Easter...Now What? (Acts 1.3-8)

This sermon was preached on April 27th, 2025.

3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 And 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; 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 asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 

Last week we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The most significant moment in human history—the hinge on which everything else turns. A moment when a grace beyond the sin and death of our world broke in to explode new life to us. 

The resurrection of Jesus wasn’t just a time for God to prove his power. It was a sign to us of what God is doing in this fallen world: He is a God who brings life to dead places, and he will not allow sin and its effects and the brokenness and wrong of this world to have the final word. No, he will wrestle it toward his purposes. 

We life in the aftermath of this victory, when the benefits of everything Jesus won for us is being applied—one person at a time. And as followers of Jesus, as disciples, we have a calling in the here and now to be a community defined by the victory of Jesus and to be emissaries and representatives of Jesus…or, even better, to be the body of Christ in this world. 

It’s a huge calling. Even when its a calling we live out in small places. It’s something that is worth giving our lives to. Which of course leads us to the question of how. How do we live out this calling to be this community? 

1. It’s not enough to be right.

In this passage the apostles are gathered with Jesus and it’s the exciting days after his resurrection. He’s appearing to people. And for 40 days they get a front row seat to the very best teaching: Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God. 

This is the gold standard of training, right? Jesus himself, the risen and victorious king of God’s kingdom teaching them what his kingdom is all about. But then he orders them to do something that may be surprising to us: v4: Do not leave Jerusalem BUT Wait.  This is a bit surprising. 

Why wait? The need is there. The call is there. Jesus has taught and trained them. Wait? This feels like a coach giving his team a halftime speech, then telling them to stay in the locker room. 

He tells them to wait because It Is Not Enough to be Right

The disciples are getting 100% true information here. But having true information is not enough in living out this mission that Jesus has for them. It’s easy for us to treat things like that though. That in the church that if we have everything structured just right. Or in our personal lives, some people can chase after theological knowledge or bible knowledge like if we just accumulate enough truth, then everything else is kind of set to go. Maybe if we’re right enough then everything else will take care of itself. But that’s not how it goes. Following the resurrected Jesus is not a matter of just learning more truths. 

Jesus makes this clear in verse 7, after they ask about when Jesus will restore the kingdom; ““It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority

Jesus doesn’t say that the knowledge of the timing is unavailable. He says that it’s not for them. How great would that be for planning? But it’s not for them to know—because following Jesus in this world is not about knowing the most stuff. 

I wish it was. I wish that I could make change happen in this world or in my own heart by collecting the most facts; like a spiritual trivial pursuit, where if we can just memorize enough Bible or read another theology book that then I could be a great witness for Jesus. But it’s not enough to be ‘right.’ 

2. It’s not enough to have good intentions.

So Jesus has been teaching them about the kingdom of God, and now he says to wait; because the Father is going to send the Holy Spirit to them. 

At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced what we could call his mission statement. And he said this: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus is telling the apostles that they will receive the same Holy Spirit to them that empowered Jesus to do all of this. That now they will be anointed and set apart like Jesus was, to proclaim that things have been made right through Jesus!

They get excited. And they ask Jesus in verse 6: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”; They ask this question because they know that God’s Holy Spirit means life in this world of chaos and emptiness—and God’s kingdom means justice and peace. And they long for this. So, they’re asking Jesus—who has conquered death in his resurrection…since you’re sending us the holy Spirit, does this mean that justice going to happen now? Will you be making all things right now?  These are the best of good intentions! But the kind of change that needs to happen in our hearts and in our world cannot happen through our good intentions. 

I really wish we could bring about change just by getting our motivations right. That if we had enough compassion, or enough love—that then we would see the change we want to see. And we think that about our intimacy with God. If we only loved God enough, we’d really grow as Christians and not struggle with sin any more. 

