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Take your Bibles, if you would,
and turn to Acts chapter one, please. Acts chapter one. Acts one. Calvary Baptist Academy, thank
you all for being here with us and singing for us. That was
a blessing to us. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones tells
of a story of a Welsh preacher who went to a small town to preach
at a convention. And at this town, they had all assembled together
in a room, and they were waiting for this preacher to arrive.
Several minutes went by, and several more minutes went by,
and still he had not arrived. And so he, they sent, the leaders
of that assembly sent a maid, this is in London area, a maid
to let him know that it was time
for the service. She went and as she approached
the room in which he was staying, she heard him talking to someone.
And she, it sounded like a very serious discussion. So she didn't
want to interrupt at all and so she felt like she had to just
go back and tell him and said, she's, so the maid went back
and said, he's talking with someone, I didn't feel like I could really
interrupt, it sounded pretty serious. Well, a couple more
minutes went by and the leader said, you really need to go back
and check again. So the maid went back and the
same thing, he was talking again to the people behind the, or
he was talking to someone behind a door and she did not feel like
it was her place to interrupt the discussion. So she goes back
and she says, I just don't feel like I can interrupt this. Well,
the leader said, well, what did you hear? What was this man saying? He was saying, she said, well, I heard him say
to this other person who was with him, I will not go and preach
to these people if you will not come with me. And the leader
said, oh, we better just wait then. The man, the Welsh preacher,
was praying to God. He was expressing his dependency
upon the Lord. to do what he could not do, for
the Spirit of God to work in the lives of the people that
he was going to be preaching to, to take the Word of God and
to do what he could not humanly do himself. That is the kind
of spirit that he wants us, God wants us to have, the kind of
attitude that he wants us to have when it comes to doing his
work. when it comes to serving Him, when it comes to fulfilling
the commission that God has given us, to be witnesses for Him. God wants us to understand the
kind of attitude we need to have is one of great dependency, realizing
that we cannot do on our own what God can only do through
us. And we find in this passage in
Acts chapter one the mention of the Spirit of God in this
passage on several occasions. Jesus Christ, when He was talking
to the disciples, the 120 disciples that were there, and they asked
a question of Him, He says to them that when I go, when I leave
you, you must wait for the Spirit of God. There was a condition
of the Spirit of God being with them in order for them to be
able to do what He had called them to do. We find in the book
of Acts, as we looked at it last week, that the theme of the book
of Acts is the advancement of God's kingdom. We noted last
week that Acts chapter one, verse three, talks about the kingdom
of God. And then again, in Acts 28, verse
31, the very final verse in Acts is preaching the kingdom of God
and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.
This tells us, because at the very outset of this book and
the very end of this book, this tells us that the theme of this
book is the kingdom of God and how God desires to advance His
kingdom through Christ until Christ returns. And it's God's
desire for us to be used of Him to further his kingdom. And I
gotta tell you, I am greatly excited about what we are going
to learn in this book, how we are going to fulfill our roles
as witnesses for him, what God desires for us to do, and how
God desires to be dependent upon us to be dependent upon him and
his spirit. The Bible actually says we didn't
do our scripture reading, so we'll do it now. Picking up in
Acts 1, it says, the former account I made, O Theophilus, of all
that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which
he was taken up after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments
to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he had presented himself
alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being
seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining
to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together
with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You
have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but
you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from
now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him,
saying, 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
which the father has put in his own authority, but you shall
receive power when the Holy Spirit shall come upon you. And you
shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and
at the end of the earth. Now when he had spoken these
things while they had watched, he was taken up and a cloud received
him out of their sight. And while they had looked steadfastly
toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by him
and in white apparel, who also said, men of Galilee, why do
you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who was taken
up from you unto heaven will so come in like manner as you
saw him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem
from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem on a
Sabbath day's journey. And when they had entered, they
went up into the upper room where they were staying. Peter, James,
John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew,
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, the zealot, and Judas,
the son of James. These all continued with one
accord in prayer. and supplication, and the woman,
and Mary, and the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. Let's
go to the Lord in prayer. Father, as we come to you and
we look at this passage this morning, and we see such a pivotal
passage, Jesus' teachings, the final words that he is going
to give to his disciples before he ascends to you, and then all
of what is implied by his ascension. I pray that you would help us
through this passage to not only see the whole thrust of the book
and what the book of Acts is going to teach us, but that it
