What Do You Do While You Wait on the Lord?
- ACCEPT it. (Acts 1:12)
- Stick TOGETHER (Acts 1:13-14)
- PRAY through (Acts 1:14)
- Stay BUSY (Acts 1:15-20)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
int: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Let's turn to God's Word together. Acts chapter 1.
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Acts chapter 1, are you there?
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All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, just now we're about to turn to your Word and we take this very seriously. Father, you know we live in a day that your Word The Lord has not taken seriously.
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Even in churches, the Gospel has been so watered down.
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And the messages in so many churches today are just, be nice to people.
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Father, our intention certainly is not to criticize other ministries.
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We need to focus on what we're doing here.
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We need to focus on us not watering the gospel down.
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We need to focus on us being faithful to proclaim Your Word.
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So Father, by Your power, I'm asking, please, today, let me communicate Your Word clearly.
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It's not about my thoughts or my opinions, it's about the truth of your word.
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Father, do what only you can do, as your Holy Spirit will be at work with the proclamation of your word over these next few minutes.
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We praise you in Jesus' name, Amen.
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Acts chapter 1, are you there?
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Last week we kicked off our sermon series in the book of Acts.
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Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 is our verse for the year.
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Recall in the book of Acts, Luke had written this as a follow up to his gospel.
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And in the gospel of Luke, Jesus crucified, buried, resurrected.
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And in the book of Acts, Jesus, resurrected Christ, shows up to His disciples and He makes a promise.
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He says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes." Why would Jesus want us to have this power?
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What's the purpose of having the Holy Spirit's power?
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He tells us, "You will receive power be my witnesses. That's why God's Holy Spirit lives in us and through us. He wants us to be witnesses to a lost and dying world. He wants the world to see the difference that Christ can make in a person's life. The way the Holy Spirit changes someone. He wants the world to see that. So in Acts chapter 1, Jesus said, "You will receive power. You Look again at verse 4, it says, "While staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to..." What does your Bible say?
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"...but to wait, but to wait for the promise of the Father which he said, 'You heard from me, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'" days from now. But notice that word in there. Jesus said, "Wait.
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You're going to receive power. You're going to be my witnesses. Now wait." And I wonder what it would have been like if we would have been there and received this instruction.
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Okay, so Jesus says, "Wait." And on day one, we're like, "Let's wait on the Lord! Let's Day 2, we're like, "How long do you think we have to wait?" Day 3, we're like, "How long do we have to wait?" And day 4, we're like, "Oh, come on!
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How long do we have to wait?" By day 5, would there be some of us saying, "The Holy Spirit's not coming." Day 6, some of us, "You know what, let's just go." Day 7, I'm leaving.
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God is obviously not at work here.
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I don't know anybody, I know a lot of people, I don't know anybody that gets fired up about waiting.
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That's exactly what Jesus told the disciples to do.
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my near 40 and over 40 crowd.
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Do you remember how Tom Petty put it?
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Remember that song?
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The waiting is the-- I'm going to be singing like Tom Petty.
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The waiting is the hardest part.
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We don't usually do secular songs in church, but this one is obviously illustrating the point here.
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Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part.
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Every day you see one more card.
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You take it on faith.
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You take it to the heart.
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Right.
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And you know what?
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There's truth in that.
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I'm not saying it's gospel truth.
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I'm just saying that's human truth.
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I can relate to Tom Petty.
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My wife doesn't let me sing at home.
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Come on.
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You've got to let me do it here.
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But he was certainly on to something back in 1981 or whenever that song came out.
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But waiting is the hardest part.
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Nobody likes waiting.
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But waiting is a reality of life and waiting is one of the ultimate tests of your faith.
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Have you ever had to wait on something?
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Or wait for something?
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Or have you ever had to wait on the Lord for something?
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Like these disciples in Acts chapter 1.
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Jesus made the promise here in Acts chapter 1, tells them to wait.
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Then the Holy Spirit comes when we get to Acts chapter 2.
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So now we're looking at this section between the promise and between the fulfillment of the promise.
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And what do you see?
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You see the disciples huddled up in a room singing, "The waiting is the hardest part." weren't singing that. You're like, "I would appreciate it if you stopped." There's some principles here for all of us. On your outline, are you taking notes?
