Well before I get started, I should probably explain that the reports of my hatred of the book of Acts have been greatly exaggerated. I don’t hate Acts. I’m just tired of sermon series through Acts. :) So to make sure this one is really in the ground here I thought I’d go for the double-tap with another sermon on it. But the reason I’m tired of sermon series through Acts has nothing to do with the book itself - or Jim’s preaching. He did a great job. I’ve just been sitting through sermon series on Acts for the better part of 20 years. All through high school and college I was a part of what’s called the Restoration Church tradition. It’s a sort of post-Reformation tradition that is all about trying to do away with modern ideas of Christianity and get back to or Restore the early church. And in the Restoration tradition, the book of Acts is king. We were always studying, reading, preaching, and teaching that book, because we thought it contained an infallible report of the absolute purest form of church. So when I went to a Restoration Church bible college I had a whole class on Acts. The Methodist church I attended during college was also preaching on it. Then when I moved to Oxford Mississippi, even the Baptist church I attended there preached on it every spring for like 5 years. 

So when we got here Jim tells me, “hey I think I’m going to preach through Acts for like 5 years” and that just hit me kinda funny. And then I started at RTS where, you guessed it, I took another Acts class. And it’s been the sermon series in chapel at RTS this year too. And one of the funniest parts of it all is, whether I was at a Restoration church, a Baptist church, a Methodist church, or a Presbyterian seminary, all of them were teaching the book as if it explained why they do church the way they do it instead of the way other denominations do it. Turns out, reading Acts doesn’t make you a particular denomination - the way you read Acts does. What you see when you read it does. Either that or, probably just as often, the denomination you are in shapes how you read it… So when I became an Executive Pastor and started having to do things like work on revising church bylaws, writing committee charters, training deacons, developing Sunday School curriculum, and drafting an Employee Handbook, I did what I’d been told to do my whole life and I went looking in the book of Acts for an instruction manual on how to operate a church. And you know what I found? Not that. 

I’m not saying Acts was unhelpful with that stuff. But it just wasn’t about any of those things. If you look through the Scriptural citations in the final versions of those documents you won’t find an overwhelming amount of quotations from Acts. It’s really a lot more of the Epistles. But my point is that I have come to believe, in 20 years of hearing Acts preached in half a dozen different denominations, that Acts is remarkably disinterested in answering the sorts of questions we American Christians tend to bring to it. And I also found that the two things that helped us me understand the book of Acts the most were classes on the books of Luke and Zechiarah. And that’s because those are the books that ask the questions Acts is actually trying to answer. So in addition to wrapping up our Acts series, today’s message is actually Part 2 of the sermon I preached on December 17th last year as part of our Advent series. That sermon was on the introduction to the book of Luke. In that sermon I explained how Luke and Acts were originally written as two volumes of a single book, how they are tied together by a common structure, and how that structure is the fulfillment of the 7 Night Visions of the prophet Zechariah. 

So this year I’m basically picking right up again with that to mark the conclusion of our series through Acts. Last year I focused on the first half of the structure in the book of Luke, now we will look more at the second half of the structure in Acts. And what I hope to do is show the answers that Acts is actually intended to provide. All it takes is figuring out what questions he’s answering. And as complicated as all that might sound up front, don’t worry, 1) I’ve got slides, and 2) I think the questions are way more simple and relatedable than you might think. See, we tend to act like Acts is written for people who are trying to build churches. We think its a strategy book. To show us the mightiest and most powerful ways to put a church together that will win the culture like it won the Roman Empire in only 300 years! But instead acts is really interested in two totally different types of people. People who think Jesus is going to lead them out of cultural exile and people who don't think Jesus has anything to do with them. People who think Jesus will make them relevant again and people who think Jesus is irrelevant. And it’s interested in answering the questions that those kinds of people ask. Questions like, “when is God going to come back and deliver his people from cultural exile?” and What does Jesus have to do with me?” 

