Doug McMasters: Secret Bible and go to the book of Acts, chapter one.
Doug McMasters: The book of Acts and chapter one.
Doug McMasters: There's something that people don't often talk about the moment after a great thing's happened in your life.
Doug McMasters: Something that you've lived forward to, something that you prepared, something that you've anticipated.
Doug McMasters: And the day comes when it happens.
Doug McMasters: When all that you prepared for and all you've anticipated has arrived.
Doug McMasters: And then that anticipation's over and all that preparation's over.
Doug McMasters: And the question kind of comes into your mind a little quietly, subtly.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't announce itself strongly, but it's there.
Doug McMasters: And the question is, now what?
Doug McMasters: Now what?
Doug McMasters: Royal and I uh got married 41 years ago almost.
Doug McMasters: And I remember just a few days after we were married, we're sitting in our little kitchen in this little apartment that we were renting with this table that had been given to us.
Doug McMasters: And we're sitting there, and after about three days of being married, I just said, I feel like we're just playing house.
Doug McMasters: The now what hadn't really settled in.
Doug McMasters: Now what?
Doug McMasters: It's one of those harder questions about human experience because all that anticipation that's built toward the new house or the new baby or the wedding or whatever it might be settles into the these are the days I'm moving into.
Doug McMasters: Now what?
Doug McMasters: Well, the disciples here in Acts chapter one are having their own now what experience.
Doug McMasters: They've spent time with Jesus for several years.
Doug McMasters: They've watched him minister, they've seen the miracles that he's done, they've gone out where he's told them to go.
Doug McMasters: And in the last few months, they've watched him move toward Jerusalem and find himself entering into the accolades of the crowds, only to be taken, arrested, tried, and killed and buried.
Doug McMasters: And they all scattered in bewilderment.
Doug McMasters: But before all of that even grew old, he was alive before them, resurrected.
Doug McMasters: And for the past 40 days, he had been with them.
Doug McMasters: And here in Acts chapter 1, we're about to see one of those bewildering moments in their life where they're watching Christ ascend into the heavenlies, and the angels say, Why are you standing here?
Doug McMasters: And they're wondering, now what?
Doug McMasters: Now what's about to happen here?
Doug McMasters: Luke writes to Theophilus and to the early church in order to help them understand what that now what question's all about, and how the disciples in the very first moments after the ascension of Christ realized what they were to be about and what that now what was about.
Doug McMasters: And so he writes to Theophilus to kind of center his mind and his heart, just like the apostles, as we'll see this week and next week, are also given some understanding that are going to settle their minds and their hearts.
Doug McMasters: And so Theophilus receives this word that's meant to refocus him.
Doug McMasters: And he also receives a ground that's meant to show him that nothing is going to shift in his life.
Doug McMasters: And then a promise that equipped the disciples and will equip him.
Doug McMasters: These words, a word that refocuses, a ground that doesn't shift, and a promise that equips us for what we're meant to do, are the very same things that we're going to receive this morning.
Doug McMasters: So let me just look at the first five verses.
Doug McMasters: We'll carry this through into next week, but I want to bring the first part of this into us this morning.
Doug McMasters: Let's read verses one to five.
Doug McMasters: After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Doug McMasters: And while he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said, You have heard me speak about.
Doug McMasters: For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
Doug McMasters: And they stood in a field wondering what had just happened.
Doug McMasters: And we might today, as a church and also as individuals, wonder, well, what's here for us?
Doug McMasters: What are we actually doing?
Doug McMasters: Why are we here?
Doug McMasters: And does any of it really matter?
Doug McMasters: And what Luke is giving us here are the ability to be grounded in understanding of what we're included into and what kind of mighty work God is doing through us.
Doug McMasters: And so we have some assurances here, and I want to share those assurances with us this morning.
Doug McMasters: And the first thing I want us to see is we have given to us a word that refocuses us, a word that refocuses.
Doug McMasters: Notice verse one.
Doug McMasters: Luke writes to Theophilus, the same man that he wrote the gospel to, and he mentions in this one word that reframes his entire first volume, the Gospel of Luke.
Doug McMasters: It's a word that we can easily skip over, but we shouldn't.
Doug McMasters: I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Doug McMasters: That Greek word began means to commence or to initiate, to begin.
Doug McMasters: And notice what he says it is.
Doug McMasters: It's about all that Jesus did and taught.
Doug McMasters: All that Jesus did and taught.
