It's not an easy task to understand or teach this passage because Paul's actions are simply reported here. Luke offers no commentary on them. What I can say for certain is that Paul is clearly intelligent, savvy, bold, and passionate in front of the commander and the religious council. I see Romans 8:28 being played out in the ending chapters of Acts: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

Every Christian has a Jesus story that is unique to them. Even the Apostle Paul who we have been studying has a Jesus story. It’s this story he tells in Acts 21:37-22:23 that we are studying together this week. Remember, Paul has arrived in Jerusalem knowing full well that he will be arrested and imprisoned. Sure enough, the Jewish Christians (and the traditional Jews) have heard that Paul is preaching against Jewish traditions and it makes them “just a little upset”. Enough to insight a mob riot to kill Paul. But a Roman regiment sees the mob and swoops in to rescue Paul. They take him up the stairs to a military fortress with the crowed chanting “Kill Him! Kill Him!”. It is here, at the top of the stairs before going inside that we pick back up the story.

Before we dive into today's study, it's important to understand the background of these events. In the early church, as recorded in the book of Acts, tensions were already high. The spread of the gospel among both Jewish and Gentile believers brought challenges—especially regarding the role of Jewish customs and the Law of Moses. The Jerusalem Council had recently made decisions about what was required of Gentile believers, but many in the early church still held tightly to their traditional practices. Paul, a bold and dedicated servant of Christ, found himself at the center of these controversies. Accusations flew that he was turning his back on his Jewish traditions. In response, Paul took actions to show that while salvation IS by faith alone, cultural traditions could still be honored when they served a greater purpose. Today, we’ll see how Paul navigated this complex situation and what it teaches us about unity, humility, and the true meaning of Christian liberty.

Acts 21 starts a new direction for the life of Paul. Up to this point he has been traveling from town to town sharing the gospel with anyone and everyone who would listen. Yes, he has seen jail and persecution here and there but nothing like what he will experience when he gets to Jerusalem. His missionary journeys (at least how he has known them) will come to an end and he know it. He also knows what God is calling him to and he is willing to go where Jesus tells him to go and do what Jesus tells him to do regardless of the personal cost. He has an eternal perspective, not only for himself, but for every tribe tongue and nation. I only hope that Paul’s example spurs on our love for Jesus and people and compels us to live on mission regardless of the personal cost. What really stands out is how both Jesus and Paul walked straight into suffering—fully aware of what was ahead—yet they didn’t hesitate. They weren’t making decisions based on their own comfort or what was best for themselves. They were making decisions based on calling.

Last week we were in the first half of Acts 20. And specifically we saw how God intends for the Bible to be taught, discussed, and obeyed in the church. This week, I want to ask this question: why is it so important for the Bible to be the supreme focus in the church? As we mentioned last week, all sorts of churches relegate the Bible to a minor role in the church. All sorts of pastors relegate the Bible to a minor role in their preaching. This week in the end of Acts 20 Paul gives us the “why” we need to keep the bible as the central part of Montage. It’s in the context of an emotional, powerful speech to the Ephesian pastors that Paul pleads with them to keep the Word primary in the church. There are at least seven different times in this sermon when he talks about the importance of declaring, teaching, proclaiming and admonishing with the Word of God.

Montage must be based on God’s word. We don’t follow trends, fads, or anything else other than the Word of God. I pray that it can never be said that I “preach my opinions and the people love to have it so.” I know many of us are walking or have walked through some really hard things. The last thing I want to give you are some of my thoughts and opinions. I want to give you the only thing that is able to help you, the Word of God! As soon as Montage ceases to trust and preach and follow this Book plainly, it ceases to be a church. Proclamation of, belief in, obedience to this Book is what makes the church a church. Let me show this to you. That’s why I have you in Acts 2. I want you to see what leads up to our text in Acts 20. This book tells us the story of how the church started and grew. So we’ll take a quick tour in which we’ll see the centrality of the Word of God in the story of the church.

