In the Waiting Room: A Study of Acts 1
A Small Group Bible Study for Mobberly Baptist Church
January – February 2015
WEEK 1 – INTRODUCTION ACTS 1:1-8
Photo: theresurgence.com
Introduction: Most of us have been in a waiting room at some point in our life. Usually, this was when a friend or loved one was at the hospital, and we were asked to wait outside. Waiting rooms are never fun. They are full of people who are eagerly hoping for good news or anxious about a bad report from the doctor.
ASK: Do you remember the last time you were in a waiting room? Where was it, why were you there, who were you there for?
ASK: What thoughts do you think go through people’s minds when they are in a waiting room? How would they pass the time during the wait? How have you passed the time waiting for a doctor to come back with news on your loved one?
While the wait is never easy, sometimes it allows us to refocus our priorities and spend time in prayer. These experiences are never wanted, but each can be very rewarding if we take our focus off our circumstances and on to our almighty God. We never take our loved one off our mind but simply ask God to take control and give peace despite our emotions.
The apostles had a similar experience in Acts Chapter 1. Jesus was about to leave them and asked they spend time waiting for the Holy Spirit. He ordered them not to depart Jerusalem, and in a way the Upper room became one of the first “waiting rooms.”
ASK: How do you think the disciples would have felt having to wait on the Holy Spirit to come? What do you think they did to pass the time and prepare for his arrival?
WEEK 1 – BACKGROUND AND TEXT ACTS 1:1-8
Main Idea: Pray patiently to see the Lord’s promises fulfilled.
Background: The Acts of the Apostles opens with a few words about the resurrected Lord Jesus, reminding us of Luke’s Gospel and the true leader of the church. Before this, the apostles and all of the other disciples had endured a long night of the soul, terrified that Jesus had died and they would be abused for following him or would be kicked out of the synagogue. Before Easter came, they had worried that everything which seemed to come from God, everything which seemed to demonstrate Jesus’ claim to being the Messiah, was a lie. They had waited in fear while Jesus was in the tomb, but now he is with them.
READ Acts 1:1: In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…
Luke’s first book told us what Christ Jesus began to do, not all the work he did as if he had completed it. As the people of Christ’s church and members of Christ’s body, our purpose is to continue his work. What Jesus began, we practice and expand throughout the world.
ASK: When we pray, do we assume God wants to continue Christ’s work in our lives? When we pray to know God’s will, do we limit our options to our twenty-first century lives or do we open ourselves to following in the footsteps of the apostles?
READ Acts 1:2–3:until the day whenhe was taken up, after hehad given commandsthrough the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Our prayers should reflect our confidence in the Lord’s work in our world. He has not left us to fend for ourselves. He hasn’t slipped away, hoping we will figure out how to carry on. He gave us many reasons to know he is alive, and more than that, he praised those who would believe without seeing.
ASK: How you ever felt it hard to believe with seeing? Does faith come very naturally to you or is it something you need to ask God to give you more of daily? Explain why.
If you are one who feels faith doesn’t come naturally then you are not alone. Thomas, walked and spoke with Jesus yet even he found it hard to believe. His mistake of voicing his doubt helps us today to see Jesus’ view of faith in his believers.
READ John 20:28–29: Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”Jesus said to him,“Have you believed because you have seen me?Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Our Lord knows our weaknesses, so he has given us many reasons to believe while praising those who will believe simply upon hearing his word. He praises those who trust the word of God and will believe an impossible event like Jesus’ physical resurrection on that basis alone. But lest we believe such faith is a peculiar quality of some people, Jesus explained to Peter it is the work of God.
READ Matthew 16:16–17: Simon Peter replied,“You arethe Christ,the Son ofthe living God.” And Jesus answered him,“Blessed are you,Simon Bar-Jonah! Forfleshand blood has not revealed this to you,but my Father who is in heaven.”
ASK: If God praises faith like this, what should we do with our worries and doubts? Has he called us to blindly believe whatever we think we see in Scripture? Why or why not?
Most Christians today say they struggle with prayer. Part of the struggle may be that we are talking to someone we can’t see or hear. No nod of the head. No sympathetic reaction to the news we share. It’s hard to talk to someone you aren’t sure is listening. The struggle may also be the same one we have with waiting for anything. We want results quickly. We want evidence of progress. If we can at least count the days until a promised delivery date, the waiting will feel more like movement, but when we have no date or order confirmation, we don’t know if we’ve even been heard.
ASK: Have you ever felt your prayers weren’t leaving the room or that God wasn’t listening to you? What made you feel like that? What causes a person to feel distant from God or that they can’t even approach their heavenly Father?
To the believer who has felt helpless, who has worried about anything, even God’s faithfulness, and cried out to him for an answer, praise the Lord! That helpless feeling is exactly what the disciples felt before the resurrection and after the Lord’s ascension. If God wanted them to tell their city about Jesus, they had no idea how to do it. What was this kingdom of God Jesus told them about if the Christ wasn’t on earth to lead it? They were scared of their circumstances and felt helpless to exercise their faith. This is where God wants us. He wants us to recognize we can’t live the Christian life without him.
Thomas Merton said, “Prayer is an expression of who we are . . . We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.”
