29 Acts 9.19b-31- He Will Build His Church

February 20, 2024

Christopher C. Freeman

Title: He Will Build His Church Text: Acts 9:19b-31 FCF: We often struggle balancing God’s Sovereignty in the Church’s mission. Prop: Because God is in Sovereign control over the destiny of His church, we must trust the Lord. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Acts chapter 9. In a moment we will be reading our text for this morning beginning in verse 19. I’ll be reading form the LSB today, but you can follow along in the pew bible on page 1241 or in whatever version you prefer. Once you locate Acts 9. Put your finger there, holding your place, and find Galatians chapter 1. We will be reading there first, starting in verse 11, which is page 1311 in the pew bible. Picking back up from where we left off in the book of Acts, we have just come off of four historical stories of the gospel going to people we might not expect. The Samaritans, who worshipped in what we might call a Jewish cult, were offered and received the gospel. An occultist was offered the gospel although he could not leave behind his quest for power to receive it. A man who was not eligible to be a Jewish proselyte was offered and received the gospel. And finally, we saw a great enemy of the church, a bloodthirsty hunter desiring to destroy it in misplaced zeal for God… is offered the gospel and has received it too. Today, Luke pivots slightly and wraps up this section of the gospel going to unlikely people in Judea and Samaria. He will zoom in for a brief time on Saul’s early converted life. In this we see God’s ability to redeem, preserve, unify and multiply His church. Let’s begin reading in Galatians chapter 1 verse 11. Please stand with me to give honor to and focus on the Word of God. Transition: [Slide 2] Sermon crafting is, at times, a laborious task. Especially as you get to know your own presuppositions and tendencies. The last 2 sermons from Acts have emphasized the sovereignty of God over each individual’s salvation. You all know me, you know that God’s sovereignty, and all that goes with it, is probably one of my favorite topics. Well, for this sermon I again saw the sovereignty of God at the heart of what Luke is saying. But when I came in to the office on Friday, I did not feel comfortable about it. I thought, surely this sermon cannot have the same idea at its core. Surely, I am guilty of reading this into the text. Lord, I don’t want to be a hobby horse preacher. But as I looked and looked again – the points I saw all had God’s sovereign hand at their core. So I went forward with my homily assuming I had got it right, while not quite feeling at ease about it. Through a series of convoluted events, I found myself reading over an old email of a trusted counselor from nearly 9 years ago. I was in a difficult way, and this faithful counselor spoke truth to me. About half way through his response, I thought to myself, Chris, why are you reading this email. You need to get back to your sermon – you have an opening illustration to think up. For some reason I kept reading. And there it was. Using nearly the same words I had just written in this sermon, this seasoned Christian affirmed much of where I felt this text was taking us. Now that doesn’t automatically mean that I got the application of this text right. But it did serve to quiet my doubts and fears. And it gave me a great illustration to start the sermon.