April 19, 2026 - The Way: God Comes Where He's Wanted

Join in to hear this week's sermon on Acts 1:12-26 from Dan MacGillivray.

For further information about Fort St John Alliance Church, check out our website fsjalliance.ca

Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the Way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week, we gather as a community to worship, learn from God’s Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the Fourth of John Alliance Sermon Podcast. I'm Nick Perry, the youth pastor here at the church. We're so glad you've joined us today. Our desire as a church is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we live on a mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week we gather as a community to worship and learn from God's Word and to be encouraged in our walk with Christ. In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service. Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St. John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith. And let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And so we are in Acts chapter 1, verses 12 through 26. So the word of the Lord says this. In those days Peter stood up among the believers, a group numbering about a hundred and twenty, and said, Brothers and sisters, the scripture had to be fulfilled, in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number and shared in our ministry. With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field. There he fell headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, and so they called that field, in their language, Echadelma, and this is the field of blood. For said Peter, it is written in the book of Psalms, may his place be deserted, let there be no one to dwell in it, and may another take his place of leadership. Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. So they nominated two men, Joseph called Bar Sabbath, also known as Justice, and Matthias. Then they prayed, Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs. Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was added to the eleven apostles. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

It's good to be with you all this morning. I love seeing your faces. It's it's so cheery. You guys are great. Just love being a part of this church family and all that the Lord's doing in these days. Um if you have your Bible, I want to encourage you to turn to Acts chapter one. We're gonna dive right in here pretty quick. Uh, we're gonna start in verse 12, just where we were uh in the passage there. Uh we are in our second week of our series on the book of Acts. And we are looking at what it means for us to be the church in this cultural moment. Uh, it is, you know, like I said last week, I actually feel like this book is one of the most important books for the church to really dive headlong in in this moment of time, that we would look back to see who we were, and that Jesus is inviting us to be something now that's greater than maybe what we think it is. And so uh I am just so excited to go through this with you. I have a story here just to start us off with. In the 1850s, in the uh United States, it was a weak spiritual time. People were way too concerned with what they had, all of their things stuff. It was a time of apathy in the mid-1800s. But in 1857, a quiet 46-year-old businessman named uh Jeremiah Lampier felt led to sort of noontime weekly meeting of prayer in the heart of uh New York City, where all kinds of business people could meet for prayer. This was his idea. Anyone could attend for a few minutes or for the entire hour. On the first day that they had the prayer meeting, Jeremiah stood alone for half an hour in the room. But by the end of the hour, six men from at least four other churches showed up and joined him. Twenty came the next week, 40 after that. Soon they decided to meet daily, and the group swelled to over a hundred in the heart of New York City. Pastors who came started morning prayer meetings of their own in their own churches. Soon similar meetings were being held all over America. It was just spreading out all over the place. Within six months, there were more than 10,000 meetings daily in New York City alone for prayer. This was the start of what has now been called the Great Awakening in North America. It is estimated that in a two-year period since the start of that prayer meeting, that two million people were led to Christ during that time. Let me ask you a question this morning. Excuse me. Out of everything going on in your life right now, and I know you have lots, but out of everything going on, how much do you actually want to join Jesus in what he's doing? Okay, let me ask it again. How much do you actually want to join Jesus in what he's actually doing in what he's doing? Because when you hear that story, it's kind of striking, isn't it? Like it kind of like, wow, that's a lot of people. There was no strategy at the beginning, there wasn't a platform. It was just a guy and a room and a willingness to make space for God. That's how that started. And it makes me wonder, what if the difference isn't that God moved more back then? Because we hear lots of those kinds of stories, and we think, man, he did a lot of stuff like that back then. What if it's not he did more of that then? But what if it's that the people wanted to see God move more? What if it started more with them and their heart desire to see God move? Because if we're honest, our lives are full, aren't they? Like that sounds like a big task, what eventually that all came to be. We have a lot of things pulling at our attention, success, money, comfort, constant distraction. We're being shaped every day to scroll, to consume, to stay half-present in every moment of the day because we're