ASK: Do you agree with this quote? How does viewing ourselves as a vessel that needs to be filled increase our prayer life? How can our prayer life then increase our faith?
In his book A Praying Life, Paul Miller quotes Merton and explains the need for Christian helplessness. “We received Jesus because we were weak, and that’s how we follow him (Colossians 2:6). . . . We forget that helplessness is how the Christian life works.”
ASK: When you feel helpless, do you pray more than when you feel comfortable and safe? Are we in the habit of relying on ourselves first and crying out to God only when we have no other options?
Jesus’ friends had similar struggles once the Lord left. He had reminded them of the kingdom of God before he ascended, and they thought they knew what he meant, but in his absence they worried.
READ Acts 1:4–5: And while stayingwith themhe ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said,“you heard from me;forJohn baptized with water,but you will be baptizedwiththe Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
At one time, Jesus told his followers, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). How many of them remembered or mentioned this in the upper room while hiding from the Pharisees after he ascended? Maybe none of them, but even if they all talked about it, they would have also remembered the promise in Acts 1:5. Jesus is sending the Holy Spirit, the comforter, soon. “Wait for the promise of the Father.”
ASK: When have you prayed while waiting confidently for a promise from God? How was your prayer answered?
Jesus was clear in this passage. He said the Holy Spirit was coming in a few days. They had no opportunity to ask whether they understood what was promised, but many times we do. We often twist God’s promises to fit our personal agendas. For instance, Psalm 37:4 states, “Delight yourself in theLord, and he willgive you the desires of your heart.” This is not a formula for getting the stuff we want. It doesn’t say we can impress God enough that he will give us the things our hearts really desire. It says that when we delight in God himself, he will give us more of himself, the object of our delight. This is a promise we need never doubt. God will not hide from us, even in the dark times. He loves us and will walk with us all the way through our lives.
Acts 1:6-8:So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord,will you at this timerestore the kingdom to Israel?”He said to them,“It is not for you to knowtimes or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.But you will receivepowerwhen the Holy Spirit has come upon you, andyou will bemy witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, andto the end of the earth.”
The disciples didn’t understand the nature of the kingdom of God at this time, and Jesus didn’t take the time to explain it to them. He only reassured them that they would gain power from the Holy Spirit to carry on the work he began. They could trust their Lord with mysteries. They didn’t need everything explained in advance, but having confidence in his everlasting faithfulness, they could trust him with the future.
ASK: Do you do well waiting on God? What can you take away from this text so that prayer and faith are your focus? How can you trust the Lord more when called to wait on Him?
Again, we are in the same place they were in. We can trust the Lord with a future we feel powerless to control. We can remember his promises to guide us like a shepherd, even through the valley of the shadow of death.
WEEK 1 – APPLICATION ACTS 1:1-8
Children and Grandchildren: In James 5:17-18 we are told of Elijah and his powerful prayers. For 3 ½ years Elijah’s prayers kept it from raining, and then when he asked for rain, it came. This story is in 1 Kings 17-18 and within these chapters are great stories to read with children; even the great Mt. Carmel story is contained within these chapters. Read the stories and focus on the power of God that is demonstrated clearly throughout, but also remind the children that God worked mightily in response to the prayers of a man of God. The purpose of the stories is not to exalt Elijah over God, but rather to remind us how a mighty God will work through even the smallest of human prayers. “Elijah was a human just like us,” but God worked mightily through his prayers, and the same can happen for us today!
Students: Lessons on prayer are the perfect time to talk with your teenager about one of the most frustrating aspects for young believers: unanswered prayers. In John 14:13-14 there seems to be the promise that anything asked in Jesus’ name will be given, and in Matthew 7:7-11 there seems to be a similar promise. Read those verses and ask your youth what they think about the promises of God there? Listen to frustration and encourage if they feel they have asked God for something, and have received no answer. And then focus on the promises of the two texts: 1) God will do anything that brings Him glory, and 2) God is better than any earthly father and will only give good gifts to His children. Any “no” we ever receive in prayer must fall outside of those two categories, and therefore we trust the promise of Romans 8:28, that even the “no’s” are for our good.
Application for Everyone: Both of the texts mentioned above further the main idea from this lesson in Acts that we must pray patiently to see the Lord’s promises fulfilled. We all need patience in prayer, and patience comes when we trust the One who has made the promises, and all of the promises from Him are for our good, and never our harm.
WEEK 2 – INTRODUCTION ACTS 1:9-14
Photo: theresurgence.com
Introduction: When we’re forced to wait on something important, we often distract ourselves to help the time go by. In our waiting rooms, we usually have televisions with cartoons or the national news and a choice of magazines with countless articles to read. We may have even brought headphones and our smart phone to pass the time. All of these distractions, really just give us the illusion of being stable or strong, when we should be still and relying on God.
ASK: What is a diversion you go to when having to wait for an extended period of time?
Whether you distract yourself with TV, Facebook or news, we need to see the opportunity God has given us to redeem free time. Do you find yourself as someone who keeps yourself distracted until you hear from God, or do you find times to be still? What would your life look like if you learned to be more still than busy, strong and confident?