Sermon Transcript
Well, today we begin a brand new series at Bridges Community Church. We are going to look at the book of Acts. Acts is a detailed account of the earliest church, the very first church, Jesus’ earliest followers. What did they do? How did they they feel?
How did they interact with others? How did other people join their movement? We’re going to look at this for the next several weeks, and I’m very excited today that we get to kick off this series with my very good friend Dave Gudgel, who, if you are new to our church, he was the lead pastor here for about 11 years. He’s still a significant mentor in my life. We love Dave, and we are very much looking forward to what Dave has to share with us today about Jesus’ earliest followers in the book of Acts.
Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this summer just about summer. In fact, so many people have been going to Disneyland, I’ve actually been thinking about Disneyland as well, which is good because we’re beginning a new series today, as you’ve heard, in the book of Acts. And I got assigned the topic of joy, happiness, and I’m excited about talking about that But that got me thinking about Disneyland, which is often referred to as the happiest place on earth. Many might say otherwise, you know, due to the admission price somewhere around $100 a day, you know, the thousands of people that come, the long lines where people might wait for a couple of hours to get into a ride like, you know, Toy Story. But on the other hand, some people would say the upside of a day at Disneyland outweighs the downside, that Disneyland’s this place where adults and kids alike can just share a fun day together where it’s safe and it’s clean.
And the cast members, those are the employees, they treat you like somebody special, like royalty. And you know, it’s just reasons like that that many people, my family included, we’re looking forward to our next trip to Disneyland. Now, however you feel about Disneyland’s claim to be the happiest place on earth, I’m guessing you’re for happiness. That given the choice between happiness or misery, you’d take happiness every time. I know I would.
I’m among those that the 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon spoke about when he said, God made human beings as he made other creatures to be happy. They are in their right element when they are happy. Sounds good. Do you agree? I agree.
C.S. Lewis said it this way, it’s a Christian duty for everyone to be as happy as as he can. And I’m in agreement with that too. And I guess most if not all of you would agree, which may be why you’re thinking about buying a Disneyland annual pass for you and your family once they start selling them again. Or you’re preparing more trips this summer and the time that remains to the ocean or to get the family away on a camping trip or a vacation in Hawaii or Cabo San Lucas Or maybe it’s just purchasing that big fat book that you’ve had your eye on and sitting down in a big easy chair and reading it in a quiet spot with your favorite drink in hand.
By the way, speaking about books, have you read any of A.W. Tozer’s writings like, you know, The Knowledge of the Holy? That’s an amazing book. It’ll get you thinking about God and his will for your life in new ways. One of my all-time favorite Tozer quotes is this one.
He said, the people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world. People should be coming to us constantly and asking the source of our joy and delight. That’s to say, if you’re a Christ follower, the joy of the Lord, the good news of happiness, ought to be showing up in your life in such a way that it positively impacts people who come in contact with you in ways that would cause them to ask about your happiness, your joy. You know, they might ask, why are you so happy? And when I first started reading the Bible, which was the Living Bible actually, because it helped me as a teenager actually understand what I was reading, I came across Luke chapter 11 and verse 36.
Maybe you’re familiar with the verse, but this is how it’s translated in the Living Bible. Luke 11:36, it says, if then your whole body is full of light, having no dark part, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light. Gives you light. Now, when I read that, I remember thinking, okay, so Jesus is saying here that he is the light, and if he is in me, if he is in you, then And that gives us a new life in Christ. And this new life is going to radiate throughout our bodies, our whole bodies.
People are going to see what we could call the good news of happiness through our lives. That thought impacted me so much that I underlined it in my padded green hard-covered Living Bible. And I put a smiley face next to that verse. And I just began to pray, and I’ve actually continued this prayer on and off. Lord, would you make me a beacon of light?
May others see the good news of happiness in me, and not just in me, Lord, but in people everywhere, especially your children. Of course, that personal desire is but a small reflection of God’s far-reaching plan that the good news of happiness impact the world and people all around us. And it first must come through people who have a relationship with God and experience the good news of happiness. Now, I keep saying the good news of happiness and you’re saying, where did you get that language, Dave? Well, actually from Isaiah 52:7.
This is the New American Standard translation of that verse. Isaiah 52:7, How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns! Now, when you read a passage like that, you can’t help but think, wow, God wants us to be people who bring his good news, the good news of happiness, that there is one and his name is Jesus. And he came to save us from our sins. And he came to make a way for everyone to have life now and forever.
And his coming from the day of his birth on is said to be good news. In fact, good news of great joy. In fact, you may remember that phrase. It was one that the shepherds heard through an angel on the day that Jesus was born. In fact, we read about it in Luke chapter 2.
