Welcome to the weekly podcast of Christ’s Community Church in Fishers, Indiana. Here you will find sermons and other media to encourage you as you grow as a disciple of Jesus. For more information, please visit www.cccfishers.org.
As world continues to change by becoming more post-Christian and adapting to a post-pandemic world, the church finds itself in a period where change is the new normal. For this season, we are looking at the book of Acts to remind ourselves how the early church followed God as God led the church into the future that was unfolding before them.
Acts 2:42-47 is often lauded as the church in its most perfect form. What often get’s overlooked is that this portrait is a part of the story of Pentecost. Just as the tongues of fire and the speaking of tongues was a sign of the Holy Spirit among the disciples, so is the picture of the church holding all things together and being devoted to the apostles teaching, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Additionally, given the Old Testament references to Pentecost, the picture of the early church community is truly Pentecost fulfilled.
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In Acts 3:1-10, Peter and John come upon a beggar as they are entering the temple to worship. In seeing the man—not just his situation, but his humanity—Peter and John find compassion to offer him healing. How can we be the kind of people who see the humanity of others? And what if our ability to see others is directly connected to our willingness to be seen ourselves? This week, we will explore these questions in our sermon.
This week, we explore Acts 3:11-26 and what it means to take collective responsibility for the impact of sin on the world. Inherent in human nature is a tendency to reject responsibility for things we are not explicitly involved in. But what if, by our sin, we are responsible? What does the gospel have to say to our complicity? How might the gospel free us up to have the difficult conversations plaguing our society?
In Acts 4:1-31, Peter and John find themselves jailed and standing trial for an act of compassion. As strange as it sounds, this is relatively common. Those who upset the dominant order of the day, even through an act of kindness, are called into question. Those with authority take the role of judges, and those out of line are the judged. But Jesus flips all of this upside down by assuming the role as both the judge and the judged.
The violence in Acts 5:1-11 is unsettling. In many ways, God comes across as petty or overly vindictive. When faced with difficult texts, our tendency is to rush past them to get past our discomfort. But if we are willing to sit with the texts and wrestle through them, we often find that the violence of the text reveals our own violence towards God, others, and ourselves. In this week’s sermon, we find three ways the violence in this text reveals and undermines idols in our lives.
Acts 5:12-42 records yet another account of the disciples being arrested for preaching Jesus. Once again, when questioned about what they are doing, they preach the gospels. Over and over, the disciples respond to persecution by inviting their captors to experience salvation through Jesus. In this story, we meet Gamaliel—a pharisee who views the followers of Jesus with skepticism. In this sermon, we ask the question, “Do we ever, like Gamaliel, view the gospel with skepticism?”
As the disciples continue to preach the good news of Jesus, we begin to see a clash of stories. After his arrest, Stephen retells the story of Israel, but in emphasizing different points—namely the resistance of Israel to the prophets of God—those in the synagogue are enraged. As human beings, we all tell stories. It becomes important, then, to examine the stories we tell ourselves and hold those up against the story of God.
Acts 8 tells the story of Philip going to Samaria and preaching the gospel. People respond and are baptized. Peter and John then come, see that the Samaritans have not been been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and proceed to lay hands on the people so that they might receive the Spirit. What is going on in this passage? Why did Peter and John need to be there? What is it about the Samaritans and a peculiar man named Simon that we need to pay attention to?
The Lord directs Philip to the road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he meets an Ethiopian eunuch—a man who is exotic and on the margins of society. As they study the scriptures, it becomes clear to the eunuch and to Philip that nothing can stop the expansive, inclusive love of God found in the gospel of Jesus.
One of the most well known stories in the book of Acts is the story of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. It’s no wonder that this story of a persecutor of the church becoming one of its most effective missionaries is well loved. But at the heart of this story is the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is a precursor to Saul’s conversion. Just as Jesus died on the cross, Saul died on the road to Damascus. Just as Jesus rose from dead, Paul rose from Saul’s past.