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I want you to write some things down. Again, this section is between the promise and the fulfillment. The disciples are doing what Jesus said to do. So what we're going to do simply is pull out some principles from this passage and we're going to answer this question, "What do you do while you wait on the Lord?" What do you do while you wait on the Lord?
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Number one, accept it.
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Accept it.
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Look at verse 12.
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It says, "Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath's day journey away." Sabbath's day journey, that was like a half a mile.
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It was just sort of how they measured distance.
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So again in verse 4, Jesus says to wait.
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The question is, well, why didn't Jesus just send the Holy Spirit right then?
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Right?
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So Jesus is about to ascend.
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I mean, wouldn't it have been something if Jesus would have just given them the Holy Spirit and then ascended back to the Lord?
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Why did He tell them to wait?
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Well the reason He told them to wait is because in John chapter 16, verse 7, Jesus said that The Holy Spirit will not come until he returns to the Father.
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He says, "I'm going back to the Father." And then the Holy Spirit will come at that point.
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Notice the disciples didn't question.
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They just obeyed.
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They said, "Jesus said to wait.
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We're going to wait." Church, this is a hard lesson for a lot of us.
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But sometimes, sometimes we just have to wait on the Lord.
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Sometimes we just have to wait.
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And I realize that speaking this rails against our sinful flesh, our preferences, what we're used to because we hate waiting.
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We hate it.
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You know, if you've ever been to the grocery store, you know, you get a Walmart and there's, they have, they have 72 cash registers and how many are open at one time?
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Two, if you're lucky.
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Okay, and if you're like me, you're in like the 20 items or less line and you're counting the items in the cart, the person ahead of you.
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Like 27 there, they should be thrown out.
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We still tarn feather people.
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He hate waiting.
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You know, I have a brother, I'm not going to mention his name, but he's a worship leader in a church.
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I ask him how he feels about waiting in traffic.
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And I'm not just picking on him, I'm the same way.
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I just had this conversation with somebody a couple weeks ago.
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I'm like, "I don't know how people work downtown Pittsburgh.
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I don't know how people do it.
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I don't know how people do it." I would last two days before I'm like, "I can't handle the traffic.
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I can't handle sitting and waiting in traffic.
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I can't do it.
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Whether it's the DMV, going to the amusement park, we hate waiting.
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We schedule our family vacation-- this is true-- we schedule our family vacation around when the amusement parks are going to be the least busy time of the year.
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Why?
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Because we don't want to wait in line with a 9 and a 10-year-old.
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OK?
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and a 40 year old. We don't want to wait in line. Because we hate waiting.
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One of the reasons we hate waiting, this might sting a little bit, but I love you.
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Okay? I love you, but I need to tell you the truth. It is because I love you that I'm going to tell you the truth.
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The reason that you hate waiting and the reason that I hate waiting, you're spoiled.
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You're spoiled.
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You're spoiled.
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Because you live in a day of instant gratification, don't you?
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You live in a day where you put something in the microwave and you stand in front of it like, "What's taking this thing so long?" You are like radioactively nuking your food.
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And you can't handle like your Pop-Tart being in there for 15 seconds.
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It's like eternity!
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See, I knew it!
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We're spoiled.
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You know what really hit me was a few years ago, I'm always a couple years behind the curve on technology and whatnot, but a few years ago, when that Passion CD came out, and you know that song, "You Never Let Go," we used to sing that a lot, "Oh no, you never let go," like we used to start singing.
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But you know that song?
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Well, I remember hearing that, and I'm like, "I really like that song." And you know what I did?
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I pulled out my iPod at the time and got on iTunes, hit download, and in a matter of like 20 seconds, the song was on my phone.
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Now, to the young people, you're like, "What's the big deal?" I'm going to tell you a story.
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When I was a kid, and when your parents were kids, yeah, I'm looking at you, Jack.
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When your parents were kids, and they wanted a song, do you know what they had to do?
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They had to go to National Record Mart.
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How many people remember National Record Mart?
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OK.
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See?
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We had to go to the record store, and we had to look through the records, or the tapes, to find the tape that we wanted that had the one song on it.