We find ourselves in Acts 19:21-20:1 reading about a mob riot in Ephesus. The riot at Ephesus is all about Paul messing with people’s Idolatry. And actually this has been a theme all along in the book of Acts. We will see idolatry in the man-made carved images here at Ephesus as well as the man-made created money we have today. I would say that money is the #1 idol in our culture and often if someone messes with our money, we riot (in our own way). The silversmiths at Ephesus had been organized into a trade union. And they found that they were being hit hard in the most sensitive part of the human anatomy -- the pocketbook. These silversmiths, who made little silver souvenirs of the goddess Artemis, found their business dropping off because so many people were becoming Christians that nobody wanted their shrines anymore. And if we are honest with ourselves as Christians, isn’t this what we want? We want to see Jesus capture so many hearts that bars loose revenue, that pornography websites can’t stay open, that abortion clinics have no customers, that the 49ers football team lose all their fans. Not because Christians are picketing with angry signs and yelling at the “sinners” that use those services, but because so many people love and follow Jesus that there just isn’t the demand anymore. Disciples, making disciples, making disciples, making disciples.

We have been reading about these amazing missionary journeys Paul and company have embarked one. From one place to the next, sharing about Jesus, some people accepting, some rejecting then on to the next stop along the way and repeat. God’s mission through God’s people with God’s power has been on display. Yet, I don’t know about you but I’m in a life place where I don’t feel like I’m supposed to go be a traveling evangelist like Paul. Don’t hear me wrong, I hope that if God lead me in that direction I would happily obey, but that is not what God has called me to right now. What does it look to be more planted than Paul so far? How do we spread the gospel to every nation tribe and language while living in the Flathead Valley? We get a picture of that today in Acts 19:1-22. Paul is going to settle in Ephesus for 2+ years and see “the people throughout the province of Asia” hear the word of the Lord. See, there is not one way that everyone is supposed to share about Jesus…but everyone IS supposed to share about Jesus.

Even the great Paul the Apostle got scared sharing the gospel. Acts 18 shows us Paul in Corinth. He later writes to the church in 1 Corinthians that when he came to them, he came in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. In our passage today, Jesus comes to Paul at one point and says, “Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent!” This at least implies that Paul was tempted to be silent and not to speak the gospel. I’ll bet you can relate to that like me. What I want to do is read our passage, Acts 18:1 –17, and then I want to encourage us—your heart and my own heart—with four truths in this text. My hope is that a few minutes from now, every follower of Jesus in our gatherings will be encouraged and emboldened in a fresh way to share the gospel with somebody this week. Just one person. So that’s where all of this is headed.

I was talking to a friend from another part of the country last night. He and his family are looking for a new church but are having a hard time. One church says that out of the five gifts of the spirit (which we talked about in one of our recent Network gatherings), only the gifts of teacher and shepherd are active today. Another talked about good things but was just “dead” as he described it. I sat with another friend who uses an Assembly of God resource to help disciple new believers. Somebody took issue with it because of some of the theology in the book. I was a part of a church for a while that got hyper focused on the Holy Spirit and asking for things like gold dust and gems to appear. Another denomination holds human reason and church tradition with the same authority as scripture. I asked which of those three things trumps the others when there is conflict, and their answer was human reason. So many different takes on things. How do we know what is right? How do we know what is true?

I need to harness my inner Paul! This guy was so flexible, not in his message but in his approach. He just has this passion to tell people about Jesus and does whatever he needs to make it happen. Most of the time we see him enter a city, head to the synagogue, share how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish faith, see people start to follow Jesus and get run out of town by people who don’t like him or his message…then he goes to the next town. Don’t get me wrong, there is so much we can learn from each of the cities he visits and the messages he shares…however, in Athens I feel like we are encountering more of an “America in 2025” culture. America in 1960 may have connected more with Paul’s preaching in the synagogues, where people had an understanding of God and the bible and the job was more of building off a common biblical foundation. Now in 2025 American culture is more of what we see in Athens in 49AD.

