LOSING OUR RELIGION
Acts 1:1-14
We are living, both in the natural and spiritual, in a time of transition. In assemblies and churches across the world at this time, there is a growing sense of the need for change, that God is doing something new, that a reformation is taking place. This is not the first time the church has found itself in such a place. Reading through the first chapter of Acts, we can ascertain that for the first apostles and disciples of Jesus, there was also a reformation taking place. The Oxford dictionary defines reformation as a "change or changes made in order to improve something". For the apostles and disciples of the early church, this was a time of radical change and uncertainty.
For the last three years their entire lives had been arranged around a certain belief system and into that belief system they had placed Jesus, never really understanding that He hadn’t come to fit in with their ideology, but to totally revolutionise their mindsets. Even up to the point when He left them standing there looking up at the cloud, (Acts 1:9) they hadn’t grasped the fullness of His teachings, hadn’t been able to come to terms with what the coming of His Kingdom would mean for them.
Verse 6 tells us "when they had come together, they asked Him, saying "Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" For all of the parables, all of the teaching, all of the discussions they’d had from Jesus they were still caught in the mindset that the Kingdom Jesus spoke of was a political kingdom. They believed He had come to free their nation, from the oppressive Roman rule, and that He would now set up a kingdom on earth ruled from Israel.
It tells us that as the cloud received Him and carried Him out of their sight, they continued to "gaze intently" (Amplified) toward heaven. So much so that the two angels who came couldn’t understand it and said "Why do you stand gazing into heaven?" Spare a thought for the apostles at this time – they had just been told by Jesus to remain in Jerusalem. These men weren’t from Jerusalem – they were from Galilee. And right now Jerusalem was about the most dangerous place on the face of the earth they could be. Jesus had been crucified there not much more than a month ago, and their names were next on the list. This was a hard call.
So it tells us they went back to Jerusalem, and entering Jerusalem they went and stayed in an upper room. With a little imagination, you can picture some of the conversations taking place between them during those days. Peter and John perhaps: "He said He’s going to send the Holy Spirit, I can’t wait! What do you think He’ll look like?" "Search me, I thought He came the day Jesus breathed on us." Or Matthew and Thomas: "What are you going to do today, Matthew? Oh, I’m just gonna hang around here again and pray for the church, Tom" "Well, me too, I guess. By the way, what is a church?"
Here they were, gathered in this Upper Room, not even knowing what it was they were waiting for. We know that Jesus was appearing to and teaching His disciples for 40 days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3). We also know that the period of waiting in the Upper Room lasted ten days. How? Through the Jewish Feasts. Jesus was crucified at Passover, arose on the Feast of Firstfruits, and the Bible tells us that the Spirit came at Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, (which occurred exactly 50 days after Firstfruits.) So what was happening to these Christians during those ten days?
Firstly, they were losing their religion. " What’s that? The apostles were religious? No way! " I hear some of you say. Need convincing? Read the following scriptures: Matthew 18:21; Matthew 19.13; Mark 10:35 & 41; Matthew 26:8; Mark 9.33. There are more, but these should suffice.
I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. The scriptural evidence is that these guys were carrying around a lot of religious baggage, even as they walked with Jesus. They had their own ideas about how it was going to be when the Kingdom came, and what would be their own place in it.
Have you ever wondered why the apostles and disciples were required to gather together in one place and wait ? Why didn’t the Holy Spirit come as a mighty rushing wind the day Jesus ascended to Heaven? I believe God, in His grace, was giving them time to adjust. What was taking place was so revolutionary that they needed time to come to grips with it.
They needed time to realign themselves with the Cross and to realise that when Jesus died at Calvary, they died also. All their vision, all their ideologies, all their plans were crucified along with Him. The apostles and other disciples literally lost their own identities when Jesus went to the Cross. They had been known everywhere as the disciples of Jesus, but who were they now? They'd had a vision of a kingdom where Israel would at last be free of foreign oppression, and in which they would be rulers. What were they to look towards now? In fact, what would they even do with themselves now? After all they’d seen and heard, how could they return to fishing, or tax collecting? They were caught in a place where they couldn’t go back, and didn’t know how to go forward.
