series on Christmas, and we are ending the series with the message titled Living for the Savior. And in keeping with our kingdom concept and kingdom principles that Jesus brought in, we must be reminded that today we must have kingdom resolve. And in fact, there's your theme for 2025. I told you I would give it to you ahead of time. We are going to learn in 2025 that we can thrive in Christ and strive for Christ. And of course, we're putting those in gerund form because that should be a daily thing as we are thriving in Christ. and striving for Christ, we anticipate a great year of blessing in 2025. As we capstone our understanding of these Christmas texts leading to this quintessential ascension point of Jesus in Acts chapter one, we're reminded that when you and I trust Christ by faith, that is we turn from our sin and repentance and turn to the Savior in saving active faith, believing that he is a God who always keeps his promises, He makes us a new creation. He gives us new life. He regenerates us. And that new life gives us hope, help, and a solid future. As we think about that future, we have been given a tremendous calling to live for King Jesus. And so today, as we look at the text, we're going to see what it means to have a kingdom resolved. And so we're going to ask the important question that you're thinking of this morning. Good job. In light of the narrative today, how can we live with kingdom resolve? How can we live with kingdom resolve? And as we look today, we're going to see three actions that God calls us to for living with kingdom resolve. So let's get into the text this morning, and we've read a small portion, but I want to open it up and let it breathe a little bit. And let's read verses 1 all the way to verse 14, and then we're going to break it down with three action verbs, three active things that we must do to live with kingdom resolve. So looking at the text this morning, Acts chapter 1 and verse 1. Luke speaking here. The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to 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 of 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 has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while He looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them 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 into 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, a Sabbath day's journey. And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Simon, the zealot, and Judas, son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. May the Lord add a blessing to the preaching and teaching and the reading of his word this morning. Now, during this Christmas season, we learned that we could have joy from Jesus' birth to his return as we are living with kingdom perspective. Remember, we've been talking about the truth that God's kingdom is of ultimate concern for him during this dispensation. And so as part of his kingdom, as his ambassadors, as God through Christ has called us to preach the good news of Jesus to every nation, and he's promised to be with us always, even to the end of the ages, that incredible calling and purpose, that mission, as you will, if you will, that we accomplish by being disciples, making disciples, that mission is a part of his kingdom advance today. And so our first installment was to think about our kingdom perspective. And we learned that joyful living only comes when we are living with the kingdom perspective of preparation, that we are prepared for the coming king, that we are productive in the process awaiting the coming king, and that we are perceptive awaiting his return. And this was found in Matthew 25. in those three end time kingdom parables that we discussed a couple of weeks ago. Furthermore, we learned that we must live with kingdom purpose. That was our message last week. This happens when we come daily at the feet of Jesus to worship the Savior because of his love that destroys strongholds. And we noted last time that there was an immense stronghold in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus's birth. And we learn through the story of the wise men or the Magi that were of the students of Daniel's school, dating 600 years prior to the arrival of Jesus. They journeyed all the way, nine-month journey at least, to get to Jerusalem. And instead of finding King Jesus received warmly in royal garments held by a beautiful maiden arrayed on a small throne, they found a despot, a dictator, desperate for his own power, for his own glory, who deceitfully attempted to slaughter the king instead of to worship him. And so we noted that Jesus, whom God sent in the fullness of time, for God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. There was a stark contrast with responses to the arrival of Jesus. Herod deceitfully said, oh, I would love to worship him. Why don't you go tell me where he is? And the Magi actually went to worship him, presenting sacrificial gifts, expensive and costly items to King Jesus, while Herod, enraged by the fact that he didn't know where the child was, he was too lazy to even go look for himself, decides to kill all of the children two years and under. You see, God entered the stronghold of the God little G of this world, Satan. And he shatters the strongholds in our lives through the love of Jesus Christ. And we learned last week that if we are to live with kingdom purpose, we must understand that Jesus conquers strongholds in our lives. and the purpose, that kingdom purpose requires us to be hopeful, worshipful, and obedient believers. Thus, we noted that God calls us to be prepared, productive, and perceptive, first message. God wants us to live hopefully, worshipfully, and obediently, that was our second message. And today, as we finish out this mini-series, excuse me, we will see what it takes to live with kingdom resolve. Not only are we to live with kingdom perspective and kingdom purpose, but we are friends to live with kingdom resolve. We find ourselves wrapping up this series in the opening paragraphs of Acts. The book of Acts is rightly called the Acts of the Holy Spirit through his sent ones or the apostles. The apostle actually means sent one. in Luke's second volume written to Theophilus. 