Acts 1:1-11 | To Be Continued

Church, great to be in the Lord's house with you.

Would you bow your heads with me as we pray out of Psalm 67?

Father, would you be gracious to us as your people and bless us and make your face shine upon us so that we may be your witnesses, that your way may be known on earth, and your saving power among all nations through this body.

Lord, would you inspire our hearts to beat with passion that all the peoples would praise you, that the nations would be glad and sing for joy, and that our work is not done merely when we are believers, but when the gospel has reached to the ends of the earth.

To that end, Father, would you by your spirit bless the proclamation of the ministry of Christ in the book of Acts to the benefit of these souls, the good of your body, and the glory of your name.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said.

Amen.

Let me encourage you to stay standing for the reading of God's word as we come to the beginning of Acts.

Are we excited or what?

Acts chapter 1, beginning in verse 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

If you don't have Bibles, they're on the uh, I call them ledges.

I don't know.

They're on the ledges on the sides of the worship center.

They're free, though.

So if you want one, you need one, we would love to give you one.

Acts chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, reading down to verse 11.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now.

So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

And he said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

When he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took them out of their sight.

And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

We look forward to that day, amen.

This is the word of the living God.

May the Lord write these eternal truths on your hearts, and with that, you can be seated.

Church, good morning.

What a blessing to be in the book of Acts.

And so it begins.

I'm fired up.

I think some of you are fired up.

I know some of us have been waiting for a long time, and our journey has begun.

And so if you get your you how many get a new notebook for this series?

Is that what you do?

Yeah.

Holler.

I hear you.

I feel that.

Receive that.

That's awesome.

Let's get after it.

The book of Acts, perfect title for the first message to be continued.

To be continued.

Now, for those of you who have only ever lived off binge watching TV through streaming services, you are not gonna understand my introduction.

Because it's going to require a little bit of knowledge back to the time where some of you can remember watching TV and then having to wait an entire week to see the next episode.

And I remember this in particular with 24.

I just thought that show was awesome.

And it left me on the edge of my seat, and I had to wait an entire week to watch the next episode.

Something nobody has to do today, right?

You just wait till it all comes out and then you binge watch like crazy.

But if you can remember back to like, I don't know, the early 2000s when you used to just anticipate and expect, like, what's gonna happen?

I don't know what's going on next, but I'm so excited, and you think about it maybe too much.

That's sort of the idea of what's going on here as we think about this next volume that Luke has written.

The excitement of a risen Savior, the expectation of the promises Jesus has made, they're on the edge of their seat going, man, I cannot wait.

And of course, they're waiting for what?

They're waiting for the promised Holy Spirit to come.

And that's about, well, from the ascension to the Spirit coming, it's about 10 days, right?

So it's about as long as you had to wait to watch a show.

Way less cool watching a show than it is to anticipate the coming of the Holy Spirit.

But here we are picking up where Luke left off.

And to give you a sense for what's going on, we're in the closing hours of the earthly ministry, and that's key.

Earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus.

We're in the 40 days between Christ's resurrection, praise God, and Christ's ascension.

Now it's important to see Luke and Acts as a single continuous work, which by the way takes up approximately one quarter of the New Testament.

So in our study of Luke and Acts, we will cover approximately one quarter of the New Testament, guys.

And this single continuous work, we often get the idea that, okay, Luke is about the ministry of Jesus, and then Acts is about the ministry of the church, and I gotta change your thinking on this, all right?

Because that's not what Luke has in mind for us.

The contrast that Luke wants to draw between volumes one and volume two, right, Luke and Acts, is not so much between what Christ does and then what the church does, but rather between two stages of the ministry of the same Jesus Christ.

One, a ministry on earth that he has fulfilled now in his resurrection and will be consummated in his ascension, and then at the ascension begins Christ's ministry from heaven as the ruling, reigning king.

So this idea that like Jesus died and he rose for our salvation and the ascended of the Father, and that is the end, and now he's retired, and he's just sitting up on that stool, that throne, whatever it is, and that's the end of it.

That's not the story.

The transition from Christ's earthly ministry to Christ's heavenly ministry is like taking it up a notch.

It's like high octane ministry as the risen, reigning, ascended Lord.

