Waiting for the Spirit

Did you know this month, September, we're two days, you got two days if you haven't, if you didn't know this already, it's National Preparedness Month. Did you know that? Okay, now you know. The emphasis this year has been for the last 28 days, you got two more, that preparedness starts at home.

Okay, so the encouragement is to be prepared when disaster strikes, fire, flood, extreme weather of some sort. In other words, do you know what the risks are in your home? Do you have an emergency plan? Do you have some emergency supplies ready? Like what will you do if your house catches on fire? What will you do if there is a flood in your neighborhood? What would you do if you didn't have power for a few days? What would you do to prepare for this event that might come? As we look into the book of Acts this morning, we're in chapter one, the disciples are preparing for an event of a different kind. Jesus told them, as before he ascended into heaven, that he would send the Holy Spirit and they would receive power to be his witnesses.

And he told them, go and wait in Jerusalem. So we're going to look here in Acts chapter one, starting in verse 12 this morning, and we're going to see what were the disciples doing to be prepared for when the Holy Spirit came. And the youth band, we just sang with them, I know my God will provide.

What are you waiting for God to provide for you? Are you waiting for some sort of answer to prayer for some sort of health concern, a financial concern? Maybe it is an emotional issue. Maybe there's some sort of relational thing going on in your life and you are waiting on the Lord to move in your life. What should you be doing while you wait? We're going to look this morning and see what were the disciples doing as they waited for this move of the Holy Spirit.

We know it's coming because we've read Acts chapter two. The disciples haven't gotten there yet, and so what were they doing as they waited? Let's just read this whole section together this morning. Acts chapter one, starting in verse 12, and I'm going to pray before we read it.

Lord, this is your word we're about to read. Lord, would it cut to our hearts? Would it be like that two-edged sword you say that it is, dividing into our soul, into our spirit, between joint and marrow, that it would affect us, that we would see the truth, and that we would align our life to it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Acts chapter one, starting in verse 12, they just saw Jesus go up into heaven. The two angels said, what are you waiting for? What are you looking up into the clouds for? Jesus is going to return in the same way, and it says this, they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James.

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120, and said, brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and was allotted his share in this ministry.

Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language, Akadelma, which is the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his can't become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office.

So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. And they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, you Lord who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.

And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles. So we know, because we have also read chapter 2, that the Holy Spirit is about to come into the upper room. There's about a 10-day period between when Jesus ascended and when the Holy Spirit came.

And we know that this is about to happen. The disciples don't know when, but Jesus told them that it would happen. They don't know how, but they were waiting for what Jesus said would happen.

They're waiting for the Holy Spirit. They're waiting for power to come from on high. And we're going to just observe this morning, what were they doing while they waited? They were waiting on the Lord.

What were they doing while they waited? Now, I'm not going to suggest this morning that we can manipulate God into doing certain things for us. If we do certain things, then he will do these certain things. And that's what we're talking about.

But these are just basic things that we do in faith as we wait on the Lord. Scripture does talk, though, that we can grieve the Holy Spirit. And in 1 Thessalonians, we're going to read in just a second, that we can quench the Holy Spirit.

Let me read 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 19, some commands of things that we should be doing. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. And then verse 19 says, do not quench the Spirit.

So in this list of, you know, good things that we should be doing, then there's this statement, don't quench the Spirit. And so quenching is this idea of putting water on a fire, sort of snuffing out the fire. And in the Scripture, all the way back to Moses in the burning bush, fire is an analogy for the presence of God.

And so the apostle Paul says, don't quench the work of the Spirit. Don't dampen what the Holy Spirit is doing. So there is this sense that's taught in Scripture that our actions, our attitudes, and our thoughts can affect how the Spirit moves in our lives.

Now say, we don't control God. We don't control the Holy Spirit. He can move wherever He wants, whenever He wants, regardless of what we're doing.

But there is, it is a relationship that we're in, and it is possible to grieve the Spirit. It is possible to quench the Spirit. So we don't want to be doing those things.

I don't think the apostles were doing that here in Acts chapter 1. What were they doing? First of all, in verse 12, they were obedient to Christ. Jesus said, go back to Jerusalem and wait for me. What did they do? They went back to Jerusalem to wait for Him.

