Preached Sunday, December 9, 2012 from Acts 1:6-8
Theme: Jesus’ final words to His apostles highlights His divine purpose for leaving us on this earth.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Over the past several Sundays—rather than preaching from a particular sermon series—I have been preaching from various passages as the Lord has led. I have been “casting about”, as the old Puritan preachers used to call it. But what has been surprising to discover is that these various passages have much to say about the attitude of our hearts this holiday season; and have helped us prepare for our celebration of our Lord’s advent.
As I was “casting about” this week, I found myself drawn to the first few verses of the Book of Acts. It’s a very significant passage, because it contains our Lord’s last words to His disciples just before the conclusion of His first “advent” into this world, and just before He ascended again to the Father to await the time of His second “advent”.
Please turn there with me; and let’s take a little time to understand what it is that He told them.
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In the Book of Acts, the writer—the divinely-inspired ‘historian’ Dr. Luke—begins by telling us were he left of at the end of his Gospel account. Did you know that the Book of Acts was given to us as the ‘sequel’ to the Gospel of Luke? In the first three verses, Luke writes;
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1-3).
Over the forty day period from the time that Jesus was raised to the time spoken of in our passage, He presented Himself again and again to His apostles. As Luke tells us, He presented Himself alive “by many infallible proofs”—leaving them without any doubt that He truly had been raised from the dead. The apostles saw the resurrected Lord Jesus with their own eyes, touched Him, listened to Him as He spoke, and even ate with Him on a few occasions.
Apparently, He taught them further truths during this time concerning the Kingdom of God. Luke even mentions one of the things that He taught them during this forty-day period. In verses 4-5, we read;
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (vv. 4-5).
What an amazing post-resurrection lesson that must have been! The apostles would have thought back to the ministry of John the Baptist—who, we’re told, “preached a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Luke 3:3); but whose baptism also pointed ahead to the ministry of Jesus who would take those sins away. They had all, no doubt, been baptized with the baptism of John. But Jesus was telling them that, in just a few short days, they would be baptized again—this time not in water, but in the Holy Spirit.
What Luke is telling us here in Acts 1:4-5 is probably another description of the same meeting that was described for us in Luke 24. In that chapter, in verses 44-48, Jesus told His disciples;
“These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:44-48).
But even thought they were witnesses of all the things that they saw Him do and say, He didn’t want them to immediately run out and attempt—in the power of their own frail abilities—to declare Him to the world. In order to be the witness for Him that He wanted them to be to this world, they first needed to be given a power that was greater than anything that could be found in this world. He told them in verse 49,
“Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (v. 49).
That “Promise” from the Father—that announcement that they would first be endued with power from on high—concerned the coming of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Triune Godhead. After Jesus had ascended to the Father, the Spirit would be sent to this world in His place; and He would come upon Jesus’ followers and empower them to be the witnesses for Him that He wanted them to be. And that promise is “the Promise from the Father” that we read about in our passage in Acts 1. Jesus was commanding them not to leave Jerusalem after He departed from them, but to gather in Jerusalem, stay put, and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It wouldn’t be a very long wait at all. The Spirit would come upon them, as He said, “not many days from now”. The fulfillment of that “Promise” is what we find in Acts 2; where we’re told of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—and of the powerful witness the apostles bore of Jesus afterward.
And all of this brings us to verses 6-8 of our passage in Acts 1. Most scholars tell us that the events of our passage this morning occurred at some point of time after the events of verses 4-5—a separate meeting that occurred on the Mount of Olives after the disciples had gathered at Jerusalem as Jesus had commanded them, and immediately before He bodily ascended before their eyes back up to the Father. Luke tells us;
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:6-8).
And it’s with those ‘parting words’ that our Lord ascended back up to heaven—where He sits at the right hand of the Father even now, awaiting His Father’s command to return for us.
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I’d like to share with you why this very important passage stood out to me last week.
I was watching the news, and was feeling very badly about the things that were happening in this world. Among the many things I saw on the news, I was frustrated with how hostile people seem to be growing toward the things that the Bible teaches. The world is becoming a very dark place very quickly it seems; and the hearts of people—even people at the highest levels of society—seem to be growing harder and more resolute in their rebellion against God’s good ways.
And it was then that I started to fall into a very foolish line of thinking. I found myself wishing that I had lived in another day and age. I heard myself saying, “Why did I have the bad fortune to be born to live in such times as this?” I actually started to fantasize about ‘the good old days’ . . . and to wish that I had been born much earlier so I could have lived in them.
By the way; that truly is a very foolish way to think. I was telling a friend about this; and he reminded me of what it says in Ecclesiastes 7:10. Solomon—the wisest man who ever lived—wrote, “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.” I think that at least one reason it isn’t a wise thing to do is because our memory usually isn’t very accurate. The ‘good ol’ days’ were not really as good as we tend to sentimentalize them in our imaginations to be. The world was just as fallen back then as it is now; and it was as filled with sinners then as it is our own times. I may be true that some things were better back then; but it’s also true that a lot of other things were worse. It’s not smart to look longingly upon the ‘greener pastures’ of some other era.
