Before the Fire Fell: How the Church Prepared for Pentecost

This morning we're continuing our series of messages in the book of Acts.

This is uh message number three.

We're going to finish out chapter one, and we're going to talk about how the early church prepared for the spirit to fall on Acts chapter in Acts chapter two.

So in the 1850s, in a small uh schoolhouse in the hills of Northern Ireland, there were four young men who had a common desire to see God work and convert people and revive the land of Ireland in the 1800s.

And they began to met, they began to meet and committed to meet every Friday night and just beg God to send His Holy Spirit to pour it out, to change the church, to convert sinners to Jesus.

They confessed sin, they pleaded for mercy, they praised God for his promises, and they did this for months and months.

And guess what happened?

Nothing.

But then in the early part of 1959, as they persisted in prayer, the Spirit came in great power.

It became known as the Ulster Revival of 1859.

And over the next year, some 100,000 converts to Jesus Christ would happen.

Churches began to be overfilled with people coming and just earnestly interested in seeking Jesus Christ and seeking salvation.

Families once again that had been divided were gathered around a common word of God in the homes and praying with each other.

And even civic crime, crime in the streets was reduced to a trickle because of the impact of this converting revival.

And it all began with just four young men committing in prayer, refusing to let go of God.

It's no stretch to say that virtually every revival, every massive movement of the Holy Spirit throughout church history has always 100% began with concerted prayer by the people of God.

Not worldly wise prescriptions for what God should do through us, but earnest prayer for what God could do through us if we are prepared for the moving of God.

And that's exactly what we see in Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

So Acts chapter 1 recounts in the passage we just saw, Jesus Christ ascends up into glory.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And from verses 12 through 26, the rest of chapter 1, is an intermediate period between the ascension and Pentecost.

We know this is a period of about 10 days because the feast of Passover is when Jesus was crucified.

Passover, and Jesus was raised from the dead the Sunday morning after Passover.

And we know that the feast of Pentecost comes 50 days, as the name implies, Pentecost comes 50 days after Passover.

So 50 days, and in Acts chapter 1 and verse 3, Luke says Jesus ministered for 40 days after his resurrection, before his ascension.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

So Jesus is raised, 40 days later he ascends, and then 10 days later, Pentecost.

So in these verses 12 to 26, we're talking about maybe 10 days of preparation for the Holy Spirit of God to fall.

What I want to do this morning is to look in the text and see how the early church was preparing for the fire to fall.

So that we ourselves can ready ourselves for the work of the Holy Spirit through us as individuals, through us as gathered believers in mission groups, through us as a corporate body at Sacred Mission Church.

Before the fire fell, how the church prepared for Pentecost is what I'm going to title this message.

The disciples were responding to Jesus Christ in his commands in Luke chapter 24 and verse 49.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

They're at the very end of Luke's gospel, which was the prequel to the book of Acts written by Luke.

So Luke Acts is how it's often called, Luke Acts, written to the same person named Theophilus.

And so Luke ends his gospel in Luke 24, 49 by Jesus commanding, Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

But stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.

Then he ascended out of their sight.

A couple verses later in verse 52, and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.

We know that was about ten days.

Before the fulfillment of them being clothed with power from on high.

So what were they doing in those ten days?

Let's look at our text.

Number one, the disciples were gathered in prayer.

The disciples were gathered in prayer.

We see this in verses 12 to 14, and I read.

He comments here in Acts 1 that they were staying there.

Remember, just 40 days prior, this is where they had had, they had uh gathered for the Last Supper, Jesus and his apostles.

He said to go there and find a large upper room fully furnished and prepare the Passover meal for us.

Well, they're still there.

This is where the church is now gathering in prayer in Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

They went up to the upper room.

Notice that he lists the names of the eleven apostles.

These are not just random people, these are people upon whom he is going to build the church.

These are people whose testimony concerning the resurrection is going to craft and form the backbone of Scripture itself that the church is going to have as our marching orders throughout the rest of history.

He lists their names, and there are only eleven names mentioned.

That's going to be significant in a little while.

Eleven names of the apostles.

Judas was already gone.

And then, of course, the women who were the first ones to discover Jesus' empty tomb, which is just a wonderful, beautiful fact, because in the early, in the first century Jewish and Roman culture, a female testimony wasn't even admissible in court.

They could be an eyewitness to something and you're like, that doesn't count.

Did a man see it, right?