too distracted with our lives around us. And none of this stuff is necessarily bad at all, but it doesn't take much for those things, those good gifts sometimes that God has given us to become the things that we want most, to become the things that we desire more than anything else. And then what and and when that happens, we don't usually reject God outright when those things start to crowd in. We just slowly stop making space for him. We just slowly move away from the things he wants to the things that we want. We slowly fade to a place where we are not near as concerned about what Jesus wants. And over time that affects more than just us personally, but it also affects the church. It affects us altogether. We can be busy in the church, we can be active, we can be doing good things, but still feel spiritually thin. Like something's missing. Here's the reality: it's a quote from uh John Tyson. God comes where he's wanted. God comes where he's wanted. All throughout church history, we have seen a familiar story of God giving his people this burden to pray, this burden to see him move, to seek his face, to consecrate themselves, meaning to give over all of your life in every area, in every space. And as a result, they would see God move. Because time and time again, God shows up where he is wanted. He comes when the church says, God, we want you here. He shows up. And what if this morning God just wants to stir a hope in you that the church can be this way? This hope that he is not done moving, that he's still in the business of changing lives, restoring people, moving in real ways. What if in this cultural moment where the church feels like it is being pushed to the margins, don't we? And we feel like our voice isn't there, we feel like we don't know where we fit anymore. What if Jesus is actually inviting us back to something simple and powerful that we might begin to pray all the more? God, we want you here. We desire you here. Now I know in a room like this there's all kinds of just, I mean, ages and stages of faith, but let me start with those who have been walking with Jesus for a while, if that's how you see yourself this morning. My prayer for you is that you would be reawakened this morning to the invitation from Jesus. That you would have this deeper longing to see God move in our time, that you wouldn't just believe that it's possible, but that you might begin to really pray like it matters, to really dive in like headlong into these things. Right? Like really pray that God would give you a hunger that outweighs your comfort, your success, that outweighs anything else that you might ever have, that everything else competing for your heart would feel less than, that he would lead you and I into honest confession and real repentance for the ways in which we've been. That the Holy Spirit would come and do what we can't manufacture, what we can't produce on our own, that he would bring healing, freedom, renewed joy, doing more than we could ever possibly ask or imagine. Amen. Don't we want to see God move that way? That together we might become the kind of people who can honestly say with God, with one heartbeat, God, we want you here. And maybe you're here this morning and you are newer to faith. Maybe you're just on the front end of this kind of stuff. You're just kind of here just to explore. Maybe someone invited you this morning. Here is my invitation to you, just lean in. Just lean in, just eavesdrop this morning. Listen in to what Jesus is saying to his church, pay attention. My prayer is that you would begin to catch a glimpse of what life could look like when people actually start to want God's presence above everything else. That you might catch a glimpse of that. And that just maybe Jesus would just start to nudge you towards the invitation into all that he has for you. That you would start to see what happens when people get hungry for God, when they really desire him, when they really want him here, when they press in. And how God meets his people in those moments and uses them in ways that they've never expected. So let's dive in together this morning. Let's have a look at God's word. We're gonna start again in verse 12 here in just a moment. Last week we started our series with two major takeaways, and that is that the Church of Jesus, first and foremost, as we looked at the book of Acts as we started off, that it only moves forward through the power of the Holy Spirit, right? So it's the Spirit that moves the church, not anything that we produce, not anything that we do. The spirit moves the church forward, okay, through ordinary people like you and me. And Jesus' last command to his followers, to be his witnesses, needs to be our first concern, right? So we walked away with those two things, right? That the spirit moves the church, and the last thing that Jesus said needs to be our first concern, right? That we should look to those things. This is the mandate for the church then and the mandate for the church now. This has not changed in all of the views. This is this is the same thing. Can I just tell you, we have not evolved past this. We have not moved past this mandate. This is still true today. This is still the case. But it but in the case of the other church, we see at this point that the Holy Spirit has not yet come, right? That the disciples are living on the other side of the resurrection, but haven't received the Spirit yet. So Jesus says this subtle command of them. He just says, just wait where you are. Wait for the gift of the Spirit. It's gonna come. Just just hang tight, just wait. They are 10 days out from Pentecost when they finally experience the Holy Spirit falling. Jesus has now, he's just, I mean, they've left onto heaven, right? He's ascended there, he's on the throne, and