Doug McMasters: And he chooses that one word began deliberately.
Doug McMasters: And here we can take the gospel of Luke in all of its birth narratives and all of its ministry focus of Jesus and all of his miracles and in all of the Passion Week and all of that death, burial, and resurrection account, and we can wrap it up with one word began to do.
Doug McMasters: And what Luke is saying here as he begins to push into the book of Acts with Theophilus is to tell him that the story is not over, it's only just begun.
Doug McMasters: Which means we here in the 21st century are not looking back on something historical.
Doug McMasters: We are in the middle of something that's still happening.
Doug McMasters: And so as we go through the book of Acts together, I want us to lean forward and lean forward into this with a recognition that what we're reading is not history, but something that gives us shape for who we are today.
Doug McMasters: I was reading uh some reviews of a book that I haven't yet cracked.
Doug McMasters: And the reviews, it's a book about literary criticism.
Doug McMasters: Royal looked at it and she said, Why are you even reading that?
Doug McMasters: I said, Because, well, for one, the guy's a fascinating writer.
Doug McMasters: And two, what he writes about is going to be quite encouraging and enlightening to read.
Doug McMasters: But in the review, one guy said, he said, This man captures you with the very first words that you lean forward so much you turn into an italic.
Doug McMasters: Well, I want us to be able to look at the book of Acts and lean forward into it so much we turn into italics.
Doug McMasters: We're so excited about what we're about to look at.
Doug McMasters: And what Luke is doing with this first word is pushing us forward like that.
Doug McMasters: He's making us think about something.
Doug McMasters: And what he's directing us to is not backwards, but forwards to what this Jesus is still doing.
Doug McMasters: And what Luke is saying is that the death, burial, and resurrection, and even the ascension of Christ is not the end.
Doug McMasters: It's only really the start of his ministry.
Doug McMasters: And when Jesus ascended into the heavens, he didn't rest from his work, he simply relocated the place from which he is acting.
Doug McMasters: He's not on the dusty roads of Jerusalem and Judea any longer.
Doug McMasters: He is relocated to the very throne room of heaven, and it is from there that he's acting.
Doug McMasters: He's no longer perhaps here in time and space as we are, he is, but he is acting over all time and all space as the Lord of all.
Doug McMasters: And so now we'll discover as we go through the book of Acts that he's operating through his spirit that he ascends, through the word that goes out, and through his people who scatter.
Doug McMasters: And as we read the book of Acts, those things will become abundantly clear to us.
Doug McMasters: Because the Gospel of Luke is simply part one of a two-part story.
Doug McMasters: And we are part three of that.
Doug McMasters: And I love the title of that because what it's showing is that the people of God are gathered as the next chapter out of the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: If you don't know, it ends in chapter 28 in your Bible.
Doug McMasters: And so we're not commemorating the memory of Christ when we study this.
Doug McMasters: We're not even commemorating the memory of Christ in his work in the early church.
Doug McMasters: We are reading an account of our story as we enter into what and participate in what's happening here.
Doug McMasters: And I want us to understand that this is not just something new here.
Doug McMasters: The prophets spoke about these days coming.
Doug McMasters: They didn't just speak about Christ who would come and suffer.
Doug McMasters: And they didn't just speak about Christ who would come and rise.
Doug McMasters: They spoke about Christ who would continue to act and do something in human history even after his death.
Doug McMasters: Listen to these words.
Doug McMasters: We've studied them in the book of Isaiah together in chapter 42 and verse 4.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what it says about the servant.
Doug McMasters: The coast and the islands will wait for his instructions.
Doug McMasters: Did you hear that?
Doug McMasters: That's talking about the servant doing something that's moving into the world, and he is not going to rest until he's accomplished all of his good purposes.
Doug McMasters: Last week I read Psalm 110 in verse 1.
Doug McMasters: I want to read it again and add verse 2 to it.
Doug McMasters: Listen to verse 1 and 2.
Doug McMasters: This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord.
Doug McMasters: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Doug McMasters: The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, rule over your surrounding enemies.
Doug McMasters: Do you feel the forward push of those words?
Doug McMasters: Until.
Doug McMasters: And so the psalmist here pictures exactly what Isaiah saw, and what we're reading here in the book of Acts is that the Lord is ascending and seated at the right hand of the Father on high.
Doug McMasters: And his posture is not one of rest or repose, it is one of activity in which he is reigning and extending his rule.
