-New series in a new book. Going through it quickly this Fall, we’ll come back and dig into it a little more deeply someday in the future, but the purpose of this series is to help us trace the storyline of the book of Acts. Each year I pick a “word of the year” for our church, and this year’s word is “Witness” which is also one of our core values. My hope for us from this book is that our church grows in our witness to the world around us as we see the ways the early church witnessed to the implications of Jesus’s resurrection. And just so you hear it this week: God has a tendency to use normal people who are living normal lives do accomplish extraordinary things. You don’t need a million YT followers, you just need to be faithful to speaking what God has done in your life. Our job today is the same as the early disciples, we’re called the translate the gospel, which means becoming fluent in bringing Jesus into every situation we encounter.
-Hopefully you picked up a Scripture notebook on your way in, if you’re planning to stick around for the series. We buy those each time we go through a new book of the Bible for you to take notes in, and then keep, and then go back in the future and see what God taught you through our study of this book together. Also, a special welcome 4th graders who are here now: we’re thrilled you’re here, and I hope you take good notes in your new Bible!
-One of the biggest notes for us as we read narrative in the Bible is not everything is directly applicable to our lives. For example, in today’s text, we’re going to read about the disciples casting lots, and we’ll read about Judas committing suicide. Those aren’t stories that we’re supposed to copy in our lives today. The stories in the Bible reflect real events with real people and some of them serve as examples of what we shouldn’t do in our lives.
-Some key themes to look out for each week: Jesus is the main character, which is true of every book of the Bible. It all flows out from His fulfillment of the Father’s plan, as demonstrated through the power of the HS. If you didn’t hear that, each person of the Trinity is intimately involved in this story.
-God’s work going out is connected to the God’s Word going out. We looked at this a couple weeks ago in Acts 6 where another pivotal moment in the early church led to the Word of God spreading throughout His people.
-The last theme (and the title of this series) is Jesus’s witnesses spreading 3 ways: through HS indwelling, leading to salvation, establishment of churches.
READ/PRAY (pg. 966)
-Luke gives us an introduction to this book that sets us up for the rest of the book
-It also connects us back to his “first narrative” the Gospel of Luke, so let’s look back at that to see how Luke began that book:
-Original eyewitnesses (there we get that again), servants of the WORD
-Know the certainty: our faith isn’t on empty speculation, but verifiable facts and stories. And if you think about it, each time we read the Bible, we join the 2nd generation of Christians, we’re relying on the eyewitness testimony that we read and hold in our hands!
-Theophilus is likely Luke’s financial benefactor (name means loved by God, common 1st century name)
-Focus on Jesus, Holy Spirit, convincing proofs (what do you think those were?)
- Witnesses Require Power (1-11)
-Focus on Jerusalem, central to God’s plans throughout history, also the place where He was killed.
-Baptism with the HS, as I said earlier, the expansion of the HS is a theme we’ll trace throughout the book. Today, there’s an intimate connection between water baptism and baptism of the HS, we can’t separate those events out, but God is doing something different here in the early church.
-Vs. 6 the apostles tend to get a bad rap for this question, and there a sense where we look at them as ignorant or narrowly focused, but look back at vs. 3, what had Jesus been talking to them about? The Kingdom of God! The issue wasn’t that they were asking about the kingdom, the issue was the timing.
-But this bears some thinking about for us today. A theologian I enjoy has said the temptation is for us to be Acts 1:6 Christians, when Jesus says we need to be Acts 1:8 Christians. What does that mean? The temptation is always to look to worldly means for salvation, but what Jesus offers is something that is above and beyond this world. Chuck Colson used to say, “Salvation won’t arrive on Air Force One.” What Jesus offers is something that in the world’s eyes is as insignificant as a mustard seed, but over time grows and grows and impacts and influences every sphere of the world, that’s what the church is going to do.
-One of the realities about being a witness to Jesus is that you need to live like someone who has seen the resurrected Lord. It’s not enough to go through a mental checklist of beliefs, it requires a holistic life change that affects everything about you: what you say, how you work, how you spend your time and even your money. Jesus requires a complete reorientation of everything you do.
-And it starts with the indwelling power of the HS that spiritually raises us from death to life and allows us to follow after Jesus, then once the Holy Spirit lives in us, we get to be His witnesses, and this has both geographical and political implications. Geographical: it describes the spread of the church and gives a basic outline to the rest of the book (first chapters center on Jerusalem, expand to the surrounding nations, then ends in Rome), but politically it signifies that Jesus’s kingdom isn’t bound by the same national boundaries as the surrounding nations. Something different is taking place in Jesus’s kingdom that can’t and won’t be contained or restrained by other nations and civilizations.
-And one of the new things I learned about this call from God this week is that when Jesus is calling them witnesses, He’s pointing back to a Messianic prophecy from Isaiah (which also tells us something about this book, this new covenant people will re-enact some of the suffering servant ideas found in Isaiah).
-Isaiah (through the guidance of the HS) is saying that when God’s salvation comes, His people will serve as the witnesses to this salvation, so when Jesus picks this up, He’s saying that what Isaiah spoke about is taking place among this new covenant people called the church.
