Well, brothers and sisters, I believe that the passage we're looking at this morning, at the end of Acts chapter 1, is a passage that doesn't get the attention that it deserves. It doesn't get the attention that it deserves. This is a passage where we're told that after Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles and other followers of Christ, including Jesus' mother and his brothers, were all waiting in Jerusalem, just as Jesus had told them to do. Think about this, this is what they were doing before the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit. They were waiting in anticipation in Jerusalem and they did this actually for a period of around 10 days. And during this period, not only were they devoting themselves to prayer, this is what the scripture tells us, they also took the time to choose and install another apostle to replace Judas who had betrayed Jesus. And as I said, I don't think these verses get the attention that they deserve. And the reason for this, I think, is that it's easy for us to think that these verses don't have too many lessons for us today. To think, after all, what does the choosing of another apostle here in Acts chapter 1 really have to teach us, to apply to us and our lives today? You see, it's easy for us to think that the Bible is simply giving us here some incidental historical details at the end of Acts 1, and that this is simply one of those passages that we just need to read through quickly so that we can get to the more important event of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit in Acts chapter 2. It's easy to approach this passage in this way, but if we think this way, if we make this mistake in thinking that this passage really doesn't have too many lessons for us, we will miss The significance of these verses and the very reason that God has included them in our Bibles. As part of this, we'll miss the connection between what's taking place here in Acts chapter 1 and what takes place in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit is poured out on the church. What's important to understand is that in these verses, Christ was actually preparing his followers for the day of Pentecost, for the coming of the Spirit and the growth that he was to bring to the church. Christ had promised his disciples and his followers that they would be his witnesses and that he was going to send them the spirit to empower them for this very task. And what's important to understand was that this period of waiting was a period of preparation for what was to come, the fulfillment of this very promise that Christ had made. And this is important for us because what we're given in these verses is a picture both of God's priorities, the way God works in building his kingdom, as well as the commitments that these early Christians had, these followers of Jesus had, which prepared them to serve as Christ's witnesses. These verses are important for us because think about this, if we as the church today are going to live out our calling, the very same calling we have to be witnesses of Christ and to make disciples of him, we need to be living in a way that is in step both with the way God works and with the commitments that we see that these early followers of Jesus had. Think about it this way. We all want Christ, right, to build his kingdom in our day. Isn't that what you want? I hear many of you praying this way more and more in our church, and I'm greatly encouraged by this. We want Christ to build his kingdom in our day, and we want him to use us for this, because he's called us to serve as his witnesses. But this is what we sometimes don't realize. If this is going to take place, we have to prepare for this. We have to prepare for this, and to prepare for this we have to have the same priorities and the same commitments that we see the early followers of Jesus had. And so there's really two things that we need to think about this morning, two questions we need to ask. The first is this, what do these verses teach us about God's work? God's priorities, the way he works, and what's important to him, which should also be important to us. And then secondly, we need to ask the question, what do these verses teach us about the commitments that these early followers of Christ had, which we need to have as well if we're going to be used by Christ to make disciples? So if we ask the question, what do these verses teach us about God's work, about God's priorities, what's important to him, the answer Is that they teach us three things. First of all, they clearly teach us about the importance of the church, the importance of And this is interesting because it could be argued that the New Testament church was really actually established on the day of Pentecost. In Acts chapter 2, when the Spirit is poured out and 3,000 people are saved. It could be argued, as many people do, that this, the pouring out of the Spirit, really formed the birth of the church. And yet what's interesting about this passage here in Acts chapter 1 is that the first glimpse in the book of Acts that we're given of the church as Christ's corporate community comes not in Acts chapter 2 but actually here in these verses at the end of Acts chapter 1. Already here in these verses we're given an amazing picture of the life and the solidarity of the church as the community of those who were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Just think about what our Text tells us here for a minute, it says that after Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles returned to the upper room where they were staying in Jerusalem. And we don't know if this was the same upper room where they celebrated the Passover with Jesus before his death, where he instituted the Lord's Supper. But what we do know is this, that it wasn't just the apostles that were waiting there. The women