Confession acknowledges the human condition; prayer draws on the transcendent power of God. Confession admits to sin; prayer leads us to salvation. (89)

My Struggle with "Missions"

Let’s clarify. God’s mission for the Church is helpful. Here mission is synonymous with purpose. But when we start to say “missions council” or “missionary,” we do a disservice to the word. In fact, a significant reason we have the global outreach and local outreach teams is because we found the word “missions” a hindrance to what we are trying to accomplish. Some would argue outreach is not helpful either, but we’ll save that conversation for another time.

Today, in church language, "missions" has come to mean what happens overseas. So the missions council is focused on what we support and do overseas. Missionaries are those who serve overseas. The problem with this is that God’s mission is not limited to a specific location and missionaries are not simply those who serve in the jungle or across the ocean. All of us are missionaries. We are here to be “on mission” for Christ in the places He has called us. Some of us are called to missionary work overseas and some are not. But it does not change the fact that we are all missionaries.

Some would say, “But I’m not called to be a missionary.” But that is simply not true. You may not be called to full-time vocational ministry in a church or overseas, but you are definitely called to be a missionary. Other words used in Scripture that help bring clarity to our understanding of missionary are ambassador, witness, disciple, follower, servant, slave, and imitator (of Christ).

The idea that some are missionaries and some are not is inaccurate. The idea that we may be a missionary for a while and then not is also inaccurate. A missionary is one who exists to serve God and His mission to the world. That is all of us.

Now what that means can look differently for all of us. You can have a full-time job in the marketplace and still be a missionary. You can be retired from your career job and still be a missionary. In fact, that is what all of us are called to be. Our identity is in Christ. We are His. Therefore, we exist for His purpose and His purpose is that the people of the world might see, experience, and respond to the love He offers.

The phrase “missions trip” can also be a hindrance. Yes, it is a specific trip devoted to serving God in a unique place, away from home. But when are we not on a mission’s trip? When is our life not about God’s mission? When are we not seeking to serve Him and His purpose? Clearly there are some unique aspects about a short-term experience in a distant country or cross-culturally, but those experiences are meant to be a means by which we continue our role as missionaries and even be encouraged to increase our commitment to God’s mission instead of our own.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:20

But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
Mark 10:43-44

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:31-32

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.
2 Corinthians 4:5

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:1

The Challenge of Vision

Vision is all about the future and seeking to have the future be what you hope it to be. Every NFL football team right now is seeking to realize their vision of the Super Bowl. Almost all parents have some vision for their children whether it be President of the United States, college graduate, professional athlete, follower of Christ, not in jail, or countless other hopes and dreams that parents have for their children.

Everyone has vision. Everyone has a preferred future. But the challenge comes in knowing how and making the effort to help make your vision a reality.

Millions of people have envisioned a “thinner me” but yet due to little or no effort or a lack of motivation or unexpected events in life, these visions have not be realized.

What vision do you have for your future? Stop a moment and think about this. You may even want to write it down. (Ex. a healthier body, a new job, a vacation overseas, children who love Jesus, a growing marriage, a new boat, etc.)

What are you doing today to help make your vision a reality? What steps are you taking? What are you doing? What are you giving up?

Before we go any further, let’s stop for a minute and look at your vision – your preferred future. I have no trouble coming up with all sorts of visions. My list is long. But let’s stop and evaluate our list on the following question:

Is the vision I listed from God or from me? Is it my vision or God’s vision?

This is an important question. You may not be able to answer it for your entire list, but it is worth asking and it is worth seeking God’s direction if the answer is unclear. The only vision worth pursuing in this life, worth investing time and energy into, is God’s.

I think there are a couple key factors that help determine if it is God’s vision or my own.

1. Is the vision supported in Scripture? Is it something God would want to see happen?

2. If the vision is realized will it help others or just me?
Even small changes and growth in ourselves benefits those around us.
Way too many of my “visions” only benefit me. I doubt they are from God.

3. Can I accomplish the vision without God’s help?
Does God really ever call us to anything without Him?

4. Has my vision been supported and grounded in prayer?
Have you spent time asking for God’s direction in these areas?

5. Have others helped me in answering the first four questions or I am doing this on my own?
Not only can you get helpful feedback, but also support and accountability is helping to realize the vision.