And verses 9 through 11, where it says how— it says, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.
The good news of great joy. I mean, I mean, in our world that’s just filled with bad news, this is something that can make an essential difference in our life right now. Because, you know, if you turn on the nightly news, it’s just basically one bad news report after another. In fact, where we live, even down to the weather forecast at this time of year, which is pretty much the same day, same every day, hot. You know, it’s going to be burning hot again tomorrow, again.
The good news here is connected to Jesus who brings great joy. Notice that, not a little joy, but mega joy, stupendous joy, and joy speaking about immense happiness. In fact, the word for joy is the word chará in the Greek lexicons. It’s called— in fact, in Greek lexicons, they say it this way, in Greek lexicons, it’s translated as joy, it’s translated as gladness, or it’s sometimes translated as great happiness. In fact, one lexicon says this with regard to the word chará.
It says, idiomatically, we have this joy and we would then say, my heart is dancing, or, my heart shouts because I’m happy, which is to say that the good news of great joy could be translated as it’s prophesied in Isaiah 52:7, as the good news of happiness. So the fact is, as you look at the Scriptures, joy and happiness are oftentimes treated as synonyms— hear that— through the Scriptures. In fact, that’s pretty obvious in verses like Psalm 68:3 where it says, but may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful. There it is.
It’s speaking about the same emotional response, one of happiness and joy. If that’s in the New International Version, if you just even look at the King James Version, it even in its day spoke about happiness, happiness that came through Jesus and the life-giving words that He taught. Thus, you’ve got verses like John 13:17. It says, if you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. Now, forget about the thees and the thous, but don’t miss the point here.
God is saying that through Jesus Christ and obedience to Him, there’s happiness for God’s people. So it’s no wonder that A.W. Tozer said, the people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world. And if that statement is true, the question that of course begs to be asked is, are God’s people known for happiness? Or if you prefer, is the church known for its joy, for great joy?
If you’re a Christ follower, are you known for joy, for happiness? Did you know that the first definition of joy in the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is a feeling of great happiness? In fact, the American Heritage Dictionary defines joy as an intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness. And then you got the Collins English Dictionary and it defines joy as a deep feeling or condition of happiness or contentment. So, what are you saying, Dave?
Well, when you look at the New Testament and you look at the New Testament church, there are indicators that they experience that kind of joy. And they experience that kind of happiness in abundant measure. Was it the good news of happiness, the good news of great joy? Absolutely. And you can see it in noticeable ways.
So as we launch into this series in Acts, I want us to just observe the happiness and joy of the earliest church and the impact that it had in the culture that they lived. Because perhaps in seeing that, we can in some ways learn from their example and their experience of joy and happiness, and it can translate into our lives, into the Church of Jesus Christ, that God so wants to contact the world, the culture around us in such a way that people’s lives are changed. And one of the ways that they’re changed is they experience the happiness, the good news of happiness. The joy, the great joy. So the primary source of the early church’s happiness was the good news of happiness, the good news that was centered on Jesus Christ’s life and His work.
And the early church experienced that happiness in abundance because, as we’re going to see here, because they believed the good news, because they shared the good news, and because they celebrated the good news. Now, let’s just think about that briefly. Acts as a long record of various people groups that experienced the good news of happiness. Because first of all, they believed the good news. Joy, even great joy, is a byproduct of belief in Jesus as our Savior and Lord.
This past Sunday, I met with a young trauma doctor who deeply needs to benefit from this joy that comes to those who genuinely believe in Jesus as their Savior. As a young 20-something, he’s seeking answers. He’s trying to put life together, especially in the aftermath of the countless deaths that he has seen with COVID and other diseases in the Chicago emergency room where he’s worked the past 5 years. Well, Acts 16 tells the story of a time when the early church was experiencing persecution. And Paul and Silas in Acts 16 were severely beaten.
They were beaten with rods for their witness, for their work for Christ. You know, you might think that if you’re beaten, then that’s enough to for sure push the joy out of your life. Well, this is an amazing passage, Acts 16. After they were flogged, they were thrown into prison. Their feet were fastened in stocks.
You can read about that in verses 23 and 24 of Acts 16. But what’s amazing is the reaction while they were in jail. We’re told in Acts 16:25 that about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. The fact that they were singing hymns in prison, what does that speak of? It speaks of their joy.