Doug McMasters: We read about that in very particular ways that are of great encouragement to us.
Doug McMasters: Hebrews chapter 7, it says that Christ always lives to make intercession for us.
Doug McMasters: But that's only one aspect of the ascension and the continuing ministry of Christ.
Doug McMasters: And so Luke here begins with this word began.
Doug McMasters: Began.
Doug McMasters: Because the servant's work outlasts his earthly presence.
Doug McMasters: The Gospel of Luke ends, but the mission hasn't.
Doug McMasters: Now, theologically, we call about the ascension this word the session of Christ or the heavenly session of Christ.
Doug McMasters: And the word session goes back to an archaic word, which means the ascension or the seating of a place of authority.
Doug McMasters: And Christ, when he rose into the heavenlies, was sat in a place of authority, in which he is Lord of all.
Doug McMasters: And when we get to Acts chapter 2, you'll see him actively working in human history, seated there, exercising his authority, ruling, conquering enemies, and spreading his justice into this world.
Doug McMasters: The book of Ephesians in chapter one talks about this.
Doug McMasters: Paul writes that Christ is seated at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and has all things under his feet, and he has given his head over all things.
Doug McMasters: What a remarkable statement that is.
Doug McMasters: So when we start our journey through this book of Acts, we need to begin here to recognize that nothing in our life, nothing in this city, nothing in this island, nothing in this world is happening outside the ascended reign of Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: And so when we hear this word began, we are learning about the beginning of the ongoing story.
Doug McMasters: This matters for us as a church, because there's a version of church life out there that acts as if Christ is not engaged in his work whatsoever.
Doug McMasters: That what has to be done in the life of a church, and even perhaps some in this room right now might be thinking this that if the attendance is flat or if momentum stalls, then somehow we need to find something within ourselves to work toward that.
Doug McMasters: That somehow the right combination of personnel and effort and creativity and programming is what we need to do to revitalize ourselves as a church.
Doug McMasters: And when we think like that, what we're saying is the answer lies solely with us.
Doug McMasters: That it lies with our decisions about who we staff the church with, or our decisions about who we motivate volunteers to go toward, or talking about what kind of marketing schemes we might be able to present and put forward.
Doug McMasters: But it isn't about personnel or effort or creativity or programming.
Doug McMasters: Because what Luke is telling us here is that the ascended Christ is working through his people.
Doug McMasters: And it isn't about us getting into a small room and trying to make some decisions.
Doug McMasters: If there's any lull in our church's vigor, if there's any slackening of our engagement and the mission, the last place we need to be doing is putting our heads together.
Doug McMasters: Because we're the one that just made the problem.
Doug McMasters: What we should be doing is putting ourselves with our knees on the floor and seeking the Lord to do a work.
Doug McMasters: Here we are.
Doug McMasters: We're not here to try to cultivate our resources.
Doug McMasters: We're here to understand and engage in the ascended Christ who is working until.
Doug McMasters: And that day of until hasn't finished yet.
Doug McMasters: So we're joining something.
Doug McMasters: And we're joining in something when we can recognize heartily and freely that the growth and development of the church is not about our performance, and it can't be measured by our capabilities and capacities.
Doug McMasters: It exceeds it by far.
Doug McMasters: And so here Luke centers us with a word, just a word, began.
Doug McMasters: But I want to go a little deeper in here and see something else, not only a word that refocuses us, but also the ground that will not shift.
Doug McMasters: Verses two and three direct our attention there.
Doug McMasters: He said, until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen, and after he had suffered, he also presented himself alive by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Doug McMasters: Before we get to Pentecost, before we get to Peter's sermon, before we get to the explosive growth of the church, Luke stops and says, wait a second.
Doug McMasters: There's something, Theophilus, you need to understand about what motivated the people as the gospel began to go.
Doug McMasters: And so he grounds Theophilus and he grounds us in this understanding.
Doug McMasters: And notice the word he uses when he talks about the resurrection and the ascension of Christ.
Doug McMasters: In verse 3, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs.
Doug McMasters: It's a very technical term in the Greek.
Doug McMasters: And this was a very significant technical term within those contexts.
Doug McMasters: And what it's talking about are those things that are demonstrable, those are verifiable, those things that are conclusive, proofs, from which you might be able to derive some inferences, from which you might be able to make some plausible recognitions.
Doug McMasters: But these are concrete proofs that lie there.
Doug McMasters: And so Luke is using this term to help us understand how strong the ground is underneath the people of God.
