Daily Thoughts from Acts: Power to Be Witnesses (Acts 1:4-8)

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; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

   So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 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.”  (Acts 1:4-8 ESV)

Verse three says Jesus had been talking to his disciples about the kingdom of God.  In the Old Testament one clear teaching about the kingdom of God is the promise of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all Israel.  Jesus now tells his disciples that they are to stay in Jerusalem and wait for this.  He calls this outpouring the promise of the Father and says it is the same thing John the Baptist described during his teaching, a baptism in the Spirit.

The disciples cannot then be expected to do anything less than ask if this is the time the kingdom is going to be restored to Israel.  And by this they mean all those prophecies about Israel being the supreme nation on earth to which all the other nations submit and come to learn about God.  But Jesus does not tell them a time saying that resides solely with the Father’s discretion.

Their job, Jesus says, and therefore, our job, is to be Jesus’ witnesses for as long as he stays away and until the kingdom comes.  But here with us, in Jesus’ place, is the Holy Spirit who will endow us with power to do this job.  And it cannot be kept to Jerusalem but must reach to every nation on earth.  So the message John, and Jesus, and His disciples preached is ours too: the kingdom is coming, you’d better repent in anticipation and so be saved from the judgment coming with it.  Jesus is the only way.

And if we are to think about what we need power for through the Holy Spirit when we’re presenting this message, it could be summed up this way:

• Power in us to lead the kind of lives that will complement our message and power to be bold in our witness (Acts 4:31)
• Power in the lives of those to whom we are giving witness that their hearts may be opened to the gospel (Acts 16:14)

If we are experiencing that kind of power from the Holy Spirit it is a forgone conclusion that the influence of the gospel will spread, from our own place of residence, to the outlying areas of friendliness and cultural similarity (Judea) and unfriendliness and dissimilarity (Samaria), and even the outermost reaches of our world.

Where are you seeking the Spirit’s power to share your faith?