would be compelling for us to understand just how needful it
is for us to be dependent upon you, how much we need you. We cannot live without you. And
I pray these things in Christ's name, amen. Well, we're picking
up from last week and we learned last week that the disciples
were talking to Jesus and they asked this question. They said
to Jesus, are you going to set up your kingdom at this time? They were very urgently preoccupied
with the idea of Jesus overthrowing the Roman government and setting
up his kingdom, as they had been all along, and really the nation
of Israel was constantly looking for this Messiah that would set
up the kingdom on earth. And Jesus says to them, it is
not time for that. In fact, he tells them, do not
occupy yourselves with this timing of the coming of myself to set
up the kingdom. For that is something that is
of the authority of God alone. We pick up there in verse six
of this passage and we see that to be the case, he says, Therefore,
when they had come together, they asked him saying, Lord,
will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? And he
said to them, it is not for you to know the times which the father
has put in his own authority. And then he says this, he says,
but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and Judea
and Samaria and the end of the earth. Now let me ask you a question,
brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you ever find yourself preoccupied
with what you can't control? Do you ever find yourself worried
about what you really have no ability to be able to do anything
about? God is telling us, Jesus is telling
the disciples here, and we can apply this in a very important
way, that we need to stay and remain under the control of God
in our lives. And what Jesus does here to help
the disciples to understand their own focus is he helps them to
understand, first of all, that they must focus on God's sovereign
control. And we see in the passage three
ways that he does this. First of all, he says God is
in control of your timing. You ever wondered why God does
what he does, and his timing and things, and his bringing
things about a certain way? And sometimes we get confused,
like, Lord, why did you set it up that way? Why did you do things
the way that you did them? I really don't understand. God
says his timing is his timing. And the coming of Christ, they
were looking forward to this time, and frankly, the early
church, the first century church, was always looking for the, they
thought it was gonna come in their lifetime. And yet God's
timing is so different than our timing. God will fulfill his
promises. God will do what he says he will
do. He will fill the Old Testament
prophecies in the Old Testament, but God will do it in his way.
Very frankly, not in our way. And you see that the Old Testament
and the New Testament is replete with examples of this occurring
where the nation of Israel thought God was going to fulfill His
word a certain way, and God actually is going to fulfill it His way.
We find also that God is in control of our service. Now a lot of
times when this message is preached, when this passage is preached,
and it's a very common passage, nearly everybody in this room,
or many of you anyway, know Acts 1-8, and you shall be witnesses
to me. But I want you to notice something
about this passage in verse 8. Is that verse a command? Look
at it, verse 8, it says, And ye shall be witnesses to me. You shall be witnesses to me
in Jerusalem. Is that a command? That is not
a command. And I'll just let you know in
the Greek, it's not a command either. Notice what it says in the passage.
It says, you will be witnesses. That is just a be verb with a
future tense being verb is what that is. He actually says that
this is what is going to happen. You will be witnesses to me. Now, there are certainly other
passages of Scripture that tell us that there is a command there. For example, in Mark 16, 15,
it says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. That's
a command. Or in Matthew chapter 28, it
says that you should make disciples. That's a command. But in this
passage, actually, it says that you will be doing this. This
will happen. You will be witnesses. I don't
know if you have ever realized this before, but when it comes
to God's working in your life and our role, do you realize
that God will carry out what God wants to carry out in your
life? Now, we have a role to play and we have a responsibility
to focus on, and we're gonna look at that a little bit later,
but at the outset of all of this, we must understand that God will
do what God will do in your life and in my life, and we need to
be tethered to that. God also says he's in control
of your advancement. He says, you'll be witnesses
to me in Jerusalem. And then the kingdom is going
to advance into Samaria and Judea and then into the end of the
earth. And by the way, the end of the earth really is talking
about the Gentiles. You find that actually, we'll look when
we get to there, you'll see that, but in Acts chapter 13, It says,
actually, verse 47, it says, for so the Lord has commanded
us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should
be salvation to the ends of the earth. So when it talks about,
in this verse, the ends of the world, or the uttermost part
of the world, it's actually talking about the Gentiles. You might
wanna even cross-reference that, Acts 13, 47. But God is in control of our,
he knows how to advance us at the right time and the right
way. He says, this is going to happen in your life. Philippians
chapter one tells us that he who has begun a good work in
you will complete it in the day of Christ. It is so important
that we stay firmly grounded in God's control. Of course,
I grew up being very familiar with trains. I lived very close
to train tracks. My dad worked on trains for a
living. I used to play with model trains,
especially at Christmas time with a HO train set. How many
of you all have one of those as a kid? I don't see them a
lot anymore. You can't even find a hobby shop
anymore, but you can still buy it on Amazon like you can everything
else. So when you're thinking about a train, What is the thing
that controls the train the most? And I will tell you that it's
not the engine, and it's not the operator, and it's not the
people running, the management that take care of the operator.