Doug McMasters: That Jesus Christ in his resurrection is showing himself alive by these kind of proofs.
Doug McMasters: I lived for several years in England, and I always dreaded reading the newspapers at Easter time.
Doug McMasters: Because at Easter, because England is meant to be a Christian nation and they have a state church that's filled with ungodly leadership, those people who denied the gospel and denied the veracity of Scripture would be given a pen and allowed to write some articles in the newspapers.
Doug McMasters: And they would write about the Easter spirit, the renewed sense of hope and vigor of the human heart, and how we might be able to take times of trouble and difficulty and find ourselves flourishing with new understanding of possibility.
Doug McMasters: And I thought, oh gosh, here we go again.
Doug McMasters: Here we go again.
Doug McMasters: Luke is not writing religious poetry here.
Doug McMasters: Luke is not talking about some sort of impression of spiritual experience in which we might be able to find something joyful rising out of the ashes of difficulty.
Doug McMasters: And what he's telling us here is that the story of the resurrection of Christ is not to be an impression or some spiritual experience or some community or even country's wishful projection of the future.
Doug McMasters: He's saying this is documented proof of the living Christ who was brought out of the grave.
Doug McMasters: That's what he's saying.
Doug McMasters: This is documented evidence.
Doug McMasters: He would put it that way if he were to put it into legal terms and not just.
Doug McMasters: Mathematic and oratorical rhetoric philosophical terms.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection is not a metaphor.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection is a reality.
Doug McMasters: It's not an experience of renewed hope, a sense that Jesus' spirit lives on, and perhaps ours will too, after times of trouble.
Doug McMasters: If that were the case, the book of Acts would just be a story about human courage in the face of hardship and opposition.
Doug McMasters: And it's not that.
Doug McMasters: And we shouldn't receive it as simply a message of hopefulness and security in the middle of opposition.
Doug McMasters: Because if the resurrection is a historical action, if somebody who really died really came back to life again, then what we're talking about is the most monumental act in human history.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: It is that important.
Doug McMasters: And the people that are gathered around the resurrected Christ are the very leading edge of a new creation.
Doug McMasters: That's how significant that act is, and that's how significant the people of God are in the book of Acts and us now.
Doug McMasters: And the resurrection wasn't just a New Testament idea.
Doug McMasters: The Old Testament spoke of the days that would come.
Doug McMasters: In the next chapter, we'll read about Peter who rises up in front of the Jewish people and quotes their scriptures to them.
Doug McMasters: And he says of David that David wasn't speaking of himself, he was speaking of one who was to come.
Doug McMasters: And he reads from Psalm 16 as he proclaims it to the people in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And he said, For you will not abandon me to Sheol.
Doug McMasters: You will not allow your faithful one to see decay.
Doug McMasters: Who's he talking about, Peter?
Doug McMasters: Not himself, he says, but Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Forty days after this man was killed, he speaks about him as one who is risen and one who is ascended.
Doug McMasters: Listen to Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: The Lord was pleased to crush him severely.
Doug McMasters: And when you made him a guild offering, listen, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand the Lord's pleasure will be accomplished.
Doug McMasters: After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied.
Doug McMasters: And by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many and will carry their iniquities.
Doug McMasters: There's a lot to unpack there, but just listen to it simply.
Doug McMasters: The servant suffers, the servant dies, and then Isaiah says, the servant will prolong his days.
Doug McMasters: He will see the fruit of his soul and be satisfied.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah is talking about the resurrection without even using the word.
Doug McMasters: He's talking about Christ.
Doug McMasters: How else would you describe it if you talk about a dead man being able to prolong his days?
Doug McMasters: Unless he's talking about the resurrection.
Doug McMasters: So let's understand this ground a little better.
Doug McMasters: Like I said last week, we can often take the resurrection and we put it back there.
Doug McMasters: It's something that happened at Easter.
Doug McMasters: We we celebrate Easter every year.
Doug McMasters: It comes around on our calendar every year.
Doug McMasters: And we take we take the resurrection, and somehow it just sort of drifts back there until it shows up again on the calendar again.
Doug McMasters: Luke is saying, don't do that.
Doug McMasters: Don't do that.
Doug McMasters: Because the resurrection of Christ is not just one teaching among many, and it's not a secondary question either.
Doug McMasters: And we can have discussions all day long about secondary issues, and not to say that they're not important at all.
