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Dr. Ken Rathbun
March 10, 2024 at 9:30 AM
Acts 1:1-11
What in the World is God doing?
Where is Jesus Going?
Acts 1:1-11
Dr. Ken Rathbun
This morning we'll have Dr. Ken Rathbun. I don't know if you know this. We went to school together back in the 90s. So it's great to have you back, brother, and preach the word to us.
Well, I think I can rejoice with you about your securing of a pastor. I'm just so grateful and thrilled and happy. And Jordan. I have worked with Jordan in the youth group at Altoona regular baptist church.
And he is a man who is called of God and wanted to be a pastor. And we just praise God the way it's all worked out. And he said he might come on a couple of these Sundays while I'm preaching.
And I thought, okay, well, that's tough. The pastor is right there. But anyway, I'll have to be careful what I say.
Then when I woke up on Friday, I felt a little bit not quite my best. And I thought, well, I got all day Saturday to recover. It'll be fine.
Well, it didn't really work out that way. But there is a good thing. At least my voice is deeper so I can sound more authoritative.
I just think of these lower voiced men just seem to have all the authority in the world, but I don't have any authority in and of myself. I just have the word of God. And I recently finished.
Well, several weeks ago, I finished my devotions through the book of acts, and I noticed some things there that I hadn't. You take a little bit more time instead of just like speed reading. I just took probably two, three months to get through acts and realized that there's a lot of good stuff in there that I wondered.
Well, I had never preached this before, so I'm in the book of acts in chapter one, and this is sort of a series between this week and next week. This is kind of sort of all backwards because I'm going to speak on the 31 may, which is a very important day for me. It's my mother's birthday, and it's the day that I decided to marry my wife.
And it happens to be Easter this year, too. So all of those things will have the resurrection of Christ. But right now we're kind of going past that and looking at the ascension of Christ.
So it's kind of a little unusual in the order, but I think there's some important things here that's helpful and maybe help us to appreciate the resurrection of Christ in May or March 31. So the overall question I'm asking is, what in the world is God doing here? What is God doing, especially in the book of acts in chapter one. And some of the commentators would say that it probably is kind of a little bit of a surprise that you have acts, chapter one.
Why not just open the book with a bang and start writing chapter two when you have the day of Pentecost and then you have all of this wonderful, glorious, amazing things happening, the birthday of the church, that would be a big way to start and make a memorable opening there. But that's not what God did. And through the Holy Spirit's ministry in the life of Luke, who is the author here, he didn't.
And in fact, it's probably a little unusual to start a book and start it at chapter two. Chapter two, you think, what did I miss there? But anyway, that's supposed to be a joke. Okay, at least I got somebody to chuckle with me here a little bit.
Thank you. Appreciate that. So anyway, what is God doing here? And more specifically, in the specific passage we're going to look at today, verses one through eleven, what is Jesus? Or where is Jesus going? Where is he going? And the context here is that the disciples had gathered, says verse two, and these words get smaller every day anyway, until, let me just start at the beginning.
The former account, Theophilus, of all of that...I'm just doing all kinds of stuff today, I'm sorry. All that, that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day which he was taken up after he was given, after, through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering, many infallible proofs being seen by them during the 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
So here's kind of just the opening here of where he's going to get to and what he's going to cover. And so he gives us a quick summary here of Christ's interaction with the disciples. And notice that he's talking about during those 40 days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
That's going to help the apostles in their questions here. So this is the context the disciples had gathered. And actually they're probably obeying some of his directives to whom he had chosen and being seen by them.
So they assembled together in verse four together with them, and being assembled together with them, he commanded. So Jesus is now appearing to them as they're assembled, not to depart from. Okay, this is the point, because if the birthday of the church is coming in chapter two and it's going to happen in Jerusalem, the apostles ought to probably be know.
That's what he's saying. But to wait for the promise of the Father. Now we're going to talk about that promise of the Father in Sunday school today, but the promise of the Father, which is the coming of the.
