The Spirit Descends at Pentecost (2:1–13)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 28, 2024

Mount Everest:

Several years ago, I was watching Dateline on NBC. In this episode, they talked about people climbing to reach the summit of Mount Everest. It turns out that a few years ago, it was the deadliest season of climbing Mount Everest. As I watched this show, I was amazed in a few ways. One was the wind. They had a small window of time when they could climb from the last camp to the very top of Everest. Some didn’t finish in time, so they faced very bad weather as they came down. The weather was so bad that many people died. They said that the wind was hurricane-force, and the temperatures were something like 15 degrees below zero. I cannot imagine that situation. Hurricane winds, 15 degrees below zero, snow flying and to be 29,000 feet high.

I look forward to an opportunity to climb Mount Everest someday. But that is not why I am telling that story. I tell this story because of the idea of wind, hurricane-force wind.

Has anyone here ever been in a hurricane?

Has anyone in here ever been in a tornado?

I bet you have heard the stories of the wind. Most of you know that I like to run a little bit. When I was training for my first marathon, weekly, I would run country roads. If you are on country roads, there is very little to stop the wind, and I faced some very rough wind. There were a few times when I would be running east, and everything would be going well. I would think that I was going to run the whole 26 miles, but then I would turn north and then turn west, and, wow, the wind would hit me in the face as I turned. There was one time that I was warm and sweating as I ran east. But then I turned north, and the wind was so cold that when I tried to talk, my lips were numb. Wind can make cold air worse; wind can pick up fires and spread them; wind makes the snow hard to keep off the streets, and wind can be dangerous. But how often have we wanted a nice breeze on a hot day?

Today, we are talking about the Holy Spirit. Notice that prior to the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the church, they heard a mighty rushing wind. We are now in our fourth sermon on the book of Acts, beginning with chapter 1:1. In today’s sermon, we are going to look at Acts 2:1-13, and we will see the Holy Spirit’s descent unto the church. I want to show you that the Holy Spirit came upon the church fulfilling Acts 1:8 and I believe the Holy Spirit never left the church. We still have power through the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s witnesses.

The Spirit descends in verses 1-4.

Acts 2:1–4 (ESV)

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

1. Do you notice something? The verse begins simply stating, “When the day of Pentecost had come…” It is as if they all knew about the Day of Pentecost. But also note that they expected Pentecost to come. Pentecost was a Jewish holiday. One writes: 2:1. The day of Pentecost was an annual feast that followed the Feast of Firstfruits by a week of weeks (i.e., seven weeks, or 49 days) and therefore also was called the Feast of Weeks (cf. Lev. 23:15–22). The name “Pentecost,” of Greek derivation, means 50 because it was the 50th day after the Firstfruits feast (Lev. 23:16).^[1]
2. The disciples were all at one place. We really don’t know where they were. They might have been in the upper room where they were in the previous chapter.
3. We also do not know how many people were there. We know the 12 disciples were there. There may have been more, but we do not know. I believe there were more. I think there could have been 120 people or so present. In chapter 1, we know that about 120 men and women were present in the prayer meeting, so there is no reason to believe this is limited to the disciples. Now, God is about to act.
4. They hear a loud noise. This noise comes from Heaven, and it happened suddenly. This was something unexpected. The noise filled the whole house where they were sitting, so we know they were in a house. The idea that it came from Heaven may mean that it came from Heaven, literally. Or simply that it came from above. In the Bible, we have Heaven referring to the place where God resides, the atmosphere, and outer space. Notice that they hear the noise first.
5. Verse 3 mentions these tongues of fire. Remember the Old Testament? Remember Moses and the burning bush? At that time Moses saw a bush on fire but not being consumed (Exodus 3). I think that image is here. The fire comes down and is dispersed upon the disciples, but the fire does not consume them. Fire and wind were always signs of God’s activity in the Bible. It is possible that the fire and the tongues only happened to the disciples, but it is also possible that this happened to others as well.
6. They then speak in other tongues. There are two views on tongues. One is that tongues are a known language. The other is that tongues are more of a prayer language. Either way, it seems that in this case the tongues mean a known language. In a few moments (verse 6), the people are able to hear their own language spoken.
7. I was once listening to a tape of an actual miracle. In this particular tape the people were praying for a revival and they heard a mighty wind rush through the place and, you know what? God was about to do great things. You see that was an Eskimo area and they struggled with alcohol abuse. There were many problems. But God was about to change things through the Gospel.