-This is the only account of the ascension in the Bible, which contains allusions to previous OT experiences (Elijah & Elisha), and the cloud covering connects to both the transfiguration and theophanies (encounters with God) in the OT (Luke 9:34 “While he was saying this, a cloud appeared and overshadowed them. They became afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 Then a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, the Chosen One; listen to him!”) and theophanies like in Ex. 19:9 “The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear when I speak with you and will always believe you.”
-Another piece the cloud cover and Him the angels saying “Come back the same way” points us back to (Dan. 7) isn’t it incredible how the Bible connects together?
-2 angels question shakes the disciples out of their stupor, they’d already been giving their marching orders, the question was: were they going to pursue it?
- Witnesses Require God’s Plans (12-26)
-They obey, at least initially! They go to Jerusalem to wait for the arrival of the HS.
-One of the biggest issues throughout the Bible is the lack of obedience to God’s commands. It began in the garden, it continued to their kids, continued with Noah, continued even with the tower of Babel. In order to read and interpret the book of Acts properly, we need to know all these stories from the Bible! God often works in similar patterns and themes throughout the biblical storyline (as we’ve already seen a couple times in this story), and if we can bring those stories to mind, it will help us understand what’s taking place here. We see a similar idea here: God’s initial plan is to have Adam & Eve expand the garden so it covers the whole earth, the people are supposed to spread out. But their disobedience culminates in the tower of Babel where they are going to build a tower to get them to the realm of the gods and to ensure they never needed to scatter out, so God confuses their language and forces them to scatter! We see something similar happening here, Jesus tells them to wait, and then scatter, we’ll have to see if they do!
-The list of the apostles connect back to Luke 6, where Luke used the same list to talk about them, but back then it included Judas Isacariot who betrayed Jesus and then killed himself (as we read earlier), they’re down to 11, which becomes an issue in a bit.
-But do you notice what they’re spending their time doing: gathering to pray. Asking God to strengthen them and move in them, and prayer will come up again, so keep it in mind.
-And others were with them (next verse says there were about 120 of them – become a church member!), women who followed Jesus, including His mother and brothers. The last time the brothers were listed they were trying to stop Jesus. Apparently, they saw something that changed their mind. And I don’t know about you, but I have 2 sisters, I don’t think anyone could ever convince me they’re God in flesh (another reason to believe in Jesus)
–16 Peter is the focus of these first chapters, we’ll trace his early ministry until we meet Paul “It was necessary” Peter begins by acknowledging God’s sovereign hand even in Judas’s betrayal. And you may be here facing your own betrayal: work, family, friends, even in the church! And this text reminds us that God sees you, knows the pain, and wants you to look to His Son. I was reminded this week of Heb. 12:2 “keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Did you see that what Jesus was focused on in the midst of his death on the cross was the joy on the other side of it. The way Jesus could face betrayal was because He knew what was on the other side of it. And church, the reason we can face betrayals today is because we know what joy is coming someday. It might not be today or tomorrow, but someday it will all be worth it.
-God is good, and His plans are good, even when they lead us through the darkest valley, even when it means His only begotten Son hanging on the cross and bearing the weight and penalty for the sins of the world that was in rebellion against Him. In the midst of that grief, He looked forward to the joy of His bride united back together to Him.
-This next section is a parenthetical note from Luke about what happened to Judas, pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll jump down to vs. 21
-What’s interesting is there are very strict qualifications for who is fit to serve in this role. It has to be someone who was an eyewitness to every event of Jesus’s ministry, which is why we believe that this church office of Apostle doesn’t exist today: no one else can give eyewitness testimony to all of Jesus’s earthly ministry.
-Why do you think they needed to do this? We don’t see any place where Jesus says they needed to be 12, we’ve already seen there’s other that were also with them. AND Peter seems to be taking the immediate context of his Psalm quotes and stretching them a little bit beyond what they’re supposed to mean. So let’s talk about what Peter is doing.
-First, we need to stop claiming to read the Bible “literally.” The Bible isn’t intended to be read literally, one of my favorite hermeneutics professors says we’re supposed to read it “literarily” according to the genre that it’s in (the Bible is more like a library than a book). But by reading it literarily, we’re also supposed to read it as pointing us to Jesus. He is the main character of the whole story, the OT points to Him, the NT points back to Him, which means we constantly need to be asking the question: how does this text point us to Jesus? What Peter is doing is reading and interpreting David’s Psalms of complaint and lament through the lens of Jesus and saying what David experienced point to and are fulfilled in the experience Jesus had during His time on Earth.
-Which gets us to the bigger biblical theology picture of what is taking place: Jesus is the true Israel who was faithful in every area that Israel failed (wilderness wanderings, temptations). After coming through the wilderness, Jesus chose 12 apostles as the new patriarchs of His movement (Luke 22:30“And you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”), and now that Christ’s work is done, the apostles realize they need to fill the vacancy of this new movement of God’s people called “the church” to be able to sit on those thrones when Jesus comes back. Because Jesus is the focus and direction of the whole Bible, His arrival literally changes everything! We need to read the Bible with our focus on Him. I love what Spurgeon said about preaching: preach the text and then make a beeline for Jesus! Our impulse as Christians today needs to be to be looking for Jesus throughout the whole Bible, and if the focus is on anything else, then it’s wrong.
