Prelude
Call to Worship Isaiah 32:15
Hymn JBC # 120
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Supper
Hymn JBC # 301
Offering
Scripture Acts 1:6～11
Prayer
Sermon “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 81
Doxology JBC # 679
Benediction
Postlude
Today we are having the last Sunday (the Lord’s Day) Worship service of the year 2024. We would like to give thanks to the Lord God for continuing to speak to us through His Word, for continuing to support us, and for continuing to guide us in this year 2024 too.
Starting in April of this year, I (we) are undertaking a bold (and c?) attempt to cover the entire Bible from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New Testament in one year's worship message.
By covering the Bible from beginning to end, even in broad strokes, we can see that the Lord God has great thoughts and plans that are beyond our human thoughts and plans.
The heart of the Bible is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Bible tells us that Christ became a man, was born into this world, and died on the cross for the atonement of our sins.
And with Jesus' resurrection on the third day, God's thoughts and plans, and above all, God's love, were clearly revealed to us.
Each of us has our own wishes, thoughts, and various ideas and make plans of our own.
But the Bible shows us that believing in Christ the Lord God of the cross and resurrection and walking in obedience to Christ’s guidance is the path we should choose.
This year (2024), our church is walking on the annual theme “Standing on the Word of the Lord”.
It will soon be a new year (2025) and it is our hope that we will continue to stand on the Word of the Lord and continue to be spiritually nourished by His Word in the new year too.
For the worship message schedule, we have reached up to the end of New Testament Gospels at last week’s Christmas worship service.
In the New Testament, there are four books known as the “Gospels” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that describe the time from the birth of Jesus Christ to his death on the cross and resurrection.
And after those four Gospels, “the Acts of the Apostles” follows, in which Jesus' disciples (also known as apostles) carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to various places after Jesus Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven.
Today's Bible verse is from Acts Chapter 1.
In the verse immediately preceding the passage you just read from verse 6, in Acts 1:3, we read the following.
After his suffering, he (*Jesus) presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
Jesus suffered (died on the cross) and then resurrected to show the apostles with numerous evidences that “He is alive”.
Jesus rose from the dead and appeared before the apostles with a resurrected body so that the apostles could actually see and even touch him.
Jesus' resurrection was not a dream or a hallucination, but an event that was clearly demonstrated to people’s eyes on earth by God.
Jesus' disciples were very surprised to meet the resurrected Jesus, and some of them doubted though, but they saw that their Lord had risen and received great power and hope again.
In today's passage, the apostles ask Jesus the following question.
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
The disciples, like the rest of other Israel's people, had always believed that their Savior would rebuild Israel and free them from the country’s oppression (the Roman Empire) that ruled over them.
But that hope of theirs was completely cut off, they thought, when Jesus was cruelly crucified and killed so they were in despair.
But then the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ appeared before them. They must have rejoiced to meet the resurrected Lord, and at the same time, rejoiced to know that their hope of “Israel's deliverance” was not yet over.
So they asked Jesus.
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Jesus responded like this. (verse 7)
It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
It means that the decisive time when their nation will be rebuilt and liberated is when God the Heavenly Father determines it by His divine authority (Not by man, it says.)
We, as believers, are required to follow the time God has set and wait for important day and timing.
We have many wishes and thoughts. Today is the last Sunday service of this year.
Looking back on this past year, each of you may have various feelings about whether what you had hoped for this year came true or not.
Some may say they are discouraged and disappointed that they did not get what they wished for.
But it is precisely in such times that we are taught, through the Word of Scripture, that we should know God's will, wait for His timing, and trust in His plan.
There is a divine plan that goes far beyond our thoughts and wishes. And God will fulfill that plan at the time He has ordained.
Therefore, let us resolve again today to seek God's will and walk according to it, believing that there is a time and a season that God the Father in heaven has appointed by His own authority.
The nation of Israel will be rebuilt, which means that, faith-wise, the faith of each of us today as believers will be rebuilt, and we will be given the joy of deliverance from sin.
It is written in today's passage that it is accompanied by one sign.
That's what it says in verse 8, and I'm going to read verse 8.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
What kind of power is given by the descent of the Holy Spirit?
Paul, who wrote the Letter to the Ephesians, prayed in that letter as follows
Ephesians 3:16～17
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
It says here that when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, falls, our inner being is strengthened.
To be strengthened in our inner being means that Jesus Christ lives in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
And Christ's dwelling in us means that we become rooted in His love and become to stand firm in His love (built up by His love).
So the giving of the Holy Spirit to us could be measured by the conviction that Christ lives in my heart.
It is also the work of the Holy Spirit, that makes us convinced that Christ is in our hearts and how precious and loved are we by Christ.
And it is through our being filled with the love of Christ and facing others and this society with that love, that the Kingdom of God will be extended to this world.
The Lord, the God of the Bible, first chose the Israelites and showed them His work of salvation. Eventually, the Israelites came to believe that God's salvation was available only to them.
But when the Holy Spirit falls on the apostles, they are filled with the love of Christ, and they become His witnesses, not only in Jerusalem, but throughout all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, as we are told in today's passage.
Beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and Judea, the forgiveness of sins and the Lord's love, clearly demonstrated by His cross and resurrection, will be conveyed to all nations and regions and all peoples, even to the ends of the earth.
And the driving force for the gospel to be preached in such a way is not the force of arms that one nation usually use to dominate other nations or any power such forcefully holds them down.
The Bible tells us that it is the love of Jesus Christ given by the Holy Spirit.
When Christ's love truly fills us and we live and act on that love of Christ, we will truly be able to understand others and Christ’s love will spread through us.
And when there is understanding and compassion between one another based on the love of Christ, rather than through forceful methods of forcing the other to give in to one's demands, then anything new or changes that comes from it, and that event, will be truly powerful one.
In today's passage, Jesus ascends from the presence of his disciples into heaven with the promise, “In time I will return.”
Now in our eyes, Jesus is invisible, but He lives in us by His Holy Spirit, as He promised, and fills us with His love.
I believe that each of us and our churches have experienced various failures and setbacks this past year. On the other hand, I believe that there were also accomplishments and many joys and blessings.
Let us have the confidence given us by the Holy Spirit. The Lord's great plan will be fulfilled at the time and in the season that He has appointed. Let us believe that we are alive in such a time of the Lord, such a time of God.
And let us hope and pray that the Lord's Holy Spirit will be given to us more abundantly and that we, filled with His love, will be used more and more as vessels to convey His love to the world.
