Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] All right, so take a look at verse 12 here. It says, then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, about a Sabbath day's journey away. So they return back. So the disciples have seen Jesus ascend and they return back just as Jesus had commanded them back in ver. Verse 4.
[00:00:33] He tells them not to depart. He tells them, hey, stay close. I've got something else for you. But to wait for them. They're not sure exactly what's going to happen. They don't know what the Lord has for them exactly. But they have faith that Jesus will do what he has said. They'll have faith that what Jesus said is true. And out of that faith they follow him.
[00:00:52] So one of the first kind of like quick stopping point here is that faith obeys even when the outcome is clear. This first section is talking about faithful waiting, verses 12 through 14.
[00:01:04] Faith is that assurance of things hoped for, like we see in Hebrews 11, right?
[00:01:09] We can see the assurance of things hoped for, the assurance, the confidence that God will do something in the future. And we do this all the time. We do this in all kinds of different walks of life. We do this with our children. We have assurance of things hoped for. We have great hopes and dreams for our children. We want to see them succeed in all the kinds of different ways that we want our kids to succeed. We do this with investments. We do this with planting crops. We do this with all kinds of different things. We see this throughout scripture that we have a hope of something that we're looking for. We have a confidence that God will do something that we are hoping for.
[00:01:42] That's what the disciples are doing here as well. They have a confidence, they have a faith in the waiting. And a Sabbath day's journey. That little detail is a really small little detail, but it means that they're really, really close. A Sabbath day's journey is. There's a.
[00:01:55] Some Jewish tradition that kind of sets about a half a mile boundary, about six tenths of a mile boundary around where you were supposed to go. Just so you're not gonna go do a bunch of work and go engage in a bunch of business, that you're supposed to stay home and rest on the Sabbath. That's the idea here. So they're staying close. They're on it's Sabbath day's journey. They're staying close to what the Lord has for them. They could have gone back up to Galilee where things were safer and where they had more friends and more ministry waiting for them, right? Gonna Go follow back up with the people who came to know Christ during his earthly ministry. But they're staying in Jerusalem, and that's the difficult path for them. Their leader Jesus has just been killed. So what does that mean for them? That's a really tense, uncertain kind of place to be.
[00:02:37] But they're staying in Jerusalem, just like Jesus said, because it's better to follow him in an unsafe and unsure place than it is to go where the sure thing is and be away from him.
[00:02:48] So the disciples are faithfully following Jesus, even while they're grieving, and even while they're unsure of what the next steps are. They follow and they trust in the Lord. And we see their united devotion here in verses 13 and 14, it says. 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, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot, Judas the son of James.
[00:03:11] All the boys are here and all the girls are here too, which is really cool. We have Jesus, Jesus's brothers, and Mary and the women who were with him during his earthly ministry as well.
[00:03:21] This upper room, that's continuity with Jesus's ministry. This is where they had the Last Supper. It's mentioned in Luke 22:12. The disciples are there. I mean, minus Judas. Everybody's there, minus Judas, right. All the other 11 are named. Everybody stayed. Everybody is unified in this thing together. Nobody scattered. They all heard Jesus. They're all following him.
[00:03:42] And this inclusion of the women is really cool. Here in verse 14 says that these are the women who have been with Jesus since the beginning of his ministry in Galilee.
[00:03:52] They're stuck close with him. They witnessed his crucifixion and the empty tomb. And they would not have been important in a worldly sense. They wouldn't have had a reliable testimony in Roman culture.
[00:04:03] This is not an important detail in a worldly sense, but it's an incredibly important detail in a church history sense that we see. The disciples of Jesus are together with women, with Mary, Jesus's mother, with other folks. A whole 120 gathered together, including women, which is really, really cool. Really cool that the church is building its foundation on these things.
[00:04:27] And it's kind of cool that Mary is there as well. If you think about this, I kind of went on a rabbit trail in my mind last night. I had to shut it off because I was working on other things. But if you think about Mary's experience here, she's there for the birth of Jesus and She's also here in this place at the birth of the church.
[00:04:45] What a cool ministry and continuity that she has.
[00:04:49] What a, what a cool perspective that she brings. And this, this, this unifying influence of saying, no, no, I, I've been here for the whole thing.
[00:04:56] And these disciples are here as well. They're the first ones that were called, and now they're here at the beginning of the church to start this thing, continue Jesus ministry.
