WWUTT 1022 All that Jesus Began to Do and Teach?

That Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross, buried in a tomb, and rose again from the dead is not some myth from a religious book, it's historical fact.

And we go out preaching the message of the gospel as truth to the world when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

Find videos and more at our website, www .wutt .com. Now here's our host,

Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the Acts of the Apostles.

And as with yesterday, I'll begin by reading the first 11 verses. Acts chapter 1, starting in verse 1.

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the

Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 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.

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. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the

Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him,

Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons that the

Father has fixed by his own authority, 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. 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.

And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes 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.

So now we get to the actual text here of the book of Acts chapter one, verse one in the first book,

O Theophilus. So right away that clues us into this being the second part of a two part saga that began with the telling of the gospel in the gospel of Luke and all the works and acts that Jesus did.

And here we have the story of how the gospel made it to the world and all the works and acts that the apostles did.

The author of this book is Luke, same author as the gospel of Luke.

Theophilus is addressed in both of those books at the beginning of both books, Luke and Acts. It's written to Theophilus.

Now, we don't know who Theophilus was somebody of some importance. It's possible that he hosted a church in his home, but he wasn't of of such importance that he would be written down in the history book somewhere like he wasn't a

Roman governor. So we can't go into the books of Roman record and point to a Theophilus and go, oh, hey, this might have been the guy that Luke was writing to.

That's very mysterious to us. But nevertheless, we know that both of these works have the same author, though Luke never identifies himself.

This is what we understand, according to church history, is that the physician Luke was the writer of both of both the gospel of Luke and the acts of the apostles.

So again, in the first book, oh, Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.

So then logically it would flow that what we're reading here in the book of Acts is what

Jesus continued to do and teach. The book of Luke about what he began to do and teach the book of Acts about what he continues to do and teach through his apostles.

Remember what Jesus said to his apostles in John chapter 16, verse 12.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear to hear them now.

This was all in the upper room. This is right before they were to go out and Jesus was going to be arrested in the garden of Gethsemane and he's talking to them about the giving of the

Holy Spirit. And then he says in verse 13, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the father has is mine.

Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. So there is still more for the apostles to learn, to be taught by Christ, though he is not going to be with them in body, yet they will still learn from their savior through the

Holy Spirit who is going to be given to them. So again, Luke is about what Jesus began to do and teach.

And then that work continues through the apostles. The work of Christ continues even to this day.

The message that we preach, the gospel that is proclaimed in our churches and that we then go out and spread in our communities is the same gospel that Jesus gave to his apostles and then told them to go out and preach to the nations.

We're still doing that apostolic work today. And Jesus is still working in that message.

It is not by our works that a person comes to salvation. You did not do anything to save a person.

You, in your obedience to God, whom you love, have taken the gospel to the world because that's what he's asked you to do.

And Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

So in love of God, you have gone out and spread the gospel, but you don't do anything to save a person.

The work of salvation is through and through the work of God alone.

As I've heard Votie Bauckham say it, I'm just in communications. My father is the one who is in sales.

He's the one that seals the deal. He's the one that closes the thing. God is the one that works in the heart of a person that hears the gospel to understand what is being said, to move them to grief and to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ.

And we are justified by faith, by grace. We are saved through faith. This is not of ourselves.

It is not your own doing. Ephesians two, eight and nine, not of work so that no one may boast.

So this work that Jesus began himself, that he then commissioned to his apostles and that continues even to this day.

This is a work that Jesus continues to do in the heart of every person who repents of sin and believes in the gospel.

Jesus began to do and teach in the gospels. And then in the book of Acts, he continues to do that work.

Verse two, until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the

Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Now, that's in relation to what we just read at the end of verse one.

All that Jesus began to do in and teach until the day when he was taken up.

So how long did Jesus teach was his last lesson to the apostles, what he taught to them in the upper room before they then went out and he was arrested, tried, crucified, buried, risen again, appeared to them several times.

What was that last teaching lesson to the apostles going to be the upper room discourse that we had read from John chapters 13 through 17?

