What is God asking you to wait on right now?
WATCH
Sparking the Flame, 1 of 7 from September 6, 2026
“We keep following Jesus because He is the only one with the plan.”
Acts 1:1-14 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon begins a series on Acts by showing how Jesus used ordinary people to continue His mission after His resurrection. From Acts 1, Pastor Michael emphasizes that Jesus called His disciples to wait, pray, receive the Holy Spirit, and become witnesses to everyone—even people they might normally avoid.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What does our willingness to wait on God tell us about who we expect to have the plan for our lives?
💬 Who are we praying for? Who aren’t we praying for yet?
💬 Who are we praying with?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Readings
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Good morning, church.
Have you ever been kind of invited into a thing and then you show up and you, like, think you know what you're getting into, and then as you're going, you kind of realize, oh, this is a bigger thing than I thought it was. There's more going on than I kind of anticipated. I'm tempted to tell a story about something Carl invited me into recently, but I'm not going to do that.
Well, I had a different example, but I see you guys whispering, so I'm assuming that you think that this is what I'm going to talk about. Carl invited me to come to a workout group in the morning and I was like, okay, cool, I need to do something rather than just kind of sit around. And so I went and I thought it was just a couple of guys getting together and just kind of making stuff up. And that's true, but it also is so much more than that. Come to discover it's not only a national organization, but an international organization.
I listened to a podcast this week and was surprised to hear people talking about these workout groups in London and across the uk. And so I was like, I thought we were just getting together with a couple of guys. I thought Carl was just trying to abuse me and make me run until I threw up. And that was true. But also there was other stuff that was going on behind.
Like, there's a group of men that for years and years and years have been praying that guys will get together for the purpose of, like, fitness, but not only talking about caring about their body, but caring about their relationships, like building fellowship and friendships with one another. And then ultimately that that would be the avenue for being able to have conversations about faith. And so I showed up just kind of thinking it was an accidental thing and come to find out, like, God's been working in people's lives across the globe to make this kind of thing happen. So it's kind of neat to stumble into something accidentally and then to just continue to stumble with it. So if you really need something to do at 5:30 in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays, I can help you out.
But that's not. It is for men only, though. So I don't know, we can sort that out. If you want to make up your own one, though, it seems a pretty simple model to do.
Cool. Well, none of that was in my notes. Thanks, guys. Love you so much.
What we're looking at or what we're going to look at over the next several months is it's kind of a moment in History that had never happened before, and now that we live on the backside of it, we kind of assume it was inevitable. Like, it was interesting, as we were kind of preaching over the last couple of weeks, I talked about how Jesus was really just a blue collar worker. He was a builder. And then one day he started calling other blue collar workers to come and follow him as though he were some kind of teacher. Now, he'd never been to school or anything, but he just started gathering guys and said, hey, I'll be your rabbi.
And they said, yeah, we'll drop everything and follow you. And why should that work? Why should an uneducated guy be able to call other uneducated guys to wander around and like, whatever it is that they end up teaching one another actually sticks? And then we looked last week at one of Jesus sermons where he gets up and he kind of gives this extended illustration about the scenery that everybody had walked by. And he says, if you get it, you get it.
Have fun. Like, closes the sermon. And the disciples come to him later and say, hey, can you explain what it was you were trying to say there? Like, we had all these crowds of people and we queued you up and you had the mic and you were ready to just be able to draw all men to yourself. And what you did instead was just kind of confuse everybody.
Like, what is going on? Can you tell us what happened? Like, Jesus wasn't, like, Jesus wasn't necessarily doing the like, scalable model of how to make a movement, a religious movement happen. We look back and realize what he is doing. We can look back and see what the Holy Spirit was doing in that, but it was not a guarantee that one plus one equals 2,000 years of us coming together and continuing to study this man's teaching and to continue to gather together and carve off our Sunday morning time where we could be out on the boat, or we could be mowing the lawn for the sixth time this week, or we could be doing literally anything else.
It was an inevitable. So how did that start? Like, Jesus is compelling. I think there's significant reason to believe that Jesus is God himself in the flesh. But how did Jesus, after he left, after he left the earth, how did he, like actually continue the movement?