[00:05:07] And this also really cool. This is something that really struck me as I was prepping. Jesus's brothers are also an interesting inclusion here. We see them listed out in Mark, chapter six. They're James, they're Judas, and then Simon as well. They've got four brothers. And then maybe his sisters as well. But you think about their trajectory as well. Previously they had doubted Jesus, right? Like John 75 says that they didn't believe him. They didn't believe who Jesus was. They didn't, they didn't believe his message. And then in Mark 3, after Jesus calls the 12 disciples, his family hears that his ministry is starting to expand and they go try to. They try to put a stop to it. They think he's out of his mind.
[00:05:48] And yet now, now they're gathered together with his disciples.
[00:05:53] Because Jesus makes skeptics become faithful followers.
[00:05:57] And the truth of the gospel can't be denied even by people who initially reject it.
[00:06:03] What an interesting mix of cultures and experience. The women, his brothers, the disciples. They're all a pretty interesting crew themselves. The disciples are.
[00:06:12] And they all come together because of Jesus. And we see that this, this church transcends cultural divisions from the very, very beginning.
[00:06:20] A really cool, just motley crew of people hanging out, proclaiming the gospel, believing and following together. That's what it means by being all with one accord. That's one of the elements of being faithful and waiting is being unified.
[00:06:33] This idea of being in one accord with one another. That's a theme throughout acts. It occurs 10 times at key places throughout the rest of the book. And this is what shows us there's this cool submission to, to Jesus Will. It's a submission to the Lord and a commitment to each other. They're the women and the family of Jesus. They're all together. And then it says that they were continually devoting themselves.
[00:06:59] This is an important point. And I know I'm getting kind of like deep into the grammar on this, but there's a continual, like, that's a present, active thing.
[00:07:07] They're continually working on this thing together. They're continually devoting Themselves. Because we see that faithfulness is not just a one time decision.
[00:07:16] Faithfulness is not just a one time thing. We don't pray. One prayer and we're saved. We don't repent one time and then we're good. We don't say our wedding vows and then never think about them again.
[00:07:26] It's a continual devotion. It's an ongoing process. We don't wait once and then when things are solved, we move on. It is a continual, committed, devoted time of waiting. That's what these apostles are there for. They're continually devoting themselves to. To what? To prayer.
[00:07:45] Waiting and prayer are so closely aligned throughout the entire Bible, especially in the Old Testament. But waiting and prayer so closely intertwined. And it's no different here, the waiting that these apostles are doing. They're actively waiting as they pray.
[00:08:01] And so what do you think they're praying for?
[00:08:04] Like, if you think about, like, let's enter into the room with them, put ourselves in their shoes, what are they praying for?
[00:08:13] Probably praying for themselves that they would be found faithful and that they would understand what to do and how to wait and all these different things.
[00:08:22] They're probably praying for each other, for unity and for perseverance.
[00:08:27] Probably waiting for God to move. They're praying that God would move.
[00:08:31] Praying for Jesus's words to be fulfilled, praying for wisdom and for discernment in the decisions ahead. Praying for protection from evil and protection from their enemies.
[00:08:42] They're praying for courage to face the persecution and ridicule that's surely ahead of them.
[00:08:49] They're praying for those who don't have faith in Jesus, that they would be saved. And they're probably praying for Jesus to come back.
[00:08:57] He promised he would return.
[00:08:59] Jesus come back.
[00:09:00] This is a mess.
[00:09:02] We're alone. We're waiting for you.
[00:09:09] So we've seen what the apostles at the beginning of their waiting looks like.
[00:09:15] But what does faithful waiting look like for you and me? What does it look like for us in Fort Worth in 2026 now? Goodness.
[00:09:24] Jesus tells his disciples to wait and so they pray.
[00:09:27] And I would encourage you that prayer is the primary work when we can't see the next step.
[00:09:33] Waiting on the Lord is not a passive thing.
[00:09:36] It's not something that we just do and sit on our couch. We don't just sit on our couch and wait on the Lord.
[00:09:41] It's an active thing. You don't, if you're wanting to be married, certainly pray for a spouse. But don't just sit on your couch. Go out and go meet People go do something about it.
[00:09:52] You go out and put yourself in a place to go meet them. You go about life and you trust the Lord to work in all of those details.