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Usually we didn't even care for all the other songs on the tape.
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But you had to buy the $9 tape to get the one song that you liked.
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But you had to go all the way down to the record store, then you had to go into the store, then you had to find it, and then you had to go to the checkout.
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I'm like, oh, I didn't need another part-time job.
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It was like the Oregon Trail to get a song.
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And now we just pull our phone out.
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We're like, what's the name of that song?
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Oh, I own it now.
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We live in a day of instant gratification.
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So this idea of waiting for something, where it's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second here.
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Maybe my great-grandparents had to do that.
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I don't wait for anything.
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Getting aside, it creeps into some more serious matters in life, doesn't it?
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We need to make a purchase.
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Maybe we don't feel like waiting to save the money until we can afford it.
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What do we do?
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We pull out the credit card.
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Because I feel like paying for this for seven years instead of just once.
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We've all been there.
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I don't feel like waiting.
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Pull out the credit card.
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We talk about sexual purity.
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Why don't young people wait?
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Why don't young people wait until they're married?
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Why?
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Because we taught them that they don't have to wait for anything.
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I want what I want, and I want it five minutes ago.
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So, we turn to God's Word and we see the Bible says, "We need to wait on the Lord." Somehow we think the world should be synced to my calendar.
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How dare I have to wait for something?
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But listen church, this is a whole other sermon talking about waiting on the Lord.
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The Bible says so much about waiting on the Lord.
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This is just a sample.
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When God tells you to wait, there's always at least two things He's doing in you.
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And I want you to write this down.
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When God tells you to wait, what's the purpose? Why wait?
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Number one, waiting on the Lord is an expression of your faith.
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That's the first thing.
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You want to know what your faith is made out of?
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You want to know what your faith is made out of?
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to know what mine's made out of. We'll see what our faith is made out of when we have to wait on the Lord for something.
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But when we choose to wait on the Lord, it is an expression of our faith. We are saying, "I know that God is going to act." You're showing the Lord, you're demonstrating to the Lord that you're more concerned about His timing than your timing. That's what it means to wait on the Lord. But I want this now, that for some reason, You haven't given it to me now.
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So, I'm just going to have to trust you.
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This is all through the Old Testament.
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In the New Testament too, but a couple of verses here.
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Psalm 130 verse 5 says, "I wait for the Lord." My soul waits.
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Listen to this.
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"And in His Word, I hope." See that?
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I have this glorious hope in God's Word.
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And I'm waiting to see the fulfillment of these precious promises that He's given.
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Isaiah 64, verse 4 says, "From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you," listen to this, "who acts for those who wait for Him." He says, "God, there's no one like you.
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Do you know what you're like, God?
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Here's what you're like, God.
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You act for people who wait on you." So it's an expression of your faith.
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But it's even more than that.
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Write this down.
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Waiting on the Lord gives strength to your faith.
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And not only is it an expression of your faith, but the Bible says that waiting on the Lord actually strengthens our faith.
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And if I were to line you all up at the back door and say, "Ok, who wants stronger faith?" I promise you, every single person in this room would say, "I want stronger faith.
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I want to grow in my ability to trust Christ.
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I want to grow in my ability to believe God and to trust His Word." We all want our faith to grow and to be strengthened.
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And waiting on the Lord, give strength to your faith.
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Psalm 27 verse 14 says, "Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage.
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Wait for the Lord." Of course, you know Isaiah chapter 40, right?
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Verse 31, one of my favorite passages in God's Word.
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It says, "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
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They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
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They shall walk, not faint.
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There Isaiah tells us, you want your strength renewed?
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He said it comes with you when you're willing to wait on the Lord.
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Waiting says I trust God.
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And waiting on Him will serve to grow my faith in a way that it won't grow otherwise.
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eyes. Best things in life, I know I've had to wait for them. I haven't always enjoyed that but I've had to wait for them. And Ryan Stroop can tell you when we were at the Ronald McDonald House for our small group outreach, I'm like in the hallway with Ryan, we were greeting people as they came in, I'm like, I'm tearing up in the hallway. And like, dude crying. Because I'm looking in at this kitchen and I see our small group joyfully serving the Lord, glorifying God by the way that they're serving these families at the Ronald McDonald house. And I think I might have even told you this in the time I'm like this is what I've always wanted. Just to see a church, to be a excited about serving Jesus Christ.