38% of our New Testament, almost 40% of our New Testament was written by Luke. Luke's Gospel and the Book of Acts, the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, comprise a two-volume set written to a generic man. We don't know the man named Theophilus. It just means lover of God or friend of God. We don't know who he is, but it was a pretty common Greek name. We know that Luke is a physician. He's from Macedonia himself. Paul picks him up in his ministry, in his journeys. And we find Luke becomes a traveling companion of Paul. And in the process of his travels, he interviews eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus. And in fact, he interviews lots of women. Luke recounts more in Acts and Luke, he recounts more women, more about the women in the life of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus than any of the gospels and then all of the gospels combined. Luke speaks to both male and female, to a Gentile audience like us, to help us understand God's intention for all of us, male and female, to live in unity and harmony and solidarity in perspective and purpose and with resolve together. And in fact, the text tells us the importance of both male followers of Christ and female followers of Christ. And so this clarion call today, as we answer the question we asked earlier in the text in a moment, we are going to answer the question, how can we live with kingdom resolve? In the moment when we do, we need to understand that the text is written in a context where this The question and call to live with Kingdom Resolve is for everyone, not just the first century followers of Jesus, but every successive century and every successive follower of Jesus Christ. And so, as we think about our Christmas season and our call to follow Jesus and we learn how to live with Kingdom Resolve, we need to look at this first paragraph. the first three sort of mini paragraphs in this paragraph, I don't know if you have your hard copy of your Bible today, or even in your digital copy, more than likely you will see this section is broken up into various paragraphs in your text. Now this is one big unit, and it is an introductory unit that I believe flows from verse one all the way to verse 14. There's a transition in verse 15 when it says, and in those days, okay? Verses one to 14 are one big opening paragraph. Verses one to three are a connection to the events at the end of Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection, and the 40 days of waiting for Jesus's ascension and the promise that will come at Pentecost. So in just three verses, Luke sort of summarizes everything he wrote in 24 chapters of his gospel. And then he highlights and connects those with the content that's coming in the book of Acts. And so what links these diverse elements together is the preparation of the apostles to be witnesses of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus. You see that? There's a link here. Jesus died, was buried, he rose again. He appeared to credible witnesses, and he ascended during that 40-day period, then he ascended to heaven. Then he goes into the Ascension to declare what happened, and who was at the Ascension? The apostles. And so we find, as he's talking about that, we are first told about his instructions through the Holy Spirit in verse 2, and is speaking to them about the kingdom of God in verse 3. More specifically, his instruction is the command to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of the Holy Spirit in verses four and five. Now, there's some themes that show up in this text that become big themes for the Book of Acts. The themes of the kingdom, the spirit, and witnesses are then developed and interconnected in verses six to eight, and they lay the ground plan for the entire Book of Acts. In fact, everywhere you see Holy Spirit-filled people go in the Book of Acts, they bring the gospel with them, you see people saved and churches started. Everywhere. That's the entirety of the Book of Acts. Why? Because God is building His kingdom. He is doing it through His Spirit. And He is empowering, with His Spirit, His witnesses. And those are three core truths to the Book of Acts. I'm not obviously setting up for a miniseries on Acts. You know I'll be in 1 Corinthians next week. But as we springboard off of this, if you get to the Book of Acts this year, you want to note those three important things. Now, the ascension then, the ascension of Jesus, confirms Jesus's heavenly enthronement as Messiah. In other words, he didn't stay dead. He rose from the dead. But curiously, do you remember when he appears at the tomb, when the women came converging on the tomb to take care of his body, and Mary Magdalene in particular sticks around and weeping, wondering where the Lord has been taken, Jesus specifically appears to her. And she doesn't recognize him at first until he speaks in a loving manner directly to her and addresses her formally and personally or intimately. And then she recognizes him and then she doesn't want to let him go. She's like, oh, don't leave, don't leave, Jesus, right? And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't touch me. I haven't ascended to my father yet. And the point was this, that there is something to the ascension that is necessary to our clinging to Christ. And the scripture would therefore reveal the importance of this. Now, Acts kind of alludes to it. It'll be in our last point today. And if you're a savvy theologian, you're gonna hear what I'm gonna say, and I'm not gonna spell it out for you. You know, all the bad movies today where, you know, in the fighting and dialogue, they editorialize, we're doing this because the bad guy said we have to do this right now. And if we do it now, we'll kill the bad guy and we'll win the victory. Like, why did you just tell me the whole plan of the movie? You spoiled it. I wanted to be, I wanted to watch it and see it for myself. So I'm not going to do that to you. You're going to have to listen and get the exciting kernels for those good listeners today. but you're going to see in this text why, as the Holy Spirit of God empowers the witnesses for Christ, and why it's so important for us to understand the Messiah's ascension. The author of Hebrews would put it this way, in Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two, therefore, seeing that we are surrounded or encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses, those heroes that have died faithfully for Jesus, very faithful in their lives, and they made stupid choices. If you ever read Hebrews chapter 11, you're like, what is so faithful about these guys? I mean, Abraham, duh. Dude, when Sarai said, would you like to take Hagar, my handmaiden? You were supposed to say, no, Sarai, you're the only woman for me. But instead, you're like, yeah, sure, I'll take. What a doofus, right? We read of these heroes of the faith in chapter 11, we call them heroes of the faith, but they are just people like us. What makes them heroes is not their faith, but the one they've placed their faith in, King Jesus. And the faithfulness that we see in Hebrews chapter 11 leads us to an encompassing cloud of people that are cheering us on in the grandstands of life, right? And because we are surrounded and we're on the starting block and the gun is fired and we're in the race, in the process, we