Living Waters Church | October 5, 2025
Acts 1.1-11
Watch or listen here.
Imagine you’re not sitting where you are now or when you are now. Imagine instead you’re living toward the end of the first century in small city connected to shipping routes on the Mediterranean Sea. You’ve gathered with a few others in your town, maybe fifty or so, for an exciting occasion. You meet in the largest space among you, the home of a wealthy businesswoman who’s offered to host. A few in the group make sure there’s a meal for everyone to enjoy, for which you’re grateful, not having much to offer yourself. Once the meal is over, a song or two is sung, along with a few prayers shared. Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for comes as one of the elders stands to speak:
“Brothers and sisters, it’s always good to gather, but today is special. A few of you will remember when the good news first came here, bringing us together under roofs like these for many years now. We’ve all come from different walks of life, previously divided in dozens of ways, but united now under one name and in one Spirit.” Heads nod, a few amens are muttered, the fellow continues, “Today, we get to hear more about how the good news has been spreading, just as it spread to us. We’re fortunate to have some new scrolls with us, and we’ll of course be making copies, grateful to those who’ve made that possible through generous gifts. Each of us have suffered because of the good news and so we hope the words we hear today remind us not only the hope we have in our Lord Jesus, not only of the power at work in us by the Holy Spirit, but also that we don’t stand or suffer alone.”
An air of expectation along with a sense of love and unity fills the already crowded room. The speaker goes on: “Brother Tim has risked much to be with us today and will share these new scrolls, and will also help us understand what’s unclear at first reading. It’ll take about three hours to read the scrolls. Of course, we’ll have a short break in the middle, which sister Claudia, our generous host, has recently coined Community Time. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? With that, and with much gratitude, we welcome brother Tim to read for us now.”
An ordinary, even somewhat unimpressive looking man stands up and walks to a pedestal. As he opens the scroll he takes a breath and straightens his back with a noticeable resolve. But for the coos of baby or two, a silence settles over the room as he begins to read.
Reading: Acts 1.1-11
That’s how the book of Acts begins. It’s what we call a prologue.Think of the large rolling yellow letters on screen at the beginning of Star Wars telling you what’s been happening in a galaxy far, far away. Or if you’re into Lord of the Rings, think of Galadriel’s voiceover, catching you up on the history of Middle Earth before you’re introduced to life in the Shire. A prologue serves to orient the listener, not only to what’s already happened, but as a hint of what’s to come.
Last week, Rikk Watts shared an introduction to the book of Acts, and if you missed it take a listen as we’re making our way through the first few chapters of Acts over the next couple of months. As a refresher, here are some key things to remember about the book. First, it’s written by the same guy who wrote Luke’s gospel. Acts is a sequel, but unlike Luke’s gospel, Acts isn’t a biography, nor is it a complete overview of early church history, but a curation of various events following Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Acts is about the person and message of Jesus continuing to spread through our world. As other have noted, though it’s technically titled “The Acts of the Apostles” it might be more accurately labelled, “The Acts of Jesus through his Spirit”. Jesus is no less present in the book of Acts than he is in the Gospels, and in some ways more present. Jesus is still the main character, he is simply alive and working by his Spirit through the lives of those sent and sharing his gospel, first, through the disciples we’ve already met in the gospels, and later folks like Stephen, Barnabas, Lydia (the first convert in Europe) and of course Paul.
Acts is informative, exciting, even entertaining. And, as with any well written book, Acts has main themes, and makes points we’re meant to wrestle with. Acts is about the movement of the gospel, the hope it brings, and the confrontation it often creates wherever it goes. There are many moments in Acts with which we can identify, because Acts is the story of how the good news of Jesus shook up our world. The gospel broke ground back then, and it’s still breaking ground today. So how does Acts start? What did we hear in that prologue?
1.1-3
“In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach” The first question we face is who wrote Acts, and who did they write it for? The author, Luke, is a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. “In my former book…”, here, Luke is referring to his previous biography of Jesus (what we now call the Gospel of Luke), and the similarities of writing style and themes are clear in both books. The second part of the question is harder to answer. We don’t know much about Theophilus, other than he is likely the book’s sponsor, meaning he funded the project.
Right off the bat the author starts with a brief but crucial review. Luke’s motivation for writing Acts is the same motivation for writing his gospel: Jesus. And he wants those hearing his sequel to be clear on a few things now in the rear-view mirror. We hear a reference to Jesus’ suffering (an important theme in Acts), we hear of the convincing proofs of Jesus’ resurrection. And we hear about Jesus’ instruction which happened “in the Holy Spirit”. Right away we can take note: Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not disconnected (more about this in a moment). And after Jesus’ resurrection we hear he continued to speak about the kingdom of God.
