Acts 1

Read Acts 1

The story of the church does play out like one might think. Jesus dies, his followers grieve and mourn. They are filled with doubts and fear. Then he raises from the grave. Hope is rekindled and excitement bubbling over. However, the first “Christians” weren’t thinking along the same lines as Jesus. They weren’t ready to go out and start a new spiritual revolution. They were looking for the restoration of Israel (1:6). So following the resurrection, the disciples were not ready to take the world by storm, nor were they looking to do so. What is even more surprising is that Jesus doesn’t tell them to do so. First they needed help.

If there is one theme that rings loud and clear in this first chapter, it is the necessity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus commands “through the Holy Spirit”(1:2), promises a baptism of the Holy Spirit (1:5), and guarantees their reception of power from the Holy Spirit (1:8). And just for good measure, Luke throws in the fact that the OT Scriptures quoted by Peter were spoken by the Holy Spirit (1:16). Luke does not have Jesus charging his disciples with a task. He has him giving them a promise. It does not read, “Get up and go be my witnesses.” It reads, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses . . .”

The church is carrying out the mission of Jesus Christ, and they would be it carrying out by the same power that Jesus carried it out. They cannot do it until the Spirit comes upon them. So in chapter 2, as we shall see, we do not find Christians busy spreading the good news. We find them huddled in a room praying and waiting.

Whatever else has changed over the past two thousand years, this remains the same. The Church is nothing apart from the Spirit. The cross unleashed the full power of the Spirit, and it is only in that power that the Church gets anywhere. Before we do anything, we must be leaning upon the power of the Spirit.