Message Info:
- Text: Acts 1:6-11, NASB
- Series: Special Events (2023), No. 4
- Date: Wednesday evening, September 20, 2023
- Venue: Paradise Valley Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Audio File: Open/Download
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Transcript:
⟦Transcript⟧ Doing that research, I was working on it again this week and came across a story in the book of Acts. As we’re coming up on the ascension, it really is the ascension. That’s where we’re going to be.
I think I mentioned earlier, Acts chapter 1. Dealing with the ascension of Jesus Christ right after they’ve been through the resurrection. They’ve seen Jesus crucified.
They’ve seen Jesus buried. They’ve seen him alive again. They’ve seen the tomb empty.
They’ve seen all this evidence. Incredible things have happened to these people over the previous 40 days. And they’re walking with Jesus out to the place where he’s going to be raised up to be with the father again.
And that’s where we’re going to pick up. And it reminds me of back before I started pastoring, I worked in the court clerk’s office. And one of my favorite jokes was how many people work for Oklahoma County?
One out of four. There’s a stereotype. Whether it’s deserved or not, there’s a stereotype of government workers.
I think I can, some of you may be government workers or retire, not trying to offend you. I was one too. But I enjoyed that because there was a lot of truth to that.
People just standing around watching when they should have been working. I tried not to be that, but sometimes that happens. And that was exactly what was going on in Acts chapter one.
When the ascension happened, Jesus had given the people work to do, and they were just standing around looking. And so we’re going to read together tonight a few verses here from Acts chapter one. and talk about the job that Jesus has given us.
We’re going to start in verse 6, and we’re going to read through verse 11 tonight, if you’d read with me. It says, starting in verse 6, So when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.
And after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky?
This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven. So as I’ve already laid out for you, they’ve spent the last 40 days with Jesus after the resurrection. They have gotten to see some incredibly miraculous events where Jesus appears to them in ways that we cannot explain other than the fact that Jesus actually rose again from the dead.
At least 10 separate appearances Jesus has made to these people. They’ve seen things. They’ve heard incredible teaching on top of all the things that they got to be witnessed to over the previous three years.
They walk out with Jesus this final time as he’s preparing to be taken up into the presence of his father. He’s continuing to teach. We see in the verses just before this that he’s talked to them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the power they’re supposed to have.
We know at the Great Commission before this, he had told them to go into all the world, making disciples, baptizing the nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you. He’s given them a job. He’s told them this several times.
As they’re walking out with Jesus for this last time, though, they have a question on their minds. And their question was, are you going to restore the kingdom now? Now is it time?
You see, that was their concern throughout so much of the gospels. Jesus is teaching them about the nature of his kingdom, that his kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is something greater.
His kingdom is something different. And they were still expecting him to come in as this political messiah who was going to kick the Romans out, restore David’s throne, do all of these things that they were expecting on an earthly level because they wanted to sit beside him. They wanted a taste of that power too.
And Jesus all the time had said, no, you don’t understand this. It’s a spiritual kingdom. It’s my death and resurrection.
Now we do believe that he’s going to set up his kingdom one day. He’s going to rule, but that’s not what he was about now. He kept telling them it’s about being fishers of men.
It’s about this spiritual kingdom. And they still couldn’t get it. And we would think, although we’d probably be like them if we were in their shoes, we look back on this and we think you should have gotten it when you saw the miracles of the resurrection.
When you saw this man that you thought was going to become the conquering king get nailed to a cross. There should have been some clue. There should have been some moment where it clicked and they understood what Jesus was really about.
but they walk out and that’s still the question on their minds. Is it time now? Is it time for the kingdom?
So they ask, are you finally going to restore the kingdom of Israel? And it’s almost like that resurrection thing, that was great. That was really cool.
So glad we got to see that. Is it time for the kingdom now? Can we do the earthly power thing now?
That was what they were focused on. After he had just illustrated, after he had just demonstrated the ultimate triumph over death, they were still focused on these earthly concerns. And sometimes we’re just like them.
I’m the first one to say sometimes I am guilty of those exact same things. Now, I’m not looking for him to restore the kingdom of Israel. I’m not looking for him to do exactly what they were looking for.
But sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in earthly things. It’s so easy to get caught up even in good things. There’s nothing wrong with the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.
But they were getting so caught up in even good things that they were not focused on what he had given them to do. They were not focused on what he was actually about. And you and I need to be on our guard against allowing ourselves to get so focused on what we’re looking for and what we’re trying to accomplish that we ignore what Jesus is doing.