1.4-5
“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” At this point Luke moves from Jesus’ general appearances after his resurrection over the course of those forty days, to one particular moment over a meal and a command. That’s a word we might not feel too comfortable with these days, but we should pay attention to it here, especially because of who said it. What does Luke see as important to recall for us in these first words of Acts? Of all that Jesus said and did after his resurrection, what does Luke choose to single out?
Jesus tells his disciples is to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the long-promised gift – the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ cousin John had baptized people in water, preparing the way for Jesus, and now Jesus will make way for the immense and overwhelming promise of his Spirit. In the gospels, God has been touchable and knowable in Jesus, a person in a room, on a hillside, in a boat, on a cross, around a table over a meal even after his resurrection. But things are about to change again, because just as John baptized in water, Jesus tells his disciples to expect a baptism when the Holy Spirit is sent to them.
“Baptized with the Holy Spirit” is a phrase carrying a good deal of meanings to many. Here, in Acts 1, is where we first hear that language, and as scholars like our friend Rikk will point out, the word “baptism” is less a calm or serene word in the original language, but a word full of power. We’re not talking about a spritz or a trickle. Baptism conveys something closer to a deluge or a tsunami of the Spirit, into which Jesus’ disciples will be fully emersed. The arrival of the Spirit will make waves and fuel everything to come next, which we’ll soon see in the narrative – a wave of the Spirit of Jesus flooding Jerusalem which creates such a commotion it demands explanation because all manner of people will be attracted. Safe to say Jesus’ disciples didn’t know exactly what was to come, he just tells them to wait. They couldn’t move until God’s Spirit moved first. Says Jesus himself, the long-promised Spirit is coming!
1.6-8
Sensing how important this seemed, the disciples ask Jesus a question, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” In the gospels, Jesus doesn’t always answer his disciples’ questions directly. And that’s not because he’s trying to evade their questions, but because they’re often not asking the write kinds of questions to begin with. So Jesus tends to responds with answers to questions his disciples aren’t asking. Something like this is happening here. The disciples ask about Israel’s restoration, and they may still be imagining Jesus is going to finally solve all their people’s problems, where they can throw off their oppressors, the kingdom of God that they have in mind landing in their lifetime. What’s Jesus response?
First, whatever a restoration will mean, whatever a final coming of God’s kingdom will look like, it’s clearly beyond what Jesus’ disciples are imagining. A restoration will not meet their expectations; it will change and exceed their expectations. Also, their questions of when, a timeline, is something Jesus says is not for them to know. This is where we might feel a connection with the disciples, “Lord, when are you going to do the final thing we’ve been told to expect? When’s it all coming to a head? Is it now?” We may have just as many questions about the final coming of God’s kingdom, or even assumptions about that kingdom, not least, the question of when. Jesus tells even his first and closest disciples very clearly, a moment Luke sees fit to record, that that information (of when) is simply not for them to know. And we might do well to hear those words echo to us from Jesus today. We’ve got all kinds of questions, sometimes all kinds of speculations and ideas. What’s Jesus’ response to his disciples? You won’t be given a timeline. And if Jesus says that they don’t need to know, they’ll simply need to trust him.
But what does Jesus tell them? “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Jesus speaks about a presence, power and places. The presence of the Spirit will bring power, and this power is given so the disciples can be witnesses to Jesus himself. Notice that. The power will not come so Jesus’ disciples can set up whatever kingdom they’re imagining (material, political or otherwise), but a power to speak about, to bear witness to Jesus. They will be given the capacity to talk about what they have seen and heard. And, here’s a crucial point, this isn’t only something which will happen in Jerusalem, though it will start there, but is meant to go everywhere. Whatever God’s kingdom is, its central figure is Jesus, and the disciples’ job is to point everyone, everywhere to him. Jesus’ disciples ask about their people, Israel, and God’s plans to restore. Jesus’ himself includes the Israelites, but God’s interest is the entire world.
When you read further into Acts, and throughout the letters of the New Testament, this is exactly Paul’s understanding. The kingdom comes through the sharing about Jesus. In other words, God’s kingdom comes by sharing the news about the king. What a note for us to take today. It’s very easy to begin building our ideas of God’s kingdom on earth without God, or with God as a divine sidekick, or to slap God’s name on our stuff. But God is not an application tool wheeled to help implement our ideas. God is a person revealed to us in Jesus. And Jesus’ own disciples, at the very start, are told they would receive power simply to share about him.