And as such, I think the titles of the book of Acts, like Acts of the Apostles, is not quite the best title.

Or something like Acts of the Holy Spirit, has also been called that.

I think it's better to say Acts of the Reigning Christ in his exalted ministry from heaven by his spirit through his apostles.

That's what's going on.

I like what John Stott said, he gave his own run at it.

The continuing words and deeds of Jesus by his spirit through the apostles.

And so what you see in Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 11 is this.

Acts 1:1–11

This is the big idea.

The conclusion of Christ's earthly ministry marks the inauguration of his heavenly ministry.

That's how you need to see it.

And this was so tough for the disciples to get, right?

Jesus, don't leave.

We got a good thing going.

And Jesus has been telling them the whole time listen, the earthly ministry has been great, and you needed it for your salvation to be secured.

But man, we're kicking it into a hole.

What's the Emerald Lagossi line?

We're kicking this up a notch.

Right?

That's what Christ does from heaven.

The conclusion of Christ's earthly ministry marks the inauguration of his heavenly ministry.

Now, the cool thing about it is as he kicks his ministry up a notch, he uses his servants to accomplish that work, to display his power.

So all of a sudden, we, by extension of this same mission, have a responsibility that the book of Acts is going to bear its weight on your lives as those who will carry on the work that was established in the book of Acts.

And so what I see in this text is a fourfold preparation for the continuation of Christ's ministry.

Here's what you need to be a prepared participant.

You go, if I'm a Christian, then I need to be prepared.

I need to be prepared to engage in this mission that Christ is still accomplishing by his spirit through his apostles.

Now I'm not saying we're apostles.

I'm saying that same work in a secondary sense has been entrusted to us, and so we need to get on our horses as we look at this text and not merely appreciate what has been written, but understand how God, through his son Jesus, prepared the servants of Christ's mission.

Fourfold preparation for the continuation of Christ's heavenly ministry.

Number one, here's what you need.

You need certainty from a proven faith.

If you are going to be effective in your workplace, if you are going to be effective in your evangelism, you have to have a certainty that you walk with of a proven faith.

Here's how Luke opens.

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, referring to the ascension, after he'd given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

Now listen to this.

So here you have Luke, who is a, he's our physician historian.

You remember this?

We love Luke because Luke's not one of those guys that you can put that modern chronological snobbery on him and go, he's dumb, he believes stupid things, he believed in the supernatural, and people believe more of that dumb stuff.

No, no, no, no.

He was a physician, he was a journalist, he was an investigative reporter, he was a historian.

And here's what he's doing for us he's presenting Christianity as an as a historical faith and makes no apologies about that to anybody.

Because Jesus Christ appeared to them after his suffering by many proofs.

One of the keys that Jesus made sure his apostles were sent out as is that they had to be eyewitnesses of the resurrection.

They had to be eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus Christ.

This was essential.

In fact, this is why we don't have apostles today, because no one can claim that part of the puzzle, right?

Of what it takes to be an apostle.

You must be a eyewitness of the resurrection.

Why?

Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof of everything else that needs proving in Christianity.

Period.

If you can prove that the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened, and what better way to prove that, by the way, than having eyewitnesses?

Like I don't know about you, but I still listen to law and crime, like sometimes on long drives.

And what I find about all the evidence and all the complaints, oh, this is circumstantial and this doesn't really prove bad, and you can't really prove that he committed that crime and whatever else, here's what I know.

When you have a bunch of eyewitnesses, that's the best evidence.

Now it's one thing, right, when you have one eyewitness, because then some lawyer can come in there and be like, oh, that guy, I mean, he's he's crazy and he thinks this.

And did you see that social media post he made?

You can't believe him, right?

But if you have hundreds upon hundreds, upon hundreds of people who go, I saw him.

I ate with him.

I put my hands in his wounds.

Like I witnessed him.

He taught me.

We we sat together and visited.

He met me on the road.

I I hundreds of people, so many proofs.

The idea here is it's unbelievably convincing, convincing proofs, decisive proofs over a period of 40 days.

So it's one of those things where you're like, hey, you know what?

You must have been hallucinating.

Here's the thing: you don't have community hallucinations.

