So Acts chapter 1, starting in verse 12. It says, then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas, the son of James. All these, with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer. together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, the 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, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language, Akldama, that is, the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office. 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 until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. And they put forward to Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, you, Lord, know the hearts of all. Show which one of these two you have chosen. to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from Judas, which turned aside to go to his own place. And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And let's pray. God, I pray that you would speak in your word and through the preaching of your word that your Holy Spirit in us would help us to see and understand the truth, to love it, and to live by it. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus is building a house. In one sense, I mean Jesus is building a household. So by faith, we are adopted into God's family. We have brothers and sisters. We're the bride of Christ. Even what we see here, 120 people, men and women, gathered together in Jesus' name. It's a household. In another sense, Jesus is building a house with a foundation and walls. Now that's a metaphor. It's a picture of what Jesus is doing with us. He is literally creating an eternal dwelling place for God with us. So as you read the New Testament, you'll get very comfortable with the language of building and dwelling and foundations that speak to deeper truths about our relationship with God. So, let's roll with that metaphor. Think about a building and its foundation. Have you ever seen a house get built? Some of you have probably done this and actually done the work of laying the foundation and building on top of it. You can think about it. Hopefully you can picture it. On the bottom, you have the foundation, usually made of concrete, maybe in older times, stone, maybe now metal beams. These are the materials of a foundation. Materials of a foundation. Now, one of the things that makes the foundation distinct from the rest of the building is oftentimes the materials. The materials change as you go up. You might lay a foundation of concrete and then build a house out of wood, or bricks, or decorative stone, or even metal sheeting. So the materials of the foundation are intended as the beginnings, sure and strong, but they end. I know that's not true for every building, but you get the picture. The materials are for the beginnings. Of course, foundations of buildings are not all about the materials. Foundations serve as a guide for the rest of the building. So if you see a foundation that is laid somewhere, it says something. It says, this is where the building goes. Or more specifically, I got to watch the house that my parents lived in, I lived in most of my childhood, be built when I was a little guy. And it was fun to see the foundation and think, this is where the kitchen goes. And this is where the bedrooms go. See it from the foundation. The foundation says something. It lays down a pattern for the builders to build on. So hold those two categories in your mind. We talk about foundations, materials and patterns. The book of Acts is something of a foundation of all that Jesus continues to do right up to this day in building the church. And there are materials and there are patterns. So when you think of materials, there are things in the book of Acts that belong to the beginning, to the foundation. They're not carried forward. For instance, Peter here is choosing, in the section of chapter 1, they're choosing an apostle And even if you wanted to take the principle forward of spiritual leadership in the church, the qualification that Peter gives is impossible for us to meet. There are no longer any eyewitnesses of Jesus's life from his baptism to his ascension alive. They're all gone. So if we were to take that and say, well, every Christian leader must meet that qualification, well, that would be impossible. So that's something that belongs to the beginning of the church that we don't carry forward. It's part of what I'll call the materials. And there are also many patterns to follow. So there are things that we don't bring forward in the book of Acts, and there's things that we do. Like when Peter in verses 16 through 20 reads and understands and interprets and applies the scripture, we still do that, right? We can carry that forward. So our task in studying the Book of Acts is to determine what parts of the foundation are materials and we leave at the beginning, we learn from but we don't carry forward, and which parts are patterns that we do continue to follow. Most of the time it's easy to tell which is which. We're going to see this a lot in the Book of Acts. We'll talk about it in a few different analogies. But we're going to do this exercise today because much of the story that I just read for you is material. Stuff that belongs to the beginning of the church that