Acts 1:12-26
And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying,
Sermon Transcript:
Third thing I wanted to mention is this book. I know many of you have it. It is called the scripture journal of the book of acts. It has the scripture on one side and then a place for notes on the other.
I know some of you, I hope many of you, I’m going to brave this. How many of you have it? If you’d just hold it up? Okay. At is very encouraging. Now peer pressure is being applied to the rest of you. It’s not only me. I really want to encourage you. We’re delighted. We got a new stock in if you are able to give the $5, you can pick one up at the hub this morning.
Otherwise you can, you can reserve it online. We have more coming in after the stock that we have it’s. This is why we’re doing this mean. The main reason we’re doing this is we want you to be enact involved in the book of acts on your own and reading through the book of acts, writing your notes, commentaries questions.
And then also as you come on Sunday, things that you hear in a sermon, you know, you jot down get them in here. And I I’ve done this with a couple of individuals I’m going to now do it to all of the. I would love if you would take the time to send me a quick email or a text just marked, you know, this, this verse, you know, God, just his, how he worked in my life.
Maybe this questions, I can’t promise all re respond to all of your questions, but when we get there, we will. So if you go in through, let’s have this be an interactive experience from your studies, as well as from ours, as pastors presenting it to you. And this is a tool we’re hoping you’ll use to help in that process.
We’re going to be looking at acts chapter one, verses 12 to 26. In a moment years ago, I had a veteran pastor. I was like 27 years old. I was just starting out as a church planner of this church. And I had an, a veteran pastor, a very active, strong energetic pastor and alpha type. Get with me. And he pulled me aside and you made this statement to me.
He said, mark, the hardest command for me in the Bible is the one I have most benefited by in my ministry. The command is wait on the Lord. I was struck by this because I knew this guy. He was an activist. He was an energy guy and I thought, wow, if God makes this guy wait, then God really is about this waiting thing.
We’re going to be looking this morning at the early church in waiting mode. As pastor Mike talked a couple of weeks ago in verses the verses that included verse eight, the disciples have met on the mountain with Jesus and he, they have received his instruction there. His final words, as he has ascended into heaven, verse eight has given the culminating command to wait because his spirit is going to come upon them with power and they are going to be witnesses to for him throughout the, the known world.
As Mike mentioned in his sermon, this concept of witnesses is basically bearing testimony to what you’ve experienced and seen in our own lives. But he says that there’s a spirit that is going to be, the spirit is going to come upon them and it’s going to enable them to go forth and do things they have not done before.
And there are a lot of questions they’re left with, but they are now waiting. And that’s what he’s told them to do. I want you to wait injuries. Until the spirit comes upon you. The question we’re going to look at this morning is what did they do in that waiting period? Because verses 12 to 26 of acts, chapter one highlights some specific things that were going on as they were in waiting mode for God’s next move.
Now, certainly for all of us as individuals at times, God has you in a waiting stop awaiting posture, right? I mean, some of you are there right now. I don’t know what God wants me to do. I wish God would just, you know, show me what’s the next move or, or I need God to work in this situation and I’m just waiting and waiting.
So this personal application, some of the principles we’re going to look at, but I would like to suggest there is to me. And I hope to you a broader application as well. I believe this passage. And the entire book of acts have incredible voice right now to Western Christianity. We have just come through three years of very difficult season.
It’s time of cultural change at a time of cultural conflict. I don’t mean that’s over, but it is a cultural conflict and a cultural, cultural chaos that has absolutely impacted the evangelical church. There’s been discord. There’s been different perspectives. There’s been conflict. There’s been confusion of what evangelical even means anymore.
I was struck reading a series of polls that have recognized that the term evangelical has become politicized to the point. That 40% of people that are identifying themselves as evangelical have not attended a worship service, either online or in person, more than once in the last year. So basically whatever, you know, I’m evangelical certainly doesn’t mean devout involved, committed hearing Jesus, walking with Jesus, honoring his word.
As a matter of fact, one’s political position in many corners has upstaged personal godliness as the barometer of Christian commitment in the conflict of this season. CT Christianity today presented a poll and it was a poll of pastors evangelical past. And asked how many of you have seriously considered stepping out of the ministry in the last two years?
