6/5/22 Acts 1:1-11 “Always Look Up!”

03 Jun 6/5/22 Acts 1:1-11 “Always Look Up!”

6/5/22    Acts 1:1-11             “Always Look Up!”

Every once in a while, I have had the honor of officiating a wedding.  I love these kinds of events where we all get together and have a celebration.  I remember once when the couple’s daughter came up to me at the reception and she was all excited.  She is about a 1^st grader and she was excited as only a 1^st grader could be.  She couldn’t hold it in any more as she shouted across the table, “Pastor John, Pastor John, when does the party begin?”  I thought it was great because I don’t think that pastors get asked that question very often.  For some strange reason, this made me think of our passage today.  Things had really been happening around the disciples and it seemed that the party was really roaring now as Jesus was with them once again.  But as quickly as it had all started, it would now seem that the party was over as Jesus ascends back to heaven.  The party was now over or was it?  Maybe it was just beginning.  Last week we had Ascension Day.  As important as all the other things that Jesus did, this is just as important.  This is kind of like the cherry on top of a fancy ice cream sundae.  This further proves that Jesus was God and He was right all along.  Today, I would like us to look at some of the instructions that He left for us until He comes back.

Jeff Strite tells the story of a young family.  One night the wife found her husband standing over their infant’s crib.  As she watched him looking down at their very first baby, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: …disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism.  She was touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, and with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband and said, “A penny for your thoughts.” “It’s amazing!” he replied. “I just can’t see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50.”  I think that this type of thing happens a lot as people misunderstand the feelings of others.  On the other side of the coin, it is also true that so many times we miss the very obvious which is right in front of us all the time.  Unfortunately, this happens with Jesus quite a bit.

Acts is the second book written by Luke.  In the book of Luke we see the story of Jesus on this earth.  In Acts we begin with Jesus going back to heaven and the disciples are left standing there looking up.  They are looking at the price of the crib and not the miracle that just happened.  Before we put too much blame on the disciples, we must remember that they really don’t know anything about the Holy Spirit yet.  Jesus has been their main source of the workings of God and He will send the Holy Spirit to them soon.  But for now they are caught looking into the sky.

I think that we get caught looking into the sky also.  There are many reasons for this and one of them is that we don’t acknowledge who is in charge.  We come to church most Sundays and we pay tribute to Jesus in good ways.  I don’t doubt anyone’s sincerity here at Sunday (our) services.  I also don’t doubt your sincerity during the week.  But I do think that you fail in giving credit to Jesus for all that you do.

We talked about this at length last week so I’m only going to touch on it here.  There is nothing that you do that Jesus isn’t involved.  Whether you are planting crops, raising children, building houses, hauling gravel or wiring a house, Jesus is there and helping you.  Jesus is there through the Holy Spirit.  I think that one of the beautiful things about the Holy Spirit is that you cannot get away from Him.  He is everywhere and in everything.  This is something that we should grab onto.  This is the basis of a good life.

The next reason that we get caught looking into the sky is because we fail to embrace the truth.  As a people we do not like what is in the Bible because we don’t like to be told what to do and what not to do.  People who don’t know Jesus think that this is a book of rules and they don’t like rules.  So what happens is that Satan infiltrates our churches and tells us that God didn’t really mean this or He didn’t really mean that.  Instead, He meant that we are to accept all things as truth, everyone has their own truth and everyone will get to heaven.  Now there are many different variations of these themes but generally it is not what is in the Bible.  When we keep doing this for generations, then we soon have school shootings!

We have denominations today who have decided that they will not obey the specific teachings of the Bible.  They argue that the Bible is divinely inspired but it was written by humans.  To me they are saying that the Bible was not divinely inspired.  It was written by humans and is therefore full of errors.  I think that the question that has to be answered is, “Was the Bible divinely inspired or not?”  If it was divinely inspired, it shouldn’t matter if humans wrote it or monkeys wrote it or if horses wrote it.  It is divinely inspired.

This is the argument that denominations, so-called scholars and seminaries use all the time.  It is the one that most Americans buy into.  These people get away with this heresy because they are the experts and we are nothing.  Don’t let these people fool you.  They want us to believe that because the Bible was written by humans, then there has to be mistakes.  I say, and I am right on this, that if God inspires the writings, then they are true.  After all, He did have a donkey talk in the Old Testament.  He can do anything and it is not up to us to decide if what He says is true or not.  We need to embrace the Bible as truth and throw all the rest of this talk out.  You are either for God or against God.  There is no middle ground.  Our modern society wants us to embrace a non-existent middle ground.

Moving on, a lot of our sky gazing comes from the fact that we can do things ourselves.  This is one of those pesky little things that is always coming up.  I know that it is very hard not to think of ourselves as the authors of our lives.  We make the decisions for this and for that.  We are the ones that actually go out and do the physical labor of getting things done.  I could go on and on here.  As I have said many times, this is not our world.  We are only here a very short time.  Then we are off to eternity.  What we do here is very important because we are the hands and feet of Christ.  Someone’s eternal life may rely on you doing the will of God.  He will equip you and you will actually do the work but it is God who sets these things up.  And we should remember to thank God for all things and everything we do.  Praise the Lord!

This is one of those passages that have so much in it that I’m having a hard time getting to the main point but here it is.  The biggest reason that we are looking to the sky is that we don’t know the Holy Spirit.  I’m afraid that to most of us the Holy Spirit is like the crib in our opening story and not the baby which is the real miracle.