You know the thing that controls the train the most? It's the
track. If you derail off of that track,
you are in big trouble, right? Dad, I got an expert here. Verify
everything I'm saying. If I'm wrong, tell me later,
not now. If you get derailed off of that
track, you're in big trouble. And I'd like to suggest to you
that understanding and living in light of the sovereignty of
God, the control of God, and I do not mean that you're gonna
take that to an extreme like some groups do, but understanding
that God is in control of your life is a absolute necessary
foundation that what I need to do is figure out my role in the
train that's tethered to the track. But there are things in
our lives that often derail us from being and living under God's
control. Now, actually, we're always under
His control whether we like it or not. But derail us from living under
God's control. I thought of a few things, I
just sort of sat down and thought about it. One is unrealized expectations. You ever wanted something to
happen and thought something was going to happen a certain
way? And so, just like the disciples here, they expected the kingdom
to happen. They were despondent before Christ came and appeared
to them. They didn't know what was going
on. Unrealized expectations will untether us from God's control
sometimes. We won't feel like God is really
in control, that he's really sovereign. Sometimes I think
idealism does that. We're just overly idealistic.
You know, the older I get, and I'm not old, but the older I
get yet, but the older I get, the more I realize that life
is just not that ideal. I mean, if you really think about
it, think about when you're in your 20s, you think you can do
everything and you can't do anything. Well, not anything and everything,
that's pretty absolute, but you know what I mean. I mean, you
think you can take on the world, and by the time you get to your 30s,
you start realizing, you know, maybe life isn't quite that,
the way I thought it was going to be. I don't know what happens
when you get to your 40s and 50s. Some of you, a lot of you
can tell me about that. The point, I can simply say,
in 60s and 70s, too, anyway, I'll stop there. But the truth
of the matter is we sometimes are overly idealistic. Sometimes
it's pride. We just simply think God could
do it a better way. We would never say that. But
God can do it a better way than he's doing it. And we begin to
lose our trust in what God is doing because we think there's
got to be a better way. Frustration can do this. Just
general knee-jerk reaction to things. Folks, it is vitally
important that if we are going to fulfill the commission that
God has given us to be witnesses, if we're going to please God
with our lives, we have to be firmly, firmly on the track of
God's sovereign control in our lives. Not only that, he wants
us then not to focus on what God's role is, which is his timing
and his way of doing, and he says, God has full authority
for that. But God wants us to focus on
kingdom responsibility, on what our responsibility is. He says,
you need to focus on being a witness for me. He says, you will be
witnesses for me. This is what you need to focus
on. You will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in
Samaria, and other most parts of the earth. A witness is someone
in the Old Testament who testified in legal matters. We see the
same way that the word is used in Matthew 18 as well, where
they are testifying as to what has actually happened, what has
actually taken place. The book of Luke and the book
of Acts, which Luke wrote, speaks a lot of this idea of a witness. For example, in Acts 2, verse
32, it says, this Jesus who God has raised up, of which we are
all witnesses. In Acts 3, verse 15, it says,
and they killed the prince of life, whom God raised from the
dead, of which we are witnesses. So in the very beginning chapters
of the book of Acts, we see that what they are witnesses of is
the risen Christ, that Christ is alive. Let me just make this
application. You and I need to be witnesses,
but we need to be really thinking about what this verse actually
means. So oftentimes this verse is preached
and the application is simply you just need to preach the gospel
and give the gospel to everybody. But we're going to actually find
28 chapters in this book of Acts that's going to really help us
to understand what a witness for the resurrection of Christ
really is. I want to take a few moments
just to look at a couple of testimonies, one of Peter and one of Paul
