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The Acts of the Apostles

May 1, 2005

Reverend Richard B. Knight

Category - New Testament Overview

READ Luke 1:1-4 - Luke & Acts both written to “Theophilus”

“Theophilus” = Lover of God

- could be a code-name to avoid persecution

- most likely it was the person’s real name

- Luke 1 - “Most excellent Theophilus” royal title - part of royal family or government

Luke wrote a 2 volume work - Luke & Acts, 1/4 of NT

- common of historians to write a brief introduction to each volume. That’s what Luke does here, and we’re going to look at it carefully this morning.

READ Acts 1:1-11 (p. 102)

Vs. 1 “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning,”

Notice, Jesus “did and taught.” Jesus was a man of action, a servant who served, but He was also a Rabbi, a Teacher - he did & taught.

Christianity involves both teaching & doing - both a message and a way of life. - a way of thinking about God, about ourselves & life - and a way of living. Jesus “did and taught.” We must always keep this balance between theology & practice.

Some people go around just focusing on doctrine & theology - “do you have all the right doctrines? Are you Predestination or Armenian? When it comes to the rapture - are you Pre-Tribulation? Post-Tribulation? or Mid-Tribulation?

When it comes to the Bible, what’s your stance - inerrant? infallible? reliable? Some Christians and some Churches are extremely doctrinally oriented. - conservative churches & the Roman Catholic Church.

Other Christians go in the other direction - “We don’t care about your theology, just come along with us and let’s worship & serve God together.”

I think we need both - “Jesus did and taught.”

We need both - theology & praxis, faith & deeds

We need both because our faith informs our deeds.

We do need to soak up the teachings of Jesus & the theology of Jesus.

Jesus “did and taught.”

Vs. 1 “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning,”

Vs. 2 “until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.”

Jesus’ instructions came “through the Holy Spirit.” I like that - even Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to convey spiritual truths. If Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, how much more do we? How much more do we need the Spirit at work in our hearts and minds and words and our interactions? Spiritual Growth takes the Spirit - the life of the Spirit, the life of God - in us and with us. We only learn about God with God’s help - through the Holy Spirit.

Think about a time when you discovered a profound spiritual truth, didn’t it feel like God was right there turning on the light bulb in your head? That’s because God was right there through the Holy Spirit. That’s why we need to be so prayerful in worship and so prayerful when we read the Bible - so that spiritual truth might be conveyed to us - how? - through the Holy Spirit.

“Jesus gave instructions to the apostles through the Holy Spirit.”

Vs. 3 “After his sufferings Jesus presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

I believe these resurrection appearances were very necessary for the early church. “Many convincing proofs” over 40 days would mean that many, many people saw Jesus alive. That explains why the church grew so rapidly and why early Christians were so bold in the face of persecution from the religious leaders and from the Romans. They saw “Many convincing proofs.” It wasn’t just Easter Sunday that they saw him.

In I Corinthians 15 - Paul writes, “Christ appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers & sisters most of whom are still alive, though some have died.”

That tells you there were a lot of eyewitnesses to the Living Christ. And these people were known in the early church - “most of whom are still alive” at this time of this writing, “though some have died.” The growth of the church was fueled by those who had witnessed the fact that Christ was alive. They were witnesses of the Risen Lord.

“After his sufferings he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

Did you notice what Jesus spoke about following his resurrection?

- his favorite sermon topic - The Kingdom of God. That was the subject he spoke most about during his earthly ministry.

Think about all the times Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is like . . . .”

“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God?”

“The Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed that was planted and grew and grew into a large tree.”

“The Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field.”

In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 4, Jesus says, “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.”

In Matthew’s Gospel we read, “Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. And “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”

“The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near.”

“If you do not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, you shall never enter it.”

Do you see the point? - Jesus favorite sermon topic was the Kingdom of God - meaning, how can we live everyday with God as our King, where we help his Kingdom come, his will be done, “on earth as it is in heaven.” And following Jesus’ resurrection, prior to his ascension, Jesus reviewed his teachings thoroughly with them, over 40 days.

