We Are Church | Wait for the Gift - Acts 1:1-5; 12-26 | February 23

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Music.

In my first book, I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do

and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles

further instruction through the Holy Spirit.

During the 40 days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from

time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive,

and he talked to them about the kingdom of God.

Once, when he was eating with them, he commanded them, Do not leave Jerusalem

until the Father sends you the gift he promised.

As I told you before, John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will

be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives,

a distance of a half-mile.

When they arrived, they went to the upstairs room of the house where they were staying.

Here are the names of those who were present. Peter, John, James,

Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus,

Simon the Zealot, and Judas, son of James.

They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary,

the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus.

During this time when about 120 believers were together in one place peter stood

up and addressed them brothers he said the spirit had to be fulfilled concerning

judas who guided those who arrested jesus this was predicted long ago by the

holy spirit speaking through king david.

Judas was one of us and shared in the ministry with us judas

had bought a field with the money he received for his treachery falling

head first there his body split open spilling out

all his intestines the news of his death spread

to all the people of jerusalem and they gave the

place the aramaic name akil dama which

means field of blood peter continued this

was written in the book of psalms where it says let his home become desolate

with no one living in it it also says let someone else take his position so

now we must choose a replacement for judas from among the men who were with

us the entire time we were traveling with the Lord Jesus,

from the time he was baptized by John until the day he was taken from us.

Whoever is chosen will join us as a witness of Jesus' resurrection.

So they nominated two men, Joseph, called Barsabbas, also known as Justice, and Matthias.

Then they all prayed, O Lord, you know every heart. God, show us which of these

men you have chosen, as an apostle, to replace Judas in his ministry.

For he has deserted us and gone where he belongs.

Then they cast lots, and Matthias was selected to become an apostle with the other eleven.

There's nothing like intestines spilling out to wake us up this morning.

Hey, family, it's been a while since we've been together. Here's all this trash

on the ground. Kids are a mess.

It's been a while since we've been together like this and this exact sort of

arrangement, even, I guess, and the exact arrangement that we're arranged in.

But thankfully, well, I guess not. I was going to say that I think the holidays

are over, but apparently the vacations are still strong.

So I hope as we get into March, we get into spring, we get into the warmer weather,

maybe we'll get into more all being here together as one again.

But I'm thankful for each and every one of you who is here with us and who gets

to start off on this journey together. We've been building and preparing for this moment.

We've been preparing for God to speak to us in his word through the book of Acts.

So that's what lies before us, the book of Acts.

And I guess the question as we are on this precipice is, are you ready?

Are you ready for the book of Acts? Are you ready for all that God has for us

to step into all that he has for us?

Because it's certainly going to be quite the journey, I believe.

Along the way, we'll encounter incredible power and purpose that has been given

to the followers of Jesus to accomplish his continuing mission,

his continuing ministry on this earth under the power of his presence, his spirit.

We'll see that there is a real spiritual effect as his unseen presence works

through his church in his authority, as we work through his authority,

as we work on his behalf, that we also are filled with incredible power and purpose.

We'll be challenged to really ask the question, to really question for ourselves.

If we're not involved in this movement, the movement of his mission,

if we're not actively involved in the movement, then do we truly believe that Jesus is alive?

Not just something that we agree with, but do we truly functionally live and

believe that Jesus is alive?

Do we believe that he has freed us?

He has given us freedom, that he has saved us from our own disordant desires,

the slavery, our own slavery of our own making to our own disordant desires?

Do we believe that this message is for the world, that the world needs this message?

Will we be challenged to ask those questions of ourselves? Because the book

of Acts focuses almost exclusively on the church's outward directed mission.

And such acts must be read with a missionary perspective. And so too,

we are supposed to ask the question and look for ourselves to see ourselves

and find our place in its beautiful story, in his story, the story that is continuing with the church,

not just back then, but as it continues today through us.

And as such, we will be greatly encouraged as well.