Through a bunch of guys who, like most of them, may not have been able to read very well the scripture that they knew they knew because somebody read it to them and they had kind of memorized it. But to open up, like, they had to learn some stuff. Why do we have a book from a bunch of Guys that were fishermen, that's not inevitable, right?
Some of you, you guys got high estimation of some fishermen. So of course it was going to work. It was always going to work out. So this movement, this Jesus movement, kind of, I want to take a look in this first couple of weeks about like the sparking the flame. What were the sparks that turned into like blazing the world on fire?
What was the beginning of this movement? What did that look like? And so I'm going to invite you, if you would, please turn with me to the book of Acts in chapter one. The book of Acts in chapter one. If you follow along in the blue Bibles here, It's on page 1049, that's the one I'm reading out of 1049.
And the blue Bibles, they'll be tucked under the chairs around you. And if you're here today, you don't have a Bible that you like to read and you decide you like this one, then just write your name in the front of that one, take it home, Let that be your gift to you.
Nothing good happens unless Jesus is involved. And so I'm just going to pause as you're kind of navigating there and take some time to pray. It's our habit just to pray. The disciples prayer, it's not a magic spell or anything like that, but it is the way that Jesus instructed his disciples to pray. And so there's ideas and attitudes that are in here that I think are really, really formative, that if we pray in this way, God changes us to be something than what we would have been automatically.
And so sounds like you guys have all found it. I don't hear any more pages turning, so let's pray together.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Let's start with reading Acts chapter one. We'll read a couple of verses here. One, four. And that should give us some things to talk about. We'll do one through five.
Acts 1:1. In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up. After he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So as we look at this book, in the first verse there in the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach.
That should give us, like, an indication that we're jumping into the middle of a story. Right, in the first book. What's the first book? And who's Theophilus? The first book is actually the book in the Bible that we call Luke.
So Luke was a Greek. He was not somebody who grew up Jewish. He was somebody who became a Christian out of a Greek background. And it seems like his profession was. He was a doctor.
And so doctors are a little bit more methodical, a little bit more scientific. And so he had seen that there was a bunch of people that were writing the stories and the biographies about who Jesus was and what he had done. But. But it was a little bit out of order, and it kind of irked him a little bit. I don't know if we got any ocd.
Like, I get it, I get it. That's not me. But some people have that. And so in the beginning of that first book that we call Luke, he writes this. Ooh, I can't read it back here.
Let me turn around. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who, from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the world have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, O most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. So doesn't he sound like a doctor in that one? Yeah, he's like, hey, look, I see there's a bunch of people that are writing down a bunch of stuff. I can't keep it all straight.
And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to take all of those and do some research, talk to the eyewitnesses, talk to the people who saw the things, verify the facts. And then I wanted to write it down and in a logical sequence so that you, as you're reading it, Theophilus can understand everything and have certainty about what was written. Right. So who's Theophilus? I got no idea.
I don't know who this guy is. I don't know why Luke wrote to him. There's a bunch of thoughts and hypotheses about who he was. But literally the only two times this guy is mentioned in all of Scripture is in Acts 1 and in Luke 1. And he's just the guy that Luke wrote to.
So it seems to me like he was somebody that Luke actually cared for very deeply. He's somebody who, as Luke was going around in his busy life, something that he became concerned about was making sure that Theophilus understood everything in order and could have certainty about the things that he believed in.
I love a lot of people a lot. I love my kids a lot. But I don't know that I love them enough to go back and write a whole biography of stuff for them in a time where paper was really, really expensive and it took a long time, and if you messed up, there was no back button, there was no erase manually writing down a letter. And after doing all of this research and compiling everything, it seems to me like whoever Theophilus was, it was somebody that Luke cared about very, very deeply and wanted to make sure that he understood who Jesus was and what Jesus was about. So that brings me back to Acts.
You guys still have Acts open, right? In the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. So he says, when I wrote that first book, I wrote it.
I wrote it to deal with all of the things that Jesus began to do. So it seems to me like he doesn't think that Jesus is finished with his work yet. He's like, Jesus started a bunch of stuff there, and now I'm going to write about more stuff that Jesus was doing. But the stuff that Jesus was doing after he left the earth, he actually did in a different way. Because it was until the day he was taken up, after he'd given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles and whom he had chosen.