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That's what I - I was just - I'm tearing up now.
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Did you see?
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It looked like our small group was having a party and they were in a hospital serving families.
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This is incredible.
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This is what I wanted to see - how the Lord would be at work in our church in such a way.
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I've got to tell you, We didn't have that day one of the church.
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We didn't have that after the second week or the third month of the church.
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It took time to get the small groups going and under Justin and Michelle's leadership, to get these outreach events happening and to get people on board with how we want to minister in our own community.
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It took time.
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I can tell you standing there that day.
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It's really worth waiting for.
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So do you want stronger faith?
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Are you willing to trust that God has a plan?
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Whatever your heart yearns for right now, are you willing to wait for what He has for you?
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The first step, just like the disciples, Jesus said, "Okay, hang out in Jerusalem and wait. What does your Bible say?" And they returned to Jerusalem.
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They just accepted it. They just accepted that they had to wait.
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I want to encourage you to do the same.
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Sometimes you just have to wait.
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What do you do while you wait under the Lord?
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First of all, accept it.
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Secondly, stick together.
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Stick together.
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Look at verses 13 and 14.
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It says that when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.
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Where was that?
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Some people think it was John Mark's parents' house.
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Not really sure where it was, but we know it was a large place because there were 120 people in this room.
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It says they went up to the upper room where they were staying.
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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.
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That's not Iscariot.
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All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer.
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together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
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What do you do while you wait? First of all, accept them. Second of all, stick together.
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Stick together.
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Here in this list we see the 11 remaining disciples.
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Remember, Judas, out of remorse, went and committed suicide. He hung himself.
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We'll talk about that in a second.
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We have the eleven remaining disciples and some women are mentioned and actually you might want to circle where it says Mary the mother of Jesus.
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You might want to circle.
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That's the last mention of Mary in the New Testament.
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Did you know that?
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That's the last mention of her.
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Who else was there?
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Oh yeah it says and his brothers, Jesus' brothers who didn't believe in him before but obviously since Christ's resurrection had come to faith in Him.
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Stick together.
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What do you do while you wait?
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You stick together.
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Notice verse 14 says they were in one accord.
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That means they had one mind.
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That means they had spiritual unity.
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Waiting.
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Waiting can get discouraging.
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When we are discouraged, we have this tendency to isolate ourselves from people.
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We have this tendency to isolate ourselves from the church and isolate ourselves from the small group whenever we're going through a season of discouragement.
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And I want to encourage you, just like these early disciples and these women had gotten together, they stuck together while they were waiting, church, we need to stick together.
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Because God chooses to use people to minister to you.
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Where else are you going to get encouraged to keep seeking the Lord?
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So if there is something in your life right now, maybe there is something big that you have just been waiting on the Lord.
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You have been waiting on the Lord.
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I want to encourage you.
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Come and worship.
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Go to your small group.
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You're like, "Well, I'm not in a small group." Get in a small group.
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Be a part of a body of people who will wait on the Lord with you.
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Be a part of a body of people who will pray with you.
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And speaking of prayer, write this down.
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Number three, what do we do while we wait?
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We pray through.
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We pray through.
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It says, "All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer." It means they got together and they devoted themselves to persistent prayer.
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Here's where it's a little different.
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You see the disciples knew exactly what they were waiting for, right?
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Often times we do not.
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In either case, there's no substitute for prayer.
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Here at Harvest Bible Chapel, you know, we preach our prayer a lot.
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It's our third pillar.
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We have a prayer team with prayer meetings and prayer services.
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I'm just going to be honest with you.
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It is seldom that I pray that I see immediate results.
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Anybody else with me on that?
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It is seldom that I pray that I see immediate results.
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I've told this story before.
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I don't know why this always stuck with me, but back when I was going to Bible College, I was working at Walmart near the Bible College, you know, the Walmart with all the registers and only two were open.
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And I remember this hurricane came through.