There is a line that we as Christians must hold to. We don’t want to compromise the truth. We don’t want to add or subtract from the gospel. But what do we do when theological conflict arises? How should we handle it? We get to read about how the early church handled it because this is not solely a current day issue. Acts 15:1-35 is a long debate on theology. Sometimes a theological debate is boring. “Who cares.” Right? “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” that’s our attitude sometimes but I want you to see, that this particular theological debate teaches us four incredibly important things about the gospel itself, about the essential message of Christianity. It teaches us about the importance of gospel accuracy, gospel freedom, gospel community, and gospel purity.

What is Montage all about? We are about making disciple makers…that encompasses the person farthest away from Jesus all the way to a mature believer. We want to make disciple makers. That starts with us growing in the image of Christ as disciples and then leading others to grow in the image of Christ as disciples. Every disciple in this room, a disciple-maker: teaching the Word, serving the world, making disciples in all nations. Everything we do at Montage we do ultimately for the sake of God’s glory in all nations. We have been commanded not just to make disciples generally. We have been commanded to make disciples specifically of every nation, every ethnicity, every people group. This is not a suggestion from Christ—this is a summons, a calling for us. Make disciples of all the nations until every people group on the planet is reached with the gospel of Christ and He returns to fully and finally redeem His people.

This Sunday we get to study the first recorded message of the Apostle Paul together. This man has changed the course of world history but the power of his ministry. He did so by sharing the true gospel and we have many good examples of what he said, including this first one in Acts 13:13-52. He shared this message in a synagogue on a Sabbath morning and it shook the whole city so much that “The following week almost the entire city turned out to hear them preach the word of the Lord.”

Today we get to study one church that literally changed the world. In acts 13:1-12 we’re about to see a local movement start with one moment in one local church. As a result of this moment that we’re about to read about in Antioch, over the next two-hundred years, the entire Roman world would be reached with the gospel. Over the next two-thousand years, that gospel would go to most every single country in the world and this movement on missions started with one local church. And I hope it inspires us to see what God can do through a group of diverse people united around the Word of God, worshipping the person of God, following the Spirit of God, surrendered to the mission of God and enabled by the power of God. May we be motivated and moved to action as we look at this church in Antioch.

Up to this chapter we have been seeing the body of Christ at work. Now we will examine three events which Dr. Luke, the writer of Acts, puts together, yet which seem somewhat unrelated at first. But no choice of events in the Word of God is ever without significance, and these are very significant for us. The three events are the murder of James the Apostle, the deliverance of Peter from prison by the intervention of an angel, and the death of Herod the king.

The early church was at a turning point. Up until now, the gospel had been primarily preached to the Jews. But Acts 11 tells us that because of persecution, some believers went to Antioch and started preaching to the Gentiles. This was huge! These believers—ordinary men and women—did something that had never been done before. They broke through cultural and religious barriers to bring the good news of Jesus to people who were completely different from them. That’s what we’re called to do, too. The gospel isn’t just for people who look like us, think like us, or live near us. It’s for everyone, and we have to be willing to go beyond our comfort zones to share it.

This is an amazing story and is a huge transition where the good news about Jesus spreads from just the Jewish people to the gentiles (AKA non-Jews). Up to this point in Acts 10 the gospel has been mainly exclusive for the Jewish people. Yes, there have been non-Jewish people who start following Jesus but they are the exception…till now. And thank God that His desire is for ALL people, every tribe, tongue, and nation…because English was one of those “other tongues” and the USA was one of those “Other nations” and you and I (if you’re not Jewish) are one of those “other people groups”. This is the continuation of God’s heart to make disciples of ALL people in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Or go back farther to Abraham and this is the continuation of God’s promise to him that his offspring would be a blessing to all people. We are reading this fulfillment right now! Jesus is a blessing to ALL people…regardless of race, age, gender, socioeconomic status. Jesus offers forgiveness to ALL!

We’ll pick it up in Acts 9:32 today, with a case study of how, because Jesus is still alive in heaven, Jesus hears prayer, Jesus heals people, Jesus still empathizes and sympathizes, and he is still involved in our lives, which is really good news for us— that Jesus is just as accessible to you and to me as he was to the people who surrounded him when he walked on the earth a few thousand years ago, that he’s still that available to us. So what we’re going to read today is a case study of Jesus still doing ministry from his heavenly kingdom in Acts 9:32-43.