in this book. Would you take your Bibles and
turn to Acts chapter 10 verse 39? He says in this passage,
beginning in Acts chapter 10 and verse 39, Peter says, and we are witnesses
of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews and in
Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Now, let me
pause for a minute. What I want you to notice from both of these
passages is how sincere, how, can I even say passionate, Peter
is about telling and witnessing of who Christ is and what Christ
did. Verse 40, him God raised up on
the third day and showed him openly, not to all the people,
but to witnesses chosen by God, even to us who ate and drank
with him after he arose from the dead. Can you imagine Peter's
telling, look, he ate and drank with us. He chose us to be witnesses
for him. There is this compelling nature
to what Peter is saying. And he commended us to preach
to the people and to testify that it is he who was ordained
by God to be judge of the living and the dead. And to him, all
the prophets witnessed that through his name, whoever believes in
him will receive remission of sins. While Peter was still speaking
these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard
the word. And then look over at Acts chapter
22, if you would, and we'll see Paul's testimony, the same kind
of language and the same kind of urgency that the Apostle Paul
has as he bears witness of the living Christ. Verse 14, Acts
chapter 22 says, then he said, the God of our fathers has chosen
you that you should know his will. and see the just one and
hear the voice of his mouth. For you will be witnesses to
all men of what you have seen and heard. And now why are you
waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash
away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Now it happened
when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple
that I was in a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste
and get out of Jerusalem quickly for they will not receive your
testimony concerning me. So I said, Lord, they know that
in the synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on
you. When the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I was standing
by consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those
who were killing him. Then he said to me, depart for
I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. The Apostle
Paul is speaking of his own conversion and God's working in his life
to bring him to a place where he was going to be a great witness
for the cause of Christ. And I hope you can see in Peter's
testimony and Paul's testimony, and you're going to see it many
times over in the book of Acts, this urgency and this passionate
telling of the living Christ. You think of Paul's testimony,
here he was murdering Jews, or Christians rather, murdering
Christians. And God converts him and he goes out and he brings
people to Christ. It really speaks then of what
the idea of a witness really is. I mean, just think about
it for a minute. What is, what really is a witness? Well, it's
somebody that tells you about Jesus. That's what a witness
is. Folks, that's not wrong, but that's not really all of
it. A witness is more than just someone who tells you about Jesus.
There is this inclination in our lives to sort of think that
if I just give my 15 minute gospel presentation, or if I just hand
out a tract, then I'm a good witness. And those things are
helpful, and they are important, and they are part of it. But
folks, we really need to grasp a fuller understanding of what
it really means to be a witness for Christ. George Whitefield
was a man who was getting people up in Edenburg, out of their
beds at five o'clock to preach to them. I'm not suggesting that
that is prescriptive. Don't worry, I won't be doing
that anytime soon. I get up at five o'clock, but
I don't think All of you do. I actually had somebody call
me this past week and see if we had an early service. I thought
to myself, I'd be fine with that, but I'm not sure we all would. Anyway, a man by the name of
David Hume, who was a philosopher and a skeptic, went readily to
hear this man, George Whitefield, at five o'clock in the morning.
And when he was asked on his way to see Whitefield, he was
asked, why are you going to see him? You don't believe in what
Whitefield is saying. And he replied, I do not, but
he does. See, it was so compelling, even
for this man, Hume, it was so compelling, the preaching of
George Whitefield, because he really believed what he was preaching.