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Well, it maybe wasn't a hurricane, but it sure felt like one.
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And it was like rain and hail and just these crazy winds.
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And for some reason, they had all of these bicycles parked on the front sidewalk, just this whole row.
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It was like 25 feet long, just all these bikes parked on the-- they were chained up.
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The manager was like, hey, I need you to go cover those bikes up.
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So he gives me this enormous tarp.
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And it's just me and this tarp and this row of 25 feet long of bikes.
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And I'm out there in this tornado, just-- you can imagine me with this tarp just blowing in the wind.
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and I'd go to cover the one end and I'd try to get on to the other end and it blew up.
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It was just, I'm out there for like a half hour and I'm getting nowhere.
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I'm getting nowhere.
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I remember, I'm such a young Christian and such a childlike faith that I need to remind myself still honors the Lord.
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But I remember standing there with this stupid tarp and now I'm soaked and the bikes are getting wet, and why did they park these stupid bikes in the sidewalk?
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And you had to have been there to see this.
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I remember saying-- I just looked up to the heavens.
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I said, God, if you want these bikes covered, you're going to have to cover them.
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You had to have been there.
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This gust of wind came underneath the tarp, spread it open, and then all of a sudden, the wind stopped.
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And that tarp fell perfectly on the entire row of bikes.
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And I stood in that parking lot and I went, thanks.
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What's your point there?
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My point is, I wish every prayer was answered that immediately and that obviously.
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I wish.
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I wish.
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But the reality is, it doesn't always happen like that.
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It doesn't always happen that you're praying for something and you see such a dramatic and obvious result that quickly.
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Most prayer requests involve some type of waiting.
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This week as I was preparing for the message I got out of my prayer journal, I just went back through some of the things that I've been praying for for you.
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Because I was thinking through this, most prayer requests involve some type of waiting.
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I remember the Lord kind of laid down on my heart.
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I'm like, I want to see if that's true in my prayer journal.
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And I went through, I'm just going to read some things that I've been praying about over the past couple of months.
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And you tell me if these things involve some type of waiting, relationships being healed, a family member to come to Jesus Christ, praying for direction at work, praying because my company is moving, praying because my baby is sick, praying because My dad is fighting cancer.
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Praying for funds for this Romania mission.
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Praying for the youth group that was getting started.
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Praying because having hip surgery.
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I was looking through all of these prayer requests and I'm like, you know what?
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Almost every single one of them involves some type of waiting, right?
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Some type of waiting.
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So what do we do when we have to wait?
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pray through.
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We pray through.
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Please let me encourage you in this.
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Don't ever say this when somebody is going through something and they need prayer and they're waiting on the Lord. Don't say this phrase.
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Don't say. Well, you know.
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All we can do is pray.
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Don't say that. You know how some parents have like the swear jar for their kids.
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if they swear they're going to put money in the swear jar.
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We're going to have a jar.
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We're going to have the prayer jar.
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That if you say, all we can do is pray, you're going to put money in the prayer jar.
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OK?
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That's a terrible thing to say.
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Do you think any implications of that?
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All we can do is pray.
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Oh, you mean the only resource that we have at our disposal is having communion with the living and sovereign God of the universe.
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That's all we got.
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Don't say that.
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You know what you say instead?
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You say, "The best thing that we can do is pray about this.
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The best thing we can do is pray about it.
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All we can do is pray." Don't let me hear that.
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Terrible.
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I know people mean, "Well, blah blah blah." If you mean well, say the right thing.
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The best thing you can do is pray.
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See, prayer was to prepare the disciples for what God was going to do.
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That's why they prayed.
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Jesus said the Holy Spirit's coming.
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They could have just went and sat down.
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Guess what? The Holy Spirit's coming. Anybody got a deck of cards?
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Why did they pray?
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Because they were preparing themselves for what God was about to do through them.
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That's the case in your life too.
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What are you waiting on?
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What have you been praying about that you've been waiting on?
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What God's going to do, what God's going to do, why should I pray?
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You should pray because it'll prepare you for when the time comes that God answers your prayer.
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When you receive the thing that you're waiting on, that's why you pray.