That's not how it works.

Like, no way, did we hallucinate the same thing?

40 days straight.

One of the things we've got to do, man, and we gotta take this back as we evangelize.

Don't stand on the back foot when an unbeliever presses you about the certainty of your faith.

Don't let them rob you of the word of God.

You know what happens a lot of times in unbelieving conversations?

They want to pull you out of the word and go, well, that's the Bible, and automatically assume it's somehow biased in some way, where you then immediately go, okay, what does Josh McDowell tell me I need to say right now?

Now I'm super thankful for Josh McDowell and evidence that demands a verdict and all these kind of things, but let's also be reminded of the fact that God gave us his word as a testimony of eyewitnesses to tell us exactly what he wanted us to know.

We need to be unapologetically standing firm on, because here's the thing, they take that from us, by what authority do they get to take that from us and say that the accounts of scripture are made up?

You know, one of the things I saw years ago was this idea that came out of like skepticism, and it was the quest for the historical Jesus.

And the whole premise of the quest for the historical Jesus, and you probably see this in like history channel documentaries, and is this idea of like, well, the stuff you get in the gospel accounts, not all of that is true of the historical Jesus.

Because he got Christians, you know, and and they there's a crit there's a Christ of faith that's different than the historical Jesus.

The Christ of faith is the is the Jesus that gullible Christians with their mushy-ooey-gooeiness and big ideas of what God is like puts these things upon Jesus.

And so we have to establish this criteria of authenticity and then run Jesus' every move in the gospels through that to determine whether or not it's actually historical.

And see, the problem when you do that is Jesus, lo and behold, becomes exactly like the scholar with his slanted skepticism.

You get the preconceived beliefs of the person informed by a criteria of authenticity that sits over Scripture to tell you whether or not what happened as according to the eyewitnesses really took place.

This is where we are in the world.

And Luke wants us to get back to this idea that Christianity is unapologetically historical, that there is no distinction between the historical Jesus and the Jesus Christ of faith.

Let me put it like this: you need to have the certainty.

Your object of faith, a Christian, is a historical person.

We believe in a Jesus Christ who really lived, who really was crucified on a cross, who really suffered and died, who was really buried in a garden tomb, who really rose bodily, physically from the dead.

Listen, we've read Luke 16 already.

If unbelievers won't receive the testimony of the word, don't believe they're gonna receive it any other way.

Stand with certainty on the faith that you have.

It is a proven faith with a litany of eyewitnesses, and you go beyond against your better judgment to say, let's kick out all of the eyewitnesses of Scripture to talk about whether or not Jesus actually is and did what he said he did.

The first thing Luke gets us going with is that you need a certainty from a proven faith.

Can you see how that would matter in your life?

Can you see how you'd walk with a certain swagger?

Can you see why you would be stunted in your evangelism if you didn't actually have the confidence that you could stand on the word of God?

Stop letting them rob you of your confidence.

Stand firmly unapologetically on the word of God and let it fly.

Second thing, fourfold preparation for our part in the continued work of Jesus Christ from heaven.

What a privilege that we get to be a part of this work, amen.

What an awe.

I wouldn't use me.

I wouldn't use you guys.

You know, I'd find a better way to do it.

But God's like, I can display my power through the brokenness of people who at best are crooked sticks, who, by the way, aren't massively motivated to go out in the world and be bold, right?

Every once in a while we do it, and then we get scared again, and we got to be pushed out again, and so on and so forth.

Well, one of the ways that we can grow in our preparation for our part is confidence that comes from preparation and promised power.

Now, check this out.

During the 40 days, so we're in the 40 days again between the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and Jesus seems to have had two main conversations.

It's just fascinating.

Two main conversations taking place in that 40-day window over two subjects, primarily the kingdom of God and the Spirit of God.

And let me just tell you something.

They're related.

The kingdom of God and the Spirit of God related to each other.

And he seems to have been laying this down such that we read in verse 3 that he was speaking to them about the kingdom of God.

This is where I get the preparation piece.

Jesus seems to be informing them about the kingdom of God.

Now, I know it's been a while, and I know Luke was like two and a half years, but let me just remind you that if you're like, I don't know anything about the kingdom of God, uh, Jesus littered the book of Luke about the kingdom of God.

