Era 12: The Church

(Although I shall be typing these notes in this era in some sort of off-magenta because well white ink would be invisible and I wanted to finish off our final era together with a little splash of color 😉)

Introduction:

• Fun Facts: from AD 33 to now

• Rome was the world power and then it shifted to various different empires and countries and now the world power is apparently Tik Tok

• The Great Fire of Rome happened in AD 64

• We have just concluded the Gospel of Luke

• Now we enter the final era of The Church

• So there’s this new book that’s come out

• The Bible in a Year Companion!!

• It’s pretty awesome

• It has wonderful descriptions of every day and frequently asked questions

• It’s going to be in three volumes

• Now on to The Church!!

• Yesterday we ended the Gospel of Luke and now we are heading into the age we are living in essentially

• We are in the age of The Church

• It’s the culmination and Jesus has fulfilled everything from January to November 

• The last thing Jesus says is, “Now you go into all the world and make disciples.”

• So in the Book of Acts we have the history from that very beginning when he sent out the Apostles

• We see how The Church is developing and how his message is going forth

• A lot of people misunderstand the Book of Acts

• They think it’s the history of the early church and it’s entertaining

• NO!

• It is the era we are living in RIGHT NOW

• The Church is not a body that sits and studies Jesus

• The Church is THE BODY OF CHRIST

• The Church is going to go forth and continue what He started

• He had a three year public ministry

• And it is not a slice of time that just stays there and then we go back and study it

• That three year time period was his public ministry and the launching of his Kingdom throughout the world

• And WE are the ones who do that

• When we look at the early Church we see that there are two super Apostles

• St. Paul

• St. Peter

• One goes to the Gentiles

• One goes to the Jews

• IT IS AMAZING!!

• The early Church in the Book of Acts is really about the explosion of the Church and some of the problems that they have

• It is in the context of Acts that we see the Epistles

• So everything has a place

• BUT…

• The Book of Acts is the STRUCTURE for the beginning of this Church and the movement

• The ending is kind of abrupt

• Is that it?

• Are we done?

• NO! WE ARE NOT DONE!

• This is the launching

• There are two words to key in on here

• EXPLOSION

• Yeah as Jesus even says in Acts Ch 1, “You will receive the power (or dynamos) of the Holy Spirit.”

• And that explosion is what happens

• But then LAUNCHING of the Church into the world to change the world, to redeem the world

• GOSH!!

• The story of the Acts of the Apostles is where we get introduced to some of these people

• The Apostles that Jesus recruited

• Paul

• Barnabas

• Some of those characters that were part of that mission early on that were launched from this Acts of the Apostles time period

• They went out and brought the Gospel of Mercy and Hope and Good News to the world

• It seemed unstoppable in so many ways even though they definitely encountered opposition

• To give you an idea of the atmosphere that the early Apostles went out into, it was brave and courageous

• This is a martyr business here

• Rome was the world power and people need to remember right before Jesus we had Julius Caesar who proclaimed himself to be GOD

• He was worshiped as “god” and had an adopted son named Octavian

• Octavian defeated Marc Antony at the Battle of Actium

• Octavian came into Rome with the honorary name of CAESAR AUGUSTUS 

• And it was said of Caesar Augustus that nobody before, during, or after would ever eclipse the glory of Caesar Augustus who was the “son of god,” the one who ushered in the Pax Romana, the peace, and the one who has given the euangelion, the GOOD NEWS to the world

• So that’s the atmosphere that Peter and Paul are going out into

• “Guys, I know what you read in the newspaper and I know what you saw on cable news shows, but I gotta tell you. He’s not God, the son of God. He’s not the one who ushered in the good news. He’s not the prince of peace. But there is one. And we’re going to tell you about him.”