who had followed Jesus were also with them. The family of Jesus, his mother and brothers, were there. And there seems that there were many others as well, because verse 15 says that there were about 120 people gathered here in anticipation of what Christ was going to do. I want you to just think for a minute about what they were doing. It isn't as if they were doing nothing. What were they doing? Verse 14 says that with one accord they were all devoting themselves to prayer. It also seems clear here that they were studying the scriptures because just a few verses later Peter stands up and begins to to quote from the Old Testament. And on top of this, they were clearly committed to church leadership, namely the leadership of the apostles, which is seen in their even taking the time to choose another apostle to fulfill the office of Judas. And if you put this all together, what we have clearly here is a picture of the church as we see it described and as it's lived out in the rest of the New Testament. Where we first see the church in the book of Acts is not actually in Acts chapter two, but here Acts chapter 1 and what this shows is just how important the church is in God's work and in all of God's plan and I think this is something that we need to be reminded over and over and over about in our day the importance of the church. God's plan has always been to establish a people for himself, a people for his own glory, not just to save individual Christians. I hope you understand that. Salvation is not just about God saving us as individual Christians, but about God establishing a people for himself. This is clearly what the narrative of the Bible presents to us. It's also important to understand that God is glorified the most, not in our lives just as individual Christians certainly were to live to his glory, but God is glorified the most in the life and in the worship and in the fellowship and in the obedience of the church, as imperfect as the church may be. The glory that you could bring to God in your own individual life is minimal, but it's when the church is together living out the purposes of God and the calling of God, that God is most glorified. Brothers and sisters, this is what the early Christians understood. They saw themselves as the corporate community of God's people. This is even how they saw their calling to serve as witnesses. It was not just an individual thing that they were each supposed to serve as witnesses for Christ. Of course, there's truth in that. They saw it as a corporate calling that could not be fulfilled unless they were unified and together and living out this calling of Christ. You see, they recognized that God had set them apart as a group. And they recognized their need of one another that they could never live out their calling and be the sort of holy community that God was calling them to be unless they were united, unless they were all together working towards the same goal. They saw themselves as God's end time new creation community. It's important to understand that. I don't think we always think of ourselves as the church today in that way, but they really understood that Christ's death and resurrection had ushered in the new age already, the new creation. They were the representatives of this. They were God's new creation community. They understood that they were united to Christ, and because of this, they were united to one another. And their goal, as the people of God, was to proclaim and make known the lordship of Christ in the world. And maybe most importantly, I think that they saw all of this as an incredible privilege. You see, for them, there was nothing greater than sharing in the life of Christ's Church. There was nothing greater than being a part of the Church of Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, the question I think we need to ask ourselves when we see these sort of pictures of the church in the Book of Acts is, do we view the church in the same way today? Is this how we think about the church and even about our identity as Christians? It's so easy for us. to be impacted by the individualism of our culture today, and not even realize the way that that is impacting the way we think about Christianity, the way we think about what it means to be a Christian, and the way that we think about the church. The sort of questions we need to ask ourselves is, do we see our need of other believers? Do you see that you cannot live a fruitful Christian life apart from the church? And from other believers, do we really understand that our calling is a corporate calling as Christians? Do we really believe that God's intention has always been to be glorified in his church? You can think about it this way. I think it's easy in our day. for us to think this way, to think that if we're committed to things like the authority of the Bible, if we're committed to the historic doctrines that the church professes, if we're committed to things like preaching and hearing the preaching of God's word, and if we're committed to traditional values, like traditional marriage, that it's between one man and one woman, we think that if we're committed to these things, then this makes us committed Orthodox Christians. Do you know what the problem is with that way of thinking? You can be committed to all of those things and yet not really be committed to the church. You can be committed to right doctrine. You can be committed to the truth of the Bible in some sense. You can confess the right doctrines about salvation that were saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. You can be committed to all of those things and yet not really be committed to the church. And brothers and sisters, I believe this is where the Book of Acts is helpful to us. It forces us to think about the question, are we really committed to the life and to the fellowship and