we don't carry forward. And I'm gonna put that under the heading of what happened. Just gonna look at the story and understand it. But there are patterns here that we'll follow. We'll put that under the heading of how did they get there? Or whatever it says in your notes that I put in the bulletin that's really bad grammar. I fixed that after I printed the bulletin. So how did they get there? Something like that. Because our goal, like if we think about this, if we study the Book of Acts, it's not just a no information that happened back in the day. It is to learn from it so that we can be wise builders in the Kingdom of God. So you have to admit though, the story that I read is a little bit of a strange story. Jesus tells the apostles to wait for the coming of the Spirit. And they're waiting, and while they're waiting, they say, let's pick a replacement for Judas by casting lots, which is roughly the equivalent of flipping a coin or rolling dice. We go, really? That's what they did? Okay. And then we start to pull back and think, why exactly is this here? Did Peter, or not Peter, did Luke just need to fill some space between Jesus' ascension and Pentecost? The answer to that is no, of course. Like all of the scriptures, both Luke, the human writer, and the Holy Spirit, the divine author, have an intention for this story. It's here for a reason, so let's see if we can discern what that is. Read again with me, starting in verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain 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 and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James, all these were with one accord, devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. Now if you were counting along as I read all the names of those men, you would count only 11, from Peter down to Judas the son of James. You say, well wait a second, there used to be 12. There used to be 12 disciples. What happened to Judas? Judas, the son of, or Judas Iscariot, rather. So Judas, what happened to him? Well, you may remember he sold Jesus out. He precipitated the events of Jesus's arrest. And then he took his life. So we have to pull back and say, what are we supposed to do with Judas? That's kind of what Peter's doing too, right? What do we do with this apostate apostle? Well, Peter tells us actually here what we're going to do with Judas. He's out. He forfeited his office. He died in shame. He has no place in the kingdom of God. Peter is giving us a judgment of Judas. Verse 15. In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, and the company of the persons was 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, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field, and with the reward of his wickedness and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language, Akkodama, that is, the field of blood. Now this, the reading of this is a little tricky because verses 18 and 19 are probably Luke's commentary, like it's a parenthesis there. So we're gonna, in a second we'll read verses 7 through 17 and then jump down to 20 and hear Peter's speech. But it's like Luke inserts this little parenthesis so that we know what Peter's referring to. This is the commonly known account of Judas and what happened to him. Now you can actually read the account in the gospel according to Matthew chapter 27 verses 3 to 10, but here's the problem. They don't quite line up. In Matthew, Judas gives the money back to the chief priests and the elders, and they buy the field while Judas hangs himself, which doesn't seem what's described here in the book of Acts. And then it even tells us in Matthew that they called the place the field of blood because it was a burial place for strangers and not because of Judas' entrails. So now the skeptic stands up and says, ha, see, the Bible is full of contradictions. What do we do with that? I was listening to a podcast once, it was a debate between a well-known skeptic, Bart Ehrman, and supposedly a scholar of the New Testament, and this was the exact argument that Bart Ehrman used. How do you reconcile Acts with Matthew? And unfortunately, they got, I don't know, this, I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt, he had a bad day or something. Like, the New Testament scholar did not have an answer. And Bart Ehrman says, see, contradictions. What do we do with this? Well, I would say at least, like, hold tight. Okay, this is one contradiction. See, full of contradictions, you need to show me a few more. And is this really even a contradiction? There are actually a number of very reasonable ways to reconcile these two accounts. For one, the money is attached to Judas, right? So he may not have signed the deed, but the money came from him for the field, right? Passed through the elders. You could also look at this and say there's a number of events that could move from somebody hanging themselves to somebody falling headlong. And I'm going to spare you the details of those. If you're curious, I'm sure you'll do your own research. And of course names, the field of blood, can have all sorts of double meanings. And we think a field of blood for someone's entrails to spill across the field would make it unclean to conscientious Jews, as would a burial place