[00:10:00] And you continue in faithful obedience until it becomes disobedience. Often we face temptations when we're waiting for the Lord to move. We become impatient and we try to force something to happen, like Abraham did with Hagar. We give in to despair when we've waited a long time.
[00:10:15] We fill our time with distractions and just empty activity rather than hopeful dependence.
[00:10:21] And we compare ourselves to others and give in to envy rather than trusting what God has for us. But brothers and sisters, hear me clearly. Don't give up.
[00:10:33] Don't try to force the Lord's hand. Stay focused, stay humble, stay hopeful.
[00:10:40] Trust the Lord to move in his timing the way that he has said he will.
[00:10:45] And also actively waiting also means maintaining unity, like we see in the disciples as well. In seasons of waiting, it can be so tempting to vent your frustrations. So often I see people blaming others for their frustrations, and it causes friction and disunity. Don't do that. Resist the temptation to cause friction and vent your frustration.
[00:11:04] And people will often try to make a change, even if it doesn't make sense.
[00:11:09] People will. They'll change jobs, or they'll change relationships, or they'll change churches, anything to just create some kind of movements, get something happening with. Rather to distract them from the difficult reality that they're just in a season of waiting.
[00:11:25] And in doing so, what they do is they bruise their support network and cut off the branch that's holding them up.
[00:11:32] But brothers and sisters, consider Paul's words from Ephesians chapter one or chapter four, verses one through three. It says, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love. And then verse three is the kicker. Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Be eager to maintain unity, humility and gentleness and patience and forbearance. Eagerness to maintain unity. How different that is from the world.
[00:12:06] How different are we to behave from the world? You think about the opposites of that. Have pride in yourself.
[00:12:12] Go get your own. Be impatient. Go. Make sure that you're aggressive towards solutions.
[00:12:17] Make sure that you don't suffer idiots. That's what the world tells you.
[00:12:22] But Paul is telling us to be eager to maintain unity. What a precious gift our God has given us. One body, one spirit, one faith, one baptism. Let's be eager to maintain that unity. Let's be eager to maintain that blessing that God has given to us.
[00:12:40] Fight for unity, think the best of one another, keep short accounts, be quick to confess sin and be quick to forgive. And don't let your priorities lead you to frustrate the work that the Spirit is doing.
[00:12:54] So when Jesus tells you to wait, if you're in a season of waiting now, if Jesus is telling you to wait, what do you do?
[00:13:01] How do you wait?
[00:13:05] Is your first reaction to pray like the disciples do.
[00:13:10] When you don't get the job that you want or when you're waiting for direction in life, do you tend to pray more or do you, do you tend to pray less?
[00:13:18] You have more screen time or less screen time when you're waiting.
[00:13:24] Prayer is the primary work. When we can't see the next step.
[00:13:31] So how should we pray? I think we should follow the disciples example.
[00:13:36] Pray for yourself and pray for those around you and pray for God to move and pray for wisdom and pray for protection from evil and sin. And pray for courage and pray for those who don't have faith in Jesus that they would be saved.
[00:13:52] And also pray for Jesus to come back.
[00:13:55] That's the ultimate solution that we're all looking for. Praying for Jesus to return.
[00:14:02] So we've seen faithful waiting in verses 12 through 14. I want to take a look at verses 15 through 22. We'll see faithful leadership. Here we see Peter step Forward in verse 15. It says in those days Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of the persons was in all about 120.
[00:14:19] So 120 people here. There's this kind of corporate identity. There's, there's not just a bunch of individuals. We listed some of them out, but it's, it's, we're, we're listed together as a company of 120. That's a big, a big deal.
[00:14:31] Then we see Peter step up to speak throughout Acts 1:15. He's the spokesman for the apostles. He's going to continue leading. And until we see Paul take the wheel in about Acts 16, that's when things really start to heat up for Paul.
[00:14:44] We see here that leadership isn't just control, it's faithful stewardship in times of uncertainty.
[00:14:52] Peter doesn't have all the answers.
[00:14:55] Peter's right there with them. He's right there in the midst of them. He's experienced the same things that they have. He's in the same period of confusion and waiting as they are. But he knows where to find the answers, and he points them back to Scripture and he leads them in their next steps. And this is pretty cool to see. In just a few days, Peter has changed tremendously. Think about this. Walk this timeline back with me. The Ascension.