And so I'm a fan of starting with the encouragement. So let's start there, shall we?

Because it's kind of funny, what I'm most encouraged by as we set off on this

adventure together, I'm encouraged by the people who find themselves with a seat at the table.

Luke starts off, as Sam just read for us, by reminding the recipient of this

account, the person that he's writing to, and the last, this guy named Theophilus,

and therefore us as well, but he's reminding them about all that Jesus began

to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.

After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

So this is a continuation of a story. It's a continuation of a story with some

people, some people that we know. We know these guys.

We met them many times before. They're not exactly the brightest stars in the

sky. They're not the sharpest tools in the shed, you could say.

Something I learned a couple weeks ago as we were in New Zealand is,

that all the props in the movies, the swords, the axes, the arrows, all that kind of stuff,

it's usually like foam or plastic I already knew that part sometimes they do

make real metal stuff out of aluminum or whatever but it's always dulled for

safety right because the first thing that a bunch of guys do when they get their

hands on a sword is start whacking each other with them,

So I already knew that part. What I didn't realize, but it makes sense when

you think about it, is that it's somebody's job to painstakingly go in frame

by frame digitally and paint on sharp edges to all of the weapons that we see in movies.

Because when they're up close, at least the close ones, maybe not the far distant

ones, but when it's up close, we would know that they're not sharp if they didn't do that.

Isn't that amazing? These guys are the dull movie props of the ancient world

is what I'm really trying to say.

And we'll get there, but probably us as well.

There's actually a pretty funny story in the book of Matthew,

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

chapter 16, where Jesus and these fishermen, not to be confused with Hootie

the Blowfish, Jesus and the crew are, they're sailing back from one side of the lake to another.

And Jesus warns them with these words, watch out, beware of the yeast of the

Pharisees and Sadducees.

At this, they began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought any bread.

Jesus knew what they were saying. So he said, you have so little faith.

Why are you arguing each other about having no bread.

Don't you understand even yet? Don't you remember the 5,000 I fed with five

loaves and the basket of leftovers you picked up?

Or the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up?

Why can't you understand that I'm not talking about bread?

How do you not get it, guys? After all this time, after all that you've seen.

I'm not talking about bread. It's because Jesus picked the nobodies.

He picked the uneducated. He picked the not good enoughs.

We can give them the benefit of the doubt and just say, hey,

we've all been there. We've all misunderstood something.

We've all heard something wrong, right?

But isn't it at least a little bit ridiculous that Jesus picked a handful of

fishermen, a tax collector, most of whom were all teenagers,

to continue this important mission on the earth?

Right? Never has such an important assignment been entrusted with people who are so uncapable.

Right? Never has such an important assignment been entrusted with a group less capable.

They're constantly misunderstanding Jesus at every turn, over and over again. They get it wrong.

Even after Jesus ascends to heaven and he gives them the power and presence

of his spirit, even after all of that, they're still looked at with disbelief,

that such a rough group of uneducated men could speak with such authority.

They are met with disbelief. And I get it.

There's nothing like a group of, you know, just a bunch of dudes with some serious

bro energy to carry on the kingdom. If there was ever a group that would believe

and have overconfidence in their ability, it would be them.

Never has a more important assignment been entrusted with a less capable group of people.

They're Galileans, which doesn't mean much to us, but in their world,

it's essentially the same thing as if we just called them a bunch of rednecks.

But, you know, as I think about it, Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Ingvall and all

those guys kind of demonstrate that that doesn't hold you back.

Just because you're a group of rednecks doesn't mean you don't get an audience

of millions of people and your

words aren't spoken. So maybe that's something for us to keep in mind.

But Jesus looked around at these guys, these Galileans who had difficulty pronouncing words.

That's kind of why they were looked down on. They were seen as uneducated,

as a bunch of country bumpkins, because they had difficulty pronouncing certain words.