Today we've kind of gone the other direction, right?

You've heard the phrase if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it even make a noise?

Since the 1970s, feminist movement now, if a man is in the woods, he says something, it's not a woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?

Of course, the answer is yes.

Notice verse 14: all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer.

It's fascinating.

This phrase, with one accord, is just in the English way that ESV translators translated one compound Greek word, homofumidon, which means homo meaning same, and fumas meaning passion, impulse, inner desire, emotional drive.

So let's read that with this in mind.

All these with the same emotional passion were devoting themselves in prayer.

Can you imagine the kind of prayer meetings that were going on after Jesus ascended in front of their eyes?

There were Jesus for 40 days.

He'd been resurrected, he's eating with them, he's charging them, he's commanding them, he's unpacking the scriptures for them, and then he takes them out outside of Jerusalem and he ascends into heaven, and they're just standing there gazing, they won't leave.

And the angels come down and say, Men of Galilee, why are you just standing here staring into heaven?

He told you to get back in the city and to prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Can you imagine those prayer meetings?

As they begged God to fulfill his promise.

Throughout the book of Acts, we see a pattern that power is preceded by prayer, or we could say prayer precedes power.

Acts chapter 4, the church has been persecuted, they've been threatened, they've been beaten, they've been incarcerated and released, and they gather to pray, and they pray, Oh God, fill us with boldness.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

And when they pray, the place is shaken, the walls shake, and they're filled with boldness, and they go out preaching the gospel everywhere.

Acts chapter 6, when the church prays, it says the Holy Spirit leads them in appointing those who would lead ministries in the church.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

In Acts chapter 12, after Peter had been incarcerated, James had been beheaded by the sword, we find the church gathering to pray for Peter's release.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

And when they pray, power, powerful things happen.

An angel comes into the dungeon, and the the things around Peter's wrists break off, and doors begin opening, and Peter begins following this angel out in this miraculous deliverance because the church was praying.

In fact, Peter walks through the streets after being released from prison, none of the guards even recognize it.

He goes to the house where they're meeting, he knocks on the door, and there was a little servant girl named Rhoda.

She opens the door and then she slams it in his face because she can't believe it's Peter.

She thought she was seeing a ghost.

So maybe the other people believe their prayers, but Rhoda didn't.

She was like, This can't be the Lord's answer in prayer.

This can't be Peter.

And he keeps knocking, like, hey, it's me.

And they're like, Oh, what are you doing here?

We were just praying for you.

Prayer precedes power.

I wonder if we've learned this for ourselves.

There's so many other things we put before prayer.

It's not our first impulse.

Often, it's our last impulse.

A woman goes to the doctor and the doctor has bad news for her.

He says, Unfortunately, there's really nothing we can do.

All we can do is pray.

She says, Has it really come to that?

Is that all we can do is pray?

That's our perspective on prayer so often.

But our power in living will never exceed our prayers.

Our prayerlessness is the glass ceiling on the manifestation of God's power in our lives.

God will never bless us above our prayers.

In our mission, in our marriages, in our parenting, in our patience and suffering, in our effectiveness in evangelism.

We will ram our heads against a glass ceiling if we refuse to commit ourselves to prayer because prayer precedes power.

There's two reasons for this.

The first is that we actually need God.

And it is prayer that connects us to the work of the Holy Spirit.

We actually need God.

Apart from Him, we really can't do anything.

Secondly, prayer precedes power because God is passionate about the glory due unto His name.

And if we went around as prayerless people, never thinking about our need for Him, never pleading with Him to work in situations in which we know ourselves to be utterly helpless, and He just was dishing out all this power and all this workings of His Holy Spirit, how long would it take before we just think that's that's us?

Yeah, I'm I'm pretty awesome, aren't I?

God refuses to let us steal his glory, and so he honors prayer because prayer depends on him.

There's a couple verses I want to just briefly, quickly read to just instill how thoroughly biblical this idea is that prayer precedes power.

Think about Psalm 50, verse 15.

Psalms 50:15

It says this, call upon me, let's pray.

In the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

Now take out the prayer part, and what do you have?

In the day of trouble, I will deliver you.

Will you glorify God?

Why would you?

Your circumstances have gotten better.

God's a spirit, he's invisible.

No need to pray.

No, glorifying God in God meeting our needs and changing situations and blessings, giving us strength in the midst of difficult situations, only will glorify God if we have called out to him, because that's when we're mindful that he's the one that answered our prayers.

