Preparing to Witness

If you've been worshiping with us over the past couple of weeks

or so, you know that we are working our way through the book

of Acts. We're right at the very front

end of it. In the last few minutes, last

scene that we saw, the disciples were clumped together on the

Mount of Olives, staring up into heaven as they watched Jesus

ascend into heaven. And as they watched them go,

they had the command of the Lord in their minds.

Wait in Jerusalem until you receive the power of the Holy

Spirit, and then be my witnesses in Judea, Samaria, to the ends

of the earth. Wait in Jerusalem.

What does that wait look like? re/max chapter 1, verses 12 and

following. And then the disciples returned

to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is near

Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's 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 Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of

James. All these with 1 accord were

devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary

the mother of Jesus and his brothers.

Lord, we ask that you would bless us as we seek to

understand these words and to be moved and changed by them.

Make it so. Lord Jesus, we pray this evening

in your Son's name we ask, Amen. Please be seated and if you

would grab your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter 1 continuing on in

Acts 1 · chapter mention

verse 15. In those days, Peter stood up

among the brothers. The company of persons was in

all about 120. And he 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 Judas 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 a keldama, which is the field of blood.

Peter continued. For it is written in the book of

the Psalms. May as camp become desolate, and

let no one dwell in it, and let another take his place.

So one of the men who have accompanied us during all this

time, that Jesus, 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 come with

us as a witness to His resurrection.

And they put forward 2 Joseph called Burr Sabbath, who was

also called Justice, and Matthias.

And they prayed, and they said, Lord, 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.

And this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God, the grass Withers and the flowers fade,

but the word of our Lord it stands forever.

Thank you for joining us this evening again, as always, it is

a joy for us to be able to worship together the Lord Jesus

whenever we are called to do so. But it's particularly

appropriate here. When we are faced with some

concern over the next couple of days is a great opportunity for

us to gather like this is God's people.

My grandparents were from the old country and they never

stopped wanting to talk about the old country.

Whenever we get together as kids, that the subject would

always come up and they would talk for on ad nauseam about the

old country. And as a young kid, I was bored

silly. It would really bug me that

every time we get together, I'd hear about these dead people

that I'd never seen in these places over across the seas that

I'd have no contact with. And it was just something there.

I was always like, can we get past this so we can get on to

the fun part of the day? But my my folks would slightly

indulge my grandpa parents who would go on these memory tours

of what it was like in the olden days.

Once I became a Christian, I remembered some of those

moments. And one of the things that I

remembered about them was that my have a great, great, great

uncle somewhere that was a priest back in the old country.

And I on the one side and on the other side, I have a great,

great great grandfather or whatever there was a preacher

on. And suddenly those stories

became much more meaningful to me.

Of course, it was after my grandparents had passed.

And so I wasn't able to keep track of learn a whole lot about

those things. But it was intriguing that once

I had a personal connection to all those stories, once I once

those stories were meaningful in my own life, suddenly I was very

interested. The book of Acts is filled with

great stories, is going to be something that largely

captivates us because there are stories and they're moving

stories. They're powerful stories of the

work of the Lord and the work of the Holy Spirit in his Kingdom.

It's a great story book just to read, but it's also possible

that you could read it and be slightly bored because you're

reading about someone else's history.

We're not. When we look at the book of

Acts, we are reading about our history specifically.

We are under the exact same call, the exact same command

that the Lord put upon the disciples when He had gathered

them together before His ascension, when He put them

together. And He said, wait for the power

of the Holy Spirit, and then you will be my witnesses in Judea

and in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the

earth. That command is given not just

to the disciples, not to the original 12, but to all those

who claim the name of Jesus Christ.

Now, this is going to be important because otherwise, as

we do work our way through the book of Acts, you're hearing

somebody else's story. I don't think that's the case.

I believe that it is the case that that command that we are to

in the power of the Holy Spirit, witness to the resurrection of

the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and

to the ends of the earth. I believe that that remains the

responsibility of every single Christian here.

