00:00: So, I was thinking this morning about a trip I took.
00:05: About 25 years ago, shortly after graduating college, I went on a trip for a week to Columbia, South America.
00:14: And I spent a week there on a ministry trip working with some midterm missionaries.
00:20: They were down there for two, three years.
00:22: And they had asked me to come down and do some work with them.
00:25: And while I was there, we went to a grocery store to pick up a couple items, including some milk.
00:31: And one of the folks I was with led me to a regular aisle and grabbed a bag of milk in a pile on the room temperature shelf.
00:43: Now, Columbia is a warm country.
00:46: And I don't know if you've ever tried keeping your milk at room temperature in the summer in Wisconsin, but that is not good.
00:53: That's not where milk belongs.
00:56: Milk doesn't go on the shelf.
00:57: Milk goes in the cooler.
00:59: And I'm thinking, man, I knew there was going to be some health challenges and some, you got to stay safe from some stuff down here, like don't drink the water.
01:07: But I wasn't expecting room temperature milk.
01:11: Well, missionary I was with explained to me, no, no, don't worry.
01:15: It's legitimate.
01:16: They had found a way to treat milk.
01:19: I don't know what they did, a radiation or something.
01:22: But they treated it to make it shelf stable.
01:25: So they could literally leave it right there on the shelf, room temperature, and it was fine for months.
01:32: I couldn't believe it.
01:33: That milk was right where it belonged, even though it didn't seem like it to me at first.
01:39: Now, I love when things don't seem to be where they belong.
01:47: When things seem out of place or odd, especially when I'm reading my Bible, I'm all excited.
01:52: I'm like, ooh, something weird.
01:53: This is going to be good.
01:54: I love weird stuff.
01:55: And I notice in the Bible when things are out of place, that's probably something God is drawing my attention to.
02:02: This morning, as we deal with the second half of Acts chapter 1, I think we've got something similar going on.
02:11: Remember, the first half of Acts 1 was about Jesus, after his resurrection, ascending to heaven, and the disciples being reminded, you need to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come.
02:25: Go back to town.
02:27: Wait for the Holy Spirit.
02:29: Them's your marching orders.
02:30: Chapter 2 is the coming of the Holy Spirit, very much in line with the first half of chapter 1.
02:37: So why does Luke give us half a chapter on this other stuff?
02:43: Why does he take time to talk about the end of Judas and the details about how he was, the money was used and his body's yuck?
02:56: Why does he take time to explain who replaced Judas and how that took place?
03:02: And at first, I was like, well, maybe it's because we need to know this Matthias guy.
03:07: Then I was thinking, like, I don't remember reading anything else about him in the Bible.
03:11: And I double-checked.
03:11: I'm like, no, he shows up here and never again.
03:13: So we're not being introduced to a character for the sake of later in the story.
03:17: And I was scratching my head.
03:19: And then as I studied and I read, I'm like, oh, I get it.
03:25: All right.
03:25: Verses 12, 13, and 14 are the connection to the previous passage.
03:31: They've been told, go back to Jerusalem, wait in town for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
03:34: 12, 13, 14, that's what they're doing, right?
03:37: They're still in Jerusalem.
03:38: They're together.
03:39: And they're waiting.
03:40: They're waiting.
03:42: Then verses 15 and 16, Peter gets up and he's like, hey, I see some stuff in the Bible.
03:47: I see some scripture stuff that applies.
03:49: Let me share that with you.
03:52: Verse 16, he says, brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled.
03:57: So he's looking at the scripture, specifically the Old Testament, and he's saying it had to play out like this.
04:07: And we should ask, well, what scripture did he have in mind?
04:11: Which scripture did Peter understand as speaking to their situation, this decisive moment after the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus?
04:21: Well, he says in verse 20, Psalms.
04:23: He's quoting from the book of Psalms.
04:25: And he quotes actually from two different Psalms.
04:28: If you notice in your print Bible, there's two quotes.
04:31: There's two indents coming from two different Psalms, both written by the Old Testament King David.
04:37: He quotes from Psalm 69 and from Psalm 109.
04:43: And then the rest of the passage is connecting the happenings to those scriptures.
04:49: And the basic structure of verses 16 to 26 is this.
04:52: It's a story, a scripture, a scripture, and a story.
04:57: A story about Judas culminating with the scripture that was fulfilled in what happened to Jesus.
05:04: He's like, here's what happened, and look how it fulfills the Bible.
05:07: Then he reverses it and says, here's a scripture, and now we need to do, in our situation presently, what this is talking about.