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You see, God has a schedule and His schedule may not coordinate with ours, but the benefit of prayer is it inclines, excuse me, our hearts towards God's schedule.
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That's the great thing about prayer.
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I'm impatient and I'm waiting and prayer has a way of like, "God, I'm on your schedule.
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You are God and I am not." Right?
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So are you willing to not only wait, but to seek the presence of God in prayer while you wait?
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Are you willing to say, "God, you know what I need.
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I don't understand why it hasn't happened.
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I will wait for your answer." Pray through.
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Finally for the day, what do we do while we wait?
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We accept it.
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Stick together.
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we pray through and finally stay busy.
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Stay busy. Notice, Jesus said to wait.
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Jesus didn't say do nothing.
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He said to wait.
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There was still ministry to do.
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They could do while they were waiting.
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Look at verses 15 through 17 with me.
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Because in those days, meaning those days between the promise and the fulfillment of the promise that we'll talk about next week, in those days Peter stood up among the brothers, company of persons, was in all about 120, and said, "Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas." He became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
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He was numbered among us.
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It was allotted His share in this ministry.
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You see, they're going to need another apostle to replace Judas.
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You remember him?
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You remember Judas?
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the disciple that betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and then he regretted it, and he threw the money back to the Jewish leaders.
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Verse 18, parenthetically in my Bible, it says, "Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness.
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And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
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Sorry, this is kind of gross.
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And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that the field was called, in their own language, "Acheldoma," that is, "field of blood." Stop there for a second.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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I thought Judas hanged himself." What's Luke talking about here?
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Well, there's no contradiction.
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Luke was just giving us the rest of the story.
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The rope that Judas hung himself with obviously snapped.
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Now, did it snap like right when he hung himself?
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Or maybe he hung himself and his body just hung there for days.
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Maybe-- I'm not trying to be graphic or gross or anything-- but maybe after hanging there and his body was decaying and bloating and rotting, after a while the rope snapped.
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And you can imagine the grotesque scene that resulted.
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And that's what-- he really doesn't spare us any details on that, does he?
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At some point, obviously, the rope broke.
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That money that Judas threw back at the Jewish leaders, they bought a field with it.
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It was actually south of Jerusalem.
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Luke was just abbreviating the story.
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He connected the field to Judas, okay?
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He's just abbreviating the story here for us, kind of giving us a little flashback.
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Peter goes on, verse 20 says, "For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it.
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Let another take his office.'" Peter quotes that Psalm 69, 25 and Psalm 109, verse 8.
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He quotes those to prove to the other disciples that they had some ministry detail to complete.
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They knew that there had to be twelve apostles.
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Jesus made that clear during his earthly ministry and now you have one that obviously was never a true apostle in the first place.
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He killed himself and now you have eleven.
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And Peter says, "It's important that we replace him." Well, how do you even, you know, what does that resume have to look like?
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Well, look at your Bible.
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So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, that was what kicked off Jesus' Until the day when He was taken up from us, that was like yesterday, the ascension, one of these men must become with us a witness to His resurrection.
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So the requirements to be an apostle, first of all you have to have been around Jesus' whole ministry.
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He said, "You can't have somebody that's just like, 'Yeah, Jesus, remember when He fed the 5,000, like I was there for part of that.
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Can I be an apostle?
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I was late and I had to leave early because of soccer practice, but can I be an apostle because I was definitely there for part of that?'" He says, "No, it had to be somebody that was there the whole time, like from the baptism, you know, to the ascension, somebody that witnessed the earthly ministry of Jesus.
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That was the first requirement.
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And secondly, he had to be a witness of the resurrection, right?" That's pretty obvious, you couldn't have somebody that just at this point heard about the resurrection and he's going out preaching the resurrection like, "Jesus rose from the dead, like did you see it?" No, I didn't, but I'm friends with Peter and he saw it and this role of being an apostle had to be somebody that witnessed the resurrected Christ.
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The third requirement is that they had to have been chosen by the Lord.
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Like, well, how did the Lord choose them?
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It will go on with me in the text.
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They put forward two.
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Joseph called Bar-sabbas, who was also called Justice, who was also called Picananjo.
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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, an apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." I say a lot about that last phrase.