for foreigners. So no matter what the analysis is, the place where Judas died that he purchased with his evil doing is defiled. So that's like really basic reconciliation. And of course, there are people much smarter than me that have gone through far much more detail to reconcile those two passages. So it's really not a contradiction, more one story from two angles. The point though that we'll stick with, because the Bible doesn't contradict itself, is that Peter is showing Judas's death to be both shameful and judgment. In verse 18, Luke calls it the reward of his wickedness. Peter connects Judas's actions to the enemies of God. So when he quotes the scripture here, the first scripture he quotes, may his camp become desolate and that there be none to dwell in it, that comes from Psalm 69. And this is the psalmist, David, in Psalm 69, calling down God's judgment on his enemies. So Peter is making that connection. See, Judas is an enemy of God, here is God's judgment. So just so it helps us, let me read that again, Acts 1, 16 and 17, and then we'll skip Luke's commentary so you can hear Peter's logic. We'll just go down to verse 20. So Peter says, brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas. who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry, for it is written in the book of Psalms, we're in verse 20 now, may his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it. So Peter's commenting on the place of Judas's death and saying that that field of blood is a desolate camp of an enemy of God. Of course, part of the connection that Peter's making is that Psalm 69 has all of these pointers to Jesus. You can go read it later, it's a longer psalm. But we would call Psalm 69 a messianic psalm, just a term that we use for psalms written by David 1,000 years before Jesus was born that have all these prophetic pointers to Christ. So as you read the psalm, you start thinking, is this talking about David or is this talking about Jesus? And in verse 25 of Psalm 69, it is a calling down the judgment of God on the enemies of the king. So Peter's making an evaluation of Judas. He was an enemy of Christ the king. He has killed himself and defiled his camp, and therefore he is out, buried in shame. This is what happens to the enemies of King Jesus. That's Peter's analysis. And just like this is aside, this is not the main point of this passage at all. But that should cause us all to pause for a few minutes and think about what it means to be an enemy of Jesus. You might say, well, I'm not Judas. I wouldn't get that. People you know who don't trust in Jesus and don't believe in Jesus and reject Jesus might say, well, they're not Judas, but they are enemies of Christ. You don't get the option to be indifferent to King Jesus. You either pledge your allegiance of faith or you're judged as his enemy. And we're gonna see this again and again in Acts. The kingdom of Jesus is a real dividing line of humanity. But I also remind you that when Judas turned Jesus over, in the very same scene, Peter denied him three times. And just as God levels his judgment on his enemies, he also applies grace to his enemies. Peter and Judas were both enemies of Jesus the night he was crucified. Judas sought to remove his penalty by giving back the money and taking his own life. Peter sought to remove his penalty by coming to Jesus for his forgiveness and grace. That's why it's spectacular that it's Peter, the denier of Jesus forgiven, who stands up and says, this is what we need to do going forward. Right, so here's the point. Peter says it's necessary that because of Judas's forfeiting of his office that somebody take his place. If you look at the end of verse 23, Acts chapter 1, Peter says, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. And I'm reading from the English Standard Version, and most of your English translations are probably like this. I want you to put your finger on that word, must. One of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. That word must is a very important word in the whole book of Acts. We're gonna see it again and again and again, and what it's telling us is this is the decree of God. This is what God determined must happen. And actually, this isn't always so important, but I think you might find this interesting. In the Greek New Testament, which is the original language, we're translated into English, the word must, that you have your finger on in verse 23, is actually the first word in verse 21. So in the Greek New Testament, the word must is the very first word in verse 21. Our translators put it in verse 23 because it reads better in English, but in Greek, emphasis is communicated by word order. We have to speak in word order for us to make sense, but not so in Greek. So just a little detail, because here's the point, is that the must of this passage is what's most important. The events that are about to take place are decreed by God, planned by God, and must go forward as God has designed. Someone must take Judas's office, which should lead us to say, why? Like, why is it so important that they go from 11 to 12? That's how I'm gonna frame the question is, why must there be 12? Because the number is significant. Why must there be 12? Why do we need to replace