And I’m ashamed of how many times I let my calendar and my to-do list get in the way, especially when the Lord has placed a ministry opportunity right in front of me. Somebody who needs something, somebody that I can point to Jesus Christ, and sometimes I just don’t see it because I’m so focused on what I’m doing. So they had this question, and it shows that there was still a problem here.
And he reminds them of the commission that he’s already given them. When their focus was off, Jesus did this in a very gentle way. He could have lashed out at them.
He said, you dummies, you still don’t get it. You still don’t understand what I’m doing here, but he didn’t. He just said, you know, that’s really not for you to know about.
That’s really not what you’re supposed to be focused on. And he draws their attention back to what he’s already told them and what he wants them to do. He says, it’s not for you to know the times in verse 7.
That’s the father’s authority. That’s the father’s business. And in verse 8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth. So instead of taking the bait, instead of answering the pressing question they had, he redirects their attention back to the things that he had already given them. And what he had given them was a calling, which is when he says, you shall be my witnesses.
That was their calling. You’re going to go out and testify about me. You’re going to go out and tell people what I’ve done.
He’d given them a calling and he’d given them the promise of the Holy Spirit that was going to empower that calling. He wasn’t sending them out on their own to try to accomplish great things for him. That’s another mistake we sometimes make.
That’s another thing I’m often guilty of. Trying to accomplish things for God instead of letting God accomplish what he wants to through me. And I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I suspect I’m not alone in that.
I think that’s our human nature. But he’s given them the calling and he’s also provided them the power that they needed to carry out the calling. He says that there’ll be witnesses after they receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
They were supposed to go back to Jerusalem. And yes, they were supposed to wait a little bit. But while they were waiting, they were supposed to be praying and preparing and expecting the Holy Spirit to come upon them for the next part of the job.
But the part of the job they had to do right now was to go back and prepare, go back and wait, go back and be ready for God to use them when the time came. And yet we see this incredible hesitation that they displayed. There was this hesitation where he’s told them the very last words he told them.
You’re going to be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And he goes up into heaven. And the scriptures say that they stood there and gazed intently.
They just stood there staring, mouths open. Like those county employees I tried so hard not to be. Just stood there.
You’re supposed to be, hey, he gave you a job. And you’re just standing there with your mouth open, just staring. And part of me wants to cut them a little bit of slack, because that would be an incredible sight to see Jesus ascended to heaven.
And I think they did watch him out of a sense of devotion. They loved Jesus. But the problem is not that they loved Jesus.
The problem is not that they watched Jesus. The problem is that they stood there longer than they needed to. There’s a natural desire to camp out on the mountaintop.
We see that earlier before the crucifixion. When Peter, James, and John go with Jesus to the Mount of Transfiguration, which in all transparency is a story that I still struggle to understand. What does this mean?
What exactly happened on that mountain that they saw Elijah and Moses come down to meet with Jesus and everybody looked different? I still struggle with understanding what that was all about. But the one thing I do understand is that Jesus had something to do, and Peter’s saying, no, no, it’s good for us to stay here.
Let’s build shelters here on the mountain and let’s just stay here. And if you’ve ever had one of those mountaintop experiences, maybe it’s been in a revival service like this one where you felt the Holy Spirit moving in you. Maybe it’s been in a church service.
Maybe it’s been at camp. The Holy Spirit’s not limited. Maybe you felt that touch of the Holy Spirit when you’re just driving down the road.
Some of my best prayer times are when I’m in the truck by myself. That doesn’t happen very often with all those kids. But when it does, boy, is it sweet.
and the Holy Spirit can move. And we just want to stay there. We just want to stay in that spot and enjoy that feeling and enjoy that closeness with God.
And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be close to God, but not at the expense of obedience to him when he’s told us to go and do something. And that was their problem. They wanted to stay there.
They wanted to indulge this natural impulse that we have to just stay where things are good. I mean, they’ve just watched one of the most incredible sites any of us could ever hope to witness. After the end of a period of some 50 days where they’d seen all these incredible sights, this was just kind of the icing on the cake, and they wanted to stay there.
And so I don’t know that they were being deliberately disobedient, but they were distracted. Sometimes I’m disobedient because I’m distracted. I don’t mean to be, but it happens if I’m not careful that I can get distracted even by good things that aren’t the best thing that God’s called me to do.