Seems really, really simple. They gathered together, and they waited. How many, how many of you guys like to wait? All right, how many would rather be doing? Yeah, I don't have time to wait.

Let me just get started, right? We need to be obedient to Christ. We don't really like to use that word obey, do we? Like, we're adults. We don't obey.

Who obeys, Lewis, right? Hopefully the kids, yeah? But how many of you have had a kid say to you, you can't tell me what to do. What did, for some of our older congregation, Frank Sinatra, what did he sing? I did it my way. Don't tell me what to do.

I'm going to do what I want, when I want, and how I want it with whoever I want. We, in our culture, we place a high value on independence, right? We have, what do we have? A declaration of independence, and so individualism and self-reliance, personal freedom are all part of our American culture, and while it has served the nation well, those aren't exactly biblical principles. As individuals, we do have value.

As individuals, we have a relationship with God that is personal and individual, and yet there are so many calls within the scriptures to be one. We are a self-reliant people, and yet when it comes to the Christian life, don't worry, God, I got this, because I'm self-reliant. No, that's not what scripture teaches, does it? We are to completely depend on him, and the Bible talks a lot about freedom, but it's not personal freedom, so I can do whatever I want, when I want.

It is freedom to submit to Christ and to serve him, the one who died on the cross for our sins. So, biblically, it's very different when we don't like to be told what to do, but Jesus said, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. So, let's just say we want to do what's right, then we have a hard time doing it.

Or is that just me? The apostle Paul struggled with this. In Romans 7, verse 15, he said, I don't understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. As Christians, we're called to be obedient to Christ, and it really goes against everything about us.

We want to be independent and not have anyone tell us what we need to do, and then when we finally get it wrapped around our heads, okay, but I do need to submit to Christ, we have a hard time doing it. So, here's a question. Two questions.

One question. In what area of your life do you need to be obedient? What are some things you need to stop? What are some things you need to start? The disciples were, as they waited for God, they, or for the Holy Spirit, they were obedient to Christ. We talked about this just recently, learning to say no to sin and yes to God, learning to put off the old and replace it or put on the new.

Okay, so number one, they were obedient to God. Verse 13 lists all the apostles that were there along with some of the others, and then verse 14 says this. They were obedient.

Verse 14 says, all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer. All right, so two things there. The first thing in being prepared for the Holy Spirit to work is to be obedient to Christ.

The second thing is to be of one accord. That's what it says of the disciples. They were of one accord.

They had unity together. They were of one mind, is what that could be translated. I like to put it this way.

They were all pulling in the same direction. Think of a tug-of-war situation. Do you want everyone pulling on the rope to be pulling in whatever direction they want to go? It's really beneficial when everyone's pulling in the same direction, isn't it? That's the idea of being of one mind, or as my translation puts it, they are of one accord.

So what were they of one accord or what were they of one mind about? Well, they were ready for the Holy Spirit to come. They were ready to receive this power that Jesus talked about. They were ready to be these witnesses that Jesus wanted them to be, but they were waiting, and they were united in this.

We updated our mission statement here at the church because it focuses our priorities. It gives us something to grab hold of, and it gives us something so we're all pulling together in the same direction. So what we want to be united about here at House of Prayer is that we're going to love God.

We're going to love people. We're going to make disciples, and it's all straight from the scripture. We do all kinds of different things.

We have different programs, different events, different groups, different things happening, all with one goal in mind. In all of it, we're loving God, we're loving people, and we're making disciples. So it's important for us to have unity as the big church of Christ, the worldwide church of Christ, but we want to have unity as a group of believers here at House of Prayer in Blairsville.

We want to be of one mind, united together, agreeing that the same thing's important. Of course, the gospel is the most important thing, and there are other priorities for anyone who would say that they're a Christian, and then specifically here in this group, we're going to be about loving God, loving people, and making disciples. So as they were of one accord, they were also devoted to prayer.

They were devoting themselves to prayer, and I've said this before, that our prayer life reveals a lot about ourselves. It reveals to us if we truly are dependent on God, if we truly are looking to Him for wisdom, as Sarah and some of you ladies learned about this weekend. If we're putting our faith and our trust in Him, we do that through prayer.

