Acts 1:1-5 - The Continuing Work of Jesus

Secret Bible and go to the book of Acts, chapter one.

The book of Acts and chapter one.

There's something that people don't often talk about the moment after a great thing's happened in your life.

Something that you've lived forward to, something that you prepared, something that you've anticipated.

And the day comes when it happens.

When all that you prepared for and all you've anticipated has arrived.

And then that anticipation's over and all that preparation's over.

And the question kind of comes into your mind a little quietly, subtly.

It doesn't announce itself strongly, but it's there.

And the question is, now what?

Now what?

Royal and I uh got married 41 years ago almost.

And I remember just a few days after we were married, we're sitting in our little kitchen in this little apartment that we were renting with this table that had been given to us.

And we're sitting there, and after about three days of being married, I just said, I feel like we're just playing house.

The now what hadn't really settled in.

Now what?

Now what?

It's one of those harder questions about human experience because all that anticipation that's built toward the new house or the new baby or the wedding or whatever it might be settles into the these are the days I'm moving into.

Now what?

Now what?

Well, the disciples here in Acts chapter one are having their own now what experience.

They've spent time with Jesus for several years.

They've watched him minister, they've seen the miracles that he's done, they've gone out where he's told them to go.

And in the last few months, they've watched him move toward Jerusalem and find himself entering into the accolades of the crowds, only to be taken, arrested, tried, and killed and buried.

And they all scattered in bewilderment.

But before all of that even grew old, he was alive before them, resurrected.

And for the past 40 days, he had been with them.

And here in Acts chapter 1, we're about to see one of those bewildering moments in their life where they're watching Christ ascend into the heavenlies, and the angels say, Why are you standing here?

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And they're wondering, now what?

Now what's about to happen here?

Luke writes to Theophilus and to the early church in order to help them understand what that now what question's all about, and how the disciples in the very first moments after the ascension of Christ realized what they were to be about and what that now what was about.

And so he writes to Theophilus to kind of center his mind and his heart, just like the apostles, as we'll see this week and next week, are also given some understanding that are going to settle their minds and their hearts.

And so Theophilus receives this word that's meant to refocus him.

And he also receives a ground that's meant to show him that nothing is going to shift in his life.

And then a promise that equipped the disciples and will equip him.

These words, a word that refocuses, a ground that doesn't shift, and a promise that equips us for what we're meant to do, are the very same things that we're going to receive this morning.

So let me just look at the first five verses.

We'll carry this through into next week, but I want to bring the first part of this into us this morning.

Let's read verses one to five.

After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

And while he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said, You have heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.

And they stood in a field wondering what had just happened.

And we might today, as a church and also as individuals, wonder, well, what's here for us?

What are we actually doing?

Why are we here?

And does any of it really matter?

And what Luke is giving us here are the ability to be grounded in understanding of what we're included into and what kind of mighty work God is doing through us.

And so we have some assurances here, and I want to share those assurances with us this morning.

And the first thing I want us to see is we have given to us a word that refocuses us, a word that refocuses.

Notice verse one.

Luke writes to Theophilus, the same man that he wrote the gospel to, and he mentions in this one word that reframes his entire first volume, the Gospel of Luke.

It's a word that we can easily skip over, but we shouldn't.

I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach.

That Greek word began means to commence or to initiate, to begin.

And notice what he says it is.

It's about all that Jesus did and taught.

All that Jesus did and taught.

And he chooses that one word began deliberately.

And here we can take the gospel of Luke in all of its birth narratives and all of its ministry focus of Jesus and all of his miracles and in all of the Passion Week and all of that death, burial, and resurrection account, and we can wrap it up with one word began to do.

And what Luke is saying here as he begins to push into the book of Acts with Theophilus is to tell him that the story is not over, it's only just begun.

Which means we here in the 21st century are not looking back on something historical.

We are in the middle of something that's still happening.

And so as we go through the book of Acts together, I want us to lean forward and lean forward into this with a recognition that what we're reading is not history, but something that gives us shape for who we are today.