And I think as we look at their example, we do well to ask ourselves, what are the things that distract us? Man, it happens all the time. Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life.
I won’t go into all the details. Maybe not worst days of my life, but definitely one of the most stressful days of my life. And the crazy thing is I had outlined what I was going to talk about last week here.
And I came into my office yesterday morning and said, really, the only thing on my calendar today that I have to do is finish this message. I couldn’t tell you how I got it done because it was like the dam that holds all the crazy in the world back burst. And it was just chaos in my world, putting out fires here and there until late last night. I don’t even know when I did my outline.
I remember trying to squeeze in five minutes here and five minutes there. And there were moments when I thought, why do I even try? Why do I even bother with this?
God, if you want me in ministry, I had this thought. God, if you want me in ministry, why do you let these things happen? Maybe I just need to go do my chickens full time.
A lot less work. Some flocks are harder to work than others, right? I shouldn’t give you that impression because it wasn’t my church that was the cause of all the stress.
But I was so quick to let myself get distracted from what I was supposed to do and focus on all these other little things. It can be bad things we focus on like that. It can be it can be positive things.
We have a we have a ministry there because we are downtown. We have a lot of homeless people through there. And we have some we have some ministries that are geared toward helping them and reaching them with the gospel.
We have we recently started a recovery ministry for people who are struggling with addictions. We have a feeding ministry started out. Before coming to Central, I pastored in the country, and we had a food pantry at our church, and we had people that would come in and need groceries, and I said, let’s start that at Central, but I started realizing we were getting people that had no homes to cook anything in.
So we started prepping things that were ready to eat, sack lunches with non-perishables that we could send to them, that we could hand out to them. And I’m ashamed to tell you how many times that door has buzzed, and we see somebody there wanting a lunch, and I thought, I’m in the middle of something. Now, I need to be in the middle of this.
God is literally sending people to our door who need Jesus. And I’m too busy putting the finishing touches on something over here. And sometimes the Holy Spirit has to remind me, just get over yourself.
Quit getting distracted by all your stuff and focus on my stuff. And so I think we’d all do well to consider the things that distract us from what God’s called us to do. And the angels give them this very gentle reminder in verse 11.
men of Galilee why do you stand looking into the sky this Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven through Jesus yes Jesus left Jesus has been taken Jesus is not physically present with you anymore but Jesus is going to come back we tried to walk out the door tonight and our four-year-old thought we were never coming back that she was going to have to live with Miss Aliyah from church forever. Do we have this habit of leaving you and never coming back? I mean, has that ever happened before?
I’m trying to reason and logic with a four-year-old. That was smart, right? Just try it as best we could to assure her we will come back.
You go have fun. You go do what you’re supposed to do. We’ll come back.
If any part of them had this concern, he’s leaving us. What are we supposed to do now? He’s coming back and he’s told you what you’re supposed to do now, was the angel’s response.
Yes, he’s going to come back. In the meantime, you have work to do. And actually, you have a limited amount of time to do that work.
So why are you just standing around, is what the angels asked them. And folks, what was true of them is true of us. We have work to do.
And we have a limited amount of time to do that work. I don’t know when he’s coming back. I refuse even to speculate.
I’ll hear people in my church say, well, he’s coming back any day. He may be. Are we in the end times?
I don’t know. What I know is he’s coming back. And he may come back today.
He may come back 2,000 years from now. I don’t know. That’s his business.
But whether he comes back today or whether he comes back in 2,000 years, I know for each of us, the amount of time we have to serve him is finite. It’s limited. Because whether he comes back for all of us first, or whether he comes back for us individually first, he’s coming back and our time is limited.
And we have work to do. And so I find the angels question to be very convicting. Why are you just standing around?
Jesus is coming back. So what do we do with this? It’s a story of something that happened to people 2,000 years ago.
I’m not the disciples. I’m not any of those 11 men that were standing there with Jesus. I’m not any of the family.
I’m not any of the Galileans. What does that have to do with me? Because we’re all called to be disciples.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, you’re a disciple. Now, their lives were different from ours, those 11 men. But we’re disciples every bit as much as they are.
And Jesus’ disciples, here’s how we use this in our lives. We take the lesson and we realize that Jesus’ disciples aren’t supposed to hesitate. We’re supposed to follow through in obedience.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, tonight, if you belong to Jesus Christ, if you have put your faith and trust in him, if you have repented and asked for his forgiveness, if you’ve been born again, you have the same two things that those disciples had that are outlined in this passage. You have the job and you have the power. The job is to be a witness, to fulfill the Great Commission.