05:16: Namely, we need to replace Judas.
05:19: And so it describes how they went about doing that and how Matthias then was the new 12th apostle.
05:26: Okay, fine.
05:31: Well and good to know that scripture was fulfilled.
05:34: Why spend so long making the point?
05:37: Why take so much time distracting us from waiting for the Holy Spirit and the coming of the Holy Spirit?
05:44: Why pull us away from that?
05:47: I don't think he does.
05:49: I don't think that Luke is on a rabbit trail here.
05:52: I think he's right on task where he needs to be.
05:54: Look again at verse 16.
05:56: Brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
06:12: Now, it's common in the New Testament to quote the Old Testament and say, hey, look, this is fulfilled.
06:18: That happens a lot.
06:19: But it's rare to say, hey, look, the Holy Spirit was doing this scripture thing.
06:26: He's drawing our attention to this.
06:29: And he's saying these scriptures written by David came about because the Holy Spirit led David to write these things.
06:38: And it had to play out this way.
06:39: He's continuing absolutely on topic, talking about the Holy Spirit.
06:49: How many of you are familiar with the love chapter in the Bible?
06:52: Love is patient.
06:53: Love is kind.
06:54: Right.
06:54: If you've been to a Christian wedding, you've heard it.
06:57: Right.
06:58: But that chapter has nothing to do with romantic love.
07:02: It has to do with the love of Christians for fellow Christians.
07:05: It's actually kind of funny that we read it at weddings because it's like it's not talking about that.
07:11: It's talking about the kind of love that all of us have for each other.
07:13: And it actually shows up in a seemingly odd place.
07:17: First Corinthians 12 is all about spiritual gifts.
07:19: Then you get the love chapter.
07:22: And then first Corinthians 14 is about spiritual gifts.
07:25: Why did Paul break up his teaching on spiritual gifts with the love chapter?
07:30: He didn't.
07:31: The love chapter is about our motivation in the use of spiritual gifts.
07:37: He's still absolutely on topic there.
07:40: Similarly here, waiting for the Holy Spirit, first half of chapter one.
07:45: Coming of the Holy Spirit, chapter two.
07:47: In between, he's whetting our appetite for the person and work of God's Holy Spirit.
07:56: What in particular is he telling us about the Holy Spirit?
08:00: Verse 16 is key.
08:03: Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas.
08:14: Had to be fulfilled because the Holy Spirit said it.
08:18: If the Holy Spirit says it, it has to happen, right?
08:22: God's spirit doesn't make mistakes.
08:24: He doesn't lie.
08:25: He doesn't change his mind.
08:27: God does not speak wishful thinking through his spirit.
08:31: He does not offer ideas or brainstorming.
08:34: God's word is sure.
08:37: It's absolute.
08:38: It's take it to the bank.
08:40: You can know for sure.
08:42: However, Hebrews chapter six, verse 18 says, it is impossible for God to lie.
08:49: Not only does he not do it, he's not even capable of it.
08:53: You know, we talk about what can God do.
08:54: Well, God can do anything.
08:55: Well, almost anything.
08:57: God can't violate his own character.
09:00: God who is good will never be bad.
09:03: God who is all-knowing will never become forgetful.
09:06: God who is perfectly truthful will never lie.
09:12: It's impossible for that to be the case.
09:15: Well, maybe God didn't lie.
09:18: Maybe he just, you know, kind of changed his mind like we do.
09:22: Well, Numbers chapter 23, verse 19 says, God is not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind.
09:31: Has he said and will he not do it?
09:34: Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?
09:36: Rhetorical questions.
09:38: Saying, God is not like the rest of the people around you.
09:42: You know, at least these ways, people lie.
09:45: People change their mind.
09:47: God doesn't do either of those things.
09:50: In fact, it's crazy to even suppose that God will speak and then not follow through.
09:57: That's what Luke is highlighting for us here.
10:03: If the Spirit said it, it has to happen.
10:06: There will not be one tiny little thing in Scripture that is not perfectly fulfilled where God does not perfectly follow through.
10:15: God's word here in Acts chapter 1 is intended to boost our confidence in God's follow through.
10:22: It is intended to make us bold in our faith that whatever God says to his people, that is, through the Holy Spirit, as God's Spirit led the writers of Scripture to write what they wrote, that we can be absolutely sure God's going to do it.
10:38: He will do everything that he said he will do.
10:41: Everything that he said will happen will happen, even if it takes a thousand years.