now they are just supposed to wait. But I want us to notice what they are doing in the waiting. They do not waste this. They don't just sit around, they are active in the waiting. It is not passive. And the way they wait and why they wait matters to you and I today. So again in verse 12. They returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were uh uh Peter, John, James, and Andrew, Philip, Thomas, uh Bartholomew and Matthew, James, uh son of Alphaus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas, son of James. Right, so here they are, back in the upper room, back where they were at the last supper room. They are sitting there again, and they are waiting. And Luke, who is the just I mean, writer of this, just I mean a letter, wants us to know. He wants us to be really clear who is in the room right now, who is sitting up there. This is a diverse group of people that we have seen through three, just I mean, years of the ministry of Jesus. They have followed him for all these days here, and they are now on the other side of the resurrection. Fisherman, tax collector, a zealot, a loudmouth, guess who that one is? So many personalities in the room, so many ways in which they approach faith, in which they approach life, different levels of education, life experience, affluence. There is so many different personalities just in that eleven, just in those that are there. Can I just say that the amount of effort that it would take for those guys to get along is intense, actually, because they always see things differently. In fact, we see that all throughout the story of the gospels. They are always thinking differently than one another. And when that happens, you're going to disagree. They bring all their hangups, they bring all of their just convictions, everything. And yet, Jesus chose all of these guys on purpose. They are there for a reason. And he said to them during his time with them that my kingdom, what I'm doing, he says, matters most, not yours. What I am doing matters more than what you are doing. Isn't that significant? That Jesus might say that. So be encouraged. You're in good company when you think about that. So with the idea that God's kingdom matters most, they wait, right? They are waiting. But notice what they are doing in verse 14. It says they all joined together constantly in prayer. That is the descriptor for their 10 days. Constantly in prayer. Here's a better way to put it they were of one mind in prayer. They were focused, they had the same priority. This togetherness that it says speaks of unity and dedication to the last thing that Jesus said. Right? That we are going to hold this. This is what we're all about. Remember, Jesus has just told them before the ascension, wait, because a good thing is coming in the Holy Spirit. And then when the Spirit comes, they would receive power to be witnesses where they live and so on and so forth. It would spread out from there. So they can't do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. Right? They are stuck there. And so here they are for 10 days in this upper room, praying this ancient prayer that has been prayed for centuries in the church with one heart, with one mind. Come, Holy Spirit. That is their heart cry. They want God here. They want Him to show up. That's their desire. It even says in another translation that they devoted themselves to prayer. Meaning, it's not as though that they just sat there and they prayed nonstop. That would be unrealistic. There's other things you have to do. But this idea is that as often as it came to mind, as often as they thought about their mission, what they were to be doing, they would pray. As often as Jesus would spur their heart on, as often as what they were about to do would come to mind, they would pray. They devoted themselves to it. There's something that happens when all of a sudden we say to ourselves, oh, you know what? That's on my mind. What does the Lord want me to do about it? These guys saw that and they said, We're going to pray every time it comes up. Every time we talk about it, every time it's mentioned, we are going to bring it to prayer. Which for them would mean a lot. It's a lot of prayer. But let me ask you this. As you think about their scenario, whose kingdom is on your mind the most? Is it your kingdom or is it God's kingdom? What comes to mind the most? If you track your thoughts for a day, how many times are you thinking about what you want versus what God wants? If you were to write it all down? How much more do you think about what you're going to do when you get home this afternoon? Then you're thinking about what God is even inviting you into in the moment right now. How often do we think about those things? And then how often does thought come out that even when we do think about the things of the kingdom, that we might pause and pray about them? That those things might come up, that we might say, God, I want you here. I want you to move in this situation. I want you to move in this place. I want you to move in my home. How often do we do that? And I'm not here to make anyone feel bad this morning. Don't hear me. Right? Like I am in the same boat as everybody else. Don't think just because I stand here that I don't have thoughts of what's going on in my own life, too. I absolutely do. I'm not here to make anyone feel bad. But the answer to those questions matter though, don't they? Like it's important for us to wrestle these things out as a church. They are indicators of what is going on inside. There's something that we have to notice, right? When it's all about what we want, shouldn't that send a flag? Of like, man, what is going on internally that Jesus wants to wrestle out with me? What is happening? These are indicators that we need to pay attention to.

