Acts 1: The Church That Waits for Power From On High

Introduction

With this message, Horo Yokota, pastor of Aburayama Shalom Church in Fukuoka, opens a new series for the Thursday prayer meeting: each week, the church will walk through the book of Acts together. The first passage is Acts 1:1-8, and the title of the message comes down to three words: the church that waits.

This year is a milestone for the church, which has just opened a new building. Visitors admire the beauty of the place and the view from its windows. The pastor is glad about it, but he immediately reminds everyone that what matters most is not the building: it is what the building holds.

At the heart of the passage, he focuses on one command of Jesus, summed up in a single word: "Wait." Why did the risen Lord ask his disciples to wait, when they were burning to proclaim him? And why does this waiting still concern the church today?

Outline of the Message

1. A New Building, but the Church Is the Believers

"The church is not a building." It is the gathering of those who believe in Jesus, each one of those present. And it is through this church that Jesus is still at work in the world.
How will this church reveal the glory of God? To find out, the pastor suggests looking again at the time of the early church.
"The church is not a world without problems." Difficulties come from outside, through persecution, and from inside, through division. Each time, the church goes through a season of confusion, then overcomes it, and the mission moves forward.
From Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and then to Rome, the center of the world at that time, the gospel advances. Acts is the account of that progress, which eventually reached Japan.
Rereading this book is a comfort: the struggles and walls we face today are nothing new. It also shows what the church chose to do in those moments and, even more, how the Holy Spirit led it, shaped it, prepared it, and used it.

2. The Holy Spirit, the Hidden Main Character of Acts

The previous Sunday, the church received this word: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit" (Zechariah 4:6). For the pastor, this is the key to the life of faith, the key that turns the great mountain into a plain.
Peter, Paul, and the others learned this through their failures and painful experiences.
"Human beings immediately want to rely on their own strength." We do not have much of it, yet we cling to a little experience, a little ability. When that disappears, worry and fear arrive.
This book is sometimes called the "Acts of the Holy Spirit." Peter and Paul stand in the foreground, but the hidden main character is the Holy Spirit: he leads, gives strength, and keeps the mission moving forward in the midst of difficulties.
A church in South Korea has a vision of being an "Acts 29" church. The book ends at chapter 28, but the story continues in the church today. Reading Acts as a story of the past is not enough: the Holy Spirit is still at work in the same way in your life and in your church.
There are walls in the way of mission in Japan. "But when the Holy Spirit works, those walls fall." The pastor wants his church to believe this and to expect to see it even more.

3. Jesus Is Alive: The Foundation of Faith

The "first book" addressed to Theophilus (Acts 1:1) is the Gospel of Luke. The two books have the same author, like volume 1 and volume 2. The Gospel tells of the work of Jesus, and Acts tells how the church began.
The work of Jesus therefore did not stop with the Gospels. It continues through the church, through us.
After his suffering, Jesus showed himself alive over forty days, with many proofs (Acts 1:3). More than a month is not a short time. The message of those forty days comes down to one sentence: he is alive. If he showed it so many times, it is because it is essential.
Many non-Christians recognize that Jesus was a great man. The pastor quotes Nietzsche, known for his radical criticism of Christianity, who nevertheless said he loved Jesus because of the way he lived: close to those who suffer and to the weak, forgiving those who made him suffer, standing against the oppression of power.
Where is the difference with the Christian faith? "Jesus is not a figure of the past." He died on the cross, but he rose again and he lives today. This is the foundation of faith.
Because he is alive, he still speaks to us, leads us, keeps us, and sustains us. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8): this is the source of our joy and our hope.

4. One Command: "Wait"

Jesus tells the disciples not to leave Jerusalem and to wait for what the Father promised, because they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). In a word, he tells them: wait.
The promise of the Father is the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus does not give them times and seasons, but he promises them power: "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me" (Acts 1:8). To be a witness is to become someone who can testify about Jesus Christ.
This progress is anything but easy: persecution, internal division, trials of every kind. To get through them, strength is needed. Not the strength of human might or ability, but the strength the Spirit gives: "power from on high."
Luke 24:49 says the same thing: stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. It is not about building strength within yourself by studying and accumulating things "from below." What is needed is to be clothed with strength from above. Then you can be a witness for the Lord.