As Jesus left the earth physically, he didn't stay in the grave. He came back to life. And then after he was resurrected, he, like, ascended into heaven. The cloud came down and he just zapped himself up. We'll read some more of that later.
But in that transition, Jesus is continuing his work, but he's continuing his work through the work of the Holy Spirit. He says, it's actually better for me in the flesh to leave you so that the Holy Spirit can come and be within you and guide you and things like that. Now sometimes I want to argue with Jesus about that point, but he didn't ask my opinion. And so we're just going to say that what he's doing is better than what I would do.
So he presented himself, verse 3. He presented himself alive to them after his sufferings, by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days. And speaking about the kingdom of God, it's fascinating.
Jesus, after his resurrection, spends like 40 days or so kind of showing up. And it seems like he just kind of teleports in and out. You never know when he's going to pop up. It's like a pop up window when you're going on the Internet, like, boom, hey, here's Jesus. Boom, there he goes.
Okay. Never know what he's going to do, right? And we even read in Luke chapter 24 how these guys, they were as these disciples, they'd been walking with Jesus, a guy named Cleopas, they'd been walking with Jesus and they thought that Jesus is the Messiah, he's the one that's gonna restore Israel. Like, we thought, this guy's the guy. We're putting all our chips in on him.
And then he died. Like he came to Jerusalem and they executed him. They murdered him. And like, I don't know about you, but like, I don't have a whole lot of time, a whole lot of faith that somebody who's dead is actually gonna do something that's helpful for me. So when you die, I'm not waiting for anything else to happen.
I'm just gonna have to move on with my life. So these guys have watched Jesus die and they're on the road going home. Cause what do you do when your teacher gets murdered? You just go home, I guess. And they're sad and they're walking like, man, this is a bummer.
I thought that this was gonna work out and it'd be different than this. And this stranger walks up to him and is like, what are you guys talking about? And they're like, well, don't. Are you the only person in Jerusalem that hasn't seen all the stuff that's going on? And he's like, what things are you talking about?
And they're like, well, don't you know about Jesus? Jesus was this teacher and he taught stuff. And we thought that he was the Messiah. We thought he was sent from God and we thought that he was going to save everybody. But he was turned over to the Chief priests, and they killed him.
And then to add insult to injuries, he didn't just die, but then these women came to take care of him. And they said when they got there, his body was gone. And they talked to him and that he was back from the dead. And we didn't trust the testimony of the women, so we sent the boys to go double check. And they saw that the body was gone, but we didn't see Jesus.
And so we don't know what happened. But something screwy is going on and we've had enough. We're at the end of our rope.
And Jesus said to them, they don't know who it is. But Jesus said to them, o foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ, the Messiah, God's chosen one, should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. This is Jesus talking, talking about how this is the design.
This was how it was supposed to be. Don't you know that this was how it was supposed to work? And they don't get it. So they drew near, this whole traveling company, drew near to the village to which they were going. And he acted as if he were going to go further.
He's like, I still got some more. I gotta take this walk. But they urged him strongly, saying, stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. They had to talk Jesus into staying the night with them, which is brilliant.
And when he was at table with them, he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. See? Popped a nut.
Never know where he's going to go.
They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened the Scriptures? And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They spent all day walking. And then he zaps himself out of the place and they run back to where they'd spent the whole day walking to. They found the 11 and those who were gathered with them together, saying, the Lord has risen indeed and and has appeared to Simon.
Then they told what happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. There's a couple of things that I think are just fascinating to note about this. Jesus was an incredible teacher. And Jesus opened up, literally some of the hardest sections of Scripture to understand and said, this is how all of this stuff connects to the Messiah, the one that you think is crucified. Don't you know that that's how it was supposed to work out?
And he kind of teaches them through, and they say, weren't our hearts burning within us? Like, it was just so compelling, the thing. It was so compelling. This guy is so good. He's a great teacher.
I just. I just love what he's teaching. I just wish he wouldn't stop, let's bring him into our house so that he can keep teaching us more. He can keep teaching us more. And the thing that's incredible to me is they did not recognize him until he broke bread with them.
Because Jesus doesn't just want to instruct you about what is true and what is false, although he does that, and he's good at it, and he's a reliable source of reliable information. He wants to instruct you, but don't you know, he invites you to his table, that his desire for you is not just that you'd be more informed, but that you would be better loved.