I was reading uh some reviews of a book that I haven't yet cracked.

And the reviews, it's a book about literary criticism.

Royal looked at it and she said, Why are you even reading that?

I said, Because, well, for one, the guy's a fascinating writer.

And two, what he writes about is going to be quite encouraging and enlightening to read.

But in the review, one guy said, he said, This man captures you with the very first words that you lean forward so much you turn into an italic.

Well, I want us to be able to look at the book of Acts and lean forward into it so much we turn into italics.

We're so excited about what we're about to look at.

And what Luke is doing with this first word is pushing us forward like that.

He's making us think about something.

And what he's directing us to is not backwards, but forwards to what this Jesus is still doing.

And what Luke is saying is that the death, burial, and resurrection, and even the ascension of Christ is not the end.

It's only really the start of his ministry.

And when Jesus ascended into the heavens, he didn't rest from his work, he simply relocated the place from which he is acting.

He's not on the dusty roads of Jerusalem and Judea any longer.

He is relocated to the very throne room of heaven, and it is from there that he's acting.

He's no longer perhaps here in time and space as we are, he is, but he is acting over all time and all space as the Lord of all.

And so now we'll discover as we go through the book of Acts that he's operating through his spirit that he ascends, through the word that goes out, and through his people who scatter.

And as we read the book of Acts, those things will become abundantly clear to us.

Because the Gospel of Luke is simply part one of a two-part story.

And we are part three of that.

And I love the title of that because what it's showing is that the people of God are gathered as the next chapter out of the book of Acts.

If you don't know, it ends in chapter 28 in your Bible.

And so we're not commemorating the memory of Christ when we study this.

We're not even commemorating the memory of Christ in his work in the early church.

We are reading an account of our story as we enter into what and participate in what's happening here.

And I want us to understand that this is not just something new here.

The prophets spoke about these days coming.

They didn't just speak about Christ who would come and suffer.

And they didn't just speak about Christ who would come and rise.

They spoke about Christ who would continue to act and do something in human history even after his death.

Listen to these words.

We've studied them in the book of Isaiah together in chapter 42 and verse 4.

Listen to what it says about the servant.

The coast and the islands will wait for his instructions.

Did you hear that?

That's talking about the servant doing something that's moving into the world, and he is not going to rest until he's accomplished all of his good purposes.

Last week I read Psalm 110 in verse 1.

I want to read it again and add verse 2 to it.

Listen to verse 1 and 2.

This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord.

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, rule over your surrounding enemies.

Do you feel the forward push of those words?

Until.

And so the psalmist here pictures exactly what Isaiah saw, and what we're reading here in the book of Acts is that the Lord is ascending and seated at the right hand of the Father on high.

And his posture is not one of rest or repose, it is one of activity in which he is reigning and extending his rule.

We read about that in very particular ways that are of great encouragement to us.

Hebrews chapter 7, it says that Christ always lives to make intercession for us.

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

But that's only one aspect of the ascension and the continuing ministry of Christ.

And so Luke here begins with this word began.

Began.

Because the servant's work outlasts his earthly presence.

The Gospel of Luke ends, but the mission hasn't.

Now, theologically, we call about the ascension this word the session of Christ or the heavenly session of Christ.

And the word session goes back to an archaic word, which means the ascension or the seating of a place of authority.

And Christ, when he rose into the heavenlies, was sat in a place of authority, in which he is Lord of all.

And when we get to Acts chapter 2, you'll see him actively working in human history, seated there, exercising his authority, ruling, conquering enemies, and spreading his justice into this world.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The book of Ephesians in chapter one talks about this.

Paul writes that Christ is seated at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and has all things under his feet, and he has given his head over all things.

What a remarkable statement that is.

So when we start our journey through this book of Acts, we need to begin here to recognize that nothing in our life, nothing in this city, nothing in this island, nothing in this world is happening outside the ascended reign of Christ Himself.

And so when we hear this word began, we are learning about the beginning of the ongoing story.

This matters for us as a church, because there's a version of church life out there that acts as if Christ is not engaged in his work whatsoever.

