An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Acts 1, for Sunday, June 2, 2024, with the title, “Commissioned.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRODUCTION: You might share some “Famous Last Words” of a historic figure, such as:
In September of 1796, George Washington, worn out by a lifetime of service, decided not to seek a 3rd term as President of the United States. He delivered what has become known as his “Farewell Address,” his “last will and testament” in a sense, to the nation. He did not actually speak the address, rather it appeared in print, in newspapers all around the country. He told them that in the present state of the country (not in an immediate crisis right then!) “you will not disapprove my determination to retire.” But he told them “a solicitude for your welfare … urge me … to recommend some sentiments” — he called them “the warnings of a parting friend” — and he gave them some counsel and direction, among them: to cherish the value of their Union together as a nation; don’t be divided into regional factions; obey the Constitution and laws of the land; he warned against various political parties which would be divisive. He told them that religion and morality are “indispensable supports” to the nation; promote institutions of knowledge in the land, to educate the populace; and beware of foreign entanglements and alliances. Washington’s words were very wise — America could profit by applying them today!

In the same way, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, He appeared one last time on earth to His disciples, and He gave them His “famous last words” before He ascended — not just “advice,” like George Washington, but His commands to them as their Lord.
And of course much of what He spoke to them was NOT just for them, but for US as His disciples today as well. We’ll study what He told us in our passage for today in Acts 1:4-11, 23-26.

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND
We begin a new study today, of The Book of Acts. Acts was written by Luke the Physician, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Luke and Acts together make a “set” of books; both written by Luke. In the opening words of the Gospel of Luke, Luke shares how he “investigated everything carefully from the beginning” and wrote the Gospel. He undoubtedly did the same with Acts — but there’s also another ingredient: beginning in Chapter 16:10, the wording of the narrative changes from “he” and “they” to “WE”! Luke evidently JOINED Paul’s party at this point — when Paul was at Troas, getting God’s vision to go to Macedonia and take the Gospel to Europe. So this seems to be when Luke joined Paul’s missionary team. Luke, therefore, was not just someone writing what someone “told him,” but what he experienced personally. And the contents of Acts supports that.

William Mitchell Ramsey (1851-1939) was a highly-respected British scholar. He was educated with a liberal, disbelieving view of Luke and Acts, and he traveled to what is now Turkey to prove how inaccurate it was. But after close study and research of history, geography, and the content of Acts, Ramsey afterwards stated in the introduction to his book that it was NOT the book he first planned, but that he was now convinced that Luke was “among the historians of the first rank,” among the most trustworthy, if not THE most trustworthy writers of history! And his book, St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen, is now a classic, detailing the accuracy of Luke’s work!

Acts is a book of History, detailing the growth of the church, from the time the Holy Spirit came upon the believers at Pentecost, and how the new church gradually overcame obstacle after obstacle — the Book ends with the word “unhindered” — that the gospel was now spreading all over the world, just as Jesus commanded. Over the next weeks we’ll see some of the obstacles the church faced as it first began, and how they overcame them. And along the way we’ll learn much about how the Lord wants US to function as His church today.

We begin our passage for today in :4, where Jesus’ disciples gather together after His resurrection.

OUTLINE
I. The command to WAIT (:4-5)
II. Right/Wrong Priorities (:6-8)
III. The Promised Return (:9-11)
IV. New Testament Decision-making? (:23-26)


TEXT

I. The Command to WAIT (:4-5)
: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.”

Isn’t this is kind of “counterintuitive” to what you might have expected Jesus to say? You might think a great leader would gather everyone together and tell them: “Hey, I’ve risen from the dead; now get on out there and get busy and tell everyone!” But significantly, that is NOT what Jesus did! He gathered His disciples together and told them to stay there in Jerusalem and WAIT! WHY would He do that? What was the advantage of it?

He gives them the answer in :4. He told them to “wait for what the Father had promised.” What did He promise?
Jesus answers that in :5 “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Jesus said it was the Holy Spirit that they needed to wait for. Don’t just go on out there; wait for Him.

??? Why would it be so important for them to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit???
(For one, because He told them to! It’s like when a child asks his parent “Why?” and the parent says, “Because I said so!” If God tells us to do something, we should do it whether we understand the reason for it or not — which is a good thing for us to apply regarding His word, by the way!
But in this case, it DOES make sense. Jesus said in :8, “You will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” He is the One who is going to transform them, and give them the power to fulfill their mission. They (and we!) have no ability to do what Jesus commands us to do, without the Holy Spirit.