They knew he was a good teacher, but they didn't recognize him as Savior until he was actually sharing bread with them. And that's beautiful. And then Jesus just messes up the whole picture. He's gone and they take off. They got to tell somebody.
They got to know. They got to go.
Verse 4 in Acts, while they were staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. He says, hey, I need you to go someplace. I need you to wait.
Wait?
You want me to wait? What about the, like, three years that we've been following you? What about all the teaching that we have? What about, like, our hearts are burning, don't you know, I got something to share. I got to run across state lines to tell somebody.
Yeah, I just need you to sit tight and I need you to wait.
And for 40 days, he's teaching them. And for 40 days he's saying, just wait, just wait, just wait.
Why? What are you going to do in 40 days that you couldn't have done day one? Like, what is. You can declare the message, you can get this thing rolling. We can light the world on fire today.
He says, wait, wait, wait.
I think the timing of the crucifixion, humanly speaking, was really, really bad. You know, Jesus was crucified on a holiday weekend. Everything was supposed to be closed. It's not a good time to do an execution, a public execution. And part of the biographies about Jesus are real clear.
Part of what Judas did in his betrayal was make sure that Jesus was executed at the time of the Passover.
And he says, wait, wait, I'm telling a story. The Passover was a story of deliverance from slavery. Then about 50 days after Passover, in the Hebrew calendar, there's another festival where they celebrate. When God came and gave them the law, he communicated what he expected of them and what he wanted. They call that celebration.
They call it Pentecost. And there was a long time where I thought Pentecost happened in Acts 2. Didn't realize it happened in the Old Testament. Like, whoa. God's been telling this story the whole time?
Yeah, he has.
And, friends, I don't know what you've got on your calendar this week, but I do want you to know that Walking with Jesus is going to reorganize your calendar. That when he gets a hold of your life and when he gets all of your attention, suddenly your priorities begin to shift, and where and how you spend your time starts to change. And sometimes the thing that he does in your calendar is he says, hey, you know what I need you to do? Yes, Jesus, I'll do anything for you. Do you know what I need you to do?
I'll do anything. I'll go and I will conquer the world in your name. Well, do you know what I need you to do? I'll do anything. Just tell me what it is.
I need you to wait.
Lord have mercy.
I said I would do something. He says, I know, it's so sweet.
What does our willingness to wait on God tell us about who we expect to have the plan for our lives?
What does our willingness to wait on God that tell us about who we expect to have the plan for our lives?
My days are short, Jesus. Don't you know my days are short? I maybe have 80 years, and I got to do something great for you. Excellent. Would you wait?
No, no, no, no, no, no. Jesus, you misunderstood. I said something great, not something, wait. And he says, no, no, no, no, I Understood. Wait for 40 days.
What does our willingness to wait on God tell us about who we expect to have the plan for our lives on the chairs kind of scattered around. As I was kind of working through this, the 40 days number is a big deal Biblically. And I thought, what can we do? How can we kind of Mark that. And so what I have here for you is three options.
I'm not saying you're holier than anybody if you pick one option or another, but there's three options here. And I thought it'd be brilliant to just go ahead and spend 40 days with Dr. Luke. So your first option is 40 days reading through the Book of Acts, which is kind of where we're starting today. Just for the next 40 days. And look, I put in rest days there, too, because I'm not mean.
40 days reading through ACTS, Dr. Luke, what are you talking about? Okay. And then I thought, well, it's all part of the same story. We should probably put Luke and Acts together. So then I made an option where you read all the way through Luke and then you start reading through Acts.
And then I thought, that's a lot to kind of work through. What if we did them together? We, like, paired them together? So the third option is on the back. That's where you read a little bit of Luke and then a little bit of Acts, and then by the time you get to the end of the 40 days, you read through them both.
So this is my invitation to you. Wait.
What if in the next 40 days we decided not to make any decisions?
What if in the next 40 days, we just decided to set aside some time to listen?
And what if we all were, like, trying to listen to the same thing?
Because I tend to think that I'm the main character of my life.
And the fact of the matter is that my life plays out in the middle of God's story. Our life plays out in God's story.
And there's times where we look at the book and we go, oh, man, this just isn't relevant to what I'm going through right now. And I wonder if Jesus would be like, what you're going through? What is it that you think that I'm doing that is less important than what you're going through?