The disciples in our passage really know nothing of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is leaving but He had left before as He left them to be crucified.  He told them before He was crucified that He would be back and He came back just like He said.  I love following Jesus because He does just what He says He will do.  We don’t have to worry if we put our total faith in Him.  If you are one of those people who are so concerned about the end times, don’t worry.  Jesus said He was coming back and He will be back.  And until He does, He has sent us the Holy Spirit to be in His place.

Now who is the Holy Spirit?  To begin with, the Holy Spirit is God.  He is part of the triune God.  He is God on the earth and He is God everywhere on the earth.  If we take a close look at John Wesley’s writings, we find that Wesley is referring to the Holy Spirit when he talks of prevenient grace.  He calls this the grace that is everywhere in the world.  If you ask me, this sounds a lot like the Holy Spirit.  The only place where the Holy Spirit isn’t is in our hearts.  He will not be there until you ask Him to be there.  This is why I think that the most important thing that I do is to keep asking you to invite the Holy Spirit to live in your heart.  Confess your sins to Jesus and ask the Holy Spirit to live inside you.  The reason that it is so important is that when you do this, you will actually have God living inside of you.  This should be one of the most exciting things in your life.  You have or you are able to have the one who made the universe, who made all living creatures, who made everything, living inside of you.  You are that special and God loves you that much.

So the most important thing that the Holy Spirit does is that He changes lives.  But that isn’t all He does.  After you become Christian, one of the most important things that you do is pray.  It is the Holy Spirit who helps you to pray.  He knows your thoughts before you know them.  He knows the hurts and dark places that you don’t even know about.  He knows where you need healing and He directs all of this to God.  This is why prayers will not work if the Holy Spirit isn’t inside of you.  If He is there, then He knows all of your needs, even the ones you don’t know about, and He helps you to pray.

Another important part of being a Christian is reading the Scriptures on a daily basis.  I really enjoy reading the Scriptures.  I don’t know what I will learn next but I know that I will learn something.  Those of you who do this know what I mean.  I have read the Bible in its entirety every year for many years.  I know what is coming next.  Sometimes I could almost recite the story to you.  But even though I have read the Bible many times, I always find things that I have never seen before.  Something jumps out at me and I can hardly believe that I had missed it.  This is the Holy Spirit pointing something out to me.  He is revealing the Word of God to me, of all people.  This is why people who don’t know Jesus cannot understand what the Bible is saying.  We have scholars who tell us false things about the Bible because they aren’t Christian and they don’t understand what is being said.  But through the Holy Spirit, a simple man like me can know and understand what God is saying to us.

I’m going to mention a couple of more things the Spirit does.  He shows us the way through life.  We call on Him through prayer and He will help us make some of those difficult decisions.  How many times have you done something that turned out to be the perfect thing to do and you have no idea as to how you thought of it.  It is the Holy Spirit.  If you listen for that idea that pops into your head during your prayer time, it is the Holy Spirit showing you the way to a better life.  Aren’t you glad that He loves you this much?  People who don’t know Jesus, don’t know the Holy Spirit and don’t have this wonderful advantage.

He also teaches us.  Think of all the lessons you learn in life.  He not only reveals things in the Bible but He also reveals life lessons from the world.  He tells us that it is the right thing to do when we help someone.  He tells us if it is the wrong thing to do.  He is our conscious.  He helps us all the time.  This is God with us.  I think that it is so exciting to talk about what the Holy Spirit does.

Now that I have gotten you all excited about the Holy Spirit, I want to tell you the really exciting stuff.  The Holy Spirit helps you to witness to others.  Notice how the Holy Spirit came first and then the witnessing.  You cannot witness without the Holy Spirit.  If you try, you will fail.  Whenever you approach someone to witness, whether it is by example or words or actions, allow the Holy Spirit to go first.  When you work this way, then a seed will be planted.  When this happens you don’t have to worry about what you are going to say or do, the Spirit just takes care of it for you.  As I said, how many times have you said something to someone or done something and you didn’t have a clue where it came from?  Once again, this is the Holy Spirit.  And once again, like we talked about before, give Him the credit for helping you or guiding you or whatever it is He is doing for you.

When the Holy Spirit does things for you, then you will have an exciting life; that is a guarantee.  It is never about us as can be seen in this story about a famous pastor named Alexander Maclaren as told by Jeff Strite.  A skeptic promised that he would attend four Sunday services where Maclaren would be presenting the tenets of Christianity.  The skeptic listened attentively and after the 4^th sermon he presented himself for church membership and received Christ as his Savior.  Pastor Maclaren was excited and he asked the man which of the four sermons helped him most in making this decision.  The former skeptic replied, “Your sermons were a great help but they were not what persuaded me.”  He went on to say that what persuaded him the most was meeting an elderly lady after church one Sunday who was having trouble walking on the ice.  The man helped her and the woman was very grateful.  Then she looked up into his face and said, “I wonder if you know my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is everything in the world to me. I would like you to know Him too.”  Wow!

Jesus ascended into Heaven and we know this for a fact.  He did so many things for us and He still does and will continue to do so far into forever.  We know this for a fact.  He sent us the Holy Spirit to live in us and that is a fact.  He did all of these things because He has a love for you that is far beyond our comprehension.  This too is a fact.  Any way you look at it, Jesus loves you.  Always look to Him in all you do.  Always look up and praise the Lord. And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.