Where Does Obedience Take You? Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: September 20, 2013

Date Preached: September 22, 2013

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Series in Acts

Sermon Title: Where Does Obedience Take You?

Sermon Text: Acts 2:1-47 [HCSB]

Introduction:

Over the past few wks we have looked at what obedience means for the believer. We learned that before victory comes obedience. We learned that obedience meant seeking God’s guidance/leadership and turning away from our own wisdom…

Last week we saw Jesus calling His disciples to obedience… and when we left off…they were standing on a hillside staring up at the sky at the ascended Jesus… 2 angels showed up and scolded them to get to work… to begin to DO what Jesus has called them to do!

Today, we are going to look at those SAME disciples who had misunderstood who Jesus was… they believed He was going to be a physical King/Messiah to lead Israel out of bondage from Rome…

Today we are going to look at those same disciples who had been so confused on what Jesus had told them that they just stood looking up into the sky as He disappeared into the clouds…

Today we are going to look at those same disciples who… when Jesus was being beaten, flogged, mocked and crucified… RAN away and abandoned Him.

Those SAME disciples that abandoned Jesus on the day He was arrested, beaten, mocked and crucified… were the same disciples Jesus appeared to with ‘many convincing proofs’ and had called them to be His witnesses to all the world!

I have lifted up obedience to God in my sermons over the past several weeks… today I want to answer the question, “Where does obedience take you?”

Where does obedience take the fellowship that focuses on God and His calling for them?

Where does obedience take the individual believer when they follow God’s calling in their lives?

YOU can ask and answer the question this morning… “Where will obedience take ME as a believer?”

When we submit in obedience we find God will work in our lives… our lives as a fellowship of believers… AND our lives as individual believers!

But what did these disciples who had just been scolded by the angels do? They had been instructed by Jesus in Acts 1 to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Father’s promise…

Now I want us to put ourselves in the shoes of these disciples. We judge them rather harshly from OUR viewpoint, but I want you to step into their shoes for a moment…

First of all they were ALL confused about WHO Jesus was…

They all believed Him to be Messiah, but their vision of Messiah was NOT the vision Jesus had just given them, and now He was GONE! What was going to happen now?

They had followed this man for over 3½ yrs and what they THOUGHT they knew, had all be brought into question over the past 40days…

NOW, before Jesus disappears into the sky, He tells them to return to Jerusalem… the city where Jesus had been crucified… the city where they had abandoned Jesus… the city where the religious leaders were still raging against those who followed Jesus! Return to that place?? That was a place of both fear and pain… why would Jesus ask us to go back there?

Broken and feeling abandoned… these disciples stood staring into the sky watching the One they believed to be Messiah… the Son of God… disappear from their sight…

THAT IS WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THESE DISCIPLES!

But after they are chided be the angels we find that they are obedient to Jesus’ command and that is where we pick up the story this morning:

Beginning in Acts 1:12 we see these scared and confused disciples begin to act in obedience to Jesus’ instruction…

12Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew,

Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14All these were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers. 15During these days Peter stood up among the brothers—the number of people who were together was about 120—

Let’s look at their actions here… do they match up with the instruction of Jesus?

Jesus told them to return to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father…

They returned to Jerusalem and about 120 of them had gathered together and scripture tells us that they were ‘…all these were continually united in prayer…’

Everyone was focused and praying for God’s instruction and leading… They were in prayer waiting on the instructions and promise of the Father!