A Tour Through Acts
part 1
The Dynamic Spirit
Acts 1:4-8
4. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;
5. for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6. So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
7. He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
8. but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”1
Shouldn’t there be some overriding purpose and significance to our time here and now? Don't you think that surely God is up to more than this? Well, God is up to more than this. But sometimes I wonder if we are not into what God is "up to."
The Promise of Jesus
As the book of Acts unfolds, several important things have happened. The Lord has been crucified and raised from the dead. He has appeared to many of His disciples. He has spoken to them about the Kingdom of God. And He is about to be taken away from them into Heaven.
Now, I’m not sure what you would be thinking had you been there, but I feel certain that these disciples were wondering just what was next. How would they live in the secular society of which they had been a part? How would this encounter with Jesus Christ change their lives? He had commanded them to share this Gospel of the Kingdom with every person. How would they do it? What resources would they need? Who would organize it? Who would carry it out? They had many questions, I’m sure, just as we have many questions today. Coming to Christ is only the beginning, you see. As we enter into this Christian life, there are still many questions that are unanswered. There are still many fears to be conquered, many issues to resolve. What is really important? What is the next step?
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (vv. 4-5)
Jesus, of course, anticipated their needs and gave them a promise. What He promised them here, was to be the essential ingredient for their future ministry. It was for them, and is for us, unconditional to effective Christian living in any secular society. What they needed and what every Christian needs is power from on high, a mighty baptism in the Holy Spirit. This, Jesus said, is "the gift my Father promised"
It is interesting that Jesus told them that they must wait in Jerusalem for this promise. I’m sure that many of the disciples were fairly impulsive. Now that they had witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they were ready to share that news with everybody. What Jesus told them to do was to wait. They needed to wait because they needed the power which the Holy Spirit would provide. But waiting is one of the hardest things to do. Even when we are waiting for something good, it is still difficult. Waiting on God can be the most difficult waiting of all. But we must wait for guidance and direction. We have to wait for power. The disciples were called to wait. Only by waiting and seeking God would they find the promise of God to be real. But if they were to wait, they would be met by God.
There is always a promise. Jesus knows our every need and there is always a promise of His provision for those needs. We have difficult situations. We have problems and circumstances in our lives see a clear conclusion to. We may be questioning God, finding it impossible to understand how even He could bring something good into our life. Or, we might simply be confused. Everything seems to be going well, but there is that nagging discontent or concern. There is that desire for something, and we wonder just how to find it. There is a promise for us and it is the same promise that these early Christians received. It is the promise of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our life.
Jesus told us in John’s Gospel that He would have to go away, but that when He did go away, He would send us "another Comforter." He was talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God is the Father’s gift to every believer in Christ. Through His indwelling presence in our lives, we are connected to God. We have the very life of God living in us. He has been given to us to be our resource and guide, to help us through every problem, to make the Word of God alive to us, and to make Jesus real to us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is given to every Christian to enable us to live an exciting, dynamic, abundant life of the Spirit. The promise given to the early Christians is the same promise we need today. And, of course, it is the promise given to us. In Acts 2:39 we read, "The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." The promise is for every believer.
However wonderful the promise was, we find that the disciples had their minds on other things. Their priority was a different one. They needed to focus on His priority, not their own, but they were distracted by this life. That is why they said what they did.
So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (v. 6)
Jesus was speaking to them about a spiritual reality which would change their lives. But they were thinking of a temporal kingdom of a physical nature. Perhaps the reason was because they were bound up in their own traditional interpretations of what Messiah would do. The Jews believed that Messiah would come to liberate them from the oppressive iron hand of Rome. It is certain that these disciples knew of those teachings and wanted to see Israel returned to its previous glory. But that was not what God was about. As a matter of fact, He wanted them to anticipate the future.
Have you thought that reverence for the past can sometimes block what God wants to do in the present? All too often churches try to return to something wonderful that happened years ago, when God is attempting to do a new thing. Many times the Spirit is grieved and quenched by well meaning believers who are unwilling to move forward into the future because they will not let go of the past.
He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. (v. 7)
In other words, Jesus is telling them that they are not thinking in the right way. They should not be worrying about timetables for earthly concerns, they should be open to what God was trying to tell them. He was trying to introduce them to a new dimension of living and they were not listening.
It is hard for us to change our way of looking at things. Over the years we have done things a certain way and thought about things a certain way. It’s hard to change. The preferences and prejudices of people die hard. But we must never close ourselves off to new ways of doing things, especially when they are born of God. The message never changes, but the methods do. And if we are to be on the cutting edge of what God is doing in trying to reach this world, we must be ready to take risks and try new things. This is true both in our personal lives and in our life as a church. Our priority must be to hear His voice and be sensitive to His Spirit’s guidance.
We have seen that there is a promise given to us of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that we need to focus in on God’s priority to do a new thing in us. Now let’s look at the kind of power He wishes to give us.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (v.8)
The promise of the Holy Spirit was a promise of power. The word for power is the Greek word dúnamis. From that word we derive our English word dynamite and dynamic. The power of God is the dynamic and explosive force of the Spirit in the lives of believers. There is incredible power there. But power to do what?
