Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Next Act - The sequel, the next season, The Follow-On

Stranger Things - is in Season 4

For All Mankind - is in Season 3

Recap - For shows like this or some movies that are sequels there is some type of recap.

Let’s the viewer know where they have been what has brought them to this point

Connection - There is some tie-in, alignment with the previous season or movie and the greater story

We see this in the Book of Acts.

Acts is the follow-on to by Luke of his Gospel, named ‘The Gospel According to Luke’ or as we call it simply ‘Luke’.

Luke writes the Book of acts between AD 61 and AD 64, somewhere in the early 60s.

He also follows the formula that we stated earlier 1.

Luke provides a recap of sorts, then begins to connect the book of Acts to the overall mission.

A mission that is still on-going.

Dealt with All - Hyperbole, meant to get across that nothing concerning the person of Christ is missing.

Jesus is who Luke portrayed in His Gospel.

Jesus Began - The word began is key here, and is part of the recap.

Luke is noting that Jesus’ work is not done.

What Jesus began he will continue.

Do and Teach - His ministry.

What did Jesus do and What did Jesus teach and Why.

What the early church said and did was rooted in and connected to activity in which the risen Jesus was involved.

Darrell L. Bock, Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 53.To speak of the Kingdom of God.

Day When He was Taken Up - The Day of Jesus’s Ascension, which occurs shortly directly after this passage.

Luke is talking about activities that happen before the ascension of Jesus which points back to what he mentioned at the end of his penned Gospel (Luke 24:50-53).

That Jesus ascended to the heaven.

Given Commands - Prior to the he had given commands to the apostles that He chose, we continue to see Jesus working.

Those men that he sowed into he is not commanding, and He is giving those commands through the Holy Spirit.

We have seen some of those commands in the previous messages in this series.

The Risen Jesus Speaks with Peter, where Jesus restores Peter telling him to Feed His sheep, to care for and look after His sheep (John 21:15-25)

We also saw this with Jesus’ Charge to the Disciples, where we get the Great Commission.

(Matt 28:16-20)

So Jesus was not done, Jesus was still working making sure that everything was in order.

Holy Spirit - The Holy Spirit figures prominently in the Book of Acts, Luke is setting us up for what we will see throughout the book, starting at Pentecost, with the Spirit Falling on the disciples, then those in Samaria, then Gentiles, and some others.

Luke makes mention of His suffering, but make no doubt this is about Jesus being hung on a tree as an innocent, who pays the penalty for sin that none of us could pay.

After this Jesus presented Himself, Jesus among the living.

Paul captures the same thing in a concise list in 1 Cor 15.

Many Proofs - To make sure that this was received correctly Luke says that I have receipts.

Many Proofs

Proof

τεκμήριον (tekmḗrion) - that which causes something to be known in a convincing and decisive manner, proof

William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 994.

Jesus was not just a figment of someones imagination, or some hypnosis, or some vision.

Jesus is alive.

This is important as we will see in a bit.

There were things that Jesus did, things that people saw, reactions that people had to ensure you and me that this Jesus is no longer in the grave, but that He is alive.

Staying With Them - Staying With them, can be translated eating with them.

When Luke mentions that Jesus appeared to the Apostles over 40 days, this is not a continuous month and 10 days.

Rather throughout this time Jesus would come to the apostles and sometime eat with them as we have seen on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias or as Luke mentions at the end of His Gospel.

Jesus gave them commands when He stayed with them.

At some point prior to His ascension Jesus told the Apostles to remain in Jerusalem.

This was to wait on the Promise of the Father.

Promise of the Father - What is the promise of the Father that they are waiting on, from the next verse we can tell that it is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus made it clear that in order for the other helper to come that He had to leave, and Jesus had not left yet.

We see this in the teachings of Jesus in John 14-16, where he gives a number of teaching of

the helping of the Holy Spirit,

the Teaching of the Holy Spirit (John 14),

the witness of the Holy Spirit about Jesus (John 15),

the convicting of the Holy spirit and

the guidance of the Holy Spirit (guide you into all truth) (John 16).

Baptism is a transliteration from the Greek work baptidzo, which means to dip or submerge.

This is also used when talking about the soldiers dipping the tips of their arrows into poison.

There are two baptisms there is one of John.

Which is a baptism of repentance.

A baptism that makes way to receive the Lord.

Luke records this in Acts 19.

The instrument of this baptism, as Jesus points out, is water.

‘for John baptized with water’.

Note the tense this was already done, but you, Jesus says you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, future tense.

For you the instrument is the Spirit of God.

We also see this in Acts 19.

This baptism is for salvation and judgment.

Indicates the salvation of one who believes on Christ and that they are no longer under the judgment of the world.

They are now in Christ and their sins have been forgiven.

So When they had come together - Luke is getting to the connection here.

This is a time when Jesus and His apostles are together right before His ascension.

This is not like any other time over the past 40 days where they have gotten together.

This is the last time like this where the apostles and Jesus will e together.

Lord will you - Their question is almost like a what’s next, what happens now.

We understand what the Scripture says about the restoration of Israel, is this it, is this the time, what happens now.

This is not out of the ordinary for someone expecting the Messiah to come.

The one who will rule rightly over Israel as the Father intended.

Jesus is this Messiah, the Christ.

So this would seem to be a natural question.

Jesus’ reply is not one of frustration or flat out rejection.

It is rather a response of consideration and change of focus.

Jesus starts with the sovereignty and providence of the Father.

Some persons do not allow for God to be God.

We can forget that this same God we serve spoke into a void, where nothing existed and time, matter and energy came to be.

GPS satellites track this value called absolute GPS Time.

Which is the number of seconds from the first GPS constellation being on in orbit.

This is the number of seconds from Jan 6, 1980 until now.

When you think of the number of seconds in a day, 86400, to the number of seconds in a week 604800 and 52 weeks a year going on 42+ years now.

We would think of that as a lot of seconds.

Well the LORD God has been tracking this since he said ‘Let there be light’ roughly 8 thousand years ago.

So who really owns times, who set the stars and gave us seasons.

How much should we concern ourselves with those things as opposed to a God who loves us and provides for us and keeps us.

A God who has defeated death for us, reconciled us to himself and allowed us to become part of the love fest that is going on in the Godhead.

Jesus notes that you (the apostles) are not to concern yourself with these things, dates the Father sets, times the Father has ordained by His authority.

Your concern is to do as commanded until I return.

We need to be about our Father’s business.