unknown 19:01

Right?

SPEAKER_02 19:01

You know, I have not arrived yet either. There are days when my agenda comes first. I feel the same tension that everybody else feels. But just like you, Jesus is inviting me in too. He's inviting all of us to become people who get on his agenda above our own. He's inviting us in. But it's not just these 11 guys in the room. We're going to look at see who else was in the room in verse 14, right? So we see all these guys there, they're there, they're praying continuously. And it says, along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. So it's not just the 11 guys, but Luke says the women were there too, meaning, meaning uh probably uh uh, excuse me, uh Mary Magdalene and uh Joanna were also probably there, possibly some other women too, who have been a part of Jesus' earthly ministry during this time. And Luke is wanting us to understand something in mentioning them. I actually think this is deeply significant for the church to get its head around. This is important. That Luke wants us to understand the diversity in the church and that God is breaking all normal cultural practices of what was once held. You see, before this, in the Jewish temple practice, men and women were separate. Did you know that? They didn't meet in the same court for prayer or worship or anything. They were can, in fact, they were kept completely separate. They would have their own courts. The women would stand behind the men's court that had this big wall and the door in front of it, and they were not permitted to go through the door. The men were closer to the altar. Right? So the men could go through it, but the women couldn't. In essence, the men were allowed to be closer to the presence of God. The women had to stand back further. That was the idea. But Jesus radically changes as though through his death and resurrection, there is no more wall, there's no more veil, there's nothing that's separating us from him and his presence anymore. No matter your gender, your race, your ethnicity, everyone now has equal footing to approach the throne of grace. That's the beautiful picture that's being painted in the upper room. That everybody has access, everybody's included. We all have the same access now. Even now, we are carrying on that same early church tradition in this space. Everybody is on equal footing. There isn't a back room that we're keeping people in. Everybody has access. That's how it looks. We meet together, we pray together, we learn together, we practice the way of Jesus together, no matter where you're from, no matter who you are. That's the invitation in. Some of those holding this idea that the women, though, in this moment, I read this before, must have been in a separate room because there's no way the disciples would allow that in this space, right? And so we're not reading it correctly. They must have been separate, that they still would have honored what was going on in the temple. But can I just give a little bit of a hermeneutic? Meaning, you know, how to how to read the Bible, kind of a tip or principle here. Right? And we're gonna come back to this a lot all throughout the series, right? So this is important just to remember. The Bible can't mean for us what it didn't mean for them. Right? So, meaning, whatever we think it is based on our agenda, based on our biases, it can't mean for us what it didn't mean for the original, those who were there to hear it and write it. It is not that case. In other words, when we come to the Bible, we can't read it thinking, based on my preference, based on what I want it to say, based on what I think it should be. This is what it should say. We don't have that right. We approach the word for what it is. We take it for what it is. We have to lay all that down and we dig into the word. We have to mine it. You have to understand the context, understand the bigger picture. This is gonna be important as we keep going all throughout this book because we have to understand that they lived 2,000 years ago, different time, right? We have to understand that how we read it is gonna be felt a little bit differently. But we have to read it not with our own lens, but with the lens of Jesus. So now think about this though for a moment, right? So the men and women are there together. Luke even mentions Jesus' mother Mary is in the room. She is now witness to the birth of the church. What a beautiful picture for her, right? She gets to be there for these incredible moments of birth. But also Jesus' brothers are in the room who doubted and actually didn't believe that Jesus was who he says he was. Can you imagine that? Right? That his own brothers were like, uh, nope, it's not I, that's not who you are. But now they're in the room. They're following Jesus, they are part of the early church, and they are with everybody else. And what are they doing? They are praying. They're inviting Jesus and Holy Spirit come. This is their prayer. Waiting for this big moment when God would pour out his spirit on men, on women, regardless of age, stage, race, ethnicity, all of these things. They are waiting for God to move and it begins with prayer. This is how they see the movement of the church starting. Here's a quote from a man by the name of uh Matthew Henry. When God wants to do something special in the world, he first gets his people to start praying. This is where it begins. It begins always in prayer. Not in a program, not in