George Whitefield would preach multiple times a day, five to
eight times a day, all over the area, seven days a week. I don't know when he studied,
I'm not really sure about that, I hadn't figured how that works
out, but maybe at night, I guess. because he really wanted people
to hear the gospel and he wanted people to come to Christ. There
was this authenticity, this genuineness about a witness for Christ. I
was reminded this week about a woman whose name is Rosaria
Butterfield. This is a woman who was a tenured
English literature professor at Syracuse University. She was
also a feminist and a lesbian. This is a woman who, all of you
are awake now, that was funny, anyway. And this is a woman who wrote a memoir called The Secret
Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. It's a woman who actually came
to Christ, who now is a wife of a pastor
and homeschools kids. The conversion of the gospel,
in the life of this woman is quite amazing. In her memoir,
she says this, my Christian life unfolded as I was just living
my life, my normal life. In the normal course of my life,
questions emerged and exceeded my secular feminist worldview.
Those questions sat quietly in the crevices of my mind until
I met a most unlikely friend, a Christian pastor. Had a pastor
named Ken Smith not shared the gospel with me for years and
years, over and over again, not in some used car salesman way,
but in an organic, spontaneous, and compassionate way, those
questions might still be lodged in the crevices of my mind, and
I might never have met the most unlikely of friends, Jesus Christ
himself. This is a perfect example of
what God can do with someone who is a biblical witness. Someone who not only says, I
will preach the gospel at you here. Let me sell you the gospel,
but let me live it out in front of you. Let me, let me show,
show you who Jesus is. This lady is going to be writing
another book actually to explain in more detail how this person came to, how
she came to Christ and how this couple that witnessed to her
did it in such a way that was very compelling for her even
though she was absolutely prior to that, completely antagonistic
to the gospel. And one of the things that was
very compelling was that they showed great love and compassion. The very first time they had
this woman over their house, they didn't even give her the
gospel at all. And you say, well, that is horrible.
It's not. Sometimes we've got to live it
before we can tell it. You say, boy, I've never heard
somebody preach about not giving the gospel the first time. Let's,
isn't it gonna be exciting as we go through the book of Acts
and see how these folks were witnesses of what Christ did?
And sometimes they did give the gospel right out front. There
are other times where they had previous conversations. But the
point, folks, is simply this. There was a witness of the living
Christ from the inside out. This was not something they just
did as their duty. This is something they understood
because of who Christ is and what they wanted to do as a result. Then we see then that the kingdom
witness depends on Christ's working in this passage. We notice in
the passage that the focus is clearly on the Holy Spirit. He
says you will receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you. I think one of the things that
is most difficult for us as Christians is the fact that we feel that
we can't be a good witness. And you know the answer to that
is you absolutely cannot. You can't do it. You can never
do what God wants you to do in being a good witness for Him.
Let me just get that out in the open. You can't. Boy, I've never
heard preaching like this. You're telling me I can't do
it? You can't do it. He says, you will receive power.
After that, the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And then you will
be witnesses for me. There is this absolute necessity
of the Spirit's power in our lives. And I will just say this
as you, the more you work with people, the more you rub shoulders,
whether it's believers and discipleship or unbelievers and helping them
come to a place of discipleship, you will find how little you
can really do in their lives to convince them of the truth.
You really have absolutely no ability to convince them of what
they are not convinced of. Have you ever actually tried
to motivate somebody to want to do something? If you're a
parent, you've tried this. And if you're a parent, you have
failed. See, it's the spirit of God who is able to do this
in the life of a Christian and helping them to minister to others.
And I think sometimes we're not very dependent on the Spirit
of God because we're not really as engaged as we ought to be
in the lives of people to come to a place where we just sort
of sit back and go, I can't do this. This is not working. Lord, I need you. I can't do
this without you. And we have clearly, not just
in this passage, but throughout the entire book of Acts, this
constant reference to the Spirit of God working in the lives of
people to bring them to Christ. And at the outset of all of this,
we need to understand how dependent we are on Him. Albert Muller
said it this way, he said, God does not build his church through
gimmicks or programmatic cleverness. The church is not dependent upon
marketing strategies for its success. Our only hope is to
see lives changed by the gospel, is to faithfully proclaim God's
word and then trust God's spirit to make our proclamation effective. This is absolutely necessary
for us to understand. If we are to be the witnesses
that God wants us to be, we must be dependent upon the Spirit
of God in our lives. Then what Christ does after explaining
what is going to happen, he now is going to help them, he now
is going to leave them. You'll notice what it says in
verses nine through 11. He ascends from them and ascends
into the clouds. He's taken up, the Bible says
there. We find from the angels that he's going to come in the
same way that he went up. That is still yet to come. We
still one day will see Christ coming in the clouds. I don't
know what side of that we'll be on. That will be up to the
Lord. That's his business, but we know
one day that he will come. Until he comes, we need to be
focused on what God wants us to be focused on. But there are
two things in the Bible, two ways that the Bible specifically
says, helps us to understand the significance of the ascension.
