Acts Chapter 1:11-16

Do you understand most of your sin nature and most of that stuff comes from you focusing on yourself? I know a few years ago we said, well, you don't focus on yourself enough, there's a lack of self-esteem, and that's why you really have problems and struggle and have sin.

That's so bogus. We need to mature as believers and begin loving one another, begin praying for one another, begin serving one another, because that's what Jesus did. And that's what happened in the book of Acts, and that's what needs to go on in the present-day church.

Peter was restored as he poured himself out on others. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we want to find out what's the best way to mature spiritually, and in the studio today we have one of David Magee's associate pastors, D.A.

Brown. Welcome to the program, D.A. Bob, we all would like to grow spiritually. Everyone would like to mature in our relationship with Jesus, but also in our effectiveness in sharing Him with others. The Bible talks about it specifically.

We don't have to guess, we don't have to wonder. Pastor David is going to take his time today and share with us what the Word specifically says about how to mature spiritually. Look, this is an important teaching, and this could help our effectiveness where God has placed us. Listen to this teaching, you will be blessed.

Great, brother. Let's jump in as David Magee continues teaching to the world. Turn with me to Acts chapter 1, verse 9. Now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in wide apparel, who also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you see Him go into heaven. Notice, we're told in the Word of God, the Bible, that the way he went up is going to be the way he comes back. That's a huge clue in terms of end time events. This lets us know that if we hear of a rabbi in New York City or somebody that is saying, oh, I'm Jesus. I'm Jesus.

This is the second coming. Then we can know that he's not telling the truth. Either that or he's got some really cool video footage of him coming back down to earth in clouds.

I mean, either one. But it lets us know there's a safety in there. And so if somebody comes and says that to you, say, okay, well, let me see the video. I mean, surely, you know, they got it on something. And if they don't have the video, it ain't him. Now, it's interesting, too, that you really won't need the video. Why? Because it's going to be visible, I think, to everyone. There's a lot of false messiahs running around today.

Do you understand that? You can go online, and I wouldn't encourage this futile search, but I mean, there's a lot of guys running around, I'm him. I'm him. And it seems like there's a common theme to all of them. They say, yeah, I'm him. And all the Christians in the Bible, they got really confused. Jesus said that. There'd be false messiahs. It's an interesting prediction.

We talked about it last week. You know, that this itinerary preacher traveling pastor out of the north part of Israel and ministering mainly in the north part of Israel, born in the south part, but, you know, in the small country, says in the end times, a lot of people are going to come and imitate me. I wonder what they thought when he said that.

It's a pretty massive prediction, wasn't it? So Jesus will come back bodily, he will come back visibly, and it will involve the clouds. This is, interestingly enough, exactly what it speaks about in the book of Revelation.

Verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey. Now, a Sabbath day journey was about 2,000 paces, and you weren't supposed to walk beyond this 2,000 paces on the Shabbat, on the Sabbath day.

The Shabbat was on Saturday. It was from sundown Friday to sundown on Saturday, and you weren't supposed to walk farther than 2,000 journey, 2,000 steps. Now, you could, if you had a rope, you could extend that a little bit, because if you tied the rope to your house, then, you know, technically you hadn't left home yet.

So you could walk the length of that rope and then 2,000 more steps so that, you know, you could go further. Now, if you think that's silly, you know what, don't, you know, we engage in silliness that's just as silly of not sillier. When you go to Israel, it's interesting, you gotta be sure, if you ever go with us on one of these trips, be sure to get in the right elevator, because they have these Shabbat elevators that on the Shabbat, what they do so that you don't have to work to push a button, they stop at every floor and open the door.

So if you get in the wrong elevator, you gotta wait coming, but we engage in silliness, religiousness that God never told us to engage in, and this is part of the reason on the feast days that people would camp out and gather right around Jerusalem, because they didn't want to have to walk farther than the 2,000 steps. Verse 13, and when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying, Peter, James, John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the zealot and Judas the son of James. I think about how these men lived, and I think about how these men died. These men died, for the most part, violent deaths. The exception here is John, but John was poisoned, John was boiled in oil and lived through it. They poured out their lives, certainly they didn't feel like they were being inconvenienced to live for the Lord.