At Central, we’ve spent the last probably three months on Wednesday nights going through the Great Commission and what exactly it is and how we can carry it out to the point that they’re probably sick. Some of them may not ever want to hear the words Great Commission again. Sorry, it’s our job.
It’s the one thing he told us to do. It’s to go and make and strengthen disciples to help people who are not followers of Jesus Christ become followers of Jesus Christ and help people who are followers of Jesus Christ become better followers of Jesus Christ. That’s our job. He gave them that job.
He’s given us that job. That’s why he says you will be witnesses of me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to be a witness of me out and about. Like in Judea, you’re going to be a witness of me over in Samaria among the people you don’ like and don’t get along with and can’t relate to.
You’re going to be a witness of me and to the uttermost parts of the world. Everywhere you find people, you’re going to be a witness of me. And some people are called, you know, the uttermost parts of the world.
Some people are called to stay in Jerusalem, but wherever he puts us, we have that same job to do that they had, but we also have the same power that he gave them. We don’t have to do it on our own. He’s given us the Holy Spirit.
In talking about fulfilling the Great Commission, last week I talked about, I talked to them about the Holy Spirit, led them through some passages that talk about the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives, had them dig in and answer questions about it. We put it all on a whiteboard. Here’s what he does.
But the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us. The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us and guides us and tells us, no, I want you to go talk to this person. Like when Paul was so intent on going to one city and the Holy Spirit said, no, you’re not going there.
You’re going here. I can’t tell you why the Holy Spirit didn’t want him to preach the gospel over here and send him here instead. That’s his business.
But the Holy Spirit’s the one who tells us how to do it. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the words to speak. I can get up and talk in front of a group of people, but one-on-one I’m a mess.
I mean, some of you may have introduced yourselves when I walked in and I had to think for a second about what my name is. One on one. Goodness.
So I’m just going to apologize in advance. But there have been a number of times that I’ve sat down to talk with somebody one on one about their need for Jesus Christ. And the words just come out. That’s not me.
That’s the Holy Spirit. And sometimes we are so hesitant to do what he’s called us to do because we put all the pressure on ourselves. We think it’s our job to come up with exactly the right words.
We think it’s our job to know all the answers to all the questions. I do think it’s good for us to be acquainted with some answers to some questions. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be into apologetics.
But ultimately, what is going to make the decision, what is going to make the difference is how the Holy Spirit uses those answers and how the Holy Spirit takes what we’ve learned of God’s word and puts it into practice and connects it with somebody’s heart so that they’ll respond to the gospel. I was way older than I should have been before I realized it’s the Holy Spirit that draws people to Jesus Christ. It’s not just up to me to come up with the exact right configuration of words in the right order, and it’s going to be a magic silver bullet that’s going to make everybody trust Christ. I don’t know why I thought I was the first one in 2,000 years who could do that, but we put the pressure on ourselves of saying, I’ve got to do all this. I’ve got to make them come to Jesus.
No, our job is just to open our mouths and let the Holy Spirit be the power. Let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting. And when we run into things that make us hesitate, we need that reminder like the disciples had from the angels.
Why are you just standing here waiting? What are you waiting for to get started fulfilling the great commission that he’s given you? Think about who these people were.
Thomas doubted Jesus until he had to be shown that Jesus was alive. Do you think that somebody who had just experienced that probably had some nagging doubts about whether he was fit to go out and do this work. Probably.
The others, Peter had denied Jesus three times, swore up and down, I don’t even know the man, three times. You think he had some doubts and some questions about whether he was fit to go and do what Jesus was asking him to do? I’m sure he did.
And we seem completely different when the Holy Spirit gets involved in it in Acts chapter 2. Look at the other disciples who we don’t know as much about specifically, but we know they all ran and fled. They all hid.
They all doubted whether he was coming back. They all did things I’m sure they wish they hadn’t. Did they have some questions about whether they were fit?
I’m sure they did. We know that Jesus’ mother and brothers were here at this time too, as we read through Acts chapter 1. They were here for this.
Jesus’ brothers thought he was a lunatic. If you go back to the early chapters of Mark, they thought he was crazy and tried to bring him home. And it was only when he rose again from the dead that they began to believe.
I think they had some questions about, am I really fit? Somebody who thought the son of God was out of his mind? Mary was here and had just watched her oldest son be brutally tortured and murdered.
