Acts 1:6-11
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of God’s Word to Acts chapter 1. Today we’ll be
reading verses 6 through 11. Remember that the book of Luke
and the book of Acts were written as one book by Luke the physician. He meticulously interviewed those
who were eyewitnesses to the gospel events, but he also was
Paul’s traveling companion, likely to Rome where we end in the book
of Acts. And so we have the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, a wonderful account of the acts of the Lord
Jesus Christ and Luke and the continuing acts of the Lord Jesus
Christ. as he reigns from heaven and
gifts his church for the mission of the gospel. Before we read
God’s word, let’s look to him in prayer. Pray with me. Lord,
we are going to the house of instruction, so give testimony
to the word read and preached, glorified in the hearts of all
who hear. We pray that it may enlighten the ignorant, awaken
the careless, reclaim the wandering, establish the weak, comfort the
feeble-minded, and most of all, make ready a people for the coming
of their Lord. Amen. Hear the word of the living
God, Acts chapter one, beginning at verse six. Speaking of the
disciples, so when they had come together, they asked Jesus, Lord,
will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said
to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that
the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and
to the end of the earth. And when he said these things,
as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him
out of their sight. And while they were gazing into
heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes
and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from
you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go
into heaven. Amen. The word of the living
God. Please be seated. Well, I think some of you at
least have noticed that football season is back. down the street
from us on Friday nights. You can hear the announcer from
the high school announcing play by play all the football wonders
that take place on the high school gridiron. Colleges started, I
believe, yesterday. There was a great match between,
I think, Illinois and Nebraska. The NFL’s been going for a few
weeks. And what we are seeing on the
football field is the payoff of spring training and summer
camp. These players are in their early
preseason games being put to the proof. All of their running,
all of their calisthenics, all of their drills, all of their
repetitions of play by play by play, all of the whistle and
the hollering from the coaches is now put to the proof. And
these games count. These games go on the record.
If you watch ESPN or read the paper, you hear and read, uh,
these games count. Uh, if you want to make it to
the championship, you’ve got to win ball games. Well, Jesus
and his disciples have ended their spring camp, uh, their
summer training. It’s the end of the 40 days since
Jesus resurrection. Uh, as we read of the ascension
of Christ, we know the 40 day boot camp that Jesus has put
his disciples through is coming to an end. Remember from the
end of Luke and now the beginning of Acts as Luke retells some
of those details a second time. The Holy Spirit had to open the
eyes of the apostles. The Holy Spirit had to do a brain
surgery and show these disciples, show these apostles, this is
what the word of God means. And this is what it means for
your mission. We remember that Jesus took them through the Bible
boot camp, through the law and the writings and the prophets
and the Psalms, pointing out that everything showed the coming
of Jesus. And now in his death and suffering
and resurrection and his soon ascension, all the promises of
God would be yes and amen in Jesus Christ. He has trained
them in the kingdom of God. And now it’s time for them to
wait on the Holy Spirit. Jesus will ascend to heaven and
in 10 days time, Pentecost will come. We’ll see that in a few
a few Sundays. But I want us to look and zero
in today on this unanimously asked question. It appears the
disciples got together. And they came up with a question.
We don’t know who their spokesman was. We would do well to bet
the 50 bucks that it was Peter, right? The big mouth. And they
ask him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They recognize their bootcamp
is nearing an end. They recognize as they’re on
the Mount of Olives that Jesus is soon to go back to heaven
and return to his glory. Lord, will you at this time,
restore the kingdom to Israel? I want us to think about this
question they ask in three ways. Three ways the question gets
answered by the Lord Jesus. And as you always know, Jesus
never answers the question the way they asked it, but he shapes
their minds and hearts. He corrects their thinking about
the kingdom of God and their mission to the world. Now, the
first thing I want us to see in this passage as they ask this
question, Jesus answers it is, the first point is this, mind
your business. Can’t you imagine Jesus saying
that? Well, it’s in a sense what he said, mind your business. Verses six and seven, when they
come together, they asked, Lord, is it time? It’s not for you
to know the times or seasons that the father has fixed by
his own authority. They need to mind their business.
