YOU WILL BE MY WITNESSES

Acts 1:1-26
Key Verse 1:8 

“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.”

Read verses 1-2. What did the author Luke write about in his first book? (Luke’s Gospel)  In vs. 3, what did Jesus do during the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension?  What was he trying to teach his disciples? 

-In his former book, Luke was referring to his gospel.  His gospel work was the beginning frame work.  It encompassed Jesus ministry beginning from the time Zechariah served as chief priest before the Lord, making the offering of atonement in the temple all the way through Jesus resurrection and ascension into heaven.  

-In Luke 1:3, he referred to the gospel as an orderly account

-During the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension, he showed himself to the disciples, and gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive and spoke of the kingdom of God

-The point of what he was teaching them was to plant resurrection faith in their hearts.

-Jesus was victorious over sin and death, and he was helping his disciples to put their hope in the eternal and unchanging kingdom of God, rather than getting snared by the insignificant things which the world had to offer.

In verses 4-5, what command and promise did Jesus give to his disciples?  Why is it so important for the disciples to baptized with the Holy Spirit? (Why is it important to wait for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit?)

-In vs. 4 and 5 we see the command and promise given by Jesus.  Basically, it says that they were to not leave Jerusalem until they received the gift which had been promised by the Father. This is the gift of the Holy Sprit. The command and promise went together.

-Although going out to serve the mission is critically important, from what I heard from Shep. Jonathon and others, is that this year a key direction we are taking is to pray more to preach the gospel, and pray for God to open doors.  Going out to do the work of God is so important, yet, when it is not backed by appropriate prayer the things done in the ministry may be in jeopardy of being activities which after much effort will blow away with no fruit.  Prayer is the main thing, which helps us tap into the power of the Holy Spirit.

-In order for the real work of God to be done, we need the Holy Spirit, and this is what prayer taps into.  

-For the Holy Spirit to be part of our mission work, many times we need to pray and wait.  If we become inpatient, we might get unfavorable results.  We need wisdom in this area, because of course we don’t just want to sit around wait and wait until we think everything in ready.  Yet, here prayer will help us as well to have some wisdom.  An extreme example, of becoming impatient is King Saul, in 1 Samuel 13:7-14.  He was supposed to wait for the arrival of Samuel, but when his men were deserting he went ahead and made the sacrifice. 

In verse 6, what did the disciples seem to be primarily concerned with?  What did Jesus teach them about God’s plan in verse 7?  In verse 8, what is God’s command and promise for the disciples? What does this show us about Jesus’ hope for his disciples? What does this show about his concern for all nations?

-Even after all the things that the risen Jesus showed them and talked about, still the minds of the disciples were stuck in the world.  They were just concerned about the kingdom of Israel being liberated from Roman rule.

-In vs. 8 it says, “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 ends of the earth.”

-Despite their minds seemingly being locked in the worldly mode, Jesus had hope and vision that when his disciples received the Holy Spirit, they would be his powerful witnesses and servants who would take the gospel message to the ends of the earth.

-We can learn a lot from Jesus here.  Many times we think we know what an ideal discipleship candidate might look like, or behave.  Yet, Jesus had hope and faith that these disciples who were concerned only about the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, would be the ones to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.  Among the disciples were a big mouthed smelly fisherman, a tax collector, and national activist, a couple of do nothings, and others with various characters.  A key component each of these men had in common, in addition to having been called by Jesus, was a decision and commitment to follow Jesus, even without understanding all that was going on.  

-Jesus wants all people of all nations to hear the gospel message through those who would receive Jesus’ calling and live a life of following him.

What happened to Jesus in verse 9?  How did the two angels give the disciples direction in verse 11?  

-In vs. 9, Jesus ascended into heaven.  

-Basically, the angels helped the disciples to understand that even though Jesus was being taken up to heaven, he would come back in the same way he left.  So the disciples should continue to do the work given to them by Jesus even though Jesus was not physically with them.  After they received the Holy Spirit, the purpose which they were to live for became very clear. 

Where did the disciples go in vs. 12-14?  Why? (4)  Who were with them?  What did they do?  What do you think they prayed about?

-The disciples returned to Jerusalem and they went upstairs to the room where they had been staying.

-In vs. 13b and 14 it says,  “Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

-They prayed.  It is not completely clear what they prayed about. We can speculate.  Jesus had just been ascended into, the environment in the city seemed unstable for the believers well being, The Jewish leaders and Roman authorities may have been still wondering what happened to Jesus. Judas who had betrayed Jesus was dead, there was the command to remain in Jerusalem until they had received the gift the Father had promised, in addition to the command to preach gospel to all nations, and there may have been numerous other anxieties and prayer topics which they had on their minds.

As they prayed, who revealed their leadership? What problem surfaced? (16-18) How did Peter choose to solve the problem? What was the basis for Peter’s direction to address this problem? (20, Psalm 69:25, Psalm 109:8)  What light does this shed on prayer, personal and group prayer in finding direction in serving the ministry?

-In vs. 15,16a it says, “¹⁵In those days Peter stood up among the believers^{[ HYPERLINK "http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%201&version=NIV" \l "fen-NIV-26928c" \o "See footnote c" c]} (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) ¹⁶and said…”  Here Peter took initiative toward an important issue and revealed his leadership. 

-The problem that surfaced was that Judas, previously one of the twelve, was dead, and his place of leadership was vacant.  For the disciples, due to the circumstances of how the problem came to be, it was kind of like a bleeding wound in the body of believers which needed to be attended to.  It was an occurrence so unpleasant, that maybe they just wanted to put it out of their hearts and minds.  Yet as they prayed this problem came to the surface as something which could not just be left undone; it had to be fixed. 

-Peter came up with the idea to choose one from among their numbers who fit some specific qualifications.  Two candidates were in the pool, and then through prayer and casting lots, Matthias was chosen and added to their eleven apostles. (26)

-There is no doubt that Peter had studied those passages from Psalms previously.  Yet, it is also a good bet that those exact verses were not on his mind initially when they joined together in prayer.  Yet, as they prayed, to help the problem get resolved, God revealed these verses to Peter, so that the problem could be solved in the most appropriate matter.  It is critically important to study the Word of God, in as much detail as we can.  Yet, it is also important for us to pray so that our actions and work in the ministry may be in line with God’s will.