• THAT is the atmosphere that the Book of Acts takes place in

• Peter and Paul don’t stay away from Rome, the superpower at the time

• Everything was going down in Rome

• In so many ways up until this moment the story is centered on the Holy Land

• The People of Israel had been exiled whether it was to Babylon or Egypt 

• But the idea was to stay in the Holy Land

• But now they are launching from the place where Christ walked and the land that was promised

• Into NEW LANDS to bring the EUANGELION, the REAL GOOD NEWS to the world

• It’s a SHIFT

• It’s a FULFILLMENT

• Jesus is the FULFILLMENT

• But how is the promise going to be fulfilled not simply by retaining the land and staying here, but we are going to the heart of the beast in Rome and going all over the place and bringing that good news 

• The early Church was aware that Rome was started by Remus and Romulus

• There is artwork from very early on showing Peter and Paul who are in a sense the new Remus and Romulus

• It’s like a new Rome now

• The shift will move from the Holy Land to Rome as the SEAT OF PETER

• It’s like a rebuilding of Rome 

• Which is a sign of the REBUILDING OF THE WORLD

• That’s why Rome is very special to us as Catholics

• It’s not just the Cannoli or Porchetta!!!

• BUT…

• It is the beginning of the NEW Remus and Romulus

• Reminder: That’s St. Peter and St. Paul

• When it comes to REDEMPTION

• When it comes to RENEWAL

• When it comes to RESTORATION

• This is the mission

• Rome had done so much damage and is being redeemed and restored by the “twin” Apostles of Peter and Paul

• We are also reading the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and all the New Testament Letters

• In Acts we have a structure that is very important

• It is the story of Peter and Paul

• Chs 1-12 really focus on Peter and Chs 13-28 focus on Paul

• If you read and people listen to you very carefully, they will notice that Peter is imitating Jesus and the works that Jesus did

• There is a direct correlation between Peter, his works, and the works of Christ

• The same thing is true of Paul in Chs 13-28

• He is mirroring Peter

• Both of them are mirroring Christ and that tells us that we, as the members of people of the Book of Acts, we are doing the work of Christ like Peter and Paul did

• The basic structure of the Book of Acts is that we have witness in Jerusalem

• Then after that we have Judea and Samaria

• Jerusalem is Acts 1:1-8:3

• Acts 8:4-12:25 is Judea and Samaria, the outskirts of Jerusalem

• Acts 13-28 we have the outermost parts of the earth, the entire world

• It starts in Jerusalem and then...BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE...and we go to other places, meet people we don’t really know, and then the outermost parts of the earth

• It’s Acts Ch 1 where Jesus says, “You’ll be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth.”

• It just telescopes for the rest of the Book of Acts

• PHENOMENAL!!

• INCREDIBLE!!

• One of the things that is noted by Luke in writing Acts of the Apostles is that a lot of times what caused that EXPLOSION or LAUNCHING was PERSECUTION

• It was a result of this persecution that these Christians went out and proclaimed Christ to other places

• That can be backwards for us

• We think if it’s going to be blessed, it will be in a way WE like

• Just fruits everywhere

• But it’s not often not only a fruit of Christ and his Holy Spirit, but also the fruit of SUFFERING that is going to be giving new life to the Church

• Paul really understood that too

• It was in the second phase of this explosion in Acts 8:4-12:25 that this great scholar, Saul of Tarsus, was brought into the Kingdom by the Holy Spirit and he became a SUPER APOSTLE

• The third part of the explosion is that Paul has THREE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS that are covered in the Book of Acts

• In every one of his journeys what does Paul do?

• He goes out first and establishes churches

• In the second and third journeys he is going back and nurturing the churches that he started

• When you read the Epistles of Paul…

• Paul wrote more books

• Luke had more territory in his writing

• BUT…

• When we read the Epistles we will see that the Early Church did experience the POWER of the Holy Spirit and the expansion of the Church

• BUT THEY ALSO HAD PROBLEMS

• The problems typically were departing from the ways of the world and Roman customs and temples and so forth

• So when you read the Epistles of Paul he is going to teach you theology

• He is going to show you how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament

• Then at times he is going to say, “Hey, guys, we got a problem here. And we gotta deal with this if we’re going to keep moving forward.”

• So it’s key for people to read that in a two-fold way

• One is the MISSION

• The other is WHAT ABOUT US AS THE CHURCH

• Are we getting along?

• Are these stones in the Temple causing problems?