Now we go about that calling differently.

Not everybody here is called to be a pastor.

Not everybody here is called to be in youth ministry.

Not everybody is called to work in the blessing board.

Not everybody is called to witness to the person across the

street, but all of us in one way or another, live underneath that

calling of through the power of the Holy Spirit, witnessing to

the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem,

Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

We all have that. That responsibility is bearing

upon each and every one of us. If you're a follower of Lord

Jesus, Jesus Christ, and that's not clear to you at this point,

please look again at the Scriptures, read the word, talk

to somebody. Of course, if you talked with

me, I'm going to encourage you exactly in that area.

But the idea, the perversion, the satanic perversion, that

it's somebody else's job and not mine, that God has called me to

himself simply to save me, not to give me a task, not to give

me a responsibility, is something that we cannot fall

victim to. We must recognize that it is Our

Calling, our job to as effectively and as passionately

as it laid upon the disciples. It is our call to, in the power

of the Spirit, witness to Jesus Christ, be his witnesses in

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

That is our call. And so this is our story.

And so it behooves us than to know what the disciples did

after receiving that call, if that's everybody's call.

In other words, my, my understanding is that every

Christian in this room has some kind of a specific calling from

the Lord to do the ministry that he has called forth.

Yes, the great blessing of our salvation is that we have been

redeemed from our sins and we are in relationship with the

Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity.

Nobody can take that away. That is the greatest blessing,

of course, of the of the cross and the work of the cross on our

behalf. It is glorious above all else.

And we can talk about that, and we should talk about that, but

running parallel, tied to that in an inescapable bond is a

responsibility that everyone of us has to be ministers, to be

servants in this world. It is not simply our faith to

simply to take it in and to benefit from it.

It is also our faith to give into the world, into God's

Kingdom, that which he has given to us.

Each of us, everyone of you have the responsibility now.

Mine is easy to see. I'm a pastor.

I'm called to be a pastor. I'm called to do this kind of

work. It's easy to say, well, Henry,

you've got a clear calling. I'm a housewife or I'm a

secretary, or I'm a janitor, or I'm an engineer or I'm in the

medical field. Every person, every person who's

a follower of Jesus Christ is under that same restriction to,

in the power of the Holy Spirit, witness to the coming of Jesus

Christ. And so I think it helps us then

to explore exactly what it is that waiting on the Lord looks

like. Because for many of you, you're

going to know what your ministry is.

Some of you have been working in a certain area of ministry for a

long period of time. You're going to know what your

service is. You're going to know how God has

gifted you. God's gifted me to work with

kids. God has gifted me to work in a

humanitarian ministry. God's worked with me to pray for

and to pay for missionaries throughout the world.

Some of you are going to know your ministry.

I still think this passage of Scripture can speak to you as

you are awaiting the fulfillment of God's work in your life.

But for a whole lot of people, they know that they're called to

the Lord and they hear, they know that God, the service in

God's Kingdom, is upon all of us.

And yet the unsteadiness. While I'm new to the church or

I'm new to the faith or I'm young, I'm too young or or my

days of service have gone past. That's never the case for any of

us. So what does it look like that

the disciples waited on the Lord.

They OK remember the the story. If you're if you missed the 1st

11 verses of the chapter, go back at some point and read

them. Jesus has gathered his disciples

together at Mount, at the Mount of Olives, and he said to them,

listen, you're supposed to wait in Jerusalem until the power of

the Holy Spirit comes upon you. When the power of the Holy

Spirit comes upon you, you're to be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

Judea, Samarian to the ends of the earth, the concentric

sayings sprouting out until you include the whole world.

OK. That's the responsibility that's

given to the disciples. Then they see the ascension,

which is the Lord rising up to assume the authority over all

the world whereby he can make these commands and express his

desire for his people. And so then the disciples go

back. This is in verse 12, then of our

texts. Then disciples return to

Jerusalem from the mount, call, all of it, which is near

Jerusalem about a Sabbath day's journey away.