started the race with ankle weights and a three-piece suit. And as we're running around, we're like, what is the deal with this? I need to shed this laser, right? I need to get rid of these ankle weights, the weights and the sins which doth so easily beset us, and I need to run the race before me, looking unto Jesus, the finish line, right? I'm not fixated on the grandstands, right? Hey, wait, I haven't won yet. I gotta strive for the mastery. I'm looking at the prize. The prize is the finish line. That's Jesus. Why? because he began my faith and he will complete it. He's the author and finisher of our faith. Because for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, he took my place, despising its shame, he took my place for me. And thirdly, because he is positioned to help me, he is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. You see, friends, the ascension of Christ made it possible for the intercessory ministry of Christ. Jesus ever lives to make intercession for you and for me. Just like Mary was told, no, don't cling to me, I haven't ascended to my father, so the disciples saw the ascended Christ. And what that said to them is that the Messiah who came the first time to die as a human for humans, who is also fully God, he took his righteousness and he robed the unrighteous with it, those who call on him, in faith and repentance. And now he is ascended as the true king and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God because his work is finished. He declared it to be on the cross. It is finished, he said. Paid in full. There's nothing necessary for your salvation, for my salvation, for my coworker's salvation, my neighbor's salvation, my extended family member's salvation, my cold contact salvation, right? Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. And friends, because of that once for all finished work of Christ, Jesus has now taken his rightful place as king and he is ruling and reigning spiritually, but he is going to come again and rule physically. And so the manner of his departure also foreshadows his return to consummate God's saving plan. That's what verses 9 to 11 in our text today teach us. In effect, this introduction lays out, ready for the big word, the eschatological framework, the end times framework within which the Christian story is to unfold. The church lives between the exaltation of Jesus into heaven and is returned to earth to rule and reign. And its life is determined by these boundary markers. You see that? It is not for you to know the times or seasons, he told his disciples. Jesus has ascended into heaven where he sits in the finished work on the throne of God, but he will descend again. And in between, it's up to us to be empowered Holy Spirit filled witnesses. That's what this text is teaching us. Now, silly illustration, but you know me. I like to be silly. It's kind of like what happened last week. Christmas. Christmas has literally passed, right? It was December 25th. Last time I checked, today is December 29th. That's four days ago. But guess what? Christmas is coming again next year on December 25th. 2025. In fact, Christmas will arrive for certain in 2025. You can set your calendar to it. Yet, we must still live our lives in 2025 while awaiting next Christmas. And yes, you can go to Goodwill in July, and you can start buying Christmas things. It's an Arizona thing. I noticed when I moved to Arizona in July, they start displaying all their Christmas stuff. I think it's because we've all melted into a pool of goo in the middle of July after weathering 130 degrees. It's not really 130, 117 degrees in June. And we're halfway through July thinking, will Christmas ever come? And so we get into goodwill, and they turn the air condition down to 68 degrees. And you see these Christmas trees and think, there's hope. There's hope. Winter is coming. Christmas is coming, right? That's when my wife wants to start putting up the Christmas tree is in July. Why? Because Christmas brings comfort. It brings joy. It brings excitement. It brings nostalgia. It brings expectation, love, peace, hope. Although this illustration is silly, Jesus' return is imminent, just like Christmas' return in 2025 is imminent. you can set your calendar by Jesus's return. Just as the apostles and followers of Jesus were commissioned and empowered to preach the gospel and make disciples, so we are commissioned to preach the gospel and make disciples until he comes again. Just as the apostles lived with kingdom perspective, kingdom purpose, and kingdom resolve, So we must today. In fact, this is the kernel of truth that will bind our points together this morning. God calls you to thrive in Christ and to strive for Christ in 2025. In fact, living with kingdom resolve in 2025 is thriving in Christ. Now that little prepositional phrase shows up in the New Testament hundreds of times. In fact, It is probably the most beneficial descriptive that we as Christians can use for the rest of our lives. Our world loves to label us, don't they? They love labels, not just at Christmastime, right? Those are helpful at Christmastime, or else you're giving away the wrong present to the wrong person. For us, we don't use the labels. We usually wrap in specific colors, right? So Ben gets this type of paper. Elizabeth gets this type of paper. Occasionally somebody in the family doesn't know the drill and wraps something in the wrong paper, and every now and then that becomes a kind of funny thing on Christmas Day. Hey, that was my present. You opened my present. What's that? Well, it was in my colored paper, Dad. Uh-huh. I think you wrapped that on purpose that way. The point is our world loves labels, but their labels are not helpful. They like to label things that are generally against God's labels. And yet, the label that we must all embrace is in Christ. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, then you belong to Him. You are in Him. And so all of us that are in Christ, now to them there is no condemnation. And so as we think about what it means to thrive in that reality in 2025, that will be a motivation for us to strive for Christ our King. And so we will see, by the way, I know I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself for next week, we will finish the book of 1 Corinthians in 2025. The book of 1 Corinthians is full, absolutely chock full of ways we must contend for the gospel, we must apply the gospel, we must thrive in the gospel, and then we must survive and strive for Jesus Christ because of the gospel. And so that will be a wonderful theme that we get to this year. So as we look this morning Let me just remind you that we are going to see three actions that God calls us to for living with kingdom resolve. All right, so look with me in the text, and we're gonna see the first action. Living with kingdom resolve requires us to be grounded, verses one to five. So look with me again at the text, verses one to five. Notice what's happening. I've already alluded to it, so I don't need to spend a huge amount of time here, but Luke's quick explanation of the events leading up to the history of the early church, he is about to recount, shows us that living with kingdom resolve requires us to be grounded on the fulfilled and future promises of God. Although this is a link directly to the final acts of Jesus during the 40 days following his death, burial, and resurrection, the rest of the chapter and the book showcase the apostle's use and understanding of the Christological purposes of the entirety of scripture. Let me translate that. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God can be thoroughly equipped unto every good work. And do you remember what happened post-resurrection of Jesus? Everybody's upset. They're scared. The disciples have holed themselves up in the upper room with a locked door. There are followers of Jesus that weren't part of his direct inner circle that are now just, they're leaving after Passover. They're devastated. They're walking on a road. They're headed back home to Emmaus. And this traveler shows up next to them. And as he begins to poke and prod them with some questions, hey, why are you so forlorn? What's going on? Why are you so upset? They sarcastically look at him and say, where have you been, man? Haven't you been paying attention to what's been going on in Jerusalem? They just killed our prophet. They just killed our rabbi. And he says these little words. Don't you know that the Messiah must fulfill these things? And beginning at Moses and all of the prophets, He shared with them the things concerning Himself." And so the point, my friends, is that all Scripture is profitable for us. The point is that all Scripture points us to something about Jesus Christ. There are Christological purposes in Scripture. All right, now I'm not saying we're gonna go read back Jesus into every little nuance or story, but there's something about the nature, character, purpose, and work of Jesus that is revealed from Genesis to Revelation. And particularly, the apostles, as they walked and lived with Jesus, as they listened to the Galilean preach and teach for three and a half years, they learned how to take scripture, absorb scripture, understand Scripture and then communicate Scripture, and they pass that information on to us, because ye shall be witnesses. And so as we look at this, we must understand this morning that we must live with kingdom resolve. And that resolve requires us to be grounded. Grounded in what? Grounded in the promises of God and the Scriptures that God had given us. So we see that even in this chapter, did you notice how chapter one ends? Just scroll down, you know, swipe with your finger in your digital device or flip the page on your paper book and notice how this chapter ends. It's kind of a strange deal. Peter is gathering the group together and he goes to the Psalms of all places. And he says, don't you know that there's only 11 of us now? And Judas, who betrayed Jesus, bought a potter's field, hanged himself, and his intestines, he burst and his intestines spilled all over in fulfillment of Scripture. And here's the Scripture it fulfills. And so therefore we need to replace him. So, you know, this, and that might have not been the psalm that I would have jumped to to go for that, but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter does, and what is he telling us? Right here in the book of Acts, and we're gonna see this theme throughout the book of Acts, that the apostles were grounded in the word of God and the doctrines of God, full from scripture. And so, we are called to live with kingdom resolve by being grounded in the Word of God and its promises. This tells us that the scripture is full of God's promises and those promises fulfilled have become, the text says it this way, many infallible proofs. The word infallible means unmistakable. It doesn't mean without error. Although the word of God is without error, it means there are unmistakable proofs. Now you guys have all met those agnostic coworkers of yours that say, well, You know, there's some pretty interesting things in this world of science that we have like, you know, DNA that I just, you know, it's pretty hard to explain that that would come, you know, from a pool of goo to you, right? That out of nothing, everything would explode and eventually come together in this incredibly complex, helix of information with so much coded information in this DNA that that couldn't have happened by chance. But I don't think that a God in heaven did that. And if there is a God, he's probably not knowable. I can't really know him. What? That is meant to be an unmistakable proof that there is a designer that created everything by design on purpose for His purpose. There are unmistakable proofs that there is a God. that He made us, and that He gave us His Word, and His Word tells us about Himself. It doesn't describe in detail all the processes in Genesis 1 of how He scientifically created the earth. It says that in the beginning, God said, let there be, and it was. Now, can we study in detail the scientific processes of those? Absolutely, but can we determine from the process by the scientific method? How they came to be? And the answer is no. Why? Because science requires us to test and retest and prove and it requires you to observe. Can any of us go back and observe the beginning? No. But we can observe what God said about the beginning and trust that there was a beginning and that in the beginning God created. Right? So the point I'm making here is the Word of God is full of unmistakable proofs that He is a God who loves us. From Genesis 1, He is God who creates everything good. He gets to define good. He made human relationships to connect with Him. He wants to have a relationship with you. He made male and female as equals together. He gave them both a calling and a promise to have dominion over this world. And it is our sin-cursed, wicked world that tries to subjugate women and women who try to push down men. And we have this age-old sexist battle between the sexes because of our sin nature. God meant us to be in perfect harmony and perfect fellowship. I'm going to say something a little controversial. Women, I understand why you don't need us, okay? I get it, right? God pulled you out of Adam's rib because he said, hey, Adam, it is not good for you to be alone, buddy. I need to make you someone who is comparable to you, all right? So dudes, if you think you can live without women, No, God says he made women for men, all right? But that is not to diminish who you