• The Epistles will teach us how Jesus is the fulfillment, and what we believe

• But also there will be a specific CONTEXT

• Whenever Paul is writing a letter, he is addressing them to a particular group of people typically about a challenge or experience

• Like with the Corinthians and I heard what’s going down in your community

• Here’s where we need to start living these new lives

• Or even to Timothy and encouraging him to be the Christian he is called to be living in the world

• When we get the context for the letters, they become much more clear

• It’s kind of like the writing of the prophets

• If we know the context more, then we recognize here is how not only this applied then and what they’re talking about here, but here’s how it applies now

• So much more accessible

• So much more for ME

• Not only a community 2,000 years ago

• This is for ME

• This is for US

• This is for NOW

• CONTEXT IS VERY IMPORTANT

• Particularly with Paul’s writings because four of his writings he wrote not from the beach with an iced tea

• He wrote them from PRISON

• When you are reading an Epistle from Paul knowing that he is in prison, knowing that his life is on the line and then you read what he wrote and that is LIFE CHANGING

• He wrote PHILIPPIANS, EPHESIANS, COLOSSIANS, and PHILEMON

• These are the PRISON EPISTLES OF PAUL

• For anybody who feels like they’re in prison whether it’s in a relationship, at work, financially, whatever it might be, pay close attention to those PRISON EPISTLES

• They will teach you an awful lot

• We have a number of writers in the New Testament

• Paul

• Peter

• John

• Timothy

• We have different authors who are telling us about their experience and teaching people as this Gospel explodes

• Wouldn’t it have been great to be there back then and experience this?

• BUT…

• We are IN that period RIGHT NOW

• YOU are the one on the stage now

• It’s YOUR turn to take this mission and continue to GROW IT learning from Peter and Paul, learning from the Early Church and what Jesus taught them

• This is a time of expansion as well

• We can look back and say, “Well you know Paul and Peter’s stories are over and they’re written now. Those lives have been lived and now they’re enjoying their reward.”

• BUT…

• We can realize that when they were writing these words, they were in the midst of uncertainty

• Paul in prison had no idea how it would turn out

• A lot of times we can look at that back then and think it’s great

• AND YET…

• To be IN THAT MOMENT would be to be in a situation that was COMPLETELY FILLED WITH UNCERTAINTY

• I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!!

• When St. Paul goes on to list all the ways in which he has suffered for the sake of the Gospel, any one of those moments would be enough for any one of us to tap out

• He was shipwrecked and was nonchalant about it

• He had no idea what was coming next

• He just mentions it out of passing as if there was no uncertainty

• AND YET…

• OF COURSE THERE WAS UNCERTAINTY

• Just like us, Peter and Paul and the early disciples of Jesus lived in the same BROKEN FRAGILE DANGEROUS WORLD that we live in

• So it’s so good to listen to our older brothers and sisters and see their lives and see how they’re living

• That same danger, that same uncertainty, that same suffering is ours as well

• People look at Peter and Paul and think they’re SUPER APOSTLES

• Yeah that’s Peter and Paul

• But I’m Bobby from Fairfax

• You have to be aware that Paul was not aware that he was Paul

• What did he do for a living?

• He was a tent maker who was on a mission from Jesus

• He exhibited every characteristic that we would want to exhibit

• TENACITY

• COURAGE

• BOLDNESS

• LOVE

• One thing to really pay attention to in Acts is to pay attention to the reading in the context of that church exploding in the early Church

• How the Church is changing and adapting as it continues to grow

• The common problems that they face

• The leadership

• We can learn a lot about the leadership of the early Church

• For the first time in our journey together, the Holy Spirit now is really center stage

• Not that he wasn’t before

• The Trinity is the Trinity

• BUT…

• Now this is the AGE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

• We were in the Age of Jesus the Second Person of the Trinity

• Our Father in the Old Testament

• Now the Holy Spirit is going to usher in

• Paul talks about the power of the Holy Spirit in his life to transform and Jesus told us before that he was going to go to the Father but he was going to send a HELPER and that HELPER would guide us into all truth

• AND HE DID

• AND HE CONTINUES TO

• That word HELPER in Greek is PARACLETE

• It is the one who comes alongside of us 

• That means that not only is Baptism CRITICAL for this new Church

• The Forgiveness of Sin

• The joining of the family of God

• BUT…

• Confirmation is EQUALLY IMPORTANT in the Sacraments of Initiation because it is in Confirmation that the Holy Spirit is given to the Church to fulfill the Baptismal graces and power and give us the courage to be, as the Catechism says, OFFICIAL WITNESSES OF JESUS

• If you have not been CONFIRMED, THIS IS YOUR PERIOD

• This is the time where you go to your pastor and say, “You know what? I need to be confirmed! I’ve never been confirmed!”