That what has to be done in the life of a church, and even perhaps some in this room right now might be thinking this that if the attendance is flat or if momentum stalls, then somehow we need to find something within ourselves to work toward that.

That somehow the right combination of personnel and effort and creativity and programming is what we need to do to revitalize ourselves as a church.

And when we think like that, what we're saying is the answer lies solely with us.

That it lies with our decisions about who we staff the church with, or our decisions about who we motivate volunteers to go toward, or talking about what kind of marketing schemes we might be able to present and put forward.

But it isn't about personnel or effort or creativity or programming.

Because what Luke is telling us here is that the ascended Christ is working through his people.

And it isn't about us getting into a small room and trying to make some decisions.

If there's any lull in our church's vigor, if there's any slackening of our engagement and the mission, the last place we need to be doing is putting our heads together.

Because we're the one that just made the problem.

What we should be doing is putting ourselves with our knees on the floor and seeking the Lord to do a work.

Here we are.

We're not here to try to cultivate our resources.

We're here to understand and engage in the ascended Christ who is working until.

And that day of until hasn't finished yet.

So we're joining something.

And we're joining in something when we can recognize heartily and freely that the growth and development of the church is not about our performance, and it can't be measured by our capabilities and capacities.

It exceeds it by far.

And so here Luke centers us with a word, just a word, began.

But I want to go a little deeper in here and see something else, not only a word that refocuses us, but also the ground that will not shift.

Verses two and three direct our attention there.

He said, until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen, and after he had suffered, he also presented himself alive by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Before we get to Pentecost, before we get to Peter's sermon, before we get to the explosive growth of the church, Luke stops and says, wait a second.

There's something, Theophilus, you need to understand about what motivated the people as the gospel began to go.

And so he grounds Theophilus and he grounds us in this understanding.

And notice the word he uses when he talks about the resurrection and the ascension of Christ.

In verse 3, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs.

It's a very technical term in the Greek.

And this was a very significant technical term within those contexts.

And what it's talking about are those things that are demonstrable, those are verifiable, those things that are conclusive, proofs, from which you might be able to derive some inferences, from which you might be able to make some plausible recognitions.

But these are concrete proofs that lie there.

And so Luke is using this term to help us understand how strong the ground is underneath the people of God.

That Jesus Christ in his resurrection is showing himself alive by these kind of proofs.

I lived for several years in England, and I always dreaded reading the newspapers at Easter time.

Because at Easter, because England is meant to be a Christian nation and they have a state church that's filled with ungodly leadership, those people who denied the gospel and denied the veracity of Scripture would be given a pen and allowed to write some articles in the newspapers.

And they would write about the Easter spirit, the renewed sense of hope and vigor of the human heart, and how we might be able to take times of trouble and difficulty and find ourselves flourishing with new understanding of possibility.

And I thought, oh gosh, here we go again.

Here we go again.

Luke is not writing religious poetry here.

Luke is not talking about some sort of impression of spiritual experience in which we might be able to find something joyful rising out of the ashes of difficulty.

And what he's telling us here is that the story of the resurrection of Christ is not to be an impression or some spiritual experience or some community or even country's wishful projection of the future.

He's saying this is documented proof of the living Christ who was brought out of the grave.

That's what he's saying.

This is documented evidence.

He would put it that way if he were to put it into legal terms and not just.

Mathematic and oratorical rhetoric philosophical terms.

The resurrection is not a metaphor.

The resurrection is a reality.

It's not an experience of renewed hope, a sense that Jesus' spirit lives on, and perhaps ours will too, after times of trouble.

If that were the case, the book of Acts would just be a story about human courage in the face of hardship and opposition.

And it's not that.

And we shouldn't receive it as simply a message of hopefulness and security in the middle of opposition.

Because if the resurrection is a historical action, if somebody who really died really came back to life again, then what we're talking about is the most monumental act in human history.

Right?

It is that important.

And the people that are gathered around the resurrected Christ are the very leading edge of a new creation.

That's how significant that act is, and that's how significant the people of God are in the book of Acts and us now.