And so he says, which he said, you have heard from me for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to. So that's a key question.
Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Okay. Because he's been talking about this kingdom all the time. Now, I think the overall point here in this passage that I want to bring out is that you must trust God even when nothing really makes sense.
Now, you think of the apostles and where they're at in their life and the other followers that were there too, and they're all wondering what's happening, what's going to happen, what will happen, and they're not sure what is going to happen. And in fact, they ask a big question here because Christ is talking to them about the Holy Spirit here and bringing in John the Baptist ministry into it as well. And so they've got a lot of questions.
And the question they asked was indicative of their expectations. I mean, it just talked about the kingdom of God in verse three. So their natural thought process is Christ.
I mean, he has talked about the kingdom of God all the time in his earthly ministry anyway. In fact, that's what he preached. He preached about the gospel of the kingdom.
And that's a phrase, by the way, that many people get mixed up with today, even in talking in that. But you must trust God even when nothing else makes sense. Why? Because, and here's what we get from verse six.
Our understanding can be flawed. Our understanding can be flawed. So we want what we hope for, don't we? And I know, my kids, when I take just too long to pause over a question that they ask me, if they can have something, then that must mean that they can have it.
No, not really. I haven't thought through that yet. But if you pause just a little too long, man, that's just like acquiescing to it.
So we want what we hope for, our expectations can be raised, and then when it doesn't happen the way we think, we can be devastated, really. And of course, what were they hoping for? What did they expect? Well, Jesus often preached about the coming kingdom and the fact of the gospel, of the kingdom and actually one of the commentators Bible knowledge points out theologically there is a connection here because in the disciples' minds, it says, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the coming of the promised kingdom were very closely related. Now here's Christ talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, he would have already talked about that in the upper room discourse in John 14, verses 15 through 31, especially verses 16 and 26. We'll talk about that just in a bit. But here he says that they had thought of those two ideas together anyway.
Oh, the coming of the spirit and the kingdom. Okay, that must mean it's time now, they were closely related. And I'm continuing the quote from the Bible commentary, and well they should be because the Old Testament frequently joined the two.
That is, God pouring out his spirit upon the people and the coming kingdom. So Isaiah 32, Isaiah 44, Ezekiel 39, Joel two and Zechariah twelve all have those two ideas in common. Let me just read the Ezekiel passage.
That's really clear. Ezekiel 39, verses 28 and 29. It says, then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen.
But I have gathered them unto their own land and have left none of them anymore there. Neither will I hide my face anymore from them, for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God. So you hear this idea of the spirit coming, and that's when the restoration is there, all the Israelites being brought to one place, obviously for Christ to rule them.
Now, actually, this verse shows that it can't be fulfilled here in acts one, since all of the Jewish people had not been restored to the land. But they were hoping, maybe this is it. Maybe he's got to do that first, and then we can have it now.
The commentary goes on to say, when Christ told the disciples of the soon coming spirit baptism, they immediately concluded that the restoration of Israel's kingdom was near in time. And actually Peter would alluded this in acts, chapter three, verse 21, after he healed this lay man. And it's talking about the restoration of all things.
And it says in verse 20, and he said, he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, when everything's now made right. But you might say the restoration that they were talking about, which God hath spoken by his mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. So they're thinking of this in these kinds of terms that, okay, Christ is going to come rule us.
And he's back. He died on the cross for our sins. Great.
He's rose from the dead. Now he's here. Now he can bring in the kingdom and we're ready for it too.
And all of these passages he's talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, that must be it. Well, so they did have hope here, and maybe this was the time. And actually the disciples thinking in this way shows very much of their understanding of the nature of God, that as God had made many promises to Israel that he had never fulfilled yet.
So here are Israelites, the apostles, putting two and two together and trying to come up with understanding of how God's going to rule and do this. And they're a little bit wrong on it as far as the timing is concerned, but it is going to happen. And why do they have these expectations? Because they believe in God and that God keeps the promises that he makes to people.