to the unity and to the mission of the church? It's not enough to be committed to the doctrine of the church or certain doctrines of salvation. Are we committed to the life and the fellowship and the unity and the mission of the church? One pastor in our own denomination said these words to me a few years ago. I had never met him before but we were at an event together and we introduced ourselves and struck up a conversation and we started talking about the state of the church in our day and this is what he said to me about the state of the church. It's never left my mind because I think it's one of the most insightful comments and I hope it will stick in your mind as well. He said this, that the problem today, he said, is that we are doing church but we're not really being the church. We're doing church, but we're not really being the church. Think about that. You can do church like you do other activities in your life. You can come on Sunday morning. You can hear a sermon preached. We do church, but that is drastically different from being the church. In the book of Acts, what we see is that God's people here, these followers of Jesus, they were being the church. Brothers and sisters, this is the first thing that these verses teach us about God's work and about God's priorities and about what's important to him. What's important to him is the church. And if the church is important to God, then the church should be important to us. The church is important to God, then it should be important to us. Well, the second thing these verses teach us about God's work. We thought about the importance of the church. The second thing they teach us has to do with the importance of the apostles and with the apostolic office. It can seem a little strange to us in our day, I think, when we read this passage and hear here that the early church took the time to fill the position of Judas. We may wonder why. Why was this so important for them to fill the position that Judas has. But I think this really shows just how important the apostles were to the formation and the life of the church. And it's not insignificant that there were 12 apostles. It's not insignificant that Jesus chose 12 disciples, not 10, not 9, not 11, but he chose 12. And this means that if this is significant, it's important that the apostles would have maintained this number even after the betrayal and death Judas. And this is clearly here what we're told Peter and the early church realized even through their study of the Old Testament that it was important for somebody else to take the office of Judas. And this is because the Apostles represented in many ways the beginning of a new Israel. This is important to understand. Just as Israel had 12 tribes, It came from the 12 sons of Jacob, so the 12 apostles represented the beginning and foundation, in many ways, of a new Israel. This is what the New Testament church was. God establishing a people, this time, not to be made up of Jews only, but of Jews and Gentiles. A people of all nations, people from every tongue and tribe and nation. And the importance of both the 12 tribes of Israel in the Old Testament and the 12 apostles in the New Testament is seen in Revelation chapter 21, where we're told that in the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, where we're going to dwell with God for all eternity, we're told that in that city the names of the 12 tribes are going to be written on the gates of that city. Think about that. These were the names that represented God's Old Testament people. And they are going to be written on the gates of the New Jerusalem where we are going to dwell with God for all eternity. But we're also told there that the names of the 12 apostles are going to be written on the foundations of that city. You see, both representing God's Old Testament people and representing this new Israel, God's New Testament people. And it's not insignificant that we're told there in Revelation 21 that the names of the apostles are written on the foundations, that that's where they're written because this fits with everything the New Testament teaches us about the apostles. We're told in Ephesians 2.20 that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And to understand this, it's important to understand that the word apostle simply means messenger. An apostle is somebody sent forward with a message to proclaim. And this is what the apostles were. Christ had chosen them to be the unique and authoritative messengers of the gospel. They were the unique eyewitnesses of everything that Jesus did and said. And Jesus always intended that their gospel testimony would be preserved for us in the pages of the New Testament and would serve as the authoritative word, you see, that would go forth to the nations and be the means of bringing salvation to all of God's people. And brothers and sisters, think about that. What this means is that without the apostles, there would be no New Testament for us. Without the apostles, there would be no authoritative knowledge of the works and words of Christ. And this means that without the apostles, there would be no church. there would be no New Testament church. This is how important, you see, the apostles were in their apostolic office. They were really the foundations of the church. Their testimony, you see, has served for us, even to bring us to salvation in the means of the building of Christ's church. And this is really what we confess when we confess the Nicene Creed as we did this morning. Think about this. We say that we believe in one holy, Catholic, and apostolic church. The word Catholic simply means universal, worldwide. The church is made up of people of all nations. When we say, though, that the church is apostolic, we're saying that it's built upon the testimony of the apostles. What we're saying is that there is no other gospel