Sabbath day is about 1/2 of a mile or so.

So they're outside of Jerusalem about a Sabbath day.

They go to the to the upper room and they wait.

Now what does waiting look like? The reason why this has captured

my attention is that I know, I know that there's passion here

because I know that it's passion sent by the Lord himself.

There's passion to be faithful to his calling.

There's passion for everyone who who's a Christian here to do

something, service in his Kingdom.

That's what he redeemed us for. That's what he made us for.

It comes hand in glove with our salvation.

And so I know that there's a passion, a desire to serve, and

yet some people are just waiting.

And that's good as long as we're waiting the way the disciples

waited. How did the disciples wait?

Well, let's look at this passage in particular.

Let's look at a parallel text, which is where Luke also records

the ascension and the Gospel of Luke at the very end, he records

the ascension by saying this. While Jesus was blessing them,

he parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they

worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, where

they continually were in the temple blessing God.

OK, so they're supposed to wait for the power of the Holy

Spirit? What does that mean?

They just kind of camped out on their lazy boy chairs and waited

around saying OK come on Holy Spirit, get going.

That's not at all the picture. What's the picture?

The picture here is that they are praising God.

They gather together to praise the Lord.

In other words, worship is what they occupy their time with

between. When the Lord says to them wait

in Jerusalem for the power of Holy Spirit, what do the

disciples do? They wait.

But waiting is not this passive. We're just not going to do

anything. They are active in their worship

of the Lord, the praising the Lord.

Now, that's easy for us to imagine.

I mean, they just saw the guy resurrected from the dead and

raised up into heaven. They're told that he's going to

come again in the same power. They're told that they're going

to have the power of the Holy Spirit and be able to witness to

his life of death and resurrection.

Of course they're worshiping God.

That's an easy thing to say. But notice where they're

worshiping God. They worship the Lord in his

temple. In other words, they gathered

together with the people of God to worship.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to me to run into

Christians that believe that they have a calling, a ministry

from God, believe that they are serving the Lord in some fashion

or another, and they are disconnected from the people of

God. I can't tell you how frustrating

that is because it runs completely counter to the whole

Scriptures, which detail for us that the people of God is where

the Lord is working. It is through whom the Lord is

working. Of course we are to work with

those who are outside the community.

Of course we're supposed to work outside the walls of this

church, but we're supposed to do so as a body, as a community.

The disciples come and they are waiting for the Lord.

How do they wait for the Lord? They wait for the Lord by

worshipping Him with God's people.

If you're looking for where the Lord is calling you to serve, if

you're saying, look, I know that I should be serving somewhere

and given my age or given my, my physical abilities or given my

interests or something, I don't know where that's going to be.

Be with the people of God, Worship him and be with the

people of God. It is impossible, impossible for

us to hear the voice of the Lord, for the hear the calling

of the Lord unless we are with the people of God.

That's simply the way the Lord has played, has designed his

redemption for us to work together like this, in this

fashion. So the first thing that we see

here is that the disciples while they're waiting, what does

waiting look like? It's not passive.

That's the point of all of this, the waiting while we are being

empowered by the Spirit into acts of service.

And I suspect that all of us, no matter what your job is, no

matter what you how invested you are in ministry of this church

or in the ministries that are happening around this this

neighborhood, no matter how invested you are, all of us can

learn what it means to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit.

That means being in God's with God's people worshipping the

Lord together. What else does it mean?

Look in verse 16 verse sorry verse 14, verse 14.

After hearing of the disciples Peter, James, John, Andrew,

Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, James and Simon

all all of these with 1 accord were devoting themselves to

prayer. This would be a perfect moment

to make a comment about how small the disciples must have

been because they all got there together in one Honda Accord.

But I am way too mature to make that kind of a joke at a moment

like this. So with all one Accord, they

devoted themselves to what? To pray.

