Acts 01 Round Two: Prologue: Preparing for a Miracle

A movement doesn’t start with perfect people. It starts with a promise. We open Acts with Luke’s careful hand guiding us from resurrection reality to the launchpad of the church, where an upper room full of ordinary disciples waits, prays, and prepares for power. Before the crowds and miracles come, there’s a quiet ten-day hinge that shapes everything: Jesus ascends, angels reassure, and a community chooses faithfulness over frenzy.

We unpack why Luke writes to Theophilus again, how Acts serves as the essential bridge between the Gospels and the letters, and what the early 60s AD context reveals about reliability and purpose. From the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem’s upper room, we trace the three core scenes of Acts 1: the resurrected Jesus teaching over forty days, the Ascension reframing political expectations into a global mission, and the early church replacing Judas to preserve credible witness. The phrase that still echoes—“You will receive power”—does more than headline the chapter; it outlines the book and sketches our map for witness from home to the ends of the earth.

Along the way, we sit with the awkward parts that make Acts so human: misunderstanding timelines, casting lots before Pentecost, and learning to partner with the Holy Spirit in real time. That honesty is the invitation. If fishermen and a used-up Pharisee can carry the gospel across continents, there’s room for us—teachers, technicians, students, nurses, and neighbors—to live this story in our zip codes and online spaces. Waiting becomes preparation. Prayer becomes strategy. Presence becomes proclamation.

Join us as we set the foundation for the series: authorship, context, the key verse, and the surprising way God builds with the least likely. If this conversation sparks insight, share it with a friend, subscribe for the next chapter on Acts 2, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show. What part of Acts 1 challenges you to be a witness today?

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Series Vision
• 0:56 Why Acts Matters And Scope
• 2:10 Who Wrote Acts And For Whom
• 3:50 What Acts Is And When Written
• 5:36 How Acts Bridges Gospels To Letters
• 7:04 Themes: Holy Spirit And Ordinary People
• 9:12 Reading Acts 1: Prologue Setup
• 11:28 The Ascension And Acts 1:8
• 14:00 Upper Room And Community In Prayer
• 16:10 Replacing Judas And Casting Lots
• 18:00 Takeaway, Key Verse, And Prayer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Acts chapter one. This is gonna be a lot of fun today, and I will go ahead and tell you there's a part of me that is not looking forward to this. And the reason why is because there's so much good stuff in the Acts of the Apostles that there's just no way we're gonna get to it. And so what I'm gonna do is before we even get into it, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you my goal behind this series of podcasts is not to give you every single thing that is here because yes, the more we dig, the more we find. But man, we are digging in a treasure chest. There's so many great things that is going on in this. So I'm gonna give you very surface level stuff. But man, I would love for you to on our YouTube videos, of course, like, share, and subscribe to those. But if you find anything interesting or noteworthy about these chapters, I want you to put them in the comment section. Also, if you do the social media thing, I would love for you to go to the Facebook group at Bible Breakdown Discussion and let us know what you find. Because there is no way we're gonna be able to do justice to the amazing content that the Holy Spirit has given us as we walk through the book of Acts. And so I want to give you, as we always do at the beginning of a new book, kind of a synopsis, just the who, what, where, when, and why of the wonderful book called the Book of Acts. And then we're just gonna jump into this and enjoy what God is doing. Because if I was to give this a title, it would just be the prologue. Chapter one is a prologue of everything that is about to happen. It's all gonna kick off in Acts chapter two, but this is the beginning, the setting up of all of this. And so I would have called it the prologue preparing for a miracle. But let me give you some of the background first. Now, first of all, who is the author? Now, if you remember, back when we read the gospel according to Luke, it was written by a guy named Luke. He was a doctor turned investigative journalist by a guy named Theopolis. And according to history, Theopolis would have funded Luke's journey as he went throughout the countryside of Judea, confirming what had happened to Jesus and putting it in chronological order. And we see that at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, he says, I was sent by you that we may be able to find and know for certain what we believe to be true. And it turns out it's true. So I'm writing back to you everything I found out. Well, the gospel of, or not the gospel, but the book of Acts is a continuation. It is part two of the Gospel of Luke. And so Gospel of Luke is part one, Acts is part two, and