We see the details of what happened in verses 5-13.

Acts 2:5–13 (ESV)

⁵ Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶ And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. ⁷ And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? ⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, ¹¹ both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” ¹² And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

1. In the next several verses, we see that there were people here from many different countries. You see, Pentecost was a major holy day. …Jerusalem would swell in population. People were required to come from far away. One first century writer name Josephus said that Jerusalem’s population could swell to 3,000,000. It was at this time that the Holy Spirit came upon the church.
2. It is likely that the disciples were in a house, but the Spirit coming upon the church made such a disturbance that people heard this, and when people heard this, the disciples came out where they could talk with the people. We know that by the end of this chapter, 3000 people were saved, so they had to be somewhere to accommodate such a large group.
3. Verse 7 says that the people were amazed and bewildered. They were wondering why all the people were not Galileans. Galileans had an accent. Dr. Constable from Dallas Theological Seminary references insights in this:
4. “Galileans had difficulty pronouncing gutturals and had the habit of swallowing syllables when speaking; so they were looked down upon by the people of Jerusalem as being provincial (cf. Mark 14:70). Therefore, since the disciples who were speaking were Galileans, it bewildered those who heard because the disciples could not by themselves have learned so many different languages.”
5. Through verse 11 we see many places listed that were represented. Note that many of these places will be visited in the book of Acts. These people heard the Gospel in their own language.
6. Verse 12 shows that many were amazed. Verse 13, but some were not. They rationalized it and we must never do that.

Close:

John Piper provides the following helpful illustration of the Holy Spirit before and after Pentecost:

Picture a huge dam for hydroelectric power under construction, like the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, 375 feet high and 11,000 feet across. Egypt’s President Nasser announced the plan for construction in 1953. The dam was completed in 1970 and in 1971 there was a grand dedication ceremony and the 12 turbines with their ten billion kilowatt-hour capacity were unleashed with enough power to light every city in Egypt. During the long period of construction the Nile River wasn’t completely stopped. Even as the reservoir was filling, part of the river was allowed to flow past. The country folk downstream depended on it. They drank it, they washed in it, it watered their crops and turned their mill-wheels. They sailed on it in the moonlight and wrote songs about it. It was their life. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of. Well, Pentecost is like the dedicatory opening of the Aswan High Dam. Before Pentecost the river of God’s Spirit blessed the people of Israel and was their very life. But after Pentecost the power of the Spirit spread out to light the whole world. None of the benefits enjoyed in the pre-Pentecostal days were taken away. But ten billion kilowatts were added to enable the church to take the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ to every tongue and tribe and nation.1

In Nik Ripkin’s book The Insanity of God, he tells the story of Aisha, a 24-year-old Christian widow and convert from Islam. She was so outgoing in her witness to Christ in the hostile environment of her Islamic town that the authorities arrested her and put her in the dark, unfinished cellar of the police station. At the point when she felt she could take no more and was about to scream, instead, to her surprise, out of her mouth came a heart-song of praise to Christ. As she sang, she could tell the movement upstairs ceased. They were listening.

That night the police chief came down and said he was taking her home on one condition: You must come to my house in three days. Then he said, I don’t understand. You are not afraid of anything. My wife and daughters and all the women in my family are afraid of everything. But you are not afraid of anything. … I want you to come to my house so you can tell everyone why you are not afraid. And I want you to sing that song.

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Pray

^[1] Toussaint, S. D. (1985). Acts. (J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck, Eds.)The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 357). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Matthias Replaces Judas (Acts 1:12–26)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 21, 2024

TONY EVANS ON GETTING UN-STUCK

Tony Evans, a popular black preacher from down in Texas, spoke of being on an elevator in a high-rise building. He said he’d never been particularly comfortable on such elevators. There was something about riding up and down in a little box several hundred feet off the ground that has never sat well with him. He worried that something would go wrong.