Now what are they praying about? They know what the Lord has

called them to do. Wait for the power of the Holy

Spirit. The Lord has promised them the

power of the Holy Spirit. He's going to fulfill that

calling. He has said called them to be

witnesses. They know what their job is.

They know where they're supposed to go, Jerusalem, Judea,

Samaria, the ends of the earth. They know what they're supposed

to do. What are they praying about?

They are praying specifically for the very same reason that

all of us are, to be praying for the Lord consistently, to

emphasize an awareness of our dependence upon Him.

It is the Lord who does these things.

It is God through through whom whose power we work.

It is the Holy Spirit that empowers us and enables us to be

faithful in the calling that He has given to us.

And we need to emphasize that by praying in our prayers.

What we're doing is saying, God, we do not rest upon our own

strength. We do not count on our own

abilities. Rather, we know our own

fallibility. We know our brokenness.

We know our sinfulness. We know that you have given us a

great and glorious task and that you are sovereign over all

things. You can do all things.

Therefore, with that attitude we come in prayer.

But not just prayer. They come praying with 1 accord.

They come united together in prayer.

Now what does that mean? If you are looking for a service

of ministry, if you are looking for where God is calling you

specifically to put your time and energy, if you are, if you

know that the Lord has called you to service and yet you don't

know if you're fulfilling that faithfully, here's what you do.

You get out of three or four different people and you ask

them, Christians, brothers and sisters who you worship with.

You say, brothers and sisters who I worship with.

I need you to pray for me over a blank period of time.

Make it manageable over the next 10 days.

I need you to covenant with me that you will pray for me so

that I will hear well what the Lord is calling me to do.

That's what it means to pray in one accord.

It means that they all get together.

Not that they all recite the same words or anything like

this, but that they have the same passion, the same desire

for this. And notice that they are devoted

to that prayer, devoted to that prayer.

I don't want to embarrass myself by talking about the limitations

of my own prayer life. I pray, but nobody would mistake

my prayer life as one of devotion, that I am devoted to

prayer. But that's what the Scriptures

are calling us to, to have a passion, to be consistent, to be

persistent in our prayers. That's what it means for us to

wait upon the Lord, not to be passive, but rather to wait in

passion in our prayers and our dedication and our devotion to

the Lord. They waited for the Lord and

they studied Scripture. Look in verse 16.

In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, about 120 of

them, and said verse 16 Brothers, the Scripture had to

be fulfilled. The Scripture had, OK, So what

are they doing in these period of time?

It's about 10 days between the ascension of the Lord and the

coming of the Holy Spirit. What are they doing while

they're waiting in Jerusalem? They are worshipping the Lord,

they are praying together, and they are studying the

Scriptures. It is the power of the

Scriptures. If you feel called to a

ministry, if you're involved right now in a ministry area, if

you feel called to serve your neighbor, if you feel called to

minister to those who are poor and broken.

If you feel like your job is to carry the love of God out into

this world and you're not covered it in scripture.

If you're not overwhelmed in Scripture, you are failing to

capture the 1 medium that the Lord promises us that He will

speak to us through. He speaks to us through his word

by the power of the Spirit. This is what we're talking

about, the power of the Spirit working in the church for the

world, blessing of the world. And that power of the Spirit

comes to us through the word of God, through his scriptures.

And so consistently in that period of waiting where we're

like, Lord, what are you leading me to?

What's next on for me? How am I able?

How am I supposed to be more and more faithful to you?

You must cover that in prayer. You must cover that in the

scriptures. And here's what you do.

You don't sit there and say, OK, Lord, I'm going to turn blindly

to this passage, put my finger down and whatever you tell me to

do in that text, I'm going to do.

That's not it. What you do is you immerse

yourself in the God of the scriptures and buying by being

immersed in the God of the Scriptures.

It's early in the morning. No it's not.

By being immersed in the God of the Scriptures He speaks to us.

