"What Do We Do Now that You're Leaving"

Propositional Statement

Jesus’ resurrection assured the apostles that the Comforter would come and empower them to continue the ministry Jesus began

40 Days Later

Matthew said Mary Magdalene and the “other” Mary went to them tomb…Mark wrote that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jame, and Salome went to the tomb…Luke simply says “they” went to the tomb....John wrote that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb....They all came up with the same conclusion that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. The angels ask why she sought for the living among the dead, and reminded them of Jesus’ words concerning his own death and resurrection. The women went back and told the eleven disciples and the rest of his followers that Jesus had risen as he said. But to these grieving disciples, their words seemed as an idle tale for children and they did not believe them. Luke records only Peter going to the tomb, but John also was present with Peter at the tomb. Peter looks in the tomb and sees the linen cloths by themselves, and he returns marveled that Jesus rose from the dead. The two disciples on the Emmaus road rehearse the events of the past 72 hours as Jesus joins them on the journey. He inquires about their conversation, fills in the blanks, and breaks bread before vanishing from their sight. Their hearts burned within as he talked with them, and they too found the grieving band of disciples and declared that they along with Simon has seen the risen Lord. Jesus appears to his disciples and the alleged dead man asks for some food, and he ate it. He says that everything that occured was written about him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled. Then, he opened their minds to understand Scriptures concerning his death and resurrection that leads to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and that this message should be proclaimed to all nations....

A Snapshot of Acts

Acts picks up where Luke’s Gospel leaves off recording the early progress of the gospel as Jesus’ disciples took it from Jerusalem throughout Judea, Samaria, and the rest of the Mediterranean world. The main characters in the book of the Acts of the Apostles are the Holy Spirit, Peter, James, John, and Paul as they carry the message of Christ across their known world. Acts is the beginning of the evangelistic ministry of the the apostles tasked with “witnessing” to the nations what they heard and saw. Acts is the birthplace of the early church through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost where they spoke in unknown tongues (Acts 2:5). As Gentiles began responding to the gospel, the focus shifts to Paul and his missionary journeys. Acts form a bridge between the four Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, showing how the apostles carried on Christ’s work and providing a historical background for Romans through Revelation. The Acts of the Apostles is the second of two New Testament books written by Luke. Like his Gospel, Acts was a letter to Luke’s friend Theophilus written sometime in A.D. 62-64.

Acts chapter 1 begins with Luke’s greeting to his friend and his purpose for writing to his friend by providing a cliff note version of his first book: (1) he dealt with what Jesus began to do and teach, (2) gave commands to his apostles through the Holy Spirit, and (3) he presented himself “alive” to the disciples and others by many proofs. He appears for forty days to the me, and he speaks to them about the kingdom of God, his sovereign reign and rule. He ascends back to the Father on a cloud while his bewildered disciples stand staring. The angels provides an explanation the folded face cloth here through the declaration that just as they saw him leave, he would return in the same fashion. After their last business meeting with Christ on the Mount of Olives, they return to Jerusalem in unity and devoted to prayer with the women, Mary of Jesus and his brothers. Peter recounts Judas’s tragic life and spoke to how David prophesied about Judas would become a guide to Jesus’ accusers. Though numbered among and shared in the ministry of Christ, he buys a field with the thirty pieces of silver and then commits suicide in that field later to be called the “Field of Blood” according to Psalm 69:25. So, Peter and the apostles prepare to select one to take Judas’s place as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whomever they would choose had to have accompanied them during Jesus’s earthly ministry. Justus and Matthias were the two candidates, and after praying and casting lots, Matthias was numbered with the eleven.

Wait on the promise (Position Yourself)

Elizabeth Elliot said:

“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thought’s.

