A Breath of Fresh Air

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 1

(Acts 2:1-4, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 26, 2010)

2:1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.

2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

When the day of Pentecost arrived... (1)

Long before the Pentecost event of around the year 30 AD described in these verses, the Holy Spirit is. Even in the very opening verses of the Bible we read that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. With all His power, poised for the great acts of creating and ordering the world, He touched the chaos of matter that was formless and void, and when Jesus, the Word of God, said, “Let there be light,” the Holy Spirit made it so in accord with the will of the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit brought life into being.

When the time came for a new world, long after the tsunami of sin entered the world that God had called “very good,” it was the Holy Spirit again who brought the life of the Word of God into the womb of the virgin Mary, so that Jesus Immanuel, God with us, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Author and Giver of Life. Jesus was born at just the right time. He fulfilled all that He came to do as our Messiah, and at just the right time, He died. In all of the accounts of our Lord's death, the precise time closely associated with that even was the Passover. Now we know that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

It was three days later, on the Jewish Feast of the First Fruits associated with the Passover, that the Resurrected Jesus, the First Fruits from the dead, appeared to His disciples, and eventually to 500 others. Paul indicates the special role of the Holy Spirit in that resurrection display of eternal life in the opening verses of His letter to the Romans, where He says that our Lord “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” But it was 50 days later, on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, that Life touched us in the body of Christ, the church. It was then, several days after Immanuel Jesus had ascended to the right hand of the Father, that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church and New Covenant life arrived on the gathering of apostles and others who would be used by God to gather His church.

It is not a coincidence that Jesus' death is so closely connected to the Passover. It is not an accident that His resurrection from the dead happened on the Old Testament Feast of First Fruits. Are we supposed to understand something about the Day of Pentecost that makes it particularly important that this great event happened when the Day of Pentecost arrived?

What was the meaning of the Day of Pentecost? Pentecost was one of the big three feasts that all of the males in Israel were required to attend. The feast is all about the gathering of the grain harvest that began with the barley at around Passover and ended with the wheat at Pentecost. Jewish and Christian traditions have built up around this feast that will distract you from the simplicity of its meaning. It is all about the harvest. We understand the biblical Old Testament Feast of Pentecost best based on the biblical New Testament event that God brought about as described in Acts 2. The Pentecost event of Acts 2 reminds us that God is all about the harvest of His people from throughout the world. It was that harvest of people that Jesus was speaking about when He said to His disciples that the harvest was plentiful, but the laborers were few. The secret of that great harvest that was revealed in Acts 2 is that the ascended Christ would send forth His Holy Spirit so that His church would become faithful representatives of His harvest, gathering in the nations through a Word plainly spoken and heard and through a life lived.

And suddenly there came from heaven... (2-3)

We have to stop thinking about the church as the possession of one or more of her leaders. Jesus is the King of the church. He said it would be better for us if He went to heaven, and it is better. He is reigning over the church. He said that He would build His church, and He is doing that now. Our answer comes to us from heaven. Without the power of our King who bought the church with His blood, there is no way that we could storm the gates of hell and expect to live. We need Pentecost from heaven in order to be harvesting the nations of the world for Jesus.

The power that came upon the church in Acts 2 was the power of God from heaven coming to be with us on earth. That power was the power of Immanuel, God with us, born in the church that He has brought to life. That power was the Person that was hovering over the face of the deep in the days of creation. That is why there were such unusual manifestations that took place in front of so many witnesses. This was not a story of great men who through the force of their rhetoric, wisdom, or strategic insight were about to build a great world religion. This was the beginning of the New Covenant era by the coming of “God with us” into the lives of what would become a mighty harvest force, a new colony of heaven on earth.

God came in power to the twelve apostles and the 120 who were gathered there waiting and praying. He came from heaven. He came with the sound of wind. (The word for wind and spirit is the same.) That wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. Flames or tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. They were the temple of God. The fire that Moses saw in the burning bush, the fire that Elijah called down upon the sacrifice at Mount Carmel, the fire of God was upon the church. God was with them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit... (4)

And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and He had an immediate impact. They began to be agents of the Lord's Pentecost harvest. How would they gather in the people of the world into this living temple? They began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The Holy Spirit gave them the gifts that they needed in order to display the power of heaven that day at this important moment, a moment of God's obvious power for those who had ears to hear.

