Matt Chandler - Governors, Kings, Caesar and Glory

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. Let’s go to Acts chapter 26. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you. If you don’t own one, that’s our gift to you. Has May shocked anyone else? Like, when did that happen? It’s hard for me to process, and maybe it is where I am in life; I don’t know. You are only where you are. It seems like my days are long and my years have flown by really quickly. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that 13 weeks ago we started this series, and next week we will conclude it. It has just gone by very quickly. Now, 13 weeks ago, when we began looking at this book—the history of the spread of the early Christian Church—Christianity was just 120 men and women interacting face to face with the resurrected Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. We will finish the texts of the book today, and next week we will finish the series. But we will conclude today with the Apostle Paul in Rome, which is 2,997.4 miles away from Jerusalem, an 8-hour flight away, with thousands upon thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Believers in Christ. In the span of 30, 35, and 40 years, we’ve gone from 120 men and women in Jerusalem speaking with the resurrected Jesus Christ to an 8-hour plane ride away where there are no plebians, with an Empire that’s beginning to be transformed by the Gospel message.

Now, the profound nature of the spread of the Gospel was the lines that it crossed—not just the speed at which it flew, but really the boundaries it transcended. It was unprecedented in human history until the first century that a religion could cross both socioeconomic and ethnic lines. In the first century, nation-states had their own deities. Rome had its gods, and Asia had its gods. Whether that was Emis or whether that was Zeus or whatever, where you lived determined who your god was. Then here came Christianity, and as it spread, it started crossing those boundaries. So whether you were Jew or Greek, whether you were in Asia or in Caesarea, the Christian Church was growing. It not only crossed ethnic lines but also socioeconomic lines. The divides between the haves and have-nots are far less pronounced today than they were in the first century. This division began to break down as the Gospel spread. In fact, so thoroughly was the Gospel spreading through the ancient world in the first century that the physician and historian Luke proclaimed that all of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Now, this doesn’t mean that everyone in ancient Rome believed the Gospel, just that they knew what it was.

Now, think about how incredible that is: we have gone from 120 men and women in Jerusalem to, just a few decades later, it being said of the Christian faith that all of Asia had heard. Again, they didn’t all believe; in fact, we know that some of them were quite violent against it. But everybody knew what it was, and they didn’t find out via Twitter or Facebook or a news loop. All of this starts back in Jerusalem when the resurrected Jesus Christ says to this group of 12 men and women, «You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.» Now this is a great text. I’ll try to explain how sometimes God is seeing farther than we are. To those men and women, the ends of the earth was Rome. They had no concept of North America, South America; they didn’t know how far South Africa goes. They didn’t know these land masses were out there, and yet God was saying to the ends of the earth. They were thinking they were going to Rome, and yet God’s vision extended beyond Rome, to you and me, plus some. So the historical spread of this was unprecedented in human history, and it happened because—and I know the right spiritual answer: the power of the Holy Spirit doing the work of illumination. I know that. But that illuminating work of the Holy Spirit took place through men and women, through the churches Paul planted, and through the men and women who made up those churches seizing every opportunity imaginable to amplify the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What we see in the Apostle Paul and in the early Church is that any and every opportunity that presented itself was seized, and Christ was glorified. What they proclaimed was the Gospel, the euangelion—the good news. So what was spreading across the ancient world was good news. Now, quick sidebar: If you’re not a believer here and are unsure what to make of this, let me assure you from the beginning up until this day, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is good news for all. It’s good news for everyone. If you’ve somehow construed, due to some conversation you had or something you’ve seen, that what God has done in Christ is not good news for you, then you need to hear the whole story. We proclaim not that you’re going to hell, but that if you want to get there, you’re going to have to step across.