No, Jesus had many other things that he continued to teach them through a period of 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

He continued to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the

Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Now, the mention of the Holy Spirit here in verse two is very interesting because the

Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out upon the apostles. He wasn't dwelling within them as the

Holy Spirit dwells within all those who believe in the name of Christ. But the

Holy Spirit was with every word that Jesus spoke. So how was it that the disciples understood anything that Jesus said to them, that it was a revelation of anything from the father?

How would the apostles have been able to know that? It's because the Holy Spirit was in the very words that Jesus said.

And so then falling upon the ears of the apostles, they would have understood what he said because the

Holy Spirit gave them ears to be able to understand it. Just as the Holy Spirit gives us understanding, even now,

Paul lays out that doctrine, that understanding and first Corinthians chapter two, that only the spiritual person can discern spiritual things.

The naturally minded man cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned.

So we who have the Holy Spirit within us, we are able to understand the things of God because of this gift of his spirit that we have received.

And the spirit is in every word that Jesus spoke. Peter even talks about this in second Peter, chapter one, where he says that no prophecy was ever revealed by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. Even the Lord Christ and what he said, his words contain the

Holy Spirit, what the apostles wrote down in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John contain the

Holy Spirit. Everything that we have from Acts on through Revelation is in the guidance of the

Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has guided every letter that has been written from Genesis one to Revelation 22, the

Holy Spirit in all of it. Verse three, Jesus presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Now, as I mentioned yesterday, this is the only place that we have that reference of Jesus having been around with his apostles between his resurrection and an ascension over a period of 40 days.

I think oftentimes when we try to picture this, we just think of it as just being a little while. Right. When we were in John, it says that he appeared to all of the disciples and then he appeared to them again eight days later.

So we know it was at least, you know, a week, a little more than a week or something like that. No, 40 days. Jesus even continued to teach.

And as we read in First Corinthians, chapter 15, the apostle Paul said over 500 brothers saw him alive in that period between his resurrection and his ascension.

So it wasn't just going off of the word of 11 dudes, although that certainly would have been enough.

How many witnesses do you need in court to convict somebody of murder? You only need one.

You only need one eyewitness to the murder, and that can be enough in evidence to a jury to convict a person of of having committed murder.

So here we've got 11 guys who can testify that the guy who was murdered is actually alive.

Now, Jesus, who was put to death on a cross and buried in a tomb, has come back from the dead and it's his body.

It's not some ghost that we are seeing. His body actually came up out of the tomb and here he is before us and we have seen him.

So the testimony of those 11 apostles would have been enough, but it was more than just 11 apostles.

It was over 500 brothers. And that's not just talking about the women who had also seen

Jesus alive. So you might even be talking about as many as a thousand people saw

Jesus in the flesh between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

What is it that you see in all the paintings whenever the apostles are watching him go into the heavens?

You just see 11 guys standing there, right at the end of every movie about Jesus, the life of Jesus, if it actually ever gets to the point where you see him ascended to heaven or however the filmmaker wants to envision that.

Right. You just see 11 guys there on the hillside watching Jesus ascended to heaven. And that's it.

There were hundreds of people on that hillside who watched Jesus ascended to heaven. In fact,

I'd put this to you. It was probably about 120. Where did I get that number from? Well, we're going to see that number coming up later on in chapter one.

It's actually in verse 15. I'll explain that when we get there. Nevertheless, we've got Jesus appearing to his apostles, continuing to teach them for 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

He he showed himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs.

And we read about a few of those proofs in the Gospel of John. John is even more detailed about post -resurrection appearances than any of the other three gospels.

And you had Jesus appearing to his disciples a third time when he made breakfast for them by the

Sea of Galilee. And that's the story that we had in chapter 21, when

Jesus also recommissioned Peter to to share the gospel and also gave his intentions for John as well.

So so by many proofs, he showed himself to his disciples. He appeared to them in a room.

He let them touch the scars on his hands and the hole in his side, and then even sat down and had breakfast with them so that they would see and know that this is

Jesus. This is not a spirit. He's not a ghost. He is our friend. He is our master, the one who taught us our shepherd.

Here he is right here with us. We even read in the Gospel of Luke about Jesus walking on the road to Emmaus with the two disciples and then stopping with them and eating together and breaking bread.

