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Acts 1:1-9
The New Testament in a Year sermon series
Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA
January 8th, 2012
Today we’re continuing in our year-long series going through the New Testament. We’ve gone through all four Gospels, and now we come to part two of the series, the Book of Acts, which is all about the spread of the gospel and the birth of the Church. The full title of the Book of Acts is “The Acts of the Apostles.” But it might be more appropriate to call it “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” Because what we see, right from the start, is that Acts is all about God continuing His activity in the world, only now, it’s not directly through Jesus Christ, but through his Spirit-filled disciples in the Church.
So, I invite you to open your Bibles to Acts 1, where we will read the first 9 verses this morning. This is God’s Word to you and me today…
In the first book, Theophilus, (Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke to his friend Theophilus, also wrote Acts) I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’
So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set 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, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
There is one question that often comes up about the giving of the Holy Spirit, and I want to take a moment to address this before getting to the main message. In John’s gospel (20:22), Jesus tells the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit, and then breathes on them in what appears to be an act of giving the Spirit. Then, in Acts Jesus tells them to wait for the coming of the Spirit (we just read that), and then the Spirit comes upon the disciples in chapter 2. There appears to be a contradiction in regards to when Jesus gives the Holy Spirit, and so this is something that many Christians have wondered about for some time: When did the Holy Spirit come? Maybe you’ve wondered about it. Let me make two comments.
First, we need to realize that: The Holy Spirit did not originate with either of these events. The Holy Spirit, oftentimes called the Spirit of God, has been around since before Jesus, and is mentioned throughout the Bible from the Old Testament and right on through the New Testament. In fact, the second verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:2, which describes the start of the creation of the universe, says, “And the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” So the Spirit is not new with the Gospels or Acts, much as gravity existed before Sir Isaac Newton.
Second: The event in John seems to be more of a symbolic act rather than the actual giving of the Spirit. This is based on two things. First, After Jesus breathes on them in John 20, the disciples don’t live with any sense of power or conviction in their faith. They’re timid and scared, and they huddle up in a home (20:19, 26). Quite frankly, they don’t act as if they have the Spirit. Compare that to what happens in Acts after the Spirit clearly comes upon them and then God moves in amazing ways through them because of the courage and power infused in them by the Spirit. Second, Jesus repeatedly tells His disciples that the Spirit will come after he returns to his Heavenly Father, not while he’s still with them. So I believe that the Holy Spirit was not actually given to them in John, but instead with the day of Pentecost that’s recorded in Acts 2. (For a really good article on this, go to: http://knol.google.com/k/mis-givings-of-the-holy-spirit#.
Now, we see here in Acts 1 that Jesus returns to be with his Heavenly Father, with some similarities to the cloud that enveloped Jesus, Peter, James and John in the famous transfiguration event. But here, before Jesus says, “Beam me up” he gives some final instructions to the disciples. These are important for them in their time, and they’re important for us in our time.
The first of the instructions is that: The timing of God’s activity in our lives and in the world is not for us to know in advance. The disciples once again display their desire for Jesus to act on their schedule. They ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They’re anxious. They can’t wait for Jesus to call in the cavalry and lead the charge to restore Israel to prominence with an earthly kingdom. And they want that to happen now.
So often, we want things right now. We want a new job, and we want it now; We want the economy fixed…right now; we want peace…right now. I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed, “Dear God, please give me patience…and give it to me now.” Any of you prayed that? Children are often this way. They want things “right now.” Now, Jesus said that we should receive the kingdom of God like a little child (Mark 10:15). But there’s a difference between receiving something like a child – with wonder, excitement, amazement, enthusiasm, and so forth – there’s a difference between that and being childish. One is good, and one is not. So we’re to be child-like, but at the same time, we’re called to grow in maturity in our faith. And one sign of maturity is trusting God and His timing. But often, God’s timing of things is not what our timing is. There’s a bigger picture that we don’t see. There are things happening that we’re not aware of. We can’t see how letting go of our timing of things will bring great blessing to others, and ultimately to ourselves, too. But God sees all that, and so it’s a matter of trust.
So the disciples illustrate this for us well, and Jesus gives them the response that we all need to hear: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “The kingdom isn’t coming.” It is. And even if they misunderstand what the kingdom is to be – heavenly, not earthly, and spiritual, not material – that’s just their misunderstanding of Jesus because of preconceived notions about the Messiah. But what he hasn’t told them, and what they cannot be privy to, is when that kingdom is to come to fruition. It’s in God’s time, not ours. And ultimately, God’s timing is always right.