John 14, 13, whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

When we pray in Christ's name for his sake, pleading his blood, his righteousness, his favor upon us through his grace, when the Lord honors our prayers, it glorifies the Son.

John 15, 5.

Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

Similarly, the Apostle Paul learned this lesson.

He communicates it in 2 Corinthians 4 7.

But we have this treasure, that is this gift of the gospel and of the ministry of the gospel.

We have it in jars of clay.

Which some people say that could be translated privy pots, trash cans, unglamorous, weak, basic utility.

We have this glorious gospel treasure in dust.

Why?

To show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Prayer precedes power because otherwise it looks like the exceeding power belongs to us.

But it doesn't, it belongs to God.

James chapter 4, verse 2.

James 4:2

You do not have.

Because you do not ask.

The Moravian prayer movement in 1727 was a movement where the Moravians, literally for a period of 100 years, began a prayer vigil.

This prayer meeting began with 24 people.

I guess it was two people per hour that committed to praying around the clock for God to save the nations.

The Moravians were incredibly evangelistic and mission-minded, so much so that two young men that they couldn't figure out how to get into a country that they wanted to reach with the gospel, and so they decided to sell themselves into slavery and traffic themselves into this country in order to reach them with the gospel.

These are the people that this Moravian prayer movement began with.

24 believers, they met for prayer in Herhut, Germany, and this single prayer meeting began a century-long 24-hour prayer vigil that fueled the global missions in Europe and beyond.

It started with prayer.

The Welsh Revival of 1904, which is a remarkable transformation of Wales, was born in hidden prayer.

Evan Roberts prayed nightly.

He said, Bend the church, O Lord, and save the world.

He did this for a long time and eventually God poured out his spirit, and historians say that 100,000 people came to know Christ in a few months' time.

Roberts would later say that the church that kneels together cannot fail.

One other example, the Hebrides revival of the 1950s, it began with two older sisters, like uh biological sisters named Peggy and Christine Smith.

They prayed nightly for God to pour out his spirit and revive his church.

And eventually God answered.

And one testimony came through that said that God moved so powerfully that the atmosphere was so charged with the presence of God that you felt as if you could reach out and touch that which surrounded you.

It all began with two sisters that laid hold upon God in nightly prayer for the spirit to move.

You ever been to a symphony?

In the beginning of a symphony, you have this cacophony of all these different instruments making their noises, and it's just this kind of deafening, and it's not pretty because they're all playing different notes and different things and different timings and different keys, but then eventually, after they've kind of warmed things up, they all harmonize and play the same key, and they tune their instruments to the same exact note.

That's exactly what's happening here in Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

As the church is gathered in prayer, they are tuning their hearts to heaven's key before the Spirit brings the power of Pentecost.

I wonder if there's anyone in your life that your heart's tuned with in prayer.

Notice it wasn't just all these Christians meeting individually.

Get your Bible and go do something with just you and Jesus by yourself in the middle of a field, and we'll see what happens in ten days.

No, the church, the body of Christ, was gathered in a common passion to see God pour out his spirit.

We see community at work here.

Who are those people in your life that you're committed with common passion in prayer for the things that matter most?

The second thing that we see the disciples doing shows up in verses 15 through 20.

The disciples were grounded in promises.

The disciples were grounded in promises.

Let's read verses 15 through 20.

In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers.

The company of persons was in all about 120.

And he said, Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spake 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.

And notice verses 18 and 19 are parenthetical explanation that Luke makes for Theophilus.

He says, 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 he became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language a keldema, that is, field of blood.

You have to wonder why Peter is, while Luke, actually, excuse me, Luke is calling attention to Judah, to uh um Judas's end.

This is stark relief, this contrast of the church meeting and and being on the brink of receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit, in contrast to Judas.

How did his life end?

He had sold Jesus, he was covetous, he'd sold Jesus for the price of a common male slave in that day, 30 pieces of silver.

He'd been filled with Satan, filled with covetousness, maybe envy, who knows what else?

He had betrayed his Lord, and then for some reason he regretted it.

And he realized he'd he'd done a really bad deed when he saw Jesus in captivity, this innocent man being beaten, and his beard being plucked, and he was being struck by guards, and he was being falsely accused.

And Judas is like, Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that.

And he goes back to the high priest and he takes the money and he tries to give it to them, and they won't receive it, and he throws it at their feet.

