Jesus in Action (Acts 1)

The reason for studying the book of Acts this year (which we will do in chunks from time to time) is this:

We must get beyond living our Christian lives as if our personal happiness was the centre of everything. We must understand that there is a much bigger thing going on and Jesus is at the centre of it. Moreover, when we get caught up into this BIG purpose, we will experience joy and fulfilment that we have never imagined possible.

People ask why there is little evidence of power in their Christian experience, or in the church. One answer to that is that they have their minds’ set on the wrong things – small things – self-centred things. You have to ask, is it reasonable that Jesus will assemble all his spiritual forces to help you get a wide-screen TV or find someone to mind your kids so you can go out? Jesus has something much bigger going on and he wants you to get involved in it.

From the book of Acts, we will find out what this cause is, what it is that Jesus Christ calls us to join in to. For as long as we go on thinking that being a Christian is all about ‘me’, we will be babies in our thinking – having bodies that grow older but with childish minds. Babies are ego-centric; they believe that the whole world revolves around them. The reason why 2 year olds have tantrums is because they have to face the fact that they can’t get everything they want the moment they demand it, and that there are others to consider. Part of growing up is learning that there is a bigger picture than the little world we have imagined with ourselves at the centre. We have to learn how to take other viewpoints and accept that there are often more important things to consider than our own wants.

Acts is about Action – what Christians do. Luke wants us to understand that getting a piece of Christian action is about being with Christ at the centre. John 12.26: If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Jesus did not live, die, get raised and leave an example for his followers to COPY… he was raised to work in a new way that allows him to work in and through each of his followers.

You are not supposed to be living up to Jesus’ example – you are supposed to be abiding in Christ. Listen to what Paul says about his Christian life:

Romans 15.17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ

Luke emphasises from the opening sentences of Acts that he is recording the continuation of Jesus’ work, following on from what he began in stage one –

his birth,

his thorough teaching of the nation of Israel,

his miracles that gave witness to his identity,

the calling and training of disciples,

his exposure of corrupt religion,

his arrest, torture and death at the hands of the Romans,

his resurrection from the dead and the instructions he gave to his disciples.

Luke picks up directly at this point, and reports the continuing works of Jesus. In chapter one, he includes Jesus’ works as:

instructions to the disciples,

his ascension (that is, his removal from physical view back behind the curtain into the spiritual world),

his answer to the disciples’ prayer to show them who should replace Judas,

…and then in chapter two,

his pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the ignition of his new and powerful way of working through many Christians at once and in many locations at the same time.

Luke wants us to understand that Jesus retains actively in control and involved in running his work. Jesus is continuing to work out what he began in Israel. He is working on a grander more expansive scale, by inhabiting the lives of all his disciples, extending world-wide and through all time zones.

Just consider its amazing progress! It ‘white-anted’ the Roman Empire. It shaped Europe. It brought participation of people in the government of their nations. It abolished slavery. It underpins the legal system. It provided education. It founded hospitals and the nursing profession. And all of these are just the outer husk of Christ’s work – the consequences of the gospel changing the hearts of a significant proportion of villages, towns, cities and nations.

Jesus remains in control of his world-wide mission, which is to harvest from the generations that follow one upon another, people for his kingdom. People who will respond to him in faith. As he gathers up his people, he leaves the evidence of his grace and his righteousness imprinted on every culture – so they are responsible – even as the slide back into idolatry and the worship of man. Jesus said he will build his church and the gates of hell will not hold it out.

When you are called to Christ, you are called to the repair of your broken life so that you can be a living tool, a polished instrument in his hand to accomplish powerful things under his supervision, teaching and influence. You are being called into a big thing, greater far than just you and more noble and influential than your plans for yourself.