One way is to help us to understand the reality of Christ's Lordship. When Christ was on this earth,
the disciples did exactly what Christ wanted them to do. At
least they were supposed to, and overall they did. Christ
would talk with them about the fact that they need to take up
their cross and follow him. They needed to be following him
and obedient to the lordship of Jesus Christ. But Christ's
plan was to do more than just to use these disciples, these
12 disciples. The kingdom is going to expand.
You know enough about the book of Acts to know that the kingdom
is going to really expand and to advance. And in order for
that to happen, Christ is now going to have to ascend to his
throne, ascend to the right hand of the Father. When you take
your Bibles, and I want us to see this in Ephesians chapter
1, take your Bibles and turn there, and I'd like you to see
just the significance of the ascension, the fact that Christ
is now In the heavenlies, he is seated with the Father in
the heavenlies. And what that means for us in
the fulfilling of what God wants to do in our lives in the advancement
of the kingdom of God. Ephesians chapter one, verse
20 says, which he worked in Christ when he raised him up from the
dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places.
Far above all principality and power and might and dominion,
above all of that, and every name that is named, not only
in this age, but also in that which is to come, that he may
put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over
all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of
him who fills all in all." The fact that Christ ascended to
the right hand of the Father, shows his authority, it shows
his lordship, it shows what he is, his plan in working out the
kingdom of God on this earth is to do it from above, to be
able to be in control of all things, to see what is going
on, to be aware of what is happening, to direct in the lives of his
people. Christ is the great orchestrator
of history from this point on, especially in his church, which
he is the head of. When we think of the Ascension,
we ought to, the Ascension is often very much downplayed, but
when we think of the Ascension, we ought to think of the authority
of Christ and what he is now doing. While he is not mediating
his throne directly right now, he's not mediating his kingdom
right now, that will come in the future. He is certainly on his throne,
and he is certainly advancing his kingdom in his way. I want
us to know this one second thing about the Ascension. And that
is the fact that Christ is the mediator of all things. It says
in Hebrews 4, verse 14, Seeing then that we have a high priest
that has passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore now come boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Jesus came and walked among us
and lived 33 years in this earth and lived a perfect life, but
underwent every temptation imaginable. Jesus, Jesus experienced every
heartache. He experienced loneliness and
struggle, and he experienced heartache, suffering of every
kind. Have you ever had a boss that
didn't know what he was doing? I know you have, because several
of you have told me that. A boss who might have been trained
in management, but has never actually turned a wrench. Or
one who is trained in a certain way, has a college degree from
a great college perhaps, but never actually worked on a computer. Someone who's never actually
swung a hammer and he's trying to be your boss. You ever find
that frustrating? I'm just curious, how many of
you have been in that experience? Okay, really, a lot of you have
been in that experience and we have double hands back from the
sound booth. Okay, all right. That was fun. Do you know the
truth of the matter is, folks, you never can say that about
Christ. You never can say that about Jesus. You never are praying
to a Jesus who doesn't know what you've gone through. You're never
praying to a Jesus who isn't aware of what is happening, who
can't identify with your suffering, with your struggle, with your
frustration, with your confusion. You have never prayed to a Jesus
like that. Jesus knows. He is not a high
priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of your infirmities. And the reason that we ought
to be motivated to come to Him in prayer is because He knows
what you're going through. And there may be no one else
that has any clue what you're going through, but Jesus knows. And there ought to be great comfort
in that. There ought to be great strength in that. You're trying
to be a witness, you're trying to fulfill your responsibility
as a witness for Christ and you come into a situation and you
just don't know what to do or you're discouraged or frustrated
or feel like a failure, tell it to Jesus. Or perhaps you're
just struggling as a Christian. You're having a hard time getting
through this life that is so pervasively evil and the world
is constantly pressuring you and causing struggle and we live
in a fallen world and things are so confusing. Tell it to
Christ. He knows. And it's interesting that after
Christ ascends and the angels say, why are you still standing
there watching up in heaven? You have been given orders. The
disciples then take a journey over to Jerusalem. And it wasn't
likely on the Sabbath day. It just says it was a Sabbath
day's journey. And they went and walked and went to Jerusalem. And then it was very commonplace
to eat in an upper room. They would have these community
areas and upper rooms above houses. And they found a place, 120 of
the disciples of these people, they went in and they immediately
got to work. They immediately just went out
in a blaze of glory and told everybody about Christ. That's
not what they did at all. Do you notice what they did? I just want you to notice what
they did. Now what Christ had said to do was go and wait. Go into the upper room and wait
until the Holy Spirit comes. But they did something while
they were waiting. Notice what it says in the passage.