Even in the midst of, you know, terrible circumstances, they’re still experiencing joy, a joy that no doubt came from the work of the Holy Spirit in them and through them. Now, I’m guessing that the joy they had wasn’t kind of the woohoo, you know, clapping and dancing kind of singing. I think that was probably not the case. They had just been physically beaten really bad. But this joy was a deep heartfelt joy in knowing that they could trust God, that no matter what happened to them, In fact, you’ve probably experienced this.
You’ve even probably found yourself singing in unlikely times and unlikely places. That’s kind of the thing that happens to people who come to believe in Jesus Christ. And when God’s joy is expressed in unthinkable ways and unlikely circumstances, unexpected things can happen like it did in this prison where Paul and Silas were. Their unthinkable singing caught the ear of the fellow prisoners, and after an earthquake shook the prison and all the doors were opened and everyone’s bonds were unfastened, verse 26, we’re told that a shook-up Philippian jailer came in, verse 29. He called for the lights, he rushed in, and he trembled.
And trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Which is to say, man, he knew that these guys had something that he needed. And in verse 30, it talks about how he then brought Paul and Silas out of the prison, and he said to them, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And we’re told, And Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all those who were in his household, which basically means that they probably heard how— what belief in Jesus Christ can change their life forever.
So they gave him a better understanding of what that would mean. And then you know what happened? You’re probably familiar with this story. The jailer believed, and everyone in his household believed, and they confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, as their leader and forgiver. And then we’re told this in Acts 16:33-34.
At that hour of the night, the jailer took them, Paul and Silas, and washed their wounds. And then immediately he and his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them. And then it says this, he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, he and his whole family. There it is.
Joy, happiness, and delight came to this household who had come to believe the good news that Jesus is the Savior. And at that moment, this guy’s fears were replaced with joy by the good news of happiness that came to this man and his family through Jesus Christ. You know, it’s not accidental that the first 3 qualities of the fruit of the Spirit are— and you probably know these— love, joy, and peace. Well, when you look at this account here, love is expressed through this guy toward Paul and Silas when he lovingly washed their feet. You also see— or actually their wounds.
You also see joy, the happiness that was his in this moment. And you see peace where his fear is replaced with calm. In fact, even to the degree that he and his family were immediately baptized as a courageous expression of their belief in Jesus Christ. You know, happy hours are something that millions of people think about and participate in regularly. And if you ask me, the day, the hour, and the minute a person believes in Jesus Christ is the happiest hour of all time.
I absolutely love what J.C. Ryle said. He said, I assert without hesitation that the conversion described in the Scripture is a happy thing, and not a miserable one, and that if converted persons are not happy, the fault must be in themselves. I am confident the converted man is the happiest man. Well, you have an example of that right here in Acts 16. You have it first when Paul and Silas are singing in prison.
Are you kidding? Then you have it in this jailer and his whole household who at the moment of conversion begins to experience unspeakable joy, unspeakable joy. Joy was something that you see in the early church. You see it in people who come to believe that Jesus is the Christ. Joy also showed up in the early church when believers shared the good news.
After Paul’s first missionary journey, he and Barnabas came back to the city of Antioch and they continued ministering there. Until this happened. You can read about it in Acts 15 where some men came down from Judea and they were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, they were saying, you can’t be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had some dissension and debate about that with this group of people, Paul and Barnabas, they ended up going to Jerusalem to talk to the apostles and the elders about this question. Basically, the question is, so what must a person do to be saved?
And I want you to notice this in Acts 15:3. So this is what it says. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria. This is after they get the opinion of the spiritual leaders. But they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers.
Now, I want you to just notice that, that the sharing of how God was working in the lives of Gentiles to save them too, which wasn’t due because of their works of righteousness, but because of God’s grace. The sharing of that brought great joy to God’s family, the church, to brothers and sisters in Christ. So you probably can identify with this. If you’re a Christ follower, you’ve probably experienced this kind of joy before. In fact, it’s one of the things encourages us about a missionary report.
You’ve probably heard missionary reports, and you’re hearing about others who are coming to faith through Jesus Christ and the work that’s happening through these ministries that the missionaries are reporting on. You know, when you hear those reports, what does it do for you? It boosts our levels of joy. That’s one of the reasons why I met on a regular basis with Jim Stump while I was lead pastor at Bridges. I loved hearing from Jim about the Stanford student athletes who were coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
In fact, every time I met with Jim, it just kind of pumped me up. It made me happy, and it filled me up with joy because I got to hear story after story about how God was using Jim to lead very smart young adults to faith in Jesus Christ. And you know what that did for me? Made me happy like it made Jim happy. I think one of the reasons why we love baptism so much is because our happiness and joy is lifted when we hear other salvation stories.