Right?

That's just our brains not doing what they should be doing and retaining what we want them to retain.

But let me just give you a run through.

I couldn't even grab all the passages, it was so many.

But if you're like, oh I'm just curious, what did Luke say?

Or what did Jesus say in Luke about the kingdom of God?

Well, you could find references in Luke 4, Luke 5, Luke 7, Luke 9, Luke 10, Luke 11, Luke 12, Luke 13, Luke 14, Luke 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, and 23.

You can make an argument for 24, and really the chapters I didn't say, so just read the book.

And I think it's important that we do.

Because I think it's important that we have a kind of preparation to our Christianity.

What are you growing in?

How are you able to articulate the gospel?

What kind of level of apologetics do you have in your back pocket?

What ways do you develop how to talk to somebody?

Right?

There are so many conversations that I've had, especially with dudes, and uh they'll be like, I don't know what it is, man, I just can't I can't memorize scripture.

I can't just can't do it.

Man, I remember, yeah, I read that apologetics, but man, I can't get that into my brain.

And then you go to a fantasy football draft day.

It's ridiculous.

It's like you know every player on every team down to the third string running back on the Baltimore Ravens.

That's insane.

Spare me the wimpy excuse, men, that you can't memorize scripture, you can't memorize certain arguments, you can't study the kingdom of God and be able to articulate it.

Here's the thing you prepare for what you care about.

And preparation is what you put your heart and soul into.

So spare me the weak accountability in a small group where men commiserate with each other.

Gag me.

Time for someone to look you in the face and say, You can do it with football.

Step up, man.

You can do it with the word of God.

You can do it with an argument.

You can sit under the teaching of Jesus Christ.

You can put together everything about the kingdom of God from the book of Luke, and you can begin to articulate this.

Men, you should be doing this in family worship.

You have a desire?

Get that right in front of your entire family, and you figure out how.

How to teach it to them.

So another thing about family worship.

Oh, I can't do it.

What are you talking about?

You all have competent jobs.

If your job was on the line, you'd be prepared.

You're telling me you can't sit at your table and lead your family?

Spare me those excuses, right?

You want to learn and grow?

Great.

Do with your family.

You want help?

Great.

We'll get your resources, but no more excuses.

I've seen too many fantasy football drafts, man.

You gotta be prepared.

Confidence comes from being prepared.

Confidence comes from being able to articulate the certainty of a proven faith.

Eyewitness after eyewitness after eyewitness.

You can go to Thomas, you can go to 1 Corinthians 15, you can go to all these different places.

Let me show you.

But the confidence doesn't just come from that.

The confidence also comes from promised power, right?

So it's not just someone who's like, I got it all, I got all the things, I've read Greg Cookel's books, I've read Evidence that demands a verdict, I got all these things dialed in.

It's not just your ability to articulate, to make arguments, to memorize scripture.

It must coincide with the power of the Holy Spirit.

And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

It turns out that the coming of the kingdom is in some sense directly related to the outpouring of the Spirit.

That in the coming of the outpouring of the Spirit, yes, he applies the benefits of salvation to souls, right?

When the gospel's proclaimed, the Spirit's like, BAM, I will take that to human hearts.

But it's not just that, the Spirit clothes us with power so that we by his power go forth in Christ's mission.

That Christ's Spirit, if you will, dwells in Christ's people who go forth with Christ's message.

You think about it like this preparation is key, but at some point you just need to get out there.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like you'll never be Uber extra super duper prepared for every Q and A that could ever come up from any unbeliever.

And by the way, they're not all well intended.

At some point, you have to take a step of faith and do something bold.

At some point, you're gonna have to ask a question if you want to get into a conversation.

At some point, you're gonna have to get out of your comfort zone and trust the power of the Holy Spirit to lead you, right?

Preparation and power, they go together.

This is huge for us guys.

You will never see the power of the Holy Spirit working if you literally never take a step.

So maybe one of the things you have to do is just rehearse in your John Piper had such a good way of doing this.

He called it aptit, which is just an acrostic.

But it's just this framework of how he went into his day.

He would start with, admit you can do nothing apart from him.