He goes out, he hangs himself.

Here Luke says, That's the end of those who reject Christ.

That's what happens whenever you make money, your God.

That's what happens when Christ isn't the Lord to whom you submit.

Look at the contrast.

He falls headlong, he bursts open in the middle, all his bowels gush out.

Matthew says that he went out and hanged himself.

Some put these two together and say he hanged himself and then he bloated over a few days and his bowels erupted.

Others say the rope broke and he fell and his bowels gushed out.

Whatever the case is, it's meant to elicit an emotional reaction of how the sin is ugly.

Betrayal is ugly.

The reward of his wickedness.

The Pharisees took this money back and they they wouldn't put it back in the temple treasury because that would be unholy.

It's okay to crucify Christ.

That's okay.

But we can't take this money back, it's blood money.

They purchased a field and they buried him there, which fulfilled Jeremiah's prophecy concerning the potter's field.

Here Peter says in verse 20, for it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office.

We can only imagine the questions and the concerns that were that were swirling in the minds of the early apostles and the disciples about Judas.

If you think about it, to us, Judas's name is synonymous with betrayal and two faceness and covetousness and demon possession and all this.

To them, he was one of them.

Until he wasn't.

He was that close family friend that you've camped with and vacation with numerous times.

Over three and a half years.

He's the one that you've had in your home scores of times.

You've laughed with, you've wept with.

He was as good a friend as many of us will ever experience in this life.

He was one of the twelve.

It wasn't obvious who was going to betray Jesus.

In John chapter 13, when Jesus says, Yeah, one of you is going to betray me tonight.

John 13 · chapter mention

They all looked around and their question was not, is it Judas?

Their question was, is it I?

They didn't suspect anybody else.

They were, would it be me?

Judas was one of them.

And now their hearts have to be hurting because this one who was one of the apostles had committed suicide, had betrayed their Lord.

He had sold his rabbi.

He had become a human trafficker.

This reality lay heavy on their minds.

And so what Peter's going to do, he's going to ground their hearts, he's going to ground the people of God in Scripture.

He's going to use Scripture in the Old Testament to interpret their present moment.

And he does this in verse 16.

He says, brothers, the spirit, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas.

Peter's going to cite two Psalms.

Psalm 69, 25, May His Camp Become Desolate.

It's an impregatory Psalm.

Basically praying judgment on God's enemies.

And then Psalm 109, verse 8, let another take his office.

Psalms 109:8

Here Peter models reading the Psalms typologically.

That is seeing them as having legitimate immediate relevance and meaning and a sense relevant to the readers originally in David's life as he was in the later years of his uh in Psalm 69.

He's he's an aging king.

Lots of people are turning against him.

He still has the military on his side, but popular opinions taken against him.

Advisors that he had trusted are turning against him.

His own son, Absalom, is trying to vie for the throne, and he's praying out to God, calling out, Would you deliver me from mine enemies?

And here Peter says, Yeah, that was David.

But in a fuller way, the Holy Spirit was speaking about Christ, the ultimate David.

The King David who would come, and truly there'd be those who resisted his kingship, who would plot his murder and his death.

Luke's aim is theological here, not just to recount history.

He is showing that Peter used Scripture to govern the church's understanding of their moment in history.

This is exactly what Jesus did in Luke 24, 44, at the end of Luke 24.

He says, Everything written about me in the scriptures must be fulfilled.

This is significant to us because for them to grapple with and accept the fact that one of them who had been one of the 70 cast out demons, performed miracles.

In Matthew chapter 10, Judas.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

There's no indication that Judas didn't do those things.

He had walked the walk, talked the talk until he didn't.

And here he says, Scripture is being fulfilled.

Jesus would say elsewhere, in Matthew, I believe, verse 24, Offenses must come, but woe to the whom, woe to the one by whom they come.

In other words, God is sovereignly working in all these events, even sinful people, even betrayals, even the Romans, even Pilate's fear and the Jews' hatred, and Herod's desire for entertainment and keeping the peace.

He worked through all those factors to crucify his son so that we could be redeemed.

But woe to the one by whom those offenses come.

You're accountable.

Acts chapter 2, verse 22, it says that the crucifixion was the outworking of everything God had by his foreknowledge and determined counsel determined beforehand that should be done.