Judas? So let's see how we can answer that question from the passage. Peter's first justification is in verse 20. So he quotes first Psalm 69, and then the second little quotation comes from Psalm 109, verse eight. Let another take his office. Another psalm, another messianic psalm about the crucified Messiah and his enemies, and part of the judgment in Psalm 109 is let another take his office. Like let him be removed from his place of power and authority, and another take his seat. So Judas held an official place in the kingdom of God. He was an apostle. You can read about Jesus appointing the apostles in Luke chapter six. This is a specific group commissioned to be eyewitnesses of Jesus and preachers of his resurrection. When Jesus appoints the apostles in Luke chapter six, first he goes and prays. The indication being that when Jesus comes and appoints these 12, it's these 12 that God chose to be the eyewitnesses and preachers. And so with one missing, Peter understands that the foundation of the church is incomplete, right? So just imagine that someone building a foundation of a building, like this building, the foundation's built out of concrete block, right? And they just came up one block short, and they said, well, it'll be okay. I don't know much about building, I just don't think that's gonna be okay. I think you're gonna need that last block. That's exactly the analysis that Peter's making, is wait a second, what's happening with the 12 is foundational to the kingdom of Jesus Christ being built. As a matter of fact, that's the language of the New Testament. You could look briefly over at Ephesians chapter two. There's a very important statement made in Ephesians chapter two, verse 20. And that really is guiding my interpretation of this whole passage. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20. I'll actually pick it up in verse 19. So Ephesians chapter 2, 19 says, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. There's that language. So he's talking about non-Jewish people being united with Jewish people in the kingdom of Jesus. We call that the church, the community of Christians. He says, you are members of the household of God, verse 20, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So all of this indicates to us is that we need the foundation to be complete. Peter understands we need a 12th apostle. And so Peter wisely, back to Acts chapter one, discerns that when an apostle is apostate, another eyewitness needs to take his office. So verse 21 now of Acts chapter 1. 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 until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. So clearly there's lots of people that were eyewitnesses of all those events. We got at least two here. But it seems like Mary and probably others in this whole 120, probably plenty of people that were eyewitnesses of Jesus's entire ministry. It wasn't just the 12. But now they're saying one of these men needs to be an official, takes the office of apostle, an official witness. Right, Jesus said in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, we looked at this last week. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. And I'll remind you again like I did last week and I did at the end of the Gospel of Luke. It is the eyewitness testimony of the apostles. that is our confidence that these events actually happened. So if you're telling a friend of yours the gospel about Jesus and they say, how do we know that he rose from the dead? Here's an easy answer for you. 12 eyewitnesses whose accounts are preserved in the most historically accurate document known to man. The 12 eyewitnesses. How many more do you need? It is that eyewitness testimony of the apostles that you and I are continuing to bring forward and proclaim by looking at the Scripture. The testimony of two people will hold up in court. The testimony of 12 is irrefutable. Right? So we are here not because we saw Jesus with our bare eyes, but because we know 12 people that did and we're continuing to tell what they have told. Okay, but wouldn't 11 do? I mean, 11 eyewitnesses is also irrefutable, isn't it? Why does there have to be 12? It must be that there has to be 12, because two good candidates are put forward, and I know today, because we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, we'd say, well, let's just make them co-apostles. No, there can be only one. Acts chapter 1 verse 23, they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, Lord, you know the hearts of all. Show which one of these two you have chosen. It's God's choice. In verse 25, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. It's got to be 12. And we need God to choose the 12th. So why 12? Well, first, that number makes an important connection from the Old Testament to the New. Or we might say the Old Covenant to the New. Just remember the word testament and covenant mean the same thing. The way God worked with Israel in the past, and the way God works in the present through Jesus. There's a connection here. Because the kingdom of Israel had 12 tribes. The 12 tribes of Israel. And so, 12 apostles build an important bridge between the old and the new. And actually this is not random, this is what Jesus intended. So I'll just point you to Luke chapter 22. Jesus is talking to his apostles, and listen to what Jesus says. I'll read this for you. This is Luke 22, 28. He says, you are those who have stayed with me in my trials. Speaking to this group of 12. And I assigned to you, as my father assigned to me, a kingdom. We're talking about the kingdom of Jesus. So that you may eat and drink at my table. in my kingdom and sit, now here's the important connection, to the apostles, the 12 apostles, you are to sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. 