The word used for tongues means “languages.” From the amazing experience described in the verses that follow, it appears that this small group began to speak in other languages. He spoke the languages of the pilgrim Jews from other lands who had remained in Jerusalem from that Passover of the death of Jesus through this Pentecost when the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church by the power of God in us.

They were changed by the power of heaven that had now become the power of heaven on earth. And a wave was started that day in Jerusalem. The law of entropy tells us that things fall apart under heaven. But this was a wave that came from heaven, and it is expanding. It will keep on doing its work. One day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas. You have been touched by that wave. You are agents of God's harvest.

1. What was the significance of the Old Testament feast of Pentecost and how does this relate to the gift of the Holy Spirit?

2. What happened that day to the apostles and perhaps to the church?

3. Who is the Holy Spirit, and how was the church prepared for Him?

4. What kind of “tongues” were given that day? Why would this manifestation of the Holy Spirit have been given at this important time?

OT Passage: Genesis 1:1-2

With us

“Immanuel” – Part 3

(Matthew 1:22-25, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Christmas Eve, 2010)

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

All this took place... (22)

Something has taken place. Have you heard about it? I am amazed when I think about the events that we are celebrating tonight that there are places around the world so many centuries later where people still have not heard the news. There are places that cannot read the account of what took place in their own language because the message is not written yet for them, and there is no one who has been sent to them who knows their language who can give an accurate testimony of the facts.

It is also amazing that people are growing up in places where the Bible is available, and they still do not know the basic facts of such an important event that has taken place. But God is bringing forward this truth throughout the earth as He promised He would through the prophets. In Numbers 14:21, written by Moses, the Lord said, “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Many centuries later the Hebrew prophet Habakkuk said “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

When Jesus spoke about the expansion of His kingdom, He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” This kingdom has been expanding now for many centuries. With these words, the kingdom is reaching you right now.

All of the Hebrew Scriptures, all of the books of Moses, all of the Psalms and Proverbs, all of the accounts kings and priests, all of the prophets, find their fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah, the Son of Mary and the Son of God. We were prepared for every aspect of His coming, as much as God wanted to prepare us, by all the chapters in the Bible, from the opening Voice of creation in Genesis 1, until the announcement of the One who would turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers in Malachi 4. Those books told us that He would be low.

These Scriptures told us that He would be God, and they told us He would be man. They told us that He would be united to a chosen people, and that all of what He did, He would do for them. They told us He would be a suffering servant and that He would be a glorious eternal King. They told us that He would die on a cross, that He would be buried, that He would rise again from the dead after three days, and that He would ascend into heaven. And they told us that He would defeat all evil, all bigotry, all small-mindedness, all self-centered preoccupation, all oppression, all immorality, all sin, all disease, and finally all death.

Behold the virgin shall conceive... (23)

They also told us, through the prophet Isaiah, that He would be with us. That is what Immanuel means in Hebrew: “With us God,” all in one word. That is Hebrews works... forming more than one idea into a unified whole, one beautiful Word. How was He with us?

He was first with Mary in a very special way before He was with the rest of us. She, a young woman who had never been intimate with a man, would carry within her a baby, Christ the Lord. Like every other baby, He would not remain in His mother forever that way. He would be born. He would grow up in a family, and He would be with the family of Joseph and Mary and the rest of their children.

But He would come into His own, and He would be with us in another way. He would be something for us, and He would do things for us. During the three years of His public life in Israel He would stand in for all those who would later be counted as His body. His life would be our life. His death would be our death. His resurrection would be our victory over sin and death.

But there is another way that He would be with us after He ascended into heaven. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father on high still today. Yet Paul tells one of the New Testament churches that received His correspondence that their hope of heavenly glory was this: “Christ in you.” For all who call upon the Name of the Lord, He would make them alive in their spirits. He would visit them in a way like He visited Mary. He would be born in them, not so that He would be alive, but so that we would be alive by the power of the His Spirit. He instructed us to ask for this that our joy would be full.

This is the way that God is with us now, and it as much of a miracle birth as the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. He did this all for us out of His infinite divine love. He did this because it was the right thing to do for the glory of our great God. He did this because it was the only way that we could have a future and a hope.