Do you think the disciples listened carefully to Jesus during their 3 years with him? I’ll bet they listened pretty well off & on through the years. But how much more did they listen to the Living Christ following the resurrection? - they hung on every word, didn’t they?

That’s another reason why I believe in the reliability of the New Testament documents - The Risen Christ reviewed his teachings with the disciples for 40 days.

Vs. 4 “While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” - we learn from the next verse and from the next chapter that the “promise of the Father” is the Holy Spirit. But first they must wait.

There are few things harder in life than waiting. - whether it’s waiting for something good, or waiting for something bad, or waiting to find out which it’s going to be, or waiting for Something to happen, for clarity, for direction, for movement, for whatever.

The disciples are told to wait. - that is the first task and assignment for the early church - hurry up & wait - for 10 days. Jesus teaches them for 40 days following his Resurrection. The Holy Spirit comes upon them on the Day of Pentecost - 50 days after Passover. So for about 10 days the church just waits. They could have gone out to spread the message - they knew he was alive and he had just reviewed his teachings. But Jesus told them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.

Before we serve, we must be empowered. Before we go expend our energies we must be filled with God’s divine energy. Do you fill up your car with gas at the end of the trip or at the beginning of the trip? (probably both, because you need fuel at the start of the trip and again at the end you have to get refueled for the next trip)

You know, part of what we do here in worship that wait upon God, wait for the “promise of the Father,” the Holy Spirit to come upon us, to stir us, to comfort, inspire, convict, heal. We come to God’s house partly to wait for the Promise of the Father.

Vs. 5 - “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

“Is it now that you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?”

“The timing is not for you to know, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses - in Jerusalem, in all Judea & Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Wait - Spirit - Witness

Before wrapping this up let me make just a few observations about being a witness for Christ. “You will be my witnesses.” It’s an interesting image for being a Christian. A Witness. Usually we think of these sorts of images for being a Christian - a Child of God, a Disciple, Servant, a Sheep of God’s fold. But witnesses? “You shall be my witnesses.” - witnesses of the Risen Lord.

1. First, a Witness is not a Volunteer. Would Judge Phil Cross say in his courtroom: “Would anyone like to serve as a witness this morning? Any volunteers?” No, witnesses are selected, named, called upon, and sent up there to testify. “You shall be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”

2. Witnesses speak from personal experiences - what they saw, what they heard, what they experienced. I like the exercise entitled, “Why are you a Christian?” It’s where one person just keeps asking that question to another for 60 seconds. It helps us to practice articulating our faith, to put into our own words what God means to us.

3. Witnesses tell what they know to be true. They speak the truth. They help others find the truth.

4. The court needs witnesses to discover the truth. There are some obvious take-homes from this, from Jesus calling us to be his witnesses. The world needs witnesses to discover the truth about God that we’ve seen in Jesus. The world needs to hear in our own words, in our own voices - what we personally experience with God, with faith, with Christ.

We have been called by God to be witnesses of the Risen Lord!

Of course the good news here is we can witness to our Risen Lord through our actions. And we as a congregation do that through such things as the AIDS walk, the AMIGOS Honduras Project, the Table of Plenty community meal, the youth mission trips and more.

One final illustration. During WWII a town in Europe was destroyed, along with many town due to the bombings. After the war the people of the town started rebuilding. One of the first things that sought to rebuild was a statue of Christ that had stood at the center of the village in the town square. As they reassembled it, they were able to find everything but the hands of the statue. So they put at the base of the monument a plaque which read, “You are the Hands of Christ.”

He has no other hands but ours, no other voice today than ours, no other feet to go, hands to serve, hearts to love. “You shall be my witnesses.”

Let us pray: Lord help us to speak what you mean to us. Help us to speak not only with our words but also with our actions, that you are alive, that you hear, that you still give us the Promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit.

Spirit, fill us now through the sacred meal. We wait upon you. Come to us now. Feed us and empower us to be your witnesses.

Amen.