We do that through our conversations. Yes, we do it through our actions as well, but prayer is an indication of that. If we're never going to the Lord in prayer, this is my take.

We're saying, I got this God. I'm not going to involve you in this because I got it. Dangerous place to be.

So I think they were of one accord. They were of one mind. They were devoted to God in prayer because they recognized they needed God in their lives.

Not just for salvation, but for their day-to-day life. I wonder what they were praying about. We're just talking about a 10-day window.

They devoted themselves to prayer. I think that we spend, and I'm guilty of this, too much time praying for our own needs, wants, and desires. I don't think that they had a daily health request, you know, any ailments today, and anyone's grandma in the nursing home.

You know, these weren't the things. I'm sure that those are important things. Don't get me wrong, but I think they were praying and asking God to do what he said he would do.

God, you said you would send your spirit. We're ready for your spirit. God, you said you were going to give us power.

We're ready to receive it. God, you said you wanted us to be witnesses. We're ready to be your witnesses.

I think they were praying about the will of God, and that they would be able to fulfill the will of God, whether through evangelism, new people coming to Christ, or discipleship, the sanctification of the saints. I've heard it said before, every interaction that you have is an opportunity for evangelism or discipleship. They either don't know the Lord, and they need to know him, or they know the Lord, and they could benefit in their relationship with him.

You have that opportunity in every conversation. So we want to be ready for the work of the Holy Spirit. We need to be obedient to Christ.

We should have unity with the saints. We should be devoted to prayer. It's kind of interesting that Jesus' family is there with him.

If you remember in Mark, at one point Jesus' brothers showed up to like carry him home. They thought he had gone crazy. He'd lost his mind.

Let's get him home before he makes a bigger fool of himself. And now here they are in the upper room with the disciples waiting for the Holy Spirit. One more thing that I see is that they were in the word, obedient to Christ, unity with each other, devoted to prayer, and in the word.

Peter and the other disciples will later be described as uneducated, common men. They didn't have a formal education. At a certain age they said, you know what? We're here.

We're studying the law. We're studying the Torah. You'd probably be better off just to go home and learn the family business.

We'll let these other ones continue with their studies. But here's Peter in front of this group calling to mind the scriptures because he knew what the scripture said. Verse 16 says this, Peter speaking, Brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas.

So first of all, he acknowledges that what Judas did was ordained in the scripture. It was already talked about. But it's really significant that he says it was the Holy Spirit who spoke by the mouth of David, affirming that how did we receive our Bible? Yes, there were men that wrote it down, but they were writing down what the Holy Spirit gave them to write.

This scripture is a divinely inspired word of God. We need to always remember that. That's what Peter believed.

That's what the other apostles believed. And he says, look, Jesus, excuse me, Judas betrayed Jesus, fulfilling the scripture. Verse 17 tells us he was one of the apostles.

He had a share in the ministry. And yet now they're going to replace him. He betrayed Jesus.

He committed suicide. He was buried in this field called, what they called the field of blood. It became the 30 pieces of silver that he betrayed Jesus for.

He gave it back. Field was bought. They used it as a cemetery.

And so Peter says it fulfilled the Psalms. And it says, may his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it. Well, I don't think anybody probably lived in that graveyard.

And that was from, I believe that's Psalm 68. And then from Psalm 109, let another take his office. We need to replace him.

They were in the word, studying it, recognizing that the scripture spoke of what was happening. And they said, look, this is what the scripture says. This is what we need to do.

So Peter was in the word. He knew it. He was applying it to his life situations.

So let's just look at this replacement of Judas, the 12th apostle. Verses 21 and 22 describe what they did or describe the criteria. Let's choose one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up.

One of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. So the criteria there, one was going to be a man, someone that was with them from the beginning and someone who was a witness to Jesus's baptism, his ministry, his death and his resurrection. So a man who was with them the whole time and was a witness to the things that Jesus did.

I think it's interesting that it says that they prayed to God to reveal to them who it needed to be. Very similarly, in Luke chapter 6, it says that Jesus went to the mountain and prayed and all night he continued in prayer to God. Jesus prayed all night long and in the morning when the day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles.