In this last “business meeting” so to speak, Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of God, no doubt preparing them to propel into their apostolic ministry, establishing the church based on their eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of Christ from the grave. For the next forty days, people saw the resurrected Christ proving once and for all that he rose from the dead. The disciples no doubt savored their last few days, knowing their time with him in their physical presence was ending. The Greek word for staying is synalizo, meaning to eat at the same table with, with focus on fellowship, which fits with his appearance to his disciples in Luke 24:43 where he ate in their presence. This meal was different than the supper before his arrest because he would provide some final instructions and words of encouragement for the still fledgling band of disciples that he called from every walk of life to carry on his ministry after his ascension. He gives them instruction to wait for the promise from the Father. The Greek construct renders the translation: “Stop departing from Jerusalem,” implying that at this point the disciples had been coming and going from the Holy City. They were to remain there and await the Father’s promise introduced in Luke 24:49 and is made explicit in the book of Acts.

Luke 24:49 (ESV)

Luke 24:49 ESV

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.”

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.”

There is a difference in waiting and waiting on purpose, and no doubt the disciple’s fear kept them coming in and out of the city. The word wait here is perimeno, meaning to remain in a place and/or state, with expectancy concerning a future event. If I were to poll Christians across the globe, the one area of Christianity where most struggle is waiting because many do not know how to wait. The disciples were busybodies, as we read that Peter and several disciples went back to fishing. God did not call them from the water to become witness, for them to return to their previous occupation. “God did not call us from darkness to light and from salvation to discipleship to get upset and throw a tantrum when his timing does not match our timing.” We can wait on God to pay our bills, make a way out of no way, turn our darkness into day, and for the new things that benefit us....Yet we cannot wait on God for our power and purpose....If one can learn how to wait, then their work will be more effective. Learning to wait is just as important and working and worshiping, because waiting positions the believer for the promise of the Father. Waiting on the promise of the Father is not always promotion or prosperity, but we all wait on God’s power the Holy Spirit. John’s baptism was an outward confession, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit would be confirmation of the outward confession. John’s baptism was a “watery grave” but the new converts would receive the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. John’s baptism was an eschatological, preparatory washing. When someone was baptized by John it meant that he or she was ready for God to come. The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit and it was the sign that the Messiah had come and the new era had begun. Throughout Acts new converts experienced repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Spirit. All three are essential elements of the conversion experience. Though the Holy Spirit cannot be tied to a mechanistic pattern, these patterns show that repentance and the gift of the Spirit are essential to the conversion experience.

Wait on God’s Timing (Check Your Watch)

Charles Spurgeon said:

“We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously he once waited for us.”

As they “came together” for the last time the disciples presented a valid question to the Lord concerning the restoration of Israel because at the moment they were under Roman occupation. Like all Jews, the apostles thought that the coming of the King would bring about the restoration of sovereignty to Israel. The Israelites not only would be freed from the rule of Rome but Israel would then rule over all other nations. They saw the promise of the coming gift of the Holy Spirit from the Father as a mark of the final great messianic Day of the Lord when Israel would be restored to the former glory of the days of David and Solomon. Clearly, that was not Jesus’s earthly mission as he reminded his disciples that his “meat was to do the will of his Father” in John 4:34. The disciples had a knack for majoring in the minor and minoring in the major. Even when Jesus is talking to Peter about his own life, Peter was more concerned about the “disciple that Jesus loved.” “People can’t trust God’s timing because people are worried about your timing.” They wanted to know how soon the nation of Israel would be restored [TNTC]. They wanted to know if this restoration would happen in the immediate future. The question reflects a nationalist’s concern for Israel’s vindication and the completion of the OT promises of Israel being restored to a place of great blessing [Bar, BECNT]. In Jewish expectations, the restoration of Israel’s fortunes would be marked by the renewed activity of God’s Spirit, which had been withheld since the last of the prophets. The promise of the coming gift of the Holy Spirit had rekindled their old nationalistic hopes [EBC, NICNT]. The word time in Greek is chronos, meaning points of time consisting of occasions for particular events. The word seasons in Greek is kairos, meaning a favorable opportunity or occasion or propitious circumstances. “When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don’t fill it with busyness, just wait.” Jesus corrected the disciples by directing them away from the question about “times or dates” (v. 7). These are matters wholly within God’s own purposes and authority. During his earthly life Jesus had denied such knowledge even for himself (Mark 13:32). In denying such knowledge to the disciples, the hope in the Parousia is not abandoned. If anything, it is intensified by the vivid picture of Jesus returning on the clouds of heaven in the same mode as his ascension (Acts 1:11). Neither did Jesus reject the concept of the “restoration of Israel.” Instead, he “depoliticized it” with the call to a worldwide mission. The disciples were to be the true, “restored” Israel, fulfilling its mission to be a “light for the Gentiles” so that God’s salvation might reach “to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6). In short, to speculate on times and dates is useless. The Lord’s return does not revolve around such speculation but around God’s own purposes, and those purposes embrace the salvation of the world. The surest route to the Parousia is the evangelization of the world.

