Wait for the Power | Sunday Sermon

Wait for the Power | Acts: The Story Continues

Before the Church was sent into the world, Jesus gave one clear command: wait.

In Acts 1, the disciples are ready to move, ready to act, ready to step into the mission, but Jesus tells them not to go, not to act, but to wait for the promise of the Father: the Holy Spirit.

In this opening message, we explore what it means to truly depend on God... not just in theory, but in practice. The mission of the Church is not built on human effort, strategy, or activity, but on the presence and power of God working in and through His people.

As we begin this journey through Acts, we are reminded of a foundational truth:

Apart from Christ, we can do nothing.

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But if you can, stand as we read the word of God today. In Acts chapter one, verse four, it says, While staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And so when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, It's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. This is the word of the Lord, Church. You may be seated. I almost forgot again. I almost left you standing. Man, I'm bad at this. Well, today we're starting a new series in the book of Acts, and I'm excited about this series. Um it's kind of interesting that, you know, I think this is my seventh week here. Um, but in that time, we've really covered a lot. Um, God has allowed us to cover a lot of redemptive biblical history. We started in creation, you know, and we saw how God created the world as he intended it to be. We we saw how quickly humanity ruined it, you know, with our sin, with our desire to crave and have things that we that don't belong to us. We we watched as God already began to communicate to humanity his desire to redeem us, his plan to redeem us, that really began even before the creation of the world. We saw God's promise and calling of Abraham as he called him out of Ur the Chaldeans and told them to go to a land that I'm gonna show you and that I'm gonna bless you, and those who bless you will be blessed, and those who curse you will be cursed. But he said, I'm gonna give you an offspring, and through your offspring, all the nations of the world are gonna be blessed. And that promise continued down to Isaac and down to Jacob, and it continued down the line to Judah, and then through Judah to Perez, and then it just kept going down, and we saw how God delivered his people out of Egypt. He took them out through the Red Sea, took them out by a pillar of fire in the night and a cloud to cover them in the day. And they walked through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, and he delivered them through the wilderness and into the promised land. We talked about the time of the judges where the people of God were just waffling back and forth between idolatry and oh, help us, Lord, obedience, and then back to idolatry again, over and over again. And then we came to the part where they asked for a king, and they thought this was the answer. The king's gonna protect us, he's gonna build big armies to protect us, and we we saw all the kings come through and how the the there was a couple good kings, but for the most part, the kings really only led the people further into idolatry, further into apostasy, until eventually God just lifted his protection right off of his people, and Assyria came in and conquered the northern kingdom, and then Babylon came in and conquered the rest and took them all away into exile. You heard the prophets as they were calling to the people through that whole season, calling them to repent, to turn from their sin, to turn back. You know, why should you be destroyed? Just turn back and come to me. God is always willing to receive us. God is always willing to receive his people, he's always willing to forgive. And yet they wouldn't do it. But the prophets promised a day when God would become the shepherd of his own people. Forget all those shepherds who had scattered his sheep. He would go and he would find his sheep and he would bring them in, he would bring them home, and he would be their shepherd. We talked about the long period of waiting between the Old and the New Testament, as the people didn't hear any more prophets. God didn't send any more prophets, there were no more words, there were no angelic visitations, there was just silence until God sent his son clothed in humanity into the world as light, and in him was light, and the light was the life of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. We saw that he came to his own, and his own did not receive him, but those who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. And we watched as Jesus marched toward Jerusalem, understanding what they were about to do to him, and yet going anyways, choosing to pay the penalty for human sin in his human body on the cross. We saw Jesus die. We saw him be put into a tomb, and he was there for three days, and Jesus rose again from the dead. And now we come to the book of Acts. And the book of Acts was written by a man named Luke, and Luke was a doctor, okay? He