hey everyone and welcome back to the channel today we're going to start something well something kind of new it's a five minute study through the book of Acts this is kind of the abbreviated version of our long verse by verse study we've done studies like this for Matthew and Luke and now we'll start with the book of Acts and this is going to accompany the bigger study so we've got for the for the book of Acts we're going to start the verse by verse study in about a week and um if you're watching this in the future we probably already started we've got character studies that are going along with that we've got other handouts and printables that are free on our website and we're going to try to compile all of this to make a really comprehensive course for people to really get to know the book I I just want to give a huge thank you to our Patron supporters who make all of this possible I wouldn't be able to put as much time as I do into it without those patreon supporters so thank you and if you want to support a work that is dedicated to teaching other people Bible and helping them understand the gospel you can check out the link to our patreon down below there's also a link to free yes all of our resources are free free downloads of the handout that you're about to see up on the screen and that we're going to be using for this study so let's talk about the book of Acts chapter one in approximately five minutes the intro doesn't count so as we always do with these let's talk about when the events of chapter one took place all of the events in chapter one took place somewhere between like 29 and 30 A.D this would have been right after Jesus's Ministry this would have been within 50 days of his resurrection our main characters in this chapter well we've got Jesus this is going to be the last chapter where he's a key character well that's not that's kind of strange to say but he's leaving the Earth he's ascending back to heaven in this chapter so he is the Messiah he's the one who died on the cross and then resurrected and gives hope to all mankind that they too can be saved from their sins and live with God eternally then we've got 11 Apostles these were Jesus's students and they were going to be witnesses to his resurrection to the world there's also a mention of two kind of mysterious men these men appeared next to the apostles at the Ascension and they were dressed in white robes and most people think that they were probably angels and then we've got Matthias Matthias is an individual who has been some dog is barking outside so I live in Albania fun fact live in Albania and there's like a people of Pomeranians here like I don't know what it is everybody has a white Pomeranian and they bark like little yappy dogs so anyway back to Matthias Matthias was the man who was selected to become the twelfth Apostle you might say wait I thought they were already 12. well we'll we'll talk about that in a second where did the events of Acts chapter 1 take place well all of this happens in and around the city of Jerusalem the Bible tells us that Jesus ascended back to Heaven are around Bethany around the town of Bethany which was just to the east of Jerusalem okay now for our outline in verses one through five Luke the writer of the book of Acts he introduces his book and he addresses it to a man by the name of Theophilus this is the same guy that he addressed his first writing the Gospel of Luke 2. Luke's previous book was all about Jesus's life in his ministry and it recorded that so that Theophilus could have an understanding all of the events that happened after Jesus's resurrection and before he left them he told the apostles that they were supposed to stay in Jerusalem and wait for God to send his Holy Spirit and then in verses 6 through 11 we have the Ascension of Jesus Jesus's work on Earth as a man was completed he was now going back to sit at the Throne of God and while he was talking to his Apostles about the Holy Spirit coming and empowering them and how they would move forward in the early church he was lift it up and taken out of their sight into the clouds and those two men who we talked about earlier who were dressed in white robes they appeared next to the apostles and they asked the apostles what they were looking at and they told them that one day Jesus would return in a similar way to the way that he had left them so then our last section verses 12 through 26 this section is about the selection of a new Apostle to replace Judas Iscariot after Jesus left and went back to heaven the apostles did exactly what he told them to do they went back to Jerusalem they stayed in an upper room with some other believers some women and Mary Jesus's mother and also Jesus's brothers one day the Apostle Peter stood up and there was a gathering of some other believers about 120 of them Peter said that the Betrayal of Judas Iscariot back in recorded in the gospels that was actually predicted by the Old Testament prophets if you remember Judas is scary it was the Apostle who betrayed Jesus with a kiss to the Jewish authorities in afterwards he really regretted what he did and he went out and he killed himself Well that took the 12 apostles down to the 11 Apostles so here the Holy Spirit directed Peter to select a new one the candidates for selection were required to have been with the apostles from the time of John the Baptist ministry all the way up to Jesus's Ascension there are two men who met those requirements and were put up as candidates their names were Joseph called barsabis and Matthias and after praying and casting lots the lot fell on Matthias and he was selected as the new 12th Apostle and now for our applications we've actually got two here one thing to notice is that the apostles were told to go back to Jerusalem and to wait there for the Holy Spirit they weren't to move forward with their Ministry until the Holy Spirit empowered and I think there's a good lesson there that dependence on God's guidance and his power is essential for the success of the church just like the apostles Our Hope of success our ambition should be grounded in the power of God working through us not our own Ingenuity and our own plans and our own cleverness and then the second application we should always pray before we make big decisions even though the 11 Apostles probably knew Joseph and Matthias pretty well before they put them up as candidates to be the Apostle they didn't rely on their own assessment of their character to make the decision they still went to God and asked him for insights so the application for us is is that when we're making decisions no matter how familiar we are with the situation or the variables involved we need to go to God and ask him for help