Claude T. Stauffer :: Praying for the Promise – Acts 1

The Spirit Acts

Praying for the Promise – Acts 1

Our objective in our study of the Book of Acts is:

The Spirit of God using the word of God to make people of God and change the people of God into Spirit-empowered, effective, edifying, disciples of Jesus Christ.

The gospels speak of a baptism with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:16). Jesus said it was to the disciples’ advantage that He departs so that the Holy Spirit would be sent to them (John 16:7).

• Acts 1:1 – “The former account I made,…”

The former account is the Gospel of Luke.

• Acts 1:1 – “O Theophilus,…”

“Theophilus” means “friend of God. Some think this was an actual individual, others that it is a literary device to address a broader audience of God followers.

• Acts 1:1-2 – ¹ “…of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, ² until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,”

The Gospel of Luke contains the teachings of Jesus until He ascended to heaven.

Jesus did what He did through the Spirit. The Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. Jesus is an example of ministering in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

• Acts 1:3 – “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”

The “infallible proofs” were in part the eyewitness testimonies of those who saw Jesus post-resurrection appearances. (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-10).

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

• Acts 1:4-5 – ⁴ And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; ⁵ for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is something we need according to Jesus. According to Jesus, the disciples, nor should we, move forward without it.

• Acts 1:6-7 – ⁶ “Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”

We should learn from the disciples and not be distracted from this important baptism with the Holy Spirit. So important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit that not even questions of Jesus’ return should take priority over it. Prophecy and End Times issues are important, but not as important as being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

• Acts 1:8 – “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

What is the baptism with the Holy Spirit?

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is an empowerment. “Power” (Greek dunamis) means the power to do. We get the words “dynamite” and “dynamic” from this Greek word.

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is giving ourselves entirely to the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was the Spirit coming “upon” (Greek epi) us, enveloping us. Being submerged in the Spirit. But it isn’t that we are getting more of the Holy Spirit, it’s that the Holy Spirit is getting more, all, of us.

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is primarily an empowerment to witness. Jesus commissions all Christians to share their faith. The baptism with the Holy Spirit enables us to do that.

The nature of the Spirit’s empowerment is:

1. A loving burden for the lost, that they might be saved from their sins – John 3:16; Romans 5:5; Romans 9:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:14-16.
2. A readiness to give a reason for the hope that is in us – 1 Peter 3:15-17
3. A Book of Acts life.

The Ascension and Promised Return (Mark 16:19-20; Luke 24:50-53).

• Acts 1:9-11 – ⁹ Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, ¹¹ who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

What significance does the ascension of Jesus have in our lives? We should witness and serve with an expectation that Jesus could return today. Someone has said, “We ought to be living as if Jesus died yesterday, rose this morning, and is coming back this afternoon.”

Waiting for the Promised Baptism with the Holy Spirit

• Acts 1:12-13 – ¹² Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey. ¹³ And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James.

The disciples obeyed. They waited prayerfully for the baptism with the Holy Spirit according to Jesus’ command.

• Acts 1:14 – These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

That they “continued” tells us that persisted and kept on in their prayers for the Promise of the Father.

That they were, “with one accord,” tells us they were united in heart and purpose for the Promise of the Father. The desire to be baptized with the Holy Spirit should unite us in prayer.

E.M. Bounds who wrote numerous books on prayer said this about prayer:

Prayer is no petty invention of man, a fancied relief for fancied ills. Prayer is no dreary performance, dead and death-dealing, but is God’s enabling act for man, living and life-giving, joy and joy-giving. Prayer is the contact of a living soul with God. In prayer God stoops to kiss man, to bless man, and to aid man in everything that God can devise or man can need. Prayer fills man’s emptiness with God’s fullness. It fills man’s poverty with God’s riches. It puts away man’s weakness with God’s strength. It banishes man’s littleness with God’s greatness. Prayer is God’s plan to supply man’s great and continuous need with God’s great and continuous abundance…Men are never nearer Heaven, nearer God, never more God-like, never in deeper sympathy and truer partnership with Jesus Christ, than when praying.⁹

John Bunyan is quoted as saying, “You can do more than pray after you’ve prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”

C.H. Spurgeon, a well known English preacher said this about prayer:

Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before Him with this reasonable request: ‘Do as Thou hadst said.’ The Creator will not cheat His creature who depends upon His truth; and, far more, the Heavenly Father will not break His word to His own child.¹⁰

Again quoting from E. M. Bounds, he states:

When God’s promise and man’s praying are united by faith, then ‘nothing shall be impossible…The possibility of prayer is the measure of God’s ability to do…Prayer is asking God for something, and for something which He has promised. Prayer is using divinely appointed means for obtaining what we need and for accomplishing what God proposes to do on earth…Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what He has promised us He will do it we ask Him…Defeat awaits a non-praying church. Success is sure to follow a church given to much prayer. The supernatural element in the church, without which it must fail, comes only through prayer…As often as God manifested His power in Scriptural times in working wonders through prayer, He has not left Himself without witness in modern times. Prayer brings the Holy Spirit upon men today in answer to importunate, continued prayer just as it did before Pentecost. The wonders of prayer have not ceased.¹¹

We need to fervently pray for the empowerment of the Spirit.

Notice also, this is the last mention of “Mary” in the New Testament. Mary was a Godly mother and a follower of Jesus. When we depend on ourselves and not the Spirit, we drift into false teachings like elevating Mary to a height and religious position equal to Jesus. That is blasphemous. When we are led by the Spirit we exalt Jesus and adhere to His word.

Loose Ends and leaving Nothing to Chance

• Acts 1:15-17 – ¹⁵ And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, ¹⁶ “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; ¹⁷ for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.”

These verses attest to the inspiration of the Old Testament.

• Acts 1:18-19 – ¹⁸…(Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Judas turned his back on Jesus and the Holy Spirit and took his own life. Life without Jesus is destructive.

• Acts 1:20 – “For it is written in the Book of Psalms:
  
  ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate,
  And let no one live in it’;
  and,
  ‘Let another take his office.’

These early disciples of Jesus had been taught by Jesus to live by Scripture. That is what we see them doing here. That is what we should also do.

• Acts 1:21-26 – ²¹ “Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” ²³ And they proposed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴ And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen ²⁵ to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” ²⁶ And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

The casting of lots was an Old Testament practice. It is the last time we hear of such a practice in the New Testament. In Acts the Holy Spirit guides from Pentecost onward. We are not to cast lots or flip a coin to determine God’s will for us.

Some speculate this was the incorrect choice for a replacement for Judas. They say Paul should have been the choice. But Paul was not saved at this point. And nowhere is Matthias censured or discounted. Beyond Peter, James, and John, the other original apostles aren’t mentioned either. What was done here by the early disciples was done to the best of their knowledge at the time. Soon they would discover a better way to determine God’s will.

These last verses of Acts 1 are no excuse or support for gambling. Gambling or casting lots to determine fate or God’s will is not how faith should be lived out for the Christian. We should not live fatalistically with a haphazard attitude of “Oh well, God will figure it out.” We should learn from the Book of Acts how to live in the Spirit.

What to Look Forward To

• Luke 11:13 – “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

We are individuals and our relationship with the Holy Spirit is personal. We should not seek out a cookie-cutter like experience with the Holy Spirit. Each person will have his or her own experience with the Holy Spirit. But above all, we should seek to have an experience, a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

The important thing to remember in all our interactions with the Holy Spirit (e.g., “with,” “in,” or, “upon) is that, IT IS NOT A MATTER OF YOU GETTING MORE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. IT IS A MATTER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT GETTING MORE OF YOU!

Oswald Chambers who wrote the classic work My Utmost for His Highest, died at a very young age. Despite his early departure to be with the Lord, he was able to greatly impact the word for Jesus Christ. How was he able to do that? Chambers had a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Read what he said about the Holy Spirit:

The Holy [Spirit] makes Jesus Christ both present and real. He is the most real Being on earth, closer is He than breathing, and nearer that hands and feet…The Holy Spirit alone makes Jesus real, the Holy Spirit alone expounds the cross, the Holy Spirit alone convicts of sin; the Holy Spirit alone does in us what Jesus did for us. (Oswald Chambers in Biblical Ethics, p. 98-99.)

The mark of the Holy Spirit in a man’s life is that he has gone to his own funeral and the thought of himself never enters. (Oswald Chambers in Disciples Indeed, p. 24.)

The Holy Spirit is a real Person with Whom we can have a very real personal relationship. The Book of Acts depicts just how real and awesome that relationship can be.

9 E. M. Bounds, The Reality of Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978 reprint of 1924 edition) p. 22-23

10 Quoted by E. M. Bounds in Possibilities of Prayer (Grand Rapids MIL Baker Book House, 1979 edition of 1923 issue) p. 24

11 E. M. Bounds, Ibid. pages 44, 63, 125, 126, 136, 137, 138