• Now here’s Jeff’s anecdote about his parish....back after this….

• If you’re reading this and thinking you want to be this way, then you have to be equipped the way the Early Church was equipped

• Jesus went into the water, came out of the water, the Holy Spirit came down upon him

• That’s how he began his ministry

• “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

• That is very powerful, the Holy Spirit in the life of the Early Church

• The Apostles, who had been baptized and ordained at the Last Supper, and the gift to be able to forgive sins at the end of John’s Gospel

• AND STILL…

• They lacked this power of the Holy Spirit in this unique way

• This power of Pentecost

• This power of Confirmation

• So yes they had the Holy Spirit

• But there was a certain charism, mark, or power of the Holy Spirit that had not yet been given to them

• Someone who is baptized does have the Holy Spirit, that is correct

• AND YET THERE IS MORE

• What does Jesus say? 

• “Anyone, you wouldn’t give your son a scorpion if he asked for an egg but how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks him.”

• That is an INCREDIBLE THING

• Not just asking the Father to give you the Holy Spirit NOW when you’re listening to this

• But also in that Sacramental way

• That way of power that comes through the Sacraments of the Church that Jesus had given to us is so essential and so powerful

• We just assume everyone has been confirmed

• But some have not yet in some ways cooperated or said “yes” to that Sacrament

• “Yes, Lord, you gave me the gift of the Holy Spirit. I have allowed that gift to lie dormant in me.”

• All it takes is a good Confession and asking the Lord to come alive in your life in the same way that he came alive in the Apostles and those who were sent out who lived radical lives transformed witnesses to Jesus

• There is one book we will be covering called the Book of Revelation

• It’s such a mystery 

• Revelation was written by John

• John had received quite a revelation about the end of the Old Testament Era and the beginning of something new

• There will be judgment on Jerusalem and Rome

• There will be this new beginning

• The Book of Revelation is a mystery to so many people because it is not written the way the Epistles are written

• The Book of Revelation is APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE

• It is written differently

• It uses code words and structures that are taken from the Old Testament to explain something that is about to happen

• That thing that is going to happen is the destruction of Jerusalem after Jesus

• At the same time, it’s going to focus on the END OF TIME

• So it kind of has dual purposes

• But it was written to the seven churches of Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey

• “You’re doing good in this area but I have this against you. You have to correct this.”

• Then there was the reward for that, that was the beginning

• Then we see the judgment on Jerusalem, the end of Jerusalem, and the beginning of this amazing family, the Kingdom of God, the Church

• It’s so interesting because whereas Paul and Peter and Timothy quote from the Old Testament, John doesn’t

• John alludes to the Old Testament over FIVE HUNDRED TIMES

• So as people have gone through the Old Testament, some of this is going to be like a rumble strip as we listen to the Book of Revelation

• Wait a minute, I’ve seen that pattern before

• It’s a great book

• The highlight of it is the Lamb’s Supper

• It is the Eucharistic Celebration in Heaven

• A New Heaven

• That’s kind of the wonderful dessert at the end of this whole story

• So maybe the capstone would be THAT

• Not only NOW, but here is into ETERNITY that vision

• Not just the Church on earth

• But here is the Church in Heaven, the Bride of Christ

• SO GOOD!!

• If there’s a place in the Bible that’s easy to feel overwhelmed, the Epistles of Paul are that place

• If there’s ever a time where you might want to follow along in your Bible as you’re listening, this might be one of those times

• Mark something down

• Write it down

• You have a journal?

• Good, use it

• THERE IS SO MUCH

• Even when it’s a fire hydrant of information and it can feel overwhelming, the Lord is still speaking

• He’s speaking to you PERSONALLY

• He is going to help you hear WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR

• Going to Israel with Jeff Cavins is like drinking from a fire hose

• But Fr. Mike made the decision to come back so he was able to calm down

• We don't’ need to take it ALL in right now

• We can take in whatever is given to us in this moment AND THEN WE CAN COME BACK!!