[00:15:19] So Jesus ascending right before. This is 40 days after the resurrection, right?
[00:15:25] Which was three days after Jesus's crucifixion, when Peter denied Jesus 43 days, a month and a half before this, Peter's denying Jesus. He's being rebuked. He's doing all these things that he's feeling like an absolute failure. And now he's leading the apostles.
[00:15:42] He's gone from impulsive to intentional. The guy who couldn't stay awake to pray in Gethsemane is now leading everyone in prayer.
[00:15:50] And we see here Peter is a wonderful example of Godly leadership in that grace transforms broken men into faithful leaders.
[00:15:58] Peter was a broken man, but he is now a faithful leader. And what he does, he says, says in verse 16, Brothers, the Scripture, we see that the problem that he's trying to address here is Judas's vacancy. Brothers, the Scripture 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 Judas. For he was numbered among us, and he was allotted to share in this ministry. Now this, of course, then it kind of gives you the kind of the crazy weird, like maybe TMI details in verse 18. Now, this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness. And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle of the field, and all his bowels gushed out. What an image.
[00:16:34] What an image there. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The field was called the field of blood. And then, of course, we see two quotes from the book of Psalms.
[00:16:44] May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in, and then let another take his office. So we see Peter calling out and saying, scripture must be fulfilled.
[00:16:55] There's this necessity of God's Word in the ministry of the apostles. And there's also a confidence in God's word. The confidence in God's word that it will come true, that it will be applicable. And we also see this.
[00:17:08] This is.
[00:17:09] I just. It's so difficult for me to, like, put myself back in those shoes. Pre Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost, pre all the things that have happened in church history the last couple thousand years. It's so difficult to go back into that time of uncertainty. But we have this really beautiful depiction of this emphasis on God's sovereignty. The scripture had to be fulfilled.
[00:17:32] We know it's going to be fulfilled, and these specific psalms will be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit spoke through David. We know that he spoke, and we know that it's going to come to. Come to pass. So we see the Spirit inspiring scripture and foretelling events during the reign of King David. Something that's gonna happen a thousand years later.
[00:17:50] You think about that. Something that happened a thousand years later. We don't even remember what happened a thousand years later. We don't have any idea what happened a thousand Years later in 1026, what was going on? I certainly don't know. Somebody probably does. I'm somewhat of a history bug, but I'm not that kind of history bug. I'm not that deep into it.
[00:18:09] But you think about a thousand years later, the Spirit saying, here's what's going to happen. And they cash it in a thousand years later saying, this is exactly what was happening back then.
[00:18:19] And so Peter addresses the tragedy of apostasy. In verses 18 and 19. We see this gory death and this really kind of tragic situation. We also see there's more detail in Matthew 27. It talks about Judas hanging himself. It's really, really tragic.
[00:18:34] His body bursting open. That. I mean, that's a. That's a solid. Yikes. I mean, that's. That's wild. It's wild what's in the Bible.
[00:18:43] But it's also a vivid reminder to us and to Peter's audience that Satan comes to kill and steal and destroy, and he does those things to his enemies, but he also does those things to his people who do his work.
[00:18:56] It's a sobering reminder that evil is not to be messed with.
[00:19:03] And we see these two Psalms applied 69 and 109. It says, Mae's can't become desolate. That's talking about God's earthly judgment on Judas. And then it says, let another take his office. It shows that God is sovereign over human failure, which is a blessing to me and to so many.
[00:19:19] The office remains even when the person fails. And so we see this is an opportunity to trust God yet again. By filling this role, which they do in verses 21 and 22, they see the qualifications. They want somebody to join the ranks of the apostles. And so verse 21 says, so one of the men who've accompanied us during the time, during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. So they're putting in some parameters and saying, who's going to fill this 12th role? Who's going to be the 12th apostle with us?
[00:19:57] Not just any believer, but one who has accompanied us, one who's been with us the entire time from John's baptism to the ascension. They want an eyewitness of Jesus's entire ministry, somebody to be in solidarity with somebody they don't have to bring along an update, who's gonna be a weak link in this chain. They want somebody who's been lockstep with them.
[00:20:17] And the resurrection is key to this. It's the foundation of their unity as apostles and it's the foundation of their ministry moving forward. The resurrection is the keystone of the apostles contempl in Jesus's earthly ministry. And it's also the keystone of their ministry moving forward. They're going to proclaim the resurrection moving forward in Acts.