Think of all the Holy Spirit does for us (you could either just share this, or ask for suggestions from your group):
— the Holy Spirit is God in us (I Cor. 6:19 etc.)
— Jesus said in Acts 1:8 that He gives us “power”
— Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 says that He gives us the gifts by which we can serve Him.
— John 16:8 says He convicts the world of sin
— I John 2:27 says the Spirit’s anointing teaches us about all things
And on and on. WE NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT. Someone said that because some other Christian denominations often seem to overemphasize the role of the Holy Spirit, that many Baptists have gone to the other extreme, and basically function with a “2-member Trinity” of the Father & Jesus only, often neglecting the Holy Spirit. We must not do that! The Holy Spirit is vital; His presence and power in us are absolutely necessary if we are going to fulfill the mission Jesus gives us. This is WHY Jesus commanded them to wait for the Spirit. It makes all the difference if His is with us; empowering us.

STORY: When I was serving in Oklahoma years ago, I read an article in the Baptist Messenger there by a man who was trying to water his lawn during a drought in the state. He said his yard was SO dry; he dragged his hose out, he put the sprinkler on it, and ran it, hour after hour; dragged that hose all over the yard, trying to save it. But he wrote, I could tell it wasn’t doing much good. After a while though, he said the sky got dark, and rain clouds came, and suddenly there was a huge downpour! Some of the words of that story have stuck in my mind, never to be forgotten. He wrote that when that storm came: “God did more in 5 minutes than I’d done all day.”

To me, that man’s experience is a great picture of the difference the power of the Holy Spirit makes. When we don’t have the Holy Spirit’s power, we can “drag hoses” around all day: we can plan, we can prepare, we can finagle, we can call, we can do all these things — but if God’s Spirit is not in it, it will not be powerful/truly successful — like trying to water that dry ground with a water hose! But if God’s Spirit is present in a service, in a church, on an activity, in a person — He can do “more in 5 minutes than we can do all day” — and we will see the difference!

THAT is why Jesus commanded His disciples to WAIT! “Wait” for what the Father had promised — the Holy Spirit. And of course, He HAS come — but we still need to wait on Him; seek Him; and not just blithely move forward in our own power and wisdom. We need to recognize and seek and depend upon HIM to lead and empower us. The Holy Spirit’s power is absolutely vital for God’s Kingdom’s work.

Of course “waiting” on the Lord doesn’t mean just sitting around, doing nothing. “Waiting” on Him means SEEKING Him in prayer.
— pray personally
— pray with others
— persevere in prayer, waiting and looking to Him for what only HE can do. (Like Psalm 123:1-2 says “To YOU I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens! (:2) Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until He is gracious to us.”
THAT is how we are to “wait on the Lord”: praying with our eyes fixed on Him, until He hears and answers and pours out His blessing from heaven like only HE can do!

Yes, in one sense this was a once-in-history command, never to be repeated. The Church never again has to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon us like they did here. But still it is a good principle to wait for the Lord’s Spirit, to do for us what only He can do!

II. Right (and Wrong!) Priorities (:6-8)
Verse 6 says “So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?’”
People are curious, right? We want to know about things like when Jesus will set up the Kingdom.
Do people still have kind of curiosity today? Absolutely! One of the biggest ways to get good attendance at many churches is to announce an “end times study;” if you ask people what book of the Bible they want to study, they’ll often say Revelation. Why? Because they’re curious about the future.

But how does Jesus answer the disciples’ question?
He DOESN’T really answer it, does He? Verse 7 says He told them: “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.”
So what’s the answer about when He’s going to restore the Kingdom? “It is not for you to know”! In other words, This is NOT to be your focus.
There’s a good word here for us today: DON’T get so distracted focusing on “end times” speculation, that you neglect the mission Jesus gave us.

And what is that mission? What ARE we to focus on? We see it in :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.”

This is such a fantastic verse/ it’s so pregnant with truth. You could do virtually the whole lesson from this verse only (and you may be led to do that!) But look at what all Jesus says to us here:

— He mentions the POWER of the Holy Spirit like we mentioned before. If you don’t use that story of how “God did more in 5 minutes” in :4, you might use it here.