A couple years ago I took a handgun course and there was only one
thing on my mind. When do we get to go shoot? Right? You go to one of those handgun
courses and you sit in a room watching videos and reading training
manuals and it’s all this how-to’s and laws and whatever else. The
only question on every person’s mind in there is when do we get
to go shoot? That’s the fun part, right? When do we get to go shoot? We want to skip the tedium and
we want to get to it. Well, there’s a group question
by the disciples here. They’re essentially saying to
Jesus, when do we get to go shoot Romans? When do we get to restore
the kingdom to Israel? Is it time? And Jesus says, you’re
caught up in God’s business. I’m sure on Jesus, mine was Deuteronomy
chapter 29, verse 29. The secret things belong to the
Lord. Maybe some of you children have
inserted yourselves into an adult conversation and your parents
being short with you say, it’s none of your business. You know,
you feel cut a little bit, but that’s in a sense what Jesus
is saying here is mind your own business. You are caught up in
the secret things of the Lord. Not even Jesus or the angels
know the timing of the return. and the restoration of all things. Now, remember, Jesus has said
some things to them that are their business. The kingdom of
God has come upon you, right? The kingdom of God is now, there
are present blessings, both for the disciples and us present
in the church today, but there are not yet aspects to the kingdom. Peter will say later in his two
epistles, a day for the Lord is like a thousand years. God
is patient, not wishing anyone to perish. He reminds us that
the church will continue until God says it’s time for judgment. The Lord is patient. We are impatient.
Is it time to go shoot? Is it time to boot the Romans?
out of their place of authority. Jesus tells the disciples to
mind your own business. Let me encourage you to turn
with me in the back of your hymnal to the Heidelberg Catechism to
page 876. You can look if you like, or just listen along. But
on page 876, up on the top right where it says Lord’s Day 10,
Question 27 of our Heidelberg Catechism says, what do you understand
by the providence of God? The answer says, providence is
the almighty and ever present power of God, by which God upholds
as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures. And
so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and
lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and
poverty. All things in fact come to us,
not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. You know, we may be like
these disciples worried about the coming of the kingdom, worried
about the restoration of Israel, but I bet you have other worries.
You’ve been to the doctor. You’ve looked at your checkbook
balance. You see the stack of bills. You worry about educating
your children. You wish to lose weight, get
healthy. You wish to achieve this or accomplish
that. You have all sorts of worries.
And isn’t this a wonderful comfort when Jesus says to us, mind your
own business. Let the father take care of the
fatherly things. You know, most of us, when we
were children, We woke up from our comfortable beds every morning.
We had our teddy bears in our blankets and we came and ate
our oatmeal and our orange juice. And, uh, we went about our day,
whatever it brought to us. And there was lunch and there
was supper and there was a kisses good nights. And we rode in cars
that we did not pay for. Uh, we never pumped the gas or
paid for it. Our fathers, our mothers took
care of us and dear brothers and sisters. That’s what Jesus
is saying to the disciples, mind your business. You got enough
to worry about, right? Our father, can take care of
Israel and the restoration. When I was in college, a group
of us went on a mission trip to Ecuador and one of the young
fellows who was with us on that trip was saying out loud, why
are we spending all this money and all this time going to college?
