God is Faithful to Finish | Group Bible Study

Um, we're gonna get started today.

Now, I wanted to go back and circle back to this little section of Acts chapter one, because this section we sort of missed in the Sunday service, and then I was gonna do it the next Thursday, and instead, last Thursday we did, we talked about Jesus' ascension and how he was going away in Acts and he was showing up in Daniel chapter seven.

And so this week, um, we're gonna go back to this little section because I think there's some good stuff in here.

Um, and the main thing that we see through this section I put down in the notes, um it is 7.25 p.m.

in Germany.

All right.

God is sovereignly working through real people, real events, even human failure to accomplish his purposes.

And so let's just start by reading the first few verses of this section.

It's in Acts chapter 1, verses 12 through 14.

Acts 1:12–14

Love you too, Chris.

Um verse 12 it starts here.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Allevet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath-day journey away.

And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.

Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James.

All of these, with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

So what has happened here is that Jesus has ascended.

Remember, the disciples were with him.

He was giving them final instructions, saying, Go to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father.

He's gonna send the Spirit.

When the Spirit comes, you're gonna receive power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth.

Okay?

And then he descends.

They're like, Lord, wait, are you gonna set up your kingdom now?

Are you gonna, you know, make Israel this prominent nation on the earth again politically?

And, you know, and so they were kind of misdirected.

He says, No, no, no, no, just go wait in Jerusalem.

And so now he's ascended to the heavens.

The angels said, Hey, you heard him, go back to Jerusalem, and now they've all gone back to Jerusalem.

And so what I see in this section is um between this point and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, there's about a 10-day period here.

And so probably what happened is that they started migrating to Jerusalem from wherever they were, right?

So they were um probably over this 10-day period, you know, some of them arrived and others, and they're all gathering, probably, it's we don't know for sure, but maybe in the same place where they had the Passover meal with Jesus, the Last Supper.

And so they are meeting together in one place, but I wanted to pay attention to who it describes here.

Who does it mention?

Part of the disciples and his mother.

It mentions all eleven apostles by name.

Okay, and so these are his original apostles, minus Judas, who is now deceased.

Okay.

Um it's funny that there was a couple of Simons, there's a couple of Judas's, there's a couple of Jameses.

It's actually easy to memorize the names of the disciples because they're doubled up.

So a lot of them are doubled up.

Anyway, so and his brothers.

Yeah, right, and his brothers.

And who else?

In some cases, it's not the women who followed him?

Yeah.

Mary's there.

And women.

So that would have been probably Mary Magdalene, you know?

So these were the people who had been following him.

These were the people who were a part of his ministry.

Okay, so these were people that he knew intimately, people that knew him intimately, that had been with him as he did his miracles, people that were with him as he healed, as he laid hands, as he preached, as he taught, the Beatitudes, you know.

These were the people that were with him.

And even his own mother and his brothers.

Now, the brothers of Jesus didn't believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry.

And so it was the resurrection of Jesus that must have brought them, right?

And so these are the people that are waiting.

Um I don't know why that stands out to me, but I just think it just adds a little dimension because you just think, oh, okay, some believers are waiting.

No, no, no, no.

These are the ones we read about in the in the Gospels.

I mean, these are those people, okay?

Those same people all go to Jerusalem.

Those same people are all waiting in the room.

And then I'm assuming that over the next few days, more and more were arriving.

And so everyone who is a genuine believer, a disciple of Jesus, begins to congregate in Jerusalem.

Okay, and so they come together and they're obeying, they're waiting.

And it says they were devoting themselves, where does it say it?

They with one accord devoting themselves to prayer, okay, together with all of them.

So men, women, everybody's all together, they're devoting themselves to prayer and they're being obedient to Jesus.

And in verse 15 it says, In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers.

The company of the persons was in all about 120, and said, Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.

Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.

And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language a keldama, that is, field of blood.

For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office.

So let me see here.

And I like how in the ESV it actually says this the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David.

So the Holy Spirit spoke by the mouth of David.

And so, you know, sometimes you read the Bible and we think, oh, David wrote that, or Solomon wrote that, you know, but really the Holy Spirit wrote that.

And he did it by the mouth of his person that he used to write whatever part that was, right?

Right now we're reading a book that was written by um the physician Luke, who also uh the Holy Spirit wrote this, okay.

Now Peter says the scripture had to be fulfilled, and then he writes he points back to the to the writings of David.

And so this is two Psalms that he's quoting right here, and I'm not gonna go back and read them right now.

But Psalm 69, 25 and Psalm 109.8, you can go and and and read those.