In fact, you may have experienced this in a home Bible study or life group before where you thought, hey, let’s have people share their faith stories. In fact, here we are starting the month of March. This would be a great thing to do. Just a couple of people at a time, you know, each time you meet, have them share their salvation story, their faith story, how they came to faith in Jesus Christ. You know what that’s going to do?
You know what’s going to happen? It’s going to increase in the room everyone’s levels of joy. Joy is going to increase. You’re going to get pumped up. It’s going to be hard for you to go to sleep later that night.
Of course, there are a lot of other ways to share the good news that can bring joy. Take, for example, Acts 8. In Acts 8:3-8 talks about Saul. And at this point, he had not come to faith in Christ. He was out to destroy the church.
He was going from house to house dragging men and women and putting them in prison, dragging them out of their homes and putting them in prison. And so as you read along, you ask yourself, so what did the believers do when all this was going on? Well, it tells us that they scattered, but they continued to preach the word wherever they went. They shared the good news of great happiness at risk of, you know, them losing their lives. And this is what we’re told in Acts here, chapter 8 and verse 5.
It says, Philip went down to a city in Samaria. So Philip is— he’s scattered. He went to Samaria and he proclaimed the Christ there. And when the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed.
So Luke writes, so there was great joy in that city. Now again, notice this. What brought great joy to Samaria? The gospel. The gospel proclaimed.
The gospel demonstrated in ways where the demons were cast— demons were cast out of people. The paralyzed, the crippled were healed. Whether or not people were saved, it doesn’t say in this account. You suppose they were. But what we do know is this: the gospel was proclaimed and people listened.
And when they saw its healing power demonstrated before their eyes, the response was joy. Joy came upon people throughout that city. And quite frankly, that just makes complete sense to me. If you want to raise the levels of joy in your city, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, share the good news of happiness through your life and your lips. In fact, I dare you to hang out with Sujan and Suresh Panthulu and do what they did.
Help people— what I should say did— what they do Help people through their acts and their words of kindness in the name of Jesus. Do that and see if your joy levels don’t take a jump. In fact, spoiler alert, you’re going to be more joyful. You will have more joy than you ever thought possible by doing the work of ministry and sharing the good news through your life and your lips. So, joy and acts came believers, or came to people, we should say, when they believed the good news, when they shared the good news, and thirdly, when they celebrated the good news.
Joy-filled celebrations are something that happened on a regular basis in Acts. They’re described chapter after chapter. So just imagine what that did for the church, what it did for the communities that the church was living in. The good news of happiness continued and it grew to have a greater impact. First in Jerusalem, chapters 1 to 7, then in Judea and Samaria, chapters 8 to 12, and then to the ends of the earth, chapters 13 to 28, which is our outline of the book of Acts.
Acts 1:8 said, Jesus said to His disciples, I want you to go make disciples and I want you to baptize them. Actually, that’s Matthew 28:19-20. But then He says in Acts 1:8, I want you to be My witnesses in Jerusalem, start there, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, that plays out in the book of Acts. And as we can just follow that thread, boy, it’s amazing how people’s joy levels increase throughout the entire book.
So, for instance, take Peter and John. They healed a cripple in the name of Jesus Christ. You read about it in chapter 3. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember what the crowd saw?
Acts chapter 3, verses 9 and 10, this is what we’re told: When all the people saw him, that’s this cripple, walking and praising God, who’s crippled no longer, they recognize him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. What did the people see? They saw a cripple praising God. His healing brought a joyful, celebrative response, and that response caught other people’s attention. In fact, his happiness and the story of how he was healed spread throughout the whole city, and that made a lot of people happy, except for the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees who did not believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
They rejected that message. They didn’t want anybody to hear that message. And so they seized Peter and John. You can read about it in Acts 4:3. And then the next day, in an effort to put put a stop to this supposedly fake good news spreading any farther, an emergency council meeting was called by the religious leaders.
They brought in these 2 apostles. And Acts 4:21 says, and when they, the Jesus rejectors, had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. These guys, these religious leaders had a problem on their hand because as they looked throughout the city, now the whole city’s praising God as the good news is being preached and people were being healed and people were being filled with joy and many celebrations are breaking out all over the city in growing numbers. In fact, you can read in Acts 4:4 that many who heard the message believed and the number of men grew to be about 5,000. Now, that’s just a statement about the number of men who believed or found joy.
We can assume that there were women and children that believed also and ended up praising God. The point is celebration grew in this city because of the message that was believed and the message that was impacting people everywhere. You can read more about celebrations in Acts 11:18 where Peter gave a report to a group of Jewish believers that God was saving Gentiles. I mean, he was even shocked. And baptizing them in the Holy Spirit.