Most of them died in foreign lands, and God used them in an incredible way. Let me ask you a question, have you ever gone to do something and find out that it's already been done, and you go to help somebody to cut down a tree and it's already been done when you get there, you go to help them move and they've already moved, are you gonna go help them fix the car and the car's already been fixed, and that's sort of a weird place to find yourself in, but that's not where we find ourselves in. Our job has not been completed yet. There's still a lot to do for the kingdom, that's the next life lesson. There is still a lot to do for the kingdom, still a lot to do.

At some point, time as we know it will change, but we don't know when that time is. Jesus tells us so many places to occupy till he comes, redeem the time, use the time. Do you understand that at some point in the future, somebody will come to Jesus, somebody will be born again, somebody will get saved that's the last person? It's the last person. I think about that often on Sunday mornings, people come forward to ask the Lord to forgive them of their sins and think, is this it?

Is this the one? Wouldn't it be cool if you were the person who led the last person in that prayer? I mean, do you pray with them to receive the Lord and you say, amen, and boy, you will be a hero in heaven, won't you? People are like, are you the guy? Yeah, I'm the guy, I let that guy, the Lord, I pray with him, he's in the kingdom, here we are.

There might be a couple of people that show up and go, what took you so long? We've been waiting up here. But that's an awesome thing because there is so much to be done for the kingdom.

Not just here in this community, but around the world. So we need to be busy in the kingdom. Verse 14, these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women in Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brother. So you got all these people and it says, and they're in one accord. Now, does that mean they're in a car made by the Honda?

No, it doesn't mean they're like in a Honda Accord. It means that they're in unity. They're in unity, which is really important for the body of Christ. And it mentions Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now, this is cool because at this point, you understand Mary had been cleared. Some of you are looking a little confused. Mary was a young woman, we think probably in her teens still, when she showed up with the announcement that she was pregnant.

It's a small town. People talk. They talked about Mary. And even Joseph, boy, he kind of struggled with this.

Think if you were Joseph. Think if you were engaged to a woman and she shows up and she goes, I'm pregnant. And you're like, we're engaged. Not supposed to be engaging in that kind of behavior because we're engaged. We're going to be married, you know. What's okay? What do you mean it's okay? It's the Holy Spirit.

You should have been like, what? So, yes, blessed to God, highly favored, you betcha. But people talked. You can see it in John chapter 8 when the Jewish people, the Jewish leaders stood around and they said, we're not born of fornication. They said, where's your father? But at this point everybody knows. Jesus died and was resurrected, came back, seen by all these people and then ascended up into heaven. And Mary probably sat there and went, any questions?

It's my boy. But notice something too. This actually is the last place that we hear about Mary in the Scriptures.

This is it. And the early church did not seem to recognize that Mary was any sort of co-redemptress. Understand, there's segments of the Catholic church that believe that Mary is co-redemptors with Jesus.

It's interesting. They used to teach and think that Mary died and they had this place in Israel where they said this is where Mary is buried. Well, then they came up with this doctrine that she ascended and they had to close the church because you can't say, you know, she's buried here but she ascended. So they closed that church.

But Mary is highly favored but not co-redemptors. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience. Specifically, Enka, High Point, Lexington, Mount Olive, Summerfield, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and also Dickinson, North Dakota. Lord, we thank You for everyone who lives in these cities. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would draw them unto You even right now.

That people would have the faith to say yes with no boundaries on what You're wanting to do in their life. We pray for the leaders in these cities that You would give them wisdom and discernment and that they would work together, Father, and that they would look to Your Word for answers supernaturally on how to lead where You've called them. Lord, we pray that people would get plugged into churches and begin to serve with the gifts that You've given them, Father, and that they would be a blessing to other people in the same way that You've blessed them. Lord, we thank You for these cities.

We're expecting You to do great things. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Let's talk a little bit about this book.