are and what you've been made for, ladies. And it's not to say that you don't need to love God with all your heart and pursue his calling and own who he made you to be, right? And it's okay if you stay single, guy or gal. Singleness is not a curse. All right? But this world in God's created order, He made everything good. And guess what? Male, female, marital relationships are good. God called them so and it's okay if you have a heart desire to pursue a marriage relationship. That's a good thing It's okay. Don't let the world tell you well marriage doesn't work So you might as well just not ever get married or you know, just why don't you live together with the benefits? You know friends with benefits, but no no marriage commitment. No, no God from the very beginning made male and female a He made them both in His image, and He said, Therefore shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. There's something intimate about that relationship that God said from the very beginning, I want this consummated relationship to be a lifelong partnership for God's blessing for dominion over the earth. And it somehow reflects the nature and character of the unity of our triune God to make two completely different people with two completely different wills, with two completely different skill sets and gifts to put them together and have them work together for life. And God called that good. And it was so. And so when we are grounded in the Word of God, from the very beginning, we get all of our understanding of God's creation from the Word of God. And we understand that all those things we learn about God and His goodness and His nature and His character is stuff we can trust for life in 2025. Right? Living with kingdom resolve requires us to be grounded on the truths of God's word. Now let me give you a little bit of exegetical commentary. We're going to make some application at this point, move to the second point. The apostles represented God's 12 delegates from Israel to the world. You notice there's 11 of them. Why does Peter decide at the end of this chapter to replace Judas? Well, do you remember how many sons did Jacob have? Twelve? How many tribes of Israel were there? Technically there's 13, but that's because Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, they get a double portion, and Levi doesn't get a portion. But anyway, there's supposedly 12. There's 12, right? And the point is that Jacob's 12 sons become a nation, the nation of Israel that represent Yahweh to the world. So God would then commission 12 apostles to be his representatives to the 1st century world. So in the time between the Ascension and the Second Coming, that's now, God continues to use us as his sent ones to preach the Gospel of Jesus. Romans 9.14 says, How shall they hear unless they be sent, and how shall they hear without a preacher? God wants us, as sent ones, to be preachers of the good news of the gospel, because in Romans 10, 9 through 13, we are told, working backward, that when the sent one preaches, some of them will hear, and of the hearers, the some that hear, some of them will call, and all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." That is the mysterious method of God's conversion process by using you and me as witnesses who are grounded in the Word of God, trusting on the promises of God from Genesis to Revelation, and living in Christ and striving for Christ. That's how we thrive in 2025. We live with kingdom resolve to be grounded in the Word of God. Now incidentally, by the time we get to the book of Revelation, There's another big number that's a series of 12s. 144,000. 12,000 from all the 12 tribes. Those 144,000 Jewish virgins, virgin males, they are representatives of Jesus preaching to the nations just before Jesus' second coming. This exponential increase of 12s highlights God's rule on earth to accomplish his kingdom work through human means. Let me translate that down to common man. God wants to use you to do his work. God commissioned one man, Jacob, and his 12 sons to become a nation as promised to Abraham and Isaac. God commissioned 12 ordinary men to turn the world upside down by preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. And God will commission another 144,000 Jewish virgin male evangelists during the last days, during the 70th week of Daniel, to preach Christ's second coming. And in the meantime, we have a kingdom that represents His cause, and that kingdom requires us to resolve to be grounded in His Word and His promises. As previously mentioned in the previous messages during our series, God's kingdom is of utmost importance to Him. The kingdom of God, it doesn't surprise us, in the book of Acts is mentioned at strategic points. Acts 8.12 mentions the Kingdom of God. Acts 14.22 mentions the Kingdom of God. Acts 19.8, Acts 20.25, Acts 28.23, and Acts 28.31. All of this indicates that this remains an important way to represent the message of the Gospel. In other words, when we preach the gospel, the gospel will have its effective work, it will transform people from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God will be built and will grow. Do you remember the mustard seed that Jesus talked about? It starts really small, 12 ordinary men, and it comes an extraordinary kingdom that fills the earth. And so, There is a mention of entering the kingdom, by the way, through many hardships, and the references to the enjoyment of the ultimate blessing of a restored creation. Now, one more thing. Furthermore, the text shows in Jesus' own words in verse 5 that his promised first coming, ascension, and Holy Spirit indwelling was attested by two credible witnesses, John and himself. That was an Old Testament must for establishing a true testimony. And the point that I'm making is this, friends, if we are to live with kingdom resolve, we must be resolved to be grounded in the word of God. And I'm going to tell you this, and I've said it often, there are 168 hours in the week. That's a earth fact for us earth dwellers, because the earth rotates around the sun 360 five and a third times or days in one year. And our Earth spins in 24 hours fully around, right? And as we think about the way that affects the times and seasons, that gives us, Jesus said, 12 hours in the day and 12 hours of night. They happen to be capstone in the early morning and the evening part, right? But 12 hours in the day that we are to work, from sunup to sundown, and the point that I'm making is in 168 hours of the week, if you were to break it down, you eat and sleep the majority of those hours. And the rest of those hours, if you're an American, which I think I'm speaking to everybody that's an American here today, because we live in the most workaholic nation on planet Earth, you average approximately 