Prayer

Last week, as I was lesson planning with Colin's class on what we would do this week, because it is the last week, we came up with a party. So, as we were talking about the party, I was going, okay, what kind of snacks do you want to have at the party? They started off with pistachios, pistachios. And we were saying, because there's one of them who can't really have sweets, another one who doesn't like sweets that much, she'll grow out of that.

But they started with pistachios, and then they said Pringles. And they just started naming all these things. And I said, it sounds like you guys want to have a party with the letter P. And then they got excited, and they decided, hey, we're all going to bring a snack that starts with the letter P. Colin, what's your snack? You don't remember? It's one that's usually for Easter.

Potato chips and Peeps. Now everybody wants to come to our P letter party. The, as we were doing that, I thought, hey, One Hope is already having a P letter party.

As we were talking about Jesus rising, we have gone through, we're following Luke's account of Jesus rising, of Jesus' resurrection through the ascension on up to, it's a P word, Pentecost. And we've talked about proof, how Jesus showed him proofs, ate the fish, showed him the wounds, how he prepared them for the coming of the spirit by opening their minds to the holy scriptures. He promised them that even though he was leaving, another one was coming, and that was the holy spirit.

And then last week, we talked about his parting as he ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God, and he took in all authority on heaven and earth. And so that leads to prayer, that for 10 days after the ascension, which we know Jesus was, Luke told us Jesus walked the earth for 40 days after the resurrection, and then Penta is 50, so we know it was 10 days later. They spent 10 days in prayer.

But it's kind of cool when you dig into what they did and how they did it and what was going on in this circumstance with the disciples and how that led them to Pentecost and how this can be so important for us too. Will you stand as you are able? Today's sermon is brought to you by the letter P. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.

Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus and Simon, the zealot and Judas, the son of James. All these were all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. The word of God, inspired by God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated now.

Remember who wants bonus points? Where did they go for the ascension? Oh, I guess I read it in there. The mount called Olivet and at the Mount of Olives, they they witnessed Jesus ascending into heaven. I remember the angels came in and said.

Don't just stare at the sky. Go on, you got to get ready, you got to prepare. And this is what they did to prepare.

It says they went back. It's kind of there's a lot in here that we have to understand about who they were and what Judaism is. And one of the first things is it says they were a Sabbath day's journey.

Now, why would a Sabbath day of a journey be different than any other day? Because in order to avoid it, counting is work. You could only go about three quarters of a mile and that three quarters of a mile. If you went past that, I don't want to talk about the pain that would endure because of what they would do on the Sabbath.

Imagine if you had to park three quarters of a mile away and walk to church, you'd be stuck because you couldn't walk back to your car. That three quarters of a mile would allow for rest but it would allow you to do what you need to do with your animals or getting your household in order or whatever you needed to do so the rest of the time you could rest. So it was only about three quarters of a mile from Jerusalem because remember Jesus said, stop leaving Jerusalem now, go back to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the spirit and it's kind of cool to see how they waited.

In verse 4 of Acts 1, when Jesus is giving them insight on what he's going to do, he says, and while staying he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the father which he said you heard from me. How many of you love waiting? Waiting at the grocery store, waiting in traffic, waiting on that red light that takes longer than every other red light in town, wherever it is, it's Mother's Day, wait on Mother's Day. I wasn't going to go there and I will not repeat that.

I've seen you shake your head a lot of times in the short time I've known you. Oh, man, that was too good. We're going to give him a mic next time.

Okay, coach, we're going to go on. All right, he just said to wait for the promise of the father so this is what they did when they waited. The waiting was such an important part of preparing for the Holy Spirit, of waiting, of not just saying, okay, we're going to do it and we often do that.

We often just Nike our way through it, we just do it and we don't wait on God and in the Psalms we see them waiting on God, we see them waiting on God here and I think this is a huge call for us as a church on how we should wait on God and it says in verse 13 and they entered and when they had entered they went up to the upper room where they were staying and in this upper room where they were staying, whether that's at Mark's house like they were before for the last supper or what it is later, what we do know is right now it was a more public place. So they had prayer rooms, they had different gatherings wherever, but they wouldn't have been staying at that but this was a place where it was more well known. Later they would be in an upper room that was more private so everyone draws different connections to that but right now it was more public as we see when Pentecost comes and they are together in the upper room and everybody heard them and they came because it wasn't such a private place.