Don’t you wish you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah? I mean irrefutable proof that you could just drop and everyone would be convinced about the Bible, Sin, Jesus, Salvation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Heaven and Hell. But even the most convincing proof won’t convince everyone. Just look at the life of Jesus: undeniable miracles, prophecies fulfilled, I mean resurrection from the dead is kinda a big indicator that there is something special about Jesus. No matter how many “convincing proofs” we offer, it just may not be enough to convince people. And that is what we see with this new Christian named Paul we read about in Acts 9:19-31. His life is radically changed from one that is actively hunting down Christians to imprison and kill them, to one who is doing everything he can to convince people that Jesus is the Messiah. This 180 degree life change came through a personal experience with Jesus earlier in Acts 9. It takes Jesus working in peoples lives, softening their heart and drawing them into faith. Even the most convincing proofs won’t change people if God is not already working in them.

Hi fam! Today, we’re diving deep into one of the most powerful and transformational stories in Scripture: Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Found in Acts 9:1-19, this passage not only tells the story of one man’s conversion but also gives us a powerful picture of God’s ability to transform lives, including our own.

We can’t make something ripe. It’s going to take time. We can’t make someone ripe for Jesus. It’s going to take time. And so we have to lovingly, patiently wait until someone is ripe, and then we pick them. We tell them about Jesus, we love them, serve them, inform them, instruct them, and then their heart’s open to Jesus as he’s been preparing them. You’re going to see a guy today who is in the process of becoming ripe for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a man who is in process, and then God is going to send another man for the harvest, to pick the ripe fruit of this man’s life and to introduce him to Jesus. It’s an awesome text. Let’s read it. It’s Acts 8:26-40 And today, we get to see the God—yes, he loves crowds, and we’ve seen thousands saved through the book of Acts. But today the camera hones in on one guy. You know why? God doesn’t just love numbers, he loves faces and he loves you and he knows your name.

Last week our branch of Montage talked about how the greatest challenge to people becoming Christians are Christians themselves. People look at church-goers, see that the way they live their life doesn’t line up with what they say they believe, and don’t want anything to do with the church or with Christianity. Today we will read of a man named Simon who “believed” in Jesus but whose life wasn’t transformed by Jesus. He had a belief, but not a saving, life changing belief…which is just a false belief. It’s the kind of belief that drives others away from Jesus rather than drawing them to Jesus.

We also get to see the genuine faith of Philip who let’s the Holy Spirit lead him, heal through him and speak through him. Philips’s faith sent him to Samaria (who were a hated people group) to tell them about Jesus. He cast out demons and healed people while telling them about Jesus and it brought great joy to the city. One man had faith that pointed people to Jesus, the other had a “faith” that wanted to glorify himself. These two are contrasted intentionally by our author Luke.

Let me be very clear. You can know the Bible, but if you don’t know Jesus, you don’t know the Bible. Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill all Scripture. He said that the Scripture was about him in John 5:39. “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” Jesus himself taught a Bible study after he rose from death—two, in fact—at the end of the Gospel of Luke, showing how the whole Old Testament was about him.

The whole Bible is about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. And they knew the text of the Bible, but they didn’t know the Bible because they didn’t know Jesus, and the whole Bible is about Jesus. And so what Stephen is doing is taking the Bible that they know and leading them to the Jesus that they do not know.

We fail, right? You fail. When’s the last time you failed? If you don’t know it, ask the person sitting next to you. If they’re married to you, they will have a lot of illustrations. We fail, right? How many of you don’t start with that? “Hi, my name’s so-and-so. Here’s my biggest failure.” How many of us don’t put that on our social media? “Oh, I failed again. Here’s a photo.” Not only do we fail but churches fail. Even well intentioned churches fail. The question is, what are you going to do? What are we going to do with the failure? That brings me to the big idea for the sermon today. It’s really on failure and calling.