48 to 52 hours a week of work. Because that's just what we do in America. So you will not be able to combat in a one hour sermon, once a week, all of the issues that are going to get thrown at you from the kingdom of darkness on this world every single week. Thus, your grounding in the word of God, your resolve to be grounded should, yes, start with, I resolve to be with God's people on Sundays when God opens the doors because this is the church God has attached me to and I need to be here because God says, don't forsake the fellowship of yourselves together as such as the manner of some, especially while you see the day approaching. So as we get closer to the coming of Jesus, we need to gather every week. We need to be here on Sunday. We've chosen to be here Sunday mornings at 10. And so that's, we're supposed to do that, sure. But ultimately, you must also resolve to make this word a priority in your life. I promise I'm not going to show up at your door at 5.30 in the morning and say, did you read your Bible today? Are you going to pray on your way to work? No, that's you and God, right? And it needs to be a priority. The apostles were grounded in the Word of God. That is a requirement of kingdom resolve. And so, let me ask this question in way of application. Christian, are you grounded on the Word of God? Do you believe God's promises? Not just some of them, all of them. Do you seek to know more about His present and future plan by digging into the content of His Word? Because, friend, God calls you to thrive in Christ and strive for Christ in 2025. And as we think about that, that requires us to live with kingdom resolve. We must be grounded. Now there's a second point today. Living with kingdom resolve requires us to be empowered witnesses. This is a loaded statement. Verses 6 to 8 really show forth this and sum up the content of Jesus' very words to his disciples. Let me make a couple of exegetical comments here. And then we will, again, make some application. Now, first of all, the Holy Spirit's coming, which was promised. Jesus said, I foretold this was coming. In John 14, he said, I will send you a comforter who will bring all things into remembrance of you. He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. This was the foretelling, the foretold arrival of the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet preached about, I will give you a new spirit, I'll place my spirit within you, right? So this was the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit's coming is not continuous, but definitive. What I mean by that is in the context it delimits, it's an aorist participle, it delimits the meaning as temporal and punctiliar here. Though clearly the Spirit is available at any time after Pentecost for those who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Spirit has come already. Once. Does that make sense? And the point here at His coming is you and I have everything we need to be effective, empowered witnesses for Jesus. We don't lose the filling of the Holy Spirit. When you get saved, you get baptized, fully immersed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit of God. You get indwelled, and the word used for indwelled in the book of Corinthians is tabernacled. Just like in the Old Testament when God sent His Spirit upon the tabernacle, His presence was in the very holiest place of the tabernacle, you become the tabernacle or the temple of God. You become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. You don't need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit multiple times. You don't lose the Spirit and then need to have Him again. No, when you receive Christ, you receive all of the Holy Spirit all of the time. Just like this implies, He came once for all. Though clearly the Spirit is available, you don't need more of Him. You have all of Him. The word power translated here is used with reference to miracles in chapter 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 19, but in chapter 4 and 6, it includes the power to speak boldly in view of what follows. The power that is promised in our verse here, 1, 8, is essentially related to the task of being Christ's witnesses. He has given us power to do what? To be witnesses. Though this is not all that Acts teaches about the role of the Spirit in the believer, it's a very important part of the book of Acts. Jesus himself was anointed with the Spirit as God's chosen servant. We saw that in Luke 3, Isaiah 42, Luke 4, Isaiah 6. And now he promises that his apostles will shortly be empowered by the same Spirit to share the servant's ministry. The promise of the Spirit here specifically recalls Isaiah 32, 15, which speaks of the desolation of Israel that continues until the Spirit is poured out on us from on high. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a sign that God's end-time restoration has begun, but since the Spirit is specifically given for the worldwide mission envisioned in verse 8, the day of the Lord and all that it entails is delayed. Christians have to live with the tension of knowing that the work of the gospel is central to God's end-time plan, but never being able to calculate the exact date of the end. That's the point here. That's why he says, are you gonna bring in the end times now? And he says, look, it's not for you to know the end that God has appointed. What it's for you to do is what? Be empowered witnesses. So once you and I were born again, God gave you and I all of his spirit all the time. And he intends you and I to be empowered by the spirit for the spirit. Don't forget the admonition we receive from Jesus himself in Matthew 25 in the parable of the talents. God expects you to be productive. Do you remember that one? Two sermons ago, I expounded it eloquently, I might add. You can go back and watch it, but the point I'm making is simply this. There were three guys that were given an exorbitant astronomical amount of money that they would never have been able to earn in their entire lifetime. All three of them. One talent was more than a lifetime's worth of earnings. One guy's getting given 5, 1, 2, and 1, 1. And the one who's given 1 essentially sticks a finger in his master's eye and says, I don't want you. I don't want your money. I don't want anything about you. Your money is garbage, and I'm burying it in the dirt, and I'm not going to think about it. He is not a faithful servant. He is a wicked servant. And the point that we were making is it is possible to be given life and breath and an eternal purpose, but to reject that eternal purpose and reject that calling and reject the God who gave us life. And woe to the one who rejects Jesus Christ, for there is eternal separation and eternal damnation. awaiting. And that's exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 