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This convention is constructed on the conviction that the phrase of God, the excellent news of salvation by way of Jesus Christ, can’t fail. Can’t. And that your life dedicated to this trigger can’t be wasted. Can’t.
Because the rain and the snow come down from heaven and don’t return there however water the earth, making it carry forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my phrase be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, nevertheless it shall accomplish that which I goal, and shall succeed within the factor for which I despatched it. (Isaiah 55:10–11)
God’s phrase, God’s saving gospel, can’t fail. “This gospel of the dominion might be proclaimed all through the entire world as an affidavit to all nations, after which the tip will come” (Matthew 24:14). It can’t fail as a result of God can’t fail. He’s infinitely highly effective, infinitely sensible, and infinitely good. He has no equal. He’s, due to this fact, actually invincible. And the aim of the phrase that he speaks is invincible. What he functions involves move. That’s what it means to be God:
I’m God, and there’s no different; I’m God, and there may be none like me, declaring the tip from the start and from historical instances issues not but accomplished, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I’ll accomplish all my goal.” (Isaiah 46:9–10)
Solely One Life
Due to this fact, in case your life is aligned together with his phrase, it can’t be wasted. And it’s sure that in case your life is just not aligned together with his phrase, will probably be wasted. Younger folks, could I testify that you don’t want to be my age and look again over your life and say, “I wasted it.” To look again over your one life — your one, single, never-to-be-repeated life — and say, “That was a waste.” Oh, how grateful I’m that from age 6 to 18 I walked into the kitchen each morning and noticed this plaque:
Just one life, ’twill quickly be previous;
solely what’s accomplished for Christ will final.
I don’t keep in mind a time when my prayer to God was not, “O God, please don’t let me waste my life. I get one shot. Then eternity. Please, Father, make it rely.” I consider that in case you pray that prayer out of your coronary heart, he’ll do it. You’ll not waste your life. Your life will rely for eternity.
This convention is constructed on the conviction that the worldwide functions of God, labored out by way of his phrase, can’t fail — and your life aligned with these functions can’t be wasted.
All of the messages, by hook or by crook, are designed to indicate that’s true. And my project on this message is to take you to the e book of Acts within the New Testomony and present you the invincible progress of the phrase of God within the 35 years after Jesus had returned to heaven and brought his seat triumphantly on the Father’s proper hand.
Unstoppable Unfold
The e book of Acts picks up the place the 4 Gospels go away off and carries us from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, by way of Syria and Asia Minor into Greece, after which to Rome, with Spain on the horizon. In order that Paul would say, as he made his means towards Rome, close to the tip of his life,
from Jerusalem and all the way in which round to Illyricum [northwest Greece stretching through the Balkans to northern Italy] I’ve fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. . . . I now not have any room for work in these areas. (Romans 15:19, 23)
That was an outlandish factor for him to say since there have been hundreds of individuals in these areas who had not but believed in Christ. We all know this as a result of Paul left Timothy behind and instructed him to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). So, it was outlandish — except that was not in Paul’s job. Paul was not a local-church evangelist. He was a missionary, a frontier missionary — that means (as he stated), “I’m known as to evangelise the gospel the place Christ has not been named” (see Romans 15:20). Timothy was not a frontier, pioneer missionary — he was not known as to evangelise the place Christ had not been named. However Paul was.
So, on the finish of Acts, Paul is heading for Rome, hoping towards hope that he could be despatched on his option to Spain and the remainder of the Roman empire. And so they killed him. Others can be raised up — such as you at a Cross convention — to take the gospel to the remaining peoples and locations the place no church-base of evangelism has been planted.
Every part Aids the Advance
Within the e book of Acts, because the gospel spreads invincibly from Jerusalem to Rome, there are a minimum of fifty factors of opposition described. One of many functions of this e book is to indicate that none of that opposition succeeds in stopping the invincible phrase of God. However that’s not the one level, or the deepest level, that Luke needs to make in scripting this e book. He additionally needs to indicate that God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the development of the gospel.
Human sin and satanic opposition to the gospel are in the end deliberate and designed by God to perform his saving functions. If you wish to be aligned with the needs of God, so that you simply don’t waste your life, you must grasp this basic biblical actuality. Each globally and personally in your life, God makes sin and satanic opposition serve his good functions for you. Devil is just not a free, autonomous, self-determining agent on this world. He’s on a leash. He does nothing other than God’s infinitely sensible functions.