it's written to the same person by the same person. So Luke, the doctor turned investigative journalist, is back at it again, and he is chronicling as a historian what is going on in the early church. But what's amazing is in the Gospel of Luke, you see him as a spectator, as someone who has come back later and has written about what has happened. Well, in this one, he's a participant. There's a part of this where he is traveling with the Apostle Paul, and he's going through and he's just taking the journey as well. And so it's a very interesting perspective as we get from this writer, Luke, which by the way, when you put Luke and Acts together, Luke wrote more than any other person in the New Testament. Now, there's more individual books written by the Apostle Paul or letters, but as far as just words on the page, Luke has written more than any other New Testament writer. And what I love about this is that Luke gives us the same detail as he did in the gospel of Luke. So attention to detail, people, places, all these different things, we get to see this. And so it's amazing to realize that as Luke was probably growing up, he was probably someone who was a lot of attention to detail, someone who was very interested in getting things right, very interested in history. Little did he know that God was grooming him and preparing him for this wonderful task of doing this amazing thing. Now, what is the gospel? I keep saying gospel. What is the Acts? What is the Acts of the Apostles? Well, the Acts of the Apostles is just that. It is a chronological telling of the birth of the church coming to life and then spreading and making disciples of the known world of the time through the apostles and different ones. That's what Acts is. Is it a story of the birth of the church and then the spreading of the gospel? Where is it written? Well, Luke likely went everywhere and he traveled with the Apostle Paul and different ones, but likely when he actually sat down to write out Acts, he did it likely in Rome, where he would have had time to sit down and write about the different things going on. And he would have also written this between 61 and 64 A.D. Now, Jesus would have been crucified and rose again on 33, around 33 A.D. It's also when the church was born. And so then over time, as this was happening, he is collecting these stories, he's living these stories, and then he writes them all down between 61 and 64 A.D. And the reason why this book is important, why would God put this in there? Well, it's because it's about the birth of the church, and it's about watching what it looks like for God to move through his people into the world. Let me give you a few interesting facts, and we're going to jump into the very first part. A few interesting facts is Acts is the link between the Gospels and the Epistles. Because you have at the end of the Gospels, you have Jesus rising from the dead, and it's this grand finale. Well, then when you get into the epistles, which are the letters written mainly by Paul through the early church, there's this gap, right? Like, like what happened? Well, that's what the book of Acts is all about, is it puts those together. And then also what happens that we as we are reading this, you're gonna hear about some of the different cities where Paul had planted churches and he writes back again. Like, for instance, there's gonna be a part we're gonna learn about the city of Ephesus, and then later when we read the letter to the Ephesian church, we're gonna realize it was about that time when it was written. And so it gives us that link between the gospels and the letters or the epistles. Another one is we get to watch people figure out how to partner with the Holy Spirit in real time. There's gonna be a place where Peter actually has a dream. The Holy Spirit is trying to speak to him through a dream, and Peter doesn't get it. He doesn't understand what's going on. We get to watch him process through that. We get to watch Paul as he has an argument with his best friend to where they end up parting company for a while. And so we are watching people figure out how to walk with the Holy Spirit in real time. It covers the first 30 to 35 years of church history, it reveals the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and we're able to see that it really could be broken up into two sections. The first is where the main person in the story is really the Apostle Peter, where Holy Spirit has come down and he's moving through the church, but one of the chief central people is Peter. Well, then after a little while, Paul gets saved, and then it begins to shift to tell to telling about the different journeys of Paul. And so here's the overall theme of the entire book, and that is this that God does amazing things through ordinary people. I want to tell you something. If you were voted, most likely to succeed, if everybody loved you and wanted to sign your yearbook in high school, if you find yourself someone who is easy to talk to, friendly, fun, you're the life of the party, you're the first one to be voted man or woman of the year. I've got great news for you. God can still use you because that's awesome, but