Awaiting the Extraordinary (Acts 1:1-8, Jeff Kliewer)

It's a miracle that the Spirit of God draws the people of God into fellowship in the church to have a hunger and a thirst for the

Word of God. That is not natural. It's supernatural that you would desire the

Word of God. That you would be born again to come here and love His Word. So at face value that quote isn't true.

However, there's a reason it ministered, I think, to myself and to many of you. It's because we know something about ourselves.

Yes, we have the Spirit of God if we've been born again, but we know it's possible for us to come to church and go through the motions.

We know we can get into routines and simply go to church because it's what we do.

And we know there are some days we could come here with or without the Holy Spirit, sit in the same pew, and get along just fine without anybody else knowing the difference.

But in your heart, you know the difference, right? It's easy to go through the motions, but we need the

Holy Spirit. We are moving this morning into the book of Acts. And if the book of Acts is about anything, it is about the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 59 times in the book. The book of Acts reveals many things to us.

Why did we choose to go through it? Well, there's a number of reasons, and it'll come out as we go through the book. It's a prototype for the church.

You see in it how the believers were devoted to the teaching of the Word, to one another in fellowship, to the breaking of bread, to prayer.

And in that you see a prototype for what we should be doing. In the book, there's a high view of God's sovereignty that comes out time and again as Luke teaches us from the book of Acts.

There are things about the Holy Spirit as he gives spiritual gifts and how the church expands to the ends of the earth.

So we learn about mission, we learn about the spiritual life, we learn about discipleship. There are a number of things.

This morning I want to focus in on one of the major themes that you see over and over again, and that is the filling of the

Holy Spirit. The power that comes to the people of God when the Spirit of God fills us or takes control of us to do the works that he's called us to do.

We need the filling of the Holy Spirit. We need the person of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

So that's why we're in the book of Acts and this morning we recognize the main idea.

See the book of Acts is really a continuation of the book of Luke. Luke wrote two volumes but it's really one book.

And so the first verse will say that he's continuing with what Jesus had begun to do and teach in the book of Luke as it's recorded there.

The two books overlap such that the last chapter of Luke, especially the final verses,

Luke chapter 24, overlaps what we have here in the first part of Acts 1. Same material, same conversation that's happening between Jesus and his disciples.

And Jesus here will reveal what comes next, the next epoch in the unfolding of his kingdom.

In order for this to take place, what needs to happen is something drastic.

Now follow this. Something drastic needs to happen, something cataclysmic.

If Jesus goes to heaven, if he ascends and he leaves the disciples as orphans, this early

Christian movement grinds to a screeching halt, as A .W. Tozer says.

The mission of the church cannot be completed by mere men. The 120 will dwindle to nothing within probably weeks, at most a generation.

And yet as we are here this morning, we are part of a global church that's a billion strong.

What explains that? The spirit of the living God. That's the drastic thing.

It will happen in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit comes and takes on a new ministry, a drastically new way of working in his people.

But this morning we study the promise of that. The promise of this gift, the promise of the

Father, which will be poured out. So today we're in Acts 1, verses 1 to 8.

Let's just read it together. I'll read, but please follow along. If you have a device, you can just search for it,

Acts 1, 1 to 8. Or if you're old school like me, you've got the old book, which

I recommend because you can highlight things, take notes. Acts 1, 1 to 8. 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 40 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. So the first verse is addressed to this

Theophilus. Of course, we met him at the beginning of the gospel of Luke. He is probably a leader, a governor, somebody important and influential.

His name, Theophilus, means Theophilos or Phileo, God, love.

This is a God lover. So while we're speaking about a real historical person, there's a sense in which this book is communicated to you if you're a

God lover. If you love God, he has something to say to you, Theophilus. He says in the first book, that is the gospel of Luke, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.

Mark that. First, that it's a beginning. And second, we're talking about his words and his works, the words and works of Jesus.

In that first book, the gospel of Luke, we have what Jesus began to do and teach.

The implication being, he's continuing to do and to teach.

Well how so? How is it that Jesus Christ is doing or teaching anything since this very passage teaches us that he's going to ascend to heaven and be at the right hand of his father?

How is he doing and teaching? Well, the key to understanding this passage is that if he goes to his father's side, he will send the

Holy Spirit. And it's better for us that he go, because if he goes, he sends the

Spirit. And so through the Spirit, it's Jesus who will do and teach on this earth.