-One other thing this story is revealing is the delegated authority Jesus gave to these 12. The Gospel and beginning verses of this show us Jesus’s work in the church, now the focus is shifting to the new generation of leaders who have been tasked by Jesus with leading the church, His new people that will eventually comprise every tribe and tongue and nation, and that delegated authority is why we’re here today.
-Luke continues the story in vs. 23: either there were only 2 people who fit the criteria of seeing all of Jesus’s earthly ministry, or they decided together which 2 they wanted, but they were left with Joseph and Matthias. And then, importantly, they took more time to pray. Each time a new movement or direction of the church is brought up, the disciples take time to pray, which is a good reminder for us to spend time in prayer before we (individually and corporately) are making decisions. And don’t forget that the prayer listed here is communal: all of them gathering together to pray.
-And this is a specific prayer: God knows everything, including what the early church needs, so they ask Him to reveal which of these 2 should take the place of Judas, and the Greek is a play on words: Judas left his place as an apostle to go to his own place. This is similar to the Fall in Gen. 3, where Adam & Eve left their rightful place as images of God, and went to their own place of rebellion against God. This is another example in Scripture of the reminder that there are only 2 ways to live: either for God or against Him.
-After praying, they proceed to cast lots. Now there’s a whole bunch of discussion that we can have about this! Is this something we should do today, anytime we need to pick elders we should find 2 men, pray, then cast lots? Is this God endorsing gambling?
-First, there is actually biblical precedent for this move. Prov. 16:33 says:
-So this isn’t outside of God’s control. But we also have examples from the OT where the people cast lots, one example is when the land is being portioned out to Israelites, they cast lots to determine which part of the land they entered (Josh. 18:6). This may be a connection back to that story as the new symbolic Israel is also chosen by lots, or it might just be that this was the way God worked at the time!
-But the second and bigger issue is the timing of this, and it’s what makes us today different from the disciples then: we have the Holy Spirit, and one of the descriptions of the HS in the NT is a guide, He leads us towards holiness and righteousness. Now, little spoiler, the HS will come down in power on the disciples next week, but today’s text occurs before that indwelling.
-One last comment on this: this is the only time in the whole Bible Matthias is named. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t matter, but it’s another reminder that the focus of this is Jesus, not the apostles! AND this is a bit of a spoiler, but one of my favorite phrases in this book comes after the indwelling of the HS in Acts 15:
-Last week, I got a question come in that I saved for this week because it gets to this text. The question was: how do we determine the voice of God?
-And this text is working to answer that, even though it’s in a different era than we’re in today. So, for us today: how do we determine what God’s calling us to? There’s a little book that came out in 2009 that was so helpful for me that helped me answer this question, because so many times people I talked to referred to some mystical experience that I couldn’t duplicate! And the guidance Kevin says in this book is: live a holy life where you seek God above everything else, live in a church community, pray, and then trust that God will work in whatever you’re doing (as long as it’s not sin).
-One way I’ve seen this in my life is with my dad when my family moved to MN. He was asked 3 separate times before he accepted the job, and each time he was asked, he brought it to the elders and submitted it to them. He told me that he needed to practice what he preached, and he was tired of people leaving the church without talking to anyone in leadership, and he refused to do that. The third time he was asked, the elders decided that “it seemed good to the HS and them.”
- What Are You A Witness To?
-Over the next 3 months we’re going to be exploring together what it looks like for us to grow as witnesses in every area of our lives. We just started a 9AM class on parenting, and one of the realities is we’re supposed to be witnesses even in our parenting. Every single one of us witnesses to something in our lives, and Jesus’s invitation to us is for us to continually point people to Him. Now, when I hear that, it blows my mind, because I think that God had to have a better option for spreading His message! He willingly chooses broken, messed up people like you and me as His witnesses.
-And I think this is a growth area for our church. One of the descriptions I was told about our church when I came was that most people that walk into our church came in with well-worn Bibles, which means we haven’t been good at inviting unbelievers in. So, my prayer this Fall is that we as a church grow in being faithful witnesses in every area of our lives. In his book The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark, a sociologist (who at the time of writing this book wasn’t a Christian) argues that Christianity’s growth followed typical human impulses without needing any spiritual influence. It’s a fascinating book that I think points to some of the normal ways God works. But one of the things he says in this book is:
-What that means is we as Christians need to be inviting others into our relational sphere on a regular basis. Invite unbelievers to your LG, invite them over for a meal, have them rub shoulders with your friends at church. I still believe that relationships are the best way for us to be witnesses to others. Even coming up on October 24, we’ve got our annual Fall Fest, which is intentionally designed to be an outreach event! Invite your friends, neighbors, coworkers to join us! And then continue inviting them to join us until they start to see the realities of who Jesus is!