A.

Pray for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in your day to live on mission for Jesus.

Trust that he's going to be there.

You're like, well, how do I know?

Like, when does he when does he come on me?

No, no, no.

You go trusting that in praying, God will empower you by his spirit who dwells within you.

And then you act.

You take the step of faith.

And then when you see God show up, because he loves to show up, because he loves faith, the T at the end is you thank God.

This is how we should live.

Preparation.

And then that step of faith, you don't go alone, you go with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus at this point is telling them, wait.

We don't have to wait.

If you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is getting things in order.

What he's trying to tell you is you have all that you need.

We make a lot of excuses.

I cannot even wait to hear the excuses this week.

I can't do this because uh my work's so busy, I can't memorize, my brain doesn't work.

I can't wait for the excuses.

You you can do it.

He's given you the certainty of a proven faith.

He's given you confidence from preparation and promise power.

Like he's sitting down, he's talking to the disciples about these things.

You have the book of Luke.

Read it again, read it again, read it again.

Then this, we see number three, clarity from the Lord's commission.

He gives clarity from the Lord's commission.

We know exactly what he wants us to do.

We know how we ought to think about these things.

So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

What a question.

You know what they got right in that question?

They called Jesus Lord.

That's it.

I love what John Calvin said.

John Calvin said it like this there are as many errors in this question as there are words.

I think that's awesome.

So, for our errors that I'll break it down.

Let me just give you a few errors.

There's an error in the verb, there's an error in the noun, there's an error in the adverb in the question.

And Jesus is gonna break this down, but I'm just gonna show you a couple of these things.

The first misunderstanding is the error in the verb, right?

The word restore is implying they wanted a restoration of something they had seen before.

They wanted Davidic kingdom as they had heard of it, but in a kind of 2.0 sense, established by a kind of political earthly power domination, versus spiritually powered, which is what Jesus is going to answer with in verse 8.

And by the way, when I say spiritually, you know, sometimes spiritual gets robbed of the depth of it.

Just capitalize spirit and then add a dash and then put U-A-L.

We're talking about the Holy Spirit.

All right?

We're not talking about like, oh, it's ethereal and it's not as real, and no, no, no.

Spirit, chew all.

Does that help?

This is what we're talking about.

You look confused.

Am I making sense to you?

Whatever it is that you're thinking, it's the difference between the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit versus physical, earthly, kingly power.

First thing that's off, by the way, Luke addresses that in one of his kingdom articulations in Luke 17.

Second misunderstanding is the noun.

Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

They're assuming a national kingdom for us Jews, right?

This is not um, they may have had the nations in mind, but it was kind of one of those things like they did in the Old Testament where it's like, hey, we're okay.

First of all, we'll let well maybe we'll be good with some Gentiles coming in, but you gotta run our play because it's our kingdom.

You gotta jump through our hoops because God's plan is really about us, and we could maybe squeeze you in if there's an extra table.

They got that wrong too.

They had lived in this mentality that the kingdom of God had a centripetal force bringing people in, sucking you into Israel to participate.

And what they're gonna see is the kingdom of God has a centrifugal force going out into the world.

See, because Jesus Christ is not merely the king of Israel, Jesus Christ is the king of the cosmos, and his kingship will extend as far as his rule extends.

And he's been saying this forever, and conquering death and ascending to the right hand as we will see him do.

All of that is involved.

You have misunderstanding number three, the adverb.

Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

Now, Jesus again had already addressed this in Luke chapter 19, verse 11, right?

Luke 19:11

Of course you know that, because you remember.

What were they assuming?

They were assuming the kingdom's immediate establishment.

They were not assuming a gradual expansion of the kingdom.

But Jesus had already addressed this in Luke 19.

Now, Jesus is gracious, he answers the question, he will restore Israel, but by a means and in a way hard to wrap their minds around.

He said to them, it's not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority.

In other words, what's the first thing he's saying?

The timing isn't for you.

What he's gonna say is, timing isn't for you, that's the secret hidden counsels of God, right?

Certain things belong to the Lord, leave those to the Lord.

Here's what is for you testifying.

That's for you.

Okay?

I got you on the timing question.

He redirects them.