Now we need a Trinitarian theology to understand that. The Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit are not three separate deities, such that if one goes away, he's out of the picture.

But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being, one essence.

And so if Jesus goes to the Father and he sends the Spirit, then the Spirit of Jesus is here. And Jesus is at work through the

Spirit, as we learn in verse two. In the giving of the commands, it was through the Holy Spirit.

So think about the ministry of Jesus. What did he do? What did he teach? He did many things, didn't he?

Walked on water, did miracles, raised the dead, cast demons out of people.

The most important thing he did was die on a cross.

So that through his blood, he would pay the price and penalty of sin to redeem a people for himself.

And what is it that Jesus taught? Well, he taught in parables, he taught about the kingdom, he taught many things.

So how do we know what he would have to say to us? The key is the

Holy Spirit. Jesus by his Spirit is still doing and teaching in our midst today.

How does he work? What does he do? According to Jesus in John 14, 12, if he goes to the

Father, he'll send the Spirit and we will do the same kind of works that he did.

Now qualitatively, will we do the same kind of miracles that Jesus did? Do you expect your pastor to walk on water?

No, I'll do nothing of the sort. Many of the miracles that Jesus did were empowered by the

Spirit because he's one in the Trinity, but they also reveal his deity and so they're unique.

He'll calm a storm with the word and a hurricane will become silent. He has command over nature.

When a paralyzed man is lowered down through a roof, a hole in the roof, what does he do? He says, your sins are forgiven.

He has the authority to forgive sin because he is the Son of God. And yet to show that he has that authority, he says, stand up and walk.

So the paralyzed man stands up and walks and the authority of Jesus is confirmed through that unique kind of miracle, qualitatively way more extreme than anything

I've ever seen with my own eyes. And yet quantitatively, as the people of God empowered by the

Spirit go out into the world, it's greater in number than the number of healings that Jesus did in his ministry.

There are still healings that happen today. We hear all the time of people who are prayed for and God miraculously heals them.

We hear about works of compassion that are done in the name of Jesus and ministries that are carried out in the name of Jesus.

And the quantity of those things far exceeds what happened just in those three years of Jesus's ministry.

So Jesus is the one who's doing these things in his people. Secondly, he equips certain believers in certain ways and at certain times to do things in a special way.

This is what's called spiritual gifts. By his Spirit, he'll pour out into a believer the ability to do things that that person would not do on their own.

Some of these things can be miraculous. Oftentimes they're more ordinary, gifts of serving.

They don't have that miraculous component to it, but they're just as supernatural because it's the

Spirit that gives you the gift that you have. So these are works of the

Spirit of Jesus showing that it's Jesus doing it. But what did I say was the most important work of the

Son of God, dying on a cross to atone for the sin of those who would believe in him.

He died to pay that price. And so now the Spirit, with perfect congruity with what

Jesus did, the Spirit now takes on the role of applying the work of Jesus to those who will believe.

To the elect, to those who are appointed according to Acts 13 .48, as many as were appointed unto eternal life, believe the message that the apostles preach.

So Jesus is still at work. The Holy Spirit is at work, and the most important thing that he is doing is saving people by applying the work that Jesus did.

That's what Jesus did, and what he continues to do. But what did he teach?

And how does he continue to teach in our midst? We were told in John 14 .26

that if he goes to the Father, if he sends the Spirit, that the

Spirit will call to remembrance everything that Jesus said.

And for those of you who are still tracking with me, you have your Bible open, or it's on your device, you have these words recorded because Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the apostles, the early believers who heard the words of Jesus, many years later, wrote down the things that he said.

The Spirit called to remembrance, and so the Spirit's role is giving us the

New Testament of the Bible, even as he inspired prophets according to 1 Peter, so that whatever they said would be the very words of God, not the mere interpretations of men.

The Holy Spirit teaches us by inspiring Scripture. Jesus is still a teacher, he's inspired his

Scripture, and we have his very words written to us in the books of the

Bible, 66 of them. Well how else does Jesus teach? According to Ephesians 4 .11,

he gives pastor teachers to the church, and as I stand here this morning, it's in the gifting of the

Holy Spirit as a pastor teacher, Ephesians 4 .11, to explain the Word of God, to make it plain, not to add anything to it,

I have nothing to say. This morning somebody commented about my preaching, that I don't do a lot of joking and storytelling, and she meant it as a compliment.