12 tribes judged by 12 apostles. Peter's saying, we need to fill the empty seat. The kingdom of God that comes with Jesus requires 12 apostles to judge the 12 tribes. So this is very much a passing of the baton. from the old covenant Israel to the new covenant kingdom of Jesus Christ. This is an important, I call it a bridge, a passing of a time. However you want to think about it, this is where it fades from this color to this color. Jesus is showing the kingdom of Jesus Christ has now been established in his resurrection. Now we need 12 apostles to sit on those 12 thrones. As a matter of fact, those 12 apostles become 12 foundations or 12 parts of a foundation. This all anticipates the final form of God's kingdom. Now for this you need to turn over to Revelation 21. Revelation 21 is a description of the end. The new heavens and the new earth where we dwell with God forever. The final house of God built for the dwelling of Christ and his bride, the church. So this is Revelation 21, 9 through 14. Revelation 21, 9 through 14, then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. This is all John's vision of what we call heaven, the new heavens and the new earth. And verse 10, he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with 12 gates. And at the gates, 12 angels. And on the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. And it's almost as if when you appoint Matthias, you're etching that 12th name on the foundation of heaven. With the appointing of Matthias, this marks the beginning of the end. This is the building of the community of Christians, the bride of Christ, that will dwell in the presence of God as a new eternal city forever. This is our beginning. No Matthias, no church, no kingdom, no heaven. I mean, that seems like a bold thing to say, right? But are you starting to see that this passage is so significant? There must be a 12 Apostle because this is what God has determined and how God is building the kingdom of Jesus. So, verse 26, they cast lots. This is, sorry, back to Acts chapter 1. They cast lots for them, Joseph and Matthias, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the 11 Apostles. And you say, well, he did what now? They cast lots. Yes, yes. This is also an important Old Testament to New Testament connection. Because casting lots was a God-ordained way that the nation of Israel determined what God's direction was. There's bunches of references you could read in the Old Testament to find this. You pray, you roll the dice, that's maybe how we would say it. Casting lots, drawing stones out of a bag, there's all sorts of ways they would do it. And that's God's decision. That's how it worked in the Old Testament. But what's fascinating is this is the last time we ever hear the apostles use this method, which tells me this is part of the material of the foundation. It's not a pattern they set forth. When we sit down to choose somebody for a position in the church of leadership and authority, we don't flip coins, we don't roll dice, we don't cast lots. That belonged to the beginning. It's not the pattern that we need to follow. And actually, so much of this story is material. Like, think about that. What do you see here in verses 12 through 26 of Acts chapter one that is a pattern that we follow today? This is actually the only time in the book of Acts that we're going to see an apostle replaced. We will see another apostle die in Acts chapter 12. James dies and no successor is sought. That's because the office of the 12 is the foundation, which is what we read about that in Revelation. James doesn't need to be replaced. He served his purpose faithfully. So the office of apostle is the stuff of the beginning. It's not a pattern that we follow. The office of apostle is finished. It's complete. The foundation is laid. Now we look for the patterns to follow. So it's important to say this because in our day, many people claim to be apostles. He's actually a scholar of sorts who back in the early 2000s declared that we are in a new apostolic reformation, an age, right? That God was going to once again put out a whole bunch of apostles into the world and it doesn't take long on the internet to find one. As a matter of fact, you can become one for a fee. I know somebody who did. I would never pay money for that piece of paper. But, the point being is that people will say, I'm an apostle, like the apostles of the New Testament, to which you can now confidently say, no way. No way. Those are false apostles because the foundation has been set. Twelve, that was the number. Peter knew it. Joseph, probably a great guy. Probably a faithful Christian. He just wasn't one of the twelve, and that's fine. The foundation is set. So