that we profess except the gospel that the apostles proclaimed. When we are saying that the Church is apostolic, we're saying that there is no other doctrine that we teach or profess or declare except the doctrine that the Apostles taught. When we say that the Church is apostolic, we're saying that it's the testimony of the Apostles that forms the basis of our life and of our worship and of our faith as the Church, even in our day. And if you think about it, what this means is that in one sense, everything in the church should be apostolic. Everything in the church should be apostolic, built upon the teaching of the apostles. Our preaching should be apostolic preaching. Our worship should be apostolic. Our witnessing should be apostolic. Our prayers should be apostolic, built upon the teaching of the apostles. You see, this was God's plan from the beginning. to preserve the truth of the gospel for us through the ministry of the apostles. And what I hope you understand is that this is part of God's goodness, part of God's grace to us that he raised up these 12 men to be the means of preserving his word, the works and word of Christ for us, his church. And brothers and sisters, if the ministry of the apostles, if their testimony is so important in the plan of God, so important to Christ's work of building the church, And just as I said about the church, it should be important for us. It should be important for us. There should be no other doctrine that you profess except the doctrine that the apostles taught, the doctrine which is preserved for us in the pages of the New Testament. That's the second thing. that we see here about God's work, the importance of the apostles. And there's one more thing that I want you to think about that these verses teach us about God's work. We thought about the importance of the church and then the importance of the apostles. The third thing has to do with the importance of Christ's resurrection, the importance of Christ's resurrection. I'm only going to touch on this because I just preached, if you know, a whole sermon series on 1 Corinthians 15 where I stress the importance of the resurrection. But this is important to notice here in Acts chapter 1. What I want you to notice is what Peter says in verse 22 when they're looking to fill the office of Judas, right? They're choosing men that could possibly fill the office of Judas. And in verse 22, Peter says these words, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection, he says, to the resurrection. of Jesus Christ. I think this is a significant statement here. It almost jumps off the page to you. It's a summary of everything they expected that this man would do. He was an apostle. He was supposed to be a witness of the resurrection of Christ. And I think this really shows how the apostles saw themselves. They saw themselves as witnesses of Christ's resurrection. In Acts chapter 1a, Jesus had told them that they were going to be his witnesses. And what they understood was that essential to this, almost the primary thing, was that they were witnesses of Christ's resurrection. Essential to the gospel they proclaimed was the fact that Jesus had risen. This is what they were proclaiming over and over and over again. I said this before, I said this when I preached on 1 Corinthians 15, but I think it's worth us thinking about it again just for a moment here. When we think about the gospel today, I think, when we think about our calling to be witnesses for Christ and to proclaim his word, I think we tend to think almost exclusively of the cross, the message of the cross, the message of Christ's atonement for our sins that he accomplished on the cross when he suffered in our place. and serve the sentence that we deserve for our sin. I want to take nothing away from that. Certainly that is essential to the gospel, what Christ has done to make atonement for our sins. But this is what I want to get you thinking about. In the book of Acts, and we'll see this as we go through this book, almost all the sermons of the apostles throughout the entire book of Acts are focused on the resurrection of Jesus. It's striking. Not so much on the cross. It's not that the cross is never mentioned or the death of Jesus, but the primary focus of their preaching is on the resurrection of Jesus and on the significance of Jesus' resurrection. For them, it was the resurrection that was the climactic event that it ushered in the new age and had brought salvation and eternal life to God's people. And I think, as I said before, we need to think about this more as the church in our day. In many ways, we need to grow in our understanding and appreciation of the resurrection Jesus. And just to think about this for a minute, I want you just to think with me about what Ephesians 2 says about our salvation. These are verses I'm sure many of you are familiar with. We love to quote Ephesians 2 because it proclaims that we're saved by the grace of God and by the grace of God alone. But maybe sometimes we don't think exactly about what Ephesians 2 is telling us about our salvation. Think about what it says for a minute. It declares that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. This is our state apart from Christ. We are spiritually dead. And of course a dead person can do nothing to bring themselves to life or to save themselves. But then in verses four and five, these wonderful verses we love to quote, it says, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love for us, made us alive together with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. Think about what it's saying there. In other words, what Ephesians 2 is telling you is that the only way that you are saved is because God did a work of resurrection in you. This is how we're saved, because God does a work of resurrection in us. It says that he made us alive even when