25. So to the man with two talents or the woman with two talents and man or woman with five, what does he expect? Be productive. And both of them, by the way, double their investment and both of them get the same reward. Right? So the point is not, well, I have more talent, so I'm more important. No, the point is all of us have been given a blessing for God. All of us are expected to invest for God, and God is responsible for the increase and the eternal reward. And so don't forget this admonition, friends. If we are going to be living with kingdom resolve, it requires us to be empowered witnesses. God has called us to that for a purpose. Living with kingdom resolves requires us to be empowered witnesses. So let me ask you a question. How are you taking that calling? Are you taking it seriously in 2024? How will you in 2025? Now, there is a truth in the New Testament in Ephesians chapter 5 that we are to daily yield the control of our lives to the Holy Spirit of God. There is a truth in the New Testament that we fully understand that Paul tells the Galatians that our old man, that is our sin nature, was crucified. The old man was crucified with Christ. It's dead. But that doesn't mean that the flesh, the remnant of the old man, that the flesh isn't very much alive, because it is. And the flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit with the flesh, so that like Paul, we often say, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? This flesh that rears its ugly head over and over again and says, hey, you want that. That's really important to you. You should give your time and your energy and your money to that temporary pleasure that's only going to satisfy you in a moment, leave you empty and guilty, and feeling miserable afterward. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's your flesh. But the good news is, when you receive Christ, he's now given you a new nature, and he's put his new spirit, his Holy Spirit within you, so now you have the power to say no to the flesh. It's kind of like, this is a reference for old, for you old people like me, young people won't get it at all, you know, when that famous hero drew his sword, planted his feet, and said, I have the power! Okay, nevermind. That was a really fringe cartoon, by the way. It was really stupid. When it came out on Netflix, I tried to show a couple of episodes to my kids. I was like, wow, I can't believe I even watched this cartoon. This is the dumbest cartoon on planet Earth. Such a stupid cartoon. But it's kind of funny because there was a transformation of this hero because he raised his sword and said he had the power. I don't even know what power it was or where it came from or who knows. But the point is, I know, the point is this, you actually do have the power. You actually do have the Holy Spirit of God. You actually do have the Creator of the universe that hovered over the waters that were empty and void, and actually was the energizing, effective power to create everything that we see and don't see in this world. And that Holy Spirit indwells you, and He has empowered you for a purpose. And friend, can I say this? It sounds really harsh, and I don't mean it to be. My greatest prayer this year is that in 2025, you and I take seriously this empowered witness opportunity. If we haven't opened our mouth for Jesus, shame on us. Now, God is responsible for the fruit, right? I can't make somebody trust Jesus. But will you covenant with each other and with the Holy Spirit of God that you will be a vessel willing to speak to someone about Jesus in 2025. You see, God calls us not just to be grounded in the word, but he wants us that grounded, that foundation, that filling to be empowered and to flow out of us. If we just continue to come and gorge ourselves on the word of God every Sunday, week in and week out, we're gonna become spiritually morbidly obese. We need an outlet, right? We need to turn outward and we need to take the Word of God and the foundational doctrines of God that we know and love and believe and we need to preach to every creature the unadulterated, pure teachings of Jesus and bring all things into remembrance that Jesus has commanded. We need to be disciples making disciples. Friends, that requires us to be empowered witnesses. You see, a kingdom resolve requires not just a grounding in the word, but empowered witnessing. So I want you to think with me right now, just you and God, you and your thoughts. There's at least two people that you can think of, at least two, there might even be five that you can think of. I know you can, because I've gone through this list mentally in my own mind, that you already know God has put in your life only in your life, and you are the one that God wants to use as an empowered witness to speak Jesus into their heart. I want you to think about those two, three, four, five people. Maybe you got a bigger list than me. And I want you to, in your heart, ask the Spirit of God to help you in 2025 be an empowered witness to those specific people. And I want you to make an action plan. Why? Because if we're hearers of the Word only, we're self-deceived. We must be doers of the Word. We must not just thrive in Christ, but we must strive for Christ. That requires us to be resolved, be grounded in the Word, and be an empowered witness for Jesus. Here, Jesus said, you will be my witnesses. in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Now, I don't think this is necessarily prescriptive for us. In other words, we're not now, well, I've done my Jerusalem, so that means I've done my immediate literal part. Now I need to go gospelize in Goodyear. That's my Judea, right? Or Buckeye, maybe. That's my Judea. No, no, no, Buckeye's my Samaria, right? Yeah, you're welcome. Anyway, no, no, we're not thinking of it literally like that. But the point is this, we know what happened in the book of Acts. God said, Jesus said, you will be. They hunkered down in Jerusalem and did not go out and become witnesses. So God sent them persecution and they fanned out from the air, right? Sometimes the persecution of the gospel is a good thing for us. I know this generation, we are a spoiled generation, right? We're the generation that goes to the ER because we got a sliver, right? Whereas the other generation, they lost a thumb, tied a tourniquet around it and finished the workday, right? There's just something about that generation. They were working the hydraulic press and they crushed their hand, but somehow they tied it off and they finished the workday before they went and got it amputated and kept on going. I mean, the point is this, spiritual discouragement and despair is not meant to keep us down, but to press us forward to be empowered witnesses for Jesus. Now there's one