which we would pull back then and say, okay, is there anything in the story that's a pattern for us to follow? Or is this just like good history, good theology, nerdy sorts of things that I find really fun, like good things to know, but like what's here that we need to follow and obey? Is there anything? And the answer is yes. It's a very important pattern that we need to follow. Pay attention to how they got there. Matthias is chosen by God in answer to the prayers of his people, which are informed by scripture. I'm gonna say that again, because this is the pattern that we need to follow. Matthias is chosen by God in answer to the prayers of his people, which are informed by the scripture. This is the pattern that the church has followed from the beginning right up to this day. We seek God's will and God's ways from God's guidance in the word and in prayer. Word and prayer, word and prayer, over and over. You're gonna see a lot in the book of Acts, and hopefully that's what we still do today. So Peter's leadership here arises out of the careful study of the Bible. The Old Testament scriptures, he starts analyzing Judas through the lens of Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 is his guidance on what to do next. Even the casting of lots, right? They say, how are we going to decide this? Well, we know one way that God gave for us to determine what is his decision. It's the casting of the lots, right? Proverbs 16, 33, the lot is cast into the lap. but it's every decision is from the Lord. So all of these are pointers that Peter and these apostles made this decision because of what the scripture said. And brothers and sisters, the best way to understand your life as a Christian and our life as a church is through the lens of the scriptures. This is where God tells us who he is. and who we are, and why he made us, and what he wants us to do. The Bible will analyze the depths of your heart, both your rebellious inclinations and your holy desires, because God knows us better than we know ourselves, and he has given us his word so that we can know both him and ourselves better. And he also guides us with truth from the word. The Bible is filled with all sorts of commands to obey and wisdom to heed and promises to trust. So if we want to be wise builders in the kingdom of God, we build on the word of God. So kids, maybe you remember the story about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand. Have you heard this one, kids? What happens when the rain falls? The house on the sand goes splash. If you don't know the song, just let me know later and I'll teach it to you. It's a fun little song. The house on the sand goes splash, it falls down. And the house that was built on the rock holds fast. And when Jesus gave that story in the book of Matthew, he says, the one who hears my words and does them is like a man who built his house on a rock. on a good foundation. Jesus is the one, or sorry, sorry, this then leads us to ask, in all of our lives, what does God's word say about this? So if you're facing a hard decision in your life, what does God's word say? If you feel sick or tired or lonely or anxious, it's what does God's word say? If you're prospering and thriving in your life, what does God's Word say about this? If you're unsure how to resolve a conflict, what does God's Word say? If you're trying to figure out how to live out the later years of your life until death, what does God's Word say? And 100,000 other examples. Now, if you hear that question, I need to be asking, what does God's Word say? And you first say, it's a big book, and I don't know my way around it well. Take heart. It is a big book, and it does take some time to learn how to get your way around it. But seeking the will of God in his word is not something you have to do by yourself. It is the foundation of the church, the community of Christians. Which means when you ask the question, what does God's word say? It's not always just you and your Bible trying to figure it out. It's really you bringing it to your brothers and sisters in Christ and saying, help me see what God has said about my life circumstance. So I think a wonderful blessing of our church is that so many of you know the Bible really well, right? So it shouldn't take you long if you go, oh, I don't know what God's word says about my circumstance, is you can find somebody who can help you. That's why we're here for each other. That's why we're here. So ask for help. All right, so that's the pattern. That's the pattern we follow, seeking God's will according to the scripture. Now I start with that seeking God's will in the scripture in part because that's kind of where Peter seems to start, but I also think because the scriptures are the crucial connection between a decision and prayer. So I wonder if sometimes you are faced with a circumstance or a decision or a trial and you pray about it, but you don't look at the scripture. And prayer that's disconnected from the truth is not a pathway to God's will. But if you seek God's will through prayer with an open Bible and a heart that says, God, tell me what you say about this, then you're following a pattern that has proven true for Christians for 2,000 years. Like God gave us his word for our