She said, you stick with what the Bible says, you give a lot of Scripture, and I said thank you.

Now, it doesn't make for the most riveting sermon you've ever heard.

Some of you will fall asleep, but my job as a pastor is to preach the

Word, in season and out of season. It's not to give my opinion, and as I stand here this morning, my friend

Mark is over at Fellowship, and Bill's over at Calvary Chapel, and Bob and Justin are over there at Grace Bible, and I pray for them, and as we sit here this morning, there are pastor teachers in pulpits on every country.

It's a gift. The Spirit of God is still alive and working, and he's filling pulpits with pastor teachers, so that we, the body of Christ, would be equipped for every good work, according to Ephesians 4.

There's a final mention I'd like to make from 1 Corinthians 2, 10 to 13. It's not just through a person that he gives, and that Ephesians 4, 11 gift is a gift of a person who will stand in the pulpit to explain the

Word of God, but there's something that has to happen inside each one of you. The spiritual things of God are interpreted by the

Spirit of God. According to 1 Corinthians 2, 10 to 13, you can spend more time in that later, the

Spirit of God quickens our understanding. The word for it is illumination. Unless we have the

Spirit to illumine the Word of God, we will wander off into some strange doctrine or some cult.

We will be deceived by false teaching. Or worse yet, well not worse yet, at least as bad, we will be bored and apathetic about the

Word of God. Because unless the Spirit of God gives us a hunger for the

Word and a mind that understands and rightly divides the Scripture, we will be led astray.

Jesus Christ began to do and teach in the Gospel of Luke. The book of Acts is about how he continues to do and teach.

We need the Spirit as our teacher. Acts 1, 1 and 2. Moving into verse 3, the appearances of Jesus prove the resurrection.

1 3a, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs.

By many proofs. How did Jesus prove that he rose from the dead? He began to appear to more than 500 witnesses.

And some of them were skeptical, like Thomas, and he said to them, let me prove to you that I'm not just a ghost, that I'm flesh and blood.

Come touch where the nail went through my hands. He did things like eat fish in their presence.

Why does the Bible tell us that he ate fish in the presence of witnesses? To show that he's not a ghost, that he is a body resurrected from the dead.

The person of Jesus died and behold, he lives. His appearances to many witnesses prove it.

But you say, wait a minute, look, I hear a lot of stories out there. I wasn't there.

Thomas was right to say, unless I touch his hands and see for myself that the nail went through,

I won't believe. There are many skeptics in the world today. And they say, well, you call that a proof, but I wasn't there.

It's no kind of proof to me. What then do we have? Well, unless we have the spirit of God, we got nothing.

But we have the spirit of God. And the spirit applies the work of Jesus to those who will believe because he is able to transform even the hardened skeptic into a believer.

And don't we see that throughout history, the C .S. Lewis's and the Lee Strobel's of the world, who start off hardened in their skepticism against the gospel and yet by the miraculous power of the spirit, those proofs are proof to them.

We need the spirit. Now we do have objective truth. We have the word of God. One of the things that I like to teach, and I've taught teenagers for years, is that the word of God is professing, prophetic, perfect, proven, and powerful.

A lot of Ps in that, intentionally so. It's professing.

It claims to be the word of God. Very few books in the history of the world claim to be from God, but 1

Timothy 3, 16, the scriptures in Peter, all throughout the Psalms, there's this claim.

It professes to be God's very word. It's professing. It's prophetic, meaning there are prophecies written hundreds of years before they come true in such a supernatural and detailed way that it must come from God.

It's prophetic. It's perfect, meaning there's a unity to these things.

What Moses wrote 1 ,500 years before the time of Christ has a perfect unity and fits perfectly with what

Paul wrote and described that many years later. And John, the last apostle to write the book of Revelation, fits perfectly with the creation narrative of Genesis 1 and 2.

The whole Bible ties together as if one author wrote it. Because one author wrote it.

The Holy Spirit. It's perfect. It's proven. Because archeologists who dig up the sites described in the

Bible are finding, yes, these places existed. This is real.