Our life plays out in God's story. And we keep following Jesus because he is the only one with the plan.
He's the only one with the plan.
It doesn't just start in Acts 1. It starts in. We scroll back through Luke 24, all the way back to Luke 1. Luke includes a genealogy of how God has been, like, telling this story through the whole Old Testament before Jesus at the end of Luke says, don't you know that all of the scriptures have been pointing towards me the whole time? Like, God has been telling this story where?
Way, way before you ever showed up. And, like, Your life plays out in my story. And so I'm the one who has the plan for how things are going. And so would you follow me as I have the plan?
I'm full this morning of some action steps. So if you do want something to do, there's an opportunity here for me to just plug something. We've got a baptism class after church today, so if you're like baptized with water, I need to do that. Guess what? Got an opportunity for you today at 12:30.
Happy to stick around and answer any questions that you have about baptism.
Let's keep reading. Verse 6.
So when they had come together, they asked him, so this is the apostles lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?
This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
It's interesting. They've been waiting, they've been waiting, they've been waiting. And maybe they feel like time's getting close. I see God's doing something. So they come to Jesus and they say, hey, is now the time?
Is now the time when you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And he says, no, I not your job to know. I don't have to answer this question. In fact, like God's the one who knows. It's interesting because he just spent 40 days with them kind of explaining and unpacking the Old Testament scriptures.
And one of the major themes of Old Testament scriptures is God's kingdom on earth. And like how God took a special group of people and set them apart to be his people and how he set them up with a legitimate government and gave them legitimate territory and called them to live out legitimate expectations in the law and called them to walk with it. Like when they think kingdom, they don't think of like a hypothetical King George. When they think kingdom, they think like policy and procedure. And they say, jesus, are you going to set up the kingdom?
They're asking Is now the time for the revolution?
He says, this is not what you ought to be focused on. It's not for you to know, he said, but your life plays out in my story. And so here's the next step.
What's going to happen is you're going to hang out here and wait in verse eight. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. He says, you guys are waiting for the revolution. You guys are the 12.
And so if I overthrow the Roman government, I become the emperor. And you guys are probably thinking like, you guys are set up to be senators or something important in the new kingdom. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Is now the time that we get promoted, like fisherman to senator? Like, that's such a rags to riches story.
Jesus, everybody's gonna think you're awesome if you can do that. He's like, hey, yeah, here's what I need you to do. I need you to wait. And then when the Holy Spirit shows up, what I need you to be is I need you to be witnesses.
Witnesses? You want me to just tell people what I saw? Yeah, that's it. Oh, okay. I can do that, I guess.
Just tell people. Yeah, tell people what you saw. Okay, then what? That's it.
Well, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Well, if I tell people, what are you going to do with what I tell people? It's not for you to know, but what I need you to do is I need you to be my witnesses. I need you to tell people what you've seen and what you've heard and what you know about who I am.
And when you do that, you're going to do that with power. Like, the Holy Spirit's going to come and he's going to give you power so that you can just tell people what you saw.
Okay.
So sometimes I think we make church real complicated and we're like, well, we got to come up with all these programs and all these strategies and all these things. And I just wonder, like, what if we just told people what we saw? What if we were just witnesses to what it is that we've seen God doing in our life or somebody else's his life.
And there's a quote, and I should probably hunt it down at some point because it has haunted me since I heard it, that the reason why most American Christians don't share Jesus with others is because they don't know who Jesus is to share him.
You can't share what you don't have.
And I know, I know that you can know what Jesus taught and you can know facts about who Jesus is. But I also know that his heart is not that you would understand him, but that you would recognize him as your Savior when he breaks bread with you. That there's a fellowship there, that we dine together, that we enjoy one another's company, that there is unhurried conversation.
And there's a lot of people who I know who know about Jesus, and I don't know if they know Jesus. And one of the scariest verses in scripture is a bunch of people who come into the throne room of heaven and they say, jesus, I'm so glad to see you. Can't you believe? Can you believe all the incredible ministry that we did in your name? And he says, who are you?
The Holy Spirit is going to come on you and you're going to be my witnesses. You're going to say what you know, but you can't share what you don't know. These guys knew something them. And I wonder if we do. And if you're not sure, if you're like, I think I know facts about Jesus, but I don't know if I know him.