Secondly, they were becoming a unit. Transition was happening, the old was being laid down and the new was upon them. In Acts 1:14 we’re told they "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers." There are two amazing statements in that verse. Jewish men did not pray with women. Women and men always prayed in separate quarters. For men and women to pray together was not part of the religion these people had been brought up in. Furthermore, we’re told they "all continued in one accord in prayer" .Jesus’ instruction was to simply "wait for the Promise of the Father". It doesn’t record anywhere that He told them to spend that time in prayer. But that’s what people do when they’ve come to the end of themselves and have nothing left. And they didn’t just pray, they prayed in one accord, in unity. How did this happen? These are the same men who not too long before were disputing on the road about who was the greatest, and secretly asking Jesus for special favour in His Kingdom.
This is how I believe it happened. In Matthew 26:30-35 Jesus warns the apostles that they would stumble because of Him. Peter objects, saying "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you!" In the very same verse (v.35) we are told "and so said all the disciples." If we move further down the same chapter to verse 56, we can see the outcome: "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled."
We tend to think of Peter as the disciple who denied Jesus, don’t we? Peter is so "out there", so prominent, always speaking rashly, always getting himself into trouble . It's easy to single out those that are obvious about their sin. We often don’t mind sin nearly so much if it just stays hidden.
Jesus was deserted by every one of His apostles on the night of His arrest. And that fact changed their relationships for all time, because on that night, their true hearts were exposed. When the apostles came back together, they came back knowing the worst secret each one had. No more hiding behind bravado, no more pretending, no more religious facades, no more disputes about who was the greatest. No more accusation and no more self-promotion. Their hearts had been exposed, and none was better than the other! And in that knowledge, and that humility, they came together in a unity that had not been between them previously. They finally grew up.
That’s the kind of unity that’s coming to the church of Jesus Christ – a spiritual unity that cannot be broken by all the power of Hell. It won’t come just by gathering together, it won’t come just by sharing a common belief system, it will only come when each one of us walks in truth towards God and towards our brothers and sisters.
If you want further evidence that some radical changes were taking place during those ten days in the upper room, you only need to look at Acts 2:1. "When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place." Pentecost was a Jewish holiday, a time of celebration. It was so important on the Jewish calendar that Jewish people travelled from all the nations to be at the temple. On this day, all Jewish men were required to present themselves at the temple to take part in the important services. Traditionally, this is where the apostles and disciples should have been. But there they were in the Upper Room, not at the Temple. For them, there was nothing left in the rituals of the past, their hearts were hungering for the "Promise of the Father". They had no idea when this Promise would come, only that Jesus had said "not many days hence". They only knew they were to live each day in expectation and faith.
Many of us in the church are feeling like they must have felt – not able to go back, not knowing how to go forward, but knowing there’s something more.
Not long after the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, Peter and John were going up to the temple and came across a man who had been crippled from birth. It tells us in Acts 3:4 that they both "directed their gaze intently at him" (Amplified) and in Jesus Name they healed the man. This was the same Peter and John who had "gazed intently" into the sky as Jesus was taken from their sight, but notice how their focus had changed. Now they were gazing outward, seeing the need.
That’s the church that’s coming – not a defeated church continually gazing upward, waiting to be rescued. Not a self-centred church always gazing inward to its own needs and ambitions. But a church gazing outward to the world and breaking through the darkness with the Kingdom of God. The apostles had changed forever, reformed by the power of the Spirit!
And for those of us who will allow it, there is also a spiritual reformation in the wind. It will be both individual and corporate. Jesus Christ is building His church, for the government of the church was always ordained to be upon His shoulders, never the shoulders of man. (Isaiah 9:6) . Many speak of the church’s need to get back to its roots, to return to the book of Acts. Friends, we’re not going back. The church of Jesus Christ is an advancing army. We’re going forward, but under His Banner, under His Name, and under His Government. The glory of the latter house is going to be greater than the glory of the former house! Awesome days lie ahead of us, such as we have never known. As the world grows darker, the true church of Jesus Christ will shine brighter. Get ready!
"In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy – everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain. Isaiah 4:2-6
Cheryl McGrath
Great South Land Ministries
http://www.greatsouthland.org
southland@greatsouthland.org
©Copyright Cheryl McGrath and Great South Land Ministries, November, 1999. This article may be reproduced freely only in its entirety and with this credit line intact.