One day it did. The car he was riding in got stuck in between floors way up in the higher floors. He noted that some of the people in the car became frantic. They began to beat on the door hoping to get someone’s attention. Others began to yell in the hopes that their voices would get someone on the surrounding floors to come to the aid. But nobody heard their noise or their cries.

Then Evans quietly made his way to the front of the car, opened a little door in the wall, and pulled out a telephone. Immediately he was connected with someone on the outside. He didn’t need to beat on the wall to get their attention. He didn’t need to speak loudly in the phone to receive their help. He could have whispered and they would have heard him.

Evans said that – in this world, we’re going to get “stuck” in places we aren’t comfortable with. Some people begin to beat against the walls, others cry out in dismay. But the person who trusts in the power of confident prayer knows there’s someone on the other end who hears their call and comes to their aid.

What an awesome illustration!

In today’s sermon, we will look at a time when the disciples needed to make a decision. How did they make this decision? We are about to find out, but one thing is that they did seek the Lord.

Let’s look at the passage:

Acts 1:12–26 (ESV)

¹² Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. ¹³ And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. ¹⁴ All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, ¹⁶ “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. ¹⁷ For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” ¹⁸ (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) ²⁰ “For it is written in the Book of Psalms,

     “ ‘May his camp become desolate,

and let there be no one to dwell in it’;

and

     “ ‘Let another take his office.’

²¹ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” ²³ And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴ And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵ to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” ²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

1. Jesus had told them to wait.
   1. Jesus has just now told the disciples to wait until the Holy Spirit comes upon them and not do anything until.
   2. Now, they leave the Mount of Olives, and they go back to Jerusalem. Now, the Bible says they go about a Sabbath day’s journey; what? A Sabbath day’s journey was about ¾ mile. It was what the rabbis decided a person would be allowed to walk on the Sabbath.
   3. They arrived back in Jerusalem and went upstairs to the room they were staying in.
   4. Some may think that this is the upper room where they ate the Passover meal with Jesus, and that is possible, but not likely. That was my first thought, but it was likely another room available in Jerusalem. In the ancient world, the larger rooms were on the second and third floors. This was because the smaller rooms would have more walls which helped support the next floor. On the third floor, they could eat, host meals, and even have guests. They could also use these rooms to charge for guests.
   5. This is no different.
   6. Now all the disciples were there.
2. What happened to Judas?
   1. Verses 15-19 tell us about Judas.
   2. Verse 15 lets us know that there were about 120 people in the room.
   3. Notice that Peter speaks up. Peter is very often a spokesperson in Acts, and this is especially true in the first several chapters until the Apostle Paul comes on the scene. Peter addresses them as “brothers” though the word can also include women.
   4. Peter speaks: something I read says:

This address of Peter (vv. 16-21) is the first of some 23 or 24 speeches that Luke reported in Acts. About one-third of the contents of Acts is speeches.

“To an extent, of course, all the speeches in Acts are necessarily paraphrastic, for certainly the original delivery contained more detail of argument and more illustrative material than Luke included—as poor Eutychus undoubtedly could testify (Acts 20:7-12)! Stenographic reports they are not, and probably few ever so considered them. They have been reworked, as is required in any précis, and reworked, moreover, in accord with the style of the narrative. But recognition of the kind of writing that produces speeches compatible with the narrative in which they are found should not be interpreted as inaccurate reporting or a lack of traditional source material. After all, a single author is responsible for the literary form of the whole.”

Josephus “recorded” many speeches in his histories, but he clearly put them in his own words. One example is Herod the Great’s speech to the Jews encouraging them to defend themselves against the attacking Arabians. The same speech appears in both the Antiquities of the Jews and The Wars of the Jews, but the content is somewhat different. Another is Herod Agrippa I’s speech to the Jews discouraging them from getting into war with the Romans.

1. Now, Peter talks about a Scripture being fulfilled regarding Judas. Psalm 41:9 is one of the Psalm references that has to do with being betrayed by one whom you trust.
2. The next couple of verses simply share what happened to Judas. This is a somewhat gruesome passage, but he bought a field, or actually, the money he used to betray Jesus was used to buy a field, and he burst open in the field. I like what the Bible Knowledge Commentary says about this:

1:18–19. Though Judas himself did not personally buy a field, he did so indirectly. The priests used the betrayal money Judas flung into the temple to make this purchase in Judas’ name (Matt. 27:3–10).