55%. I haven’t just so you know, which may, which may be a grievous disappointment, but
this has been a turbulent time. It has been a season where I believe God is preparing the church for a great work as he refines what the church is supposed to be simultaneously. It is a day in which people in our world are frightened with world events that comes up to this morning, right? As we look at central Europe, With social upheaval, a world in conflict, David Brooks, Jewish journalist of the New York times, not a believer in Jesus Christ, but a friend to some that are one of his closest friends is Tim Keller, a spokesman.
And to me, the greatest Christian mind of our generation, but he is learned from Keller and gain a perspective of historic Christianity’s influence in the world that has caused him to write an article recently called evangelicalism and basically is presenting it as a warning to, for the church to not miss the opportunity to be the church and its influence in the world that his has historically been.
And he talks about the world in this way. Here’s what he says. Modernity has. The age of the autonomous individual, the age of the narcissistic self, the age of consumerism and moral drift has left us with bitterness and division, a surging mental health crisis, and people just being nasty to one. Another millions are looking for something else, some system of belief that is communal that gives life transcendent, meaning in his article, he’s arguing the church has been that historically, but is it now a communal community where people are, are, are manifested by love for one another?
Is there a transcendent view of God where God is the sovereign Lord or, or, or is it that we’ve got to control these things and get the right people in the right position? It is in such a world. As he describes that the church was born, its history is recorded in the book of acts. It is a perfect time to be going back to the foundations of the church itself and see what God did and how God moved through his spirit to transform his followers and to literally change the world.
But the gospel of Christ this morning, we’re looking at the followers of Jesus as they waited for God’s big move. He’s going to do that on Pentecost. He said to wait for it, watch for prepare yourselves for it. So we look at the passage this morning and we try to understand what were they doing? What were they.
Preparing themselves for, as they waited for God to move. And with that introduction, I invite you to listen. As I read acts chapter one, verse 12 through 26,
then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivette, which is where the Ascension of Jesus to heaven took place, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where there was 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 one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brother.
In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of the persons was in all about 120 and said, brothers, the scripture must had to be fulfilled, which the holy spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.
Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness and falling headlong. He burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out, and it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language. A Kel Dima. That is the field of blood for it is written in the book of Psalms may as can’t become desolate and let there be none to dwell on and, and let another take his place.
So one of the men who had accompanied us during all the time that the Lord went in and out among us, From the beginning, the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us, a witness to his resurrection, and they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called justice and Matthias.
And they prayed and said, you Lord who know the hearts of all show, which one of these two, you have chosen to take the place in this ministry. And apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they cast lots for them. And the lot fell on Matthias and he was numbered with the 11 apostles father.
We come to you this morning, as we open your word, God, we ask you to speak into our lives this morning. Lord, many of us looked on the news this morning. We’re struck again with the instability of our world and Lord, we rejoice. We rest, we claim and lean into the reality that you are the sovereign God transcendent above all the nations on the earth.
And Lord, we also come through this morning believing that in seasons of unrest and confusion and cultural fear
are such prime moments for the spirit to empower the church, to be a, a voice of truth, a voice of compassion, a voice of a God that has transcendent all nations and worlds and kingdom. An epics of time. Lord, I ask you this morning that we might just evaluate ourselves as we think, are we preparing our lives to be available fit vessels for the master’s use, speak to us, please in Jesus name.
Amen. I’m going to look at three things this morning that these individuals were doing, or that were going on with these individuals that I think need to be true of us when we are in a season waiting for God’s move in our lives. Number one, the first thing we find is they were not in isolation. Here’s what verse 12 and 13 says.
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivette, 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 now. I’ve read that verse and reflect on the verse a lot of times. And I finally came out with the same question.
Why did Luke sail that me? Why didn’t he just say this? They returned to Jerusalem. I mean, that’s all we need to know. Right? I mean, they, they left the Mount of Olivette, which is about it was, it’s a Sabbath day’s journey, which meant about six tenths of a mile. And then they went to where they were staying wherever that was in Jerusalem.
And, and so why belabor the same mean? Why say they left the Mount of olives together? They went 0.6 miles together. They went together up to the upper room where they were staying together. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve I’ve realized he was highlighting the fact that these guys. Or to gather they fall as they didn’t leave.