Doug McMasters: We just spend some time revising our constitution about something that was really actually, in comparison, quite secondary.
Doug McMasters: Not unimportant, but definitely unsecondary.
Doug McMasters: And we might even be able to have a discussion with one another about some eschatological framework, whether you're this or that, pre or post or awe or whatever.
Doug McMasters: But none of it rises to the importance of this.
Doug McMasters: Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the load-bearing wall of the Christian faith.
Doug McMasters: It is that important.
Doug McMasters: And Paul says that explicitly.
Doug McMasters: And it is solid ground, it's unshakable.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection validates everything that Jesus said and did.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures talk about that.
Doug McMasters: This solid ground is beneath the book of Acts.
Doug McMasters: This solid ground is beneath this church.
Doug McMasters: This solid ground can be beneath you if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And if you're in this room this morning and your life is feeling shaky, unclear, uncertain, and not just your life, but your contemplation about death and what's afterwards.
Doug McMasters: And you're thinking, I don't know.
Doug McMasters: Let me tell you something about the Christian life.
Doug McMasters: It is not asking you to just believe and then to rest on the quality of that ability to believe.
Doug McMasters: It's calling you to the fact that the tomb is empty, that Christ left it, and that if you go into the grave believing on Christ, you too will leave it one day.
Doug McMasters: Because it is not about having a religious experience and whether you can hold on to it.
Doug McMasters: Because let me tell you about religious experiences.
Doug McMasters: You can have a great one on Saturday night and wake up on a Sunday morning feeling like all of the air has just been pulled right out of your soul.
Doug McMasters: It's kind of how I woke up this morning.
Doug McMasters: Great time of the movie last night.
Doug McMasters: Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, sat down to pray and to read, and I'm fighting sleep.
Doug McMasters: I'm like, what happened here?
Doug McMasters: It's 12 hours between being all excited after a movie to sitting here anticipating to preach and trying to fight sleep.
Doug McMasters: If you're going to rest in the power of your religious experience, you're going to find yourself following an elusive dream because you'll never get there.
Doug McMasters: There'll be seasons when believing will be hard.
Doug McMasters: There'll be times when your prayers will not seem fervent.
Doug McMasters: There'll be places where your reading of scripture will feel dry and dull and separate from any of anything that moves your heart.
Doug McMasters: Those things will happen.
Doug McMasters: And if you rest your Christian life upon those kinds of experiences, it's going to fail you.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures are not calling you to do that.
Doug McMasters: They're calling you to a resurrected Christ.
Doug McMasters: They're calling you to put your feet on that ground that's unshakable.
Doug McMasters: And if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you call out to Him for salvation and life, I guarantee you that ground will never move.
Doug McMasters: It will not move on the very day of your death.
Doug McMasters: And it will say, Welcome, welcome to you, the very last breath you breathe.
Doug McMasters: Let's move to the next point, the last point.
Doug McMasters: Not only do we have a word that refocuses us, but a truth that grounds us, but we also have a gift, a gift in a wait.
Doug McMasters: Verses four and five talks about Jesus with his disciples on that day.
Doug McMasters: And says, while he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise, which he said, You've heard me speak about.
Doug McMasters: For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
Doug McMasters: Here's Jesus with his disciples in the margin of the CSB and the NIV.
Doug McMasters: Talk about him eating with them.
Doug McMasters: The same Jesus who broke bread with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the same Jesus who broke bread on the shore of the lake and fed them fish, is sitting here in the ordinary rhythms of shared life with them, and he's talking to them with a command that sounds quizzical, a paradox, to wait, to wait for the Father's promise.
Doug McMasters: And when Jesus says to wait for the Father's promise, he is taking a flag out of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: And he's moving that flag and he's stomping it down into the ground of the New Testament church.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, What the Father promised is about to occur.
Doug McMasters: Wait for that to happen before you do anything else.
Doug McMasters: And we're going to unpack that in just a moment, but let's just stop at that word wait for a second.
Doug McMasters: The disciples were not told to immediately go.
Doug McMasters: They were told to wait, to pause until God had moved.
Doug McMasters: But they were not passive.
Doug McMasters: And as we'll see in a couple weeks, they were active in their waiting.
Doug McMasters: They were gathered together in prayer.
Doug McMasters: They were devoting themselves to truth.
Doug McMasters: They were making decisions that were formative to their life.
Doug McMasters: They were in community with one another.