When Joseph woke from sleep (24-25)

Joseph heard the words that the angel announced to Him about Mary and her baby, and He believed them. I announce to you tonight that Christ can be born in you by the Holy Spirit. Are you willing to accept that good word? Can the kingdom have a fresh start in you tonight, a small beginning that will grow into something strong, something that will live forever?

Do what God tells you to do now. Welcome Jesus. Call Him who He is, the Lord's salvation for you and for your family. This is the way for us to live now. Let Christ be born in you. Let the Spirit of Christ bring about the growth of heavenly life in you. Immanuel, the with-us God, is with you. Discover the fullness of what that means in the experience of the New Testament life recorded for us in the rest of the Scriptures from Matthew through Revelation. Let a mustard seed of heaven grow in you, and consider Him a happy gift.

Immanuel is! He can grow in you. One day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will truly cover the earth as waters cover the seas. You are a part of that glorious undertaking.

1. What did the prophets say about the coming of Jesus?

2. Why would God come to be with us in the person of Jesus?

3. How did Joseph respond to the dream?

4. How do these events prepare us for the life and ministry of Jesus?

Let that baby be born...

“Immanuel” – Part 2

(Matthew 1:19-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 19, 2010)

19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

And her husband Joseph... (19)

The way that our Messiah, the Son of God, came into the world was by being conceived as a tiny baby in the womb of a poor woman from Nazereth in Galilee. She was a virgin, and she was pregnant. That had never happened before. She was with child by the Holy Spirit of God, so that the baby, who was truly her child in every way, was also the eternal Son of God.

That woman, Mary, was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, who was himself a poor Galilean. What was he supposed to think about Mary when it became evident that she was carrying a child within her? He knew that the he was not the father of that child. We do not really understand the culture he lived in. It is very possible that his conversation with Mary up to this point had been very limited. Even if she did talk to him, what could she have said to him? Can we expect that he would have believed the truth if she had told him?

“An angel gave me this message: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.' Joseph, God chose me for this blessing.” Would Joseph have believed her?

No, Mary was pregnant,and Joseph made his own plans. Joseph was a righteous man. He was an observant Jew who was listening to the voice of God through the Word, and dedicating himself to a life of obedience. It appeared that Mary had been unfaithful to the commitment that they had made to each other. But Joseph did not want to put her to shame. He did not want to proclaim his own righteousness at her expense. He resolved to break off the engagement quietly. That way they would both be able to go on with their lives. Mary had apparently created a scandal by being with some other man. Perhaps that man would marry Mary. He would be the father. Joseph would no longer think of Mary as the woman he would marry. He would let her go, and he would go on with life as well. He would avoid a further public spectacle, but he also would not pretend that nothing had happened. This would be a private divorce, canceling their engagement before they had fully become man and wife.

But as he considered these things... (20)

That was as far as Joseph's thinking would take him, but sometimes the Lord intends to move his servants places that they cannot get to simply by their own thinking. This was one of those occasions. As He had sent an angel to Mary, now an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. He may not have believed what Mary would have told him if she tried, but God can give any one of us a message that we surely will believe. Joseph gets the perfectly persuasive message of the Lord through a dream.

The angel in the dream calls Mary's fiancee “Joseph, son of David.” The David referred to here is the psalmist and king of Israel. God promised that David that one of his descendants would be an eternal king. Even though Joseph will not be the father of Jesus, as the husband of Mary he will seem to be the father of the child to everyone, and he will have that role within their family for all of their children for the rest of his life. This Joseph, and his betrothed, Mary, were both descendants of King David. Both would have a genealogy that would establish each as a true descendant of King David, one as the legal father of Jesus in the eyes of the community, and the other as the birth mother and legal mother of Jesus.

In order for Joseph to be able to move ahead with this role as a special father to Mary's Son in good conscience, it was important for him that he know that he was not doing the wrong thing by marrying Mary. The child which Mary carried within her was from the Holy Spirit.

There have been many miracle babies over the centuries before and after Jesus, but none of them were conceived by the Holy Spirit. There have been many infertile men and women who were suddenly given the gift of fertility. But no other virgin has ever become a mother without first being with a man. This baby is different from all the rest. Joseph needed to know that.

She will bear a son... (21)

Mary will have this baby. The angel told Joseph this. It is always a gift when a child is brought into the world. Do you believe that? I do. It is such an amazing blessing when a new human being is conceived. Another child... Another person with a spirit... Another soul born to believe, to hope, and to love... What a gift! Yet this child! There has never been a gift like this one!