— WHAT does He command us to do? “You shall be my witnesses.” The Greek word here “martures” means “witness,” someone who shares what he has seen. Of course our contemporary word “martyr” comes from it, from the many Christians who testified to their faith and who were killed because of it. But “martures” or “martus” just means a witness.

Jesus is commanding His disciples to bear witness to what they have seen and heard about Him: what He taught; how He lived, and died on the cross, and rose again, and the forgiveness and Kingdom that He offers. He wants His disciples — including US — to tell people about Him. He doesn’t just say “be witnesses,” but be “MY witnesses” — witness about HIM: who He is, and what He has done.

The Apostle Paul gave us “the gospel in a nutshell” in I Corinthians 15:1-4, where he said, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel … that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures …”. THAT is what the disciples — and WE — are to bear witness to. NOT how nice our church building is; not how friendly our people are; but that “Christ died for our sins” and rose again. That is the Gospel. That is what we are to bear witness to.

AND WHERE are we to do that, according to :8?
“Jerusalem … Judea … Samaria … the ends of the earth.”

(I would plan to have a MAP for this point for your class, so they can see just where these places are.)

— Jerusalem, of course, was the center of Judaism; their home base.
— Judea was the Roman “province” that Jerusalem was a city in. It was their “state” or “country” if you would.
— Samaria (and I would point all these out on the map) is the province just north of Judea. Most of the Samaritans and Jews did not have a good relationship; the Jews looked down on the Samaritans as “half breeds,” and the Samaritans hated them back. When Jesus was traveling in Samaria towards Judea in Luke 9:52-53, the Samaritans refused hospitality to Him and His disciples.
— and then “the remotest part of the earth” is of course the whole rest of the world! In Greek it’s literally the “eschatou” (same word we get “eschatology” — “end times” from. It means “the ends of the earth.”)

There is SO much application we can make with this passage:
— First, it shows us to start where we are in sharing the gospel. Begin with your own family, friends, loved ones; in your own town or city. Some people have their eyes on “the ends of the earth” but don’t share the gospel where they are. Start where you are.
In Mark 5 Jesus told the demoniac He healed, who wanted to travel with him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you.” THAT is Jesus’ first word to US, too. Don’t start with “the ends of the earth.” Start where you are. In light of that:
— We should each ask ourselves personally: who is someone close to me who needs me to share the gospel with them?
— We should also ask about our church: What specifically are we doing to try to spread the gospel right here where we are?

So like Jesus’ Acts 1:8 command, we should start where we are — but don’t stop there! Then He tells us we are to move on: take it outside your “home base,” to your “Judea” — the rest of your state, or your nation. This calls us to minister to other places in our county, our state, our nation

??? You might ask your group: ??? What are some things a church or an individual could do to minister to their “Judea”???
(— help sponsor a mission church/outreach Bible study somewhere else in their county, state, another state
— help support a crisis pregnancy center that ministers to the whole region.
— do an outreach ministry in a prison in your county/state.
You/your group can think of many …

— “Samaria” could mean ministry in another state; or in light of the background, it could mean reaching to those of another racial background or people group. How can we do that? Help with a mission to an international people group here in the states; or work with our North American Mission Board in reaching people in other states.

— And “the ends of the earth” of course is international missions. We can cooperate with our Southern Baptist International Mission Board in reaching people groups around the world. GIve to our Lottie Moon mission offering that supports international missions; pray for missionaries and people groups; and go on mission trips. Many churches have a specific mission connection with a missionary or people group somewhere; if your church has a mission connection, or upcoming mission trip, you might highlight that and encourage people to pray/give/go.
Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes are another “hands on” way that many churches participate in international missions.

Because this commission is so comprehensive, “Acts 1:8” can serve as a good theme/goal for an individual, a Sunday School class, or a church:
— Individually, you can determine to BE an “Acts 1:8 Christian” who goes on mission where you are, somewhere in your region/state; among a different state/different people group; and internationally.
— Your class could also set a goal to be an “Acts 1:8 Sunday School class,” so that your class supports/connects specifically in each of these 4 areas.
— And/or help your church to be an “Acts 1:8 Church,” that gives/prays/goes in all 4 areas of Jesus’ command.

III. The Promised Return (:9-11)
“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.”

After giving His last command to His disciples, Jesus ascends to heaven. You can imagine how they were just looking at Him ascend before their eyes!

