Why did Jesus tell his disciples to wait instead of get to work right away?

This week Neighborhood Church started a new teaching series called Sparking the Flame. Over the next several months, we will work through the book of Acts, the true story of how a small group of ordinary people started a movement that has now lasted more than two thousand years. That movement did not begin with a strategy meeting. It began with Jesus giving his followers one simple instruction: wait.

A movement that should not have worked

Jesus was a blue-collar worker. He was a builder, not a scholar. He never went to school to become a rabbi. Yet one day he started calling other blue collar workers, mostly fishermen, to drop everything and follow him. And somehow it worked. Two thousand years later, we are still gathering to study what this man taught.

That was not inevitable. Why would an uneducated carpenter be able to call other uneducated men to follow him, and have any of it stick? How did a movement started by fishermen turn into the book we still read today? The book of Acts answers that question, starting from the very beginning.

Meet the doctor and his friend

Acts opens with a sentence that drops us into the middle of a story already in progress.

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. (Acts 1:1-2, ESV)

The "first book" is what we now call the Gospel of Luke. Luke was a doctor by trade, and a Greek who did not grow up in a Jewish home. Doctors tend to be careful and orderly, and Luke was no different. He noticed that a lot of people were writing down stories about Jesus, but the accounts felt scattered. So he decided to interview eyewitnesses, check the facts, and write everything down in order for a man named Theophilus, so that Theophilus could have real certainty about what he had been taught.

We do not know much about Theophilus. He is mentioned only twice in the entire Bible, both times by Luke. But it is clear Luke cared about him deeply. Writing was expensive and slow in that time in the world. There was no way to easily fix a mistake once ink hit the page. For Luke to research and write two full books for this one man tells us something about how much Luke wanted Theophilus to know and trust Jesus.

Jesus keeps working, now through the Spirit

Luke tells Theophilus that his first book covered what Jesus "began" to do, which means the story was not finished. After Jesus rose from the dead, he did not go straight back to heaven. He stuck around.

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. (Acts 1:3, ESV)

For forty days, the resurrected Jesus kept showing up, teaching his followers, and then disappearing again. We see a glimpse of this in Luke 24, where two discouraged disciples walk with Jesus for hours without recognizing him. They only recognize him when he sits down to share a meal with them. That detail matters. Jesus was a brilliant teacher, and he still is. But his goal was never just to fill our heads with facts. He wants to be known, not just studied. Do you know facts about Jesus, or do you know him?

The wait that mattered

After forty days of teaching, Jesus gave his disciples a final instruction before he left. It was not a strategy. It was a wait.

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4-5 (ESV)

Put yourself in their shoes. These men had spent three years with Jesus. Their hearts were burning to tell people what they had seen. And Jesus says, wait.

Following Jesus will reorganize your calendar. When he gets hold of your life, your priorities start to shift, and how you spend your time changes. Sometimes what he asks of you is not something great and dramatic. Sometimes it is simply this: wait. What does our willingness, or unwillingness, to wait on God say about who we really believe holds the plan for our life?

You will be my witnesses

The disciples wanted to know if Jesus was finally about to overthrow Rome and set up his kingdom right then.

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” (Acts 1:6-7, ESV)

Instead of a timeline, Jesus gave them a job.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8, ESV)

A witness simply tells what they have seen and heard. That was the whole assignment. Not a program. Not a strategy. Just tell people what you know about Jesus. One reason many people never talk about Jesus with others is that they do not really know him for themselves. You cannot share what you do not have. Do you know Jesus well enough to tell someone else about him?

Notice the order too. Jerusalem was home turf, comfortable and familiar. Judea was the surrounding region, still comfortable. But Samaria was full of people the disciples avoided. And “the end of the earth” meant strangers in faraway places. Jesus was sending them to the people they were most tempted to skip. Who in your life have you been avoiding instead of praying for?

Anchored together in prayer

After Jesus was taken up into heaven, the disciples did not scatter to start their own ministries. They went back to Jerusalem, gathered in an upstairs room, and waited together.

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (Acts 1:14, ESV)

These were ordinary, named people, not superheroes. They had watched their leader die and come back to life, and they still did not have all the answers. What they had was each other, and a shared commitment to pray while they waited for what Jesus had promised. When we pray together, using the same words Jesus gave us (“Our Father,” not “my Father”), we are reminded that following Jesus was never meant to be a solo project.

Who are you praying for right now? Who are you praying with? And is there someone you have not been praying for yet?

The disciples did not have a full plan. They had a person to follow. That is still true for us today. We keep following Jesus because he is the only one who actually holds the plan.

Keep exploring

If you are local to Ocala and this raises questions you would like to talk through, we would love to hear from you. Email us at ocala@weareneighborhood.church or text 352-236-2211. We would be glad to connect and keep the conversation going.

If you live outside the Ocala area, we would encourage you to find a local church near you where you can keep asking these questions and walk through them together with others.

Editor note: This blog summary was generated from a sermon transcript processed by AI and reviewed by a human editor. It is provided for convenience and engagement but may not fully reflect all of the original sermon emphases or explanation. The original writing and delivery of the sermon were done without the input of AI. Please refer to the full message and more importantly the Scripture for complete context and teaching.