The account of Judas’ violent end in Acts 1:18 seems to contradict Matthew 27:5, which starkly says he “hanged himself.” One explanation is that Judas’ intestines quickly became swollen and distended after he hanged himself, so he burst open. Another explanation, more probable, is that Judas hanged himself over a cliff and the rope or branch of the tree he was using broke. When he fell to the rocks below, he “burst open.”^[1]

• Verse 20 is a quote from Psalm 69:25 and 109:8.
• In verses 21-26 we see the disciple’s response
  1. The disciples make the decision to replace Judas.
  2. Notice verse 23 says that they need a witness? It was critical that they replace Judas with someone who had witnessed Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
  3. Verses 24-25 are composed of their prayer.
  4. It is important to note that they prayed for this decision.
  5. They give credit to God’s omniscience “Lord you know the hearts of all men.”
  6. They appeal to God as the One who has chosen.
  7. They want this person to occupy the ministry and the apostleship.
  8. Verse 25 they drew lots.
  9. The lost fell to Matthias and he was added to their number. Now, remember that the Holy Spirit has not yet come upon the church, but this is the last time we see this form of decision making in the Bible.

“Prayer is surrender-surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boat hook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.”[2]

• Applications:
  1. Verse 14 says that they all joined together constantly in prayer. We must also be in prayer with the community.
  2. We must be in prayer in unity with the community as well.
  3. Verses 16 and verse 20 affirm the strong authority of Scripture. We must always affirm the authority of the Scriptures.
  4. In verse 22 they consider it important that one of them is a witness. We are also a witness of what Jesus has done in our lives and we must take that seriously.
  5. In verse 24, the disciples affirm that God knows everyone’s heart, and they seek His guidance. We also must always seek His guidance, knowing He knows all, our heart and the others.
  6. We must seek the Lord and depend upon Him for our everyday needs.
  7. The overall theme is still seeking God for the witness of the Gospel. We must also seek God for the witness of the Gospel.

Conclusion:

When you get stuck, what do you do? The disciples prayed and asked the Lord to help them out of this. I encourage you to do so as well.

Why are we here?

C.S. Lewis writes:

It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.[3]

Prayer

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him (Genesis 1-2).

Our sin separated us from God (Genesis 3).

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4).

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matthew – Luke).

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John – Jude).

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Revelation 22:5).

Pray

^[1] Toussaint, S. D. (1985). Acts. (J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck, Eds.)The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 356). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

[2] E. Stanley Jones, in Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome, K Hughes, Tyndale, 1988, p. 73

[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1996), p. 171.

The Ascension of Jesus (Acts 1:6–11)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 14, 2024

At a past church, we used to sing a song that started out:

My God can never fail, He’s been proved time and again, trust Him and see, He’s got all the power you need.

We sang another song that started like this:

There’s no rock, there is no God like our God.

I wonder, do we believe that there is no God like our God? Do we live like that? Do we live with a trust that He is God and there is no other? Do we live with a conviction that He is the authority? Do you see how those two ideas go together? So many times, we forget or trivialize the power and authority of God, and this affects the way we trust Him. We so often trivialize the power and authority of God, and this means that we don’t live under the conviction that His ways are best and only His ways. He Is God, and we are not.

I once heard a powerful sermon by Francis Chan in which he talked about our mighty God. Francis talked about the Sunday School stories. You remember the stories, don’t you? As a child, you likely learned about how the young boy David trusted God, and God helped him conquer the giant (1 Samuel 17 and Goliath). We serve a strong God. Okay, another one, long before David, there was a man named Noah, and Noah trusted God and was faithful (Genesis 6, 7, and 8). So, though God flooded the earth, God saved Noah and his family. We serve a strong God.

What are other examples of our strong and mighty God in the Bible?

Please share… What are some examples that you remember from a recent study or something a long time ago?

Walk down and actually allow people to share a few examples.

We serve a mighty God. He is the Lord.

A few weeks ago, I shared a few of the verses that Chip Ingram talked about:

He is before all things: Psalm 92:

Rev 1:8: Alpha and Omega

He created all things:

Colossians 1:15-20

Heb. 1: He upholds all things.

