The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:1-5)

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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

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