And the resurrection wasn't just a New Testament idea.

The Old Testament spoke of the days that would come.

In the next chapter, we'll read about Peter who rises up in front of the Jewish people and quotes their scriptures to them.

And he says of David that David wasn't speaking of himself, he was speaking of one who was to come.

And he reads from Psalm 16 as he proclaims it to the people in Jerusalem.

And he said, For you will not abandon me to Sheol.

You will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

Who's he talking about, Peter?

Not himself, he says, but Jesus.

Forty days after this man was killed, he speaks about him as one who is risen and one who is ascended.

Listen to Isaiah.

Isaiah 53.

The Lord was pleased to crush him severely.

And when you made him a guild offering, listen, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand the Lord's pleasure will be accomplished.

After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied.

And by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many and will carry their iniquities.

There's a lot to unpack there, but just listen to it simply.

The servant suffers, the servant dies, and then Isaiah says, the servant will prolong his days.

He will see the fruit of his soul and be satisfied.

Isaiah is talking about the resurrection without even using the word.

He's talking about Christ.

How else would you describe it if you talk about a dead man being able to prolong his days?

Unless he's talking about the resurrection.

So let's understand this ground a little better.

Like I said last week, we can often take the resurrection and we put it back there.

It's something that happened at Easter.

We we celebrate Easter every year.

It comes around on our calendar every year.

And we take we take the resurrection, and somehow it just sort of drifts back there until it shows up again on the calendar again.

Luke is saying, don't do that.

Don't do that.

Because the resurrection of Christ is not just one teaching among many, and it's not a secondary question either.

And we can have discussions all day long about secondary issues, and not to say that they're not important at all.

We just spend some time revising our constitution about something that was really actually, in comparison, quite secondary.

Not unimportant, but definitely unsecondary.

And we might even be able to have a discussion with one another about some eschatological framework, whether you're this or that, pre or post or awe or whatever.

But none of it rises to the importance of this.

Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the load-bearing wall of the Christian faith.

It is that important.

And Paul says that explicitly.

And it is solid ground, it's unshakable.

The resurrection validates everything that Jesus said and did.

The scriptures talk about that.

This solid ground is beneath the book of Acts.

This solid ground is beneath this church.

This solid ground can be beneath you if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you're in this room this morning and your life is feeling shaky, unclear, uncertain, and not just your life, but your contemplation about death and what's afterwards.

And you're thinking, I don't know.

Let me tell you something about the Christian life.

It is not asking you to just believe and then to rest on the quality of that ability to believe.

It's calling you to the fact that the tomb is empty, that Christ left it, and that if you go into the grave believing on Christ, you too will leave it one day.

Because it is not about having a religious experience and whether you can hold on to it.

Because let me tell you about religious experiences.

You can have a great one on Saturday night and wake up on a Sunday morning feeling like all of the air has just been pulled right out of your soul.

It's kind of how I woke up this morning.

Great time of the movie last night.

Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, sat down to pray and to read, and I'm fighting sleep.

I'm like, what happened here?

It's 12 hours between being all excited after a movie to sitting here anticipating to preach and trying to fight sleep.

If you're going to rest in the power of your religious experience, you're going to find yourself following an elusive dream because you'll never get there.

There'll be seasons when believing will be hard.

There'll be times when your prayers will not seem fervent.

There'll be places where your reading of scripture will feel dry and dull and separate from any of anything that moves your heart.

Those things will happen.

And if you rest your Christian life upon those kinds of experiences, it's going to fail you.

But the scriptures are not calling you to do that.

They're calling you to a resurrected Christ.

They're calling you to put your feet on that ground that's unshakable.

And if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you call out to Him for salvation and life, I guarantee you that ground will never move.

It will not move on the very day of your death.

And it will say, Welcome, welcome to you, the very last breath you breathe.

Let's move to the next point, the last point.

Not only do we have a word that refocuses us, but a truth that grounds us, but we also have a gift, a gift in a wait.

Verses four and five talks about Jesus with his disciples on that day.

And says, while he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said, You've heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.