In verse 13 it says and they gathered together, James and John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James, all these would, and Judas the son of James, notice there's only one Judas in the group anymore, most groups can only handle one Judas these days. Judas was gone and we're going to finally find out next week Luke's account of what happens to Judas and it is, let's just say it's the PG-13 version of what happens to Judas. So now you're going to read Acts ahead of me because you can't hardly stand to wait.

In this verse it talks about those 11 disciples that the 11 were there and when they came, they came with the most devoted people. The 11 were there, those who would be the Disciples with the capital D, the Apostles, those who were a part of it and it says and the women and some people read and they think well that means the Disciples' wives. I hope the wives were there but it doesn't really say if the wives were there.

We know at least Peter had a wife so some of the others probably had wives too. Hopefully were there and they were part of the Gospel but it doesn't always tell us that. But what we do know is when Luke is just referring to the women and he doesn't name all of them, we just go back to Luke 24 and we see the group of women who went to the tomb and we see the group of women who were there with the Disciples between Good Friday and Easter and they were all praying together then or just trying to figure out what in the world to do at that point in time.

But it's kind of cool here in verse 13, Luke makes a big emphasis and the women and now including the mother of Jesus and his brothers. Now if you don't know, Jesus had four brothers and those four brothers were Mark, James, they were James, Joseph, Judas and Simon. We know two of them because they wrote books of the Bible, letters that became books of the Bible, James and Jude and Jude, he probably didn't want to go by Judas anymore after everything that went down.

But in this setting, they were in the upper room, they were all together, these were the men and the women who were the most faithful, the men and the women who were really wanting the same thing. In verse 14 it says, all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. There's three words in there that tie this all together, devoted, one accord, prayer.

And with the prayer and the devotion, these words are just so powerful when they were there. And this is how they waited. After Jesus rose and went to heaven, the disciples had to wait, they had to wait and wait and wait for the promise that was coming.

But what they were doing was what is called active listening. They weren't just sitting around scrolling through their phones, trying to see what was going on on Instagram. They were in prayer.

And it was a prayer that was pretty incredible. John Pohill says, there is no effective witness without the spirit. Meaning the witness that comes from the spirit is effective outside of that, there's no effective witness.

And the way to spiritual empowerment is to wait in prayer. Sometimes we don't get the answer right away. Often, we don't get the answer right away.

We wait in prayer. But that doesn't mean we sit around doing nothing. It means we pray.

It means we listen. It means we open our hearts to the God who loves us. In this, it says, in one accord.

They were in one accord. And if you look over, this is your teaser for Pentecost in a couple weeks. In verse 1 of chapter 2, it says they were all together in one place.

That makes it sound like proximity. But it's the exact same word that we have here. In Luke 1, as they are preparing.

Hamathimodon means one accord of one mind, of one thought, of one desire, of one hope. And in this Hamathimodon, they prayed and it means unity. Jesus said in John 17, may they be one as we are one.

Praying for the oneness of the disciples. That unity is such an important part of the Holy Spirit, of the kingdom, of life in Jesus Christ. And we might lose that because, I'm just being honest, is before we got to this point in global Methodism, it was sometimes hard to find unity.

It was like, unity was discussed, but it's like saying, let's have unity in letting everyone do whatever they want to do. But the unity here is a unity of spirit, a unity of strength, a unity of the same purpose, a unity that comes, which I keep going back to Ephesians 4, because that's the unity we need. In Ephesians 4, verse 1, it says, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling of which you have been called.

And if you're going to walk in a manner worthy of the calling of which you've been called, it says you walk with all humility, with all gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another. Don't those words sound harder and harder when you get through them? Patience, bearing with one another, to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The unity of the spirit is what the church is called to have.

The unity of the spirit only comes when the Holy Spirit is present and the Holy Spirit fills each person. And the Holy Spirit is where we get our strength and it's where we get our mission and it's where we get our purpose. And it is this where the unity that Paul talks about here is, he says, there is one body and one spirit.

Just as you were called to the one hope. Did you know we're called to one hope? Have I said that enough? You were called to one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all, in, in and in all.

By this grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts. It's unity in the spirit, but Paul says we each have different gifts. We all don't have the same gifts, but we all have a purpose in the life of the church.

And the oneness we have comes from us pulling together with who we are and what God has equipped us with. Proskuterio, I had to practice that word more than any other. Proskuterio, it means to get, it means continue, devote, steadfastly attentive, constant readiness, wait on constantly.

