Acts of the Apostles - The Preamble ...

Who cares about you?  Who really cares?  For most their parents may come to mind, or their spouse if they have one, perhaps even their children; for when we think about who may care for us, we immediately associate care with love, and the question quickly becomes one of who loves us for real in the world in which we find ourselves.  But there is perhaps another important dimensional lens to examine a question such as this.  He or she who cares about us may well be he or she who reaches out to us, to assist us in the journey back to God, and back to eternal life.  For in the scheme of things, who demonstrates their love for you in a more tangible way, than he or she who is trying to help you along your journey back home, to the heavenly home where God intends for you to be.  When you think about your eternal life is there anything more important than that?

When you think about it in that context, teachers we have had may come to mind.  Or perhaps preachers or evangelists who have impacted us in a profound way and helped steer our journey.  But in this light the role of our parents is even more important for they must guide us every day.  The role of our spouse becomes even more important for they must encourage us every day and they see us more closely than others do.  And lastly the role we play as parents to our own children cannot be overstated, for what parts of the gospel we live out in front of them, become the lamp posts they remember as they confront their own lives.  But in all of this there are choices we make, choices who we befriend, and what that friendship will mean to us and to those we choose to be kind to.  Sometimes in that group a best friend arises.  Someone who just seems to be closer to us.  Someone who just seems to “get us” better than other folks do.  And while our friendships may form around many things, a friendship that forms around trying to point each back to God, is perhaps the most meaningful of all.

In that context, I ask you to remember Theophilus.  Theophilus was not my friend directly, but I benefit from the friendship he formed with Doctor Luke of the New Testament Biblical age.  While Theophilus was never famous, the churches he founded may never have carried his name.  Theophilus was a believer, perhaps an infant in the faith.  Asking all the questions a young child asks as he discovers life.  Why this, and why that.  And because of the beauty of faith and friendships, Doctor Luke set about to pen two letters to his dear friend to answer those questions, to explain what we believe and why we believe it.  We know those letters as the Gospel of Luke, and the book the Acts of the Apostles.  Luke writes to his beloved friend the entire story, or at least the entire story as he knows it.  Told by the witnesses who lived it.  Relayed by those who spoke directly with Jesus, and who felt the grip of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

For then and now the Holy Spirit is as real as the breath we take.  And we invite the Holy Spirit to inhabit our minds, our hearts, and our bodies He answers with the gifts He deems are the ones we need at the times we need them.  Each of us different.  Each part of the body of Christ fulfilling its mission in order to benefit the whole.  But while each of us remains unique, the common mission we hold, is the friendship we shower on those we choose.  In that we find the giving more meaningful than the taking.  We find the encouraging we spend on each other the substance of memories we cling to over time.  We find the kindness we share the stuff of legends.  But in how we aid the discipleship of others we leave our legacy upon the world, and in the next one.  That is the Holy Spirit’s highest gift to us, His greatest offering, as to make us partners in the cause of God, in the redemption of others.  We are not Saviors, only Jesus will ever be that.  But a word of encouragement can be the vehicle in which the tangible love of God is shown to ones most in need of it, at times most critical in their own journey, if not in ours.

We sometimes think of mission as something between one person and many.  The believer reaching out to thousands or hundreds in need.  Indeed, that is mission.  But mission is also the one person reaching out to the other, a one-to-one relationship.  Think of it this way, the person who knows you, who you believe truly cares about you, you have more reason to trust that person, to ask for help when you need it.  More importantly to accept help when it is offered.  One-to-one relationships offer context.  Luke writes to Theophilus with more than just a casual knowledge of what his friend needs.  Luke has obviously taken an interest in him.  He knows him.  We could know others better in a spiritual context if we chose to make that aspect the more important one of our relationships.  If we chose to make mission a thing of one to one, perhaps with our spouse, or our children, or our parents, mission might take on new meaning and new importance.  Do we have the courage to think this way?  Perhaps in so doing the entire world benefits from someone so personal as we collectively do from Luke and Theophilus.