Here's Jesus with his disciples in the margin of the CSB and the NIV.

Talk about him eating with them.

The same Jesus who broke bread with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the same Jesus who broke bread on the shore of the lake and fed them fish, is sitting here in the ordinary rhythms of shared life with them, and he's talking to them with a command that sounds quizzical, a paradox, to wait, to wait for the Father's promise.

And when Jesus says to wait for the Father's promise, he is taking a flag out of the Old Testament.

And he's moving that flag and he's stomping it down into the ground of the New Testament church.

And he's saying, What the Father promised is about to occur.

Wait for that to happen before you do anything else.

And we're going to unpack that in just a moment, but let's just stop at that word wait for a second.

The disciples were not told to immediately go.

They were told to wait, to pause until God had moved.

But they were not passive.

And as we'll see in a couple weeks, they were active in their waiting.

They were gathered together in prayer.

They were devoting themselves to truth.

They were making decisions that were formative to their life.

They were in community with one another.

They were not passive in their waiting.

They were active in their waiting, but they were waiting for the expectancy of the Father's promise.

Now notice what he says here.

He said, You've heard me talk about this.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.

Again, these men and Theophilus and us are being told about something that's about to occur within the life of the church that reminds us that what's happening is not about human manufacturing of ability.

It's not about our ingenuity.

It's not about what we can produce.

It's about God operating within his people in a way that cannot be explained by human experience and human power.

Because what he's talking about is the arrival of divine presence that was promised in the Old Testament.

That's what we'll read about when we go to the book of Acts in chapter two is the promise that God had given in the Old Testament.

And then the Old Testament speaks with the deepest sense of longing of what's about to happen.

And there's a lot of misunderstandings that's behind all of these words.

And sadly, the most significant thing about it gets passed over without a word, without a thought.

Because we have been so programmed to think of it in very, very internal, individualistic ways.

But this is something extremely important.

Listen to what the Old Testament says about this coming day.

It says in Isaiah, until the Spirit from on high is poured out on us, then the desert will turn into an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest.

There's this figurative language of the day that's going to come when the things that look barren are going to flourish in this poetic flourishing of prof.

It's a remarkable sense in which we are told that barren things will live, and they will live so abundantly, it will feel like an orchard and a forest, this desert.

Ezekiel 36.

I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Ezekiel speaking to people who were being taken away into bondage, into Babylon, because of their absolute disregard of God's statutes and commands, are told of a coming day when the spirit would come, and those things that they despised and rejected and ignored and played around with as if it was simply toys in a toy box are now going to be the very things that are in their hearts, that they're going to treasure.

In Joel chapter 2, I will pour out my spirit on all humanity.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

No distinctions.

What is Jesus describing here?

What is he wrapping up in a phrase, the Father's promise?

All of those things in the Old Testament I've only given a sampling of that come into that phrase that Jesus says, wait for that.

What does he say?

Well, many people in our day would say, well, it's meant for individual religious experience.

It's to reboot the level of intensity of your devotion.

It's uh meant to give you a private prayer language or give you some sense of assurance of God's closeness.

No, no, no, not at all.

It is immensely larger than that.

What we're talking about is a cosmic event, not an intimate, personal, private event.

This is an epical event because it is the inauguration of an age that the prophets spoke about, that Jesus had lived and taught and died and rose again to inaugurate.

It is this momentum in which God is not merely visiting his people from outside, but he is now going to dwell among his people, and his people are going to be reaching the absolute ends of the earth in this new day.

This is the fulfillment of the Old Testament's deepest longings.

That promise back in Genesis chapter 12, when one man as good as dead was told that he would be the father of many nations.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

That promise, the father's promise of the time when these people who were ignoring God would be said to be the very place from which the word of God would spread.

And that the spirits indwelling and moving among those people would be the very force that would make all of that happen.

That's what it's talking about.

The Apostle Paul talks about this distinctly, this epical age in which we live, in which we as God's people are part of a new creation, that we're enfolded into something that is going to move beyond time and space as we know it.