Well; it was right after watching the news—and catching myself longing to get into a time-machine and go back to better days—that I sat down to have my daily reading from the Scriptures. That always helps clear up my thinking. And it so happened that this morning’s passage was what I read. It really impressed me how the Lord Jesus gently rebuked His disciples for putting their focus on times other than their own. Instead, Jesus urged them to turn their focus back on to what He was calling them to do and be in their own time. They weren’t called to live in some other “time” or “season”. Those other times and seasons—and the things that would happen in them—were under the jurisdiction of the Father, and were not to be their concern. The Father had placed them in the times in which they were living right then; and the Lord was calling them to be faithful in those times to which they were placed.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; in the providence of God, you and I have not been called to live in some other time or some other place—however much we may wish to be there. He has called us to this time and to this place—and He commands us, in the light of Jesus’ promised return, to be faithful to our duty in the very ‘here and now’ in which He has wisely placed us.
Let’s look at these words of Jesus a little closer—these final words He spoke to His disciples before He ascended to the Father—and learn what He says about His divine purpose for leaving us on this earth, in the United States, in Oregon, in the City of Portland, and at the end of 2012 in such seemly dark and difficult times as these.
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First, please notice a wonderful—and I would say, comforting—fact; that . . .
1. WE LIVE ‘WHEN’ AND ‘WHERE’ THE FATHER WANTS US (vv. 6-7).
The disciples had asked, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In fact, the way the words in the original language are constructed, it is possible to see in it something more than just a question. It can be thought of as expressing a longing—as if they were half-asking and have-exclaiming, “O Lord, if only you would at this time restore the kingdom to Israel . . .!” And in saying this—whether as a question or as the expression of a longing—they were focusing on to something that was not to be their concern.
Now, I can’t blame them for thinking this way; can you? They believed—correctly!—that the Lord Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And they knew the promises of the Scripture concerning Him—that He would come in power and glory, would sit upon the throne of King David in Jerusalem, and would commence the long-awaited kingdom of God upon the earth. They were absolutely right in believing this about Him. And it’s understandable—given the fact that He had been raised from the dead, and was now talking to them about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem—that they would wonder if they were standing at the threshold of those glorious days right then and there.
The problem wasn’t with what they expected. The problem was with when it was that they expected it. “Lord,” they asked, “will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” They expected the Lord to begin His earthly reign immediately. But it was not right then that it would begin to happen. They were longing for different days that the Lord was calling them to; not understanding that the Lord would first ascend to the Father, and would send His followers out into the world during the unfolding centuries of church history to proclaim Him to all nations. His kingdom must first be spread by them throughout the world by preaching of the gospel. And so, He told them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”
You see; they wanted the physical reign of Jesus upon the earth to begin right then; but not even the Lord Jesus knew when that would begin to happen. On another occasion, He told them, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew 24:36). It wasn’t their job to concern themselves with the times and seasons that are kept to the Father. The great kingdom plan of the Father for the ages is like a great scroll that unrolls according to His schedule—in perfect conformity with His will and good purposes. Their place was on one of the pages of that great unrolling scroll. But it wasn’t their job to try to try to live on some other page that had not yet been unrolled and that was known only to God. Their job was to be faithful to the call of God in the time and place that the Father had set them.
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Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to an audio version of one of my favorite books—The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. As some of you may know, it’s an imaginary set of letters written by an older demon in which he explain to a younger demon how to tempt a Christian. In one of the letters, the elder demon sought to encourage the younger demon to get the Christian—his ‘patient’—focused inappropriately on the future. He explained that the Christian doesn’t always realize that he can’t actually live in the future. He can only know the past, and can only live in the present; he can do neither with the future. But if the demon can get the Christian to be inordinately-concerned with the future, then the Christian would be trying to live in a time that God had not given him to live in; and would be neglecting the duties God calls him to in the present.
And as I thought about that, I began to wonder if the devil doesn’t also often seek us to get our focus on some other time in the past—on the supposedly ‘good ol’ days’—instead of on the very time and place to which God has called us. I wonder if we don’t often fail to “sow” the good things of the Spirit as we should for the future days of “reaping”; and all because the enemy has successfully distracted us from our duties to the present by making us long too much for times that are past.
There’s a passage in Acts 17 that reminds me of the providence of God to place us on the ‘cutting-edge’ of the things that He is doing right now. Paul was speaking to the Athenians—the proud, intellectual, philosophic Greeks—about the God they were groping after in ignorance. And he told them;
“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us . . .” (Acts 17:26-27).
In other words, the sovereign God of the universe has ‘preappointed’ the times in which every nation of people would exist, and even established their ‘boundaries’ in advance. In the outworking of time, He moves them—and the people who dwell in them—around when and where He has chosen. And it is all for the accomplishment of His mission to reach lost people and save them. It is so that ” they might grope for Him . . .” The United States is where it is—and when it is—that people might grope for Him and find Him . The State of Oregon is where it is—and when it is—for His divine purpose of saving souls. The City of Portland is where it is—and when it is—in fulfillment of His plan to rescue lost people. And you and I are where we are—and yes, even when we are—in order that we might be a part of what He is doing in this world.
