Kingdom Impact through Ordinary People
All throughout the book of Acts we see the apostles making a huge Kingdom impact in the world. Read the first 7 chapters and it seems like these men were transformed from Steve Rogers to Captain America!
After they received the Holy Spirit, thousands of people start getting saved at one time, people are healed, they are standing up to those in power, and miraculous things are happening.
It’s incredible, but it can lead some of us to wonder if we really matter. How am I going to make a difference like that in this world?
Well, in Acts 8, we see some encouraging words that might be easily missed if you are reading it too quickly.
Here’s what it says in Acts 8:1-4.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. 4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
Okay so let me ask you a question, “Who were those who had been scattered that are referenced here in verse 4?”
They were just plain, ordinary people in the church, right?
In v. 1 we are told that “all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” Now that is probably a bit of a hyperbole here, but the point is that we are not talking about the apostles who were scattered and began preaching the word wherever they went.
We are not talking about the “Captain America’s” of the early church. I mean the first 5 chapters of Acts all we hear about is how powerfully Jesus is working in and through the apostles and how much the church is growing and how many people’s lives are being transformed and changed through them.
But here in verse 4 of chapter 8, we are told that just plain, ordinary church members were the ones who finally began to spread the good news outside of Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria (Acts 1:8).
Plain, ordinary church members, not the apostles, were responsible for planting churches all throughout Judea and Samaria!
Now, you may be thinking, “But Jason it doesn’t say that. It just says “they preached the word wherever they went.” Well, look at what Acts 11:19-21 says.
19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
In other words, they planted churches, right? The church is people, not a building.
They told people about Jesus and how He could transform them and they received Jesus into their lives and became part of the church right there in the areas they had been scattered to.
So, churches were being planted and people were having their lives transformed and changed by Jesus beyond Jerusalem and throughout the known world, and listen: WE DON’T EVEN KNOW THESE PEOPLE’S NAMES.
Luke doesn’t take the time to even tell us who they are. They were just ordinary members of the early church in Jerusalem who ended up changing the world!
And this says so much about them, and it says so much to us today.
THEY DIDN’T SEE THEMSELVES AS LESS VALUABLE
They knew the apostles had spent 3 years with Jesus. They knew that they were personally chosen by Him, and they had seen them doing miracles and big, bold, powerful things that were changing the world.
So, they could have taken the attitude that these guys were so special and that they were just ordinary. When they were scattered from Jerusalem, they could have said, “Oh no it’s over. Our leaders aren’t here, and we aren’t anything special like they are. So, I guess this whole Christianity thing is about to die out.”
But that is not what they thought. No, they knew that no matter who they were, where they had been, or what they had done that Jesus could do things through them too because they were just as valuable of an instrument as the apostles were.
And you are too! You are a valuable instrument in the hands of the Master. He is the one working in you and through you, and He can take your gifts and talents and use them to make Kingdom impact around you.
THEY SAW THEMSELVES AS PART OF GOD’S MISSION
Jesus had said to the apostles in Acts 1:8 that they were going to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea & Samaria, and all the way to the ends of the earth.
This was the mission. The gospel was going to be spread all over the world, and Jesus had commissioned them to do it.
But what we see here in Acts 8:4 and 11:19-21 is that Jesus didn’t just mean it was for them. This mission was also for those whom they would reach and then would become part of the church alongside them!
Everyone who accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior became part of the mission, and these early church members who were scattered saw themselves as part of the mission. They knew that Jesus was at work in them and through them to spread the gospel wherever they went.
Now, in Acts 8:4 Luke tells us that they “preached” the gospel wherever they went, and you might get the idea in your head that they were like preaching formal sermons or something. But the Greek word translated “preached” there doesn’t mean that they formally preached sermons, it means that they just shared the gospel with people in their ordinary, everyday lives.
In other words, they saw themselves as missionaries. But listen, this was not a program. No one had put together a mission trip. These people were persecuted. They were forced to leave their homes and relocate. They had to find a new place to live and work and go to school.
This was their new home, and they saw themselves as being put there by Jesus on a mission. The reason they were in that community was to tell people about Jesus, and they did! And as they built relationships with people and shared the gospel with them, more and more people’s lives in their community were transformed and the church grew.
It didn’t grow because of professional missionaries. It didn’t grow because of people who worked for a church. It grew because ordinary people saw themselves as part of God’s mission.
You are a part of that mission as well. And He sends you to your school, your job, and to your neighborhood every day on that mission. You are a missionary in each of those places.
THEY WERE EMPOWERED BY JESUS
In Acts 11:21 Luke said, “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.”
“The Lord’s hand was with them,” is another way of saying He was the one who did it through them. He was at work in them and through them in their schools, at their jobs, and in their neighborhoods.
And He is at work in you and wants to be at work through you if you’ll let Him.
That starts with you believing the truth that you are valuable no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done.
It starts with you seeing that you are just as much a part of the mission of God as I am or any other pastor or vocational missionary.
And then it ends with you making yourself available to Jesus for him to work his power through you to transform and change people’s lives in your school, at your workplace, or in your neighborhood.