He is above all things: Eph. 4:6.

Isaiah 45: I am the Lord, and there is no other…

Mary said that nothing is impossible with God.

Daniel 4: God rules all things.

When I was at another church, we sang a song that started out: Mighty, Mighty Savior, Mighty, Mighty Lord…

Today, we are going to look at Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, and I want to show you that once again, we see that Jesus is a Mighty God. Correction, Jesus is THE Mighty God. We will apply this passage as well.

Acts 1:6–11 (ESV)

⁶ So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” ⁹ And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, ¹¹ and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

1. The disciples ask the question.
   1. Notice that the disciples first ask plainly if He is now going to restore the Kingdom. The Bible says that they gathered around Him. It appears that the 11 disciples are with Him and there may be close to 120 people altogether with Him. Verse 15 tells us that there were about 120 people in the upper room.
   2. The disciples do not yet have the Holy Spirit, and though they have been with Jesus for some three years and Jesus has been with them for forty days post-resurrection, they still struggle to understand. They are still looking for Jesus to have an earthly reign. They are still thinking that Jesus is now going to overthrow Rome, but that is not what is going to happen.
   3. Now, in the context of Acts, Luke is the writer, and he is reviewing his gospel. That is why we discuss Jesus and the disciples in this sermon on Acts.
   4. Also, we must remember the disciples were likely young men, very young men. It is a big deal that Jesus has chosen and trained them, but without the Holy Spirit, they lack understanding. We also must put ourselves in their world. We must think that by their Jewish understanding, they were looking for a Messiah who would rule Israel as King David reigned in the Old Testament. They were looking for one to reign over an earthly Kingdom.
   5. But what about us? Where is our understanding of Kingdom, of God’s Kingdom? Do we lack understanding as well? We have the Holy Spirit to guide and teach us, but we also are still stuck in our mold of thinking, especially in that we interpret things based on our past understanding. When Mercedes was a toddler, she would be trying to unfasten a safety belt and she might say, “Stuck, stuck.” I would say, “Yes, Mercedes, that is stuck for a reason.” So, sometimes our thinking is stuck, sometimes because of our own fault, and sometimes simply because that is all God is allowing us to understand for the moment. For their moment in time, they were looking for an earthly reign.
2. Jesus responds: So, now Jesus responds.
   1. They are not to know the times and the dates.
   2. Jesus says that the Father has set these times and dates. Do you think about that? It is by God’s authority that He has set these times and dates.
   3. Notice that Jesus didn’t rebuke their understanding of Kingdom. Jesus will eventually reign on earth. Jesus will eventually make things right. Jesus will eventually conquer all these powers. Jesus will eventually have His Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus will eventually restore Israel. But not yet.
   4. Again, we serve a strong God, we serve a mighty God, we serve the only true God and He is in control, and we must surrender to trust Him.
   5. But they are to fulfill the great commission with the power of the Holy Spirit.
   6. Acts 1:8: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
   7. Luke is likely alluding to Isaiah 49:6: … he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
   8. It is interesting that at first, Jesus simply says that they do not know the times and the seasons, but now He jumps to the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that they must fulfill the great commission. It is as if Jesus is stating that the Helper will come upon them, and they will receive power. They don’t need to worry about when the Kingdom will come. Instead, they must proclaim the Gospel.
   9. That is what we must do as well. We must trust in Christ always. We must understand that He is the Mighty Savior, and we must stay the course proclaiming the Gospel.
3. Jesus ascends.
   1. Then Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. The disciples are gazing up into Heaven in amazement.
   2. Let me ask: “Are you amazed at this narrative?” “Am I amazed?” I honestly was not amazed at first, but as I thought about this passage, it struck me. Think about it: They are watching, and Jesus talks to them, and then a cloud simply takes Him up and carries Him away. When was the last time you saw this happen? I am not talking about seeing this on television; I am talking about really happening. This really happened. This is so amazing that even though they had seen all those miracles before, this stood out to them.
   3. Eventually, two angels were standing next to the disciples. That is what the Bible means when it says, “Two men in white.” These angels tell the disciples that Jesus will return the same way, wow! It is as if the angels are telling the disciples to quit staring at the heavens and get to the Lord’s work and they do.
4. What are the applications of this passage?
   1. We must trust Jesus as He is in Heaven ruling the earth. Jesus has ascended to Heaven and He is reigning.
   2. We must trust Jesus as He alone can know times and seasons. We must not doubt. We must surrender to God as He is God. He has things under control.
   3. We must trust Jesus as He is coming back in the same way that He left this earth.
   4. Jesus was taken away in a cloud; this shows His power and ability over creation. We must trust Him as He is the powerful, mighty God.
   5. This passage once again shows that we must be amazed by Jesus. We must be amazed by His power and authority. He is taken away, showing once again, that He is not limited by the earthly physics or laws of nature (compare to Jesus’ walking on water: Matthew 14:28; calming the storm: Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24; Jesus raises Lazarus: John 11:43).
   6. We must await Jesus’ coming again in the clouds.
   7. We must be a witness, knowing that the Holy Spirit has come upon us, and we have this power from above.
   8. We must be a witness, starting locally and going far.