Funny thing was private education back in those days for us was
about $15,000. Wouldn’t that be nice? So he was saying, why are we
spending $60,000 in four years when there are lost people who
need the gospel now? And one of the things we have
to remind ourselves of is God’s timing is better than ours. You
know, college or missionary training or divinity school or getting
raised in the home, it does take time. It does take years. And
God uses all those shaping influences to get us ready for the moments
he will use us. But we want to go shoot. We want
to go shoot Romans. We want to see the kingdom of
God restored. And we need to remember the instructor
will have his class. You will get your hours of missionary
Bible boot camp in. And so Jesus is saying, mind
your own business. It is not time to go shoot Romans just
yet. Well, the second thing this passage
shows us and helps us understand as it did the disciples is not
only mind your business, but do your job. Do your job. Verse eight says this, you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will
be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria
and to the end of the earth. Now, the disciples, as they gather
and ask this question of Jesus, Lord, will you at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel? They’re wearing their red mega
hats, not maga, mega, make Israel great again, right? You can imagine
them wearing these big old obnoxious hats. They wanna see Israel restored. They want, the promised land
promised to Abraham. They want the promised land entered
into and taken over by Joshua and the leaders of ancient Israel. They want the promised land with
the borders of King David when he extended them as far as possible. They want the promised land back.
They want the promised land of Solomon with the city of Jerusalem
as a shining city on a hill to the rest of the world. They want
all of that back with the temple. They’re tired of Assyria. They’re
tired of Babylon and Persia and Media and the Greeks. And now
they’re tired of the Romans. They want Israel restored. And so as they asked Jesus this
question, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? That’s on Jesus’ mind too, but
he’s not thinking of Israel as a little tiny nation state on
a little slab of land that links great swaths of land over in
the Middle East. No, on Christ’s mind is an expanded
view of Israel. It’s what we think of as spiritual
Israel. It’s all the people of God. He
has brought them through this 40 day school of missions and
everything has been about one thing. You proclaim the gospel. You tell the good news. You preach
the scriptures. You proclaim Christ and him crucified. You preach faith and justification
and adoption and sanctification and glorification. You preach
the kingdom of God, not political, but heavenly. You preach the
kingdom of God, its values and its ways. And you do it not just
in the borders of Palestine, But you take it from Jerusalem
and Judea through Samaria to the ends of the earth. And don’t
you see the glory of Christ here? As we skip ahead, like we know
the book of Acts ends. Where’s Paul? Where’s Luke? Where
are the apostles? They’re in Rome. It’s gone from
Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. It’s gone around the Mediterranean
Sea. And the farthest reach of the earth at that time is is
the city of Rome and on to Spain. And we know that the other apostles
made it over to India and into the east. But the ends of the
earth are what Jesus has on his mind. and in his heart, you eyewitnesses
schooled in the power of the gospel, blessed with the spirit
to be bold and wise and effective ministers, you will bring to
the world, you will bring to the church through the ages,
you will bring times of refreshing from the throne of Jesus Christ.
And here we sit 2000 years later, and our mission is the same. We are to proclaim the good news,
the gospel of salvation, with power of the spirit from on high,
to bless us, to be bold, wise, and effective. The church’s ongoing
mission is the same. Our job is not to be busy, it’s
not to be popular, it’s not to be worldly, but our job is to
make the world great again. You can imagine these Well, these
idiot apostles, they still haven’t gotten it, have they? Make Israel
great again. No, Jesus says, make the world
great again. As the curse is reversed and
men and women and boys and girls are rescued out of darkness.