And then he vanished from their sight. So many proofs Jesus showed to them that he had indeed risen, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Now, at the end of the book of Luke in chapter 24, it says that Jesus opened their minds to understand all that had been written about him and in all of the law and the prophets, how all of it pointed to Jesus.

They were so without understanding us, even everything they had seen with their own eyes until Jesus had opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

And so that's what he was doing in those 40 days. He was showing them how he was the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets, how everything in the

Old Testament was pointing to this moment, everything that Jesus had fulfilled and then what they were going to do and going out and spreading the gospel and how this was going to be the advancement of the kingdom of God.

This is what he shared with them during that period of time. And then the dialogue that he has with his disciples in verses six through nine, that is kind of like a paraphrase of the things that Jesus had been talking about in those 40 days.

So we get kind of a brief lesson of this talking about the kingdom of God. We'll talk more about that section when we get to it tomorrow.

So verse four. 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 for John baptized with water.

But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now, we know that the apostles did not just stay in Jerusalem because even as we read at the end of John, they had gone up to Galilee.

So they met with Jesus there. That's also at the end of Matthew, by the way, before Jesus ascends into heaven, which we don't have his ascension in Matthew.

We have it in Luke and and in Acts. And that's that's it. That's where we have a description of Jesus ascending into heaven.

So the again, the apostles didn't just remain in Jerusalem. They also went out to Galilee in Matthew's gospel.

Jesus even told them to go to Galilee, go to the mountain in Galilee, which was where they were when

Jesus gave them the commission. The Great Commission was not given on the Mount of Olives before Jesus ascended into heaven.

It was on a mountain in Galilee. When you read that in context in Matthew twenty eight and it's there that Jesus said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, therefore, go into all nations baptizing in the name of the father and of the son and of the

Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.

So that commission was given in Galilee. It was not given on the Mount of Olives. Jesus has already told them that he is going to send them out into the world to evangelize, to baptize and disciple eyes.

I know I made up my own word there, but I had to to fit the alliteration. Anyway, Jesus is he did commission his disciples to go out and that commission was even given in Galilee.

So here, when he says to them not to depart from Jerusalem, it's not that they hadn't departed from Jerusalem.

They had. But now that they're in Jerusalem and really specifically here, they're on the Mount of Olives before Jesus is ascending into heaven.

He's telling them to go back to Jerusalem and don't go out yet. Yes, Jesus has commissioned them to go out into the world, sharing the gospel.

But don't do that yet. You're going to go back into Jerusalem and you're going to receive the

Holy Spirit whom Jesus was going to send to them from the father.

Wait for the promise of the father, which he said you heard from me for John baptized with water.

But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

And then, of course, it's with the giving of the Holy Spirit that the apostles then go into Jerusalem, because that's where he says first, he says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and then in Judea, which is the outlying areas of Jerusalem and Samaria, which is that northern end of Israel, the place the

Jews hated to go. But Jesus is saying you're going to go to them as well. The ones the Jews hate.

This is not just a message for the Jews anymore. It is for the Jews and the Samaritans and the

Gentiles to the very end of the earth going out with this gospel message.

So go to Jerusalem and wait. And the promise of the father is going to come upon them, the Holy Spirit, which, of course, we see all of that come about in Acts chapter two.

Tomorrow, we're going to finish up the section that we're studying this week in verses six through eleven.

And so I hope you'll come back as we continue our study of the book of Acts. Let's conclude with prayer.

Our heavenly father, we thank you for this commission that you have given even to us.

You gave it to your apostles to go into the world, preaching the gospel. And we have that responsibility.

Even now, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, we are now part of that mission's work to take the gospel to the nations that the people who hear and believe would be baptized.

And they would also be discipled in understanding the word of God, growing in righteousness and holiness with one another and in knowledge of the truth, that we may share it with more people that by your work, the

Holy Spirit that comes upon them, they would turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ and live.

Lead us in your truth day by day. Help us to be renewed in knowledge and even the things that we've looked at today and rejoicing in God, our savior, who has saved us by your son.

In his name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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