Conclusion:

Piper writes:

Albert Einstein’s indictment of preachers illustrates what I am trying to say. Charles Misner, a scientific specialist in general relativity theory, was quoted this way:

I do see the design of the universe as essentially a religious question. That is, one should have some kind of respect and awe for the whole business.… It’s very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he’d run across did not have proper respect … for the author of the universe.⁶

This is devastating, because I cannot imagine that from our vantage point sixty years later preachers would seem to Einstein any more moved by greatness than they did then.

What’s wrong? There is a disconnect between the greatness of God and the emotional response of the preachers. To Einstein it looked as if they were not “talking about the real thing.” It felt so out of proportion to Einstein that it seemed like they were blaspheming. In other words, if here is a God of the sort that Christians say they believe in, you have dealings with him and respond as unemotionally as that.

Scientists know that light travels at the speed of 5.87 trillion miles a year. They also know the galaxy of which our solar system is a part is about 100,000 light-years in diameter—about 587 thousand trillion miles. It is one of about a million such galaxies in the optical range of our most powerful telescopes. In our galaxy there are about one hundred billion stars. The sun is one of them, a modest star burning at about 6,000 degrees centigrade on the surface and traveling in an orbit at 155 miles per second, which means it will take about two hundred million years to complete a revolution around the galaxy.

Scientists know these things. Einstein was awed by them. He felt something like this: “If there is a personal God, as the Christians say, who spoke this universe into being, then there is a certain respect and reverence and wonder and dread that would have to come through when we talk about him. And certainly we would be talking about him all the time since he is the most important reality.”^[1]

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Pray

⁶ Quoted in First Things (Dec. 1991): 63 (italics added).

^[1] John Piper and Mark A. Noll, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 194–195.

The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:1-5)

Theme: An Introduction to Acts

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 7, 2024

How do we start a fire? I love fire, don’t you? When I was growing up, we had a fireplace. It was a wood-burning fireplace. I loved that fireplace. I loved sitting and listening to the crackling of the wood and watching the fire. One particular January gave us around 12 inches of snow. It was beautiful. I was in eighth grade. A few days after receiving 12 inches of snow we received another 12 inches of snow. On the night of the second snowstorm, my mom was playing euchre with her family. My dad moved the kitchen table in front of the fireplace, which was in the living room. My dad, my two brothers, and I played Monopoly in front of the fire most of the night. It was a peaceful evening.

How many of you like bonfires? So, how do we start a fire?

I read the following from retired Friends pastor, mentor, and friend, Rick Sams:

SNUFFING OR STARTING THE FIRE by Pastor Rick Sams

I was strangely drawn to my old Boy Scout handbook the other day, specifically the section on “fire-building.” Most boys love to mess with fire. The Scouts believe the key is teaching them how to do it safely.

Interestingly I found far more techniques for putting out fires than starting them i.e. water, sand, stop-drop-roll, blanket, chemicals, dirt, soda pop, baking soda, shovel, and even your hands.

This may be a metaphor of life. It’s easier to snuff the fire (power) of God in your life than start it. At any given moment we are either fanning that flame or we’re actively putting it out. There’s no in-between, “auto-pilot” or “maintenance mode.”