an idea, it begins in prayer. Let me ask you this question. What might God do in our time if we began to pray with one heart? Holy Spirit come? What would we see happen? If the church was focused on seeing God move, that we would see revival even break out, which doesn't mean everyone in this room would only grow in their faith, but it would break out into the streets, actually. That's revival. That's what we see time and time again. That Jesus would take our eyes off of everything else but him and his kingdom. What might happen if we did that? That he would burden us to pray, that you would feel it so strong in your soul that you just could not help but bring every moment of thought about him to prayer, trusting that Jesus is going to use that to launch his kingdom further. What if we grabbed a hold of that and we did that? You know, I've said this before, when it comes to prayer, it is the celery of spiritual practices, isn't it? We know it's good for us. We know we ought to, but it feels like the most least exciting thing on the plate when it comes to our walk with Jesus. Can I just lovingly challenge you to stop seeing prayer as a last resort and start seeing it as a first response? To stop seeing prayer as that thing you come to when you're at the end of your rope and you start at the beginning of your rope instead? Right? That it's not the last thing you do, but the first thing you do. Can I just lovingly challenge you that way? If the Holy Spirit is the fire, if he's the fire that ignites, that ignites the church, then prayer is the fuel. Above any program we create or building we construct, a move of God begins with a burden for his church to pray. This is where it begins. This is where it starts. We see this, this is where it starts. People from every age stage of life to pray. This is the idea. This is what they're doing. They are praying. Holy Spirit, come. Says this in verse 15. Let's keep going. In those days, Peter stood up among the believers, a group numbering about 120. This is an important moment as well, just to pause for a moment here. About 120 people is significant. This number matters, which in those days was the minimum number of people in Jewish culture to be considered a community. This is why Luke mentions this, because he wants to say this is valid. This is a movement of people. This isn't just a few people in a room. Jesus is doing something, he's creating community, and it's established. So Luke is saying this movement is legit. It's not a nothing thing. And then at verse 16, it said, uh, sorry, uh, and then at verse 16, this is what Peter goes on to say. And he said, brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as a guide for those who arrested Jesus, meaning he led them to him. He was one of our number and shared in this ministry. On the surface, this kind of takes a little bit of a different shift. It kind of has a different moment to a different feel to it. But Peter is often the guy who speaks up, isn't he? Like we see him time and time again in the Gospels. If there is anything to say, Peter says it first. Peter's always the one to go first. He has a knack for going ahead, always something to say. But in the midst of these 10 days of prayer, what we see is they are also opening up scripture, that they're diving into it. And as we read it in here, and you'll see that all throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, he was constantly showing his crew, teaching them how to discern what scripture says and how it ties back to him. He did that time and time again. So they have an idea that Scripture at its core speaks about Jesus, right? That it's all pointing towards him. So it's no surprise that Peter looks to the word and says, guys, because of what happened with Judas, we need to pick someone else. We need to find another one to fill in the 12. Luke fills in the story for us in the next, just just uh in the next little bit here. He talks about what happened with Judas, how he died, kind of a grim picture. He reconciles the gospel accounts of how Judas died, all these things, how he was hanging and then he fell, and then everything on the field, and not very pleasant picture, right? Leave it to the doctor to get really, really, really descriptive around how somebody died, right? That's Luke's MO there. And then Peter quotes two passages from the Psalms. He quotes two of them. And the reason why they need to pick someone else. This is what he says in verse 20. For Peter said, it is written in the book of Psalms, may his place be deserted, let there be no one to dwell in it, and may another take his place of leadership. This is what Peter says. Peter's quoted from Psalm 69 and 109. This actually is directly from the word. During their time with Jesus, they have come to understand that the Old Testament again is pointing towards Jesus. Jesus would often point back to the Old Testament and connect himself and say, Hey, this is why I have to die. This is why I've come. You know, whatever it may be, he did this often as we read. And I'm sure he did it more than even just what we read. And so Peter now is kind of doing the same thing. He is trying to pick up the same work. He's looking at David's experience, knowing that Jesus is the true David, actually, as we read scripture, and begins to see similarities in Jesus and David. He says, I think there's ties here that we can lean on. Now, just a little bit of a caveat here. This does not