Jesus went back to heaven and, and they thought, oh man, I I’m just, I’m going to go to my place. You go to your place. I mean, let’s just all go. I’m going to go get lunch. You go do what you guys want to do. I’ll catch you later. These guys stayed together. They wandered together. They track together and they all went back to the room where, where, where, where they would have their meetings together over the next seven days.
They didn’t know it was seven days. They just knew they were supposed to wait. They didn’t get a time definition from God for how long the wait would be. They had stuff to process together. They had experiences that they believe were going to be coming together as a unit. They had things going on and more than anything else they needed to be.
They were leaning into each other. At this moment, there was a community of people here that needed to be together that needed to wait on God together. When God moves among the people on the day of Pentecost, he pours out his spirit on all of these people, not Peter, you know, not John. Okay. I’ll catch John over here.
You know, or these three at dinner, I’ll do it there. And then no, he poured it out on this community. It was a group of people that were doing life together. They were, the fire will be ignited and maintained by the shared heat among this fledgling community together during the second great awakening, which the first great awakening is one people are more familiar with the new England.
Jonathan Edwards. Later in 1790 to 1840, the second grade awakening was out in Kentucky, Tennessee with a primary places in the, in the mid Southern states. And this outpouring of God, which just saw thousands of people embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and savior impacted three groups. It impacted the Presbyterian church and impacted the Methodist church and impacted the Baptist church and an amazing way all of those churches and in their various communities in those various states.
So many people come to Jesus Christ, but what happened and I actually did in my of ministry degree, actually did a a paper on this. What happened was. Only one of the three groups kept the fire of the revival. Only one of the groups saw these, the growth, not only be maintained, but continue to grow. It was the Methodist.
And the reason for that was because the Methodists under John Wesley in England, before it was brought over here, had built in a system within their organization that were built of these three groups there with the group called the society. The society would be like the worship service. The class was a secondary group who is basically what we would call our community groups or small groups, cell groups, whatever you call it in a church.
And then there were these things called the bands, which were four to six men with men, four to six women with women who were there for accountability. It’s actually where we got the word in our team ministry for bands while we call those accountability. So serious where the Methodists under Wesley, that people participate in the class in particular, in the small group, they were encouraged to be involved in the bands that you are not allowed to take communion in the society, in the worship service, unless you had a card that showed that you were participating in a class and you to say, well, that’s legal, Libya.
It’s all right, whatever it worked, because what it did was it said we prioritize people doing life together. The fire of the great awake. The second great awakening was maintained by a structured. Designed to have God used of God that emphasized believers need to be involved with each other, the one another’s of scripture and exhorting one another encouraging one, another warning, one another praying for one another.
All of those that are there are highlighting what was taking place, particularly in the classes. And to some degree in the bands, these believers are manifesting the principle. That is always true. When God is going to move, he is move among people that are doing life together. If we’re going to be saying, I want God to move in my life and brother or sister, you’re going to probably need to be doing life with other people.
It’s not a solo flight. And one of the things has happened in the last three years. People are sorta drifted out and while I’m just going to do Christiana on my own and, and, and just do my own thing and, you know, and, and, and, and I recognize some people still need to be online. And so be it that’s great.
Praise God, we can do that technologically, but there is something about being in the presence of others. There is some essence all the time. I said last week up in Trenton, you know, just in, in their worship service, I said, the beauty of this experience is this. You gather with people and by singing together and by being together and making the time to be here together, we’re saying to each other, it’s true.
He’s real. He’s at work in my life. He can be at work in yours, or we come in and we’re staggering. And we’re wondering, where is God? And is he really? And we look around and we say, yeah, these people believe it. There’s nobody at my work. Police said nobody was school believes it, but I’m among people that are, that are kindling the fire.
Because they experienced this fire. One of the things we learn as they are waiting for God’s spirit to be poured upon them is they’re with each other. They’re doing a communal experience in the Christian journey. The next thing we find is they prayed continually. We see this in verse 14,
all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer. They were passionate about prayer. It says here they prayed with one accord. This word one accord actually in the original is one compound word. And it’s fascinating what it is. It’s the word humble, which means same. We use it that way. Same.