But that’s a deadly lie. It’s a mindset that leads to hiding. Because if we’re convinced that the real source of our frustration is that we’re just not loving enough, then we will cover up and hide behind masks of false love—afraid that others will know that we don’t really always have the best intentions. Or we’ll look down our noses at others who think aren’t as plugged in as we are into what’s going on in the world. But it isn’t enough to have good intentions

3. It’s not enough to work as hard as you can. 

Before we were moving back to NC I had a session with my therapist and admitted to him that I was scared. We had started praying for a church plant in dunn in 2009. I had gone to seminary and completed seminary, and gotten the training that I thought I needed. And now it was 2018 and we were looking at all of this dreaming becoming an actual reality. 

But I was terrified that I was going to mess it all up. That I wasn’t good enough of a leader or whatever to really do this. And I told him “what if we move back and we’re there a few years and everything just falls apart?”

And my therapist said something that set me free. He said “Tim, did you know that you can do everything right and it still fall apart? And that if that does happen, that God still delights in you? You just described the ministry of Jesus. 3 years and at the end of those 3 years he was hanging on a cross, abandoned by all the thousands that had followed him? And he was vindicated by God in his resurrection. And the smiles of God are yours.”

In was in that moment that I was set free from thinking that all of this would be dependent on me working as hard as I can. And I think the apostles in Acts 1 were set free too, with the words of Jesus in v8: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…” 

The mission that Jesus has for his disciples is no small thing. And it’s too big for them, whether it’s the 11 apostles gathered here, the 3,000 people that are added to the church in Acts 2, or the 2.2 billion people in the world that claim to be Christians today. 

Trying to do God’s mission with our own power is like trying to run a marathon with sewer water in our water bottles. 

We think that if we can just work harder—really work that everything will be as its should. If there were only more hours in the day, or if we were only more organized or had more energy. That we can figure out the right formula and have the maximum impact in the world

But that’s a deadly lie. We run out of steam. We burn out. We waste away. Fatigue sets in. We wind up spinning our tires, stuck in a rut, sometimes embittered. We cannot do it all. And we aren’t intended to. God doesn’t ask us to repent for being limited. Our hard work is not enough.

Because the kind of change that needs to happen in this world can only happen through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It’s not enough to be right. It’s not enough to have good intentions. It’s not enough to work hard. But it is enough to depend on Jesus. 

4. It is enough to depend upon Jesus

God doesn’t just give us a good mission and some good ideas about how to do it. When it comes to living our lives in this calling, God gives us himself. The work that began with Jesus continues through the Holy Spirit. The God who so loved the world that He gave his only Son, continues to give in his life-giving, empower presence with us. 

And we small women and men and boys and girls; sinful, rebellious, selfish, weak, and limited; we’re swept up into the life of God. To find him as our source of life/flourishing/thriving in this world. That’s what it means for us to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. It means that we are filled and claimed by God and we receive the power to walk in the resurrection of Jesus. And that is enough. 

Our knowledge is important! Our motivations are important! Putting our energy toward the task of valuing what God values in the way we live our lives is important! But those are fruits of the Holy Spirit, not the root. Not the source. The source that transforms our minds, hearts, and wills God’s empowering presence in his Holy Spirit. We need not fear our limitations—as individuals or as a church. Because it’s not about how impressive or resourced or motivated or smart we are. It’s all about Jesus. 

And so we devote ourselves to the study of the Word and to prayer. And we pray with confidence and trust God with the results. You can’t change your own heart and you certainly can’t change anyone else’s. But he can. And he does. And he will. 

We resist the temptation to make idols out of knowing more stuff or doing more stuff or feeling more stuff. And we walk with Jesus and commend to others Jesus. We don’t just speak words or try to win people over with our good intentions or our hard work—we recognize that the living Jesus is present with us and present in our community and so we invite others not to just believe some truths but to embrace this Savior and all that will mean.

A lot of this is scary, because it means that what we need to live lives defined by the resurrection and victory of Jesus is out of our hands, in a sense. It’s rather, us surrendering to the God who loves us and being filled up in our emptiness by Him. 

I want to leave us with words that Larry Hine, who was Brennan Manning’s spiritual director, spoke over him in his ordination service: 

May all of your expectations be frustrated,      

May all of your plans be thwarted,      

May all of your desires be withered into nothingness,      

That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child, 

and can sing and dance in the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.