Acts 1:1-5
Our reading from the word of
God Acts chapter one verses one through five. Before we read,
let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Pray with me. Lord,
give us eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts that perceive
all that you are doing as you are at work in us and in the
world and give us hands and feet willing and ready to go and do
the work of the gospel. as you have called us, your servants,
to do. And we pray this in the name
of Christ, our Savior, amen. Here, the word of the living
God, this is the book of Acts chapter one, and we read the
first five verses. This is Luke, the physician under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He says this, in the first book,
O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and
teach until the day he was taken up and after he had given commands
through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
To them, he presented himself alive after his suffering by
many proofs, appearing to them 40 days and speaking about the
kingdom of God. And while staying with them,
he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for
the promise of the father, which he said, you heard from me, for
John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the
Holy Spirit not many days from now. Amen. You may be seated. I’ve had a sticky note all week
on my desk that says, uh, uh, say acts and not Luke, right? We’ve been studying the book
of Luke for so long now. I thought I better remember sometimes,
um, with Wednesday night in Genesis and Sunday night in Daniel, then
we’ve been in the Psalms and all the rest. I honestly don’t
know where I am or what book I am, but I have these colored
little bookmarks here, and yellow is where I am on Sunday morning,
and it’s a turn to Acts, so we made it. But this sticky note,
say Acts and not Luke, is really wrong. You see, Luke is simply
continuing on in his written narrative of the work of Jesus. It’s in our modern canons of
scripture, our modern Bibles, that we get confusion. Luke would
have written Luke and Acts in a continuous way on a continuous
scroll, might have spilled into a second scroll, but Luke and
Acts were always considered together. When the canon of scripture was
being formed over the first couple centuries of the church, Luke
was separated and put with Matthew and Mark and John. So you had
the gospels grouped together. And then the book of Acts was
separated as the history of the church or the history of the
apostles. But Acts, the book of Acts, is
really a sequel. Well, really it’s a continuation
of the book of Luke. Luke continues to tell Theophilus,
a Roman official, most likely a young Christian, he continues
to tell him of the life and ministry of Jesus. Now in the gospel of
Luke, it’s Jesus on earth. In the book of Acts, it’s Jesus
in heaven. And there’s really no difference.
It’s through the word of Christ and the power of Christ that
all ministry gets done, whether through Jesus on earth and his
parables and his miracles and his healings, or through the
apostles with Jesus sitting on the throne of glory. God through
his Christ is accomplishing the ministry of his church being
built. Now, as we begin our study of
the book of Acts, there will be some overlap with the tail
end of the book of Luke. And I think there’s a wonderful
literary feature that we ought to see. The end of Luke and the
beginning of Acts really tie together and it shows us they
are one unit, one literary unit that has great meaning and value
for those seeking to understand who is Christ, what is the church,
and the gospel. Today, I want us to consider
three snapshots from these first five verses. The first snapshot
is of the disciples and it’s of their being persuaded. They
are being persuaded by the risen Christ, the risen and not yet
ascended Christ, that he is alive. He has recovered from the dead. He has been raised by the power
of Almighty God. And so this first snapshot is
of the disciples and their being persuaded. It’s interesting,
if you think about it, that the disciples, chosen by God out
of their professions, fishermen and tax collectors and whatever
else they were, they spent three years with Him. They heard every
word He said. They literally saw every deed
which he performed. They saw every prayer meeting
that he had in private, maybe with their being in the close
distance. But they saw literally everything
that Jesus was, everything that he is and that he had done. A
couple of them had even seen him on the mountain of transfiguration.
But when they got to Jerusalem during Passion Week, and it came
to his arrest and his trials, and especially His crucifixion,
they fled, they scattered, they chickened out, as we might say.
But nevertheless, God is always at work. He’s always at work
in weak people. He’s always at work in feeble-faithed
people. He’s always at work. And we see
during the 40 days between the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His ascension, which we’ll look at again next week,
40 days where Jesus visibly persuades his disciples that he is risen
from the dead. God is at work proving to them,
I am he. And we’ve seen a couple of examples
of this already. We saw the two disciples on the
road to Emmaus, Jesus walking and talking with them. And it
wasn’t until they sat down and broke bread. And he gave thanks
that their eyes were opened. And their response was this,
were not our hearts burning within us when he was present with us? And they ran and told the disciples.