Doug McMasters: They were not passive in their waiting.
Doug McMasters: They were active in their waiting, but they were waiting for the expectancy of the Father's promise.
Doug McMasters: Now notice what he says here.
Doug McMasters: He said, You've heard me talk about this.
Doug McMasters: For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
Doug McMasters: Again, these men and Theophilus and us are being told about something that's about to occur within the life of the church that reminds us that what's happening is not about human manufacturing of ability.
Doug McMasters: It's not about our ingenuity.
Doug McMasters: It's not about what we can produce.
Doug McMasters: It's about God operating within his people in a way that cannot be explained by human experience and human power.
Doug McMasters: Because what he's talking about is the arrival of divine presence that was promised in the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: That's what we'll read about when we go to the book of Acts in chapter two is the promise that God had given in the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: And then the Old Testament speaks with the deepest sense of longing of what's about to happen.
Doug McMasters: And there's a lot of misunderstandings that's behind all of these words.
Doug McMasters: And sadly, the most significant thing about it gets passed over without a word, without a thought.
Doug McMasters: Because we have been so programmed to think of it in very, very internal, individualistic ways.
Doug McMasters: But this is something extremely important.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what the Old Testament says about this coming day.
Doug McMasters: It says in Isaiah, until the Spirit from on high is poured out on us, then the desert will turn into an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest.
Doug McMasters: There's this figurative language of the day that's going to come when the things that look barren are going to flourish in this poetic flourishing of prof.
Doug McMasters: It's a remarkable sense in which we are told that barren things will live, and they will live so abundantly, it will feel like an orchard and a forest, this desert.
Doug McMasters: Ezekiel 36.
Doug McMasters: I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
Doug McMasters: Ezekiel speaking to people who were being taken away into bondage, into Babylon, because of their absolute disregard of God's statutes and commands, are told of a coming day when the spirit would come, and those things that they despised and rejected and ignored and played around with as if it was simply toys in a toy box are now going to be the very things that are in their hearts, that they're going to treasure.
Doug McMasters: In Joel chapter 2, I will pour out my spirit on all humanity.
Doug McMasters: No distinctions.
Doug McMasters: What is Jesus describing here?
Doug McMasters: What is he wrapping up in a phrase, the Father's promise?
Doug McMasters: All of those things in the Old Testament I've only given a sampling of that come into that phrase that Jesus says, wait for that.
Doug McMasters: What does he say?
Doug McMasters: Well, many people in our day would say, well, it's meant for individual religious experience.
Doug McMasters: It's to reboot the level of intensity of your devotion.
Doug McMasters: It's uh meant to give you a private prayer language or give you some sense of assurance of God's closeness.
Doug McMasters: No, no, no, not at all.
Doug McMasters: It is immensely larger than that.
Doug McMasters: What we're talking about is a cosmic event, not an intimate, personal, private event.
Doug McMasters: This is an epical event because it is the inauguration of an age that the prophets spoke about, that Jesus had lived and taught and died and rose again to inaugurate.
Doug McMasters: It is this momentum in which God is not merely visiting his people from outside, but he is now going to dwell among his people, and his people are going to be reaching the absolute ends of the earth in this new day.
Doug McMasters: This is the fulfillment of the Old Testament's deepest longings.
Doug McMasters: That promise back in Genesis chapter 12, when one man as good as dead was told that he would be the father of many nations.
Doug McMasters: That promise, the father's promise of the time when these people who were ignoring God would be said to be the very place from which the word of God would spread.
Doug McMasters: And that the spirits indwelling and moving among those people would be the very force that would make all of that happen.
Doug McMasters: That's what it's talking about.
Doug McMasters: The Apostle Paul talks about this distinctly, this epical age in which we live, in which we as God's people are part of a new creation, that we're enfolded into something that is going to move beyond time and space as we know it.
Doug McMasters: It's going to enter into the heavenlies and it's going to be called a new heavens and a new earth as part of a new creation.
Doug McMasters: And all the people will know the Lord and holiness will be at home for once in human existence.
Doug McMasters: And the Spirit is part of all of that.
Doug McMasters: Paul writes to the believers in Ephesians 1, he said, The promised Holy Spirit, you were sealed by him on the day you believed, the gospel of your salvation.
Doug McMasters: The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of his glory.
Doug McMasters: What does he say?
Doug McMasters: The Spirit just doesn't come for momentary personal private moments.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't give himself in measure.