But what's Peter is saying right here, the scripture had to be fulfilled, okay?

And he's saying, um his camp become desolate, let there be no one to dwell in it, let another take his office.

He's saying, look, the Holy Spirit by David prophesied that Judas was going to betray Christ, you know, a thousand years before it ever took place.

And so he's saying the scripture was fulfilled.

When Judas betrayed Jesus, that wasn't a surprise to Jesus.

When Judas just betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees, that wasn't a surprise to God.

That God always knew that that was going to happen.

He wasn't caught off guard by it.

He didn't have to shift gears and somehow in the moment redeem it all for his purposes.

It wasn't a last-minute Hail Mary, like the movie we just watched, okay?

And so what he's saying is it was always the plan of God that Judas would betray Jesus.

So does that mean Judas is not guilty of what he did?

Judas is not guilty.

I mean, yeah, so you're saying what you're saying, it doesn't sound right that Judas wouldn't be guilty.

That's what you're saying.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

That he should still be responsible.

Work that out a little bit though.

You know.

Right.

God knew, right, that Judas was gonna be doing this, even though Judas didn't even know.

I'm sure Judas didn't know, you know, when he first became part of the group.

And I mean it's interesting that at the Last Supper, Jesus said, one of you is gonna betray me, and they were all asking him, Is it me, Lord?

You know, it's like they're heart.

Yeah.

But when you do this with Judas, it's hard because then you gotta see that all the things that you have gone through God has already ordained to.

That's good.

I mean, that's see, that's deep.

You have to live with the fact that God knew this was gonna happen to you, and he let it happen.

So God allowed, he knew Judas was going to go to the chief priests and betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and he allowed it to happen.

Not only did God the Father allow it to happen, but Jesus also allowed it to happen, didn't he?

Because they said, Which one of you, you know, which one of us is it, Lord?

Is it me?

Is it me?

Is it me?

I feel like that's what it's been me, is it me, Lord?

Like, you know, but he said, the one that I give the piece of bread to, or the one who dips his, you know, with the bowl with me.

And then when he had given him the piece of bread, he said, What you do, do quickly.

He knew what he was going to do, and he basically released him to do it.

The one who, when the crowds came to throw him off the cliff, he just walked through the midst of them.

When he claimed to be God in the temple, which I think is in John chapter 10, they tried to lay hands on him and he just walked away.

John 10 · chapter mention

You know, you don't think he could have called the angels down upon Judas and stopped it?

So God knew that Judas was going to do that.

And he let him do it.

But Judas is still responsible, isn't he?

God doesn't want a puppet.

He doesn't want a puppet, that's good.

Yeah?

God doesn't want a puppet.

Okay.

He had his own free will.

You know, had he done that, perhaps God would have chosen someone else, you know, or I don't know, you would have.

And yet God knows the end from the beginning.

One thing about the eternality of God is that you know, um, we can only think of existence, of being, in terms of time.

We can't think outside of that.

We think linearly.

That the past is gone, the future is not yet, we only have this moment.

Oh, that's gone, now we're in the next one.

And we can only think that way.

And yet God invented time.

Time was not a thing before Genesis 1.

You know, Jesus and the Father, Son, and Spirit, they they are eternal.

They're self-existent.

They they don't need anything.

God needs nothing outside of himself for his own existence.

He doesn't need anything else to exist, and that's the nature of him.

And he created time itself.

And so God is present with us right this moment.

Where two or more gather in my name, I'll be there in the midst of them.

Okay?

God is right now eternally present with Adam in the garden.

He's right now eternally present with the finished glory in the final kingdom.

He knows the end from the beginning.

He knows what's going to come to pass.

And what's amazing about God is that God incorporates even our wrong choices into his eternal plan.

He took the choices of Judas and He incorporated those choices into his eternal plan for the redemption of humanity.

You know?

And yet Judas is not off the hook.

He can't be like, hey, because of what I did, all humanity can now come to Christ and be saved, right?

Hey, you gotta give me a break, Lord.

No, because why did Judas do it?

Selfish motives, selfish.

Yeah, what was his motivation for betraying Jesus?

To make Jesus make the kingdom come.

Well, was Judas's that was Judas's motivation?

What was Judas's motivation for money?

Make him special.

Money.

Money.

Judas wanted money.

Did Judas ever change his mind?

Judas did not ask for forgiveness.

Judas felt guilty about what he did.

Okay.

In Matthew, says he went to the chief priests and said, I've done wrong.

I betrayed innocent blood.

And they said, What is that to us?

You know, we already paid you.