Acts 2:22

In Acts 4, 27 and 28, he quotes Acts chapter 2 and applies it to Jesus and says, Surely Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews were gathered together to do to your son, God's anointed, whatever you had beforehand determined should be done.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So when Judas betrays Jesus and they're trying to wrap their minds around this, he calls them back to the promises of Scripture to remind them that God is still in control, he's still working in their situation, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension were not plan B.

They were plan A.

And I say all this because that's the same thing that's going to ground you and I.

When we realize that our lives, that God's purposes and God's promises are coming to fruition in our lives.

God is not, with the closing of the canon, so to speak, God did not stop fulfilling promises.

He's working in your life.

And there's no plan B for God.

He is so wise and so powerful that he can actually work in the world with people like you and me making real moral choices for which we're accountable, and yet his purposes are still coming to pass.

That's how sovereign he is.

Let us find confidence in his purposes unfolding every hour.

There's a couple principles and promises from scripture I want to quickly just think about because he just spoke directly about Judas fulfilling a couple psalms, but for us, there's many promises that can ground us in the scriptures.

The first is the truth of creation.

This should ground us in realizing that we are not accidents of history.

This should shape the way you see yourself.

You are not, newsflash, the end product of a long chain of survival of the fittest that started with a single cell organism, a little amoeba.

By the way, where was the female amoeba, right?

Typically in biology, you need male and female.

At some point, they had to both evolve separately.

That's interesting.

There's so many problems with evolution that even evolutionists scratch their heads and are trying to figure out a better theory.

You are the product of divine creation, created in God's image to mirror, reflect, to relate to, to represent God on earth.

He calls you in your home, in your world, in your work, in your worship, in your play to exercise dominion, to exercise benevolent dominion over others and in others' lives and over creation for the good of humanity and the glory of God.

But that's not where the story stops.

We also realize that Scripture interprets our lives and we realize that the fall happened, the fall of Adam and Eve.

We realize we find ourselves swimming upstream every day in a fallen world.

Have you forgotten recently that we're living in a fallen world?

Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 12, my brothers and sisters, don't be shocked by the fiery trials that come upon you.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Why would he tell them not to be shocked?

Because they were shocked.

Every time the fiery trial came, where are you, God?

What's going on here?

How could this happen to me?

How could I lose a loved one?

How could I get this diagnosis?

How could I, how could my job be in jeopardy?

How can I be at this point in my life and I haven't saved up much money?

How could this happen?

Because we live in a fallen world.

Romans chapter 8, man, he uses some graphic language.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We have a lot of babies being born.

At least half of you can relate to this.

Paul said in describing a fallen world that it's like a woman in the birth pangs, the contractions.

The baby's not yet born, but she is in extreme pain, and I don't think he had epidural in mind.

This we're talking all natural baby.

That's what life is.

It's travailing in labor until God brings about full restoration.

He calls it the liberty of the sons of God.

When Christ comes and gives us new glorified bodies and a new creation, that's when you can expect that stuff to not happen.

The creation, the fall, these things shape and interpret our realities.

They reveal a depth of human depravity and they call us to sober trust in God, our only Redeemer.

Don't expect life to be easy.

It's like a woman laboring.

A third reality, God's providence.

It gives us confidence to face the future.

In this brokenness, in this design and in this brokenness, God is at work operatively and it gives us confidence.

Nothing can derail God's sovereign plans.

He is at work.

He's writing the story.

In fact, you've heard this.

History is his story.

One day, I do truly believe for all eternity, we're going to be have this a great insight into looking back at all of history and to see even things God was doing before He created us and what was going on in the spiritual realm.

And we're going to start connecting dots and we're going to just be mind-blown at what God's been doing all along.

And of course, for you and me, we're time-bound, space-bound, and we're just like focused on our little lives.

Scripture says, no, no, no.

Zoom back a little bit.

Find confidence that God is at work even in our disappointments, our sorrows, our tragedies.

The cross itself, number four, reframes every betrayal, every wound.

The cross guarantees that Christ will get victory.

Sin and sorrow and death and tears will not have the last word because the cross, the tomb, didn't have the last word.

Jesus rose from the grave, as we'll read in chapter two in a couple weeks, because it was not possible for death to hold Christ captive.

Fifth and last, our hope for the future new creation is another promise upon which we can be grounded, our hope for the new creation.

It reframes our present suffering and our present mission that our story does not end in sorrow, but in resurrection, in restoration, in renewal.

There will be a time when every tear and every loss and every injustice will more than be answered in the glory to come.