Do you keep in mind Paul’s thorn within the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12? It’s known as “a messenger of Devil” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Devil’s design was to make Paul depressing and ineffective with this thorn. However Jesus instructed Paul, No, God’s design is to guard you from pleasure, and to make you holy, and to indicate you that the grace of Christ is adequate for you (2 Corinthians 12:7–9).
“The phrase of God, the excellent news of salvation by way of Jesus Christ, can’t fail — and your life dedicated to this trigger can’t be wasted.”
Younger folks, in case you get ahold of this now, at this stage in your life, how powerfully it should serve you for many years to come back, each personally and globally. All of the losses of your life, all of the sorrows, hardships, the tragedies of your life — the lack of your mom to most cancers; the lack of your brother in a automotive accident; the lack of your pals at college who you thought had been in your aspect, and now they’ve been speaking about you behind your again; your disappointments along with your seems to be and your talents as you evaluate your self with others — all these discouragements, which Devil goals to make use of to make you depressing and ineffective so that you simply waste your life, are in the end God’s plan to make you robust.
As he sends you into battle towards sin and Devil and unbelief, carrying all of the armor of God, he says, “Be robust within the Lord and within the power of his may” (Ephesians 6:10). God is sovereign over Devil and sin. He’s sovereign over struggling. When you belief him, he turns all the pieces on your good and for the fruitfulness of your life.
When you get this, you’ll be an invincible Christian (maybe an invincible missionary), similar to the phrase of God was invincible within the e book of Acts, as a result of God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the development of his saving functions within the gospel, personally and globally. So, for the needs of getting robust in our souls, and metal in our spine, and fiber in our religion, and braveness in our witness, and ballast in our boats, let’s watch God do that within the e book of Acts.
Sin and Devil on the Cross
An important occasion within the e book of Acts the place God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the gospel is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ — the very creation of the gospel. When Jesus died, he paid the penalty for all of the sins of God’s folks all the time. Anyone and everyone, wherever on this planet, who believes in Jesus might be forgiven all their sins and could have everlasting life with God. This second, this occasion — the loss of life of Jesus for our sins — is the inspiration of all the excellent news all through the e book of Acts, all through all historical past, all missions. How did it come about?
Devil enters into the guts of Judas as a way to maximize the struggling of the Son of God and, if doable, divert him from his job (Luke 22:3). Then the mockery of Herod kicks in, and the expediency of Pilate kicks in, and the mob joins in with “Crucify him!” And the troopers end it with spikes and a spear. And all these actions — by Pilate and Herod and the mob and the troopers — had been sin, human sin. The worst sin. To homicide the Son of God is the worst sin. And all of it was predestined and deliberate by God for the triumph of the gospel.
Pay attention rigorously to Acts 4:27–28, the place the Christians cry out to God:
Actually on this metropolis there have been gathered collectively towards your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, each Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do no matter your hand and your plan had predestined to happen.
Due to this fact, my younger mates, let this be the ballast in your boat, your power, your endurance, your invincibility: the sovereign God of the universe predestined and deliberate satanic opposition and human sin within the creation of the gospel — and henceforward in its invincible unfold. Conserving this ballast in your boat would be the key to staying afloat and never losing your lives.
Despatched by Struggling
Now, let’s watch God act on this precept within the e book of Acts — the sovereign God making satanic opposition and human sin serve the development of the gospel throughout the Roman empire.
On the finish of chapter 7, Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit and religion and beauty and energy (Acts 6:5, 8), closed his lengthy message earlier than the council in Jerusalem with this indictment:
[Your fathers] killed those that introduced beforehand the approaching of the Righteous One, whom you may have now betrayed and murdered. (Acts 7:52)
Once they heard this, Luke tells us, “They . . . stopped their ears and rushed collectively at him. Then they solid him out of the town and stoned him” (Acts 7:57–58). His final phrases had been, “Lord, don’t maintain this sin towards them” (Acts 7:60). Stephen was the primary Christian martyr after Jesus.
Then got here a type of inevitable, humanly unintended penalties for being trustworthy to God’s phrase amid demonic opposition and human sin. It’s described within the first verse of chapter 8:
There arose on that day a fantastic persecution towards the church in Jerusalem, and so they had been all scattered all through the areas of Judea and Samaria, besides the apostles.
Have you learnt how many individuals that’s, who had been pushed out of their properties in Jerusalem as a result of they had been Christians? Acts 4:4 says, “A lot of those that had heard the phrase believed, and the variety of the boys [males] got here to about 5 thousand.” That’s 5 thousand males, not counting girls and kids. Conservatively, then, that’s a minimum of ten thousand folks on the run for his or her lives. There’s nothing romantic about this. It’s terrifying; it’s painful. To be a refugee, then and now, is heartbreaking.