5. Why Wait When You Are Eager to Go?

The disciples had met the risen Jesus. The pastor imagines their joy: "Jesus is alive, he really is who he said he was." They must have been eager to tell their families, their loved ones, their friends.
Yet Jesus tells them to wait. Joy matters, and so does the drive of someone who wants to go. But to keep going as a witness when confusion, opposition, and weariness come, a passing emotion is not enough to proclaim the gospel.
"Waiting is not simply staying still." To wait is to pray and to hope. It is to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In chapter 2, the Holy Spirit comes down, and wonderful things happen.

6. Waiting as a Posture for the Whole Life of the Church

Once the Holy Spirit has come, at Pentecost, does the church no longer need to wait? The pastor answers no. Why did Jesus plan this time of waiting instead of sending his disciples out right away?
Because the waiting was not only tied to the coming of the Spirit. It was meant to become the church's fundamental posture of faith. That time was training to acquire it.
After Pentecost, the book speaks of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and this is received again and again. "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) means: keep on being filled. It is not enough to have experienced it once. You need to be filled every day, and for that you need to pray and wait every day.
If you do not wait, you act in your own strength, according to your own ideas, or simply out of habit. When you pray and wait, a life that relies on God begins. The women of the church are, in fact, doing a study on the theme of "waiting on God." Relying on the Holy Spirit and waiting on God, the pastor says, are "two sides of the same coin."
He applies this to his own church. An evangelistic meeting is being prepared, and that is a very good thing, but without waiting on God, you end up simply "stringing events together." The same goes for the upcoming Kyushu holiness convention: telling yourself "it comes around every year" would mean missing the point.
"In the morning, do you wait on God?" Starting each day by waiting on the Lord, that is what it means to walk by the Spirit. Before the convention, the evangelistic meeting, the Sunday service, or every time you go out to share the gospel: first wait on God, be clothed with strength from above, and then go. Then what you thought was a wall will be broken through.

Key Takeaways

The church is not a building: it is the gathering of believers, through whom Jesus is still at work today.
The hidden main character of Acts is the Holy Spirit. It is not by might nor by power, but by his Spirit.
Jesus is alive. For forty days, he showed it again and again: this is the foundation of faith.
To be a lasting witness, the drive of a moment is not enough. You need the power that comes from on high.
To wait is to pray and to hope every day, not only before Pentecost: it is the posture of faith for the whole church.

Personal Application

What do you instinctively rely on when a difficulty arrives: your experience, your abilities, or the Holy Spirit?
Do you read the book of Acts as a story of the past, or as an account of what the Spirit can still do in your church?
Which walls seem impossible to cross today, in your life or among those around you?
In your service or church activities, do you feel you are "stringing events together"? Where do you need to take time again to wait on God?
How can you begin tomorrow morning by waiting on the Lord, and end the day by looking back over it in his presence?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Jesus ask the disciples to wait before bearing witness?

The disciples had met the risen Lord and were burning to talk about him. But to remain witnesses in the midst of persecution, division, and weariness, the joy and drive of a moment are not enough. They needed power from on high, the power of the Holy Spirit. For Horo Yokota, this time of waiting was also a training: it set in the church a posture of faith that it was meant to keep afterward.

What does "waiting" mean in Acts 1 according to Horo Yokota?

Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It means praying and waiting on God with hope, seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The pastor adds that this waiting does not end at Pentecost: living by relying on the Holy Spirit and living by waiting on God are two sides of the same coin.

What is the idea of "Acts 29"?

The book of Acts has 28 chapters. Horo Yokota mentions a church in South Korea whose vision is to be an "Acts 29" church: the story does not close at chapter 28, it continues today in the church. Reading Acts as a mere story of the past is therefore not enough, because the Holy Spirit is still at work in the same way.