The twin verses of 2 Timothy 1:6 and I Thessalonians 5:19 confirm this: “Fan into flame the gift of God in you…Do not put out the Holy Spirit’s fire.”

So how do we fan the flame of the Holy Spirit in our lives? We often do that in surprising ways. One of the best is by humbling ourselves, confessing we are weak and He is strong. We are doing this when we pray. God is very close to those who admit they are helpless, broken and desperate… [1]

This local pastor is saying that when we depend upon the Holy Spirit, God is strong, and it starts a fire in our hearts. We are going to see that theme in our new sermon series.

Today, we begin a new sermon series. I am going to now begin a series on the book of Acts. We will be studying the book of Acts for a while. We will take some breaks from Acts for Christmas and Easter and special occasions, but I plan to slowly walk through the book of Acts. Acts is important to the church as Acts teaches us church history. Acts records the first 30 or so years of the church.

Today’s text comes from Acts 1:1-5, let’s read those verses:

Acts 1:1–5 (ESV)

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, ² until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³ He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

⁴ And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; ⁵ for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

1. Let’s talk about the background of the book of Acts:
   1. Acts is Luke’s second volume, so who wrote Acts?
   2. I know that is a trick question. I already told you who wrote Acts. It is well documented in church history that Luke wrote Acts. It seems to be very clear and unchallenged that Luke is the author. The church father, Irenaeus, offers an early witness to Luke, Paul’s traveling companion, and author of these two volumes, and this suggestion is nowhere seriously challenged among early church fathers. The church father, Tertullian, refers to the author once as Luke, the lawyer.
   3. The autobiographical nature of Acts “we” shows that the writer of Acts and Luke traveled with Paul. John MacArthur writes: “The writings of the early church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome affirm Luke’s authorship, and so does the Muratorian Canon (c. A.D. 170).” So, by AD 170, just over 100 years after Acts was written, we have several testimonies that Luke wrote Acts and his New Testament Gospel.
   4. Let’s talk for a moment about Luke’s Gospel. You remember the Gospel according to Luke, don’t you?
   5. His Gospel is by far one of my favorites. Notice, I said one of my favorites when there are only four total Gospels. But it is hard to narrow down Luke’s Gospel as my favorite but along with Mark, Matthew, and John it is in the top four, for sure. That is like calling Meagan my favorite wife when she is my only wife. Okay, back to the point. Luke’s Gospel gives us all this information about Jesus’ birth. It is Luke that writes that “Mary treasured things in her heart” (Luke 2:19). It was Luke who gives such a clear account of John the baptizer’s birth. It was Luke who told us that Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45). It was Luke who told Jesus’ birth from Mary’s perspective. After Jesus’ birth, Luke records the account of Jesus being left at the temple when He was twelve years old (Luke 2:42).
   6. So, now Luke is beginning a second work that seems to go together with his first work. This is a kind of sequel. Luke’s Gospel was written about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and now Acts is going to be about Jesus building up the church through the Apostles by baptizing them with the Holy Spirit. I wish to come back to that in a minute.
   7. As we look at Acts, we can see many passages in which Luke uses the pronoun “we” as he writes (Acts 16:10). It seems clear that Luke was a travel companion with the apostle Paul.
   8. Also, something about scrolls. They didn’t have books yet (what are called Codex, codices), at least not like we think of them. They used scrolls. Matthew, Luke, and Acts were each close to the maximum length for scrolls (between thirty-two and thirty-five feet).
   9. Can you just imagine unrolling a long scroll 35 feet as you read!!! Imagine doing that in front of people!
   10. There is debate about when Acts was written. I favor the belief that Acts was written in A.D. 62 or shortly thereafter. I believe that because this book does not record the major persecutions that would have occurred in 64 AD and thereafter, nor does this book record the death of the Apostle Paul.
2. The text: The Holy Spirit is coming!
   1. Look again at verse 1. Luke reminds the reader what he had written in his first work. That was common in ancient literature in a two-volume work. That is common in today’s day, isn’t it?
   2. How many of you have watched a show that was a continued episode from the previous week? I have. I used to get hooked on the show 24. Any of you ever watch that show?
   3. Every week they needed to recap the previous episode. Each episode was one hour in real time and each season consisted of 24 episodes which would be a 24-hour day. We have also had movies that make sequels. Think of the four Superman movies from the late seventies and early eighties. Okay, now, think about Star Trek. In the second movie with the original cast and characters, Spock died. Then, in the beginning of the third movie, titled The Search for Spock, they showed the death of Spock again. This they did, even though anyone who saw the previous movie had seen that happen. This is a sequel, and so Luke recaps in these first few verses.
   4. Luke is writing to Theophilus, who was likely someone paying Luke to research and write about Jesus and the early church. In the first century, historians and writers would be paid by wealthy people or the government to do their work. Another thought is that Theophilus could be a code name for any believer.
   5. The theme of the first five verses is that Jesus told the disciples to wait until the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus says that John baptized with water, but He will baptize them with the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you some themes in this book.
3. The themes of Acts:
   1. One source tells me:
   2. In Acts, believers are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ among both Jews and Gentiles, and in doing this they establish the church. In addition to this, Acts explains how Christianity, although it is new, is in reality the one true religion, rooted in God’s promises from the beginning of time. In the ancient world it was important that a religion be shown to have stood the test of time. Thus Luke presents the church as the fulfillment and extension of God’s promises.^[2]
   3. In Acts, we see many summaries. Luke will summarize how the early church shared everything.
   4. In Acts we have many speeches and sermons.
   5. In Acts we have many travel narratives. We have Paul’s missionary journeys and Luke gives detail to where Paul went.
   6. The first half of Acts is mainly about Peter and the second half is about Paul taking the Gospel to the non-Jewish people.
   7. Christianity crosses cultures and is not tied to a country. Christianity is tied to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
   8. I heard about a family that fled the country. They were angry about America losing our Christian values. A certain family was so agitated with how America is becoming anti-Christ that they got on their own boat and planned to go to an Island in the Pacific. But their boat was caught in a storm and they eventually were rescued, sent to another country, and then the American embassy took care of them. The story is ironic. But in Acts we see that Christianity is not tied to a country or culture. Christianity is for all people and God does not call us to stick our head in the sand.
   9. In the book of Acts we see constant power through prayer and through miracles.
   10. In the book of Acts we see the constant unity of the church and self-sacrificial unity.
   11. As mentioned, in Acts we see the power of the Holy Spirit.
   12. Acts is about the church’s mission taking the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.
4.  Applications:
   1. The first audience was learning about what God did in the church and how the Gospel got to them. You may know little about Acts and the early church. Or, you may know a lot, but I hope this sermon taught us all something.
   2. I also hope that we are all encouraged by the power of prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit, the miracles that God accomplishes.
   3. I hope we are all challenged to go out and build an Acts church (Acts 29 ministries).