And all the sufferings of this present time won't be worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Those are some promises that can ground us.

Now we can say this all day long, but are we actually living it out?

It occurred to me as I was preparing this message that we often relate to God's promises, God's word, like we do YouTube shorts.

We open up our phone and we are looking up something about like, you know, smoking a turkey or something, and then 20 minutes later we realize we've just been like watching deer hunting videos or balloon launching, uh, you know, shooting security guards from a long distance or something, and we realize we were just like mindlessly getting a dopamine hit and just scrolling through looking for something funny or interesting or something that catches our eye.

And I really think that's how we've trained ourselves to relate to God's Word.

We open it up, and if we don't get that immediate dopamine hit, we read something, I don't get in, I don't get this.

If we're not getting that, we want to scroll, namely close it.

We don't know how to linger, we don't know how to pray through scripture like I think Christians used to, because we're so used to instant entertainment and we relate to God's word so much in the same way.

There's lots of things that scripture is, but as I was preparing this, I just had this mental image of us when we open God's Word.

What if we open God's word, not like we do YouTube?

What if we open it like a field manual before we go into battle?

What if we'd been given our orders as SWAT team members?

Here's your Bible.

You've got a frontal offense that you're gonna be uh wreaking havoc on the powers of hell later today.

Get it done, sir, if you accept this mission, right?

What if we approached God's word like that?

I tell you, I love seeing people show up to church with a Bible and a notebook.

Not that you're less spiritual if you don't bring a notebook, but here's the thing.

I wonder how many of us this morning actually planned on remembering anything I'm gonna say.

It's very possible.

They say, like, you know, a couple hours after you hear a lecture, you remember like 10% of it, and like a few days later, you remember like approximately 0% of it.

Yeah, did he preach?

No, let's see.

Did we go to church on Sunday?

Yeah, that's that's how it works.

Do we show up to God's house actually planning on learning something that's gonna be translated into action in our lives?

You don't automatically do that.

Let me give you an illustration.

Imagine someone, a generous donor, who may be a member of this church, was gonna give one million dollars to the lucky person who can find this treasure buried in the city of Mason.

And here's the catch.

We're not gonna give you a visual map on Sunday morning.

Whoever's preaching next Sunday is gonna give spend about three minutes to describe verbally exactly where to find that treasure.

I bet we would find lots of notebooks here.

Everyone's sitting on the edge of their seat, like, okay, where do I start?

Like, what's right?

That kind of intentionality.

Do we have that kind of expectancy, that kind of intentionality, that kind of vision, or are we just showing up for the dopamine hit?

For some good music, maybe a feel-good uh, you know, in the message.

Maybe sometimes people enjoy, you know.

Well, I'm not gonna say that.

Sometimes people enjoy uh a little verbal abuse from the pulpit.

That's not my intent today at all.

Um it's funny how different people are.

Some dudes, you know, it's like it's like the people that play football, they love a coach to get in their face, you got this, you got 10 more.

And then others, like if you were to do that, you just crumble.

They would be more like, I believe in you.

Let's go write a poem together, and then you can do this, champion.

You can do this, Tiger, right?

Well, when a when you're in the pulpit, you've got a lot of different people there that are motivate, a lot of different things.

And so sometimes someone's like, that was a good message, brother, and someone else is like in the corner whimpering.

So it's really hard sometimes.

You just have to pray for the Holy Spirit to reach everyone according to their various needs.

Some identify with the SWAT imagery and others don't.

Okay.

You can guess which team I'm on.

I want to call you to consider memorizing a lament psalm like Psalm 42, to prepare yourself for the next tragedy that strikes your life.

Because when that tragedy strikes, too late to build your faith up in God and His purposes, to learn the language of lament.

I think our suffering catches us off balance.

I think our conversations with neighbors and friends who have questions or objections, and we're just not ready to have that conversation because we have not been preparing, developing a biblical worldview.

We haven't been thinking about having conversations with an eye to what people are actually asking, what they're actually struggling with, and then when they ask you, you're not ready for the conversation.

Or I'm not.

Second Timothy chapter 2, verse 15.

2 Timothy 2:15

The Apostle Paul says this do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

The early church, before the fires of Pentecost fell, they were grounded in promises.

May be true of us as well.

Finally, the disciples were guided by purpose.

They were guided by purpose.

Verses 21 through 26.

