“What’s Next?”

Text: Acts 1:6-14

A man named Bart Centre started a company called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets. The business specializes in serving people who think that someday God is going to rapture them up into heaven, but who want to make sure that their pets that are left behind will still be taken care of. And so, for a fee, Eternal Earth-Bound Pets promises to take your Fido out for a walk and get catnip for Fluffy if you’re suddenly taken up into heaven. At present, about 260 clients have paid around $35,000 for that service. And the owner, Bart Centre, reports that business really picked up when the radio evangelist Harold Camping issued his prediction that the world would come to an end on May 21.[1]

In fact, as you undoubtedly heard, Harold Camping’s organization spent some $100 million on billboards and other advertising to get the word out about his May 21 prediction. But then, when May 21 came and went without incident, he announced that he had unfortunately made a slight miscalculation, and that his new prediction was that the world will come to an end not on May 21, but on October 21. And although we might shake our heads and chuckle at the Harold Campings of the world, the reality is that a lot of people pay attention to predictions like that. And that’s because deep down inside many people is a desire to know what’s next. What’s going to happen next in the world?

What’s next? That’s a question that graduates ask themselves, especially at this time of year. What’s next in terms of a further education? What’s next in terms of a career? What’s next when it comes to maybe getting married and having a family? What’s next? And in fact, “what’s next?” is a question that not only graduates ask. If we’re honest, all of us would have to acknowledge that “what’s next?” is a question that’s on our minds as well.

“What’s next?” was a question that was on the minds of Jesus’ own disciples. For forty days after Easter the risen Jesus kept appearing to the disciples and kept teaching them more and more about the kingdom of God. But then, at the end of those forty days, the time had come for Jesus to leave the earth and ascend into heaven. And so the disciples asked Jesus, “What’s next? Has the time finally come when you’re going to do what we’ve been asking for and hoping all along? Has the time finally come when you’re going to expel the Roman soldiers from our soil and return our nation to the glory that we once had? Is that what’s next?”

But Jesus replied to the disciples by saying, “It’s not for you to know what’s next. What’s next is in God’s hands. But here is the promise I have for you: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” What’s next? We’ll receive power – power to be witnesses for Jesus.

If you were to worship with a black congregation on a Sunday morning, it would not be unusual if at some point during the sermon the preacher called out, “Can I get a witness?” Can I get a witness? When the preacher says that, he’s asking if any in the congregation can identify with what he’s saying. Can I get a witness? When the preacher says that, he’s asking if anyone present has experienced and seen Jesus in their lives like the preacher is talking about in the sermon.

Jesus promises us the power to be his witnesses. But what is a witness? Basically a witness is someone who has seen something, who has experienced something, and then tells other people what they have seen and experienced. But when we hear Jesus tell us that he’s going to give us the power to be his witnesses, we might be tempted to respond, “OK….Yes, we can tell other people about you, Jesus. But what’s next? Isn’t there something else you want us to do? What’s the goal, what’s the target we should be shooting for?”

But Jesus tells us that the answer to the “What’s next?” question is in God’s hands, and that we need to trust God to deal with what’s next. Our job, Jesus says, is to be witnesses, to tell other people about Jesus and help to point people in his direction, and then to trust the Holy Spirit to take it from there.

For instance, about a hundred years ago there was a big missionary conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. At that gathering, Christian leaders from across Europe and North America had assembled for the purpose of determining what was next in terms of Christian missionary activity. They basically looked at a map of the world and decided where they thought they ought to put their efforts. But what’s interesting to note is that at that conference almost no mention at all was made of the continent of Africa. By and large the missionaries didn’t see there being any real possibility of success there. But a hundred years later, because some missionaries did go there and witnessed about Jesus, the Holy Spirit took it from there, and now there are more Christians on the African continent than on any continent, and about 32,000 more Africans are coming to faith in Jesus every day.[2]

What’s next these days? As we look at our society, we might be tempted to think that there’s not much of a future. After all, even though the United States makes up just 5% of the world’s population, we have 25% of all the prison inmates in the world.[3] In fact, the United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the state of California has 46,000 too many inmates jammed into their prisons, and that either they need to build more prisons or else let the criminals out.

As we look at our society, we see drug use, we see child abuse. Or something that has me really concerned right now is that I recently learned that three 7^th and 8^th graders in the Carlynton School District have been expelled for bad behavior. And the common denominator among all three kids is that their parents refuse to play an active role in teaching their kids the difference between right and wrong. And now, as 7^th and 8^th graders, having been expelled, what kind of future are they going to have? What’s next for them?

As we look at our world, as we look at our society, there’s a lot there that makes us angry. There’s a lot there that needs to be changed. But anger about those problems isn’t going to change things. No, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “That which you wish to change, you must first love.” Are we prepared to change this world by loving it? Are we prepared to change this world by being witnesses to the love of Jesus – helping other people to discover for themselves the truth that Jesus loves them and that Jesus has a purpose for their lives.

What’s next? What does the future hold in store? Jesus tells us that that’s not our concern, that that’s not our responsibility – that we need to entrust the future and what’s next into God’s hands. But what is our concern, what is our responsibility is to earnestly pray that we might receive that power that Jesus spoke of so that we might be his witnesses here in this community and in all the world.