And so he cast the silver pieces before them and ran out and he hanged himself.

He died in his sin.

Now you had Peter that also denied him three times.

And yet he had that moment with Jesus on the shore of Galilee.

Peter, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, I love you.

Peter, do you love me?

Lord, you know that I love you.

Peter, do you love me?

Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you.

Feed my sheep.

He was restored.

And so God uses even our sin.

Although he doesn't ordain it, although he doesn't cause it.

He's not the author of it.

And yet, even it's like, you know, I look back on my life, even the dumb things that I've done in my life, the bad mistakes I've made in my life, God has used them, sometimes in the pain that they caused me, to form me.

You know, to make me a useful tool in his hand.

And without those things, I wouldn't be who I am.

And so the reflection on this section is really this: do I trust that God is in control even when people act wrongly?

It's one thing to look back on the past and see the providence of God, right?

But in the moment, as we live our lives day to day, do we trust that God is in control?

Do we transfer this understanding of God's providence and his care over the affairs of people and men and the humanity itself?

Do we trust him that he's in control even when people do wrong?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's easy to just lose track of it.

And then our anxiety increases.

Why?

Why does our anxiety go up when things go wrong?

Yeah.

We start focusing on our ability to fix it, don't we?

Do I believe God can work through even broken situations?

That's all he has to work with.

Yeah.

Amen.

Yeah, it's it's you know, I've been through painful things in my life.

I've been through deep, dark valleys and very painful seasons, and I wouldn't have chosen them.

For sure.

And sometimes you're going through those times and you're just like, I like, how do I even take my next breath?

You know?

How do I do this?

Like, I can't do this.

I can't even imagine my life going this way.

You know, that something's gotta it's gotta change, it's gotta be fixed, you know, and and yet he says, My grace is sufficient for you.

Sometimes I think it's funny because people will look at your life and they'll say, I can't imagine.

How are you so strong?

How do you go through something like that?

You know, I wouldn't have the strength.

Well, you don't have the strength because you're not going through it.

But when you walk through it, he gives you the strength, doesn't he?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Give us today our daily bread.

I agree with that.

I don't agree with that.

Oh, okay.

That's okay.

It's hard for us sometimes to wrap our mind about around the bigger picture, you know.

It's in what we know.

This is what we know, this life.

You know, getting a job and doing good for yourself and trying to, you know, put a roof over your kids' heads and trying to raise them right, and you know, then maybe eventually someday give them some grandkids, and then you get some grandkids, and you're trying to, you know.

And then they're all going through things, and you're, you know, and so it's like our awareness is of this life, and yet God is always looking at the bigger picture.

Yeah.

Amen.

Yeah, we think Avery might have had a twin.

You know, and you think, well, I'm gonna meet him or her, you know, I'm gonna meet him.

He, but he's always focused on the greater picture.

What is best for Liana in light of eternity, not in this moment or this particular situation.

And sometimes what's best for me is not to win the lotto, you know?

And just buy a ticket.

Yeah, that's the thing.

I would have to buy a ticket in order to actually win anyway, but but the point is that just pure blessing all the time is not always what's best for us.

Any more than pure sugar is best for our kids or grandkids.

Only God, Lynn.

God is great, Surya.

For participating in the conversation, I love it.

Yeah, and it's sort of like you don't know what hot is until you felt cold, right?

Or until you touched the curling iron.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you've been to hell and back?

I have not been to actual hell, but sometimes it felt pretty hard.

In life, yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you don't know how good you have it until you've been through the valley, you know?

And you get you've been in the valley and then you get to the mountaintop and you went, you go, wow, only God.

So the the bigger picture here is that evil never outmaneuvers God.

It is always under his authority.

When something comes to pass, it is true that God allows it.

Because that's the only way it could come to pass.

He does not remove our ability to choose to do good or evil.

We can do either.

Any moment of any day, we can choose good or evil.

The thing that God changes in his own children is our inclination of our heart, that we would even choose good.

Because without his intervention, we would never choose good.

Verse 21 says, So one of the men who have accompanied us.

So what Peter has said, we went long on that, but what Peter has said is that someone needs to take the place of Judas.

Because he said David, by the Holy Spirit, prophesied that another should take his office.

And so we want to fulfill that, and so we're going to find another one.

And he gives us the qualifications.

He says, So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias.

And they prayed and said, You Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.

And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven.

And so basically what they did is they looked at all the people who were there, and they said, Who has been with us, present with Jesus from the very beginning, from the baptism of John, who was there to witness his ascent, his resurrection, and his ascension, okay, and also chosen and affirmed.

