Acts 1:1-5
I’m very excited to be spending the next year and some change walking through the book of Acts with all of you. We tend to think of Acts as a historical book, which it is. Broadly speaking, it is the birth and early rapid expansion of the church. When we focus in a little bit more, we see a very clean chronology of that expansion, from Jerusalem, into Judea and Samaria, and then beyond. We see early Christian martyrs, a murderer turned into the greatest missionary the world has ever seen, churches being planted, elders being installed, and so much more. This book is just absolutely loaded with theology, with missiology, with churchology. We could take this message series so many different directions.
But, I want to start by offering up what we believe will be the heartbeat from which everything else flows. Read Acts 1:8. While this directive was given to those present at the time, we believe that this is a truth that transcends time. We believe that every believer today has the power of the Holy Spirit, that same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We also believe that the commission to “go and make disciples…to the ends of the earth” includes believers today.
Big Idea: The Holy Spirit empowers believers for gospel mission.
And so, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe that we are called to be on mission to reach the ends of the earth, and just like it did for the early church, it begins in our own backyards. So we’ve titled this message series, “Ordinary People. Extraordinary Mission.” Before we jump into the first few verses this morning, I want us all to have an understanding of the book, who wrote it, why, and where it fits into the historical context of that time.
Context
There is not much debate on who wrote this book; Luke, the same writer of the gospel by the same name. We have a lot of evidence, primarily the fact that in verse 1 of chapter 1 of Acts, here’s what it says: “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.” So we know that this letter was written to a man named Theophilus, and that the author wrote a previous book about Jesus. If we go back to the gospel of Luke chapter 1, we see that he wrote that gospel to Theophilus. There is more evidence throughout the book of Acts as far as Luke’s authorship, and we’ll see that along the way. We also know that Luke was a companion of Paul’s on some of his missionary journeys, so he had first-hand knowledge of the events that took place. We also know that he was a doctor, and that he is believed to be the only Gentile writer in the New Testament.
The book is dated somewhere around 60-62 AD, just about 30 years after the death of Jesus. The reason for this dating is because the book ends with Paul in prison, before his death. It begins during the time after the resurrection of Jesus, before His ascension to the right hand of the Father.
I want to circle back to the main verse of this whole series, Acts 1:8 (Re-read). This verse is a summary of the book of Acts. In chapter 2, they receive power through the Holy Spirit. After that, through chapter 7, we see the gospel in Jerusalem. From chapters 8-12, the gospel extends into Judea and Samaria. Then, in chapters 13-28, Paul and his missionary companions take the gospel beyond that region to begin gospel work “to the ends of the earth.” (Show map of gospel expansion)
We spent 8 months together in the book of 1st Corinthians, learning from Paul what healthy church rhythms look like. We asked ourselves, “what would a gospel-shaped church look like?”, and while we continue to work inwardly on the health of our leadership and ministry to our church family, we cannot forsake the great responsibility of taking the gospel to the world.
Our hope is that, along the way, we would all grow in our understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that we would be emboldened by the stories of those who came before us, and that we would be a church that sees the Lord work in amazing ways, through us, for His glory and the furtherance of His gospel. Amen?
Alright, let’s get into chapter 1 together. Acts 1:1-5 (Read).
Theophilus. We don’t really know who this person was. We see Luke refer to him in his gospel as “excellent,” which is sometimes how they would refer to someone with a certain honor or rank. We also see that Luke alludes to his gospel, in which he dealt with the life of Christ all the way up to His ascension.
Let’s pause on verse 3 for just a moment. One of the most often doubted truths of our faith is the resurrection. In fact, the validity of our whole belief system relies on the resurrection being true. One of the greatest arguments that we have in support of the resurrection are the countless testimonies of those who Jesus appeared to. “He presented Himself alive by many proofs.” This is an important verse for us to dig into. The reality of the resurrection provides assurance of the validity of our faith, and for the early Christians that we find throughout the book of Acts, it was the reason that they were willing to die preaching the gospel.