And it's powerful because where the scripture is proclaimed, lives are transformed, cultures are transformed, societies are changed.

The power of the word of God, that's a whole other sermon we'll talk about another day. But the

Bible is objectively true. We have the word of God. We have the spirit of God.

And so we go out proclaiming the resurrection of the Christ. And this is all the proof the world needs. The spirit will show himself true.

Part B of that third verse says, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

I'm not going to comment long at that point, but just note here the substance, the sum and substance of what

Jesus taught them during those 40 days was the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God.

Make note of that in your mind. I'm sure

I'm thinking of my brother right now who's lost his mom. Not my earthly brother, my spiritual brother here.

You think about what was the last thing we talked about. You know, if you've ever buried someone that you loved, you think, what's the last thing that we talked about?

Soldiers on the battlefield are listening really carefully when they're holding their dying brother in arms to hear what's the last thing this person is going to say.

The last words of a person matter. And what we get into now, the next few verses, are the last things

Jesus had to say to us. I want us to pause for a moment and think about last words before we read them.

A couple famous ones. Karl Marx said, last words are for fools who haven't said enough.

Karl Marx was wrong about that. Last words matter. Y 'all heard of Mel Gibson's wife in the movie

Signs? Remember her last words? Swing away. And it turns out to make all the difference in the story.

That's just a movie. Charles Darwin said, I am not in the least afraid to die.

Maybe he was. Maybe he was protesting too much. Nostradamus, interestingly, said, you will not find me alive at sunrise.

Nostradamus, that great prophecy teller as so -called, interesting, he was dead in the morning.

That guy did love to predict stuff. John Adams said on his dying, in his dying moment,

Thomas Jefferson survives. Not knowing that a few hours earlier,

Thomas Jefferson had died. The two of them died on July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years after the

Declaration of Independence that they crafted. Very interesting. His dying words relating to Thomas Jefferson.

John Calvin said, how long, O Lord? I am abundantly satisfied since it is from thy hand.

John Knox, now listen to this one. John Knox, a great reformer, said, live in Christ, live in Christ.

And the flesh need not fear death. What will your last words be?

The legacy of your life? John Wesley, the best of all, is

God is with us. Farewell, farewell. In the scriptures, the last words are very important.

That's why Paul, in Acts chapter 20, will make note and say, I will never see your face again.

The Spirit has shown me that I won't see you again. And he goes on to say, I know, he says, therefore,

I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

He wanted them to remember the whole counsel of God. So the last thing he told them was that wolves will come in to deceive, but you, shepherd the flock, hold on to the word of God.

I have not shrunk from declaring the whole thing to you. Then in 2 Timothy chapter 4, he's about to depart from this earth.

He knows his time has come. He makes note of that, and he says, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. He says, the time's coming when people won't endure it.

They're going to have itching ears to hear what they want to hear. Peter also makes note.

In 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 12 to 21, read that one on your own sometime. He makes note that the spirit has shown him it's time for him to go, time for him to die.

And again, he tells them to remember the word of God.

He says, I know that the putting off of my body will be soon as our Lord Jesus made clear to me, and I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.

That's why he's writing 2 Peter. His last words were, this is the word of God.

I want you to remember these things. This is what matters. So we come to Jesus.

He's died, he's risen, and now he has some last words for you.

Don't miss what I'm about to tell you. These are the last words. Like a father, what would he say on his deathbed?

Like a soldier dying, what would he say to his brother in arms? How does he show us this love?

Imagine the love of Jesus for his bride and for his children. What does he want you to hear? He tells you, you need this gift from my father, and I'm sending it.

You cannot live this Christian life on your own. You need the Holy Spirit to come and baptize you, to be inside of you and dwell you, and empower you, and then you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth.

This is what he wants you to hear. You need the spirit of the living

God. You cannot do this by might or power or in the strength of your own flesh.

You will fail. You'll fall into temptation, you will stray, and you'll wander farther and farther away until you will be gone and lost forever.

But know, if you have the spirit of the living God, he will hold you and keep you, and you will endure to the end.

And you will sup with Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God. This is what you most need, the spirit of the living

God. Verses 4 and following, 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. That's what they needed to know.

That's what they needed, was the spirit of the living God. And he has this interesting thing here where he says, wait,

I mean Jesus could have just baptized them with the spirit right there, right? Instead, he says, wait, and it's about 10 days later.