Then when they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olivet, which
is near Jerusalem in the Sabbath day's journey, then look at verse
14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. Now, I just want you to picture
this. They have been under, for 40 days, they have been under
the teaching of Christ as to what is going to happen with
the kingdom. how Christ is going to advance his kingdom. And they
may not understand, you know, maybe they don't understand everything.
We don't really know exactly what Christ said. We know it
was things pertaining to the kingdom. That's really all we
know. And they know, they are probably very confused by the
fact that they were going to go beyond, beyond Jerusalem into
Judea and Samaria. Really gonna go into Samaria?
And then in the other most parts, we're gonna go to Gentiles? They're
really very likely confused by all this still a bit. And I would imagine that they
are daunted by the task that is set before them. They know
they've gotta wait for the Holy Spirit. And they turn to prayer. To continue, it says they continue
in prayer. That is the idea of to give a
constant attention to a thing. These folks were fervent in prayer
toward God. They were devoted to prayer.
And it says in the passage that not only in prayer, but in supplication. The Bible's gonna, the book of
Acts is gonna also see, we're gonna see a lot about them gathering
together corporately for prayer. The word supplication is a very
interesting word. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10,
it's actually translated to beg. Prayer is one thing, but supplication
is a deep, fervent prayer where we are coming to God on our knees
as a beggar. Totally destitute. Totally emptying
ourselves of anything that we are and saying, I can't do this. I have nothing in my hand I bring. And sitting before the throne
and praying and asking God to do what we cannot do for ourselves.
That's the kind of prayer that this 120 disciples were fervent
in. while they waited for the Spirit
of God to come to them, to empower them for service to God. And
when I read this this week and studied this out this week, my
heart was gripped. So oftentimes we try to do God's
work in our strength. So often we try to do what only
God can do. We fail to see ourselves as vessels,
as conduits of God's grace to others. We think we're the ones
that have to make it happen, have to figure it out. And what the disciples did here
was they simply fervently prayed. I wonder what would happen in
our churches if we got our knees more often. What would happen if prayer meeting
was given its proper place in the week? What would happen if
we focused on corporate prayer as not an optional thing, but
as an absolutely essential thing? We are going to find throughout
the book of Acts this constant mention of the people gathering
together in one accord, in corporate prayer together. I can think of some of the challenges
that I've had just in ministering and pastoring, wanting to help
people spiritually. And there are many times I I
should do this more often, I just need to sit back and I need to
go, Lord, I don't know what to do. Would you do what I can't
do? Jay Hudson Taylor said it this
way, I was also reminded of this quote this week. Learn to move men through God
by prayer alone. You can't move men. I can't move
men. Only God can take the gospel
of Jesus Christ and with his spirit move men to salvation. And the way that he does that
and the timing he does that and how he does that is all up to
him. And we're going to find a variety of ways in which God
chooses to do that in the book of Acts. But it's only God who can. Maybe
you're a parent today. and you're looking at your kids
and you're saying to yourself, you know, I just can't seem to
do what I need to do with them. It's not working. I feel like
I'm doing everything right. Get on your knees and pray, brothers
and sisters in Christ. Do we really think we can do
this on our own? Maybe you say, you know, I think
I've got life pretty well figured out. I can guarantee that if
you feel like you've got life pretty well figured out, I can
guarantee that you're not very involved in the lives of people. Because if you're involved in
the lives of people, I guarantee you don't have life figured out,
and you'll know it. And what ought we to do in those
situations? We ought to pray. That's why
Oswald Chambers says, prayer is not the means to the ministry,
prayer is the ministry. And there are some of you here
today that you may feel as though you can't do a lot in the church. You're doing a lot if you're