Jesus appears to various people from the empty tomb all the way
through these 40 days. He shows them his hands, his
feet, his side. He eats fish with them. He is present with them. He opens
the scripture. to them. Their hearts burn. They
are excited. But most of all, they are persuaded. They are persuaded that he is
the risen Christ. Now, we have not seen Jesus,
but by faith, we love him. We have not seen Jesus side and
feet and hands. We have not eaten fish with him,
so to speak. He has not been in our presence
physically, but how is it that our faith is firmed up? How is
it that we are persuaded? Well, God gives us the gift of
faith and then by his word and by his spirit and through the
ongoing Christian walk, we, though we have not seen Christ, we love
him. Though we have not seen Christ,
we are persuaded that he lives and that he reigns and that he
is our savior, obeyed on our behalf, died on our behalf and
through faith, the benefits of his work of redemption are ours. One of the things we can do to
keep you persuaded in the body life of our church is we can
open the Bible. We can pray for God’s grace and
you can come and you can receive from the stores of God’s truth.
Jesus is indeed real. He is raised from the dead and
he is alive forevermore and therefore you can be persuaded by faith
that he is your God. Well, there’s a second snapshot
in this passage. Not only are the disciples persuaded,
they are instructed. We spoke of a week or two ago,
Jesus takes the disciples to Bible school. And it’s a rather
serious Bible school for they are about to be his witnesses
on earth. As Christ ascends up to heaven,
he’s gonna leave his apostles, his disciples on earth to preach
and proclaim the good news of the Lord Jesus. Now, I would
venture a guess here. I would venture a guess that
Jesus did not teach his apostles the sinner’s prayer. You know
the sinner’s prayer, don’t you? Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins.
Come into my heart. I make you my Lord and Savior.
Amen. I’m a Christian, right? That’s
American evangelicalism. Now, if you truly pray that prayer
from a troubled heart that sees your sin and knows of your need
of a Savior and sees Jesus as the Savior and you come to Him
by faith and those are your words, I think God accepts that prayer
and He receives you into His kingdom. I have no doubt of that,
that that’s how He works and that those are fine words to
say. But you understand what I’m saying.
We have so cheapened the gospel You know my little saying, our
evangelism is boiled down to this. Hey friend, you don’t wanna
go to hell now, do you? And what does our friend say?
Hopefully, of course not. And so what do we say? Well,
you just say this prayer and you’re all fire insurance stuff,
right? You will not burn in hell, but
you will live in the light of God’s presence forever. We have
reduced the gospel to that. I think Jesus’ instruction to
his disciples was a little more than the sinner’s prayer and
our simple, even crass American evangelism. In fact, I think
we get a hint from the scripture. He talks to them. He instructs
them in the kingdom. Well, if you’re going to instruct
someone in the kingdom, what might you explain? Well, there’s
a king. He rules. This is the basis of
his rule. These are the provisions he make,
and he will demand a reckoning of those under his authority
who do not obey him. So start with the king. What
does Jesus teach them? I am the king of the universe.
I was there at creation. I am the king of the kingdom.
My father has given me an authority, a rule. He has given me an inheritance. I have earned it at the cross.
And when I go back to heaven, I will sit At the right hand
of God, the Father Almighty, I will rule and reign over all
things, especially the church. And you will be preachers of
that kingdom. You will be preachers of righteousness. You will go
into all the world and you will tell of this king. You will tell
of his kingdom and you will tell of his righteousness and you
will speak of the provision of the king. as to how one may gain
entrance into his kingdom. And that’s through faith in Jesus. That’s through faith in the son
who gave up his life as a ransom for the sins of his people. But
then you’ll also speak of the king coming and demanding a reckoning
and account. He will come and he will come
and demand accountability. And so your job is to preach
judgment. Your job is to preach righteousness.
Your job is to preach law. Your job is to preach grace.
Your job is to tell the world the bad news in order that they
might receive the good news with great joy and with great hope. And so Jesus, in the first snapshot,
persuades his disciples. He gives them living proof, I
am alive. He instructs them in the ways
of the kingdom. The third snapshot he gives us
They are commissioned. So they’re persuaded, they are
instructioned, and now they are commissioned. If we have a government,
as we do in America, we have generally a secretary of state.
And the secretary of state serves as a emissary, an ambassador. We have ambassadors to every
country, most countries I do believe. And when they travel,
they represent the king or the president. They represent our
government. And when they speak, they speak
on behalf of our president or our government. And that’s exactly
how we are to see the disciples. They are apostles, which literally
means the sent ones. And they are being sent by Jesus
as his ambassadors, as his emissaries. They are entrusted with the keys
of the kingdom. They are entrusted with the words
of the gospel, the message of reconciliation, and they, in
a sense, are sent to negotiate on behalf of King Jesus with
those in this world that are against the king. They are sent
into hostile territories with the words of the king, the negotiations
of the king, and to say, the king is coming. Repent or else
his judgment will fall on you. You want to escape his judgment.