They were known to what they say is like swallow certain letters in words is

kind of how they described it.

When I think about it, Ada, as she was learning to speak, she couldn't pronounce

the S before consonants.

So she would say things like Piderman and Poon, which is really cute.

But when you're in your twenties, maybe not as cute.

So these guys didn't pronounce words correctly. They were looked down on by

the rest of the Jewish people, especially those in Jerusalem,

not just because of the way they misspoke as being uncultured,

but also because they were from Galilee, which was known as Galilee of the Gentiles.

It was known to have too much of an influence from the outside world, you could say.

They were not considered to be very intelligent or cultured.

Therefore, since the disciples who are speaking here, as we'll meet at Pentecost, are Galilean.

It bewildered those who heard them because it's unfathomable to believe that

a bunch of Galileans could learn so many languages.

We'll get there in the next chapter, but it's just ridiculous to think that

Galileans could speak other languages. They barely speak their own language

well. We read further on in this chapter.

We see that the whole gang is there. Verse 12, the apostles returned to Jerusalem

from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city.

When they arrived, they went upstairs to the upper room where they were staying.

Those present were Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, and Thomas,

Bartholomew and Matthew,

James, son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, son of James,

along with the women, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers,

which is an important detail that Jesus' family is there.

The people who thought him out of his mind while he was alive find themselves

with a seat at a table after his death. That's an important detail.

There's something that had changed within them following his death.

He hasn't yet joined this ragtag team yet.

In fact, we haven't even met him in the scriptures yet. We've just started the

book of Acts, but pretty soon will even the murderous Paul would find a place

at the table, which should give us great encouragement.

We should be greatly encouraged by this, that at the table are the less than

goods, the not so goods, the faithless,

the particularly or previously evil, maybe even the questionably goods find

themselves with a seat at the table with Jesus.

And Jesus looks around at these guys, these apostles.

He looks around at the women, at his family, and at the 120 other disciples

who didn't abandon him yet.

And he thinks to himself, yeah, I can work with these guys.

I can really use these guys.

That should encourage us. We should be encouraged because that means me too.

Me too. Jesus can work with me as well. We're like the miracle team from the

1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. I wasn't there. I wasn't alive.

But there's a movie about it. I haven't seen the movie.

I think it's called Miracle on Ice. Essentially what happened,

right? I looked up the story. I'm an expert now.

Essentially what happened, I don't know the reasoning, But the Soviet Union,

who had won four out of the last five gold medals in the hockey tournament,

they were in the final against the U.S.

Team, who was the youngest team in the tournament, the youngest team in U.S. national history.

They didn't have any professional players. It was mostly just amateur players,

but I guess they could skate probably.

The Soviets were professional players. They all had lots of international experience.

They were highly favored to win, as you might imagine.

And I don't remember why professional U.S. players couldn't play.

Maybe they just weren't allowed to.

Maybe it's like for real time, the professional basketball players couldn't play. I don't know why.

But despite all odds, the U.S.

Team, who were younger, more inexperienced, not really anybody expected them to do well.

They triumphed over the Goliaths, right? The Davids beat the Goliaths and they

won the gold in the 1980 Olympics. We're not all-stars.

Maybe y'all are thinking, speak for yourself. We're not first-round draft picks. I can barely skate.

So if we were playing hockey, this would not go well.

We are not all-stars. But God is looking out at us today.

And I had this thought as we were praying and singing last week.

God is looking out at us and thinking, yeah, I can work with this lot. I can work with them.

He's thinking, yes, to us. He could do something great with us. God can use us.

Because it's not about us and it's not dependent on our ability.

Do you know what the qualification of the disciples was?

You know what made them qualified? They were with Jesus. That's all there is to it.

They were with Jesus. When they were selecting the replacement for Judas,

we just heard about that when Peter stood up, he said, Therefore,

it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time.

The Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time

when Jesus was taken up from us.

For one of these must become a witness with us of the resurrection.

