Waiting for Pentecost

Acts 1:6-26

O.B.C.

10/19/97

ill. Waiting for Pentecost

40 days from resurrection to ascension - during which time Jesus showed Himself and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.

     He taught them about (1)the Kingdom and

(2) told them to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit

     è the kingdom.

     “Throughout all His ministry Jesus laboured under one great disadvantage.  The centre of His message was the Kingdom of God.  But the trouble was that He meant one thing by the Kingdom and those who listened to Him meant quite another.” [1] 

     Ill. Palestine was a little country 120 by 40 miles.  It was the football of the Middle East. Kicked around a lot.  Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and the Romans.  So, the Jews began to look forward to the day when God would break directly into human history and do for them what they could not do for themselves.  Restore the kingdom to Israel.

     Jesus saw in the kingdom a society upon earth where God’s will would be as perfectly done as it is in heaven.  It would be a kingdom founded on love not on power.

10 days from ascension to Pentecost

4 events “the constitutive elements of the Christian mission”[2]

1. mandate to witness

2. the ascended lord who directs the mission from heaven

3. the centrality of the apostles in this task

4. the coming of the Spirit to empower them

Only when these four elements were in place could the mission begin.

1. They received their commission. (1:6-8)

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[1] Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles, p.3

[2] Dr. Richard Longenecker, Acts, p. 253