And so the because Jesus had ascended, the way that they they found two that met those qualifications, okay?

And then they basically left it to the providence of God.

And so they had back then, they would use the erm and the thummon.

And it was just basically sort of like dice, right?

And so they would just say, which way do you want to go, Lord?

And then they would do it, and they would just trust in the providence of God that it's going to fall on whatever God willed.

And that's how they did it back then before the Holy Spirit came.

Okay?

So they just You don't ever hear them doing this again after the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost.

Okay.

Um, I also want to mention, too, this was the last section I forgot to mention earlier, this is the last place in the Bible where we see a mention of the Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And so we don't know how old she was at this point, but you don't hear about her again after this.

And so they put forward two, okay, um, Matthias and Justice, okay?

And so they had to be one, present with Jesus from the beginning.

So from John's baptism through his ministry, through the ascension, they had to be eyewitnesses of his resurrection.

Okay, there was a period of 40 days when Jesus was appearing to his disciples, making himself known to them, letting them see that he was alive, and not just as a spirit, but at a physical body.

He ate fish with some of them.

Thomas, he said, here, put your hand in the hole, you know, put your fingers in the holes of my hand and in my side.

He was showing them, I'm physically resurrected, I'm here.

Okay.

Um, and they had to be chosen and affirmed for the role by Jesus himself.

Okay.

And so I put down here why this matters, that the apostles were uniquely appointed to testify about Jesus, and their role was foundational for the church.

And so the role of the apostles that was unique to their time was that they were given authority by Jesus, just as when he sent them out to lay hands and heal and to proclaim the coming of the kingdom, okay, they were given authority by Jesus basically to speak with his authority.

And so this is the New Testament.

These are the ones who wrote the New Testament.

Okay, and so what this means for us today is the foundation of the church has already been laid.

We have the New Testament, we have the canon.

This is the revelation of the apostles.

So when we read on Sunday that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, this is the apostles' teaching.

Okay, and so what this means is that God has already spoken through those apostles.

This is why there can be no new revelation today, not to the same level as the scriptures.

So where, you know, the Catholics might say, well, when the Pope is seated upon, you know, that, forgot what it's called, but that seat where he sits upon and makes a judgment or a ruling from that seat, that he basically speaks with the authority of the apostles, that he it's on a level with this.

Well, that's not the case.

He's not a witness of the life of Jesus.

He was not with him from the beginning.

He's not an eyewitness of his resurrection, and there's no more apostles left on earth today to affirm his apostleship.

Okay?

What this means for us is the message that we have in Scripture is sufficient and it's complete.

Okay, and so when someone stands up and says, Thus says the Lord, and it contradicts this, it is not from the Lord.

Okay?

This is the problem with LDS, Latter-day Saints.

This is the problem with the Book of Mormon.

Okay, this new revelation by the angel.

What's the problem?

The problem is that it's a different revelation.

That there's some new revelation, supposedly, that came through the angel Moroni, and he found some plates on the ground and some mystical spectacles that he was able to translate a language that actually doesn't exist into English so that it could be read and understood.

But the revelation contradicts this.

So therefore, it is not from God.

This is the problem with Islam and the revelation from the angel to the prophet Muhammad is that his revelation contradicts what's in the New Testament.

This is the problem with Shenshanji, which is a Korean cult in South Korea, that their revelation contradicts what's in the New Testament.

There can be no new revelation because there are no apostles in the same sense as these original apostles.

Now, the word apostle just means one who is sent.

And so, in that sense, we're all ambassadors for Christ.

Okay, we're ambassadors for God in Christ Jesus.

We're sent to the world with the message.

But we are not sent with the authority of these apostles that Jesus personally commissioned.

Okay?

I'm sorry I'm belaboring that point.

Now, what that does is it leaves the question of Paul the Apostle.

Because Paul did not follow Jesus during his earthly ministry.

Yeah.

Okay.

Paul was an eyewitness of Jesus' resurrection, though.

Jesus did appear to him, resurrected.

It was after the ascension, but he did appear to him.

But the difference between Paul and like someone today that stands up and says, I'm an apostle, is that Paul went to Jerusalem and was affirmed as an apostle by the actual apostles.

By the apostles, okay.

Right.

Okay?

We can't do that because they're dead.

Okay.

Okay, and so moving on, we'll wrap it up here.

But um bringing it all together, before the church moves forward in Acts 2 with Pentecost and the Spirit coming, um the right people are gathered, the scripture is understood, sin is accounted for, leadership is established.