So how I’d like to do this is just explain and show you the structure of Luke-Acts and how it relates to Zechariah first. That’s going to be most of the time. Then at the end I’ll make two brief points based on that. And, as before, I’m working off of Merideth Kline’s commentary on Zechariah for the structure of that book. So we’ll start with a quick recap of the structure from last year (1).

The Structure of Luke-Acts & Zechariah

So the whole first half of the book of Zechariah is taken up with these 7 different visions that the prophet sees in the Night. And these 7 visions work together to form concentric circles showing where God is going and what he’s doing in the world. (2). The first vision shows Four Horsemen of God riding throughout the world, surveying all the nations. (3) The second vision then shows four craftsmen going up to rebuild the land of Israel. (4) Then the third vision shows a man taking a measuring line to measure Jerusalem for its rebuilding, and an Angel says the new city will be so large that it won’t be able to have physical walls because of the multitude of people in it, so God will be like a wall of fire around them instead. (5) Then the 4th vision shows the High Priest, whose name is Joshua, wearing filthy clothing and standing before God in the Temple. Satan acuses the priest of his sin but God rebukes Satan, and clothes the High Priest in pure garments, and sets a clean turban on his head. (6) Thus the inward progression is complete - the Spirit of God moving from surveying the nations of the world, into the land of Israel, then to Jerusalem, and finally into the Temple. The whole way, healing and rebuilding as he goes. Until finally he cleanses not just the temple but the High Priest himself. (7) 

At this point the Spirit of God begins to move back out through the concentric circles, out of the temple, (8) into the city of Jerusalem, (9) then the whole land of Israel, and finally (10) into the whole world. The parallel shape of this pattern forms what scholars call a “Chiasm,” because it can be seen as forming a shape like the Greek letter Chi, (11) which is an X. And the benefits of chiasms is that they show you two directions to look for clarity: across and up. You look across to see the similarities between parallel points, and you look up at the apex or the center to see the main point. It’s a really brilliant literary technique that’s fairly common in ancient Jewish literature, especially poetry and prophecy. So that’s the book of Zechariah. Not so hard right? 

Now, keep this structure in mind (12) as we move to the book of Luke-Acts. Remember, Luke and Acts are two volumes of the same book. (13) The book of Luke opens up with a story of Ceasar Augustus’ decree going throughout the whole world that everyone should go to his home town for the census. (14) Then, once Jesus starts his ministry, he begins waaaaay up at the north in Galilee, which is the northern most part of what was originally Samaria, aka the Northern Kingdom of Israel before their exile to Assyria around 733 BC. And throughout the next several chapters of Luke he journeys down through Samaria, into Judea, (15) and finally to Jerusalem. Luke takes particular care to mention these geographical markers as he goes, even altering the structure of his gospel at parts compared to Mark in order to emphasize the progression. Then after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Acts picks right back up with the pattern (16) by showing the church starting in Jerusalem and moving out, (17) into Judea and Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth with Paul’s trial in Rome (18). Now you might understandibly ask, are you sure Luke knows what he’s doing here? Is he being that intentional? 

Yeah. For sure. He opens his gospel with this phrase, (19) “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has  visited. and redeemed his people  and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old… to show the mercy  promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant…” That quote was said by a priest named Zechariah when he saw Jesus in the temple as a baby and realized he was looking at a preview of what God was about to do - what he had promised through his prophets to do. In fact, the name, Zechariah, means “YHWH Remembers.” Luke is very explicit that God is fulfilling what he promised through the prophets. Then Luke opens the book of Acts with Jesus saying these words right before he ascends into heaven, (20) “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” There’s your travel itinerary. 