It's going to enter into the heavenlies and it's going to be called a new heavens and a new earth as part of a new creation.

And all the people will know the Lord and holiness will be at home for once in human existence.

And the Spirit is part of all of that.

Paul writes to the believers in Ephesians 1, he said, The promised Holy Spirit, you were sealed by him on the day you believed, the gospel of your salvation.

The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of his glory.

What does he say?

The Spirit just doesn't come for momentary personal private moments.

He doesn't give himself in measure.

And he's united with the risen Christ to accomplish the good purposes of the rule and reign of Christ of people all around the world.

That's what it's about.

The early church was wondering what is this?

What has happened?

And they they tie it back to what Luke says here: the Father's promise.

And what he promised was not just a psychological release or to give us some feeling of confidence or even closeness to God.

Some extra boost to become a better person than what we were before we had an experience.

No, that the church would be brought into the realm of God's presence in them and through them to accomplish the glorious work of proclaiming the gospel and seeing people around the world believe.

And he says, Repent and believe the gospel.

And that many people on that day are baptized and join themselves to the church, and they commit themselves to the apostle teaching and to fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer.

Peter didn't walk out of there and go, hey, that was a great sermon, wasn't it?

Boy, I finally got eloquent today.

He's saying the Spirit of God has done something in the hearts of unbelieving people who had just a few days before it crucified this man, but are now bending their heart and giving their life to him as Lord and Christ.

That is the work of the Spirit.

And so here we are, just at the very start of the book.

And I hope you're starting to turn into italics, starting to lean forward, say, what are we going to receive?

What is this that we're about to understand?

What does it show us?

Not only about what's done then, but what's happening still?

Well, Luke begins with a word to focus us, began.

He gives us ground that knows that none of it's shaking.

And he gives us a promise.

It gives us a sense of understanding of how God is operating through his spoken word, dwelling among his people and securing their proclamation with the power to transform dead souls into living believers.

That's what we have.

And I'm excited for what we're going to journey through.

If you're here this morning and you've been a believer for a long time, I do pray that all of this does refocus and And reignite within your heart a sense of joy and understanding of who we're who we are as God's people.

If you're here this morning and you've been sort of backing, backing away as a believer, maybe just settling in, or as someone said, you know, Baptist, he said, This is how I define Baptists.

They come into the church, we get them wet, and we put them in the pew and they dry out the rest of their life.

Ouch.

And if you're in that drying out phase, I pray this reinvigorates your heart, help you understand who we are and what we're doing as God's people.

And if you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your Savior, go back to that ground and ask yourself: is my life really on that stable of a ground?

Can I say that I can walk into death securely and with hope?

If you can't, there's an offer that's gloriously presented in the gospel that tells you that you don't have to find some strong religious experience.

You don't have to sort of invigorate yourself to turn over a new leaf or try to change your habits.

It's about fleeing to the one who rose from the dead and calling him Lord in Christ, believing that he died for your sins and that he is the means by which your forgiveness is secured before the judge of all.

And you resting everything that you are on him, fleeing to Christ for salvation.

That is the only solid ground.

And if you believe on him, you will be saved.

No matter what your background's been like, no matter what your history has been, no matter what you've done, where you've gone, who you've hurt, who's hurt you, all of that gets washed away in the blood of Christ.

All of it.

Believe on him.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for a book that makes us aware of ourselves, makes us realize who we are.

And what we are realizing and understanding is more about who you are and what you're doing in this world.

We're grateful to be able to stand on the solid ground of the resurrection of Christ.

We're grateful to be able to be acting and serving within the realm of Christ who began a work and is continuing it still.

And we're grateful to be among a people who are filled with a secure hope of a future inheritance, but also of an abiding presence and power that takes the gospel message and makes it live in hearts.

And so, Father, we do not live and move and work based upon our strength and the power of our prayers as though it was simply a formula.

No, we rest in you, the living God.

And so, Father, as we journey through this book of Acts, may we be increasingly a people who turn our hearts and praise to you, the risen Christ, the acting spirit, and the promise fulfilling Father, God in one.

And so we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.