It's bound in the very character and nature of God himself. And there are many people today that would say, oh, these promises don't have anything really to Israel because they kind of rejected God. So God rejected them, and so now they're not anymore necessary.
And that's not true, because when God makes a promise, he makes a promise and he obligated himself to that. They believed in the promises that God gave in the Old Testament, and here we are now in our hindsight, we can look back and see where they are. We're on the very cusp of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the church.
That's acts, chapter two. So great big things happening. But the disciples are expecting the kingdom.
They're trusting in God's promises. Now we should too. We should trust in God's promises too.
However, in God's plan, really, the language is quite interesting there. It says that God fixed it. He asset and appointed the time, and those plans were not to be fulfilled at this time.
Ephesians two and three are very helpful to help us explain about this mystery of the church age. That is a mystery that hadn't been revealed until now, that is now coming. And that was always part of God's plan.
But you don't find it in the. So, you know, kind of could be disappointing. It doesn't make sense.
Christ is here. Why not do know? But you must trust God when nothing makes sense to you. Because it's going to get very disappointing for the apostles and the believers there who are setting themselves upon this idea, because our own understanding can be very flawed, and that happens to all of us.
So why else might the disciples want the kingdom? Why else might the disciples want the kingdom? Well, you know what else would really help things around here as the disciples could just look around the circumstances in which they were living. Who else was there in Jerusalem, actually, even very near the temple, people who didn't belong there, they were the roman soldiers. What were the roman soldiers doing right near.
And they had a fortress right beside the temple, catty-corner to it. Why are they there? Well, they're in the presence of the roman soldiers who are occupying their country. They were an occupied territory of the Roman Empire.
This reminds me of the time, I want to say, 2004, I believe I was in Singapore, only been there one time, so it's not like I know everything about Singapore. I certainly don't. But everything that was there made an impression on me because I thought, oh, okay, this is interesting.
I didn't see this before. Probably most of us don't know what it's like to live in an occupied country or territory. And in Singapore, when I was there, on the billboards, even in the subway, I saw that first in the subway, I got off the airplane late at night, got the last subway train into town, although it's an island, so you're kind of always in town.
But to where I was going. And here, all over the. In the.
They had videos even playing, but mostly billboards and signs that, hey, be ready to defend against the invaders. Again, lots and lots of advertisements about this, hey, join the military and defend the country. What are they talking about? They're talking about in 2004, recollecting back to World War II in the Japanese invasion.
And so I went to a museum of this, of the occupation. And, I mean, this is, like, really seared into their minds. We want to make sure this never happens again.
Everybody get ready, because it'll be great to defend the country against any kind of invasion. And in their minds, the greatest mistake or failure of the British in all of World War II is when they abandoned Singapore, because then they allowed the others to come in and occupy and do terrible things. So that's not exactly like this.
But anyway, the Jewish people could see, you know what? We're an occupied country. We don't have the freedoms that we would like. They saw a world that was broken, flawed, and in tremendous needs of the ideals that Christ had preached to them.
They saw the injustices practiced by foreigners in their own country, and also their own elite, the country's own elite of their own people having privileges that they didn't have. That's not fair. What did Jesus offer? Well, in the sermon on the mount and in his healing of people and his care for others, feeding them, Jesus was a wonderful person to have around.
You never knew what blessings were going to come from the master. When Jesus is there, amazing things happen. And with the Romans here and all that, it's really good to have Jesus on your side.
Why does all that have to change? And in fact, he's going to talk about that. He's. And actually they know he has talked about in John chapter 14, he talked about them, to them, about his leaving.
Oh, that's not going to happen now, is it? No, we've got him here. He's been here at least over a month, so don't go anywhere. Things are going well.
When Jesus is around, good things are going to happen. Why does he have to leave? Why can't he just stay? Many more people would flock to him. Now that he's been risen from the dead, now is the time for the greatest spiritual harvest in history.