This is what one commentator deemed a “Mission Impossible.” He says, “Here they are. Look at them—a little group, ragtag apostles, some of them fishermen. They’re unlettered, most of them, don’t have any education. They don’t have any college behind them. They have no seminaries. They have no finances. They have no prestige. They have no political pull. And they are commanded to go into all of the world (Acts 1:8) and tell the message of a Galilean peasant Who died on a cross, crucified by the Roman government. It’s a mission impossible. Think of what they had, and then think of what they were up against. There was the imperial might of the iron legions of Rome. There was the intellectual sophistry of the Greeks. There was the religious bigotry of the Jewish religion. And here they are!"
Yet, they had the power of the Holy Spirit, and first hand experience with the resurrected Christ. For 40 days He appeared to different people:
The women at the tomb
Mary Magdalene
2 men on the road to Emmaus
Peter in Jerusalem
10 disciples at once
11 disciples at once
500 people at once
James, his own brother
And so the eyewitness accounts of these men and women provide proof, along with an empty tomb, of the resurrection. When the Lord Jesus appears resurrected, and speaks, you listen. And here’s what he said to them:
Luke 24:46-49 - and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
So they wait. They gather together, surely spending time in worship and prayer, until that which was promised had come. And Acts 1:5 contains specifics on that promise: “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Let’s talk about these 2 different baptisms. I don’t want to get too deep into it this morning, because we will address the baptism of the Holy Spirit at greater length when we get to chapter 2.
Baptism of John
In the gospel of Matthew chapter 3 and verse 11, John the Baptist says, ““I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The message that John was preaching was one of repentance, pleading with people to turn from their wickedness and follow the Lord. He preached a message of the coming of the Messiah. And in response to their repentance, people were being baptized. This baptism was similar to what we do today, submersion under the water.
We know this because, besides the Greek word “baptizo” meaning to “submerge or immerse,” we see that when Jesus was baptized, He came “up from the water.” While the specific method is not important for our discussion this morning, it is important for us to differentiate between the baptism of John and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The baptism of John, and in turn the baptism of the believer in water, is a declaration of our repentance, of our turning from our sin and following Jesus. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, however, is very different.
Baptism of the Holy Spirit
I don’t want to confuse us this morning, but I think we need to clarify what Luke is saying here. See, in 1st Corinthians 12:13, Paul refers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as that moment of conversion whereby someone enters into union with Christ. In our passage in Acts, it would be difficult to argue that the disciples were waiting on the Holy Spirit to finally be saved. In fact, at the end of the gospel of Luke, we find these men worshiping Jesus with great joy. So the disciples were followers of Jesus, Christians before that title was created.
This means that Jesus had something else in mind when He told His disciples to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I realize this becomes a bit tricky when we consider that the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on the believers, but I want to submit that this statement from Jesus goes beyond the point of conversion. Pastor and theologian John Piper says that when these disciples experienced this baptism, it meant that they would “receive extraordinary power for Christ-exalting ministry.” This baptism is not a one-time experience. In fact, all through the book of Acts, the term “filled with the Holy Spirit” is a repeated experience in the believer’s life. Again, we’ll address this at greater depth in just a few weeks, but we need to understand that this baptism was different from the moment of conversion.
Application
Here’s the incredible news for us this morning. This is a truth that transcends time. The Holy Spirit still empowers believers today for gospel mission. I can’t wait to dive deeper into the empowering of the Holy Spirit in a few weeks, but we need to understand that the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives doesn’t end at the point of salvation. The power of the Holy Spirit is what we rely on every moment of our lives.
So as we turn our gaze outwards, outside the fellowship of believers in this room, and work to see the world transformed by the gospel, we have to understand that we will not see gospel success if we aren’t completely reliant on the Holy Spirit. From Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. From Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay, Cary, Morrisville, Pittsboro, Sanford, New Hill, Moncure, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, to the next town over, to the next state over, beyond our borders and to the ends of the earth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we go, and we live out and proclaim the gospel.
And so the goal for all of us is to believe that this is necessary, to believe that the Lord has commissioned all of us for gospel work, and to understand what it means to lean fully into the empowering of the Holy Spirit to get after it!
