Lake Avenue Church: Break Forth

We return as a church this summer to the Book of Acts. You may remember that we studied the first half of Acts throughout the summer of 2013 in a series of messages entitled Breakthrough. Again and again, we saw how the presence and power of God’s Holy Spirit broke through and into the lives of people from every language group and nationality. Lives were changed. A new Christ-centered and Spirit-empowered community came into being. There was resistance to this breakthrough, of course. However, in Acts 1–15, we saw that with the resurrection of Jesus, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the witness of the church, God’s kingdom would ultimately prevail against the kingdoms of this world.

This summer, we will race through Acts 15–28 and see how God’s changeless gospel breaks forth into individual lives and societies and makes a transformative difference in a variety of ways. It’s the same gospel each time, but its outworking is new in each situation. We will see specific ways the gospel can, as the subtitle states, Break Forth into a World Filled with Bad News. For example, God’s gospel breaks forth:

• Into those who feel like outsiders (15:1–29)
• Into lives that feel trapped (16:22–40),
• To those who seek the truth (17:10–15)
• Into the minds of philosophers (17:16–34)
• Into megacities (18–19)

We will read the thrilling stories of changed lives that form our own heritage. J.B. Phillips wrote about these accounts penned by Dr. Luke, a man who was often an eyewitness to them:

No one can read this book without being convinced that there is Someone at work in our world besides mere human beings. Perhaps because in their very simplicity, perhaps because of their readiness to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer, and if need be to die, the Spirit of God found what surely He must always be seeking—a fellowship of men and women so united in love and faith that He can work in them and through them with the minimum of hindrance. Consequently, it is a matter of sober historical fact that never before has any small body of ordinary people so moved the world that their enemies could say, with tears of rage in their eyes, that these men “have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).

I believe that the world continues to be turned upside down. The same good news of Jesus and power of the Spirit are at work among us at Lake Avenue Church. Let us see what God will do as we listen and respond to His Word. May God’s power break forth into our own Pasadena, San Gabriel Valley, and California, and to the ends of the earth.

To His Glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor