Ready For Ministry

Introduction

Good Morning and welcome back to the second week of our series called “Ekklesia” the unstoppable movement of God. If you weren’t able to be with us last week, “Ekklesia” is the Greek word that is translated as “Church” in our English Bibles and our series is named such because we are going to be walking through the book of Acts which is the historical narrative or basically the true story of the beginnings of the Christian Church.

One of the main “take-aways” from last week was the book of Acts is really a sequel to the New Testament book called “The Gospel of Luke”. Not just because Luke wrote them both, but because they are presented as two parts to the story of Jesus’ life and ministry. First how He lived his life here on earth and then how He is building His Church from his place in heaven.

We looked at the two places where Jesus taught his Disciples on what His “Church” was going to be like. First from Matthew 16 where Jesus said that He will build his “Ekklesia” and the gates of hades, or the fear over death will not stand against it. And secondly from Matthew 18 we read of Jesus instructions for how to handle conflict in the Church - which of course shows us how well Jesus knew His Church and what we would need.

These verses are so timeless in their application that it is worth taking a look at them every chance we get, so from Matthew 18 we hear Jesus saying:

Matthew 18:15–17 ESV

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

So I was updating and organizing some of my files this past week and I came across the notes from a couple of the times that we as a Church have had to go through this process. It is never a fun place to be, but I am always comforted in knowing that as a Church we strived to follow these instructions as Jesus gave them to us.

Because the true Church is Jesus’ Church, it was not given to the Disciples to build but Jesus said that HE would build His Church. Every disciple has their assignment or their ministry to steward, but Jesus remained the general contractor when it comes to building His Church.

Tension

In a few minutes we will get back into the book of Acts, but because this “sequel” begins by looking back to the first book we are going to start by going back to the first book and read about what is referenced in the second. So if you want you can turn with me to the very last page of the book of Luke, on page 885 in the Chair Bibles.

At this point Jesus has arisen from the dead and appeared to many - even the two men on the road to Emmaus and then these men came to tell the Disciples about their encounter with the resurected Jesus and starting verse 36 it says:

Luke 24:36–43 ESV

36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.

Now whatever you might thing about the flavor of “broiled fish” (I go for deep fried myself) but the point that Jesus was making was that He was not any less alive then anyone else in that room - in fact - I would argue that He was really more “alive” then any of them.

What do I mean by that? After Jesus defeated death, after all authority was given to Him, He returned in a resurrected body state that was just like God intends for each one of us someday. It was a body, yes, but it was much more than the “body” that we know, because it was not tainted by the corruption of sin in our world.

You might say, but I thought Jesus never sinned, so wouldn’t his body already be all that it could be? He didn’t sin, but that doesn’t mean that He never experienced the effects of sin from our broken world and on His human body. The Bible says that Jesus wept, slept, was hungry, thirsty, tired and in pain. Many of these things were made most evident in his final moments of His life as he hung on the cross. But none of this was a result of any sin that Jesus did, but only the effect of the presence of sin in our world.

In order to be the perfect sacrifice for us, Jesus had to experience humanity just like you and I and yet still be without sin. And that is exactly the life that He lived…but then He died. After that everything changed for Jesus because unlike anyone else who had ever died, Jesus rose again and the body that He had in His resurrected state was not the same kind of body that He had before.

This was Jesus’ resurrected body and it operated very differently than the body He had before. So that he could just appear in the room without coming through the door on one hand, but He still ate food just like before. It was this beautiful mingling of the Kingdom of heaven and of earth that God will bring us all into at the end of time. Jesus then comes to them as the first example of what this will look like.

Remember how we said a short while back that Jesus saves us from our Sin in 3 different senses.

1. He has, past tense, saved us from the penalty of our sin. (Justification) Position that we stand in

2. He is, present tense, saving us from the power of sin. (Sanctification) Process that we live in

3. Someday He will save us, future tense, from the presence of Sin (Glorification) Promise that we trust in

When that day happens we will have glorified bodies that are not in any way effected by Sin, and that is how Jesus stood before them in this moment and the Disciples were getting a taste of this as they watched Jesus in His resurrected body. So as they stood there with their mouths open, Jesus went on to explain how this is going to work:

Luke 24:44–46 ESV

44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

This plan that is continuing on with the Disciples and the Church has been in motion since the beginning of time. Jesus showed the Disciples where these things were written in the Scriptures, which at this point only consisted of the Old Testament, and through the Old Testament Jesus showed them how all that had happened to Him had to happen that way...but that was not all he showed them. He also went on to show them how the next step in the plan...the Church...was there as well:

Luke 24:46–47 ESV

46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

This was always a part of the plan, it is in the Old Testament Scriptures and Jesus showed it to the Apostles and then gave them their role in this wonderful plan to proclaim His name to all nations...

Luke 24:48–49 ESV

48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 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 this is where we will pause our reading from the Gospel of Luke in order to dive into Luke’s reference of these things in the opening verses of the book of Acts. Turn there with me now if you will, it’s on page 909 in the Bibles in the Chairs. I am going to stop and pray for us and then we will move on to learn more of God’s wonderful plan of salvation for all mankind, and the role that He has for us to play in it even today.

Let’s pray.

Truth

The first thing we are going to see here in Acts is how....

1. Followers of Christ are commanded to live for His purposes under His control (Acts 1:4–5)

Starting in verse 4 we read...

Acts 1:4–5 ESV

4 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; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

This is a reference to what we just read at the end of the Gospel of Luke. Stay in the city and wait.

Let me ask you, How do we feel about Luke’s use of the word “order” here? He “ordered” them. Some of your translations may say he “commanded” them. We kind of balk at that don’t we. We would prefer words like Jesus encouraged them, guided them, led them, suggested for their consideration the idea that maybe they could might think about....Nope. None of those. Jesus ordered them.

Stop and consider your response to these words because Jesus has not stopped commanding or ordering his followers even to this day. To claim that Jesus is your “Lord” is to say that He has the authority to command you. It is to proclaim yourself subject to the orders of Jesus. It is to live for His purposes under His control.

Some of us are still very resistant to this idea. We think that a relationship with Jesus is something like the old bumper stickers used to say “Jesus is my co-pilot”. Remember those? It’s one thing to throw those on your car, but many of us could slap one of those on our life. Sure, we want Jesus to “take the wheel” when we get in a bind of some sort otherwise we are glad to be the ones in the driver seat. We pilot our lives, but we are glad to have Jesus in the “co-pilot” position in case some thing goes wrong. Jesus never offered to be our co-pilot. He never offered to share the “Lordship” of our life with us, that is not how having a “Lord” even works.

Others of us are completely on board with the idea of living under the “command” of Jesus, but we are discouraged because we don’t really know how to make that happen. That is what the second part of the verse is talking about. Remember “Crazy John” the baptizer? These men sure did. Some of them were disciples of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptizer, before they became Disciples of Jesus. They may have even been there to hear John say, in Matthew 3:11

Matthew 3:11 ESV

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And remember a few weeks back we talked about how the Greek word for baptism, “Baptizo” meant to immerse someone? John’s baptism with water was meant to point people forward to the greater baptism of the Holy Spirit. John called all Isreal to repent and be “immersed” to restore their nation, but then he humbly pointed forward to the one who would call all people to be “immerse” in the Holy Spirit.

This other baptism would not just bring Isreal back to it’s former glory, but it would reach all the way back to the garden of Eden and restore humanity to the glory of God’s original design in us. The design that was on display in Jesus as He stood in front of the Disciples that day.

Still they didn’t seem to get what Jesus was talking about.

Acts 1:6 ESV

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

They are still thinking of only the restoration of Isreal, but Jesus shows them that they need to think much bigger!

Acts 1:7–8 ESV

7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 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.”

Our second theme for the week is that...

2. Followers of Christ are commanded to be God’s witnesses on earth (Acts 1:6–11)

We may look back at these verses and see the privilege of this calling that Jesus has laid on his Disciples but I sometimes wonder what they were thinking inside.

Remember that each one of these men had heard of the coming Messiah since they were old enough to understand spoken words. They heard it from their parents who heard from there parents and on and on generation after generation and they held on to the hope that the Christ was coming to return them to the glory days of Israel.

Then the met Jesus and over time they recognized Him as the Messiah, the Christ the Son of the Living God. They were understandably excited about being a part of this great thing that was happening and that they were asked to be a major part of... right up until Jesus died. Then they were not sure what to think or what to do…until Mary and the other women came running it to tell them that He was no longer dead but alive again - in a whole new way - they didn’t know what to think or what to do. All they knew was whatever was next would be even bigger now and so they were ready to go.

So they ask Jesus, “Lord, is it gonna happen now. Are you going to restore us now? Let’s do this thing, we are with you…”

and then Jesus responds with something about the Father doing things on His own time table and then he says...

“You will receive power...” and they are like “yeah power!”

“when the Holy Spirit comes on upon you” yes Holy Spirit power... like Samson and King David yes...