There is a 2000 years of church history that proves the

truthfulness of the scriptural witness that God speaks to His

people through the scriptures. How lazy or arrogant or self

assured must we be to ignore the word of the Lord?

And by the way, they're studying the Scripture.

They're not just looking at it. They're not doing randomly

scanning through the text. They're studying the scripture.

How do you know that? Look at the text that Peter

references. This is in verse 20.

May is camp. Become desolate and let there be

no one to dwell in it and let another take his office.

OK, Now those are from the Psalms, we're told.

And I defy anybody who was going to tell me they know where those

texts are from. Those are OK.

This is not like Psalm 23 that many of us are going to be

familiar with, or Psalm 100 or Psalm One, or Psalm 150 or Psalm

22. Some of the texts in which were

this is from Psalm 69, an obscure verse in Psalm 69 and an

obscure verse in Psalm one One O 9.

Now why do I think they're studying the Scriptures?

Because you don't connect. You don't read those passages

and connect them to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus

Christ unless you're saying to yourself, you're dedicated to

the word and you're saying God speak to me of Jesus Christ.

When I look at this word, speak to me of Jesus Christ.

And when you say speak to me of Jesus Christ, O Lord, and you

read Psalm one, O 9, you come up with this text, you see the Lord

living in and breathing through it.

When you say, Lord, speak to me in this text, you see Psalm 69

that speaks of the of the coming love and grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ. The disciples were worshipping

our God and Savior. They were praying fervently with

one mind. They were studying the word of

God together and they were obsessing, focused upon Jesus

Christ. Look in verse 21 there.

So this is Peter now saying, OK, so Peter says, look, we've lost

Judas Iscariot. Now some of you guys know the

story that Judas is the one that betrayed Jesus and that

ultimately Judas was killed. And we read a little bit about

that with died because of that. And so instead of 12 disciples,

you've got 11 disciples. And Peter says, hey, we've got

to replace this person. How do we replace Judas?

How do we find his fulfillment? Look in verse 21.

And so one of the men who had been accompanying the Auster all

during the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,

beginning with baptism until the day in which he was taken of one

of these men must be come with us a witness to the

resurrection. In other words, somebody needs

to fill the position that Judas was in.

Who's that person going to be? It is somebody, it's this easy,

who has been with Jesus, somebody who's been with Jesus.

That's the kind of reflection that all the disciples have as

they are waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon

them. They're waiting for the power of

the Holy Spirit and they are anticipating with great joy and

eagerness the fulfillment of that text where they are walking

in relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's the essence of being sent a witness to the Lord is that we

are witnessing to that relationship that we have with

the Lord. Now, none of us, we're not in a

position and I don't there are Christian communities that use

the term apostle and they call each other apostles and those

kind of things. And that's not, we're not

becoming like Matthias here by saying, by linking ourselves

with the disciples and saying that we have the same calling

the disciples have, that we too are called to go to all the

world, that we too are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ,

that we too are called to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

I'm not saying that we are therefore identical to the

disciples. It is clearly different that

Matthias here was able to see and witness and walk and teach

and be taught by and to to talk with Jesus Christ.

That's not the kind of discipleship that we are blessed

with. We are blessed with hearing of

Jesus Christ through the word of God.

And so when we're reading the Scriptures so passionately, like

we were talking about, what we're doing is we're becoming a

meshed in who Christ is. We're seeing him for who he

really is. We're learning more about him.

We are deepening our relationship with him.

And during that time, we are waiting for him to direct us in

the ministry, in the service in which he has promised to us,

which he has commanded to all of us.

So what the disciples are doing is they're saying here, we need

to find somebody who was locked on to Jesus, which is the very

definition of what it means to be a disciple, to be locked into

Jesus. So how do you know if you found

your calling? How do you know if you've

discovered what God calls you to do?

Well, I think we have a great expression of this From verses

21 down through 24, we see Peter leaning into three things.