This is not a secret by the way, any halfway decent commentary in the last 100 years will point it out. (21) And most of them point to this statement as being the center of the 2-volume book because of it. There’s your nice chiasm pattern and everything. And remember, chiasms tell you to look across to see parallels, and up at the apex to see the main point. So if that’s the center, then the main point of Acts is missions! So we talk about missions stuff when we do Acts. Only thing is that’s not the center of the chiasm (22). Don’t get me wrong, missions is definitely a central focus of Acts. But that verse is just objectively not the middle of it. Acts 1:8 makes us explicitly aware of the trajectory that we have been on and are going to continue on. This is actually around the point where you usually recognize a chiasm - right after the first or second parallel. You don’t usually realize the peak until you look back when you feel that first sense of Deja Vu. But we should have already felt a sense of Deja Vu by now. Because something has already happened twice - at the end of Luke and at the beginning of Acts. Anybody remember what that is? The Ascension. (23)

Just to clarify, here’s how these events are split between Luke and Acts (24). The Ascension is really the first parallel. (25) Acts 1:8 just reminds the disciples and us of the path back out from there, but it’s not the focus. Well this is where our good friend Zechariah starts to get helpful. Because it just so happens that his visions map pretty dang well onto Luke-Acts (26). Now, I’m going to work to prove that from Acts in a moment, and if you want to see it shown in Luke you can look back at that sermon from last year that I mentioned. But just go with it for a minute and let’s see how that would work in the middle here. (27) Let’s zoom in to just the middle circle (28). You may recall I said that Vision 4 involved the high priest, Joshua, which in Hebrew is pronounced Yeshua, which in English is pronounced Jesus, so the High Priest Joshua is standing in the presence of God (29) with filthy robes being acused by Satan but then God rebukes Satan, clothes the Priest in white robes, and says (30) “I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.” Doesn’t say how he will do that, just that he will do it. 

Now, in hindsight, we know how he did it. And we don’t have to go too far from Luke’s work to see what really happened. Consider Hebrews 9:11 (31): But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” Mind you this is from a section talking about the High Priest entering the Holy Place in the temple once per year on the day of atonement, to sprinkle blood on the alter for the sins of the people. He continues futher down in verse 24, (32)  “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” So Hebrews shows us exactly what’s happening in between the Ascescion accounts in Luke and Acts. But do you think Luke knew about that - that Jesus was going to the heavenly temple to make atonement? Yeah. I do. 

Because there is one more parallel between Luke at Acts. (33) Right on either side of the Ascension, Jesus and the Spirit enter the earthly temple. In Luke 19 Jesus drives out the money changers. He calls them a den of robbers - because he's the true High Priest clearing out the imposters who steal rather than bless. And this is at the apex of his journey in Luke, when God returns to the earthly temple in the flesh. Then in between the stories of God’s Spirit returning to the earthly temple, (34) Jesus ascends to heaven and does what Hebrews 9 describes - he enters into the true Holy Place by the means of his own blood and takes away the iniquity of his people in a single day. This is what changes everything. (35) This is the point where the story turns on its axis, from God entering Jerusalem to God expanding Jerusalem. This is why you hear so much about the temple for all of Luke and then hardly again after the first part of Acts - (36) because the physical temple stops being the main temple right here - when the veil is torn and the Holy Place starts to engulf the world one circle at at time.

(37) And this is where the book of Acts gets started. Zechariah’s 5th vision is of a lampstand. But not just any lampstand, one that matches the description of the lampstand from Exodus 25 - the one in the Holy Place within the temple. (38) “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it… And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.”  And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” (39) Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” (that’s why I asked) Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. God is setting an expectation that after the High Priest is clothed his kingdom will expand by His Spirit - not by worldly power.

(40) Turn back to Acts 2, starting in verse 1."When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and hit filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (41) Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? (42) “...we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Now most commentators agree about the location of this event. It’s in Jerusalem, during Pentecost, at about 9 in the morning according to the text, which would be during the time of the morning service in the temple. Some scholars suggest they are likely gathered in one of the rooms along the outer courts of the temple, likely by the south gate, because there are thousands of Jews from every nation there and there is only one place in Jerusalem that thousands of jews from every nation would or even could be gathered at 9am on the day of Pentecost. Furthermore, later in that chapter we see about three thousand people are baptized. There’s only one place in the city where you have enough space and water to baptize that many people and it’s in the baptism pools outside the temple that are used for ritual cleansing before you enter. So the Apostles are there, praying, and the Spirit of God descends on them with tongues of fire over their heads effectively turning the Apostles into one giant lampstand, which gives light to all the nations of the earth as people from every part of the known world hear the gospel in their own tongue. But you know what's shocking about this? This new lampstand has moved out of the holy place, into the court of the gentiles.  