out of the chains and bondage of Satan and sin from every nation,
every tongue, every tribe, and every peoples, so that around
the throne of God, as we read in the book of Revelation, there
will be throngs and throngs and throngs of people worshiping
and glorifying the lamb who was slain. And so Jesus says, when
they asked the question, Lord, will you at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel? He says, mind your business,
do your job. But the last thing we see is
Jesus’ ministry from heaven. He’s gonna go up. He’s gonna
ascend into heaven. They’re gonna stand there with
their mouths wide open, staring into the light. He’s going to
go away. We don’t observe too many church
holidays, as it were. It used to be we had all kinds
of special services in the church calendar. We would come to church
for Easter sunrise. We would come Christmas Eve. We would come various times of
the year in addition to our Lord’s Days. But Ascension, ever been
to an Ascension service? It’s not on a Sunday, it’s on
a Thursday, 40 days after Easter. an ascension service, observing
all that it means that Jesus went up to heaven, all that it
means that he returned to glory, all that it means that he is
ruling and reigning and high priesting from heaven for us. We don’t observe that as used
to be the custom, but we should because the ascension of Christ,
his ministry from heaven is significant. It’s not that he went back up
because his work was accomplished. His work continues. And we think
of the ongoing ministry of Jesus. He is our advocate. If anyone
sins, he has an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ,
the righteous. He is on his throne of glory,
ruling and reigning every Sunday when I give you the apostolic
greeting, grace to you and peace. A lot of times I use the one
from Revelation from him who is and who was and who is to
come and the seven spirits who are before his throne. And from
Christ Jesus, the faithful witness, the firstborn from among the
dead and the ruler of all the kings of the earth, you fret
and you worry about doctor’s appointments. Or maybe you’re
watching Afghanistan on the news or you’re watching the weather
channel and you see a storm a brewing our heavenly father. and his
son, Jesus, the righteous, they reign on the throne of glory.
And there is not a wind that blows, not a hair that falls
from your head. There is not a diagnosis he doesn’t know about.
And there is not a gospel problem, a real problem that he can’t
fix or repair. He ministers to us from heaven
as he rules, as he sits, as he reigns, as he advocates, as he
intercedes, as he distributes gifts to his church. Think back
to our football chat a few minutes ago. What’s the success behind
a football program? Is it the exercise? Is it the
repetitions? Is it the calisthenics? Is it
the good head coaching? Well, very often it’s the people
up high. They’re in the press box. They see everything. And they have their little radios.
And the quarterback has a bad time. And he goes and gets on
the red phone. No, he’s not calling mom and crying because he threw
an interception. He’s talking to coach. Coach
says, I saw what you did. Let’s fix it. Friends, we have. And maybe this is a little too
crass to think of, but Jesus is in heaven, fully aware of
what game is being played. And we can speak to him directly.
We can go to him and say, Lord Jesus, I need your help. I need your grace. He continues
to minister from heaven. And so we press on as the church
by the Holy Spirit. We go and we baptize and we teach
and we do this till the end of the age. Maybe you won’t tire of one more
football thing to think of, but old Vince Lombardi, the Packers
coach, used to take his players out every year. Mind you, these
were professionals, paid professionals, grown men. And the first thing
he would say to them as he held up a football is, gentlemen,
this is a football. And we need that in the church.
We get so busy with all these programs, all these side shows,
all the accoutrements, all the coffee pots and climbing walls
and field trips and whatnot. And we need as Christians to
get back to the basics and we need Jesus to remind us this
is a Bible and in it is a gospel. And it is your job to go into
the world as a church and to proclaim the goodness of God
in Christ Jesus. It’s pretty simple. It’s pretty
basic. We are unfit for the task, but
power comes from on high and God always gives us the words
to speak. And his word never returns void. Let us thank him for it. Pray
with me. Our Lord and God, we thank you and bless you for this
your word this day. We are reminded of how good you
are, how gracious you are. And we pray, Father, that you
would let this word which you have proclaimed to us fall on
good soil and may it produce 60 and 80 and 100 fold, may this,
your word, your seed not fall on the rocky path or the rocks. May it not be choked by the weeds
or snatched away by Satan, but let it be deeply implanted into
our minds, our hearts, and our lives. So that as witnesses,
as personal recipients of your grace, that we might proclaim
the goodness of God into a dark and dying world. and proclaim
freedom from sin and salvation from darkness. And we pray that
the ends of the earth would know, beginning with our families and
our generations, our neighbors, our fellow man who close by us,
use us in the mission of the gospel that you gave to your
disciples. Bless us, we pray in the name of Christ, amen.
We want to respond and be committed to God as we sing number 420,
Christ for the world we sing. Let’s stand together.