[00:20:38] And they're forming a new team with a new mission.
[00:20:41] They're all followers of Jesus, but they are also the foundations of the church and they mirror the 12 tribes of Israel. That's why there's 12 apostles.
[00:20:49] That's the foundation of God's renewed people starting to take fruit, starting to take root in the new kingdom.
[00:20:59] And so the church is built on this apostolic witness, this faithful foundation. We see the church is built on these men. Ephesians 2:20 says, we are members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the CornerStone.
[00:21:16] So these 12 men, they have a unique, authoritative, foundational role as eyewitnesses and leaders in the early church.
[00:21:26] And we, you and I, we in this room today, we have the benefit of walking and being beneficiaries of their faithful witness. Their eyewitness testimony is the foundation of scripture, which is the foundation of our faith.
[00:21:40] We are beneficiaries of it.
[00:21:42] This, the importance of our, of our doctrine that's rooted in historical fact and rooted in eyewitness testimony. Not just subjective experience, but actual eyewitness testimony rooted in historical truth that we see. Scripture is the Spirit inspired word that guides us today, just like it guided them back then.
[00:22:03] And so they followed also trusted leadership.
[00:22:07] Often when we're waiting, we become impatient, right?
[00:22:11] And we turn our attention to leaders who are ready and waiting to tickle our ears and stir us up with controversy. And Scripture tells us that we're going to have such leaders in these days, that we're going to have leaders that will Gladly lead us astray like we see in 2 Timothy 4. It says, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but will have itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
[00:22:40] Brothers and sisters, don't take that bait.
[00:22:44] Don't play into controversy and sensational teachings.
[00:22:48] Buy into the Gospel. Buy in and follow faithful leaders who fear the Lord and who love you and who know you and who take that road less traveled.
[00:22:58] I've grown increasingly grateful for the steady and consistent leaders in my life who wanted no fame or fortune and who led with wisdom and with quiet faithfulness.
[00:23:08] And I've become increasingly wary of of leaders who pursue platforms and who market themselves and who become dissatisfied with humble faithfulness.
[00:23:19] There are so many online personalities who will tell you what you want to hear, but there are so few faithful shepherds who will tell you what you need to hear, and they will love you enough to do it.
[00:23:34] So, brothers and sisters, follow trusted leadership like you have in this church.
[00:23:39] So are you following them?
[00:23:41] Are you following the elders of this church? Are you following them, their leadership, and following their advice and their counsel? Are you turning your eyes away to other things?
[00:23:50] I don't know. But if that's you, be careful. Don't just go to someone who's going to tickle your ears. Make sure that you are accountable to godly men in this church and these apostles. Also new and applied scripture.
[00:24:06] And we should know and apply Scripture in our lives as well. When you read your Bible, don't just explain away or turn a blind eye to those difficult passages. Don't just look at this, the guts bursting open. Like, don't look at that and kind of dismiss it. Lean into it and say, what does God have for me here? Don't just explain away the difficult passages. Study and dig in and do the work to understand what the Lord has for you. And don't shy away from sober reflection about yourself either.
[00:24:33] And when you find sin in your life like I do, always deal with it biblically. Confess and repent and take it to Jesus.
[00:24:41] And to do this, you're gonna need to read your Bible. I love. I love that this church reads scripture regularly and that y' all are memorizing scripture together. I love that. That's deeply encouraging to me as a pastor.
[00:24:53] But help each other, apply it and live it out as well, and see the precious work that the Lord will do in and through you and through His Scripture.
[00:25:02] And I'll also say that knowing your Bible well is an antidote to so much of the worry and stress that we experience when we're in times of waiting.
[00:25:10] It was for the disciples, and it will be for you also.
[00:25:14] And not only will it occupy some of your time, it's also going to occupy your mind if you let it.
[00:25:20] So you'll undoubtedly think more biblically the more you read the Bible.
[00:25:24] So another application question. Do you know your Bible?
[00:25:28] You're obviously memorizing it and you're reading Scripture, but do you know it? Do you know the God who wrote it? And do you know what the Bible says?
[00:25:35] Do you apply the Bible to your life? Do you conform your life to Scripture rather than the other way around? Don't conform Scripture to your life.
[00:25:43] Conform your life to what the Bible says. And don't let your hearts and your Bibles grow cold in times of waiting.