But the angels used this as a teaching moment, to give us some important information about the return of Jesus: (Again, you could just share this information, OR ask your group to call out: “What all do these verses teach us about the return of the Lord?”
— “THIS Jesus” — not some “other” Jesus; not somebody who comes who will be “like Him;” NO! THIS SAME JESUS — and he makes it very clear: the one “who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come …”. So the Jesus who left, is the Jesus who will return.
— And where did He go? “into heaven.” He went to heaven to be with the Father (Hebrews 10:12 says He “sat down at the right hand of God.”)
— And what will happen to Him? He “will COME” — in other words, He will RETURN to the earth again. “The King is coming!”
— And how will HE come? “will come in JUST THE SAME WAY as you have watched Him go into heaven.” This statement: “in just the same way” tells us a lot: He left in the sky; so He’s coming from the sky. He’s not going to come as a baby next time; He’s not going to be some man who turns up somewhere (like Jesus warned His disciples in Matthew 24:26, “if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness, do not go out”) No, He left in the sky, and He will return from the sky. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:30 “they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”

So this is very helpful in our understanding of Jesus’ return. There are things we cannot know — like when His return will be.
But there are definitely some things we CAN know: that He is coming bodily, physically, and visibly to the earth.

Good Christians have strong feelings one way or another about “eschatology” — the doctrine of last things. I personally LOVE our Baptist Faith & Message statement about this: “God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end.” That statement leaves a lot of leeway for different beliefs. As a Southern Baptist, you can believe in premillenialism, a-millenialism, pre-tribulation rapture, post-tribulation rapture, (or like one of my friends you can be a “pan millenialist”: it will all “pan” out in the end!) and you can still be a good Baptist; we don’t need to fight about it.
What’s important to believe is in the next sentence in our BFM: “Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth …”. That is what we see taught here in Acts 1. We may have different thoughts about the timing, but we should all agree that Jesus WILL return, bodily, physically, and visibly to earth, when He comes.

Well, with all that in Acts 1:4-11, I seriously doubt that our class will get to :23-26 Sunday, but in case you do …

IV. A Right Decision? (New Testament Decision-Making?) (:23-26)
“So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen 25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 26 And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell [to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Was this a right decision? Is this a good model for us for New Testament decision-making? I think there’s some reason to doubt it.
The Greek word here, “kata-sphizomai,” means “to count with,” “to number with.” In other words, Matthias was “counted” with the 11 apostles. He was “numbered” with them. But the wording sounds a bit odd: “He was ‘counted’ with them” — almost as if to say, “He was ‘counted’ with them (but he was not really OF them”?!

And there is some evidence to suggest that: chief being that Matthias is never heard of again in the New Testament! Is that conclusive? No, it’s not; some others of the Apostles didn’t get that much “press” either. But it is odd.
Added to that is the fact that Jesus specifically appeared to the Apostle Paul in Acts 9, and he is converted, and becomes arguably the greatest and most influential of all the Apostles. One can make a case that GOD picked out the 12 Apostle, and it wasn’t Matthias, but Paul. And he was not picked out by the drawing of lots — but personally selected by the Lord Jesus Himself.

So to me, Verses 23-26 may be another example of “Descriptive” vs. “Prescriptive” that we’ve mentioned a few times in recent weeks. These verses do not necessarily “prescribe” that we should make our decisions like this (by drawing lots, etc.) it just describes what they did.

??? What are some similar ways that we might make decisions, that are similar to this???
(Open the Bible and stick your finger in it; roll dice; “the first person who walks through the door” or “the first one to call” — based on circumstances, etc.)

CAN God give us direction through some of these type things?
He “can” — the old expression is that “God can hit straight licks with crooked sticks.” But that’s not really the best way to get direction from Him, the rest of the New Testament, and the Book of Acts shows us. We see some better models — among them, fasting & praying and seeking Him, as we will see in Acts 13:2!

APPLICATION: If you have a decision to make in your life, you might NOT want to follow the example of the disciples here in Acts 1:23-26. Rather, fast, pray, seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit, in fellowship with other believers.

Of course, one KEY difference between our situations today and theirs in Acts 1, is that as New Testament Christians, we don’t have to “roll dice” — we now have the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our churches. And we will see HOW and WHEN the Spirit came upon the church in our lesson from Acts 2 next week!

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