Why is he talking about leaving? And he will talk about leaving. In fact, he will leave. We're just moments away from it in reality, from what was happening there.
So he's here now, and now they can have a chance to ask him these things directly. And so here's their chance. And how is he going to respond to the burning questions that they have? Are you going to establish the kingdom now, the truth is he is going to establish its kingdom and you will know it when he does.
It's amazing thing. And in fact, the millennial reign of Christ is the most attested end time event in all of the scripture. There's a lot more about that than the tribulation and especially the rapture.
Not that those things are not important, but he talks about when the son of man comes in his glory in Matthew 24, but before that, he talks about this really, really bad time that's come on the earth. And, you know, that is the tribulation. In fact, some people think the kingdom is like the whole theme of the Bible, and I don't know how you fold salvation into that.
But in any case, it's a major, major biblical theme. Now is the perfect time, they could say, to fulfill prophecy and bring in the coming kingdom. But Jesus has an answer for them that they're not expecting.
And how are they going to handle that? Are they going to be disappointed, frustrated, have grief and despair and say, hey, I don't want this anymore. I'm not going to stick around we can all have experiences like these and pain, but what will we do? We need to trust God implicitly in spite of challenges. We're going to get to a lot of the applications here towards the end of the sermon, but I want you to think about this.
Even in your own life. Are there some curve-balls that you haven't expected? Trust in the nature of God and be humble to accept what God has for us. We spend so much time trying to eliminate the trials in our life and we don't actually see, actually, those are actually helpful for us.
Two Mondays ago I took my car that was making a strange little noise. I mean, it wasn't that big a deal, but it kind of rubbed. And then I think as you go faster, it kind of would go faster and faster like that.
So I just thought, okay, well, guess what? 1200 and more dollars later, I got it fixed. Well, wow, I didn't know when I woke up that Monday morning that I'd be putting that kind of cash out. But you know what? It was good.
God helped me get to the right person, to the right place to get that fixed. Didn't know it was going to be like that and I would have preferred not to, but God did it that way. Praise the Lord for that.
God is there and he is helping when we need it. So let's keep reading in our text because they asked that burning question, verse six. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know.
Wait a minute, this is like we got Jesus right in front of us, the son of God right here, and he's not going to say, wait a minute, that's not fair. I think the principle here is that you don't always get the answers that you want to hear, that we still have to trust God in any way when nothing makes sense. And by the way, it's not going to make sense even more here.
It's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the holy ghost spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and Judea and all Samaria to the ends of the earth. And again, the idea, well, lord, I have this issue. I'm coming to you for answers and that's a good place to go.
And you're giving me something that I don't want to do, or you're giving me something that I don't want to hear, or. This is not what I expected. Our expectations, our affections that we place on people or things or whatever to get what we want aren't always what God has in mind.
So we don't always get the answers that we want to hear. Verses seven through nine. And it says afterwards in verse nine.
Now, when he had spoken these things while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. So you know what? That pretty much put the kibosh on all their plans. Because you know what? He's not here anymore.
Again, think in your mind. You've invested your years of your life into the prophet Christ. And realizing that he is the son of God.
He is this promised Messiah. He is very God in front of you, and now he's leaving. That's a little bit mind boggling for them.
Jesus did give them an answer, but it was undoubtedly not what they wanted to hear. It did not contain the details they craved to know. So now they understood that the kingdom was not coming at this time.
Another commentator says, the power of the Holy Spirit, John the Baptist had announced a future baptism of the Holy Spirit. And he did so in mark one and Matthew three and Luke three and John. Now that prophecy would be fulfilled.
Jesus also had promised the coming of the spirit. And so it's not just John the Baptist, but it also is Jesus himself. John the Baptist.
Mark one eight. Indeed, I have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And then John 14, this is Jesus talking, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name.