Kingdom building, then, is not about building a thing, however good a thing we think that might be. It’s not about building a movement, a set of ideas, or even about building a church. So there’s no kingdom without the king. De-throne him in our hearts, and we might build stuff, but it won’t be God’s kingdom. True kingdom building, at its core is pointing folksto Jesus. That’s how the kingdom comes, all in God’s timing, by directing folks to Jesus himself. Try building God’s kingdom without directing folks to Jesus and we end up spreading merely human movements or ideologies. God’s kingdom starts and ends with God, and as the gospels make clear, Jesus is God made crystal clear. If you want to know what God’s like, look at Jesus.
1.9-11
The end of the prologue is what’s already been covered in Luke gospel, but he covers it again. Jesus is taken up into a cloud, or into what the first century listeners would have thought of as the heavens. Now we tend to get fixated on what exactly this might have looked like, because it sounds dramatic, but as interesting as that might be to us, it’s more important to ask what this might mean. What does it mean that Jesus was taken up into a cloud? This language is connected to expectations in Israel’s ancient scriptures (in places like Daniel 7), and what it means is that Jesus is in the place where God is. After his death and resurrection, Jesus’ ascension is another vindication that he was who he said he was, full of authority, God with us for a time. Luke follows this with what appears to be an angelic visitation, but the figures simply ask the disciples why they’re stood around looking up. What did you expect, they ask? And they add, as Luke makes sure his readers hear, that the disciples should expect a return. Just as surely as Jesus came and went, he will return again.
Summing Up
There’s a lot going on in this prologue isn’t there? What’s coming across? Imagine again that you live toward the end of the first century in that port city. Imagine sitting in that house and listening to the words from that scroll. You’ve trusted the strange but powerful message of Jesus, and you’re doing your best to be faithful to Jesus and to love your sisters and brothers as a result. But the future feels pretty uncertain. What do you hear in these first few lines of Acts?
First, you hear to keep trusting the evidence about Jesus. Very clearly you hear to keep banking on Jesus because everything is grounded in him – his life, his death, his life again. You also hear of Jesus’ clear instruction to wait for the Holy Spirit, and that sounds important, right from the start. The Holy Spirit was sent on Jesus’ first disciples, and not just a trickle, but a torrent. You hear about power. But for what? Power to share about Jesus himself, because you’ve learned to trust him, and others can too. You hear that Jesus is for everyone.
Still, even with placing your trust in Jesus, and exciting as it is to belong to this new, special community, the future is unclear and often unnerving, even with Jesus return in mind. This stirs up all kinds of questions– when, where, how, exactly? And it’s not as if life’s easier with Jesus, you’ve already suffered and sacrificed by taking this path. But you also hear in these first words in Acts, that Jesus himself told his very first disciples that there’s things they’re meant to focus on and other things they aren’t meant to know. The power Jesus says they should have, they’ll have, and they can bank on his return. You also have the choice to trust Jesus with what to focus on, and what to leave in his hands – things like your future.
So, in the meantime, maybe as a group you think about a few things. Maybe you decide that, according to Jesus himself, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit seems pretty darn important. Maybe you talk about ways to wait yourselves, to ensure your reliance on the Spirit as a community, and not merely on your own methods or ideas. Maybe you sleep a little better, because you remember Jesus’ words not to worry about how or when exactly the kingdom will fully arrive. Maybe you focus less on the uncertainly of when and how, and fixate more on trusting the who. Maybe you talk about how the message about Jesus is now in your hands, and it’s meant to be in other’s hands too, all kinds of people, all people. And so you discuss ways to ensure there’s always room at the tables you set.
Sitting there, all crammed in together, listening to the stories from the scrolls, maybe you’ve got more questions than answers, but what you’re trusting, what you can sense in the depth of your being, is that you have Jesus. And now, you can sense the power of his Spirit among you as you eat and laugh and learn and pray and care for one another. To be honest, you shouldn’t belong together, at least a dozen different things divide you, and yet here you are, gathered in and under Jesus’ name, unified by the power of his Spirit. What other name could bring you all together, from every walk of life? What other Spirit could unite, strengthen and embolden you? Only Jesus name, and only his Holy Spirit with you now. And not only for your group in that house gathering in the first century, but for all the other towns and villages in places you’ll never go and people you’ll never meet, “to the ends of the earth…”. Eventually, to a room in Fort Langley, British Columbia.
Luke Knight 