was a physician, he was an educated man, and in the beginning of Luke, he tells us why he wrote the gospel. He wanted to write an orderly account to a person or a group of people named Theophilus. And so he wrote the book of the Gospel of Luke. He wrote the book of Acts to tell the story as he had heard, as he had compiled it, from eyewitness accounts, from living in Jerusalem for several years as Paul was in prison. He was there with the mother of Jesus. He was there with the apostles who walked by with Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, who saw Jesus walk on the water during the storm. And so he put these together for us. But I think it's interesting, this is not in my notes, but in this first little section of the gospel of the book of Acts, Luke writes again to Theophilus and he says, In the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. I think it's interesting because what he says is, in my gospel, in the Gospel of Luke, I wrote to you concerning all the things that Jesus began to do and to teach. And so it starts way back there, and it goes all the way through, past his resurrection, all the way to his ascension. And we're thinking, okay, well, that's it. Like that's Jesus' life, that's his whole ministry, that's all his work. And then after that comes the church, right? But what Luke is saying here is in the gospel, that just dealt with what Jesus began to do. Those are the things he began to do and to teach. And the book of Acts is how his ministry and work on the earth continued through his church by the power of his Holy Spirit that he put within us. And so, in this place where we're starting this week, Jesus has been appearing. He's risen from the dead. He's been appearing to his disciples in various situations in various places, sometimes even just sharing a meal with them. Here, this is in the way, Carlos, I want to be able to see your pretty eyes while we talk. So he's been appearing to people. He even has eaten meals with them. He cooked fish with them by the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection, and now he's standing with them, and he's in his final moments having us, giving his final instructions before he's about to go to the Father. And in this passage that we read, there's really one command that Jesus gives that sort of becomes like the hinge, the key to understanding the whole section. And what that is, is Jesus tells them, wait. And I think that this is important because even as I think about the way, you know, the order of things and how things work from Jesus' life and ministry and resurrection and ascension, I think, okay, well, Jesus died, he rose again, he appeared to his disciples, he gave them the great commission, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He gave them the great commission and then he ascended to the Father. And then what's next? We go, right? He told us to go. What are we waiting for? Let's go. Come on, guys, let's go, let's go, go into all the world. That's what he said. And yet, what he says right here is not go. He says wait. In verse 4, he says, while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. So I have three daughters. I remember when my oldest one was only about six years old. We were at Disneyland one day. Just she and I. It was a daddy-daughter day. So we're at Disneyland and we're running around doing all the things, and we went over to California Adventure. And we went on, back then they had this thing called Bugs Land, right? And it was just like, you know, you get to ride on little things, and the bugs are the size of people. And we went on this show called the Bugs Life Show. And we sit in this theater and watch a show. And after that, we came out and she's like, Daddy, can we go to the little mermaid ride? And I said, Yeah, let's go to the little mermaid ride. So she's six and she's excited, so she starts running ahead. And I go, Miranda, wait, you know, stop. Stay where daddy can see you. Don't get too far ahead. Don't run, honey. Don't run. Stay by dad. Come on, wait. Wait. Wait, honey. And as she's going, I start to kind of pick up my speed. And then I'm she's kind of going around people, and I'm like, hold on, baby, hold on, don't go too fast. And she goes around this group of people, and so I, you know, kind of hurry. I go around the group of people, and when I get around to the other side, Miranda's gone. And so I'm okay, she's probably right here. She's probably somewhere. So I'm looking around, I don't see her. And so I kind of start walking faster, and I keep walking, and I walk over, you know, all the way to the little mermaid ride, and I'm I don't see her there. She's not in the line, she's not right here. I turn around, maybe I missed her, maybe she stopped somewhere, and so I walk back the other way, you know, and I'm looking back the other way, and I'm just trying to find her, and I'm starting to feel that anxiety, starting to feel that panic inside. Trying not to get too excited. I don't tend to panic too much, you know, but this is my little tiny little girl. I'm like, what's going on? I'm in this busy place, there's people