“God has no equal. He’s, due to this fact, actually invincible.”
So, right here’s what occurred. A Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated message is delivered by a godly man, Stephen. Then Devil fills the listeners with rage, and a mob kills him in a brutal act of stoning. And the impact of the stoning is to unleash on Jerusalem a lethal persecution that drives ten thousand Christians from their properties.
Persecution Results in Preaching
Do you suppose God was wringing his palms in heaven, as if this satanic opposition would discourage the boldness of witness and the advance of the gospel? No, he was not. Right here’s what God was doing. Acts 8:4 says, “Now those that had been scattered went about preaching the phrase.”
The phrase for “preaching” right here is euanggelizomnenoi, which all the time means “communicate excellent news.” The hundreds of persecuted refugees, in flight for his or her lives, had been talking the excellent news of Christ wherever they went. They weren’t saying, “What’s good about this information? It doesn’t even spare us from persecution. The place was God when Stephen was killed?” As a substitute, they had been so thrilled that their sins had been forgiven, and that they’d the hope of everlasting happiness with God, that they spoke of it in all places they went — in the course of homelessness and ache.
And what was the impact of that talking? Acts 11:19–21 provides the reply:
Now those that had been scattered due to the persecution that arose over Stephen [the homeless refugees] traveled so far as . . . Antioch, talking the phrase to nobody besides Jews. However there have been a few of them . . . who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists additionally, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a fantastic quantity who believed turned to the Lord.
This was a historic missionary breakthrough. Up until now, so far as we all know, no Christians had been taking the gospel to the Gentiles (non-Jewish folks), despite Jesus’s command to take action. So, the sovereign God stated, “By the loss of life of Stephen and the persecution of my valuable folks in Jerusalem, I’ll get my folks shifting to the nations.” International missions was the results of persecution and displacement — compelled emigration. In different phrases, God makes satanic opposition and human sin serve the development of the gospel.
Appointment in Jail
It occurred once more in northern Greece, the place Paul was powerfully preaching the gospel in a metropolis that had by no means been reached, Philippi. His ministry was so efficient that it liberated a slave lady and brought about her house owners to be livid at Paul and Silas. They dragged them earlier than the rulers, and Acts 16:23–24 says,
Once they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into jail, ordering the jailer to maintain them safely. Having acquired this order, he put them into the inside jail and fixed their ft within the shares.
And what was Paul’s response? “God, I assumed you had been sovereign. I’ve been serving you as faithfully as I can. And I get reviled, or overwhelmed, or whipped, or imprisoned nearly in all places I am going. We had been making wonderful progress on this metropolis. And right here I sit in a dungeon with welts on my again due to my faithfulness — to you.”
That was not Paul’s response. Ever. And it shouldn’t be yours. Right here’s what Paul was doing within the dungeon. “About midnight Paul and Silas had been praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners had been listening to them” (Acts 16:25). One of many functions of this message is to show you into that form of particular person.
So, what is the sovereign God doing? Jesus had stated, “I’ve different sheep that aren’t of this [Jewish] fold. I need to carry them additionally” (John 10:16). The jailer on this jail was a type of sheep. And Jesus meant to avoid wasting him. So, there was an earthquake. All of the doorways opened, and the bonds fell off. And that evening, salvation got here to the family of the jailer. So, why had the mob succeeded in beating and imprisoning Paul and Silas? As a result of there was a jailer to avoid wasting (Acts 16:26–31). God makes satanic opposition and human sin serve the development of the gospel.
Waste Not
So, we finish the place we started: this convention is constructed on the conviction that the phrase of God, the excellent news of salvation by way of Jesus Christ, can’t fail — and that your life dedicated to this trigger can’t be wasted.
However what we now have seen within the e book of Acts is even deeper and extra wonderful than that. The sovereign God of the universe predestined and deliberate satanic opposition and human sin within the very creation of the gospel — the loss of life of Jesus. And from that day ahead, this similar sovereignty has made the powers of hell and human sin serve the invincible unfold of that gospel — to each folks and tribe and tongue and nation.
Right here is my closing plea: Align your life with God’s sovereign, saving, world functions. Let this be the ballast in your boat. That is how you’ll keep afloat within the coming many years. That is how you’ll not waste your life.
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