Close:

I began this sermon talking about starting a fire. Maybe I like the change in seasons because I like a change. I recently heard the following:

It was spring, but it was summer I wanted,
the warm days, and the great outdoors.
It was summer, but it was fall I wanted,
the colorful leaves, and the cool, dry air.
It was autumn, but it was winter I wanted,
the beautiful snow, and the joy of the holiday season.
I was a child, but it was adulthood I wanted,
the freedom, and the respect.
I was twenty, but it was thirty I wanted,
to be mature, and sophisticated.
I was middle-aged, but it was thirty I wanted,
the youth, and the free spirit.
I was retired, but it was middle-age that I wanted,
the presence of mind, without limitations.
My life was over,
but I never got what I wanted.[3]

As we walk through Acts, we will see that we are baptized with the Holy Spirit and because of that we can be content in all circumstances. That doesn’t mean that you must be content in the summer. That just means that the Holy Spirit is active in you. You can have a large fall bonfire in your heart! So, I encourage you to do that. Let the Holy Spirit thrive in you. Let the Holy Spirit burn within you. Take some time today to refresh your relationship with Christ. Read Acts chapter 2 and think about the way God worked in that passage. Read John chapters 14-17 and think about the comforter that God sends us.

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him (Genesis 1-2).

Our sin separated us from God (Genesis 3).

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Genesis 4-Malachi 4).

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matthew – Luke).

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John – Jude).

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Revelation 22:5).

Pray

[1] One of Rick Sams newspaper articles.

^[2] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2074.

[3] http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/july2013/randy72-1.htm