everywhere, and I can't find my six-year-old. So I walked all the way back to the Bugs Life area, couldn't find her, walked all the way back, and now I'm fully panicking. You know, I'm picturing all the horrible things in my mind that might have happened to her. And so I go in and found a security guard, and I told him, you know, I'm missing my six-year-old girl. I don't know where she is. She's been I've been missing her for about five minutes. I can't find her, I don't know where she is. He goes, Okay, hold on, gets on his radio. And then he he's kind of just talking like this, and then he goes, All right, follow me. And I'm like, What are you doing, man? Like, come on, come on, that's my little girl. Let's go! What are you doing? Like, she's lost, you know? What where are we going? And he leads me over to this other security guard, probably a couple hundred yards away, and it's a woman's security guard, and she's got Miranda sitting on a bench. And I walked up to Miranda, and her eyes are like this, you know. And I grabbed her and held onto her, and one manly tear went down my cheek, of course, because that's all a true man can let out at a time. And so I let one manly tear go, and I told her, baby, you can't do that. You can't go running ahead. You're not ready. You can't do this on your own. You're not strong enough, you're not big enough, you're you need to grow more, you can't just go, you need to wait for daddy. And as I read this section, that's sort of what I picture when Jesus is telling his disciples, wait, wait, don't go running ahead. You're not able to do this on your own. Stay where I can see you. What Jesus is basically saying to them is, look, I'm not gonna send my church before I empower my church for where I'm sending them, for what I'm calling them to do. Verse 6 it says, so when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And I think the disciples, sometimes I just think they just had this one-track mind, you know. This is the same thing they were talking about on Palm Sunday. Do you remember that? Jesus is riding the donkey, you know, down the road, and the people are waving the palm branches and they're saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And they're praising him as the king of Israel, and it and he's walking down the road, and what the people are picturing in their mind is that the Messiah has come, the king of Israel has come. He's gonna march into Jerusalem, he's gonna kick Herod out of his throne, and he's gonna sit down and put the crown on his head, he's gonna establish his kingdom on the earth, and Israel once again is gonna rise to prominence in the world, begin to rule over the nations, the nations of the earth will stream to Israel to come worship at the temple. This is what they're picturing in their mind. But then they watched him get arrested, go through a mock trial, be beaten and flogged, they watched him carry his cross. I mean, this must have been really traumatic for them. To watch someone that they love go through this. They watched him be nailed to the cross and lifted up for all to see as blood dripped down and he died. He took his body off, laid it in a tomb, and they thought, well, that's it. That's it. But we talked about last week that what Jesus accomplished by doing that was that he paid the debt of human sin. And that debt was the only claim that death had on us. And so when the debt was paid, death couldn't hold him. Jesus rose from the dead, he began appearing to his disciples, and now this hope is being rekindled in them. Alright, time for the kingdom again, right? It's time for the kingdom. And so they say, Lord, are you is this time? Is this the time now? Like, is it time? Like, what's the plan? What's the strategy, Lord? You know, what are we gonna do first? You know, where are we gonna where are we gonna put your throne at? You know, you're gonna use the one that's there, you're gonna when's the kingdom happening? But the reason they thought this way is because they had read the prophets, and I think even the prophets pictured something like this in their minds. In Isaiah chapter 2, verses 3 through 5, it says, And it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And so what the Jewish people are envisioning when they read this is, like I said, that the Messiah would come, he would establish his kingdom on the earth, that they would rise to prominence, that the people would flood to Israel to learn the law, to learn from the rabbis, to worship at the temple, at Mount Zion. And the disciples, even all through Jesus' ministry, had really been thinking, like, this is the plan. Yeah, that's that's what's happening right now. And so they asked, Lord, is this the time? Are you gonna establish your kingdom now? And he says in verse 7, it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. In other words, what God is saying is it's none of you. Anyone know what that means? It's none of your business. It's none of your business when I'm going to when the Father has chosen to do the things that he has chosen to do. You guys are sleepy today, aren't you? Can I get like a big amen from you? Amen. Can I get