His name would be Jesus. That's Isus in the language of the New Testament. The same name in the language of the Old Testament is Joshua or Yeshua, like the man who brought the people of God into The Promised Land. The name means “Yahweh is salvation,” or “Yahweh saves.” This was the name for the Messiah given from heaven. And there is a reason added: “He will save His people from their sins.”

Mary's baby will do that? Oh yes... What a turn around from thinking that Mary had done something improper, and that the best solution was a quiet divorce in order to avoid embarrassing her too publicly! What a change from thinking that he would just have to start his life over again without Mary! What glorious news to submit to!

Joseph could trust God. Yes, yes, I know what everyone would say... Everybody would imagine that there was a more obvious explanation for this pregnancy than the one that the angel had spoken to both Mary and now to Joseph. Let them be. The truth is the truth. God can press the truth upon a soul in His own way. He can make that truth irresistible to the heart. That's what counts for us. The intellect alone will not lead you into holiness and peace. But when God assures the heart that a birth is a blessing, it is a blessing. Jesus has saved his people from their sins. He did that through the scandal of pregnancy. And then he did it definitively through the further scandal of the cross. What God saves, He really saves! And now there has been another birth. Christ has been born in you. You are with new life by the Holy Spirit! Congratulations! Now let the Son of God live. Let Him be born. Let Him grow. Don't worry yourself about the scandal of faith. Let faith grow into hope, and then let it express itself in love, until the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. It's good news! Rejoice! God is with you!

1. Why would Joseph have decided to divorce Mary? What were his alternatives?

2. What did the angel explain to Joseph? How was Jesus from the Holy Spirit?

3. What is the significance of the title, “son of David?”

4. What is the meaning and importance of the name “Jesus?”

OT Passage: Isaiah 8:9-10

How is it that "God with us" came to be with us?

“Immanuel” – Part 1

(Matthew 1:18, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 12, 2010)

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ...

The coming of Jesus Christ was very good news for mankind. That news was announced to shepherds in the vicinity of Bethlehem who were keeping watch over their flocks by night. Angels sang about it in the sky and sent the shepherds into the town to find the baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. But several months before that moment, an angel of the Lord appeared to Mary, and an angel appeared to Joseph to explain what was happening. Even these announcements were not the first indications of Messiah. This was just the way that the birth of Jesus Christ took place. Centuries before these moments, God had revealed in many times and through many ways, that he would send salvation to mankind in the form of a person.

One of those times and ways was through a very particular prophecy given through Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But that little prophecy would not have seemed extraordinary at the time it was given. The Lord was dealing with a very wicked king of Judah named Ahaz. God told the king through Isaiah the prophet, that the Lord would have mercy on Judah who was being attacked by some formidable enemies. To prove His point to Ahaz, God told Isaiah to have Ahaz pick a sign that God would then perform for him so that Ahaz would know of the certainty of the Lord's mercy and deliverance for Judah.

Ahaz refused. He would not cooperate. Not only that, but he cloaked his refusal in words of spiritual superiority. He said he would not put God to the test. So God chose the sign of mercy and deliverance Himself. He said, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” That was not necessarily a very remarkable sign. A young girl will have a baby boy. What makes it so special are two very important facts. First, the maiden or “virgin” will have a baby and will actually remain a virgin. Therefore she will conceive a child in a completely unprecedented way. Second, the identity of the child will be “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.”

We have been waiting for God to come and save us. We have been waiting for Jesus, whose name means “Jehovah saves.” We have been waiting for the Christ, which means “The Anointed One” or “The Messiah.” We have been waiting for the Savior of Mankind who would be God and Man. We were hoping that God would be with us.” We are extremely interested in any Bible passage that begins with the words, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

The announcement of the sign of the virgin birth through Isaiah to King Ahaz is understated and easily missed until it happens. The events that have led to the coming of Jesus Christ are monumental. First among them is the determination by the God of creation to receive glory not only through the display of His perfect justice against evil, but also through His perfect love and mercy for those that He loved from before the foundation of the world. The second event is the coming of sin through Adam, and the entrance with it of death and the resulting announcement of a solution to this massive problem of futility through One who is called the “Seed of the woman.” The actual coming of Jesus is the third event. First, God decrees to bring about His perfect eternal justice and mercy; second, Man sins; and third, Jesus Christ is born.