Now, here’s the thing: Waiting on God’s timing does not mean that there is nothing for the disciples to do. We don’t wait passively for the kingdom to come; rather it’s an active waiting, participating with God in bringing the kingdom to fruition. This is the second point Jesus makes here. So, while the timing of when the kingdom will fully come is not for followers of Jesus to know, we actively participate with God in bringing it about. The first thing that Jesus says will happen is that the Holy Spirit will come upon them, and when that happens they will receive power. The word for power is “dunamis” and we get our word, “Dynamite” from it. “Dunamis” is used in Scripture to mean a variety of different kinds of power: power for performing miracles, moral power, power in numbers, and more. Perhaps what best describes it here is “inherent power,” or “power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature.”1 The Holy Spirit gives Christians inherent power, it’s power by the very nature of the Spirit.
The question is: What’s the power for? Jesus answers that when he continues on: “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The power of the Holy Spirit is the power to live as Jesus’ witnesses. Any good lawyer can tell you that a good witness is a person who says, “This is what I know to be true.” A bad witness is a person who says, “Well, I think this is true;” or “I heard this is true.”
The story is told of Paul Smith, a man who grew up in a poor home, but died owning a million dollars’ worth of forest land. He was talking about property disputes with an old friend. Paul said to his friend, “Did you hear of the lawsuit over a title that I had with Mr. Jones last summer?” The friend had not heard. “Well,” said Paul, “Here’s what happened. I sat in the court room before the trial opened with my witnesses around me. Mr. Jones walked in, stopped, looked my witnesses over carefully, and said: ‘Paul, are those your witnesses?’ ‘They are,’ I said. ‘Then you win,’ he said. ‘I’ve had those witnesses twice myself.’” Mr. Jones knew they were good witnesses.
And a good witness to Jesus…a person who can witness with real power…is a person who’s full of the Holy Spirit and can say, “I know Jesus is true.” It’s the Spirit that gives power to do that; It’s the Spirit that gives the power to live life as God intended it; It’s the Spirit that gives the power to live life transformed, so that the old is gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17), to live with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control (the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23). That’s a life that says “I know this to be true, because I once was lost and now I’m found (Luke 15)…I know this to be true because I was blind but now I see (John 9:25)…I know this to be true because I was once dead in my transgressions but now I’m alive in Christ” (Ephesians 2:1-5; Colossians 2:13). And the Holy Spirit empowers us to do that, to witness to the saving, transformational grace of Jesus Christ. So, we don’t know the time, but we wait…and we wait actively, working with God to bring about His kingdom as the Holy Spirit gives us power to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
Lastly, Jesus goes on to say where his disciples are to do this witnessing, and if we were to translate what he says into our culture and our place today, we would say that: We are called to be his witnesses in Chehalis, Lewis County, the United States, and to the ends of the earth. That’s roughly the equivalent of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. It literally begins in our homes, as well as our neighborhoods, places of work, the coffee shops and restaurants where we hang out and elsewhere. Probably for most of us, 99% of our opportunities to witness to Jesus are going to take place in Chehalis, or wherever we live. The Good News, however, is that in other parts of Lewis County, in other parts of the U.S., and in other parts of the world, all the other Christians are doing the same thing: bearing witness in their “Jerusalem.” That’s not to say we shouldn’t look for opportunities to bear witness elsewhere, or go on mission trips and so forth. Those are fruit-bearing ministries that can encourage everyone involved in them (the people “on the ground” there doing ministry, the people receiving that ministry, and the people who go on those mission trips), and help spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. But it’s important that we realize that witnessing to Jesus begins right where we are. We don’t have to go anywhere to bear witness to Jesus Christ. It’s not something that “other people” do “out there.” Chehalis, Centralia, Adna, Napavine, Mossyrock, wherever your home is, wherever you spend most of your time: This is where God has placed you and placed me. And we’re called to be his witnesses here, and wherever we go.
In fact, you may have heard this line before, that “God hasn’t retained many of us as lawyers, but He has subpoenaed all of us as witnesses.”2 Are you living as a witness to Jesus Christ? Would our friends and co-workers be surprised to hear that any of us are followers of Jesus? Like one guy, after someone else had talked to him about faith in God, he said to his Christian co-worker, “Well, I never knew before that you were a Christian, even though we’ve been on the job together here for two years. When that other guy talked with me about my soul, I told him if so clean a chap as you could get along without religion I believed I could do the same.” The Christian co-worker realized he hadn’t been a good witness.
You and I can be better witnesses to Jesus Christ than that, starting right here, and right now. Jesus is telling us, as he told his Disciples then, to be His witnesses and testify to His forgiveness, grace, justice, and truth. We do it by letting the Holy Spirit fill us up so that we witness to Jesus Christ with power, as we live and say, “I know this to be true.” Let’s do that starting right now, today, and right here, in Chehalis, and wherever we may go. Let’s Pray…Amen.
