Kingdom Come

“Peace be with you.”

Acts 1:1–14 NASB95

1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” 9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

Prayer:

“Father your will be done. Jesus your word be proclaimed. Spirit your work be accomplished in us today. Amen.”

A. Context

1. Expectation- the hope for the kingdom to be established (v.6-7).

“Restore” or “Renew”- They ask if the Kingdom will be “restored” given back into the hand of Israel? Like it once was long ago. But as we have already mention that way a type of the new kind of Kingdom that God will establish and he would do this by doing a “New thing”. Remember that Israel wanted a king like the other nations had. God granted their request, even though he chastised them for wanting a king when they had Him. But God worked their poor intentions for His glorious good and worked the King of Kings into their lives and now as we will see establishes a new kingdom of a new kind with the supremacy of the Kings of Kings through those who believe.

Q&A- Jesus draws their attention from When to what. Jesus also calls them to trust in the Father for these things for it is not for them to know. This is trust in God for the Knowledge of Good and Evil and refraining for obtaining it for themselves.

2. Empowerment- Holy Spirit(v.8).

3. Employment- Witness and Testimony (v.8).

4. Expansion- the whole world (v.8).

From Nations to People- The disciples ask about the restoration of the Kingdom to the one nation Israel. And Jesus doesn’t answer that. What He does provide is the individual power in which they will receive in just a few days and will witness to expanding areas. What we come to know is this, that The Kingdom of Israel was a type of the Kingdom of God to come and begins in the acts of the Apostles. The victories, the blessings, the strength, the reverence that Israel had in its prime foreshadowing the Victories, blessings, strength and power, that those who believe in Jesus will have through the Holy Spirit and them gathering together and working together establishes a Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

5. Enthronement- the King ascends to the throne (v.9-11).

a. Witnesses to His ascension.

b. Getting your head out of the clouds. The disciples we gazing into heaven after the ascension of Jesus and the Angels question this action as if they need to interrupt their gaze so they can begin doing what Jesus had commanded them instead of saying goodbye to their Lord.

Few things can be interfere:

1) for whatever reason the angels were sent to break their gaze into heaven so they can begin focusing on their mission on earth.

2) They are told that Jesus will return in the same manner, therefore not to cling to this moment as the last but looking forward to His return.

3) We know that Jesus ascends so that the Spirit can come and dwell in the hearts of believers. So Jesus presence is still with them though he ascends. Not just in memory, but in real power and presence.

6. Engaged- So it begins (v.12).

1) Work.

2) Warfare.

v.12- In Zechariah 14:1–5, the Mount of Olives is associated with the Lord’s coming in judgment against the nations that fight against his people. However, here it is the place of the Lord’s departure, from where his apostles must go and bear witness to Israel and the nations of his saving grace, ‘before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord’

Zechariah 14:1–5 NASB95

1 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. 4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. 5 You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him!

7. Entourage- we do this together (v.14)

B. Application

1. God’s ways are not our ways.

Oh how we know what is best, but our best is often at odds with how God operates. When someone wrongs us we think it is best to hurt them back in some way or force them to apologize. But God says to forgive, to turn the cheek, that repentance is accomplished through loving-kindness. More closely related to the text, many of us think that if we get the right people to run for office, and if that doesn’t work then we take care of ourselves by filling us our savings accounts, putting up walls, and make sure we are taken care of in case things go bad. But God reveals that it is not those who hold office that can make the most change for good, but laying aside the office, take to the streets, and share your life with others (not keeping to yourself) that will change the world. We get a glimpse of this in the 4th Century with the Roman Empire becomes an official Christian Nation under Constantine. Since the day of Pentecost, those in the church were heavily persecuted, but as their blood was shed, their impact and reach continued to increase among the world as they shared the Gospel and Testified to Christ. Then by the 4th century they were so numerous that they influenced the emperor believed and Rome became a Christian nation, and Constantine erect the first cathedral for christians to gather at Rome. God’s ways are different than our own and oppose the ways of the world. According to God humility produces the most power not position or pride.

2. What we do not know verse what we do know.

Jesus tells them that it is not for them to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed. In other words we should not concern ourselves with such things.

“for we must be desirous to learn so far as our heavenly Master doth teach us; but as for such things as he will have us ignorant of, let none be so bold as to inquire after them, that we may be wise with sobriety.”-John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 44–45.