So one of the men, this is still Peter talking, who have accompanied us during all the time that Jesus went up, went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken from us.

So that's the whole span of Jesus' ministry.

John the Baptist saying, Behold the Lamb of God, baptizing Jesus all the way to the ascension.

To be an apostle, you had to have been there the entire time.

An apostle in this sense.

There were only 13 of them.

Beginning from the baptism of John, then in verse 23, and they put forward two, Joseph called Barcib, who's also called Justice.

That guy needs to make up his mind.

Three names.

Joseph, who sometimes goes by Barcibus, other times goes by Justice.

Like, what in the world?

Okay.

Just a little parenthetical.

And Matthias.

I like Matthias.

Number 24.

And they prayed and said, You Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which 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.

Wow.

And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias.

And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

I wonder if he went by Matthias or Matt.

He had Matthew and Matt.

That could be kind of confusing.

You have two James's, two Judases, two Matt's.

That's why Jesus said, called them the disciples.

Just kidding.

Why do you think it was important for the church to have 12 apostles?

Isn't it interesting the next 10 days that they're waiting for the spirit to fall?

They preoccupied themselves of finding a 12th apostle.

I wouldn't if I'd been like, hey, uh, you know, we only lost one, that's pretty good.

Um that's that's uh better than 90%.

Maybe 92 or 93% retention rate.

That's awesome.

No, they were gonna choose a 12th apostle for very specific reasons.

That's why I call this um the fact that they were guided by purpose because they're gonna we're gonna see that they choose a 12th apostle in order to fulfill a continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament in God's program and his redemptive purposes.

Remember this number, the number 12 was pretty significant because there were 12 tribes of Israel, right?

There were 12 tribes.

And then in Jesus' ministry, we read that Jesus says in Matthew 19, verse 25, he says to his disciples, Truly I say to you, in the new world, the new Jerusalem, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthew 19:25

So the tribes of Israel, even though the Mosaic covenant under Moses was fulfilled by Jesus Christ, it was sort of a parentheses in history.

The law was bringing us to Christ, and it was this nation of Israel was the nation out of which Messiah would come and all that sort of stuff.

In the Mosaic covenant comes to completion, the twelve tribes, there's a continuity between them and the new people of God.

Here God is reconstituting the people of God in Jesus Christ.

One of the theological themes in the Bible, especially the New Testament, is that everything that Israel was supposed to be, all the promises, all the commands, all the um, especially the promises of a land, a seed, uh the blessing of the nations, all these things, they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

He's the ultimate true Israel.

Just as Israel was taken out of Egypt in the Exodus, Matthew makes the point in uh Matthew chapter 2 when Jesus and his family go down to Egypt for time to escape Herod, he says, he fulfilled Scripture, for out of Egypt have I called my son.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Jesus is the new Israel.

Where does that leave us?

It leaves us as believers in Jesus, are in Christ, being constituted as the new people, true Israelites in Christ.

In other words, there is a design and a method to the madness.

There is a plan God is unfolding here.

It's not just some random grassroots movement we call Christianity.

God is unfolding redemptive purposes that began in the Garden of Eden and now they come, they land on Christ through Christ, to the church, through the church, to the nations.

Twelve apostles.

That twelfth apostle is chosen.

Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 says this the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Now, if you don't believe me that there's a significance about 12, look in verse 15.

How many disciples does it say are in the upper room?

120.

He said about 120.

Luke has shown us a little theology here.

He could have said 117.

He could have said 122.

He said about 120.

12 times 10.

10 being like a fullness.

So you have the 12 apostles, the 12th apostle being chosen.

You have the number of disciples built upon them being 120.

There's all kinds of fulfillment stuff going on here.

God's plan is being unfolded and he intends for the church to progress based on his design, not their own.

One more little point about this in Revelation 21.

I love this.

Revelation 21, this is where we see the New Jerusalem.

Descending out of heaven.

Here's one of its descriptions.

Revelation 21, 12, it says, And the city had a great high wall with twelve gates, and the gates twelve, and on the at the uh at the gates, twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.

And on the east there were three gates, on the north there were three gates, on the south three gates, on the west three gates.

Remember, it's a city four square.

Verse 14, and the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

So here in this in just three verses, he brings about this fullness of what's going to be the dwelling place of God in the new creation.

You have all these gates that are that are picturing this entrance of those who believe in Christ into this dwelling place of God.

And whose names are on the gates?