You need to receive Jesus by faith and rest on him alone for
your salvation. And so these commissioned disciples,
apostles, sent ones, they are chosen by the Holy Spirit and
they are sent on behalf of the king. Now we remember the great
commission most often from Matthew chapter 28. Jesus, before he
leaves this earth, he says to his disciples, all authority
in heaven and on earth is given to me. Therefore, go and make
disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son,
and the Holy Spirit and teaching them all that I have commanded
you. As we are going to make our way
through the book of Acts, we are going to see these commissioned,
instructed and persuaded apostles begin to preach and proclaim
the gospel and build up churches. They do it in Judea and Judea
and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We’re going to see
Paul’s missionary journeys all around the Mediterranean Sea,
all the way to Rome by the end of his life. And here we sit
today with the same commission. And doesn’t it do us well as
a church to be persuaded that Jesus has risen from the dead?
Doesn’t it serve us well as a church to be instructed in the ways
of the kingdom? And doesn’t it do us well as
a church to be commissioned to go into the world, to baptize
and to make disciples? It’s a lost cause, I think, in
America when the church The church fails to worship, the church
fails to disciple, the church fails to baptize. We’re so interested
in building our little kingdoms here on earth, social justice
kingdoms, fun and games for this and that age group. And we can
be part of the church our entire life, but never be in worship.
We can be part of the church our entire life, but all we see
are the little side businesses. And when God, through Christ,
commissioned the apostles, he did not say, hey, make it as
fun as possible. Make it as interesting as possible.
Make it as enticing as possible to build up these little babbles,
if you will, where people come and they do churchy things. No,
he kept it pretty simple, didn’t he? As you go into the world,
just do two simple things. Baptize and make disciples. Teach them everything I’ve commanded.
That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? I’ve had a little saying throughout
my ministry. If you keep church simple, you
can do so much more better. You know, a lot of churches are
religious YMCAs. A lot of churches are running
athletic programs. A lot of churches are running this and that and
all these other social institutions. We need to simply go preach,
baptize, and do church Christian education. That’s simply it.
And so Jesus persuades and instructs and commissions his apostles. Well, there’s one last snapshot
here. And he tells his disciples this, go to Jerusalem. He’s about
to be taken up. Go to Jerusalem. and you wait. Now, after all this teaching,
all this persuading, all this commissioning, don’t you think
what we know about Peter, he was rearing to go. The gates
just needed to flap open and Peter was gonna charge ahead.
And what does God tell them to do through Christ? You go to
Jerusalem and you wait. And most people’s guess is there
were about 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost. And
so for those 10 days, The disciples probably holed up in the upper
room. That was their home base for a time. They were holed up
in the upper room, waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus says something very interesting. You saw a water
baptism. That was John the Baptist. He
was saying, repent, the kingdom is near, quit your sins, be washed,
but I’m gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And so they’re
gonna sit and they’re gonna wait for Pentecost. They’re gonna
wait for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But this is a great
reminder, isn’t it, There are really two things in this snapshot,
waiting and receiving the Holy Spirit. And waiting, we might
say as prayer. How often do we pray as a people
of God, oh God, Sunday is coming. And I know that when we gather
for worship, your word will be read and preached and proclaimed.
I pray that those who don’t know you will be saved. And those
of us who do know you will be built up in our faith. How often
do we pray that? Bet you that’s what the disciples
were praying. I bet they were saying, Lord, we’re going to
go and we’re going to preach and we’re going to proclaim. And we’re
going to run into all kinds of opposition, all kinds of darkness.
We’re going to run into all kinds of things. And we pray, Lord,
that you would make us strong. We pray, Lord, that you would
make the word of God speed ahead as we take it into the foreign
fields. And we wait for this baptism
of the Holy Spirit that will give us strength and power for
ministry. Well, these snapshots ought to
remind us as a church how simple the gospel ministry is. These
snapshots ought to remind us we cannot do it in our own strength.
We cannot do it with flashiness and with programs and with all
the little side shows and all the little things that everybody
wants that make them come to church. No, we keep it simple.
We are persuaded that Jesus has risen from the dead and our minds
have been instructed. We have been commissioned and
now empowered by the baptism of the Holy Spirit to go. And
so, dear Christians, if we want to keep the marching orders of
the apostles as the modern day church, we need to wait on the
Lord in prayer. We need to do the work of the
ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to preach
and teach and proclaim the values of the king and his kingdom. And we need to do so with hearts
that are burning because they are fully persuaded that Christ
is indeed raised from the dead. And if that were not true, we
would be lost and there would be no point in our worship or
our ministry. Pray with me. Lord, we pray that
you would help us to see and understand these things in such
a way that it strengthens our church that it makes us more
bold witnesses to the watching world and that it shows another
generation who you are and what you have done and what you can
do through a small band of insufficient people made strong by your grace
and power. We ask for your help and blessing
and we pray it in the name of Christ. Amen.