When his mother Mary...

Now we need to consider how God brought about this third event after His decree and the assault of sin. How was it that Jesus Christ was born? That is a very important question. Many people could have been confused by the ambiguity of the Hebrew in Isaiah 7 to think that the sign to the wicked Ahaz that God had chosen was deliberately no sign at all. A young woman will have a baby boy. Maybe some few people could have seen from the various meanings of the word “virgin” and the announcement of the name “Immanuel” that God would be the baby and that no other father would be required for a sign-baby who would be called “God with us.” That is possible, though not very likely. But no one could have expected that the virgin would be someone like the young, poor, Mary from Galilee who was betrothed to a young, poor, man from Galilee, Joseph, the carpenter. No one could have predicted that. After hundreds of years of waiting, and passing by many other descendants of King David, to whom God had promised that one of his descendants would be a king forever, God chose this one woman to be the mother of Immanuel with no explanation as to why He went so low in society to find a vessel to hold the little one who would be the Messiah. The birth of Jesus Christ took place that way, and that has to mean something to us.

Despite, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and even all the miracles of Jesus, all of this only came together after this baby did what He came to do. He died on a cross in lowly disgrace. Again, that has to mean something to us, that this is the way that heaven was won for you, not only through an unknown virgin bearing a child, but through a great man being despised, rejected, and killed with the most humbling method that the powerful Roman Empire had at its disposal. It would take the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the wonderful gift to the church of the Holy Spirit for the church to be able to look back at Isaiah 7 and say, “Yes, a virgin, really a virgin, a lowly virgin, Mary the poor Galilean, betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, that virgin, before she and Joseph came together in intimate love, that Mary was pregnant with the baby.”

She was found to be with child...

She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. In the verses that follow we learn of Joseph's plans in light of this fact of Mary's pregnancy. We will look at that another day. Today we don't want to explore Joseph's confusion. We need the truth, and we are given the facts. Joseph was not the father of this child. No other man was the father of this child. The baby that was with Mary was from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is one of the eternal persons of the Godhead. Just as the Father is fully God, the Holy Spirit is fully God, and Jesus, the Son of God, is fully God. The Holy Spirit is eternal, just as the Father and the Son are eternal. In the earliest verses of the Bible, at creation, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. The prophets spoke by the Holy Spirit. Battles were fought and won against overwhelming odds by the Holy Spirit. Demons were cast out of men by the Holy Spirit. People were healed by the Holy Spirit. And now, the eternal Son of God became man in the womb of the virgin Mary, without any sin at all, by the Holy Spirit.

It is true that your Savior's mother was a very lowly unmarried Galilean woman. It is true that Jesus died for you at the lowliest place that the Romans had for killing the worst criminals in Jerusalem. It is true that your Savior was hated without a cause, betrayed, abandoned, tortured, buried, and just not believed. But it is also true that this Jesus is God with us, and that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. You have before you now the lowly way of the cross. But you also have the same Spirit that did the miracle of the God/Man, and that raised that Servant of the Lord from the dead. That has to mean something too. In His birth we have both cross and resurrection.

1. What were the major events that led to the birth of Jesus?

2. What do we know about Mary and Joseph?

3. What was the fact that set apart this pregnancy from all others?

4. What does it mean that Mary was “with child from the Holy Spirit?”

OT Passage: Isaiah 7:10-14

Let another man take his office

“The Apostle of Our Confession”

(Acts 1:12-26, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 5, 2010)

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

15 In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, 16 “Brothers, the Scripture 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. 17 For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” 18 (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’

21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 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.” 23 And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Then they returned to Jerusalem ... (12-14)

In John 12, the author of the gospel quotes from Isaiah 6 about unbelief in the face of ministerial proclamation, and then he writes this: “Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him.” The gospel writer is claiming that when Isaiah saw the vision of the glory of the Lord where his sins were taken care of by a burning coal from heaven's altar, and where he responded by saying “Send me,” he was actually seeing the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I think if we could see Jesus in the way that Isaiah did, high and lifted up in the heavenly sanctuary, and if he said, “I need someone to do something for me,” we would all say, “Send me!” I think that all the men and angels in heaven are very happy to be used by Jesus Christ in any way that they can. He is working all things together for your good and His glory, and I am sure that all of heaven is very happy to serve him in that wonderful project.