[00:25:51] And also the apostles, they continued the mission.
[00:25:55] They continued the mission by selecting a 12th apostle and to continue on. And you also must continue the mission entrusted to you as well. There's plenty of work to do. And while you're waiting for some answer or some movement of God, there are still basic Christian things to do.
[00:26:11] Who are the unbelievers in your life?
[00:26:14] Make plans to engage them.
[00:26:16] How is the Lord employing your spiritual gifts for his glory and the good of his people?
[00:26:21] Think about how you might employ them.
[00:26:23] How is the Lord using you to work? Well, get to it.
[00:26:28] Do you know the mission God has given you and are you pursuing it in your life? Do you know what he's called you to do? You know what he's entrusted to you to do? Well, get after it.
[00:26:40] The apostles trusted God, and this is that faithful foundation that we have in the Church. So now how do we continue the mission? How do we know which path to take? The disciples had their criteria and they narrowed it down to two men who could serve faithfully. So let's take a look at what they do here. In verses 23 through 26, we'll see. Faithful discernment, it says. And they put forward two Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus and Matthias.
[00:27:04] So both of those men are qualified according to the criteria. The Church does its due diligence in selecting godly men to replace them. They don't sit back passively. They use wisdom and discernment to select new good men.
[00:27:18] And we also see here that relying on the Lord doesn't mean abdicating responsibility. It means that we have to understand our responsibility as it falls underneath God's sovereignty as it falls underneath his leadership.
[00:27:30] And they don't know these men's hearts. They can't. They can't see everything about their lives. They don't know the future and they can't guarantee outcomes. But they can say that we will be wise and we will be faithful and we will pray and we'll see what the Lord does.
[00:27:43] And so they pray for discernment. We see that in verses 24 and 25, they prayed specifically, show us which man.
[00:27:51] And it starts with faith, Lord, you know, the hearts of all. This is a really cool thing. They're praying to Jesus, who is the one who gathered the original 12 disciples. And now they're praying to him to fill the 12th role again, he's referred to as Lord in verses 6 and 21. It's a really cool thing that we see Jesus continuing on and commissioning yet another apostle.
[00:28:11] And they're trusting the Lord, they're gonna take whichever man he chooses. Both of these men are godly. Both of these men are solid. We trust them both. We have confidence in both of them. Lord, pick whichever one you want. And they're good with whatever result. They're good with whatever he says.
[00:28:27] They acknowledge God's priorities, not their wisdom. And because, only. Because wisdom can only take you so far.
[00:28:33] And don't get me wrong, I love wisdom. Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible.
[00:28:38] But Solomon is very clear. Wisdom without the Lord is of no benefit.
[00:28:42] And with the Lord we have true wisdom. And so what they do in verse 26, they cast lots and the lot falls on Matthias and he's counted as the 12th apostle. And casting lots is this kind of Old Testament thing. It's kind of like rolling the dice, although it's a little less random. There's a decent number of examples of that in Scripture. And we see Proverbs 16:33 is probably the best thing to encapsulate the idea of casting lots. It says the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
[00:29:12] So the best way to think of this, it's not random chance, but it's trusting the Lord to make his decision known and it's relying on divine providence.
[00:29:20] This is. It's also important to know before you go out and go try to buy some lots on Amazon.
[00:29:27] It's important to know this is the last time we see casting lots in the New Testament, when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. That's the last time we see anything mentioned about casting lots. Because then from that point on, the apostles trust the Holy Spirit to lead them. So it's important to kind of make that note before we start getting into dice and all those things. Please talk to your pastors about that. I don't want to get into it this morning.
[00:29:53] Yeah, here. Before long, the Holy Spirit will come at Pentecost and then he's going to be leading the church directly, which is really, really cool.
[00:30:00] And the result here though is that Matthias is chosen and he's numbered with the 11. And then we see that Jesus answers their prayers and he continues leading his people. And so the thing here that I want us to focus on is the idea of trusting God's sovereign will.
[00:30:16] Faith doesn't mean just being passive, but neither does it mean control.
[00:30:20] We pray, we discern according to Scripture and we act and we trust God's sovereignty over outcomes.