He shall teach you of all things and bring all things to your remembrance. Whatsoever I have said unto you, know, these verses here. Verses six through eight, some say, could be the theme of the book of acts.
When they come together, we restore the kingdom. And it's not for you to know. And the Holy Spirit's going to come on you.
And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the other most parts of the. So that could be. I actually was studying the theme of the book of acts.
And it's kind of hard to really nail down. But anyway, that's very legitimate there. In reality, it serves as a setting of the stage for all that follows in acts.
The truth, though, is that they had to learn that he had a task to do, that which probably seemed incomprehensible to them at first. What? Go where? Now, if you're thinking that you got the great commission, he said this stuff already I want you to go, therefore, and baptize all nations and make disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Holy Spirit. So all of that's there.
I mean, it's out there, but here he is. He's with them, and now he's not here anymore. And by the way, what's he telling them to do? To do what Judea might be.
Okay, it says there in Jerusalem and Judea. Okay, probably we can cover that. But Samaria? What are you talking about? Why go there? Who's the people in Samaria? Those were people that the Jewish people looked very much down upon.
They were partly Jewish and partly foreign. And they had very strong prejudices against those people. Remember when Jesus went there and it was so unusual that he would talk to anybody like woman and found that she brought many people to Christ.
They had very strong prejudices against Samaritans. And of course, I mean, it's pretty dramatic when he's talking to you. And then he just sort of rises out into the sky and up above.
Well, hey, I had another question, but that's not going to happen now. All of that is there. His answer to them was that it was not information that they were to know.
And he grounded that in the nature of God. He controls everything it says there. It's not for you to know the times or seasons which the father has put in his own authority.
He has set and fixed it carefully. This is a hint of what's coming, but it's still very disorienting for these people. It's very much against their expectations, hopes, desires and dreams.
This is what they wanted, set the kingdom now, and yet this is not what it was going to happen. So that's why they had to trust God even when it didn't make sense to them. Why? Because our own understanding is very flawed.
Also because we don't always get the answers we want to hear. But also because here, as we go into verse ten and eleven, we can always trust in the character and the nature of God. And let's keep reading there.
So he's taken up out of their sight. And then verse ten it says, and while they look steadfastly towards heaven, and it's interesting several note how many times the emphasis Luke placed on their watching, seeing this happened. It says that they were watched, that while they watched in verse nine, and while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up? There's the third time that's mentioned there into heaven.
This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. So don't worry, he's coming back. So we can always trust into the character of God.
And the angels were reminding them of what Jesus told them in John 14 says in verse 18, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet little, yet a little while.
The world will see me no more, but ye will see me because I live. Ye shall live also. And that day ye shall know that I am in my father, and ye in me, and I in you.
And you have heard how I said unto you, go away, and come again unto you. If you love me, you will rejoice. Because I said, I go unto the father, for my father is greater than I.
And now I have told you before, it shall come to pass, when it has come to pass, that you might believe. So I'm going. And in fact, he'll also say in the chapter, those are later verses in the chapter, but he'll say, look, I'm going, so that the comforter will come, the holy spirit will come.
So here these were these disciples and friends of Jesus, and now he was really, really gone. And his leaving them, no doubt, was a trial to them. That's, how are we going to do things? How's this all going to work out? And yet they are to take what the angels said to them and understand what he was intending to do and to say the same.
Jesus who was taken up for heaven will come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. So they have to trust in this, this power that Jesus talked about them in verse eight. You shall receive power.
I'm coming again. There's these promises here, these promises for the coming of the kingdom. That's all going to happen, but it's not going to happen now.
So his leaving, no doubt, was a trial to them. There's multiple ways they could have reacted. They're human, just like we are.
We think of these people as like superhuman superheroes or something. They'd never have a, you know, I don't think Peter would agree to that, or Paul or any of them, really. They're human as we are.
They could have tried to take control themselves. Hey, well, if Christ's not here to do it, let's do it ourselves. Or they could have walked away and said, I don't want to have anything to do with this anymore.