good, not just to be something that we hold up as a religious book, but also as a guide to every little thing in our lives. So we read and we pray. Word and prayer, that's the pattern we follow. So let's talk about prayer. Remember, again, I want you to look there at Acts chapter one, verse 14. So let me help you understand a little bit of the timeline here. Jesus told the apostles to wait, to witness, until the Spirit comes. So the Spirit comes at Pentecost, we read in chapter 2 verse 1, and here's the timeline. Jesus is crucified during the Passover celebration, Israel's great holiday and feast. Pentecost is 50 days after Passover, that's what the word Pentecost means, 50 days after. It's 50 days after Passover. Acts chapter one told us that Jesus ascended after 40 days. So you've got death, resurrection, 40 days, ascension, and then Pentecost, which means the apostles had, we'll call it seven to 10 days to wait for the Holy Spirit. What did they do in those seven to 10 days? Verse 14 tells us, Acts chapter one, verse 14, all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. They were devoted to prayer. What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? Do you picture the apostles and Mary and the brothers and the whole crew like kind of starting their day off with a little 30 second prayer and then going about their business? I don't. To be devoted to prayer, or devoted to anything, is to do something persistently until it becomes characteristic of you. To do something persistently until it becomes characteristic of you. Right? So if you, here in a few months, the calendar will turn over to January 1st, and people who go exercise at gyms, I'm not one of those people, will tell me that the gyms will get busy. Right? People will come in to exercise and get right New Year's resolution. That's great. But they're not really devoted to the gym. The person devoted to the gym is the person who's there on October 15th and October 16th and October 17th. And their pattern, their persistence in that habit becomes characteristic of them. Right? Now take that to prayer. The first example we have is Jesus. Jesus is devoted to prayer. There's a scene in Luke chapter 11 where Jesus is praying, and then the disciples say, Jesus, could you teach us how to pray? Why did they ask? Because it was characteristic of him. It was his habit, and its effect was, that man is devoted to prayer, and he can teach me. Devotion then to prayer becomes the pattern of the early Christians. So you're in Acts chapter one, you could peek over at Acts chapter two, verse 42. It's a little summary statement of what did the first Christians do? What was the church characterized by? Acts chapter two, verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Persistently praying until it became characteristic of who they were. And as the early church grows and the ministry needs grow, we get over to Acts chapter six and there's people that aren't getting help, who need help, because there's so many people. And they go to the apostles and say, we need to solve this problem. And they say, appoint for yourselves seven men of good reputation to care for this need. And here's why. Acts chapter six, verse four, Peter says, the apostles say, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Friends, this is the pattern that we can learn from Acts chapter one, to be devoted to prayer. So how do we do it? How do you become a person devoted to prayer? How do we become a church devoted to prayer? Well, first, we must pray according to the scripture. Pray informed by the scriptures. We try to model this for you every week when we gather on the Lord's Day. Our opening prayer of confession and assurance and preparation for worship follows a passage of scripture. Today it was Ephesians chapter two. Our congregational prayer follows a passage of scripture. Sometimes we pray God's words back to him. We often do a repetition, right, where we actually literally just pray a psalm out loud to God. Other times, like I did today, we read the scripture and pray in light of the truth. You can do that on your own. Like the scriptures are here from God as a guide to help you be persistent in prayer. 150 psalms. Pray one a day, you'll get through all the psalms twice in a year. It's a challenge. I don't do that. I get like through the psalms once a year. So there are great passages of scripture to lead you in prayer. We learn to be persistent in prayer by praying the scriptures. And if you want some help, I can pass on some resources to you that I find helpful. So second way that you become devoted to prayer is you must pray persistently or habitually until it becomes who you are. So suppose that you decided that to be a person of prayer, once a year, you were gonna devote yourself to a 24-hour prayer vigil. You were gonna turn off your phone, go to a quiet place. You were gonna fast and seek the Lord for 24 hours, which I think would be a great thing to do. I'm not disparaging that at all. It'd be a wonderful challenge and practice to really spend devoted time to God. But what if instead you also spent five minutes each day in quiet, focused prayer? Which one of those is more characteristic of devotion? 