He appeared for 40 days, and then Pentecost is the day when the spirit comes, Pentecost is the celebration of the 50 days, means 50

Penta, from which we get our 50. So there's about 10 days there where they need to wait.

In a minute we'll talk about that. They needed obedience. But the promise was good.

What would it look like? It was surprising, wasn't it? When the promise of the

Father came, it filled the entire house where they were sitting with a wind, the sound of a wind anyway.

It rumbled the place, and then fire came and divided and rested over each of their heads, and then somehow entered them, and they began to speak in tongues.

And all of Jerusalem took notice of this. Peter stands up and preaches. It is an odd occurrence.

Not anything they would have expected. It reminds me of a funny story my cousin told when

I was in Florida. He said he had an aunt, well, this was his wife, had an aunt who promised a special gift, and they kept building it up, kept building it up, and when they finally got to the airport, she brought it out, and it was an asparagus magnet, an asparagus magnet for your refrigerator.

After all that buildup, kind of a letdown, and so strange. Why was this built up?

Got an asparagus magnet. Jesus makes a promise, very unexpected how it was fulfilled, but so much greater than anything they could have imagined.

Quite the opposite of the asparagus magnet. I remember when I was in Dallas, a guy came knocking on the door and asked to mow the lawn, and I didn't,

I didn't even own the house, but I thought, you know what, I might have a chance. So I said, sure, go ahead, mow the lawn, you can give him some money.

But after he mowed it, I offered him some water, and we sat down on the porch, and I shared the gospel with him.

I had been praying for him while he was mowing, and as I began to tell about Jesus, his body began to shake, like it was super cold, but it was

Dallas, and it was warm, and he got these shivers over his body for about an hour, and he believed the gospel, accepted

Christ, and he couldn't stop that shaking. It was a strange thing. I didn't know what it was.

All I said was, God does mysterious things. I can't explain that, but I can tell you this, you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.

The way the Holy Spirit comes is often unexpected, and the things he's able to accomplish in your lives, some people experience more dramatic conversions and more dramatic things happening in their lives.

Those things are often of God, and sometimes there's pretenses where people do things out of the flesh and call it the

Holy Spirit. But here's what I want you to see before we move on in the text. There was an ordinary command, nothing extraordinary.

He simply said, go to Jerusalem and don't leave. Now a command like that requires obedience, but imagine these fishermen after a few days of just sitting there, just waiting on the promise of the

Father when the third and the fourth and the fifth day passed, I'm sure they're getting anxious to go back to Galilee and earn some money or something.

They're just sitting there. The ordinary work of obedience is required.

Ten days of it in their case, and this is what I'm learning the older I get. The spiritual life requires patience.

God will work patience in you, and spiritual maturity often requires a lot of waiting.

You pray and you seek and you ask, and God told us, Jesus told us when he was in the flesh teaching, if you ask for bread from your father, he's not going to give you a stone, and if you ask for a fish, he's not going to give you a snake.

How much more will our Father give good gifts to his children? How much more will he give the

Holy Spirit to those who ask? Begin to ask for this filling of the

Spirit, this empowering of the Holy Spirit, and be willing to wait.

How do you wait? You wait in obedience. Now there's many commands given. How do you wait?

You love your wife, husband, obeying the command, wives respecting your husbands, children obeying your parents in the

Lord, obeying all the commands of how we should treat one another. In that patience, in that waiting, in God's time, he will fill you with his

Holy Spirit. But the two are not separate. There is the maturity of growing in sanctification, but there is also occasionally ways in which the

Holy Spirit comes on us in power, and in a unique way that seems to give us a leap in our sanctification of life.

That's why I think some charismatics, Pentecostals, call it an entirely separate work of grace when they're baptized in the

Spirit, because sometimes things change drastically. That happened in my life when I was in college.

You need both. You need the ordinariness of obeying the precepts of the

Word of God, but you also need spiritual power from heaven. You need fresh fillings of the

Spirit. In the book of Acts, you'll find that the word for filling is an active verb that requires an immediacy.

So when Paul is opposed by some strange magician guy, the Bible tells us, and being filled with the

Holy Spirit, that means it has to be an immediate and new kind of thing. He says to him, you will be blind, and he blinds

Elymas the magician. By the filling of the Spirit, or where Peter and John are going to the gate called

Beautiful, and they see the crippled there, filled with the Spirit, they declare, stand up and walk.