And then the word through Moss and the word through Moss is the word sometimes translated mind, like same mindedness, one minus, but it is usually translated in the new Testament, by the word anger. It’s the volcanic type of anger. It’s passionate. It’s saying these people shared the same passion, the same fire it’s actually used of, of, of, of, of heat and smoke coming off.
These people were ablazed with a passion for what praying it. Matter of fact, it says they were with one patch. They were devoting themselves to prayer. Again, one other thing here, another word thing, and I know you can get lost and going through every word, but I can’t pass these by this word. Devoted is from the noun strength or might.
Here’s what he’s saying. This is a Willie paraphrase, literally of the Greek words with a United passion. They were giving their strength, their energy towards prayer, that when they were waiting, when they were abiding, when were, they were looking for God to move. Or were they doing? They’re crying out to God together with one passion with pouring their strength into that.
And we’re going to see that is the pattern of the whole book of acts. Let me just share quickly few passages acts chapter one, verse 14. Here’s the word devoting themselves to prayer acts chapter two, verse 14, devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching the fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayers acts chapter six, verse four.
When the apostles say we need others to carry on, you know, the practical care of people. We have to devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Romans 12, 12, Paul says it this way. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant. Be devoted. Give you strength. Two prayer Colossians four, two, continue steadfastly.
Be devoted. In prayer being watchful in it with Thanksgiving, what causes people to be passionate in praying you might be, I’m guessing many of you are out there saying I don’t even know what that feels like, be passionate about. I don’t know. I mean, I’m passionate about the Sixers and glad we got James harden.
I’m passionate about my political position. I’m passionate, but I don’t know how to be passionate about prayer. I just, I know I should do it. And even when you’re talking about it, I just, okay, come on 0.3. Let’s keep it moving. Mark. How do you get passionate about prayer? You flip the switch. What do you do?
What causes people to be passionate about praying to give their energy, their strength toward praying. One thing, a sense of desperation. You need it. They know these guys know they’re in over their heads. Now here’s the thing. There are no more in over their heads than you are. They just knew it. That’s why times of suffering and weakness and you lose your job.
What do you find yourself doing? Your prayer life has just taken a dramatic step forward. What happened? You need God, you need help. You need guidance, you need a name and you need empowerment. It’s interesting in the book Pilgrim’s progress and there’s actually two parts to that. There’s the one we’re most familiar with where Kristin, the, the man leaves his city and sets out on the journey to the heavenly city.
But I don’t know if you know the story enough to know that what happened. It was a, it was a tragic moment when Christian left because he pled with his family and nobody would go with him. He had to leave his wife. Cristiana behind. And he left with tears, but he had to follow Christ in his journey. Well, the second volume of the book is actually when Christina Cristiana, his wife receives Christ and realizes he was right, and she’s so grateful for him modeling the Jesus was, was worth even leaving everything behind and in his journey for Christ.
But now Christiana and her friend mercy are on the journey as well. Well, behind Pilgrim, excuse me, Christian, the other Pilgrim. And they’ve come to a place and what’s happened. They’ve come to this place called the keeper’s house. And while they had, when they left two evil minded men attack the women.
And they might’ve overpowered them, had not the screams of the women been heard by the gatekeeper who comes out and rescues him and brings him back into the house. And here’s this conversation that’s going on. And this guy named reliever, who’s the one that rescued them, says to the women I marveled.
When you were at the Gatehouse that you did not ask the Lord for a guide, thinking that you must be unaware of the fact that you were frail women. And there, there were dangers on the way, if you had asked the Lord, he would have gladly granted you a guide to which Cristiana says since the Lord knew our needs and knew all about the dangers on the way.
I wonder that he didn’t send somebody along with us, make sense, right? Here’s what he says. It’s not always best to grant things, not asked for some did not appreciate such gifts as they should nor see their true. But when the need of a thing is felt, and that thing is asked for and received, then it is rightly appreciated.
And the giver is endeared to the receiver. If your Lord had granted you a guide without your asking for one, you would not have discovered your utter dependence and your need of faith. Now you have more foresight and more hunger, and you, you have learned to ask more freely for what you need. Failure weakness, disappointment in ourselves helps us learn the need of, of crying out to God.