we were dead. You were dead, and God raised you to spiritual life. And it tells us that this is only possible because Christ rose for us. It says that we were made alive together with him. In other words, we were united to Christ, not just in his death, but in his resurrection. When Christ rose, you see, he rose for us. And the Spirit applies that to us, and that's the reason that we have new life, as if we had risen with Christ. We have new life today. We have been raised because Christ rose for us. This is how significant the resurrection is. And I just want you to think about this, that salvation is a work of resurrection based upon the resurrection of Jesus. And we need to praise God for this as the church. And I'll just say this before I move on from this subject. I hear many of you in the church all the time praising God for what he has done for us in Jesus Christ. And it's wonderful. I hear you especially saying things like, I can't believe. that Jesus would die for me as a sinner, that Jesus would give his life for a wretched sinner like me. And I say this to you this morning, I hope that you will continue saying those things for your entire life. We are gonna praise God for all eternity for what he did for us to save us from our sins by dying in our place. But I want you to think about this. We also need to praise Christ because he rose for us. because he rose for us. And that's what I don't hear in the church today, is really expressions of praising God because he rose for you. He rose for you so that you could have everlasting life. You would not have it if Christ didn't rise. And in many ways, his death was only the precursor to the greater event of his resurrection, which has brought you all the benefits of salvation. If Christ didn't rise, you would have no salvation. and we need to equally praise Christ because he rose for us. If the resurrection is so important in the plan of God and in the preaching in the book of Acts, then it also needs to be important and significant in our thinking and even in our expressions of praise to God. So brothers and sisters, if we put all of this together, these things I've talked about so far, the importance of the church, the importance of the apostles, the importance of Christ's resurrection, this is what I want you to think about for a minute, that these things that Acts chapter 1 tells us are so important to God, and essential to his plans and the way he works, the church, the apostles, the message of resurrection. These are actually things that we would never think would be successful and are things that actually appear to be foolish by human wisdom. Think about it this way, this is what I mean. Who would have ever thought that if all you knew was Acts chapter one, who would have ever thought that these 120 followers of Jesus would be the beginning of a movement that would spread throughout the entire world? Who would have ever thought that the testimony of these 12 disciples, these apostles, would be the foundation of a global and worldwide church? That their testimony would be read by more people even today than any book that has ever been written in human history. Would you ever think that? based on just these 12 men that Jesus had established? Think about this. Who would ever think that the message of a Savior who died and rose again would be the means of transforming human hearts? By human wisdom, these things seem impossible to us, and yet this is how our God works. This is how our God works. He takes what is small and appears to be insignificant, and he uses it to produce a great harvest. These are what the parables of Jesus tell us over and over. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It appears to be almost like nothing, and yet it produces a great harvest. Our God uses what is insignificant and foolish in the eyes of the world to display his sovereign power. And brothers and sisters, this should encourage us as the church in our day. It should encourage us that God can use us in the same way, as insignificant as we might feel among the millions of people that live here in New York and don't know Jesus. We should believe that if our God works this way, if he can use 12 disciples to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, he can use us today to be his witnesses and to do his will and to take up his work so that his power would be displayed through us in the same way that it was displayed through these early Christians. Do you believe that? That our God can do that? This is the God that we serve. What we've thought about The way that God works, as I said, that was the first question that I wanted us to think about. What does this passage teach us about the way that God works, what's important to him? And I hope you'll keep those three things in your mind, because I'm going to come back to them in a minute. The importance of the church, the importance of the apostles, the importance of the resurrection of Christ. But I want us to think now about a second question before we close here. What do these verses teach us about the commitments that these early Christians had, which we need to have as well if we're going to be used by God? We just said, our God is a God that can use even us to do his will and display his power. But what are the commitments that we need to have if we're going to be used by God? What's interesting, I think, about this passage is that as the church here is waiting for the coming of the Spirit, they're not idle. It's not as if they're doing nothing. There's this sense of expectation, right? They're waiting for the Spirit to come. But even while they're waiting, they're intentional about the things that they are doing. And there's really three things that they're doing that they're committed to here that we see in Acts 1 that we need to be committed to as well as the church in our day if