The trauma that that poor woman went through. And yet she’s being asked to be a witness of his resurrection. Folks, I’m sure we’ve all in this room been through things and have done things ourselves that make us wonder whether we can act.
God, why me? Am I actually fit to serve you in this way? Can I really do this?
Can I really go tell people about Jesus? Who’s going to listen to me? But Jesus doesn’t address any of that.
He doesn’t say, you know, I know you’ve got these problems, but try your best and muddle through. He just says, go be witnesses to me and the Holy Spirit’s going with you. Tell people about me and the Holy Spirit’s going to empower the message.
So when we run into things that hesitate like these disciples did, we need to stop staring. Stop just staring off into space. We need to go back to town and go to work.
Wherever that is for you, think about what he’s called you to do and do it. Think about that person that he’s put in your life, in your world, that you can speak to, that you can reach with the gospel that maybe somebody else can’t, and then go do it. We have a limited amount of time to point others to Jesus before he comes back.
Like I said earlier, we don’t know how long that’s going to be, but we know the time is short. And odds are there’s somebody that popped into your head when I said that about that person that God’s put in your world, in your circle. Whoever that person is, we don’t know how many opportunities we have to share with that person.
So my advice to you, my call to you is the same as to the disciples. Stop hesitating. He’s called you to go tell about him.
And you don’t have to know everything about what he did. Do you know that he died for our sins? Do you know that he rose again to prove it?
Do you know that he offers forgiveness and salvation and changes our lives if we just believe him and ask for it? Can you show evidence of a changed life from your own life? And you’ve got the tools that you need to go and tell somebody about Jesus.
And some of you in here tonight, this may be new to you. You may be wondering, what is this message about Jesus that we’re talking about that we’re supposed to go and tell? but you have to experience it before you can go tell somebody so I want to lay it out very simply for you you may have heard it dozens of times you may have never heard it before at all but I want to take another stab at it Jesus Christ the one who gave them this calling the one they were supposed to be witnesses about Jesus Christ God’s only begotten son came to earth because you and I have sinned against God and I like using the definition that they give our our elementary school kids that can’t.
That sin is anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And we’re all guilty. I’m not saying that to be mean to you.
I’m guilty. The Bible says we’re all guilty. We’ve all done that.
That sin separates us from God because God is holy. God can’t just be okay with our sin. God can’t just let it go and ignore it.
God is a holy and righteous judge. And so he has to judge that sin and he has to punish it. And part of our punishment is separation from God now.
that’s why we often feel like God is so distant from us it’s because of the presence of sin in our lives part of that punishment is eternal separation from God in a place that the Bible calls hell and you and I could never do enough good to undo the wrong that we’ve done so whatever whatever we’ve done wrong we don’t get extra credit for doing the right thing it’s just what we were supposed to do in the first place in one of my previous churches I had a member who was a judge, and I loved using him as an example. I said, if I had killed somebody and stood before Brother Ralph and he said, boy, what have you got to say for yourself? And I said, well, it’s all right.
Look at all the other people I didn’t kill. I don’t get extra credit for that. I’ve just done what I was supposed to do.
So just trying to do good things all the other times, it doesn’t erase the wrong that we’ve done. That sin has to be punished. It has to be paid for.
And rather than us try and fail to pay for it and end up separated from God for eternity. Jesus Christ came to earth. He lived a perfect sinless life and he was nailed to the cross, taking responsibility for my sins and for yours.
And he shed his blood and he died to pay for those sins, not just in part, but in full. He paid for every bit of it. And not only that, but three days later, he rose again to prove it.
Because anybody could tell you, oh yeah, I’m going to die and I’m going to pay for your sins. I could tell you that today, and that doesn’t make it true. Jesus proved it by rising again from the dead, because only God can do that.
Three days later, he proved it. And now the Bible teaches that we can’t get salvation. We can’t get forgiveness.
We can’t get eternal life. We can’t get a relationship with the Father by doing good things, by being good people, by coming to church, by giving money, by helping people. We can’t earn it.
All that there is for us to do is to believe that we need those things. to believe that Jesus paid for him and to ask for it. Tonight, if you need to ask for it, you have an opportunity to do so.
We’re going to ask Brother Kim to come forward. We’re going to have a time of invitation. If you need to ask for it and don’t know how to ask for it, he’d be glad to talk with you.
I’m sure there are others in this room who could talk with you as well. And also right where you are tonight, you can trust him and ask for that forgiveness.
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