Time is not for you, testifying is for you.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

There's the testifying idea.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Jesus is kind of making a loud statement here.

The kingdom of God would be restored to Israel in the rule of the Messiah from his heavenly throne, realized by the working of the Spirit through the disciples to the ends of the earth.

This is how he will know it.

So, King's power, the Holy Spirit bringing in the king's power all throughout the king's place, right?

So you have the king's power bringing in the king's people all the way across the king's place, which extends to the ends of the earth.

And I love what John Stott says, spread by witnesses, not by soldiers, through a gospel of peace, not a declaration of war.

And by the work of the Spirit, not by force of arms, political intrigue, or revolutionary violence, and quote.

This is different warfare.

But don't get me wrong, it is explosive power.

You will receive power, which is this awesome word.

We get the word dynamite from it.

Actually, interesting story.

Alfred Nobel was the Swedish chemist who invented dynamite.

And when he saw the explosive power of it, he went to a friend who was a Greek scholar and he's like, I need a name for this thing.

You should see this stuff, man.

It is awesome, right?

You always gather guys together when you're like, I invented something that explodes, right?

So he invent, he invites his friends in.

He goes, You're smart, get over here.

Give me a cool word, you know, like doxa for a church, but give me a cool word in Greek for this thing.

And he goes, Well, if you're looking for the word explosive power, it's dunamis or dynamite, and that is exactly the word that's used of the Holy Spirit here.

An explosive power.

An explosive, life-giving power that comes through the proclamation of the truth of the gospel.

Wherein the gospel meets hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, and he regenerates dead, lost sinners, brings life into them, which then is evidenced by the fact that they feel convicted.

You feel convicted about your sins.

You start to agree with God about things you never agreed with God about before.

You start seeing your need for a savior because against the holy standards of God, you fall woefully short.

You begin to see that the only way that you could ever be made right with God is if there was a substitute who did for you what you could not do for yourself.

And you begin to be awakened to the fact that the glory of all of that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who came and lived for you a perfect life, died for you in your place, rose for your salvation, conquering sin and death.

And the work of the Spirit in you, as He's working by the power of the gospel, is to bring you to spiritual life.

And he's still doing it.

And the fact that you're here means, man, some explosive power has taken place.

And you are living it.

And we don't just live it, we testify to it.

And what becomes clear is we are not the apostles, but we are definitely the ones who have inherited the tradition of the apostles.

We are the ones in the line that the Christian story is our story.

And so what Jesus is laying out, and he laid it out in the Great Commission as well, you'll do this to the end of the age because he'll be with you, is to say, our job from Pentecost in Acts 2 to the Perugia, which is the coming of Christ, is to testify to the gospel of Jesus Christ, is to persuade every last person, be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

There is no name under heaven given among men by which you must be safe than Jesus Christ.

And we have to make sure that this work is getting done, not through the church getting bored with the power of the Holy Spirit or the gospel.

We don't need better methods, we don't need better strategies, we don't need better organization, we don't need more money.

But don't take that as you shouldn't give more money.

Because that's exactly- you're like, yeah, that's right, I'll give less.

You we don't give that much as is.

We don't need any of that stuff.

What we need is more dependence on the Holy Spirit.

We need to stop in America doing the Lord's work in man's ways.

This is one of the issues Jesus has with the apostles.

We're not doing God's work in man's ways.

This is not how it's going to get established.

And neither is it now.

We have to be more desperately dependent on the Holy Spirit.

We have to be more dialed in with what the Lord has given us.

The story of missions over time, I love what Adolf Harnack said, the German church historian, he says the greatest impact over the years has been by informal missionaries.

You know what that is?

You guys.

The greatest impact is informal missionaries today.

That's what should be on our hearts and minds.

You are informal missionaries.

You know another thing that I've never heard anyone, you know, people come and they come to Doc Son and they're like, usually they send their wife, she comes by herself.

It's so, I'm like, what is going on?

Where's the husband?

You come first.

You leave the family at home if you're terrified of what's going on here, and then you come up to me like a man and ask me questions.

You'll bring your wife up to do that.

And never mind, that's besides the point, I'm sorry.

But now you know how I feel about that.

Your wife's kind and bold, and you're a wimp.