10:47: Now, I love saying a thousand years because that's not just metaphorical.
10:51: That is like literally the time frame.
10:53: He's quoting from King David, who lived about a thousand B.C.
10:53: approximately.
10:59: And then it's fulfilled in the era of Judas, early church, a thousand years later.
11:05: So there's this thousand-year gap.
11:08: Nations have risen and fallen in the gap between, and God knows exactly what's going on.
11:14: He says, this is precisely how it's going to go down.
11:18: And Peter's like, it couldn't be any other way.
11:21: It has to be this way.
11:23: God's Spirit is that reliable.
11:26: His purposes cannot be thwarted.
11:29: So the first thing we've got to take from this is, if God says it, bank on it.
11:33: Rely on it.
11:35: Trust your eternal security on it.
11:39: God doesn't make mistakes.
11:40: He doesn't lie.
11:41: He doesn't change his mind.
11:42: Okay, fine.
11:45: But why use Judas and Matthias' stories to make this point?
11:51: Why not just quote Numbers 2319 like I did and say, well, here's the principle.
11:56: I think it's probably because Judas represents the most extreme thing, the most extreme case of things seemingly having gone very, very wrong.
12:06: And that's exactly when it's hard to trust God and his purposes.
12:11: When everything's going great in your life and you're putting God first and things are falling into place like, yay, God's at work.
12:17: Everyone's happy.
12:18: Look at how God's providing.
12:20: Like, we tend to feel that way.
12:21: But when things seem out of control, when things aren't going well, seemingly, when things are going the way that we don't want them to go, that's when we tend to struggle and say, well, what on earth is going on here?
12:33: Where is God in the midst of this?
12:37: And Judas would be the most extreme case of that.
12:41: Judas isn't a random guy.
12:42: Judas is one of the 12 apostles.
12:44: That is, one of the 12 handpicked fellows chosen by Jesus himself to be inner circle disciples, to be apprentices of Jesus, as it were.
13:00: Not only that, but Judas had gotten to spend three and a half years in Jesus's inner circle as part of the entourage, traveling around, seeing Jesus's miracles, being used by Jesus, getting the inside tutoring session.
13:16: He even got assigned by Jesus to be the treasurer of the group.
13:22: And he was stealing from the purse.
13:27: Jesus made the one thief in the group the treasurer.
13:30: That, by the way, is not how we do things here at Faith Chapel.
13:35: We absolutely trust Cheryl to handle the money appropriately.
13:39: Not only that, but towards the end of Jesus's life, Judas is the one who betrays Jesus, sells him out for 30 pieces of silver so that they can arrest him, and then they end up killing him.
13:57: And if that weren't enough, Judas is the one who is literally possessed by Satan when this takes place.
14:04: So, Judas seems like a bad choice, an even worse choice for treasurer, hidden, not-so-good guy, a snake in their midst, ultimately betraying Jesus to his death, literally indwelled by Satan.
14:20: Surely this messed up God's plan.
14:23: No.
14:24: Peter's like, well, this wasn't a mistake.
14:26: This didn't mess things up at all.
14:27: Look, it had to be this way.
14:28: This is what the Holy Spirit told us to expect through David a thousand years ago.
14:33: That it would end like this.
14:34: And it's not just the things that Judas did in his life, but it's even how things worked out in Judas's death that perfectly match what God's Spirit said through David in the Psalms.
14:48: Jesus knew what he was doing.
14:49: John chapter 6, verse 64.
14:51: Jesus said to the crowd, but there are some of you who do not believe.
14:59: Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.
15:06: Jesus knew when he picked Judas that he would be the betrayer.
15:10: He knew that.
15:11: He didn't go along, well, you know, I picked these 12, but Judas isn't showing the promise that I originally thought.
15:15: He's not like a bad NBA draft pick that isn't working out the way he wanted.
15:19: He's like, no, I knew that it was going to go this way.
15:21: This is, he was picked for this role.
15:24: I totally knew what was going on.
15:26: John 17, 12.
15:28: While I was with them, he's praying.
15:31: While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
15:35: I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost.
15:40: The son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled.
15:45: Jesus is preserving of the disciples, keeping them believing in Jesus, keeping them safe from the crowds was exactly what God wanted him to do.
15:58: And the only one who's an exception to that is the one who was assigned that exception role from before he was born.
16:07: God's spirit is that reliable.
16:09: His purposes cannot be thwarted.
16:11: It makes me think of Romans 8, 28, which says in the New Testament, For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purposes.
16:21: I love that verse.