a hallelujah from you? Hallelujah. Alright, alright, okay, let's keep going. But I think it's interesting what Jesus says next, you know? He says, none of your business, but you're gonna receive power. Okay, eyes back here. It's like the disciples are like, Squirrel! Okay, look at me, look at me, look at me in the eyes. He's saying, You're gonna receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Okay, that's the plan. And so the disciples are asking questions about the kingdom. And in Israeli history, the temple really was always the place where the glory and the presence of God dwelled among his people. Think about Exodus chapter 40. God told Moses how to build a tabernacle in the wilderness, a place for the ark of the covenant to sit, a place for God to dwell in the midst of his people. Okay? And so Moses finishes building the tabernacle, everything's put in place, and it says, the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So Moses couldn't even come close. He couldn't enter it because the glory of the Lord so filled the tabernacle. In 1 Kings chapter 8, Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. He builds the temple, okay? And he finishes the temple and prays and dedicates it. And when he finishes the prayer, the glory of the Lord fills the temple so that the priests can't even stand to minister. They can't even do their jobs because of the weight of the glory of the Lord that filled the temple as he dwelled in the midst of his people. And so the people of Israel had always pictured, along with the prophets, that when the nations, when the Messiah came, the nations would come to Jerusalem. That's where the worship is, that's where the presence is, that's where the spirit dwells, that's where the power is. But now what Jesus is doing is he's flipping it all on its head. He's just turning the whole thing around and he's saying the presence of God is gonna fill you. Later, the Babylonians let the people go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. But when they rebuilt the temple, it doesn't say anything like what it said about the tabernacle or Solomon's temple. It never says that the glory came in and filled that one. But what Jesus is saying to them is that the presence of God is gonna fill you. My church. You're gonna receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And I think when we hear this, we're thinking of supernatural gifts and signs and wonders. But what they're waiting for was not some mystical power, it wasn't some ethereal force, it wasn't some metaphysical energy. The Holy Spirit is a person. And when the Holy Spirit comes and fills the church, what he's bringing is his presence. And where his presence is, his power is. It's the presence of God dwelling within his people. And in this way, the people of God become a temple. We become the temple with Christ as our head, moving in and through the world around us and carrying the presence with us. And this is what Jesus had been trying to teach them all along. Think about John 15. He said, Abide in me and I in you. And then he gives them this picture of the vine and the branch, and he says, just as the branch can't bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. He's giving them a picture of like a little branch on a grapevine. The grape doesn't come off the vine, it comes off the little branch. Okay, or an apple tree. You could picture a branch on an apple tree. If you break a branch off an apple tree and throw it in the yard, what's gonna happen to the branch? It's gonna grow? Tom's really believing for the supernatural power of God today, you know? No, if you break a branch off a tree and throw it in the yard, what's gonna happen is the branch is just gonna shrivel and wither up and die. And is any more fruit gonna come off of it? No. Why? Because it's separated from the separated from the source of the life that needs to flow into it in order to make it alive. He says, just as a branch can't bear. Bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. The imagery is of life flowing from the vine into the branch, and the life flows into the vine from the vine, into the branch, and as it does, it brings life with it. It brings vitality and health and greenness and lushness to the branch itself. But the life also works through the branch, doesn't it? To produce fruit on that branch. That doesn't necessarily even benefit the branch itself. It benefits the people who receive the fruit from the branch. And this is the night before he was arrested. This is what Jesus was trying to teach them. He's trying to prepare them for what's about to happen, not just at the crucifixion, but after that, when he rises and when he fills his church with power, he's saying, You need to abide in me, you need me. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit is upon you, and you will be my witnesses. And in verse 9, it says, And when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. And so, I don't know, in my brain, I'm just picturing, you know, they have this conversation, and Jesus just, you know, goes up and he ascends to the Father, and the people are watching him, and you know, it's kind of like us, right? We watch the rockets go up and stuff, or a couple days ago the the lander came back to earth from a round trip around the moon, you know, and so everybody goes out to see it. But they they see Jesus go up and they're just standing there and probably gets smaller and smaller, and eventually they just can't see him, and after a while they're just standing there and they're basically just looking at the sky, and then it's like the angels like uh so uh what you doing? Why you guys just standing here staring up at the sky? You know what are you expecting that's gonna happen right now? He says, He already told you what to do. He already told you what to do. Get back to Jerusalem and wait for the power. Get back there and wait for the presence, wait for the promise of the Father, wait for the Spirit of God to fill his people with power to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. And I can't help but wonder what would happen if an angel were to walk into our lives, walk into our homes, walk into our church this morning, and say, um, what are you guys doing? Because I think some of us are like, you know, little Miranda. We're running ahead. We're not waiting. We just think we know where we're going and we're just gonna go. Some of us are doing things for God, but without the power. And then there's some of us that are just standing there passively just kind of waiting for something to happen. But Jesus already told us what to do. He says, if you want to be my witnesses, if you want to see the power of God manifested in the world around us, if you want to see his kingdom come, if you want to see his will be done, then we have to become people who wait with expectation. We have to be people who pray and seek and wait upon the Lord in one accord, as we're gonna see them do next week. Waiting for his presence, waiting for his power, waiting for his spirit, waiting for his direction and abiding in him and he in us and receiving life from the vine that we can bear fruit in the world around us, because apart from him, how much can we do? Speak, church, in the name of Jesus, speak. Apart from Jesus, what can we do? Can we do a whole bunch of stuff without Jesus? Can we do some kind of cool stuff as long as we have a big enough budget? No. Can we accomplish a few things like if we get some consultants to come in from the outside and tell us what we're doing wrong? The answer is no, because apart from him, we can do nothing. And so as we step into this next season as a church, as we begin to discern where God might be leading us next, in the next chapter, in the next phase, this is exactly what God is calling us to do. Not to try to think of a bunch of cool ideas, not not to stir up a bunch of activity, not for some new cool modern strategies. He's calling us to become people who seek Him, who seek Him first, who seek His presence, who seek His spirit, to seek to hear His voice, just to seek to be close to Him, to know His He's with us, to feel His presence, to be formed by Him, just to be in His presence, because you can't get in the presence of God without being changed. Just mere proximity to God is gonna drive away darkness, it's gonna drive away sin. It's gonna peel that stuff off of us and it's gonna make us new. And so we need to be in his presence. Because the mission of God is always just the presence of God moving in and through his people. It's not a strategy, it's not a plan, it's not a worship style, it's not anything else. The mission of God is the presence of God moving in and through his people. And so, church, before we take one more step, let's be those who wait and pray and seek God's presence. Amen. Father, we love you. We love you, Lord. We really love you. But we pray that we would love you more. We pray that you would just strip away the apathy that's in our hearts. We pray that you would strip away, I pray just I don't speak for anyone else. I speak for me. I pray that you'd strip away the apathy. I pray that you'd strip away just the distractedness, that you'd strip away any scar tissue that's grown over my heart because of this world and everything that goes on in this world, Lord, that makes me insensitive to you. I just pray in Jesus' name, God, that you would help me to be drawn into your presence, to know you more, to be able to hear your voice, to be able to sense your presence, to be able to be led by you, God, to be able to discern what your will is, to be in your presence so that I can just be changed by you. We want to be people, Lord, who come out of our time in your presence and go into the world, Lord, and your presence goes with us, Lord. That we are like an aroma, like someone walks by with a really great-smelling cologne or perfume, Lord, and you kind of just want to follow that scent, Lord, that aroma of Christ just following us around everywhere we go and spreading your glory and spreading your gospel and spreading your name around the earth. Help us to be people, Lord, who seek you and who know you and are filled by your spirit, filled by your power, filled by your presence. In Jesus' name. Amen.