I talked last week that we're going to briefly, historically look over this a little bit. Now, this book covers about 30 years of the church. It was written in about 61, 62, 63 A.D. It ends with the imprisonment of Paul. That helps us to date the book and not yet with his execution. It's a great book for us as a church to be going through.

Why? Because it's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be telling people. We're supposed to be praying together.

We're supposed to be in unity. We're supposed to be serving one another and loving one another and doing these things. And it's called the Acts of the Apostles. It's really more the Acts of Peter and Paul, if you will. And it deals mainly with Paul in the last part of the book. And we believe that Luke, who wrote the book, was a Gentile. We think this for a number of reasons, one of which is in Colossians chapter 4 verse 10 says, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions.

If he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justice. This is not Jesus Christ. Jesus was a common name of the day. These are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision.

And they have proved to be a comfort to me. A couple of verses down, it says, Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you. So it says these are the guys that are of the circumcision that are serving with me. And then a few verses later it says, hey, Luke and Demas, say hi. So we believe from this passage that Luke was a Gentile, one of the earliest Gentiles in the church. And this is also where the book of Acts is where non-Jewish believers enter the picture. Understand, up till this time, it was only Jewish Christians.

Now for some of you, that may bear some explanation. Jesus was a Jewish man preaching from a Jewish book. He was a Jewish Messiah with Jewish disciples. The Gentiles had not yet entered the picture. As a matter of fact, when we did enter the picture, they actually had to vote on whether or not they wanted us.

I mean, it's in there. Praise God, some of them said yes. Because that was the plan of Jesus to have Paul bring the gospel to the Gentiles. I mentioned this Theophilus, and we talked about last week that that means friend of God. That's a parallel verse to Luke chapter 1 verse 3. It says, it seemed good to me, also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account most excellent Theophilus. So we have the connection there between the gospel of Luke written, talking about Theophilus, and the book of Acts here.

We believe again that he was a high Roman official. But it says they were in one accord. They were in unity. Unity is so important to the body of Christ.

So important. You know, I've come to appreciate unity more and more as a pastor, and the preciousness of it. Because, here's the thing, and we deal with this sometimes. Somebody will come to me and say, such and such as being divisive, they're saying this, they're saying that. Or they go to somebody else. Well, guess what we have to do when we hear that?

It can be such a cancer to the body of Christ. We stop what we're doing so that we can deal with these issues. And we go to that person and we confront them. Why, to be mean?

No. Hopefully to restore them. But if they say, you know what, I'm going to keep running around and running my mouth, we suggest that they find another church.

Why? Because division can hurt the body of Christ so much. And certainly you see that your pastor, another pastor here, and other people in leadership have to stop what they're doing in order to deal with these issues.

Now, it only makes sense that the enemy would use this. Distraction is an old ploy. And division is one of the most damaging distractions that can go on in the body of Christ. If we're supposed to be impacting lives for eternity and we're just sitting around and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, don't do it. Now, this is a common thing that happens in churches.

And a lot of churches don't even talk about it because somebody's going to get offended. But the reality is, I remember when I was a young kid, we sat around and we were praying for something. I guess for the meal. We were probably praying for the meal.

You know, Lord bless this food kind of thing. We got through. And we were with my uncle and his family. And I said, Chuck had his eyes open. My dad said, how do you know? I could just sense it, Dad. I was busted. Why? Because I opened my eyes.

And it was looking at him who had his eyes open, probably looking at me, right? It's interesting because every now and again, somebody would come and say, oh, so-and-so's a gossip. How do you know? Somebody told me.

Somebody sent an email. You understand, gossip and division take two parties. The person that's talking, the person that's listening. The person that's talking, they're wrong. They're in sin. Guess what?

The person that's listening, they're in sin as well. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to shut people down who started down that path and say, you know what? I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear this. This is not edifying. If you've got a problem with this brother, go to that brother. If you've got a problem with this sister, go to that sister. It's so important.