Not someone who's smart, not someone who is well-spoken and doesn't use filler

words like um so much as to embarrass us in public when they should speak.

Not someone who's super talented, not someone who has it all together.

Someone who was with Jesus, that was the qualification.

Their qualifications is that they were with Jesus. It's stillness in his presence

that makes them ready for his mission.

When Peter and John are seized, and we'll see this in a few chapters from now,

when they're taken captive by the Sanhedrin for boldly proclaiming the gospel,

for boldly proclaiming the resurrection.

It says that these religious leaders realized that they were unschooled,

ordinary men, and they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

There's something about being with Jesus and in his presence that changes you, that changes us.

Most scholars believe that Peter was illiterate, that he couldn't read.

And yet there's something about being in the presence of Jesus that changed

him, that produced within him confidence and authority that could only be accounted

for by the power of the Spirit of God in him.

There's something that changed within these men. It's like those those color

changing spoons that you get in boxes of cereal, right? We used to get some,

I think in boxes of tricks.

That's right. My parents bought me sugary cereal growing up and I turned out

okay. My favorite cereal is Frosted Flakes. I don't get to eat that anymore.

Those spoons, it's the same principle of mood rings, I think probably.

If you leave them in the milk long enough, the whole spoon will turn blue or purple, right?

There's cups that do the same thing. There's something about being in the presence

of Jesus that changes who we are, that changes our appearance,

that gives us authority and power.

It was to those who were so unqualified that he gave this command.

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for my gift.

Wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Wait for the gift something we're

gonna have drilled into us as these in these intervening

we something that we're going to learn more and more as we dive into the book

of acts is that walking in this movement means being witnesses that we are witnesses

as the primary descriptor of who we are and our responsibility what we'll see

next week not to give too much away.

Is that the church is not a place that we attend or an event that we attend,

but it is a movement we belong to.

Church is not something we go to.

It is a movement to which we belong.

In this movement, it is a movement of empowered witnesses.

And the funny thing about being a witness is that if you're a witness of something,

you're not actually doing anything.

You're just telling other people about something that was done,

right? Being a witness means that we're not achieving something.

We're just simply telling people, telling the world what Jesus has already done.

We are witnesses. So it doesn't matter how talented the team or all that we

may have experienced because we're witnesses.

We're not the all-stars. And these are red letters when Jesus tells us to wait

for the gift. Jesus said, wait.

And so in certain Bibles, as many of you well know, that the red letters are

indications of times when Jesus is directly speaking, right?

And these red letters mostly appear in the Gospels, Matthew,

Mark, Luke, and John. but we see them as well in Acts and Revelation because

Jesus is still speaking.

Jesus says, wait for the gift. In his own words, he's telling us, wait for the gift.

Wait. They were following his instructions. What were they exactly doing besides waiting?

We see in verse 14, they all joined together constantly in prayer.

They were united and persistent in prayer.

Now they hadn't been commanded to pray, only to wait. But Jesus' own example

was good enough for them to know what to do, even as they waited for the gift.

It was enough to know that they seek the presence of God, even as they wait

for the gift of his spirit.

Jesus' disciples saw how important prayer was in his own life, right?

It says one day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished,

one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.

So stirred in their spirit were they by the prayers of Jesus that the disciples

begged him, they implored him, Jesus, teach us, Lord, teach us, teach us to pray.

The book with Christ in the school of prayer, Andrew Murray,

the author writes, most churches think their members are gathered simply to

take care of and build up each other.

They don't know that God rules the world by the prayers of his saints.

That prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered. Or that by prayer,

the church on earth has disposal over the powers of the heavenly world.

They don't remember that by his promise, Jesus has consecrated every assembly

in his name to be a gate of heaven where his presence is to be felt and his

power experienced in the Father as he fulfills their desires.

Who can say what power a church could develop and exercise if it gave itself

to the work of prayer day and night for the coming of the kingdom,

for God's power on his servants, and to his word for the glorifying of God and the salvation of souls.