16:23: I especially love that verse when things are great.
16:25: Like, yay, God's using everything, making my life good.
16:28: But that verse is especially for when things are hard.
16:32: For when you don't see how God is at work.
16:34: When you're saying, my life is hard.
16:37: It's painful.
16:38: It's scary.
16:38: I don't know what to do with this.
16:40: It's meant to boost our faith that God has a plan for that.
16:43: That there are no accidents in our lives.
16:46: That even the yuck that happens, even when sin happens to us, God has a plan and a purpose that is for our spiritually eternal good.
16:59: That's the concept that we're seeing here.
17:01: But it's tied to the Holy Spirit personally.
17:05: Okay, what about Matthias?
17:07: Why go into the story of Matthias replacing Judas?
17:11: Notice verses 21 and 22.
17:15: So, one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.
17:33: It wasn't enough that they find someone to replace Judas, you know, somebody that, you know, was well-informed and knowledgeable and spiritually solid.
17:43: They needed to find somebody suitably qualified.
17:49: Specifically, this needed to be a man who had been part of the group the whole time, had been eyewitness from the beginning to the end of Jesus' earthly ministry, all the way up to the ascension.
18:03: And then Peter uses the same language of necessity.
18:07: Such a person must become a witness with us to his resurrection.
18:14: It's needed.
18:15: It's necessary.
18:16: Well, why must?
18:17: Because Peter saw in Psalm 109 that this is what God had planned.
18:24: He saw in Psalm 109 a description of how Judas would need to be replaced.
18:29: He said, well, if that's what God has said needs to happen, then it must be that way.
18:33: And so now we're in the situation.
18:35: It's talking about Judas.
18:37: We know what our marching orders are.
18:38: We must obey God.
18:41: And so the point of adding Matthias to the group of apostles is to fulfill scripture and to have the full number of eyewitnesses as part of the group.
18:58: Now, there's a couple of things that's worth zooming in on or focusing in on here.
19:01: First, the coming of the Holy Spirit is not going to supercharge the disciples and make them just these amazing spiritual persons in some sort of disconnect from what came before.
19:17: Rather, the Spirit's work is going to stay connected and be centralized on the teaching and work of Jesus, including his resurrection after dying on the cross.
19:30: We don't move on from Jesus.
19:33: You don't start with the message about Jesus.
19:36: Here's how you become a Christian.
19:37: You believe in Jesus.
19:38: You repent from your sins and turn to Jesus in faith.
19:41: And then we move on to other stuff.
19:42: No, it stays all about Jesus.
19:46: The Spirit that the disciples were waiting for was going to work in conjunction with, in union with, faithful, accurate, true, truth-telling about Jesus.
19:58: Which fits exactly what Jesus told his disciples to expect the Holy Spirit to do.
20:05: John 14, 26.
20:07: But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
20:17: He's going to have an instructor teaching role, and he's going to be helping them to see and remember and understand the truth that Jesus himself had taught.
20:25: Or John 15, 26.
20:28: Jesus says, But when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
20:39: And you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.
20:43: Jesus says, The Holy Spirit's job is going to be to point to Jesus.
20:48: And the disciples' job is going to be to point to Jesus.
20:52: They're going to be doing the same job together.
20:57: That is what we're supposed to see.
21:02: And on a related note to that, the Holy Spirit isn't just going to be like, Hey, there's some Jesus stuff going on here.
21:08: The Holy Spirit's job is to glorify Jesus, to honor Jesus.
21:14: 1 Corinthians 12, 3 says, Paul's saying to the church in Corinth, Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says, Jesus is accursed.
21:26: And no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.
21:30: In other words, it's not that people can't say those words.
21:34: I just did.
21:35: I read it a lot.
21:36: I said the words.
21:36: Nobody can be filled with, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and be anti-Jesus.
21:44: And no one can be properly pro-Jesus, except as the Holy Spirit's at work.
21:49: The Holy Spirit's going to enable, cause, empower people to see Jesus as Lord, to say, He is the Lord of Lords.
21:59: He is the King of Kings.
22:00: He is the one who reigns.
22:03: He's going to cause Jesus to be honored in people's lives in that way.
22:09: Now, go back to verse 8.
22:11: Verse 8 was our key verse for the first chunk of the chapter.
22:15: And see how this connects.
22:17: 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 ends of the earth.
22:27: So Jesus is saying, go away from the Holy Spirit, because that's going to empower you.
22:31: He's going to empower you.
22:32: And what you're going to be doing with that power?