Doug McMasters: And he's united with the risen Christ to accomplish the good purposes of the rule and reign of Christ of people all around the world.
Doug McMasters: That's what it's about.
Doug McMasters: The early church was wondering what is this?
Doug McMasters: What has happened?
Doug McMasters: And they they tie it back to what Luke says here: the Father's promise.
Doug McMasters: And what he promised was not just a psychological release or to give us some feeling of confidence or even closeness to God.
Doug McMasters: Some extra boost to become a better person than what we were before we had an experience.
Doug McMasters: No, that the church would be brought into the realm of God's presence in them and through them to accomplish the glorious work of proclaiming the gospel and seeing people around the world believe.
Doug McMasters: And he says, Repent and believe the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And that many people on that day are baptized and join themselves to the church, and they commit themselves to the apostle teaching and to fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer.
Doug McMasters: Peter didn't walk out of there and go, hey, that was a great sermon, wasn't it?
Doug McMasters: Boy, I finally got eloquent today.
Doug McMasters: He's saying the Spirit of God has done something in the hearts of unbelieving people who had just a few days before it crucified this man, but are now bending their heart and giving their life to him as Lord and Christ.
Doug McMasters: That is the work of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: And so here we are, just at the very start of the book.
Doug McMasters: And I hope you're starting to turn into italics, starting to lean forward, say, what are we going to receive?
Doug McMasters: What is this that we're about to understand?
Doug McMasters: What does it show us?
Doug McMasters: Not only about what's done then, but what's happening still?
Doug McMasters: Well, Luke begins with a word to focus us, began.
Doug McMasters: He gives us ground that knows that none of it's shaking.
Doug McMasters: And he gives us a promise.
Doug McMasters: It gives us a sense of understanding of how God is operating through his spoken word, dwelling among his people and securing their proclamation with the power to transform dead souls into living believers.
Doug McMasters: That's what we have.
Doug McMasters: And I'm excited for what we're going to journey through.
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you've been a believer for a long time, I do pray that all of this does refocus and And reignite within your heart a sense of joy and understanding of who we're who we are as God's people.
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you've been sort of backing, backing away as a believer, maybe just settling in, or as someone said, you know, Baptist, he said, This is how I define Baptists.
Doug McMasters: They come into the church, we get them wet, and we put them in the pew and they dry out the rest of their life.
Doug McMasters: Ouch.
Doug McMasters: And if you're in that drying out phase, I pray this reinvigorates your heart, help you understand who we are and what we're doing as God's people.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your Savior, go back to that ground and ask yourself: is my life really on that stable of a ground?
Doug McMasters: Can I say that I can walk into death securely and with hope?
Doug McMasters: If you can't, there's an offer that's gloriously presented in the gospel that tells you that you don't have to find some strong religious experience.
Doug McMasters: You don't have to sort of invigorate yourself to turn over a new leaf or try to change your habits.
Doug McMasters: It's about fleeing to the one who rose from the dead and calling him Lord in Christ, believing that he died for your sins and that he is the means by which your forgiveness is secured before the judge of all.
Doug McMasters: And you resting everything that you are on him, fleeing to Christ for salvation.
Doug McMasters: That is the only solid ground.
Doug McMasters: And if you believe on him, you will be saved.
Doug McMasters: No matter what your background's been like, no matter what your history has been, no matter what you've done, where you've gone, who you've hurt, who's hurt you, all of that gets washed away in the blood of Christ.
Doug McMasters: All of it.
Doug McMasters: Believe on him.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, thank you for a book that makes us aware of ourselves, makes us realize who we are.
Doug McMasters: And what we are realizing and understanding is more about who you are and what you're doing in this world.
Doug McMasters: We're grateful to be able to stand on the solid ground of the resurrection of Christ.
Doug McMasters: We're grateful to be able to be acting and serving within the realm of Christ who began a work and is continuing it still.
Doug McMasters: And we're grateful to be among a people who are filled with a secure hope of a future inheritance, but also of an abiding presence and power that takes the gospel message and makes it live in hearts.
Doug McMasters: And so, Father, we do not live and move and work based upon our strength and the power of our prayers as though it was simply a formula.
Doug McMasters: No, we rest in you, the living God.
Doug McMasters: And so, Father, as we journey through this book of Acts, may we be increasingly a people who turn our hearts and praise to you, the risen Christ, the acting spirit, and the promise fulfilling Father, God in one.
Doug McMasters: And so we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.