You know the modern day geo-political nation of Israel understands Zechariah’s vision of a lampstand between to olive trees pretty well. They know it’s a prophecy that the people of God will one day be a light to the world. And so, in a move of heartbreaking irony, they put it on their passport. (43) But what breaks Paul’s heart in Romans 10 is that they don’t realize this already happened a long time ago. Zechariah’s fifth vision is accomplished by the church in chapter 2 of Acts. (44) Moving on to the next vision, Zechariah sees a flying scroll, measuring twenty cubits by 10 cubits. (45) This was a common measurement within the construction of the temple, being both the size of the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, and the porch on the outer court from which the priest would read the Law to the people. And this scroll cleans out everyone who steals according to what’s written on one side, and everyone who swears falsely by the Name of God on the other side. That is one sin from each table of the law. And you’ll note that when the Word came in the flesh he went in and cleared out the temple. Who did he clear out? A group who he referred to as a “Den of robbers” - that is men who claimed to be priests but were bearing the name of God falsely because they were stealing from the worshippers of God in his own house. And a couple chapters later they killed him for it.

But then, he ascended to heaven, made atonement for his people in the real temple. Then the Spirit and the Word return to the earhtly temple through the disciples, who preach the gospel to these same hypocritical priests saying, “Men of Israel, know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” And they repent. Meaning Zechariah’s vision has a dual fulfillment, because it says, “everyone who steals shall be cleaned out, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out.” You can read that two ways and indeed it happened two ways. The thieves were cleaned out of the temple by the Word in the flesh, and later the people are cleansed of their thievery by the Word in the power of the Spirit. (46) And as Luke wraps up his section about the spread of the church in Jerusalem, he makes sure to mention that that a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Thieves who swore falsely by God’s Name now cleaned out and made obedient by the Word. But it doesn’t stop there because the scroll in Zechariah’s vision goes out into “all the land,” meaning not just in the temple, not even just in Jerusalem, but all of Israel. And that’s exactly what Luke describes immediately in the next section. (47) First, Stephen preaches in Jerusalem, where he says, 

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” (48) Then Phillip preaches Samaria: “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.” And so the word cleanses out sin and evil in all the land. 

(49) Zechariah’s final vision deals with God’s armies going out into all the earth. (50) “Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains... The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, the third white horses, and the fourth chariot dappled horses—all of them strong. Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” And the angel answered and said to me, “These are going out to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth.” And as we have seen in the past year, that doesn’t look like any other army in history. Remember what God had said, “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” And so if Luke were following this pattern you’d expect to see at least two things at this point: 1) you’d expect to see a rapid global expansion, and 2) you’d expect to see spiritual battle and defeat as the Lord’s Spirit did what he said he would do via his armies throughout the world. 

Almost all commentators agree that the next major transitional point of the book comes in Acts 19, when Luke provides the next of his “narrator summaries” that frame the story. (51) In 19:11 he writes, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. (52) “Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.” (53) And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all… So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” 

Even one of the bad guys in the story recognizes it and summarizes the situation well when he says, (54) “And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.” (55) And so we’ve come full circle. God’s Spirit has begun to triump even to the ends of the earth in places like Rome and Asia. 