Dear brothers and sisters; let’s not wish we had lived in some better time or some better place. For us, there is no better time or place to be than this one—the very one that the sovereign heavenly Father has placed us in so that others may grope after Him, find Him, and be saved by His grace.
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And it’s not just that God places us when and where He wants us, and then calls us to fulfill His great mission on earth in our own power. Instead, He places us where and when He wants us in His unfolding plan of the ages . . .
2. AS THOSE WHO ARE EMPOWERED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT (v. 8a).
Jesus told His disciples not to concern themselves with the times or seasons which the Father had in His own authority; “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .”
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is “the Promise of the Father” that He had already told them about. And to find where it was that He had already told them about this “Promise”, we need to go to the Gospel of John. When He met with His disciples in the upper room—just after He had announced to them that He was leaving them—He told them,
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:15-18).
Just as Jesus had been with them during the three-and-a-half years of His earthly ministry, the Holy Spirit would come and be with them during His own bodily absence from them. He wasn’t going to leave them as orphans to fend for themselves. The Holy Spirit would come and take up permanent residence in them. This happened at Pentecost.
And what’s more, it would be this same indwelling Holy Spirit who would empower them to do all that the Lord Jesus would command them to do. Among other things, He would help them to be Jesus’ witnesses in the world. As Jesus told them;
“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27).
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It may be that God has called us providentially to live in these times and in this place on earth. (Well; I should say that we can know for certain that He did—because here we are!) But we could never do what He wanted us to do in this time and place if it were up to our own abilities. But that’s the remarkable thing! We’re not dependent upon our own abilities. We are made by God to be living, in this time in history and in this place on earth, as living ‘containers’ of the all-powerful, eternal Person of the Holy Spirit—and it is He who does the work through us!
The teaching of Scripture is that every person who has placed his or her faith in Jesus Christ and are truly redeemed by Him are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And that means that God has placed across the pages of His unfolding plan—in the times of history and places on earth that He has chosen—people who are the very ‘dwelling places’ of God the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit’s power to accomplish the purposes of the Father through us is unlimited! In Ephesians 1:19-23, the apostle Paul referred to our wonderful “Helper”—the Holy Spirit that the Father places in us—as
. . . the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:19-23).
Do you realize, dear brothers and sisters, that we have dwelling in us—even right now in the days we are living and in the very place on earth He has caused us to live—the very same divine Person who powerfully rose Jesus from the dead and seated Him upon the throne of glory? As Paul says in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us . . .”
There isn’t really anything of eternal value that you and I could do in our own power. But we aren’t living in the time and place that God has sovereignly placed us “in our own power”. As Jesus has promised, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .”
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And notice, finally, what it’s the power to do. It’s the power . . .
3. TO BE WITNESSES FOR JESUS CHRIST IN THIS WORLD (v. 8b).
Jesus said, “and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”.
To be “witnesses” of Jesus is to be those who bear testimony of who Jesus is and what He has done. That’s what is told to us in verses 1-2; that is, “all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen”. We are to go out in our time and from the place that God has placed us to declare what the apostles saw of Him, and heard from Him, and what He accomplished on the cross for us, and that He has been raised from the dead—able to transform the life of anyone who trusts in Him.
And notice where it is that the apostles were told that they would go forth to be His witnesses. Jesus said “in Jerusalem”—that is, the place where they were right then; the very place in which the Lord Jesus was crucified. Then, “in all Judea and Samaria”—that is, the surrounding regions to the south and to the north. And finally, “to the end of the earth”—that is, to the regions as far as the other side of the world from Jerusalem. In other words, Jesus’ followers would be His witnesses “at home”, “next door”, and “far away”.
And by the way; if you were to go on to read further in the Book of Acts, you’d find that that’s exactly what happened. Chapters 2-7 of Acts tell the story of the witness in Jerusalem, chapters 8-12 of the witness in Judea and Samaria, and chapters 9-28 of the witness to the furthest reaches of the earth.
I like to think that the ongoing story of ‘Acts 29’ is being written through us even today. And do you know where God has placed you to live it out? If you were to take a globe and put your finger on Jerusalem, and take another finger and place it on “the end of the earth” from Jerusalem, you’d find that other finger falling right were we live. When you think of what Jesus said in Matthew 24:14—”And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come”—then you’ll realize that we live in a very privileged time and a very privileged place! And you’ll also realize what a great and exciting work there still is for us to do.
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Dear brothers and sisters; we live at the furthest reaches of the earth—in this time, and at this place—as people who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus and indwelt by His Holy Spirit, and who are empowered by the Spirit to be Jesus’ witnesses to this fallen world! There is no better time or place for us to be than this!
May God help us, then, to live for Him when and where He has placed us! And to Him be the glory!