[00:30:26] And today we make decisions through biblical wisdom and prayer and godly counsel, not by casting lots and random chance. And there's a really good book called Just do something by Kevin DeYoung, which is really helpful in teasing out this point. But the idea is if you're in sin, then repent. If you have sought wise godly counsel, awesome. If you have read scripture that's relevant and you're in line with it, and if you've prayed that the Lord will lead you, that the Lord would lead you, then make a decision and go do something with it.
[00:30:53] You can trust that if you're not sinful, if you've sought counsel, if you've read scripture, and if you've prayed, then you should be in pretty good shape to make whatever decision you need to do.
[00:31:04] So we don't put God to the test, but we do step out in faith.
[00:31:09] And sometimes the road ahead isn't clear, but we have to walk forward anyway. And we, we take that next step of obedience and see how the situation unfolds. It's kind of think about it like this. I've, I've. I've used this illustration a lot with a lot of my single friends.
[00:31:22] You don't have to decide what your wedding colors are gonna be on date one, don't you, you don't have to on your first date, you don't have to figure out what the rest of your life is gonna be like and what your kids names are gonna be.
[00:31:34] All you have to figure out on date one is whether there's gonna be a date two. That's all you gotta figure out. And then on date two, the only agenda is figuring out whether it's gonna be a date. 3. And then as things get going, then you can start talking down the road. But you don't start off with a proposal. You start off with a cup of coffee and casual conversation and figuring out how to get to know each other.
[00:31:52] So take one step at a time and see how things unfold as the thing develops.
[00:31:58] And that's what we do when we're waiting, when we're following the Lord faithful, we take the next step of obedience. We don't try to make this silver bu decision for the rest of all time. We just make that next step of obedience.
[00:32:10] And so in the meantime, what does faithfulness look like in the meantime?
[00:32:16] The church's identity in waiting there. The church is formed as a community. Before they receive the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:32:23] Their experiences with Jesus lead them to be unified, and they follow his command to wait. So they're. They're unified in their identity, in their experience, and in their following Jesus. And they waited together. They trusted what Jesus said and they prayed and they continued the mission with wise deacons and all of these things, unity and prayer and obedience and trust. They prepare them for Pentecost. They prepare them for the Lord to move in a really beautiful and powerful way.
[00:32:49] They didn't know everything and they didn't have it all figured out, but they did know the God who did have it all figured out. Because faith says yes to God before we see where it leads. Faith leads us to say, I don't know what's going to happen, but I trust the Lord to move and I'm going to follow him faithfully.
[00:33:05] And so walking by faith today, like Jesus disciples, we wait actively, not passively.
[00:33:12] We trust God's character more than our circumstances. And with Scripture as our anchor and with Christ as our leader and with the Spirit as our advocate, we can follow faithfully and trust our big sovereign good Holy Father, who is working all things for his glory and our good.
[00:33:29] Then the promise here is that the same Spirit who came at Pentecost forms Christ in us.
[00:33:36] The apostles didn't know that Pentecost was 10 days away. They had no idea how long it was going to take, how long they were going to wait.
[00:33:43] But they waited anyway. And they were prepared for it.
[00:33:48] You and I, we. We rarely know when the next movement of God is going to happen, but we need to be prepared as well. And faith in the meantime is taking the next step of obedience, trusting that the map, that not only does our route belong to God, but the whole map belongs to God.
[00:34:07] And so Our confidence has to be in the risen Lord Jesus, ruling and answering prayer and accomplishing the will of the Father in this world. And so my question for you, my last question for you, where are you waiting right now?
[00:34:21] What in your life is this season of waiting? Are you waiting for a job?
[00:34:28] You waiting for healing?
[00:34:30] Waiting for a spouse?
[00:34:32] For clarity, the disciples waited 10 days between Acts 1 and Acts 2.
[00:34:40] Some of you have waited 10 days.
[00:34:42] Some of you have waited 10 weeks.
[00:34:46] Some of you may have waited 10 years.
[00:34:49] In the meantime, between now and the time the Lord moves, what will you do?
[00:34:58] My encouragement to you is to do the same things that the apostles have done.
[00:35:02] The same God who is faithful to them is faithful to us now. So keep praying, stay unified, follow wise leaders and trust Scripture and take your next faithful step to follow Jesus.
[00:35:17] I want to pray for you, and I want to use. I actually want to pray the same prayer from the guide that you guys have and discussions and things like that. So let me pray this prayer over us and we'll conclude our time.