When the disciples were together, they were waiting constantly, they were in prayer constantly, they were together constantly, they were seeking the spirit of God constantly. And then of course, prayer is prosuke, and that means that they were praying. But what they were likely praying for was, remember last week we talked about one thing that Jesus taught them the most was at the beginning of every parable, he would, almost every parable, he would say, the kingdom of God is like this.

And when he would teach them these things, he was teaching them bits and bits about the kingdom of God. And they came to him and they said, is now when you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus said, it's not for you to know the times and the places that the father has set according to his own plan and purpose, but you will receive the spirit and the power so you can witness in the nations. So for Luke is making a big emphasis on the spirit upon witnessing and upon the kingdom and how those all combine together when we have one accord, when we are steadfast, and when we pray seeking the one kingdom of God.

Craig Keener says that a prayer for the coming of the spirit was also a prayer for the coming of the kingdom. Does that make sense? The spirit is our down payment or our deposit of heaven. So when we are praying for the kingdom, we're praying for more of the spirit.

We're praying for more of the kingdom to come into us, into our own hearts and lives, into the life of the church and into the world. And through this spirit is how we can do the will of God and our calling in God. In Luke 17, when Jesus was being questioned by the Pharisees about the kingdom of God coming, this is how he answered.

The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed or they will say, look, here it is or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst, in the midst of you. In Luke 9, in Luke 10, that Randall read earlier, it says the harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord that the harvest to send out laborers into the field. And that's directly connected to kingdom or the spirit, because it's the spirit that gives us our testimony. It's the spirit that gives us our witness.

It's the spirit that allows us to be laborers of the harvest of the gospel. And then Jesus said, as they go out and they heal the sick and they do so many amazing things, he said, say to them, the kingdom of God has come near you. When we let the Holy Spirit work through us, we take the kingdom of God to others.

When we let the Holy Spirit work through us to minister within the church, we take the spirit of God to those who are hurting or feel disconnected. When we let the spirit work through us, the kingdom of God is among us. And in our presence.

On that note, it doesn't say what they prayed, but I'm going to make a guess. Is it okay to make a guess? When Jesus taught him parables, he said, this is what the kingdom of God is like. When Jesus taught him to pray, he said, when you pray, say this.

Do you know what he said then? The Lord's prayer. Our father who art in heaven, thy kingdom come. How many times do you think during that 10 days, they prayed thy kingdom come, thy will be done, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

And if we pray that in one accord, then the father blesses that. And he sends the spirit and he sends the kingdom of God. through the spirit to the church.

So when we pray the Lord's Prayer in our worship it's not just so we can pray because Jesus taught the disciples that it's so we can call upon the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven. May God rule here as he does in heaven. May the power of God come here and the power of God, Jesus said, is going to come in the Holy Spirit.

Then this verse closes with the women and the brothers and seeing that this is the first time we see, we know that James later is all of a sudden the leader of the church in Jerusalem because the apostles are all going out and evangelizing around the known world and Mary was there. In our house my dad was the authority. When things needed to come down we heard it from my dad but what I didn't realize so much until I grew up is that behind the scenes he had a rock with my mom who they would come together on things and then he would be the he would be the voice but they would come together.

Now the thing about the the power of a mother too is I remember the one time when I was probably Colin's age and I was taller than my mom for the you know and so she was telling me I needed to go do something and I think it was to go to my room and I looked down on her and I said I don't think I need to do what you tell me to do and she said well your dad's gonna be home in a couple hours and I said I think I'm gonna go do what you're telling me to do and I never questioned that woman again. You see they would talk about how my mom would do this my dad would do this and and they thought their true their true display to us of how parents could work together in unity was hanging wallpaper together. That they could survive hanging wallpaper together and they survived it well and it's some of that's because my mom could remain calm but like in a household for a household to function for a household to work that there has to be unity so in the church we all have different gifts like we read about in Ephesians we all have different roles we all have different places we all have different things that God has called us to do but our unity is around wanting the kingdom to come.

They'd also pray come Lord Jesus come sometimes thinking about Jesus coming the second time sometimes thinking about the kingdom of God coming sometimes just wanting more of the spirit. If we are going to be the people of God I think we just need to pray over and over and believe it and want it. Your kingdom come your kingdom come your kingdom come may your kingdom come and change our hearts and our lives our direction our focus everything we are is because of you and your kingdom help us to be open to everything you have for us for you are so amazing God in Jesus name amen.