Two Brief Applications

Now, if you’ll bear with me, we will close with two brief applications based on everything we have just seen. You’ll recall at the beginning I mentioned that Acts is not a manul for church planters. And that’s true - it’s not. Sure, you can learn a lot about the early church, but notice how Acts slows down and zooms in to tell stories of God’s Spirit cleansing the people and casting out demons. Look at how Luke labors to include travel details and geographical markers that help you keep track of the progression. And think about that in contrast to how it describes the times when Paul is actually planting a church. “We stayed 2 years, taught a bunch of people, and moved on.” Think about how it labors to describe all the different types of people - jew and gentile, men and women, rich and poor, and how the gospel is for all of them, but never describes how elders and deacons should run their meetings, or set up their bylaws, or structure their worship services. That isn’t to say the bible doesn’t speak to that - it does! Much more so in the Epistles, actually. But a lot of times we go to Acts looking for information about how to do church and get frustrated because the theology gets in the way. And similarly, we go to Romans trying to understand justification and Paul keeps interrupting it with how people should behave towards each other in church. So we skip that part. But that’s because we are going to these books asking the wrong questions. 

The Luke flat out tells you what kinds of questions he’s answering. Questions like, when is God going to come back and deliver me, his faithful servant, from cultural exile?” And the answer is that God’s army marched on Rome in the form of a man in chains - following in the footsteps of his crucified Savior. And lest you think that Acts is just the prequal to Constantine’s establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, and that all of our church planting is merely the first step towards regaining that kind of world power, Zechariah interprets Acts with the phrase, “not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, declares the Lord.” If you follow Paul as he followed Christ you will inherit the earth as an exile, not an Emporer. The point of Luke’s Gospel is that Jesus was representing humanity to God - everything we failed to do he did it right. And then, to mark his victory, He stood before God wearing your filthy clothes. My garments don’t heal people like Paul’s - they are stained, and Jesus wore them to court on my behalf. And God took away our iniquity in a single day. And so, anyone who can stand before God without shame can stand joyfully before an Emperor in chains. Paul did it, Jesus did it, why would we need it to be different for us?

The point of Acts is that just as Jesus represents us to God in Luke, the church now represents this same Jesus - God of the universe but rejected and despised by men, to a broken humanity who needs him. That’s why Acts is full of all kinds of people - not just Apostles, normal men and women, jews and gentiles, rich and poor, bringing the Word of God to people who need it just like Jesus did. Not by their might, not by their power, but by His Spirit. The message of Acts is union with Christ - where we go he goes. He is with us so much that our presence is his presence in the world through the power of His Spirit living in us. And so we are expanding the presence of God outside of the holy of holies into the most common and broken and sinful places in the world. God told Zechariah that Jerusalem would be a city without walls because of the multitude of people in it - and that he would be a wall of fire around her - that’s not the iron dome around modern day Jerusalem, that’s God’s presence going out ahead of you. But listen if you're doing the kinds of things Jesus did don't be surprised if you face the same kinds of temptations that he did. Anybody who’s offering you a better deal than the Kingdom coming through the power of the Spirit is just repackaging Satan’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world if you’ll just bow down to him. Let God rebuke them like he rebuked Satan - you take those clean clothes instead. You only get God's kingdom on God's terms.

But another question Acts answers is, “What does Jesus - some Jewish Messiah from Israel, have to do with me - a gentile in another country?” This is the implied question Theophilus has that Luke is answering. And so Luke says, “ I’ll tell you what he has to do with you. He’s the King of the world. And he’s making everything new.” Based on that I don’t care what type of person you are, I guarantee there’s a story in Acts of someone like you meeting this Jesus through one of his followers. And not a single story ends with them deciding he doesn’t matter. Some love him, some hate him, nobody is bored with him. You have heard about him today and this letter is written so that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. Not “a pretty good idea” - but that you may know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus whom you have met today.

So if you are still asking who really is this Jesus, and has he really come all this way for somebody like me, and can he really clean out everything that is broken and wrong with my heart, then Luke wants you to know for sure that the answer is yes. He has already come down, all the way from the Holy of Holies, out from Jursalem, through Judea and Samaria, past Rome, to personally invade the most unclean, defiled, and broken parts of your life. Would you talk to him with me now?