John B. Polhill, Acts, vol. 26, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 84–86.

Belinda Cheng and Robert Stutzman, An Exegetical Summary of Acts 1–14, Exegetical Summaries (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2017), 20.

Wait on God’s Power to Do God’s Work

Jack Hayford said,

“Jesus gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, yet when the Spirit comes, He is loaded with packages! He desires to release much more in us and through us than we could ever imagine. These gifts are given for delivery, not for accumulation. We receive them to pass them on to others.”

Waiting on God is worth the wait, period, and Jesus’ reason for the disciples waiting would be so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The prophet Joel speaks to a time with the Spirit would be poured out all on all flesh according to Joel 2:28-32:

Joel 2:28–32 (ESV)

“And it shall come to pass afterward,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

Joel 2:28–32 ESV

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants

in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Verse 8 places the disciples’ question in proper perspective. The “restoration of the kingdom” involves a worldwide mission. Jesus promised the disciples two things: power and witness. The future tense here has an imperatival sense: “you will [must] receive power”; “you will be my witnesses.” Luke stressed this commission from the risen Lord at the close of his Gospel (24:47–49). All the same elements are there—the witness, the call to the nations, the power of the Spirit. The power they were to receive was divine power; the word is dynamis, the same word used of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels. Dynamis here means the potentiality to exert force in performing some function. It is the Spirit’s power (2:1–21). The endowment with the Spirit is the prelude to, the equipping for, mission. “Christians cannot fulfill God’s purpose without his power.” The role of the apostles is that of “witness” (martys). In Acts the apostles’ main role is depicted as witnessing to the earthly ministry of Jesus, above all to his resurrection (cf. 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39, 41). As eyewitnesses only they were in the position to be guarantors of the resurrection. But with its root meaning of testimony, “witness” comes to have an almost legal sense of bearing one’s testimony to Christ. In this way it is applied to Stephen (22:20) and to Paul (22:15; 23:11; 26:16). The background to this concept is probably the servant psalms of Isaiah, where God called on his servant to be a witness (Isa 43:10; 44:8). L. Keck notes the close connection between the Spirit’s power and the witness to Jesus, observing that what was true of those first apostolic witnesses is still true of witnesses today: “The less Jesus is the core of witness, the less power we have.” They would receive the power to (1) work miracles, (2) speak boldly about Jesus and accomplish their mission, (3) speak boldly when testifying to the message of God’s work through Jesus, and (4) give them the capability to articulate their experience with boldness.

The geographical scope of Acts 1:8 provides a rough outline of the entire book: Jerusalem (1–7), Judea and Samaria (8–12), the ends of the earth (13–28). As such it can well be considered the “theme” verse of Acts. It is not by accident that Jerusalem came first. In Luke’s Gospel, Jerusalem was central, from the temple scenes of the infancy narrative to the long central journey to Jerusalem (9:51–19:28), to Jesus’ passion in the city that killed its prophets (13:34). The story of Jesus led to Jerusalem; the story of the church led from Jerusalem. Judea and Samaria are probably to be taken together; Judea was understood in the sense of the Davidic kingdom, which would include the coastal territories and Galilee as well. Samaria would be included within Judea in this broader sense, but it is mentioned separately because of its non-Jewish constituency. The “ends of the earth” are often taken as referring to Rome, since the story of Acts ends in that city.34 The phrase is often found in the prophets, however, as an expression for distant lands; and such is the meaning in Isa 49:6, which may well lie behind Acts 1:8. In fact, the final verse in Acts (28:31), with Paul preaching “without hindrance” in Rome, suggests that the story has not reached its final destination—the witness continues.

What did they witness.....