last thing that we must resolve. Living with kingdom purpose in verses nine to 14 requires us to be unified prayer warriors. So what did they do when Jesus said, you shall be my witnesses? What's the first thing they do? We see it in verse nine. Now, when he had spoken these things, they watched, he's taken away, they're mesmerized, they're gazing. I'm sure they're thinking about the stuff they're gonna miss. But God sends messengers to slap him out of their stupor and say, now go get busy. He was taken up in the clouds, so he's going to come again in the clouds to receive his own. 1 Thessalonians 4, okay, at the shout. and the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. Eventually we will, the dead in Christ will rise first and we are alive and remain. We'll meet him together in the clouds and so shall we ever be with the Lord. We'll meet him in the air in the clouds. Just the way he came, he's gonna come again. We're gonna go meet him there and then we're gonna rule and reign with him for a thousand years. But the point here is this, when we see what he's doing in verse nine, they're looking, they're looking, they're snapped out of their stupor And then verse 12, then they returned to Jerusalem. Now, I had some information about this. I'm not going to spend too much time on it, but I will say this. Some people discredit Luke's gospel here because he says, well, he was in the Mount of Olives and it was only a Sabbath day journey, which is about 2,000 cubits or 0.7 miles, but there's a It says near Bethany. Well, that was like, you know, five or six miles away. So what's the discrepancy here? Well, the point really is the mention of the hill called the Mount of Olives is the place of ascension. It shouldn't be taken to contradict what Luke said in 2450, which speaks more generally of Jesus leading them out into the vicinity of Bethany. Bethany was, by the way, on the eastern slope of the same mountain. And according to John 11, 18, it was 15 stadia from Jerusalem, or two miles. The summit of Mount Olives was a Sabbath day walk from the city. So it's likely Jesus would have led them into open country, then brought them up to the summit for the ascension. So he did both, in other words. He led them out into open country, that's where they were having their discussion, then he brings them to the top, the summit, which is only a Sabbath day journey 0.7 miles from Jerusalem's center. Now, by the way, If you go look at the mountain, if you look at a map today, you're going to find that the Mount of Olives is actually covered with gravestones. It is a grave site for the Jews and Crusaders from the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, and a bunch of Islamic and Muslim families, because we're told that he will come again the second time and land on the Mount of Olives and split it in two, and it'll become a great valley, and many of these dead bodies here, they believe that there will be some special significance about them being there. But we all know ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We're going to be made new and given a new body. It doesn't really matter where our earthly body is in turn. God is going to create a new one from whatever as he promised. But anyway. And so Luke's description of the activity of the apostles with those with them at this stage, notice what they do. They all go back to Jerusalem. And what do they do? They entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, it lists all 11 of them, and it includes Mary, the mother of Jesus, Jesus' brothers, this is the first allusion to his brothers having come to faith in Christ, sometime post-resurrection and ascension of Jesus, his brothers become believers. That's a big deal, because we're told in the Gospels that they rejected their brother. And so we find that they're all now, what are they doing? Verse 14, they all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. All with one accord with prayer and supplication. This tells us that our commission, we are to resolve to be grounded in the word, we are to resolve to be empowered witnesses, and we must resolve to be unified prayer warriors. God wants to do a work of thriving in your life. And he wants that thriving to turn into striving for King Jesus in 2025. But that striving must be grounded in the word, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and then unified as a prayer warrior. Now, in a moment ago, I asked you to think about those two to five or however many people the Holy Spirit's put on your heart, that only that only you can reach because you put them in your life for a reason. Not Pastor Ryan, not Pastor Steven, not Melissa, not Jen, okay, not our deacons and their wives, but you. And here's what I asked you to do a minute ago. I want you to commit to be a witness for them, but more importantly than that, I want you to commit to pray for their salvation. Do you believe God answers prayer? Then pray. like he answers prayer. Do you believe God cares about souls that are lost and dying and going to a crisis eternity? Do you believe that the most sobering reality in the world today is that our souls are dying and going to hell today? If that is truly sobering, then we must be unified prayer warriors. That's what was told here. As they patiently wait on God's timing, the disciples are praying, readying themselves for the task as a group. Luke 24, 53 also makes the point, after the ascension, they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. It's striking that at almost every important turning point in the narrative of God's redemptive plan in the book of Acts, we find a mention of prayer. Test and find out, Acts 1, 24, Acts 8, 14 to 17, Acts 9, 11 to 12, Acts 10, 4, 9, 10, and 30, Acts 13, 2 to 3. And I could keep going. If you want to be a part of God's great kingdom cause in advance in 2025, then you must with your church commit to be a unified prayer warrior at CBC. Throughout the book of Acts, we see that every time God's people prayed for his power, it was given. He didn't withhold it. Everywhere they went with the Spirit-filled power and authority, the gospel accomplished its saving work. Not only does God call you and me to thrive in Christ and strive for Christ in 2025, but He also calls His church to do so together. So today we have seen three actions derived from this chapter that call us to live with kingdom resolved. We must be grounded in his word and trusting in his promises. We must be empowered witnesses for King Jesus advancing his kingdom, and we must be resolved to be unified prayer warriors. How many of us will commit in 2025, not only to thrive in the word and in Christ, but to strive for King Jesus? Let's be grounded. Let's be empowered witnesses and let's be unified prayer warriors in 2025. Let's pray.