The power we receive is the power to be witnesses. Here we are encountered by another interesting word. It is the word for witness in Greek — the word mártus. It is from this word mártus that we derive our English word martyr. The martyrs for the faith were those who testified for Jesus even with their death. In many ways God is calling us to become witnesses in this same sense. While we may not have to lay down our lives in an arena with real lions, we must lay our lives down in terms of our privacy and schedules and become available to others to share what Christ means to us and what He can mean to them.
This is what it means to be a witness. To be a witness means that there is not only an inflow to our lives, but that there is also an outflow. And without such an outflow, we become like a stagnant swamp or the Dead Sea. Our lives will become dull and dreary and devoid of vibrant life, no matter how much we take in through Bible study and teaching. We are to be flowing channels, not holding tanks. A free flowing river purifies itself and is alive with life. So the Christian who becomes involved with others in sharing the gospel discovers the reason for his existence on planet earth.
Becoming involved in this kind of ministry is essential to finding the fulfillment we desire as human beings. The Holy Spirit’s power and gifts are never given to be spent on ourselves. There are some like this — people who want a private experience of the Spirit without pouring themselves out for people or giving themselves away to touch human suffering. They are like "Spiritual Butterflies." They flit from one meeting to another, from one seminar to another, from one Bible study to another, from one church to another, sipping a little spiritual nectar here, a little there, but never becoming committed anywhere so they can give out in service as well as take in.
We are called to be witnesses personally. Let’s look at what they were told.
"and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (v.8b)
They were to start in Jerusalem. That was their own community. That's where they were, and that's where they started. In other words, missions begins at home; right where we are. We must never mistakenly think that missions are only out there across the ocean somewhere. Missions begins at home. The church that is not doing missions at home is not supporting missions. Hell is no less hot for the lost of Twin Falls. This is the place to begin. This is OUR our mission field, and if we don't take responsibility for it we are shirking our duty.
Then they were to move to Judea. Again, that was their country. Then on to Samaria. That extended the ministry further into their continent. And finally, they were to go into the remotest parts of the earth. In other words, beginning at home they were to be witnesses in ever widening circles. That was their call, and it is ours as well. The great commission is given to every Christian. That is the great underlying purpose for which we exist on this planet. It is as we go about fulfilling that purpose will we find purpose and meaning for our lives.
But it will take power to do it. And that is what we get in the gift of the Holy Spirit. We receive power to witness! And as we witness, we receive greater power — for ourselves to live for Jesus and to share His love.
We need to have His Holy Spirit. It’s possible to be a believer and not have power, but it is impossible to live the fulfilling, abundant Christian life without it.
Finally, a word about receiving that power. Some people today emphasize a dramatic experience separate from their spiritual rebirth, which they call the baptism in the Spirit. Many evangelicals have problems with the terminology and with the idea of a "second work of grace". Let me simply say this: All that God does in our life is a work of His grace. And everything we receive from Him is by faith. None of us are fully mature, and there is so much that we need for the Lord to do in our lives. We must be careful to be thoroughly Biblical in all that we do, but we must also be careful not to get too hung up on terminology. We must not spend so much time arguing over terminology that we miss the point. The point is that we must always desire more of God. And we must also know that there is more of God than we have experienced.
The promise of the Spirit is specified in 1:5 with a reminder of the tradition attributed to John the Baptist in the Gospels: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Luke 3:16; Mark 1:8; Matt 3:11; John 1:33). The reference is to the unique, unrepeated event at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples in a visible form like fire in verse 3. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, and the church would continue to use that outward form of his water baptism as a confession of the name of Jesus on entry into the community of believers. Unlike John’s baptism, the new converts would also receive the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Throughout Acts new converts experienced repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Spirit. All three are essential elements of the conversion experience in varying patterns. The following narrative of Acts shows no specific pattern in which these various elements appear. The Spirit can come before baptism, in conjunction with baptism, or some time after baptism. The Spirit’s presence in the lives of believers is also evidenced in less dramatic ways such as the Ethiopian’s joy, Lydia’s hospitality, and the Philippian jailer’s offer of first-aid. But, the Spirit cannot be tied to a mechanistic pattern, these patterns show that repentance and the gift of the Spirit are essential to the conversion experience.2 3
There are many different ways the Holy Spirit encounters which are not necessarily visible by dramatic outward exhibitions. There is the infilling of the Spirit which belongs to all believers. There is the anointing of the Spirit whereby He sets a servant apart for a particular work or ministry. And then there may be many mighty fillings of the Spirit whereby He releases His power through us to minister to others in a particular way at a particular time.
The real question should be, "How do we become filled and stay filled?" We do so by an initial and ongoing surrender to Him. As we seek Him with our whole heart, the Lord will fill us with His Spirit and the power will come. The dynamic of the Holy Spirit will become the energizing dynamic of our lives. The reason why we are here — our purpose in life — is to be filled with God!
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