Why? Because we begin to turn from what we're supposed to be doing to wasting our time. Time is precious. And we're supposed to be on this glorious adventure of impacting lives for eternity, not just sitting around, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

But that's not a problem here. It's in other churches, but you just thought you might want to know. That's the people at second service, isn't it?

But I just thought I'd share with you guys just in case you see one of them, okay? Verse 15. And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples.

Altogether, the number of names was about 120 and said, Men and brethren, this scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before, by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. You know, we've tracked Peter here to the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. A few weeks ago we were looking at his public restoration as Jesus asking, Peter, do you love me? Look what Peter's doing now, standing up in this group of people being used by God. He's been restored. God's good, isn't He? God is in the restoration business. Do you understand?

God loves to restore people. Here's Peter. Peter knew better. Peter publicly denied him three times.

Surely his training of the three and a half years told him that he shouldn't have done that, but he did it. And so Jesus showed up in John 21 and said, Pete, you're done. Know what he said? No. Peter, do you love me? Do you love me with perfect love? And Peter said, no, I love you as a friend.

In the Greek we went over that, agapeo and phileo. Peter, do you love me perfectly? No, I love you as a friend. Peter, do you love me as a friend?

Yes, you know I love you as a friend. Okay, we'll start there. And look what he does with Peter.

And look, the trust obviously is well placed. Jesus knew, Pete, you can do these things. Peter was dismantled and broken. And Jesus put him back together again and used him for the glory of God.

And maybe you're sitting in here this morning and you feel beat up and you feel broken. But God can put you back together and use you for His glory. It was part of the plan, Jesus knew it the whole time. He said in Luke 22 32, talking to Peter, He says, but I prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. Peter, this is what you need to do.

After this is over, after you've denied me, begin to strengthen your brethren. Notice what Jesus didn't say. Jesus didn't say, well, figure out what happened. Try to look inward and see what went wrong.

Try to look in your past, Pete, and figure out what would cause you to do such a thing. He didn't say that. The Bible tells us, not looking behind us, but looking forward, forgetting the things that are behind us, pressing forward towards the high mark, the following of Jesus Christ. Peter heard that message. It changed his life. And this is part of our maturity. Part of Peter's maturity was instead of standing around going, I don't know about all these ghosts, but me, I'm with you, to go and to be another center. That's the final life lesson here. We mature spiritually and often heal spiritually as we serve others. We mature spiritually and often heal spiritually as we serve others. See, a lot of times we get trapped into this, and it's called a lot of different things.

And I know this is speaking right to some heart issues, but I want to do that. I have a victim mentality. It's rampant in the world. Woe is me. This happened to me, and everybody's mistreated me, and I'm just going to kind of sit here and have me a little pity party. And the world jumps in. We have all these doctors and counselors and all these people that at the very best, they can look at you and go, wow, yeah, you're really, boy, you're messed up.

I know because I've been to them. At 16 years old, I sat to, supposed to be one of the best child psychiatrists in the state, and he looked at me and he listed all these things I was doing, and he said, there's something wrong with you. You're going to do drugs till the day you die. Thanks for that ray of hope there, doctor. Well, praise God.

He was wrong. And what the world would have you to believe is focus on your wounds, focus on what has gone wrong, but that's not the way of Jesus. Jesus says, you want to be healed? Go restore your brothers.

Go restore your sisters. Why? Because the focus then goes from what? It goes from you to other people. Do you understand most of your sin nature and most of that stuff comes from you focusing on yourself? I know a few years ago we said, well, you don't focus on yourself enough. There's a lack of self-esteem, and that's why you really have problems and struggle and have sin. That's so bogus.

I mean, if you've ever taught like four or five years old or six years old, you know that's bogus. You think they snagged each other's toys because they lack self-esteem? So we need to mature as believers and begin loving one another, begin praying for one another, begin serving one another, because that's what Jesus did, and that's what happened in the book of Acts, and that's what needs to go on in the present-day church. Peter was restored as he poured himself out on others. And some of you may be thinking, well, I need to get some of this straightened out and some of that straightened out and get this passed and begin to pour your life out. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe You died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe You were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for You all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the Internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So, folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.