we're going to be used to serve as Christ's witnesses by the power of the Spirit. These three things are the things that really prepared them for the coming of the Spirit. in Acts chapter 2. And the first of these is this, that they were committed to obedience. They were committed to obedience. Think about this, Jesus told them that they were to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, and this is exactly what we see them doing. It's easy to just pass over this in the text and to think, well, of course they were doing what Jesus told them to do. But think about it for a minute. They could have taken matters into their own hands. It wasn't as if Jesus ascended and said the promise of the Father was going to come and he came the next day. It was nearly 10 days that they were waiting for the promise of the Spirit. It would have been easy after a few days went by to think, well, is the Spirit really coming? Maybe we need to start doing something. Maybe we should just go out and try to be witnesses in our own power. Think about it, isn't this what we often fall into? We pray and God doesn't answer our prayers right away and so we think we have to take matters into our own hands. It would have been easy for them to do this and yet they didn't do this. They obeyed the word of Jesus. They obeyed the word of Jesus. And brothers and sisters, I hope you'll just stop here and think about this for a minute, how important this actually was. As I said, we can simply pass over this, but this was vitally important to their being used by the spirit as we see them later being used in the book of Acts. I say this to you this morning, there is nothing more detrimental to our witness to the world and to the work of the spirit than a disobedient church. There's nothing more detrimental to our witness than a disobedient church. Jesus said these words to us, if you love me, he said, you will obey my commandments. And you see, when we don't obey Jesus' commandments, what we're declaring to the world is that we really don't love him that much. In fact, we're declaring something even worse. We're saying that it's not really worth loving Jesus or following Jesus. And I just want to leave you to think about this this morning. Ask yourself this question. Are we really as obedient to the commands of Christ as we think we are? I imagine. Most of us would think that we are a pretty obedient church today, our church here in Franklin Square, but ask yourself, really, to understand these things, we've got to dig deeper and think, are we really as obedient to the commands of Christ today as we think? When Jesus says, for instance, that we should deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him, that we need to be willing to suffer, to follow Christ and to make his name known, is this really what characterizes the church today? When Jesus says that we should care for the least of these and serve the needy, is this really what characterizes the church today? When Jesus says that we must give up everything to be his disciples and that our life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions, is this really what characterizes the church today? I just want you to think about these things. We all have a long way to go, and I'll be the first one to say that that's true of me. And we can be thankful for the mercy of God, right, that our acceptance before God is not based on our perfect performance. But brothers and sisters, that doesn't negate in any way what we need to think about in terms of the teaching of this passage. We need to think about the fact that if we are not obedient to the commands of God, we cannot expect to see the power of the Spirit in the church today or the blessing of God. We cannot expect that God does not bless a disobedient church. And if we want to see the kingdom of God coming, the work of the spirit in the church in our day, the blessing of God on the church, we need to think about this. Are we as obedient to the commands of Christ as we might think? If we're not an obedient church, we can't expect to see the power of the spirit and the blessing of God. Well, that's the first thing they were committed to was obedience. The second thing that they were committed to was prayer. You see, they weren't just waiting and doing nothing, twiddling their thumbs. They were praying during this period. Verse 14 says that with one accord, they were devoting themselves to prayer. And in verse 24, we're actually told that it was in prayer that they drew lots, believing that Christ would answer their prayer and direct them to the right man to fill the office of Judas. And I don't think we think about this enough. We don't tend to think about the fact that it's prayer that actually ushered in the day of Pentecost. It's prayer that actually prepared the church here for the coming of the Spirit and their calling to serve as Christ's witnesses. And the Bible actually repeatedly makes the connection between prayer and the Spirit. In fact, in Luke chapter 11, Jesus tells us to pray for the Spirit and says that this is the gift that God delights to give to us when we pray, when we pray. And often the problem is that we're not praying for this. We want God to send the spirit and do a great work among us, but we're not necessarily praying in the way that we should. I don't know about you, but this is the problem that I fall into repeatedly. I'm guilty of this over and over again. I want God to act. I want to see more of the work of the spirit. I want to see him saving people and bringing them into the church and the kingdom of God. But I'm not necessarily committed to pray, you see, in the way that I should for these things. Again, just like obedience, we can't expect God to do mighty things if we're not willing as the church to pray. And I'll just say this to you this morning. This is why we've formed prayer