praying. I'm thankful for the prayer words
we have. I'm thankful that there are people in this church that
tell me that they frequently, daily pray for me. And they tell me they're praying
for our church and praying for other people in the church. Folks,
prayer is absolutely important. And at the very, I mean, if you
think of what Luke starts off with, with all of the things
he could have selected to put in this first chapter to set
us off on the right trajectory, the one thing he says is that
these people came together, they continued in one accord, in unified
manner in prayer. And when they did this, when
they were of one mind, the Bible's gonna, Acts is gonna use that
several times. Acts 2.46 says it, 4.24 says
it, 5.12, I've got a lot here that I'm not going over. Because they were unified in
prayer together as a body of believers, God did great things. Now it's God's business how he
does what he does. God gives the increase in his
way. And, you know, we really can say, can't we church, that
God has given us increase in ways that we never expected and
done things that we didn't anticipate. And we've seen God do that. But
we need to continue more in fervent prayer that God would make us
a witness in this community for his purposes. That God would
help us to influence people for the cause of Christ in this community.
That he would help us to fulfill the great commission to make
disciples. And that does bring me to this.
Maybe today, you are not really a follower of Christ. You have
heard different things and understood different things. You're not
really, truly a follower of Christ. Can I ask you a question this
morning? It doesn't matter what age you are. You could have been
in church for years. Do you know for sure that if
you were to die today, you would spend eternity with God? 1 John
5 tells us, these things are written that we may know that
we have eternal life. God's desire is for you to know. And if you don't know, you're
not sure. And I encourage you to come talk
with me after the service, and I'll be glad to take a Bible
and show you how you can know for sure that you are truly a
follower of Christ, that you are a disciple of Christ. I have three questions for us
just in concluding this. Number one, where is your focus? Brothers and sisters in Christ,
are you focused on what God says He is in control of and you're
not? Are you preoccupied with the wrong thing. And you're not
living in God's control. Maybe you've been disillusioned.
Maybe you have been derailed. Maybe you've had misplaced expectations
or unrealized expectations. That is all of us. We need to focus on the fact
that according to his word, God is in control. Even though it
doesn't seem like it sometimes. And secondly, we need to ask
the question, where is our assurance? Where is your assurance? Is your
assurance on the fact that Christ is sitting on the throne, ascended?
He is the one in control. He is the one who is Lord of
all. He is the one who knows you better than you know yourself.
He is the one who has experienced what you have experienced. Is your assurance in the living
Christ? You know why these witnesses
were so effective in telling others about Christ? Because
they were fully assured of who he was in their lives. And we
need to have full assurance as well of who Christ is in our
lives. And then thirdly, where is your
dependency? Is your dependency on your own ability to figure
it out? Or your own willpower to make it happen? God desires for us to be dependent
on him alone and what his spirit can do in our lives to be witnesses
for him. Let's pray together. Father, we do come to you and
we pray that you would help us to follow
an application This passage. Give us a greater dependency
upon you. We know that the dependency that
we. Have is measured by the amount of. Fervency we have in prayer. Lord, help us to get on our knees. Pray to you. And see you do what
we can't do on our own. Lord, we've seen it in the past.
We are in this building because you did something that we couldn't
do our own. Lord, we want to see people come
to Christ. We want to help disciple people
and help people grow. Lord, would you help us as a
body of believers to unify together to make corporate prayer a priority? We pray these things in Christ's
name, amen.
You Shall Be Witnesses, Part 2
Sermon: You Shall Be Witnesses, Part 2
Text: Acts 1:4-14
Speaker: Pastor Jim Ghanayem
| Sermon ID | 415181931135 |
| Duration | 1:14:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Acts 1:4-14 |
| Language | English |
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