Prayer is vital for the church. In the waiting, prayer is of utmost importance.

Jesus modeled for us a life of total dependency upon the Father through prayer.

And so the apostles, they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves to constant

corporate prayer until the time that God would show up and answer them with his spirit from heaven.

Even then, their lives were still dedicated to the Father through prayer.

But they dedicated themselves, they devoted themselves here as they waited to

constant corporate prayer until God answered. Here's where we get it wrong.

Sometimes we just go and do, and we forget to wait. We even forget to pray.

Sometimes we may even think, I can do this by myself.

We may not actively think that or actively say it or believe it,

but there's something about the way that we live that sometimes says,

I can do this without God.

Sometimes we forget to wait. We photographed a friend, a friend of ours wedding

several years ago, a friend from college.

It's actually pretty funny. So it was during COVID.

He got married in Georgia. So we drove across the state down through Murphy

and everything was closed on this side of the line.

But as soon as we hit Georgia, there was a high school football stadium,

like less than a mile from the border, full of people. It was hilarious.

So our friend at the reception had prepared a special song to sing for his now

wife. He played, he sang.

The funny thing is that she hired a musician, I think it was a saxophonist or

something like that, to play a song for him as well. And it was the exact same song.

So it was kind of funny. It was Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love.

Is that the name of the song?

Yeah. Can't help falling in love, which, if you know the lyrics,

begins, wise men say what?

Only fools rush in, right? What did somebody say? Only fools fall in love?

Well, it may be true. Only fools rush in.

Sometimes we rush ahead of God. We forget to wait.

The Bible's full of these negative case studies of demonstrating the consequences

of what it means when we rush ahead of God's timing.

Abraham and Sarah, they become impatient, waiting for the blessing, waiting for the gift.

So in their own creativity, they rush ahead and they ruin lives.

Saul, I wrote Solomon, but I'm pretty sure I meant to say Saul.

Saul can't wait for Samuel, right?

Saul can't wait for Samuel. And although many other things happened,

sort of a direct result of that as he sacrifices for himself to God,

is that eventually the kingdom's taken away from him. He couldn't wait.

Couldn't wait for the gift, but we must learn to be patient and wait on the Lord.

And I am someone who hates waiting. I'm someone who sees the need for change,

but wants it to happen immediately.

Post haste, now is too late.

If we all are aware that something's broken, we should just do it now and fix it.

Why should we wait? But we are encouraged, we're encouraged by the prophet Isaiah,

for you shall not go out in haste and you shall not go in flight for the world.

The Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

This is a promise that the Lord will move. The Lord will go. We must wait.

Often when we find ourselves in periods of waiting, we are anxious for God's answer.

But we must remember, it's important to not rush in, to not rush God's timing,

to not go ahead of the Lord, to not do it in our own power and our own strength

and our own creativity, but to wait for the Lord.

We have to wait. Wait for the blessing, wait for the gift.

Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act, Psalms tell us.

But just because we're waiting doesn't mean we're not doing anything.

Just because we're waiting doesn't mean we're not still actively doing something.

Sometimes when we find ourselves in periods of waiting, what we end up doing is stalling, right?

If one thing we do is rush ahead, the other thing we do is wait too long. We stall.

This past week, several discipleship groups started amongst our family.

We're reading through the New Testament together. And if you want to be a part of that, let me know.

What I've been meditating on this past week or even months is the realization

that we are in a period of waiting.

We're in a period of waiting. I want more.

I want us to be doing more. I want us to be involved and moved on in this movement of the church.

I don't want us to miss out on God's blessing. I don't want it to escape us, right?

I want God, what God has promised us in Ephesians 3, to find his home in us.

That he would do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his

power that is at work within us. I want that.

I don't want to have to wait for that.

But even as we are waiting, we are growing in our knowledge and love of Christ

as we seek God together in prayer and in his word.