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Judas turned aside and went to his own place, followed Christ, didn't find him worthy enough to be a believer, and instead chose to go to hell.
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Verse 26 says, "They cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." Okay, so how did the Lord choose?
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Here, He chose with lots.
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You're like, "What are lots?" Well, lots were used in the Old Testament to determine God's will.
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It was like dice, okay?
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They would use like sticks that had marks on them, or these stones that would have markings on them, and they would cast these stones, and it was just like throwing dice, okay?
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depending on how they landed and came up, was how they would determine the will of the Lord.
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Right now, Proverbs 16.33.
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Many instances, you can look it up, many instances in the Old Testament where lots were cast to make decisions.
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Here's something very significant.
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This is the last mention of casting lots in the Bible.
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Why?
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Because now when we get to chapter 2, The Holy Spirit arrives and the Holy Spirit makes casting lots obsolete.
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We have God's inward presence.
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We have His Holy Spirit living inside us.
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We have that intimate communion with the Lord.
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We don't need to cast lots anymore.
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We have a relationship and a connection with God that's unprecedented in history.
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What's the Holy Spirit think?
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My encouragement for you church is this, while you're waiting, there's always something to do while you wait.
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While they were waiting, Peter said, "Hey, we got some ministry detail while we're waiting, let's get this taken care of." And if you too are waiting on the Lord for something big, I want to encourage you to and serve Him in the smaller things that are right in front of you.
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Waiting is one of the biggest tests of your faith.
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Waiting is an opportunity to grow in trusting the Lord.
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And how you wait will show you how much trust you do have.
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Waiting says I know.
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I know God is going to do something and I am not going to give up.
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I am not going to abandon the hope and I am not going to try to do something myself.
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I am going to wait on the Lord.
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Like the disciples, while I wait, while I wait, Whatever it is you're praying for.
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Maybe you need a financial miracle.
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Maybe you're praying for healing for someone.
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Maybe you're praying concerning your job or that unsaved family member.
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Whatever it is you're praying about.
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Whatever it is you're waiting for.
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And you're getting tired of waiting.
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I want you to say to yourself, "I'm going to accept this.
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I'm going to accept it.
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that might have me wait on this.
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I want you to say, "I'm going to stick close to the people that God put in my life." I want you to say, "While I'm waiting, I'm going to be praying, so God might prepare me for the answer to this prayer." While I'm waiting, I'm going to serve Him however I can, whatever is right in front of you.
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Maybe there is somebody here this morning that is saying, "I have been waiting on the Lord for a long time." And I have got to tell you, I have got to be honest with you, I am discouraged.
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How much longer is he going to make me wait?
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Why wouldn't he answer this prayer sooner?
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Can't God see how much this is hurting me?
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Can't God see?
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Why in the world would He delay?
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I don't have an answer for that.
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Other than His timing is always perfect.
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But it doesn't always line up with ours.
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Father in heaven, we sing the song that comes straight from the words of Isaiah.
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Strength arrives when we wait upon the Lord.
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Father, you know how discouraged we get.
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Especially if we're hurting, or worse yet, if somebody we love is hurting.
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Waiting doesn't always make sense to us.
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I pray today that you would renew a trust in you.
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renew, Father, a steadfastness in us that says, "Maybe I don't understand, but I'm going to wait on the Lord." Father, I thank you for this body of believers here.
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Just like those disciples of Acts chapter 1, Father, might we stick together in one accord and spiritual unity, encouraging one another.
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Just now as we are about to close with a worship song, Father, if somebody needs to throw off inhibitions just to come down and pray with someone, I pray you give them the power to do that.
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To let them know that they are not alone.
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are loved. We will wait. Pray with us.
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Your name be the glory. Praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 1:12-26
Why does the Lord make us wait on him so often? Why doesn't He just grant our requests NOW?
If the OT (Old Testament) predicted Judas would betray Jesus, did Judas have a choice? Is he guilty or just a puppet?
Why did the disciples feel the need to replace Judas? Why not just go with "11 strong" (the remaining apostles)?
What do you think the disciples were praying about (Acts 1:14)?
Breakout Questions:
For what are you waiting on the Lord right now?