The twelve tribes, the people who facilitated the birth of Messiah and the blessings of the nation, and then the apostles who were chosen by Jesus.

Jesus didn't choose two apostles, seven apostles, he chose twelve apostles.

And here we have at the very end all this coming together.

The Lamb bringing it to full fruition.

And in Acts chapter 1, we just see a little taste of that.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

They were going to need to operate business according to God's redemptive purposes and not their own making.

One other thing in this passage in verse 26 that I think is worth noting for us today as we think about them preparing for Pentecost is that they cast lots to choose Matthias.

Isn't it interesting?

They cast lots, which most of us don't do that today.

We could cast lots in a number of different ways.

We could draw straws.

You've ever drawn straws, right?

Maybe at the most juvenile level, the eny meeny miny moe, that kind of thing.

Some objective sort of, unless you until you're like 12 years old and you master of, I know if I start with this person, it's gonna end up on me.

How about that?

Did you guys you guys ever do that?

It's awesome.

Or you count ahead, you're like there's six people like, okay, okay, I'll do it.

Yeah, starting with you.

Here he says that they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias.

So what's interesting is that at no point in the New Testament from this point on do the people of God cast lots or use any sort of antiquated method of discerning God's will.

They rely on the Holy Spirit.

They seek him in prayer, and he confirms it, often in the context of a community of believers centered on God's word.

Prayer in the Spirit, in the context of community, in accordance with God's word, is how decisions are made.

But the Old Testament was full of God's people using lots, and even the high priest had uh had a pouch with the Urim and the thumb, and if they were going to go into battle, Lord, are you gonna bless us in battle or should we not go up?

And they'd reach into the high priest and they'd pull out a stone, and if it was the right color, they knew they could go.

If it was the other color, they would not go.

That's how they operated.

They would cast lots.

Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, but the final disposing in the matter is of the Lord.

Proverbs 16 · chapter mention

They believe that God worked through these means to give guidance.

But in the New Testament, when the Spirit comes and the Spirit begins to guide believers, we don't need those kind of methods anymore.

But how many times have we been tempted to uh to read the story of Gideon?

And we're like, maybe I should, I don't know if I should marry this person or if I should get this job or move to that city or do these things?

I'm gonna lay out a fleece.

That's a sub-Christian method of discovering God's will.

That's not a Christian method.

That's an Old Testament thing prior to the giving of the Holy Spirit, the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Don't be caught doing that.

Or even worse, there was this one guy who played Bible roulette, which is where he took his Bible.

It works better if it's the King James Version.

He flips through it, opens it up, and puts his finger on a verse, and he looks at it and reads it to find God's will for his life.

In the verse when he did this was Matthew 27, 5.

He said, And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, Judas departed and went out and hanged himself.

Shook his head, he's like, maybe, okay, that was just a warm-up.

So he flips through it again, opens it up, puts his finger down, and he reads it.

This time it's Luke 10, 37.

And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise, was the verse.

Now panic starts setting in.

Lord, is this really what you're trying to do?

I'll do it, Lord.

Don't tempt me.

One more time.

He flips through it, and the third time he puts his finger on it, and it was John 13, 27, it says, What you're gonna do, do quickly.

That's why we don't rely on those means anymore, brothers and sisters.

We have the Holy Spirit in the context of community grounded in God's word.

Are we praying for each other to discern God's will?

Praying for God to make it evident, not praying for a sign in the sky, but praying for sensitivity to the Spirit, for Him to speak through His Word, for Him to speak through other people as they speak into our lives.

Are we doing this for each other?

This is how the Spirit after Pentecost works.

In conclusion, we've seen that the 120 disciples were just ordinary, uncertain, simultaneously grieving and rejoicing believers in Jesus Christ, who were gathered in prayer, who were grounded in God's promises, and who were guided by his redemptive purposes for the church.

What we see as we close chapter one is that the stage is now set for Pentecost, which is where the book of Acts gets really good.

I'll just simply close with the prayer that was on the lips of the church in our text.

You, Lord, know the hearts of all.

This is still true.

He knows your heart and mine today.

He knows whether we're ready to receive the power of the Holy Spirit in our workplace, in our homes, in our time with the Lord, in our in our marriage, in our parenting, in our witnessing, or whether we're just playing games.

Prayer still precedes power, readiness still comes before revival, and so he calls you and I back to the upper room to prepare for the firefall.

Let's pray.