You need these fillings of the Spirit. Now what is this, as we move on, this baptism of the

Spirit? Because we notice, Lord, the question comes in verse 6, but in verse 5,

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

Holy Spirit not many days from now. First Corinthians 12, 13 tells us that the baptism of the

Spirit is what includes us in the body of Christ. So each one of you who have been included in the body of Christ, you've been marked with water baptism, which is the outward symbol of a

Spirit baptism, that you have been born again, that the Spirit has come in and made you a part of the body of Christ.

We learn that from First Corinthians 12, 13. But if you go back to Luke 3, 16, and again here, there's also some reference to an empowering that happens with this.

Now I don't go the directions of the Pentecostals, which say it has to be a second work of grace.

But what I am saying is that the Spirit comes on us in unique and powerful ways, sometimes, many times, throughout your life, for a fresh filling, a fresh empowerment.

The baptism of the Spirit is not just identification, although that's the heart of it.

Now follow. The whole idea of baptism is that you're identified with somebody. The baptism of John was a baptism unto repentance.

So you're identifying as one who repents of your sin, and that's why you're getting dunked under water.

That concept of identification. You're identifying in the ministry of John and the baptism of repentance.

So when you get baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you're identifying with Jesus.

But notice, the Holy Spirit and fire is greater than water. The baptism of John is able to identify you, and the baptism of Jesus does the same thing, but fire fundamentally alters the state of a thing.

Whereas the baptism of John, as the disciples learned in Acts chapter 19, well that's good, and that's important and powerful.

There's something greater about the baptism of Jesus. Notice, the Spirit baptizing you in fire changes you fundamentally.

It empowers you to do something you can't do on your own. And that's the only thing that makes sense of what's to come.

A billion believers on planet earth today? That's not done in the flesh. You leading your friend to Christ, not gonna happen.

But you, empowered by the Spirit of God, sharing the gospel, there's power in Him, not in you.

You having the desire to share the gospel, that will not come from the natural man. You need the

Spirit of God fundamentally altering you. As you're baptized into Christ, you have this within you.

You have the Holy Spirit indwelling you now. You need to be filled with Him. He needs to take more and more control of you.

You don't need more of Him, He needs more of you. It's a matter of control.

And so that's what the baptism of the Spirit is. It identifies you in Christ, it fundamentally alters you, so that now we'll learn, you will be a witness.

Now, before we get to that, verses 6 and 7, there's a bit of confusion. The disciples come together, they ask,

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. Very quickly, it's a sermon for another day, but very quickly, notice,

He does not tell them that they're wrong, that the kingdom will be established in Israel.

He tells them it's not for you to know when. And I told you earlier to note the sum and substance of His teaching during those 40 days was about the kingdom of God.

So their question makes sense in light of the context. The issue, though, is there's a different dispensation, a different time, and an economy in which

God is dealing with them. Now you will receive power and you'll be witnesses to the end of the earth.

But this dispensation that you're talking about, the coming of the kingdom of God where God will reign in Israel, that is still to come.

God is not finished with His people Israel. As a nation, a nationality,

God, when He comes, when Jesus returns, is going to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years.

I don't take it here like some scholars, and they are scholars, I don't mean that to put them down or anything, they think that these are just kind of uneducated fishermen who are asking a wrong question.

And Jesus has to correct them. No, their question makes sense because He was teaching them about the kingdom and He tells them that in fact it will come about at this time.

The issue is time. Finally, the last major point here.

In verse 7 and 8, 7 He says, not for them to know the time when the kingdom will be established that way, but in verse 8, you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all

Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Here we have the great commission. And someone has rightly said that we don't have a great commission in the

Bible, we have great commissions, plural, because there's several places where that final commissioning is told to us.

Matthew 28, it's all the same event, but different perspectives and different parts of what He shared are recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and here in Acts 1 .8.

This verse is the thesis statement, the main topical statement of the book of Acts.

To follow what's happening in the book of Acts, you need to understand the pouring out of the

Holy Spirit and then the subsequent witnessing to the ends of the earth according to these three stages is the outline of the book of Acts.