The more God enables us to have our eyes open and think, well, I, you know, I think life’s going pretty good. I mean, I got it. All right. I mean, we’re paying the bills, things, see new moving forward. I’ve got a nice house and, and, and, and family’s doing okay and okay, God is mercy. Then. Has to bring things to remind us, but do we want them to have to do that?
What if we said, God, I’ve been playing Christian for so long. I mean, I’m just walking this path and, and I’m glad I’m a Christian and my family’s a church and I’m a church and we’re doing the church thing. And I’m trying to, I’m certainly live in differently than, than the, than the guys at work or the girls at work.
And you know, I, yeah, I’m limited, but passion for you crying out for you. I don’t have it. God. I’m seeing for the first time, maybe that my Luke warmness is the most effective tool to keep me from the passion to keep me from truly experiencing what you have for me in my Christian. The more God shows us our need.
The more we tend to cry. I love the statement. This is by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk. He summarized what prayer actually is. Prayer is an expression of who we are. We are a living incompleteness. I don’t know why I liked that so much. Maybe because it’s it’s. If you had a little badge that I could wear, that seems perfect.
Mark Willie, a living incompleteness. It works for me. I agree with it. The problem is we don’t see enough. Our incompleteness we’re not hungry enough. We’re not longing enough. And maybe God is just stirring the church. Maybe God is as unsettling. I have grace to say, you can have fire, you can have passion.
There couldn’t be a crying out to God. He’s saying to these disciples. And I mean that in the broadest sense, the 120 of them, I want you to go into the room and wait, I’m going to do something big. Matter of fact, you’re going to get somebody that’s going to replace me. That’s better than me. The spirit in you will be better than me alongside of you.
Now. They don’t understand that they don’t get it. They don’t how that’s possible, but they gather together and what do they do? They just were passionately saying, God, we’re waiting. God, we’re praying God. We’re asking God, move among us. All the God would be doing that in us. That God would be stirring our own hearts.
You know, in acts one 70 said to them, it’s not for you to know the times of the seasons that the father has fixed by his own authority. They didn’t know what God was going to do. They didn’t know what acts one eight says, you’ll receive power. When the holy spirit comes upon you and you’ll be witnessed.
They knew that God designed to use them and that he was going to be their power source. They knew he was going to use them to be witnesses. As Mike talked about a couple of weeks ago, and he going to give them the power to do it.
That same spirit is in us saying, I’m, I’m empowering you. It’s there embrace it, experience it. And in the circumstances that I’m involved in your lives, while you’re waiting for God to move, pray as a people together, It’s been exciting as I’ve just thought over the last couple of weeks to sense God. And I think it’s just cause you get eyes to look Doug Glendo at our last board meeting.
He’s the chairman of our board this year heard every one of a sure way that we’re really asking God to be at work this year in our lives and to share specific people that we’re asking the other guys on the board to pray for, that we want to see changed by the gospel. This weekend. Pastor Jared is as Mike said earlier, is leading the winter weekend with our high school youth and Ryan and intern here is speaking.
And one of our pastors sent a text to all of us this week and he said let’s all get together Friday morning at 11 o’clock. And just pray over Jared and, and Ryan, which we did. Some of us have been texting just them and praying with them. Continually Dennis Chacho led my community group a couple of weeks ago when I was in Michigan and presented the question.
If you could see one person’s life changed this year, who would it be and how would they be changed?
Who are you crying out for God for this year? Who are you crying out for in your office, at your school, in your family and your extended family? Seeing God with passion, I’m asking you to move on. Give me my strength to asking you to move. Who are you writing in your journal that you could write right now and say, God, this person here it is February.
What? Our 20th, 20th, February 20th. I’m writing it down. God, these three people, would you work among them? Maybe there are other people say, look, God just laid these three people on my heart. My father was a Christian businessman who was all in for Jesus. And my father had an old Bible. He was saying, you know, he just, he wouldn’t let that baby go.
Even though that baby had let him go a long time ago with the pages. And, but in my father’s Bible in the front. He had a, a three-by-five card. So white, I think it was white. It didn’t look white when I saw it, but was still white was covered by scotch tape. You know, how Scott scape gets ratty. And that was his Bibles three by five card.