Or they could just live in frustration. Did Jesus know that they would be frustrated and upset. Their expectations are not fulfilled and that means we have to trust God more.
So how did they actually respond? Well, guess what? They probably did better than any of us would have done because in acts chapter two, they were there, they were still there. They were gathered because Christ told them to stay there. And the Holy Spirit did come.
And this is the chapter that really sets everything up for it. There's actually one more issue we're going to look at next week that they wanted to take care of as well, too. But how did they respond? Not bad.
How did that happen? Because they forsook their own expectations and believed in two ideas. First of all, that God keeps his promise and that God can be trusted. But what specifically did they believe? They believed that what the angels said to them.
They believed that God was going to empower them in a special way, verse eight, and that they then were going to make a tremendous effort to obey what God said for them to do. It was going to make a huge difference in their lives. They didn't know how it was going to work out, but they were committed to doing what Christ said.
You will be my witnesses. Now that could be looked upon as a statement of fact. Okay.
This is what's going to happen. For you will receive power and then when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses. To me, it's a statement of fact.
But probably here in the text, many of the commentators are pretty clear. This is a command, this is an imperative, you will be my witnesses. And that's what he is commissioning them really to do.
So the ascension was crucial. Christ had to go to the Holy Spirit, go to heaven, that the Holy Spirit would come, and that was that Holy Spirit's empowering the disciples, that would turn the world upside down. This would be the transition towards the end of Christ's earthly ministry and the beginning of something else that would become worldwide.
This is kind of like the hand-off. Christ is saying, I've invested my time into you, now it's up to you now, of course. Who's he investing his time into? Well, a bunch of really quite a motley crew of personalities and conflicts between all of these disciples.
They've all had their issues of who's going to be the greatest amongst them, the son of God right here. And they're fighting sometimes about who's going to be the greatest among them. It's no different than probably we would think, but it's ludicrous when you think about it.
But here's the hand-off here's now Christ saying, I have prepared you. Remember what I've said. The Holy Spirit's going to help you remember, and I'm going to go away so that he can come.
Why does it have to be that way? Wouldn't have been so much better if it would know. He would have stuck around and everything. But that's not what God's plan was.
Christ would return, and his disciples believed that their actions actually demonstrated their belief. Because again, in acts chapter two, Peter especially taking the lead is preaching the Pentecost to the people. And many people are believing, but they also had other things that was going on in their minds.
Hey, how am I going to continue on? And here are these people who actually, all of them except John, abandoned Christ. When the soldiers came, they all ran away. So that wasn't a good look.
And that wasn't like years before. That was just a little month and a half previous to this that the crucifixion happened. They all ran away.
They all abandoned him. And Peter even denied him. And yet these were the ones who were commissioned for the purpose that God had for them to be witnesses.
And they did that. We don't know exactly what happened to every single one of them, but church tradition tells us that every one of them received a martyr's death, except maybe John. Whatever it was that they were empowered to do, they saw it through to the end.
So instead of being frustrated, instead of being grieved and hurt and go off to a corner, and I don't want to talk to anybody ever again, they accepted it. How does that work in our lives? This is what I want us to conclude with here. Let's wrap up the threads of this passage with several applications.
What does God have for you today through his word? Well, we need to temper our expectations according to what God has in mind. Not in our minds, but in God's mind. Guard where we set our affections.
Hey, I really want such and such to work out. I had an opportunity for this week, some big decision that I wasn't in control of, that I wanted to go a certain way. And I was going to talk to the people who were making the decision about that on Wednesday.
But then I realized, you know what? I'm not in a right position to do this on Wednesday. Why? Because if they say no, I'm going to be embittered about this. I can't have that.
So I need to be in a position where if they do say no, I'm fine with that. So I waited. And on Thursday I asked them, because that one, I was in a better frame of mind.
If they said no, I could have been fine. And I told them I would be. And it turned out that it went a surprise of all surprises because I didn't think they'd ever agreed to it, but they did.