22:36: Testifying about Jesus.
22:37: Witnessing about Jesus.
22:41: You see how it all connects?
22:44: God meant, from before Jesus was killed, and resurrected, and ascended, he meant to send the Holy Spirit.
22:54: And after Jesus ascended, God does send the Holy Spirit.
22:58: And the Holy Spirit's job is to say, look at Jesus, look at Jesus, look at Jesus.
23:03: To empower the witnesses to focus people's attention on Jesus effectively.
23:09: To cause the audience hearing about Jesus to have that light bulb go on where they're saying, yes, he really is Lord.
23:16: Lord, I've been encouraging this church to be faithful in outreach, representing Jesus to the world around us.
23:25: But let me tell you bluntly, don't bother if you're going to try to do it in your own strength.
23:32: Don't bother if God is not at work, because you can't accomplish anything in your own strength.
23:40: Now that said, I believe that God is at work in the lives of believers, and he is desiring to work through us to draw people into right relationship with Jesus.
23:50: So by all means, continue to seek to reach out to the people around you with the good news message about Jesus.
23:56: Testify to what you know from God's word to be true about Jesus.
24:03: God has sent his Holy Spirit to live in Christians, including us today, to empower us as God's people for effective witness to the world about Jesus.
24:17: We have no business going out trying to be for the world what the world already has for itself.
24:22: Our job is not to go out and build 73 food pantries in Green Bay so that nobody misses a meal.
24:27: That's great work.
24:28: It's appropriate for there to be food pantries.
24:30: It's appropriate for Christians to be involved in things like that.
24:33: But our primary job is to accurately tell people about Jesus and call them to repentant faith in Jesus.
24:43: We are gospel ambassadors first and foremost.
24:47: We help and serve and love along the way, but we never lose sight of our first responsibility to the world around us being to make disciples.
24:57: That's the Great Commission.
24:59: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.
25:13: And behold, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.
25:16: He's with us to enable that, to empower it, and that's our marching orders.
25:21: First and foremost, the Holy Spirit has come from the day of Pentecost, which we'll look at next week, to the present day.
25:32: He is in the world in a special and powerful way living in Christians.
25:37: That means that we have the perfectly reliable, unthwartable Spirit of God living in us, and He's going to work in our lives as we focus on Jesus, as we have one hand holding on to the truth about Jesus and one hand clinging to the Spirit, saying, I want these things to come together so that I can represent Jesus well.
26:02: That's what's supposed to be going on.
26:05: He's going to work.
26:06: The Holy Spirit is going to work in the lives of God's people, in our lives, in Christians' lives, as we keep the focus on Jesus.
26:14: We say here at Faith Chapel that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with Him and one another through Jesus Christ.
26:24: We can't have right relationship with God except through Jesus.
26:27: We can't have right relationship with each other except through Jesus.
26:31: And as we do, we're going to worship God.
26:34: We're going to honor Him, glorify Him by the way that we enjoy those relationships.
26:39: We say that our mission here is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus Christ.
26:47: It's not about creating a great choir, great singers, happy servants.
26:52: It's about being Jesus followers.
26:56: Us becoming more and more surrendered to following Jesus and helping others on that same journey of becoming, growing, and reproducing other followers of Jesus.
27:07: And you're not left to yourself to accomplish it.
27:10: God's Spirit lives in you and one of the main responsibilities that God has for the Holy Spirit who lives in you is to make that effective.
27:21: I hope you find encouragement in that.
27:24: When I look at trying to do the things I'm supposed to do as a Christian, it can very easily be like, too much, time out, we need to stop, I'm overwhelmed.
27:32: I don't have the ability to do all that.
27:35: But the reality is I don't need to have the ability to do all of it.
27:38: God's Spirit has the power and He's not only willing to help me, He's living in me for the very purpose of enabling me to do it.
27:49: Would you pray with me?
27:51: Father, we want to trust You.
27:53: We want to honor You.
27:54: We want to rely on You.
27:56: We want to despair of self-reliance and to overflow in confidence in the Holy Spirit.
28:05: Not that we can wield Him, not that we can manipulate Him or make Him do what we want, but that He will empower and guide and use us to do far more than we think possible, to cause the transformation of lives, to take people off the road to hell and put them on the road to an eternity of joy with God.
28:30: We want to be involved in that work that You're doing.
28:33: We want to be confident that the Spirit's purposes cannot be thwarted no matter what's going on and that He knows exactly what He's doing in emphasizing the good news about Jesus.
28:46: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
28:48: Amen.