But on that three by five card with the names of 10 men that my dad prayed for in a couple of their lives decades, for that, they would come to Jesus Christ. And I’ll never forget the time. My dad told me about, there was a woman in our church that was a believer. She had an unsaved husband and this guy had made it to my dad’s list for six years.
And I remember him telling me the story when this guy yielded his heart to Christ my dad going up to him and just show him.
You’ve been on my prayer thing for six years. Who’s on your list. Who’s in your Bible. Who’s on your card. Who was passionately crying out for God? Yes. We’re going to be witnesses. We’re called to do that. We’re going to speak about God to people, but you’ll find very few people that you’ll talk to God about the, that you’ll talk about.
This was such a good line there. You’ll find very few people that you’ll have the chance to talk to God, to talk about God with that. You have not talked to God about.
So, who are they? Who are we asking others, say, look, brothers and sister, you know, in our little community group, in our gathering here among the girls, we get together with dinner. Would you pray for, for my list, for my people that I’m asking to be witnesses to. And even if it’s not me that God will have all the rest of his witnesses to who are we passionate about?
Who are we pleading for? We’ll be witnesses if we’re being prompted and led. And that spirit of God is upon us, but we’ll rarely find ourselves being witnesses to, if we are not praying for
the third thing they aligned themselves. With God’s priorities. I got to move fast. The one event, wait, sit. AF is it 10, 10? Okay. I got to move lightning fast. They align themselves with God’s priorities. The one event of those seven and 10 days was that they determined to choose a replacement for Judas.
Peter took the point on the process as he will take the point in leadership in the early years of the church’s life. Two quick things, Jesus appointed the number of the apostles notice verse 17, he’s talking about. And he says Judas was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. He betrayed the ministry and he explains here and puts in putting it together, this passage and the passage in Matthew chapter 27, we find out basically Judas had had grieved over what he’d done when he saw Jesus crucified and he tries to give the money back.
They won’t take it. So he throws it on the ground of the temple. They pick it up, they, he goes out and hangs himself and they bought the field that he hung himself in and called it. Then the field of blood and he says, Judas in verse 20, let another now take his office and requesting is why, why do you need another guy?
I mean, what’s wrong with 11 apostles, right? Why do you need 12? I mean, is this Mr. Monk and OCD can have an odd number. What’s the deal, Peter? Why. The key is what he says. He was numbered among us. The word is actually we get the word arithmetic from he, he, he says, it’s how the math is supposed to happen.
The math works when we have 12. The reason for that is Jesus is connecting his ministry with God’s ministry through all time. There were 12 patriarchs that formed the 12 tribes of Israel. There are now 12 apostles. This enterprise is continuing now to include all of the nations of the earth. They were aligning themselves with Jesus’ plan.
That’s why they’re adding the 12th. The other thing is they aligned themselves with Jesus appointment of the requirement of the 12 apostles. They will be as primary witnesses. These apostle. They had to be people that were with him from the days of John, the Baptist, they have to be with him all the way through the Ascension.
They have to be men it’s striking. His mom is in the room. I mean, you talk about a cool 12th apostle. It says the women, these godly women who, but God just chose, the apostles would be men. The holy spirit is going to use these 12 men and later Paul, to be the foundation of Jesus’ church, they will have signed in wonders that affirmed their message comparable to the miraculous signs.
Moses has done centuries before the bottom line of this is if we are going to align ourselves with God, we live our lives under Jesus’ Lordship, and we reflect in our lives. Jesus. We can’t say we’re aligning our lives with the priorities of God. If those things are not true of our lives. So we look at this and we say, what’s true.
As with, as we wait for God to move number one, we’re doing it in community with other believers. Number two, we’re saying, God, give me a passion for bro. Just start praying for people. You’ll find your passion will grow. And number three, we are aligning our lives under the Lordship of Christ. Believing that the greatest testimony to Christ in our lives is the love of Christ being lived through us.
We got to pray. Let’s go, Lord
God. This is a message that really matters to me. I want to be this kind of person. I believe. What’s been done in the church in the Western world in America was intended for evil by darkness, but I believe that what is intended for evil, you can intend for. Good. So Lord move among us. Change us as we wait for your movement among us.
May we be your people to your glory in Jesus name? Amen. Now, go in peace to love and serve and enjoy the Lord.