• St. Ephraim talked about studying the word of God and used a drinking fountain as an example

• Story about drinking fountain….

• St. Ephraim said, “Don’t be discouraged by the water that falls to the ground, but rejoice in the water that you drank. And know that the fountain exhausts you. You don’t exhaust the fountain.”

• When people are listening and thinking this is too much, focus on what you are drinking

• You can do this next year

• You can do this two times a week

• KEEP DRINKING

• This Word of God is going to exhaust YOU

• YOU are not going to exhaust the Word of God

• If you read the end, WE WIN

• WE WIN

• THE BATTLE HAS BEEN WON 

• Another Jeff Cavins story…

• Minnesota Vikings?? My condolences, Jeff…

• Oooh against the Packers??

• You guys are in big trouble….

• Oh 8 minutes left...plenty of time only down 10

• Oooh your wife spoiled the ending?

• The Vikings won? Woo hoo!!

• The point is we don’t need to walk with our heads down

• We are not defeated people

• We don’t have to be lost

• Jesus said in John 14, “I’m not going to leave you as orphans, ok? The Holy Spirit is going to come.”

• We don’t have to hang our heads down low like we’re LOSERS

• WE WON!!

• ACT LIKE IT!!

• ACT LIKE A WINNER!!

• JESUS WON THAT BATTLE!!

• And now we are walking with him and you go out into life knowing what the end of this game looks like and you know we win

• So that should put a smile on your face

• There have been so many people listening with us and they feel more confident now than maybe they have ever felt

• Confident in the Lord

• Confident in my Faith

• Increased Faith where I trust Him

• I find myself in a world of insecurity, I can rely upon Him in a very secure way

• When we get to the end, we know that He has won it for us

• SO WE WIN!!

• Does Jeff have any last words?

• Because that was a really good last word

• Yeah?

• This is just the beginning

• We’re coming to the end but it’s really just the beginning

• We have people that have been joining us that are brand new and have just come into the Church

• This is amazing to hear the ENTIRE BIBLE like this

• IT IS A GIFT FROM GOD

• We have people who have been walking with the Lord for years

• We have SCHOLARS

• We have TEACHERS

• After you hear the Word of God, the Church says, “There must be a response,”

• That response is FAITH

• FAITHFULNESS

• Faith is TWOFOLD

• One is MENTAL ASSENT

• “Lord, I heard the whole Bible, I’m with you. Wow. Two thumbs up. I’m with you. I might even do it again.”

• BUT…

• The other part of faith is a PERSONAL ENTRUSTING OF YOURSELF TO GOD

• When the Divine Word of God is revealed and God pulls back the curtain and shows you himself completely, then the proper response is FAITH

• That means we go from here BELIEVING and ENTRUSTING OURSELVES TO HIM in the midst of our story

• It says in the very first paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that God has a plan of sheer goodness

• What people have heard over the last year is the plan of SHEER GOODNESS

• God has now reached out

• He has got a hold of you

• He has brought you to the level of adopted sons and daughters

• He is going to share his Divine Life, the life of the Trinity, with you

• IT IS A BLESSING

• That is really important

• Fr. Mike has done an AMAZING thing

• The amount of time, effort, and energy that Fr. Mike has put into this has been incredible

• There is going to be ETERNAL FRUIT as a result of it

• On behalf of EVERYBODY, THANK FR. MIKE for the GREAT WORK HE HAS DONE!!

• This is our LAST INTRO into our time periods

• So this is the home stretch

• There are still days and days to come

• Especially when you’re battling that faithfulness and the upcoming weeks might be busy, know that we are WALKING WITH YOU

• WE ARE PRAYING FOR YOU

• THE WHOLE TEAM AT ASCENSION IS PRAYING FOR YOU

• JEFF IS PRAYING FOR YOU

• FR. MIKE IS PRAYING FOR YOU

• PRAY FOR FR. MIKE

• PRAY FOR ASCENSION

• PRAY FOR EACH OTHER