So what do we know? Having believed in the Lord Jesus we are given the Power of the Holy Spirit, to be witnesses to the world about The Truth, the Life, and The Way. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just give us power to speak this but to live it as well. That the Kingdom will be established not from this world but from without. That the world’s ways will not be kind or advantageous for us, the Political powers will not be mindful of us, that the resources which have build the worlds kingdoms in the past will not work for us and we will find no gain or help from them to establish the kingdom. Our resources are few, but there is something we have that the world doesn’t have. An ascended Jesus that is seated next to the Father and who has His undivided attention to do all that the son will ask him to do, that if we ask in Jesus’s name we may be granted our request in accordance to His will, A king who Lords over the enemies of the kingdom. We are walking into a situation where we know how it ends- with Jesus reigning and ruling. We live in exciting times. We not only get to participate in delivering the rule and reign of Christ everywhere we go, but Christ’s reign and rule over us can’t be taken from us even if our life is! For we are either working to grow the Kingdom here on earth or we are experiencing the Kingdom in the presence of Christ. Win-win.

3. God works through his people.

It is revealed that God does things in a particular way. We may not understand it, we might think there is a better or different way, but nevertheless God is God and He accomplishes His will, and according to what Jesus has revealed to us in the scriptures, His will is for us to witness and testify to others the Gospel and bring salvation to those who are being drawn.

4. God’s will for his people.

To share His glory with others so that they might enjoy him. His Glory is seen in the life of Jesus which we come to enjoy in salvation and sanctification.

Jesus reveals things that we will come to know and these are what we should spent our attention upon. We are like the disciples. We are curious, and wanting to know more concerning things that are not our business. They sidetrack us from the things that have everything to do with our business. We often spend our time chasing for too long the things that we don’t know rather than pursuing or living into the things we do. I am not saying that we don’t pursue our curiosities in the scriptures but not at the expense of the things that we have been given and the tasks that have been assigned to us. There is enough to do that if we were to fully commit ourselves to the life we have been given and what we have come to know, we would find little time to do anything else in searching of the mysteries. There is enough to do in the Christian life that spinning our tires in pursuits of things that have not been revealed is a fools errand. We all would like to know when the end shall come and all the details of it so that we can be prepared and can have our hope satisfied but the point is this, if you were to fully live into the life and the knowledge of what you has already been given you, you would be so busy doing the Kingdom’s work that when the Lord does return, it would seem that time has flown by and his coming caught you by surprise like a thief in the night. I can get so involved in studying or reading that time seem to fly by and when I look at the clock hours have passed and now it is time to move to something else. This is the point, I believe, that Jesus is making with his Disciples.

Is it God’s will to advance his kingdom upon the earth? Has this been revealed to us in the scriptures? It this be the case then there is a lesson concerning the “will of God” we often desire to know. As a christian, who follows Jesus as Lord and listens to him, we have already been given enough revelation into the will of God to orient our lives to be in the will of God. What I mean is this, when you encounter the decision that you face, your decisions need to account for the things which God has already revealed to you more than the things which you may not know but are curious. We are given in the scriptures, that Christians are to witness to Christ in the world and advance his kingdom or establish in place it has not be realized. Therefore, when you are making decisions on where to move, what job to take, If we should make this purchase, do such and such, it should factor in the will of God for Christians to accomplish what we have come to know. Would moving here allow you to continue to advance the kingdom more? Would taking this job position you to grow in your faith and witness about Jesus? The first thing in our decision making and seeking the will of God is to establish what we are called to and to make sure we follow through once that decision is made. If moving there allows you advance the kingdom more, but you don’t then you are in danger of being out of the revealed will of God. Many people make a decision claiming and talking themselves into the fact that it will help them live more into their faith, That joining this group will created all sorts of opportunity to share Jesus, but then they don’t. They are just as silence in witnessing as they were before and it becomes evident that they deceived themselves into something that really wasn’t motivated by the will of God to witness for Jesus. Intentions are only good ones if they lead to action.

i.e.-Should my child be involved in this sport or event? It would expose them to new people who may not know the Lord and would given them opportunity to share their faith. So they sign up and then never speak about Jesus or seek to advance the Kingdom at all. They are not in the revealed will of God.

5. God doesn’t ask of us what Christ hasn’t already done.

Parallel in John 17:1-11

John 17:1–11 NASB95

1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. 6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. 9 “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; 10 and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.

6. Begins with prayer:

helps orient our will with God’s will.

demonstrates our reliance on God as sovereign.

brings his people closer to each other.

direct access to the only advantage for the church.

connects us to the divine.

Keeps us focus until God delivers what is next for us.

Pray for what God has already promised.