So I praise God for that. But I had to be willing and know that I was in the right mindset, that if it's no, then I need to accept that. That's really hard, especially when we have set our sights on whatever it is that's out there.
Often we can get ahead of God and miss the joy that comes when he orders our lives. We need to guard where we set our affections. He can do much better at running our lives than we can.
The disciples in this point had gone a little bit too far in their expectations, and they had to submit their will for their lives to God and his own. Wouldn't it been nice then to hey. Broadening the kingdom? The twelve apostles are like major players in all of that, and we know that's going to be the case in the future.
That would be great. But no, Christ says, no, you're going to. Well, they didn't know this yet, but they were all going to die for him.
Well, which one would you choose? Well, glory, honor and fame and all that, man, that have been nice, but there was a lot of suffering that has to happen beforehand. The point is, even though they didn't know what the end was, they had to submit their lives and their wills to God. And sometimes that's very hard for us, isn't it? And dealing with disappointment is rough, but yet return to the character and the nature of God, and you can see this in the life.
Well, in our own basic sanctification, how God works in us. Oftentimes God produces or allows or however you want to say that a trial in our life, a difficulty, something that is hard for us to deal with, perhaps just because of its suddenness or we didn't expect it. The trial reveals what's in our life and what's in our heart.
It's kind of like the toothpaste tube. I was going to bring one, but I forgot to bring it. But anyway, what happens when you have an open toothpaste tube and it gets squeezed? Whatever's in there is coming out, and that's what the trials do to us.
And the trials that squeeze us bring out what's really inside our heart. That's not for God to find that out, because he already knows what's in our heart. It's for us to recognize, oh, I wouldn't do that.
There's no way that some terrible person did this horrible thing. I would never do that. Well, you don't know.
The truth is that he wants. The squeeze is on us, for us to be revealed to ourselves, what's in our hearts. You hear these people who give these apologies, these public apologies and stuff.
That just wasn't me. That's not how I really am. I would never do.
I didn't know what I was thinking. That just wasn't me. Well, you know what? It was you.
Because you did it. I mean, that's the point. Whether it's some losing temper or whatever, it would be some public thing like that, that's just not me.
Well, you know, you were squeezed and that's what came out. That actually is you. And the truth is, with each one of us, we need to pay attention to that.
When the trials come, there's something inside that comes out, and we realize whether it comes out openly or not isn't the point. God wants to rule in our hearts, and he wants control there. And that's going to be, we'll see that in the new testament, or, sorry, in the old Testament, in Sunday school today.
But he is concerned about what's going on in our hearts, and that is key. So God produces a trial or a difficulty. The trial reveals the heart.
We train ourselves through the holy spirit's power to respond properly. What's a proper response to a trial or difficulty in our lives? Submission. Humbling.
Yielding. Repenting. Humbling.
I'll tell you. I was humbled in the month of December. On December 1, it was a Friday, and I didn't feel quite right.
Something was wrong. I don't know what it was. My back sort of hurt.
Weird. And so I went home and. No big deal.
Sunday morning, was I supposed to? Oh, I was supposed to teach Sunday school, wasn't I, baby? No. I think that's what I was supposed to do. I was getting ready for my Sunday school lesson.
It was going to be a great one, too. And then all of a sudden, I'm on the floor writhing in pain. And my wife ran out to get something, maybe something I ate.
So she's bringing back the pink stuff or whatever it was. And by the time she got back, I had the kids dressed and ready to go. We're going to the hospital.
I cannot deal with there's something really wrong. And it took 3 hours, it seemed, to get to the hospital, but it was only about 21 minutes. But it seemed like a really long time.
And I had taken some of that pink stuff, but I hadn't brought any water. That stuff is really pasty and stuff, but when I got to the hospital, they didn't give me any water anyway because we don't know what's wrong with you. And that took hours and stuff before they finally figured out it was kidney stones.
