What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats? (Acts 8:1-25)

Today we’ll look at the first part of Acts chapter 8. We’ll do a “threat assessment” on the early church as we answer this question: What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats?<br />
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Q. What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats?<br />
<br />
• (Alpine is 23 years old today!)<br />
• First public service held Sept 9, 2001<br />
• Two days later the twin towers fell and the world changed<br />
• Threat of terrorism<br />
• Threat of global war<br />
• Threat of losing American way<br />
• But Alpine continued to grow, and today…<br />
• Eight campuses, and growing!<br />
• Opening service at the Syracuse building<br />
• Where will God take us in the next 23 years? <br />
• And what threats will we have to endure?<br />
• Today we’ll look at three threats that the early church faced (persecution, power, and division) and one bonus threat that seems unique to us today (apathy). <br />
• We have a lot to cover, so let’s get straight to the text… <br />
The Threat of Persecution<br />
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Acts 8: (NLT) 1 Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.<br />
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Acts 8:1-3 (NLT) A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. 2 (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning.) 3 But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.<br />
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• The External Threat<br />
• Pay attention to the language here, and how different it is from what we’ve seen so far in our study of Acts<br />
• First, let’s review the memories (honeymoon stage)<br />
• Growth: Acts 2:41 (NLT) 41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.<br />
• Miracles: Acts 3:7 (NLT) 7 Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened.<br />
• Community: Acts 4:32 (NLT) 32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.<br />
• Freedom: Acts 5:42 (NLT) 42 And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”<br />
• Now we have all new language:<br />
• “Great wave of persecution”<br />
• I remember standing in the ocean with my kids when they were young, the power of the waves<br />
• That’s nothing compared to the tsunami that hit Japan <br />
• March 11, 2011<br />
• They call it “3/11”<br />
• The church experienced this external threat<br />
• A tsunami of persecution<br />
• scary<br />
• “all the believers … were scattered”<br />
• So much for community!<br />
• And then this:<br />
• “Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church”<br />
• This guy’s personal mission! <br />
• I’ve seen some of these guys on YouTube…<br />
• Atheists<br />
• Christian haters<br />
• Deconstructionists<br />
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But here’s the thing with God: a threat is just an opportunity. <br />
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Acts 8: (NLT) 4 But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. <br />
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• Don’t you love it!? <br />
• Genesis 50:20 (NLT) You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. (Like the Esther story with Haman)<br />
• In fact, this was God’s plan all along: that the next stop after Jerusalem would be Judea and Samaria. Let’s put some verses side-by-side:<br />
• Acts 1:8 (NLT) 8 …And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”<br />
• Jesus’ final words before his ascension<br />
• Acts 8:1 (NLT) …and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.<br />
• Bad thing, right? Not quite…<br />
• Acts 8:4 (NLT) But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went.<br />
• What the enemy meant for evil….<br />
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Then Luke gives a specific example…<br />
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Acts 8:5 Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah. 6 Crowds listened intently to Philip because they were eager to hear his message and see the miraculous signs he did. 7 Many evil spirits were cast out, screaming as th...