Four things really. The general expression of the

Scriptures. How do you know your calling?

It's laid out before us in the Scriptures, and that's why Peter

spent so much time studying the Scriptures.

Secondly, he uses common sense. Notice that in verse 2122, he

sits there and says, look, Jesus picked 12 of us.

We lost 1. He divided the ministry among

the 12 of us We need to fulfill. We need to add in that one.

We need to become 12 again. Common sense.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have some people come

up and say, I really think we should do this, and there's no

sense of common sense at all in what they're saying.

God has blessed us with common sense.

Use it. God has blessed us with the

Scriptures. Read it.

Then thirdly, look at verse 24 when they had prayed prayer.

Once again, prayer is from the beginning of this text to the

end. It's woven into what it means to

wait on the Lord, to be prayerful for him.

And then look at the end. And they prayed.

You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show us the one whom you

have chosen. They trusted in the Lord.

Now you'll notice at the end of the story, just to wrap this up

for a second, that they cast lots.

They roll dice, they pull straws, whatever.

And you've got Matthias and you've got Joseph and the pulled

dot. They, they cast lots, lots of

random expression. And the lot falls on Matthias

and he becomes the the next apostle.

The Christian Church no longer cast lots.

That's that was a way in the Old Testament and in the pre Holy

Spirit era, the pre Pentecost era, whereby you would express

your trust in the Lord Lord, we trust that you are going to be

the one who is sovereignly in control of these dice.

You're the one who is sovereignly in control of the

ermine in the Thurman. You're the one who's sovereignly

in control of the straws that we pull out.

All that makes sense to us, but with the coming of the Holy

Spirit is the promise that the Lord now is present with His

people in a way that we express our trust and dependence on Him.

Not by chance, not by games of chance, not by by random

expressions of how we trust the Lord is going to show Himself,

but by leaning into the power of the Holy Spirit that He has

promised for each and every one of us.

So what does it mean for you? What I'm hoping is that through

this text, every one of us is challenged to re evaluate where

it is that God has called us. What has God called you to do?

What's your service? What's your ministry?

What's your focus? How are you fulfilling the

calling that the Lord has given to us to witness to Him?

Because that's a responsibility for every single one of you.

And if you don't know, it's a calling to wait.

What does waiting mean? It means worshipping the Lord in

the midst of His people. It means devoting yourself to

prayer with one or two or three or four other followers.

It means being passionate about your study of Scripture and

being open to the way in which the Lord will speak to you in

this regard. It is focusing upon Jesus

Christ. And if you are absolutely

confident that you know what God has called you to serve and how

God's called you to minister, and you are dedicated full bore

ahead of that, I would still maintain that nothing is better

than surrounding yourself with the people of God in worship,

dedicating your life in prayer, studying the scriptures, and

focusing upon Jesus Christ. If we want to fulfill that

calling that He has given to us to witness to the entire world

through the power of the Holy Spirit, we do so by waiting upon

the Lord and giving ourselves over to Him.

Yes, let's pray together. Gracious Lord our God, we

acknowledge to you that all too often we push off the

responsibility to minister to this world around us on to other

people, A professional class of ministers, those who know more

of the scriptures than we do, those who are good at these kind

of things, are called to these kind of things.

And we deny the central reality of the calling to be your

disciple, to follow after you, to do that what you are doing,

and to minister in your name. Lord, I express that confession

in my own life. I express that confession for my

brothers and sisters here. I know it's a case for them as

well, Lord. And so, Lord, we trust in your

grace that you will forgive us of that sin, for sin it is, and

that you will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Lord, call us to a time of patience, of waiting for the

power of the Holy Spirit to come upon us so that we can pray

well, we can worship well, we can study well the Scriptures,

we can focus in upon you. Well, Lord, make that so in our

lives, so that we can come out the other side, empowered by the

Holy Spirit, witnessing to our Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem,

Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Lord, make it so in our lives we pray through Christ our Lord, we

ask. Amen.