“you will be my witnesses” yes…wait what!?? witnesses? did you mean maybe warrior? or generals? or governors? or kings? lesser Kings but “king-like… in some way?”

No, none of that…at least not yet. The Father’s perfect time was not there yet. As for now they were to be “witnesses”. This doesn’t mean that Jesus has put the whole “King” thing on hold, quite the opposite. He was just trying to show the Disciples how they were not thinking big enough about how far his Reign would reach.

You see in these ancient times when someone was enthroned as King, that new authority would take effect through heralds going off throughout the land proclaiming “We have a new King!”. Now this was good news in the ancient world, because unlike many people today, they all knew that authorized governing authority is always better than anarchy. Government may be bad, but chaos is always much worse. So these heralds, these messengers, would go off to the far corners of the Kingdom and declare the establishment of this new King and demand glad allegiance from supposedly grateful subjects.

Guys, this is the role that Jesus was giving his Disciples. The Kingdom of Jesus extends much farther than Israel. It extends to the ends of the earth and the Church is Jesus’ plan to get the news out to every corner of this planet. This was the role that Jesus gave the Disciples and it is the role that He has given each of us who claim Jesus as a our Savior and Lord. We are witnesses, messengers, heralds declaring the good news that Jesus has rightly taken his place as King, not just over Israel but over all of the earth.

So Jesus gave the Disciples these commands and verse 9

Acts 1:9–11 ESV

9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Now they have a whole new experience to “witness” to the world. They witnessed Jesus being crucified, buried, rising again, appearing to them in His resurrected body and then they watched as He ascended to heaven. More than that, they learned of how He will return to claim the Kingdom that is rightfully His and to rid His Kingdom of those who would not submit to His authority.

That is the mission that Jesus gave them and by extension He has given to us, His Church. His Ekklesia.

1. Followers of Christ are commanded to live for His purposes under His control,

2. and to be God’s witnesses on Earth... and then lastly this morning...

3. Followers of Christ are drawn together by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:12–14)

Remember that Jesus ordered his disciples to do something…did they do it? Jesus told them not to leave the city of Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, the coming of the Holy Spirit so what happens next?

Acts 1:12–14 ESV

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, 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 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Following Jesus’ command, the disciples waited in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, but they were not sitting there just twiddling their thumbs. As they waited, the disciples joined with other believers to spend time together in prayer. They knew they had an important task to accomplish and they could not do it on their own power. Jesus had promised to give them power to do it, so they prayerfully waited for it.

We don’t like to wait do we? And often it is hard to know if God is asking us to wait on Him in some endeavor or if He is asking us to move forward in faith. Some of us might be struggling right now in some decision of what God is asking of us. To wait or to move?

We are going to talk on this some in our Table Talk groups after the service. We will grapple with the question how do you know if you should keep waiting or start moving on something that you know God is asking you to do. No matter where we are in God’s perfect time table, we can always know that it is a good idea to immerse ourselves in his presence through prayer and worship as we wait for the Holy Spirit to lead us.

1. Followers of Christ are commanded to live for His purposes under His control,

2. and to be God’s witnesses on Earth…

3. and we are drawn together by the Holy Spirit

Gospel Application

I want to close this morning by drawing our attention to the role that Jesus has given His followers as His “witnesses”. The Greek word here that is translated “witness” is the same word that was used for someone who would be a witness in a court case or other legal procedure. In that way, the use of the English word “witness” is very fitting because we are to tell others what Jesus has done for us and share our “testimony” to use another legal term. What is interesting, however, is that over time…through the lives of these Disciples and the many followers of Jesus that they “witnessed to” a whole new meaning has been given to this same Greek word.

You see the Greek Word that we translate as “witness” is the word “Martys”…and it the where we get our word Martyr. If we were to look up the word Martyr in an English dictionary we would find something more like: “someone who suffers persecution and even death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or cause as demanded by an external party.”

Landing

You see I remember being taught that I need to be a “witness for Jesus” from a very young age and for most of my life I think that I saw that as a call to be a good moral person who didn’t get into fights and who people mostly thought was a good guy. Then if they asked me, “Hey Dan why are you such a nice and friendly guy” I could tell them about Jesus…but I am beginning to wonder how fruitful that attitude toward “witnessing” really is.

As I see the moral climate in our culture steadily declining and people calling evil things good and good things evil I am beginning to think that I may need to start looking at being a “witness” for Jesus as something closer to what the Greek word has come to mean.

Would you stop and pray into that with me?