It’s wonderful to see the Jewish believers’ reaction when they heard that news. We’re told in Acts 11:18, when they heard this, they had no further objections about these Gentiles hearing the gospel and coming to faith. They had no further objections and praised God, saying, so then, God has granted the Gentiles repentance, unto life. The good news brought delight and joy and happiness to these Jewish believers, and they too then lifted up their voices in praise to God for his saving work. You know, you can keep on turning the pages of Acts, same response comes later when Paul brings another salvation report after his 3rd missionary journey.
He comes back to Jerusalem. Maybe he was even speaking to some of the same leaders who gave their praise before to Peter He, at this point, is speaking to James and we’re told the Jerusalem church elders, and he reported how God had saved Gentiles in various locations where he had ministered over the past 4 years. And what was the leaders’ response? Acts 21:20, when they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul, you see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are celebrating.
For the law. What is he saying? What did they say? These Jewish believers were as eager to praise God for the Gentiles that were saved as they were to praise God for the thousands of Jews that you can see there that were being saved, which is to say, they had another joy-filled celebration. And it was just one among many of these many celebrations that are breaking out in the city as people’s lives Lives all over the world were being changed.
Now, don’t miss the point. The point is, is that the church was changed. And as the church was changed by joy, the joy that the Lord gave them, it impacted people all around them. And it led to words of praise and songs of praise praise, thanksgiving to God for his saving work. You know, and I think about the times of praise and celebration in the early church and how they came because of the good news of happiness.
I just can’t help but be happy myself. You too? And it reminds me of the 3 stories that Jesus told in Luke 15 about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, and how in each story there was something that was lost, And after this all-out search, that which was lost was found. And what did then the happy shepherd and the happy wife and the happy dad do at that point? Well, they celebrated.
They threw a party and they celebrated good news and they invited other people to join in on the celebration. Rejoice because that which was lost was found, they said. And then at the same time, we’re told the angels in heaven celebrated with God. You know what that tells me? It tells me that God loves joy-filled celebrations, especially when those celebrations connect to people’s salvation.
It brings great joy, like it should bring God’s children great joy here on earth too. You know, I like Robert Hodgkin’s commented about the church, about the matter of celebrating. He said this, he said, Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We ought to give ourselves over to celebrations of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death.
We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the sheer pleasure of being a Christian. Well, that brings us right back to where we started, to A.W. Tozer’s quote, the people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world. People that come in contact with God’s people should see the good news of happiness in the 21st century like they saw it in the 1st century. They ought to see the fruit of joy of the Lord, and that joy comes when the gospel is believed and it’s shared and it’s celebrated.
Sheldon Van Otken, in his book A Severe Mercy, which is subtitled A Story of Faith, Tragedy, and Triumph, which by the way is one of the top 10 books that Bernice would say has shaped her life. Well, Sheldon in this book says this, he says, the best argument for Christianity is Christians, their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity It’s also Christians when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug and complacent in consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. What’s he saying? He’s saying Christianity is a message of joy.
And a life that has been saved by God through Jesus should be a life that overflows with joy. Now sometimes that might be woohoo! And sometimes that’s just a deep joy-filled trust and thankfulness in God our Savior. So where is the happiest place on earth? Well, it should be the church, God’s family, when it believes and shares and celebrates the good news with great joy through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit.
May God make us his church, the happiest place on earth.
Father, we love you. We thank you for this wonderful study of getting into the book of Acts and seeing thematically different matters that were a big part of the earliest church. And one of those being the matter of joy, happiness that is connected to the gospel, that’s connected to Christ. Lord, each one of us that have a relationship with you, we’ve experienced that joy. We pray that that joy might continue to grow in abundance.
Our lives would radiate Christ to the world. We pray for those that don’t know you, that they would come to a place of believing in you and receive Jesus and begin to experience a joy that’s beyond anything that they could comprehend. In fact, if that’s the desire of your heart, tell God that today. He’ll hear that prayer. Ask Him to save you.
Ask Him to adopt you into His family. Lord, thank You that You’ve said if any will confess with their mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that You raised Jesus from the dead, they will be saved. We pray even today that there might be some hearing this message, that today would be the day of salvation for them. And Lord, they begin to experience the joy that that Philippian jailer experienced in his whole household. A joy, an unthinkable joy, an unspeakable joy, a joy beyond anything that we could comprehend.
May that joy be ours now and forever, for we pray this in your name. Amen.