And so basically, what they're doing in Acts 1 is they're positioning themselves in obedience to Jesus and awaiting the coming of the Spirit.

It's sort of like what we talked about when I was coming here was let's just prepare ourselves with the empty cup and let the Lord fill it.

Right?

We want empty jars, he's gonna pour in the oil.

We're gonna prepare the jars, he's gonna pour in the oil.

That's that's what that's what they're doing.

They're saying, we're gonna just be pure vessels waiting for you, prepared for you, in obedience to you, and Lord, just come.

And the Holy Spirit came.

Final truth, God is faithful to complete what he begins.

Okay?

Um, Philippians, he says, I'm faith, I'm confident of this, that the good work he began in you, he will also complete it under the day of Christ Jesus.

Do I trust God with the details of my life?

Yes.

Amen, Lynn.

Amen, Saria.

Do I trust him with the details of my life?

Do I believe that he's working even when I can't see it?

There's a Jeremy Riddle song.

I will walk by faith even when I cannot see.

Am I resting in what he has already revealed in his word?

Am I praying and hoping for some new thing?

Lord, speak to me, speak to me, show me the way, show me what it is, but I'm never cracking open his revelation to us.

This is his word.

The same God who is at work in these moments that we just read in this passage is also still at work in your life today, right in this moment.

He is not only able to begin a good work in you, he's faithful to bring it to completion.

Anyone have anything to add as we close?

You were talking about the Mormons uh back in the mid-70s.

Um, I had a detailed argument in Utah and Michelle with me because we were there for like a month.

You know, of course, that's all Mormon.

Yes.

You know, you go around and other things and you know they're nice.

The people very nice people.

Okay, and uh in general.

We were thinking, that might sound pretty good, you know.

And uh when we got back home two weeks later we had these Mormon missionaries come to our house.

Okay.

But then when I found out that the reason they want us into them is because Aunt Susie was not saved.

So they want my soul to save Aunt Susie.

Oh nobody's gonna get my soul.

Wow.

Yeah, that's the reason they come around to try to get people.

So they've got family trees.

They've got to do their research and they gotta find out if Aunt Susie was saved.

If she wasn't, they want Marie.

So they got Aunt Susie saved.

Wow.

Wow.

I don't have to worry about it.

Some of my family's Mormon.

Yeah, you know, and I'll tell you this some of the friends of mine that I know that are Mormon, and some that are Jehovah's Witnesses, um, are some of the sweetest, kindest, nicest people I've ever met.

Oh, Mormons are wonderful.

But the theology of uh, you know, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the theology is heretical.

Um, they don't worship the true Jesus.

Um sorry to say it, but it's it's absolutely heretical.

So that's why we don't follow their theology.

That's why we don't read their books, because their books contradict the actual revelation given to us through the by the Holy Spirit through the apostles right here in this word.

So yeah, the Lord is in control.

He's given us his word.

He knows what he's doing.

We can trust him even when we can't see it in our own life.

Father, we thank you that you are in control in every moment of every day through all of the ups and downs and trials of our lives.

We thank you in sickness and in health.

We thank you, Lord, when we feel blessed and when we feel in need.

God, I pray that you would just give us hearts that desire the things that you desire.

That you would give us hearts that love you and desire time with you, desire your word, desire your will, desire your purposes.

Help us, Lord, to desire to grow and to become the people you've called us to be.

No matter what age we are, I pray that you would continue to just move us forward, to sanctify us, and to help us to become more and more and more effective for your purposes and for your kingdom and for your glory.

Help us to become sensitive people, Lord, who don't just speak but also listen.

And when you speak, help us to hear your voice.

Lord, we we love you.

Thank you for your presence with us this week.

Thank you for your presence with our loved ones.

We pray for a movement of your Holy Spirit upon our church, upon our families, upon our children and grandchildren, in our neighborhoods and schools.

Here we are, Lord.

Send us.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

God bless you, Lynn.

Thank you for hanging in there for the Bible study.

Evangelist Saria, thank you for joining us, for hanging in there with us.

Thank you, Rob, for being here.

For Chris, Bettencourt, thank Betenkirr, thank you, uh Jennifer, for being here.

Um, and all you, Vicky, thank you, Diane, for popping in.

We're about to end right now, but um thank you all who joined us online, and um we'll be uh back again live on Sunday morning.

Um we're gonna be in Acts chapter 2, and we're gonna be in verses 42 to 47 on Sunday.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So read those verses, be ready, um, because we're gonna go deep in them and it's gonna be good.

So, anyway, love you guys, God bless you, and we'll see you soon.