I don't get that, right?

You come and have the conversation and talk about things, but here's one of the questions I never hear come up.

What are you doing to reach the nations in obedience to the Great Commission?

That has never been a question ever once I've ever been asked as a deal breaker for are you do or don't come to Doxa Church.

That needs to change.

If you leave this church and go somewhere else, one of your top questions you should be asking is, what are you doing to reach the nations for Jesus Christ?

I'm not saying it doesn't come up, I'm saying it's not the main thing.

Usually it's um how what do you do for kids' ministry?

What kind of programs do you have for people?

What's your counseling like?

All those are fine questions.

What you need to add, and maybe even prioritize, is what do you do?

How does your church respond to making disciples of all nations?

How are you responding to Acts 1.8, knowing that this is entrusted to us now as the people of God?

Sadly, it doesn't come up as I hope it would.

But if you're living as informal missionaries and you see your life in your lens through the lens of informal missionary work, it will come up.

Man, I've been hard on the guys today.

But seriously, if you go to a different church and you send your wife to check it out, that's weird, right?

Just nod with me and say, that's weird.

Men, every man should nod in this room.

That's your job.

You move to Tennessee or Texas like everyone's doing, you go check out the church.

I'm serious.

No more of this, right?

Whose job is it?

Your job.

Your job.

Alright, one more thing.

You know my heart.

Love you guys.

Confirmation from the Lord's ascension.

Fourfold preparation.

He finishes with this confirmation of the Lord's ascension.

The idea is before the Spirit could come, the Son must go.

Jesus has been saying that throughout.

And we've had Luke give us really, Luke's unique, and he's the only author to offer really an actual account of the ascension.

And he gives us two.

He gives us one at the end of Luke and one at the beginning of Acts.

And again, his emphasis is the presence of eyewitnesses to seeing the risen, ascended Jesus.

What they saw with their own eyes comes up five times in these verses.

Luke is trying to tell you people were there who saw it.

Not one, not two, multiple.

And when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up.

And a cloud took him out of their sight.

And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

One of the things you get from this text is you get the sense the apostles just froze here watching Jesus ascend.

I have this very vivid memory.

God bless you.

Getting dropped off at UCLA for my first year in college.

I was the oldest of four.

I had all I had a lot of younger, like one-year younger friends.

And I'm going from a smaller-ish community to a massive school.

And I remember getting checked into the fourth floor of Dykstra Hall and looking out the window at the my mom's suburban driving around the corner and leaving.

I'll just be honest, I froze for a second.

Like, what has actually happened?

And there were two questions.

There were two things I could do in that moment.

One, I could just sit there frozen.

Or two, I could acknowledge life had changed in a substantial way and it was time to get after it.

The most significant part of this, these last few verses, is that the angels are there to say, let's get on with it.

Don't just stare.

Do something.

This is one of those ways you could talk about being so heavenly minded you're no earthly good.

If you're just stuck hoping that this is not what you think it is, that you're hoping Jesus will have some more of these resurrection appearances, that this is not him actually leaving and going to be with the Father.

He encouraged the angels, encouraged them.

Listen, Jesus will come again in the same way.

Now it's not gonna be in the exact same way.

He's meaning in a visible and glorious way, but of course there will be differences like when he comes again, it's not gonna be a private viewing party.

Correct?

So it's not the exact same.

Let's just understand it's gonna be visible and it's gonna be glorious, but staring won't bring him back any sooner.

So what you need to do is get after it.

Get on with your witness, tell people about the good news of the gospel.

Why?

Because when Jesus Christ returns, he will return to judge the living and the dead.

We cannot forget the judgment element of this.

When Jesus returns, he returns as the risen, reigning, ascended king, and you need to be saved from him.

Psalm 75 says it quite well.

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

The only escape from the wrath to come from a Jesus whose returning is to be saved by Jesus through trusting in Jesus, his person, his work, his life, his death, and his resurrection, because he's the reigning king and he's coming again.

So take heart and take part in the mission the Lord has entrusted to his people.

Let's pray.

Father, make us what we are not.

Strengthen us by your spirit.

Help us not to do your work in our way.

Help us to do your work in your way.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.