24 hours once a year or five minutes a day? Well, it's the pattern, it's the habit that adds up to devotion. As a matter of fact, five minutes a day for a year is more than 30 hours of prayer if we're just comparing numbers. So you must learn to pray habitually and persistently. Find a consistent time and place of prayer and build a devotion. And third, so you become devoted to prayer by praying according to the scripture praying habitually, persistently, and third, by praying together. Notice in verse 14 of Acts chapter 1, all these with one accord, such an interesting phrase, means one mind, with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer. Why do we gather together each week, church? I asked the kids that question last week. I don't expect you to remember the answer, but kids, I showed you last week that the reason we come to church is to meet with Jesus. Well, Jesus speaks to us in his word and we speak to him in prayer. We come to church to pray together. So yes, prayer is led here. Somebody comes up and leads us through prayer. But the idea is that we would all join together in one voice. This is why, as a church, we set out a significant chunk of time for prayer. Because we don't want prayer just to be the transition between songs and sermons. Prayer is our worship to God. So don't let your mind wander. Pray along. That's why we even put a piece of paper in front of you that says, hey, we're thinking about how we're going to pray this week. Pray with us. There's an interesting passage in Romans chapter 15 that describes this praying together. You want to learn to be devoted to prayer. Yes, there could be this five-minute habitual pattern that you make. I hope even as time goes that would grow even more and more time that you're able to spend with God in prayer. You're also learning to be devoted to God by praying with other Christians. Listen to what Romans chapter 15 verse 5 says. It says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like that's why we pray together. So that with one voice we can glorify our Lord Jesus. This Romans passage really brings this together. It's not simply that we pray together, it's that when we gather to pray, we are praying in accord with Jesus for his glory. Now I remind you that in the book of Acts, Luke tells us what his purpose is in writing it. Back in Acts chapter 1 verse 1, he said this is his first book, which we call the Gospel according to Luke, is all that Jesus began to do. With the implication that the book of Acts, book 2, is all that Jesus is continuing to do. So Jesus is building his kingdom and his citizens devote ourselves to prayer because that is characteristic of the kingdom of Jesus. It's where we gather together with Jesus to glorify Jesus. Another reason we pray is to communicate that we are entirely dependent on King Jesus for all the big things and the little things. We're dependent on Jesus for our eternal salvation, and we're dependent on Jesus for picking the twelfth apostle, and everything in between. Prayer is our language. It's who we are. So think of it like this. You first come to Jesus because you are dependent on him for your salvation. That's the biggest, big thing that you're dependent on Jesus for. For the forgiveness of your sins, to reconcile you to God, to make peace between yourself and God and others, to save you from sin and death and hell and the devil. Like, faith in Jesus, being a Christian, is the admission that you can't save yourself. You're dependent on him, which is why faith typically begins with prayer. When someone says, I'm not a Christian, but I want to put my faith in Jesus, we tell them, pray, call out to God, confess your sins, ask for his salvation. He gives it freely. But as Christians, we also know that's not the material of the Christian life that we leave behind. Prayer is the pattern of the Christian life that we continually follow. We trust King Jesus to save us, and we trust King Jesus to instruct us, and guide us, and protect us, and provide for us. And so our lives as Christians, like they were from the very beginning, are characterized by word and prayer. We listen to Jesus in the scripture, we talk to him in prayer, and that's how we build the kingdom of God. It's amazing. We don't need eyewitness apostles walking among us. I think that, wouldn't that be just great? If like Bartholomew was here and he could tell us everything that he saw? I guess. We don't need that though. And we don't need to cast lots either. Try to guess what God's will is. Those things belong to the foundation. But what the foundation also tells us is what we have is sufficient. It's good and it's useful. listen to the Word of God, be devoted to prayer. So, let's pray. God, I pray that Crossroads Bible Church would be a church that's characterized by the Word and prayer, and I pray that for so many other churches. God, there are many dear brothers and sisters in our own community and churches that are gathering this morning. Lots of people in Jesus' name have gone somewhere and done something today. God, I pray that you would guide us to be people characterized by the Word and by prayer devoted to King Jesus, both in hearing Him and speaking to Him for His glory. So God, help us to be a people who follow this pattern. In Jesus' name, amen.