I think that the reason why “send me” was Isaiah's response, and the reason why it is the natural response of the current residents of heaven, is this: They are full of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, and He also had the benefit of a heart, mind, and will without any sin in them. Despite the shame of the cross, He was able to say to the Father, “Not My will, but Yours.” In other words, “Send Me!” After Acts 1:11, Jesus is in heaven. From this point on, with some very important exceptions, He is going to send the rest of us, as Spirit-filled disciples, to do all kinds of good works on this earth, rather than coming in person Himself at every point of our need and His desire. He came to to call Paul, and He is coming again at the end, but until that day, Jesus is normally present through people like you who have heard His call and are saying, “Send me!”

This idea of being sent is where the word apostle comes from. As the leading disciples waited for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, they were gathering together and praying. They were not alone, there were about 120 people who were worshiping there, like a small church with a number of ministers, what would seem like too many ministers, eleven leaders waiting to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They devoted themselves to prayer, these eleven and the leading women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the brothers of Jesus.

In those days Peter stood up among the brothers ... (15-20)

It was Peter who stood up among them to address an issue having to do with the number of apostles. Since the departure of Judas, there were only eleven of the original apostles remaining. Peter was convinced from the Old Testament Scriptures that spoke of Judas that it was according to the Scriptures that Judas was gone, and that it would be according to those same Scriptures that another man would take his place.

As Peter prepared this assembly to witness God's provision of another apostle, he recounted the story of Judas, who had been one of the twelve, but who had become a guide to those who arrested Jesus. He was numbered among them originally, and he shared in their ministry of teaching, preaching, and even working miracles. Whatever else could be said about Judas, after his betrayal of the Lord, his end was horrible, and the place that he went to, both now and eternally, was not good. This was not a private fall. The details of what had happened to him became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The place of his death, which was purchased by the blood money that he received from the leaders who wanted to see Jesus dead, the money that he tried to return to them which they refused, that place that was bought with that money became known as the “Field of Blood,” in lasting memory of what Judas had done. Here was one who had been sent as an Ambassador of Jesus, an apostle, but who had become instead a betrayer of the Lord. Now who would like to take his place? Is there anyone who wants to be sent? Peter had concluded from the Psalms, that this was necessary. See Psalms 69:25 and 109:8.

So one of the men who have accompanied us … (21-26)

Of course, we naturally think of this as a great honor. The Scriptures tell us that the one who aspires to the office of an overseer in the church desires a noble task. Yet if any of these men really had understood what was ahead of them. I wonder if there might not have been more vacant spots to fill. See 2 Corinthians 11.

This work was a work of witness-bearing wherever God would lead. That job required that the right man would have been a witness of the life of Christ beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist and ending with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They had to say more than, “I believe in the resurrection.” They had to be able to say, “I personally saw the resurrected Jesus. I will stake my life on that.” That is what it meant to be a witness. It was costly.

You heard the rest of Acts 1. Two approved men were brought forward, and one was chosen by a method that seemed to leave it up to God. But I cannot help but think that Matthias was only a place-holder for a different apostle who would be chosen more directly by God, the man who we hear about throughout this book from chapter nine till his imprisonment in Rome, the man who was in the habit of starting his inspired letters like this: “Paul, an apostle by the will of God.”

Yet even Paul was only a place-holder, just like Peter and all the rest. And if there are any truly “sent” people today, and I believe that you are sent, we are all place holders for the one Apostle of our confession, who said to the eleven, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” And John says, “He breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” A true apostle must show the power of heavenly lowliness, and there is no one who has done that better than Jesus Christ. He is the one Apostle above all the others who are sent. He is the vine. You are the branches. If you could see Him now in His glory, if you could glimpse at what Isaiah saw so long ago, if you could feel the coal from the heavenly alter on your lips, and know that because of his blood, your sins are forgiven, then you would surely say with all the heavenly host, “Here I am! Send me!”

“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him...” (Hebrews 3:1-2)

1. Who was in the upper room and what were they doing as they waited for God?

2. What is the story of the demise of Judas? Why are we told about this?

3. How did Peter conclude that Judas would be replaced?

4. Was Matthias God's choice to be the new apostle?

OT Passage: Isaiah 6