Like, here's another plug, another action step for you. This afternoon at 4 o', clock, 5 o', clock, 4 o'. Clock. What does the thing say? I don't remember.
We're doing a class, and it's a real simple class. This is the workbook for it. But the workbook is just like a guided reading through the Book of John, which is a biography about Jesus life. You want to know who Jesus is? He says that he reveals himself most clearly through his word.
Like, I hate coming to church. And they just tell me all the time to read the Bible. And the Bible's confusing. And why do they keep telling me to read the Bible? Because that's what Jesus said to do.
If there was another thing that Jesus had told us to do, I would tell you to do that. But he says, you should know me, and the way you know me is by interacting with my word. Yeah, but that's not super entertaining. I want to listen to these podcasts. I want to have these conversations.
Okay, that's fine. Some of that can be helpful. But, like, also do the thing that Jesus said to do. Meet him where he says he is. Don't go looking for him in places where they don't want him.
You'll be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Now, we're not first century Jews, and so those words don't hit us the same way. He says, I'm going to send you out and you guys are going to go. And they're like, yeah, we're going to go. You're gonna go to Jerusalem.
Sweet. We love Jerusalem. Capital city, temple's there. We connect with God there. That's a great place.
He's like, and you're gonna go to Judea? Awesome. That's like the region around Jerusalem. We're really comfortable there. That's actually where we're from, kind of in that region in Judea.
Like, we're comfortable with that. He's like, and you're gonna go to Samaria? Hold on a second.
We don't, we don't, we don't get along with Samaritans. Yeah, they're. I guess they're technically human, but like, I mean, when we plan, in road trips, we kind of plan road trips around that neighborhood. We don't go, we don't go to Samaria. He's like, okay, meet Jerusalem.
Okay. Judea. Yes. And Samaria. Ah.
And then to the ends of the earth. Hold on a second. I'm a fisherman, Jesus. You want me to go to the ends of the earth? You want me to go to the ends of the earth?
What are you talking about? How am I going to get there? It's dangerous to travel on the road. It costs money to travel, Jesus. How are you going to get me there?
Wait.
It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Our purpose comes from Jesus mission.
If our life is in God's story, than our purpose we find in Jesus mission. He's the one with the plan.
And so we keep following Jesus because he's the only one with a plan. Like, he's the one who's given directions. And our purpose comes from Jesus mission. He doesn't, doesn't ask for feedback. He doesn't give a Q and A after this.
He's not popping up on Reddit going, ask me anything. He's just like, by the way, when he had said these things as they were looking on. Wait a second, what do you mean? He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of his sight. And then they're just gazing at the sky.
Wouldn't you also gaze at the sky? I would gaze at the sky. Hold on a second. What did you just say? Can you come back here?
I need explanation. Ends of the earth. Don't you know who I am and where? Like, I can't. I can't do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bye. See ya. And then the angels show up. Hey, men of Galilee.
What you doing, Marty? Standing around just looking at the clouds. He gave you something to do. Go be witnesses somewhere. Tell somebody what you see.
I just ask and wonder who we're praying for.
There are some people just tell people. There are some people that are difficult to just tell them something. There are some people that don't want to hear nothing.
I'm tempted to say I have some of them in my house, but I don't want to be condescending. There are some people in our lives that just don't want to hear anything that we have to say. And so how is it that we be witnesses to people that don't want to hear and don't want to see and don't want to know? You pray for them because you can't see people's hearts and you can't open people's ears and you can't convince people of what's true. But God's at work and he's not limited by anything.
So who are we praying for?
I don't know what to pray. Guess what? I've got another resource for you. I've got more of these in the mail. This is 3, 2, 1.
It's a little prayer guide we printed last year. And it's real simple. Set an alarm on your phone for two o', clock, and at two o', clock, pray for three people. Pray for a spiritual wanderer, somebody who's lost, somebody who doesn't know Jesus. Pray for a spiritual companion, somebody who, like, knows Jesus and needs to grow.
And then pray for a spiritual leader. Somebody who's, like, trying to encourage other people. Like, three, two, one. Really simple two o', clock. Set your line.