groups in our Sunday school time, where we're spending part of that time getting together in groups simply to pray. This is why I've been for some time, encouraging all of the members of our church to be praying with other Christians. I know that this is challenging for many of you, and I'm not making light of that in any way, but I would just say this to you. If this is the calling for us as the church in the Bible, to be praying in this way, not just individually, but corporately, then we can't simply say, well, I'm just not good at that, or I can't do it, or it's challenging, so I don't have to do it. It's something we all need to learn to do. And I believe every member of our church can learn to pray in groups with other people. It's something you have to learn just like everything else in our life. And I actually believe that as you do this, you will find great blessing in your life and that this will be a great blessing to the church. It's easy to say, well, I pray on my own at home. Why do I have to pray with other Christians? But think about it. The picture in the book of Acts is not just of the Christians praying individually. but praying together. There is power in the corporate prayer of the church. And this is what God calls us to in his word. And brothers and sisters, we can't expect, as I said, God to work if we're not willing to pray. And I think it's important for me just to say maybe a word about what they were praying for. Of course, here we're not given a direct statement about what they were praying for. We're not given a sample of one of their prayers. But I think the context makes it clear That they were praying for the coming of the Spirit. This is what they were anticipating. This is the whole thrust of the passage. They were praying about being Christ's witnesses. They weren't just praying about their own needs. And this is really verified by the other prayers that we find in the book of Acts. Let me be clear about this. It's not wrong for us to pray for our own needs. In fact, the Bible encourages us to bring our needs before God. The problem is simply when that becomes almost exclusively what our prayers are about, just about us and our own needs and our own comfort. The power of prayer is actually in the fact that it takes our focus off of ourselves and puts it on God, his will, his kingdom, his holiness, his son, his plan for us. And you see, when this happens, when prayer takes our focus off of ourselves, we become less concerned with our own comfort and more concerned with the glory of God. That's what should be happening as we pray together. And you see, a church where this kind of prayer is taking place is a church that is fit and ready to be used by God to do his will and to do his work. And we need to keep praying that God would make us that kind of church and that we would have this kind of dedication to kingdom, God-focused prayer together as the body of Christ. Well, there's a third and final thing. And I want you to think about that these early Christians were committed to. They were committed to obedience. They were committed to prayer. And lastly, they were committed to unity. They were committed to unity. I think this is one of the most striking thing about these verses. The unity we see here in the church, which is often so lacking in the church today. It says that they were all of one accord. They were unified in their obedience, they were unified in prayer, they were even unified in choosing someone to fill the office of Judas. It was actually their togetherness, their unity that made them ready for the coming of the Spirit. And this might be the thing that we need to think about the most this morning out of everything that I put before you. This is the thing that maybe should be the most convicting to us as the church in our day. Michael Green, He writes this in his book on Acts. He says, in the West, we have long been bedeviled by individualism and disunity. People leave churches, whole congregations split up because of a change in the church furniture or some equally trivial reason. It sounds silly. It would almost be silly if it weren't so true. It's so often division is created in the church over matters that are of little significance. And he goes on to say this, that most Christians are not even bothered by the divided state of the church. Think about that. We get so used to disunity that we don't even desire unity in the way that we should. He goes on to say that we tend to think that it's sufficient to have spiritual unity, which means little more than being amiable towards other believers. Think about it. We can be so used to disunity in the church that we set the bar so low. We think unity is just being nice to one another on Sunday, smiling when we get together, but that's not the picture of unity that we see in the church. It's something far deeper than this, a fellowship. a unity of vision, a sharing in life together that enables us to bring glory to God as his corporate people. Michael Green sums it up all this way, he says, God cannot bless disunity and he will not. Think about that. God cannot bless disunity and he will not. In fact, in many ways, What he's saying is we get used to disunity. We don't think it's such a serious thing, but God does. God does. And brothers and sisters, if this is true, then you know what this means for us. We need to be doing everything in our power as Christians to maintain the peace and the unity of the church. This is our calling in scripture. We are all sinners. And what this means is that we are masters at destroying unity. This is what we are as sinners. We just need to acknowledge it. We are masters at creating division. and dissension in our relationships. We do this in our marriages, we do this in our families, and we do this in the church. But if this is true, if this is our struggle that we