What am I saying? So in Jerusalem, the gospel will begin.

And what we find is from Acts chapter 2 all the way through the end of chapter 7, you have the witness in Jerusalem.

And then in chapter 8, verse 1, we have a transition where it goes to not just Jerusalem but all

Judea and Samaria. The Samaritans will hear. And finally, the last section, to the end of the earth.

When Paul is converted in chapter 9 and then sent out as a missionary, there needs to be some dealing with the wrong assumption of the apostles who thought that the gospel would only be for Jews in the first place.

By calling them and going to Cornelius' house in Acts chapter 10, and the Gentiles are also included in this, in Caesarea, which is still part of Israel.

Then to the ends of the earth, that's how the book of Acts unfolds.

So Acts 1 -8 lays out the outline and then you see it unfold throughout the book. Starting in Jerusalem, then on to Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.

So in closing, we kind of circle back around to where we started. As we sit here this morning, we need the

Holy Spirit. We can go through the motions or we can be filled and controlled by the

Spirit of the living God. And the difference is night and day. The difference between a

Spirit -controlled, Spirit -filled believer and someone who's going through the motions is night and day. You can't do this

Christian walk on your own. That's why I don't have to offer a guilt trip about Acts 1 -8.

Acts 1 -8 says, be a witness, I mean this is your whole point, your whole mission. Go to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel.

I don't have to try to guilt you into evangelizing. Your neighbor. What I'm trying to tell you is you surrender control of your life to the

Spirit and He will do that in you. It'll come naturally because Acts 1 -8 says, and you will be a witness.

So are you willing to ask for that? Are you willing to say, you know what, I'm not really fully controlled.

There's a part of me that's controlled by the Spirit, but a lot of me goes through the motions and I want more.

Are you willing to ask? Ask for the filling of the Spirit and begin to wait on that, to keep asking.

Luke 18, this is all one book, Luke 18, the persistent widow, ask, keep asking. How much more will the

Father give this gift to you? In the meantime, as you're asking and waiting, obey the precepts.

Don't think it's going to be some lightning zap that just changes everything. Obey, be patient.

Learn sanctification through patience. The opposite of patience is anger. How do you react?

Be patient. Listen to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Abide in Christ, but ask for these things. These were the last words. It's got to be important, right?

He went up on a mountain to tell them these things, which in the scriptures marks that off as a special occasion.

So in closing, we're going to pray and we'll ask the worship team to come. I want you right now, I'm not going to do the praying for you.

You need the Holy Spirit to take greater control of your life. Ask him right now.

In the quietness of your heart, I know there's some here that may not believe in Christ, but you need to pray is for him to save you.

But if you've been born again, begin to pray in your spirit right now that he would take control, complete control.

Confess that you've been, if it's the case that you've been walking in the flesh, not in the spirit, going through the motions, not empowered as you should be.

Confess that you can't do this Christian life on your own. And right now you ask him for the spirit of God to fill you.

Ask him to help you to keep on praying as you wait 10 days, maybe longer for the spirit to really take full control of you, to keep on asking and keep on waiting.

Ask him to show you areas of your life where you've been disobedient and grieving the spirit because we quench and grieve the spirit of the living

God. And so we miss out on this gift of the father, which is the greatest gift, the final thing that Jesus said that we needed.

It's a gift that will carry us through this Christian life all the way to eternity. Ask him for it.

Ask him for the ability to walk in obedience. Ask him to show you where you've been stumbling.

And father, as I stand here before all these people, I ask that you would fill me because I know I'm not as fully controlled by your spirit as I should be.

I need you, spirit of God, to take full control of my life.

Pray for this church, Lord, for each person who's gathered here. Fill us with your

Holy Spirit. Take control of each of our lives. Help us to ask and keep asking and keep waiting.

Keep obeying. God, we can't do this without you.

We can't do anything without you. Come fill this place with your glory.

Even right now, Lord, we need you and we ask now. Bring conviction of sin.

Bring comfort to those who are hurting and rebuke to those who are sinning.

Right now we're open to you, spirit. We ask that you would come and minister. And Lord, I pray that you would empower this people, this body of believers to be witnesses.

Give us these opportunities to speak. Give us the willingness and the boldness. Give us clarity with the gospel.

Apart from you, we can do nothing. Jesus, continue to do and to teach through your