work all the time in Scripture, by the way, right? So you can't just assume, okay, well, if it says this here and this kind of fits here back in the Old Testament that it ties together. That's not how it works. But in some cases it can, and it can fit in really, really nicely. And I'm not about to guess how well this fits in here for Peter. It seems like it fits pretty good. But we can't make these kind of just, I mean, it ties out of nothing or just because we want it to. But without the Holy Spirit, right? So keep in mind, right, that the Spirit has not fallen yet. So they are relying on everything that they have done to this point. This is an old way of doing it now. Because in about 10 days, it's all going to change. Peter and the others are just doing their best. Like they're navigating through what they believe is the right way to go about it. But this understanding of Scripture comes from this deeper motivation, though, and as to the reason why, says this in verse 21. Therefore, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a, and this is an important word, witness with us of his resurrection. Remember, Jesus says, You will be my witnesses, right? This is the last thing he says to them. Meaning, you will tell people about me and what I've done. Peter is looking around. He is, you know, in that moment in the room, and he's saying, without Judas, without somebody else who gave witness to his life, not the resurrection piece, right? But at least someone who did not who was there to give witness, we need to replace them with someone who can give a firsthand account of Jesus' life and resurrection. This not only continues to build in the sense that they have to share a story, but it continues to bring validity to the story of Jesus, that there were people who had firsthand accounts, that they could say that I was there, that I saw him alive. And so Peter and the church are thinking, we need more voices that just keep on saying, Jesus is alive and this is what he's done. This is still true today. We need more voices today that say, Jesus is alive and this is what he's done for me. This is something for us to learn from, right? That we can look at it and say, Jesus is inviting you and I to be witnesses that we might share with others that we still need to have a voice, that we just can't wait for others to do it. That Jesus is inviting each one of us to share the gospel story. This ministry that they had, they wanted to preserve their ministry of apostles, this firsthand account to be witness of the resurrection. And so they are out to find somebody to replace Judas. So out of the group, they come up with two guys, Joseph and Matthias, two guys that have seen the resurrection, that were most likely a part of the larger group of Jesus when he was around. They have all the outside qualifications. And realistically, there probably isn't a wrong choice here if we're honest. They're probably both good choices, great choices, even. Meaning that the church is not going to collapse if they pick the wrong guy. I don't think that's the impression we're given here. Sometimes God puts two good options in front of us and says, choose. Isn't that frustrating though? Man, I mean, isn't it nicer when he just says it's this one? Like that, that's a good idea, right? But oftentimes he'll put two in front and says, Man, you choose. Actually, it's your choice. So how do they make this choice? How do they choose between these two guys? Says this in verse 24. Then they prayed, Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two that you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs. And then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias. So he was added to the 11 apostles. Right? So again, they could have just chosen in that moment, they could have said, that guy, and that would have been just fine. It right, it probably would have turned out just okay. But the early group of the church models something for us here that not only on a larger church scale, but also in our private lives, that no matter what decision is in front of you, big or small, we need to give Jesus room to weigh in on it. That he should have a say. That if we genuinely were thinking about his kingdom first, then we would want his say first as well. We would want to know what he thinks. Then in 26, we have this kind of weird moment that feels out of place. It says that they cast lots. This is the equivalent to throwing dice, essentially. This is equivalent to drawing straws to pick someone. Doesn't that feel weird, right? That they would pray and then they would just cast dice in order to figure out who it was. And on the surface, this actually seems really dishonoring, right? Right? Like this seems like, man, what's the point of prayer if we're just gonna throw dice or draw straws on this? Right? That doesn't make sense, right? Like we just prayed about this, but now let's let fate decide and rule it. Like that. It seems out of place, but understand casting lots had been done for a long time. This is an Old Testament practice. This is not new. This is something that they believed firmly. This is Old Testament, that the people of God would often cast lots, not because they wanted to play a game of chance, but because they believed that God ultimately controlled the outcome of everything. So even in casting lots, they believed that God is still going to pick because he chooses a lot, right? That's up to him.