have as sinners, this means that in the church we have to be more intentional about loving each other, about overlooking offenses, about forgiving our brothers and sisters in Christ, and assuming the best of them instead of assuming the worst. How often is it that someone has said something to you, or you've heard something about somebody, and you have assumed the worst of them, instead of assuming that they didn't mean it that way, that they didn't intend to hurt anybody, and that you've taken offense only later to realize that it wasn't their intention at all? These are the things we've got to make a priority, overlooking offenses, forgiving each other, assuming the best of people instead of the worst. And we've got to do this because just as disobedience is one of the most detrimental things to our witness to the world, our disunity is equally detrimental. Why would people want to come from the outside to join the church if we can't even get along as brothers and sisters in Christ? But you see, the opposite is also true. It's our unity in Christ. When we're able to live as brothers and sisters in Christ, to love one another, to forgive one another, to be reconciled over even things that happen between us, when we're able to do this, it's our unity in Christ more than anything else. that has a powerful effect on the world around us that is so divided. Think about it. Our world is divided today more than ever before by class, by political party, by race, by ethnicity. When we as the church can demonstrate unity across those same lines, right, different backgrounds, people from different nations and ethnicity, when we can all be working together, loving each other, and working together to be witnesses for Christ, this is a powerful witness to the world. around us. It's our unity that actually makes us fit and ready to be used by Christ to do his will and to make disciples of the nations. Brothers and sisters, what I hope you see in all of this, everything we've looked at this morning, is an inspiring vision of what God calls us to be as the church by his grace. Think about this. God chose us, and he redeemed us in Christ, not because of anything in us. That's the amazing message of the gospel. You are here today. You are included in the church of Jesus Christ. Not because you deserved it, not because of anything in you, but because of the grace of God. And think about it, God did this so that we would be the church. So that we would be the church, not just so that we would do church. God redeemed us so that we would be the church, so that we would represent Christ in the world, so that we would be his witnesses, and by this bring glory to our great God. And as I close this morning, if we put all of this together, everything that we've thought about this morning, the two parts of my message, what this passage teaches us about God's work, what's important to him, what it teaches us about the priorities of these early Christians, if we put all of this together, this is what I want you to think about. If the church is so important to God, if it has always been his intention to be glorified in his church, and if this is seen in the fact that he used the testimony of Christ's apostles to be the foundation of the church, to establish this worldwide church that was always God's intention to establish, and if he sent Christ to rise victorious over the grave so that we could have new life because God loves the church. Brothers and sisters, if this is true, then we should love the Church as well. The Church should be as important to us as it is to God. And not just the doctrine of the Church, but the life of the Church, and the fellowship of the Church, and the witness of the Church, and the mission of the Church. And you see, if we view the Church in this way, if we view the Church as important as God views the Church, you see, naturally, we will be concerned with its obedience, and with its prayer life, and with its unity. This is what was true of these early Christians. They understood this was God's purpose to establish the church. They had this privileged position to be his representatives in the world that God loved the church. And this led them, you see, to be concerned with obedience, prayer, unity. And you see, if we're concerned with these things as the early Christians were, then we will also, like them, be prepared and fit to be used by God by the power of the Spirit. I said this earlier, and I'll close with this this morning. We all want Christ to build his kingdom in our day. As I said, I hear more of you praying along those lines, and it's been a great encouragement to me. I think God is leading us as the church to be more dedicated to pray that we would see the growth of God's kingdom in our day and that God would use us in this. This is what we need to think about based on what this passage teaches us. If we want to see this happen, We've got to see the Church as Christ, as God sees it. We've got to recognize the importance of the Church, the life of the Church, the fellowship of the Church, the unity of the Church, the mission of the Church, and we've got to have the priorities that these early Christians had. We can't expect God to bless us. and to see the spirits work among us if we don't have the same priorities that they had. You could sum it all up with the words that this fellow pastor of mine said. We've got to be the church. We can't just be doing church. That's what's going on in our day. So many people are just doing church. They spend a couple hours a week, that's all they do. They go and kind of do church like they do other activities, like they do work, like they do entertainment, they do church. We can't just be doing church. We have to be the church. That's what God is calling us to be. That's how he's going to be glorified in our midst. Let's go before the Lord in prayer.