So Jesus had, he didn't just have 12 followers, he had a group of followers that were called disciples and from that group of disciples he chose 12 to be his, we usually refer to him as Jesus's disciples and we think of 12, but Jesus said he named them apostles at that time and they needed to, they felt the need to replace, they only had 11 now and so they wanted to be back up to 12 and so an apostle in this sense is a unique person. All right, we don't have apostles today like these verses are describing. Why not? None of us were there for his baptism, for his ministry, for his death and his resurrection.

These apostles were chosen to be witnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, so none of us qualify. Even the apostle Paul could not claim to be one of the 12, even though he said, look, Jesus did appear to me and he refers to himself as an apostle untimely born. In other words, he realized he wasn't there from the beginning, but he had a special ministry of apostleship to the Gentiles.

So you can read in 23 through 26, two men were put forward, they prayed, they decided these were two good candidates, they cast lots and Matthias was chosen. Now we talked about last week that we're going to differentiate between what is being described, in other words this is what happened, and what is being prescribed. In other words, this is what you must continue to do.

So nowhere in scripture does it say that when it comes to making a decision, the local church shall find some dice or some rocks and cast them to see which way they'll go. That is what happened. But there's not, like we've been talking about this morning, being obedient.

We've been talking about having unity. We've been talking about being in prayer. We've been talking about being in the word.

You can find those instructions all through the scriptures. We're not told that we need to continue casting lots, even though that's how they decided the 12. Same thing with the apostles.

They needed another apostle for that time in that day. We're not choosing apostles today because none of us were there to observe Jesus's ministry. So those are things that are being described, but we're not being asked to continue today.

What are we being asked to continue? Well, all through scripture we need to be obedient to Christ. What do you need to stop doing, or maybe what do you need to start doing to be obedient to Christ? We need to be of one accord. What do you need to do to have unity with your fellow believers? If we think about the big C church, if you've never been baptized, Jesus says you should be baptized.

It identifies you as one of his followers of the big church. I think something that's beneficial if you're saying, I like these people at House of Prayer. I live here in Blairsville.

I want to be about loving God, loving people, and making disciples. Maybe it's time to say, you know what, I think it's time to join a church. We need to be committed to prayer.

We have this name of our church, House of Prayer. Does that describe us as individuals? Does that describe us as a church? Not just for our needs, wants, and desires, but for the spread of the gospel and the growth of the saints, evangelism, discipleship. And then the last one was, we need to be in the word.

Not just to read the word, but read the word, do what it says. And I've told you this before. You think, man, I don't know what my next step in my relationship with Jesus is.

Read the Bible, do what it says. You could do that for a lifetime. You don't need to know what's next.

Read the Bible, do what it says. All of these things put us in a good position for when God works. Is that not what we want? When we see God doing something to be a part of what he's doing, we want to be ready to do that.

Let's be obedient to Christ. Let's have unity with one another. Let's be in prayer and let's be people of the word.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the way that you do work in our lives. First for salvation, but you don't just save us and then leave us on our own. You've sent the Holy Spirit.

He indwells us, leads us, he guides us, gives us the strength and the capability to do the things that you call us to do. Lord, we do want to be people of the word, not just head knowledge, but also in how we live our lives. Lord, I pray that our behavior would align with our belief.

Lord, we do want to be committed to prayer. We do want to have this constant realization that we need you in our lives. Lord, one of the other things you said is they, people of the world, will know who your disciples are by their love for one another.

Lord, help us to be of one accord. Help us to be of one mind. Help us to be concerned with the things that concern you.

We want to love you well. We want to serve you well. As we sung this morning, not to earn our salvation that's been freely given, but because of what you have done for us, Lord, that we would live for you.

And Father, if there's someone here this morning that has never believed in Jesus' death on the cross for their salvation, that Jesus died for my sins and for the sins of each person in here and for the sins of the entire world, that today would be the day that they say, I recognize that I'm a sinner. I recognize that Jesus' death on the cross paid for my sin. They would have a heart of thankfulness and gratitude for the salvation that you offer.

Go with us now, Lord. And as we bring our request to you this week, and as we wait for you to work in our lives, I pray that we would be living lives of obedience, of unity, of prayer, and in the word. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.