As we look at generosity in Acts 4 and 5, I’ve got six things for you that I want to look at today from this section of God’s word. I know you don’t want me to talk about money but that’s what we’re going to do because that’s what the Bible talks about in our section. It is for us, I think, perhaps along with sex, the most pervasive idol in our entire culture. “Don’t tell me what to do with my sexuality. Don’t tell me what to do with my finances. Those are mine.” Whatever the Bible has to say, those are the two areas where there’s the greatest resistance. We’re just going to drive right over that today. We’re going to look at what God’s word has to say about issues of stewardship, and greed versus generosity.

And I want to start today with this story we’ve just heard read from Acts 4 because this passage clearly shows us the most fundamental truth about the Church; that it is founded on the power of relationships in a two-fold direction, if you like; a vertical relationship between the believers and God and a horizontal relationship – the believers with one another. This passage shows us really clearly that if we get our relationships right, then we will be able to be Church in a way that transforms ourselves and transforms the community in which we are located. Being effective and purposeful as a Church begins with getting our relationships right.

Today we are continuing in the narrative of a man born lame who Jesus’ Holy Spirit healed through Peter and John. This was such an undeniable miracle that a large crowed gathered. Peter “saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd”. The beginning of Acts 4 has some amazing insight, boldness, and encouragement that we can hold on to.

Here’s the story line and where we find ourselves. Jesus is God, come into history, lived without sin, he died on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended back into heaven, sent the Spirit to indwell and empower his people to continue his mission.

This includes, a little earlier in chapter 3, the healing of a man who was lame from birth. The question then is, What next? What happens after Jesus, who’s alive and well in heaven, ruling and reigning, shows up to do a healing here on the earth? We’re going to look at what happens in the wake of what Jesus does.

We read of what Jesus’ followers started doing by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue the ministry of Jesus. And one of the things that they did was healing. According to my reading this week, there are fourteen occurrences of healing in the book of Acts. So, in Acts 3:1–10, What you’re going to see here is the first healing that is recorded by Jesus’ people about the power of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. There are twenty-eight chapters in the book of Acts. Twelve of the twenty-eight chapters speak of somebody being physically healed supernaturally by Jesus’ power through the presence of the Holy Spirit. So, what I want to do today is I want to look at this particular healing, and then I want to look at the broad category of healing.

Jesus' Church is born when 3000 people start following him and it doesn't stop there. Every day more and more people start following Jesus. What did the early believers do? What did they devote themselves to? Well Acts 2:42 gives us 4 things that they devoted themselves to and we too should devote ourselves to them.

What does it mean that God "will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike—and they will prophesy." What does prophecy look like today and how should it be used? Let's dig in!

In Acts 2, Jesus’ promise is fulfilled: the Holy Spirit descends on his disciples, readying them to go and proclaim the gospel to all nations. He does this by giving them the gift of tongues, a symbol of the fact that barriers of location and language have now been removed. What is this gift? Can every Christian get it? Is it for today? I hope to teach a simple biblical perspective toady in such a way that, when tongues comes up again, we can come back here to reference this teaching. While we all have lenses we see life and read the bible through, I have been asking the Holy Spirit to help me simply read, understand and teach the bible, not anybody nor any denominations take on it. So let’s jump into the deep end!

This week we see the early church work through a leadership crisis. How will they select Judas' replacement? And what is the difference between 2 men. Peter and Judas, who both failed Jesus? One ended up taking their own life while the other ended up leading the early church. How did they end up in such different places? Listen to find out.

The first eleven verses of Acts that we’ll examine together today—every single one of them mentions Jesus. There is no Christianity without Christ. Jesus’ life and his power are not just to be admired; they’re also to be experienced. A non-Christian can look at Jesus’ life and Jesus’ power and admire it. Only a Christian can look at Jesus’ life and Jesus’ power and experience it. So how should we use this power the Holy Spirit that Jesus will give us? We should start by looking at Jesus to see how he used the power of the Holy Spirit.

Buckle up! Acts is such an amazing book to see God’s mission, through God’s people, filled with God’s power! I mean what a book to see God’s Kingdom spreading from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the world. And that’s really the whole outline of Acts that comes directly from Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”