In Acts chapter one and verse 1 it begins ...”The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, [verse 2] Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: [verse 3] To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:”  Luke here talks about the contents of his first letter, which we know as the Gospel of Luke.  It is the story of Jesus while He was here.  It lasts all the way to after His resurrection for the 40 days He spent appearing and visiting with His disciples and followers.  This was the time when the Gospel was being sealed and finalized for the first evangelical ministry.  Being certain of the living Jesus, was something needed and received in those 40 days.  It was after that the power of the Holy Spirit would fall upon those early believers.  Jesus Himself had predicted this and said it would be good for the believers because the Holy Spirit would not be bound to a single person or region or place.  The Holy Spirit could be in many places at once, and in many different people at once.

Even without any more of the story, these few verses should have been enough to stoke the fire of belief in Theophilus and in each of us.  You will note there has never been a time limit of the Holy Spirit.  No end of Him proscribed until the very end of time when He will stop striving with mankind.  But what the Holy Spirit did in the days of Luke and Theophilus He could very well do in our days, and in our lives and hearts.  Luke and Theo would have been looking for Him, are we?  Or do we read the pages and stories of the Bible as some sort of history lesson, never to be repeated in our days, or our lives.  We know better than to believe “we” have the power of anything beyond what normal men do.  But do we lack the Holy Spirit because we do not look for Him, or perhaps because we crave credit for every good thing we do so much, that we might take credit for His power and goodness reflected through our lives?

Luke continues in verse 4 saying … “And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. [verse 5] For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”  Luke reminds us that Jesus told of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Again, in our day it is not about us gathering together in Jerusalem, for the Holy Spirit is already here.  But it might well be about the gathering together in “unity” that we lack.  Each of us thinks we hold to some unique part of the gospel that no other one can see.  And instead of producing a blending outcome like that of a choir in perfect unison of different voices and parts, we wait to sing a solo so that every other one can appreciate the truth and beauty of what we alone have discovered.  But the beauty of the choir’s anthem does not require that every member think and be alike, only that every member is willing to sing and blend his own voice with that of his neighbor.

And I do not believe the Holy Spirit will fall on only one denomination signifying it alone has the composite of all truth.  But instead, the Holy Spirit will fall on the willing, the willing to be led, the willing to be taught.  We are not meant to teach Him, or to affirm what we already believe by His presence.  We are meant to learn from Him, and to begin to see truth our limited minds have been to blind to see, before the Holy Spirit became a part of our learning process and leader of it.  And we are not to obsess over when the final return of Jesus will be.  We should obsess instead over being transformed and living lives like we were already a part of the kingdom of heaven, under its rules and freedom, and under its leader Jesus Christ.  Heaven without transformation, would be to us Lucifer repeated.  Salvation then is not something that can only happen at the end of all things, Salvation can happen right here and right now, to be saved from … us.  I need to be saved from me, from the “me” that I am now.  I need to be the version of “me” that Jesus intends for me to be.  His version, not mine, not my ideas, but His.

Luke continues in verse 6 saying … “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? [verse 7] And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. [verse 8] But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  Even to the end, the disciples were still looking to find out when Israel would be restored to the glory described about heaven.  Jesus redirects them to not obsess about “when” and instead focus on the Holy Spirit and taking the gospel to uttermost ends of the earth.  You will note the Holy Spirit is not deterred by the presence of unbelievers.  It is not the pagans that sends the Holy Spirit away.  It is believers who think they don’t need Him.  It is believers who think they already know all the truth there is to know.  It is believers who do not wish to be led by anyone of anything, only by the dictates of their own minds and hearts.  The American Dream reinforces all these ideals.  Work hard and earn your way to the top.  Whereas Christianity teaches, Jesus Himself teaches, “wait” and receive the Holy Spirit first, and then be led, don’t try to do the leading.

We are to be dependent upon God, and humble in our minds and hearts.  We are to be servants of all, not because we are compelled to, but because it has become our highest desire our highest ideal.  The only “when” important in that goal is how quickly we will let Him transform us into that kind of creation.  As for me and my house, the quicker the better.