I love when we do ministry partner meetings and they go until 2 o' clock and suddenly everybody's phones go off at the same time. All right, we got to stop and pray. It's super fun. But, yeah, this really, really simple. And if you're like, I don't know what to pray.
We have scripted out all kinds of ideas. You're like, I don't know who to pray for. We've got all kinds of Ways that you can like all kinds of people and categories of people that you can think about to pray for people by name. Because if we're not like, praying, then God's probably not moving. He's waiting for us.
He wants to use us in his mission. So who are we praying for?
Can I take one more step? This one's going to hurt.
Who aren't we praying for yet?
Because when Jesus says, you're going to be my witnesses, he says, you're going to be witnesses to Sumerians. Jews have no dealings with Sumerians. We go around them, we don't talk to them. So I don't know where all you guys are at, but it may be that there are some Republicans that need to pray for some Democrats with a soft heart, asking Jesus. There may be some Democrats that need to pray for some Republicans with a soft heart.
There may be some people who don't look like you, don't act like you, and don't talk like like you. There may be some people that live on your street that you just can't stand that you need to pray for. Who aren't we praying for yet?
So what do they do with this verse 12? They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet. That's where they were, just on the other side of the valley. They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.
Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.
So what did they do? They watch Jesus go up and the angels are like, stop looking around. Well, I guess we better go back. And we probably ought to wait and maybe we ought to pray.
What do we do?
Wait, pray. Go to the last place he told us to be and just be there until he tells us to go somewhere else? I guess.
When we recognize these people's names, when we read their names in the book and we're familiar with them, like there's something that happens where they become not human. And I just want for us to see that these folks have skin on. Like they're people. They're just normal people.
And they're normal people who made a commitment to pray together, that Jesus would do the work that he said he was going to do through them. Not because they had the plan, but because they knew who to anchor on. They knew who to come back to. They knew who to trust.
Our anchor will always be following Jesus.
When it gets hard, we're not sure, we come back to him. When the storm is raging, we look to the one who walks on the water.
When the valley is dark and scary, we look to the shepherd who leads us through those places. Our anchor will always be following Jesus, and they do it together.
They've been through a lot. They've been scared, they've been encouraged, they've been excited. At the end of the day, they come back together and they pray together.
Have you noticed in the years that we've been praying the disciples prayer that the pronouns in the Disciples prayer are plural?
If I were writing the prayer, it would sound like, my Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give me today my daily bread. And he says, what I need you guys to do is when you pray, pray our Father, give us our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
The thing that Jesus is building, he uses individuals, but he uses individuals as a group, as a body, working together. You don't have to have it all figured out, But I think you ought to go with somebody.
You've seen those nature documentaries.
When do the lions win?
When do the cheetahs get to eat lunch?
When they chase the herd and somebody took off by themselves?
Now we got a target. Now we know where to go.
So I just wonder, who are we praying with?
Who are we praying for? Who are we not praying for yet? And who are we praying with? Who do we share prayer requests with? Who weeps with us in our weeping?
Who rejoices with us in our rejoicing? Who gets where we're at and prays for where we're going? Who are we praying with?
Because when we pray together, we're able to keep following, and we keep following Jesus because he's the only one with the plan.
Would you pray together with me, Lord? These verses are kind of an intersection of so many different ideas across all of your word and God. There's a big temptation to teach, for understanding, and to gather more information and to have more data. And, God, I just pray this morning that maybe for somebody for the first time, that they wouldn't just recognize you in the information and the teaching, but they would recognize you in you breaking the bread, That the invitation to your table would be real intangible And Jesus, that today would be the day that they take their seat, that they say something to the effect, Jesus, I don't get it all, but I know that you were crucified and died in order to forgive my sin. And I don't know how, but you paid for my sin and I trust you to forgive me.
I want to sit at your table. I want to walk with you. I want to be on your mission. I want you to do with my life whatever it is that you want.
And Jesus, for those of us who know you well, who are pretty comfortable at your table, Lord, would you open our eyes to the empty chairs, the places that you've set?
And would you give us power to tell others what we've seen and to invite them to the glorious feast that you've set?
The rich provision of your mercy, God, the overwhelming glory of your love?
Would you help us not to make it that complicated?
And it's clear that we can't do it apart from you.
And so we ask that you would have your will in us this day. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