unknown 35:28

Right?

SPEAKER_02 35:28

So it looks like this pagan practice actually has spiritual significance for them. But keep in mind, this is important to catch again, though, the spirit has not come yet, right? So of course they're casting lots, of course they're doing things this way. In fact, after the spirit falls, casting lots falls completely out of practice. You don't see it again. It's very rare that that's a thing. Because the Holy Spirit now leads and directs, he's the one who decides. We can go right to him and say, What would you do if you were in our shoes? This is the beauty of the church now. We don't have to lean on old practices, that we can trust in a decision that he's going to speak to us when we ask him, that he's going to give us insight, he's going to give us leading in direction. I remember a number of years ago at uh St. Albert Alliance, we had a big decision to make as a staff. It turned out that on Christmas Day was falling on a Sunday morning. And as a staff team, you can imagine the angst we have in wondering do you plan church on a Sunday morning or do you let people do their own thing? And there's all kinds of thoughts, and it actually brought a lot of anxiety to us as a staff because we know we're going to let somebody down. Somebody is going to be disappointed in the just, I mean, a choice that we made, whether it's to do church on Sunday or whether it's to, you know what, it's Christmas morning and everyone just be home, right? There is angst in that decision. I can remember sitting around the table going back and forth. At one point it's getting heated. Like I can hear people getting like after one another. And I'm like, why are we arguing about Christmas? This is nuts. This isn't what it should be. But it was such a tense decision, like lots of discussion. We actually had four separate meetings about it. Can you imagine? Four meetings to talk about the service, and we're weighing in and we're not sure. We're talking about the pros, the cons of both things. And then finally, our lead pastor Jeremy, right? You know, I uh uh like at the fourth meeting, he was quiet for like 45 minutes, didn't say a word, didn't give any kind of sense as to what he was thinking. And I'm watching him the whole time, like, man, you gotta speak up, like you're in charge here, guy. I gotta know what we're gonna do. And then after everything just kind of fell silent for a moment, Jeremy just paused and he just took this deep breath. He said, You know what? I think we should ask Jesus what he would do. What a crazy idea. What a crazy idea. And so for the next seven minutes, we sat in silence around the table. And we asked the question. We said, Jesus, if you were in charge of this church, which you are, but if you were at this table and you had to make this decision, what would you do? And we just sat in it. And you know what was amazing? That every person around the table said the same thing. I will tell you what we said, but every person around the table said the same thing. You see, in this whole passage, in everything that we see from the prayer moments at the beginning to them praying at the end, to them seeking God, to understanding what he wants, we cannot lose sight of something as we look at this early moment of the church. Prayer is pivotal, pivotal in the life of the church. It anchors us. It's where we begin, it's where we start, whether it's waiting on the Spirit to move in the lives of other people or looking to Jesus in the midst of an important decision. Prayer is the fuel that the Holy Spirit uses to ignite the church. We have to get this. We have to understand this. It is us saying through a practice of prayer, God, we want you here. We want your way and we want your say. We want you to have voice here. We want you to speak. We want your spirit, your power, your leadership. We want you to burden us to pray. Could you imagine praying that way? That you might ask God, burden me to pray. Right? Like lay it on my heart. Wake me up in the middle of the night. Burden me to pray. That we might see the kingdom of God break out. This is the invitation. This is what God is inviting you and I to as we read this passage. This is on the table for us. So how do we respond? How do we move forward now? Where do we go? How do we become the kind of people that say, God, we want you here? How is that formed in you and I? How is that cultivated? You see, no matter what we want to cultivate, we have to give the Spirit room to form it in us. We have to create things, we have to create space, habits, we have to be formed in a certain way that Jesus might be able to use that and form us to look more and more like Himself when it comes to prayer. And what it comes down to is everyday practices and habits. I am so sure about these things that over time will mold you and I to look more and more like Jesus. Little things built up over time can start to just really move forward in your own spiritual journey and in the church. So I'm gonna invite the band up here in just a moment. Or actually, right now I'm gonna invite the band up. And as they come, I'm gonna share with you a