And that was a humbling experience in a lot of ways. Why did I need to go through that? I don't know, but that, let me tell you, was a trial. And so they operated on me the very next day.
Wonderful, right? Well, let me just tell you, the recovery on that kind of a thing is very painful. However, I wake up after the surgery the next day and they said they didn't get it out. I said, what? I'm going to have to do this again.
The surgery? Yeah, you have to wait two weeks so you recover, and then we're going to have another surgery, and then you have another two weeks of pain. And that really didn't finish and finish completely until about December 29. Like the whole month of December was caught up in this.
But you know what? And I was humbled, let me tell you. And you can try to resist God's will in that, but it's not going to do any good. You can try to fight him, but it's not going to result well.
But here's that submission, humbling, yielding, repentance. And then transformation takes place as we submit to God's purpose and plan as expressed through the spirit and the word. And look at the disciples going through what they're going through.
They have found that Christ is not going to be here anymore. He's been talking about it, but now he's actually gone. And we know that he's gone because we saw him leave.
So now what? And the spirit, and when's that going to come, and how is it? Are we going to be sort of empowered to do this kind of stuff? And we're not even the best at it. And we weren't even very good when you were here, Christ. So how can we do it when you're gone? How is this all going to work? And they would learn this process very, very much.
That is, what are the desires we're hanging on to that's keeping us from submitting to God and his will in our lives? And this is exactly what the disciples had to work through right here in this passage. And it's exactly what we face every single day of our lives. Are we going to take what God wants for us to have or we want to go on our own.
And then, number three, God's nature is who he is. He works in and on our lives according to his nature. Can he be trusted? Oh, yes, he can.
The disciples recognize that by their obedience to stay in Jerusalem until well after the ascension. That obedience then set the stage for the Holy Spirit's coming in. Acts, chapter two.
Now, did they know when that was going to happen? No. Did they know how it was going to happen? No. Did they know what they were supposed to do when it happened? No.
But God worked all of that out. You can read the book of, of acts in chapter two. It worked out really, really well.
And that was the beginning of this multi-ethnic, multinational entity that Ephesians two and three will explain. Is the church something not revealed before, but now is made known? And God worked through these people who could have been tremendously discouraged or frustrated or whatever, but God's plan was that he was going to work through them, and they submitted. There's probably things in your life that certainly I don't know about, but God does, and we need to submit and we need to humble ourselves.
And you know what you think, well, I don't need to be humbled. I'm old now. No, you pretty much need to be humbled all the time.
And, you know, God's very faithful in that, in helping us have opportunities for that. But you know what? God could be working in your heart right now on something that's going on then your life that perhaps you don't even know about yet. Monday morning hasn't happened yet.
Lots of crazy stuff happens on Monday morning. But you know what? You trust in the nature of God and who he is and that he has a plan for you. And a lot of times, God came in the prison and took Peter out of it.
Other times, he kept John the Baptist in the prison and helped him through the trial that actually ended his life. So God's free to do with us what he wants. And if you're a believer here this morning, I would encourage you to trust him and not fight him.
Submit and humble and repent in the areas that we need to. But if you're not a believer here this morning, here is what can help you understand what life is all about. Yeah, bad things happen to good people.
Good things happen to bad people. It doesn't seem like there's any kind of rhyme or reason to how this happens, but God is in control. And if you put your trust for the forgiveness of your sins, in Christ's death on the cross.
There is a life for you ahead, and it can be with the power of the Holy Spirit working in your life. Let's close in prayer Father, I just pray that you would help us, even as we have briefly looked at this passage and seen how you worked through people. That probably would be a very big surprise that were able to accomplish anything in life, especially from what we see from the disciples bickering or arguing amongst themselves.
But father, thank you for showing us how you can work through them, because that means then we all have a chance to be used of you for what you want to accomplish in our own lives. Father, I pray that you give us the humility and the courage and the empowerment to do what you want. For this, we pray in Jesus name.