God likely most likely, usually uses the least likely to succeed, the one voted most ordinary, the one that nobody ever really thinks about. Those are the ones God usually uses to do the best things. And here's the thing: if God can use fishermen and a used up Pharisee to change the world, what can he do through you and me? Dio Moody used to say it like this: if God be your partner, make your plans large. And so this is what I want us to do. We're gonna walk through the acts of the apostles, the acts of the church, the the the birth and growth of the early church. And I want I don't want you to think of this as just some random thing that happened. But these people, they're our they're us, they're our ancestors, they're they're the people that's come before us, that they paved the way for us so that we could go and continue to spread the gospel. When Jesus told them to go into all the world, he was talking about us, about coming to reach what would one day be us. And so this isn't just something we read for good information, but these are our great, great, great, great, great, great, great spiritual grandparents. And when we watch what God did through them, we realize that if he can do it through these ordinary people, then he can do it through us as well. Okay, so let's jump into Acts chapter one and let's read the New Living Translation. There's gonna be three sections. First, we're gonna have the intro where Luke is riding to Theopolis again. Second, we get to see Jesus one more time in the flesh before he ascends into heaven, and then we have the early church trying to figure out what to do and to prepare for a miracle. So let's get started and let's see what God will say to us today. You ready? Acts chapter one, verse one. In my first book, he's speaking about the gospel of Luke. I told you, Theopolis, about everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time and proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the kingdom of God. Once he was eating with them and he commanded them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised. As I told you before, John the Baptist with baptized with water, but just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So pause real quick. What Luke was just saying is, as he was saying, Theopolis, I wrote to you about the life of Jesus. And if you remember, when I left off, Jesus was getting ready to ascend into heaven. Well, I want to fill in a few more of those details because remember, likely Luke wasn't there. And so he has now got a few more details as to what happened immediately before, just before Jesus ascended into heaven. And he was telling the disciples, and notice this said, while he was eating with them. So after he rose again, he would have rose again right after the Passover, and this is right before Pentecost. Between Passover and Pentecost is 40 days. And we know that they ended up waiting in the upper room. We're going to read about tomorrow for 10 days. So Jesus walked around for about 30 to 40 days with them. And at this point, they're sitting and having a meal together. And Jesus says, Remember what I told you, the Holy Spirit is coming. Here we go, verse six. So when the apostles were with were with Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom? He replied, The Father alone has authority to set those dates and times, as they are not for you to know. Here's the key verse of the entire book. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, telling the people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. And as they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white robed men suddenly stood among them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go. Now, pause again. What just happened? Well, remember, these these are the twelve disciples, or eleven disciples who've been following Jesus, but they're still Jewish people. And one of the things that they thought about Jesus was they thought that when the Messiah came, he was going to immediately be a conquering hero and deliver them from Roman oppression. Well, Jesus is telling them, you have no idea what God is doing. You have no idea what I am doing. It's so much bigger than just your generation. So how about that? You just leave that in the hands of the Lord and you get ready because you're about to receive power that you've never thought possible before. And so then as he gets ready to go into heaven, that you see that there are these angels that are there saying, Hey, don't be afraid, don't worry, he's coming again. And so here we go, verse 12. Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of a half a mile. When they arrived, they went upstairs to a room of the house where they were staying. Now, some people think, by the way, that this may be the same upper room where Jesus had had the first communion. We don't know that for sure, but some think that may be what happened. Here are the names of those who are present: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, the son of Alveus, Simon the son of Zealot, and Judas, son of James. Notice they were real quick to say, not that Judas, not the other one. He's he's he's in the dead, right? But this Judas, he's here. All right, verse 14. They all met together and they were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and several other women, and the brothers of Jesus. So notice if you remember before, back in the Gospels, the brothers wanted nothing to do with Jesus, now they're there with him. We're actually going to find out later in the gospel in the in the book of Acts that there was a time when he Jesus appeared to his brother James. You imagine what that conversation was like. Like, oh, I'm sorry, Jesus. Hey, it's all good. So now they're together. Verse 15. About this time when about twelve, uh 120 believers were together in one place, Peter stood up and addressed them. Brothers, he said, the scriptures had to be fulfilled concerning Judas, who guided those who arrested Jesus. This was predicted long ago by the Holy Spirit, speaking through King David. Judas was one of us and shared in this ministry with us. Verse 18, Judas had bought a field with the money he had received for his treachery, falling headfirst there, his body split open, spilling out all of his intestines. That's gross. The news of his death spread to all the people of Jerusalem, and they gave the place the aromatic name Akdama, which means field of blood. Now, what happened was, this is gross, but he went and he hung himself. And then after he hung himself, he ended up starting to rot, and his body fell, and when it fell, it exploded. So not a good way to go for Judas, the jerk, but he did. All right, verse 20. Peter continued, as it was written in the book of Psalms, where it says, Let his home become desolate, no one will live in it. It also says, Let someone else take his position. So now we must choose a replacement for Judas from among the men who were with us the entire time we were traveling with the Lord Jesus. And from the time he was baptized by John until the day he was taken from us, whoever is chosen will join us as a witness of Jesus' resurrection. So what they were saying is, is there were the twelve disciples who were chosen, but at the same time, there were a lot of people that follow Jesus from the very beginning. And so what Peter is saying is we want somebody who was with us from the very beginning. Likely, as we read in the Gospels, there were times also when Jesus would send out two by two to go. He's also saying maybe one of those as well, someone who is used to the ministry. We don't know, but we just want to prepare for what God is about to do. So verse 23, till they nominated two men. Joseph called Barsabbas, also known as Justice, God had a lot of nicknames, and Matthias. Then they all prayed, O Lord, you know every heart. Show us which of these men you have chosen as an apostle to replace Judas in this ministry. For he has deserted us and gone where he belongs. So then they cast lots, and Matthias was selected to become an apostle with the other eleven. Now what's interesting is because the Holy Spirit had not yet descended and filled all of them, they didn't know quite how to make this decision. So they rolled the dice. They rolled dice to see if it was going to be Judas or I mean if it was going to be Matthias, if it was going to be Barsabbas. Well, the great news is, is after the next chapter, they don't ever roll dice ever again, because then they have the Holy Spirit who leads them and guides them into all things. So as we finish this to get together today, I want to tell you if you are voted, the most likely to succeed. If you always seem to have everything going your way, and if everything is always perfect for you, can I tell you the good news? Jesus can still use you. But often he uses the ordinary, he uses the overlooked, he uses the used up to do great things. And what the gospel reminds us is that Jesus rose again so that we can have new life. And what Acts tells us is that Jesus uses ordinary people to change the world. And if he can do this through fishermen and used up Pharisees, what can he do through you? I'm gonna give you the key verse, and then we're gonna pray together. That we're gonna be reading throughout the time. Acts 1.8 says, Jesus said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. My prayer for you, as we get ready to pray, is that throughout the Gospel of Acts, and I'm gonna keep on saying gospel, it's not a gospel, throughout Acts, what we will learn is that the Holy Spirit has come upon you so that you can be a spreader, a carrier of the gospel to all the world. Let me pray. Father, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to walk through the amazing book of Acts. Thank you, God, that these are our ancestors, these are our spiritual ancestors. So, Lord, I pray when we read this, we won't just read this as words on a page, but Lord, we will read this seeing this is us. And because you did this in our spiritual ancestors, how much more can you do through us? I pray, God, that you will excite us, that if you could do it through them, you can do it through us, and that we will be a witness of the power of God today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Be a witness of the power of God today. And I'll see you tomorrow for Acts chapter two.