Goal, the hope of these discipleship groups, as we read his word together,

as we are changed by his word, as we seek him together in prayer,

the hope and the goal is that they would be focused outwardly,

outside of the church,

that they would be focused on those who are far from God.

But for now, we are waiting. And as we are waiting, we are growing in our knowledge and love of God.

We are growing in our Christ-likeness and we are letting his word and his mission

ignite the flames in our heart.

Yes, we are waiting, but it isn't passive. We're still doing things.

We're still moving because I believe that God is ready to blow in this place.

So I want us to be prepared when he lifts the cloud and calls us forward.

I want us to be ready for his movement because the promise is that God will

move. And here's an important detail for the book of Acts.

That might go overlooked. We might miss it if we're not looking at it.

The apostles don't return to the upper room after Pentecost.

I mean, maybe they do. Maybe it's like their favorite Airbnb and they actually

do return to it. But you know what I'm saying?

Once the Spirit comes, they're on the move. Once they put the hand to the plow, they don't turn back.

Sure, they may find themselves again at times in periods of waiting,

but it is only for the hope of movement.

That waiting is only to provide the power to surge forward. They don't go back to the upper room.

They don't go back looking for something they've already been given.

The Spirit has arrived. Jesus says, go and make disciples.

Go. And in your going, listen for all that the Spirit has for you.

You want to know the crazy part? They didn't even know what they were waiting for. Not really.

They didn't know Jesus was talking about bread. Do you think they understood

what he was talking about when he said, wait for the spirit to come?

No, they didn't know what they were waiting for.

They're left in their waiting at a cliffhanger, asking the question,

how is God going to do what God has promised to do?

As we wait, we pray those same things. How is God going to do what God has promised

to do. And the truth is, I don't know.

I'm still just stuck wondering how God could possibly use such faithless and

flawed people such as myself.

I don't know how God's going to do what he has promised to do,

but I am believing that he will do it.

I am believing that he will overwhelm us with more than we could possibly hope or imagine.

And we don't have a seat at the table because we're good enough or sparring

enough or talented enough or attractive enough.

We haven't earned it. We're just a bunch of bros. So we got to put on that bro energy.

Jesus says to us in Matthew 11, he says, I tell you the truth of all who have

ever lived. None is greater than John the Baptist.

Yet, even the least person in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.

The least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist. The least in the kingdom.

Someone here today is the least capable and least talented person in our church.

Mathematics just tells us that has to be true.

Some of you are thinking, I think I might be the least. capable person.

And God's going, yeah, you're the least talented. You're the least in the kingdom.

It just, it has to be true.

So everybody turn and point to the person. No, I'm just kidding.

Someone is, we are the least in the kingdom. And yet Jesus says that even we

are greater than John the Baptist. Why?

Because we've seen Jesus and we have his spirit with us, in us.

We've seen Jesus and we have the spirit of God. So don't tell me you don't belong

at the table. Don't tell me that you don't have what it takes.

God looks at you and he sees greater potential in you than John the Baptist.

I don't know what God's gonna do, but I wanna believe that he's gonna do it.

So are you willing to risk that belief with me? I wanna pray for his spirit to move.

I wanna pray for him to surprise us.

Are you ready to step into your inheritance? Are you ready to step into all that God has for you?

Are you ready to step in the great potential, power and purpose that comes with his spirit?

Just praying for God's spirit to fall on us. When we think about movements,

not just the movement, but movements, we think about the aftermath,

but all of them begin with like 10 or 12 people in a room praying,

fasting, waiting for the spirit to come. Jesus says, wait for the gift.

So we're waiting, we're praying for his spirit to come.

So as we sing, as we respond, as we take communion, let's pray and let's wait

and let's just look forward to the way that his spirit will blow in this place.

Encouragement in today's teaching. To learn more about our church,

stay connected or partner with us, visit mcboon.com.

Music.