practice, right? Because, like we said last week, one of the things we're gonna do as we go through this entire book is we're not just going to read it and say, well, that feels good, but I want to strongly encourage you to begin to practice these things. To not just say, Well, that sounds great for my neighbor, but that you and I might say, What is Jesus asking me to do? How can I begin to practice the way of Jesus, that I might be formed in him, and in particular this morning with the way of prayer. And so here's what I'm gonna invite you to do: to do a simple daily prayer practice. Okay, and it actually requires four things, right? It all circles around this idea where that Jesus, you can have your say and you can have your way, right? But before you get your day going, that you start the moment with saying something like, Jesus, today you can have your way and you can have your say in me. What would it look like before you grabbed your phone, before you grabbed anything else, before your feet even hit the ground, that you just might offer up a prayer that says, Jesus, no matter what happens today, you can have your way and you can have your say. I'm gonna make space for you. That you would want him there to form this deeper hunger in anything else. And I would encourage you that as you're in that moment of prayer in the morning, just to sit in silence for 20 or 30 seconds with your hands open, just in a posture of receiving. But not only receiving, but a posture of offering. I'm saying, God, you can have all the things on my plate today. I want the things that you have. Right? Just to make yourself available. And then the second practice is this midday to realign your heart. It's amazing how as our day gets going, how what we started off in the morning shifts based on a phone call, based on our workday, based on something we read in an email, based on something you're carrying, all of a sudden that moment in the morning in which you said, Jesus, you can have everything feels far away. And I am a huge fan of taking a moment in the middle of your day and realigning your heart again with Jesus. That you might invite him in at just some natural pause, whether it's lunch or a break in your day at work, whatever it is, or at school, that you just might say something like, Jesus, I've probably drifted over the last few hours, but I want you here again. I want to invite you in to have your way and to have your say in the rest of my day. No guilt, nothing like that. Right? Moment to moment is the other one, right? Where that you would just find moments where you would invite Jesus in. Maybe there is things going on in your day where you just need to pause and say, Jesus, I want to know what you think. Maybe there's something you have to decide at work. Maybe it's a big decision that you just might pause and say, Jesus, what would you do if you were in my shoes? That you would just begin to be mindful of how he's inviting you in to include him. That you would just have that same short prayer, Jesus, have your way and have your say in everyday moments before a conversation that might be tense, when you feel stressed or rushed, even before responding to a text or an email, what would it look like if you just paused and said, Jesus, what would you say instead of me? When you notice someone in need, when Jesus lays a burden on you, that you just might pause and say, Jesus, have your way and have your say. And then the last one is in the evening, just before you go to bed, two or three minutes to just reflect and return. Just come back to his heart at the end of the day. That you just might review, just might pause, and you just say, Jesus, where did I make space for you? How did we do today? Where did I resist you?

unknown 44:19

Right?

SPEAKER_02 44:20

You know, where was I at odds with you? And then just simply pray, Jesus, thank you for where you were at work. Where I resisted, I give that back to you. And then tomorrow, Jesus, have your way and have your say. Just imagine going to sleep like that. Just breathing deeply and settling in for all that Jesus has for you. This is how prayer, how a life of prayer is formed in us over small habits that build up over time. This is how we can become more and more like Jesus, both individually and corporately. This is how we move towards Him. And so here's what I would encourage you to do. For some of you, you maybe look at that list and you're like, man, that's a lot to do. I want to encourage you. It might feel that way. Please give it a try this week. Even give it a try for a few days. Try that. If you're really in a space and you're like, oh, that just seems like so much. Just do one of those. Just do one of those. Move the needle forward in your walk with Jesus. Start to say, I want to be formed to look more and more like him. You know, and over time, you will see those things form in you as it becomes habit, as it becomes a practice in your life. There's this quote I like from uh uh uh uh Dallas Willard, and he says it like this. He says, The way that we are formed to look more and more like Jesus over time is long obedience in the same direction. It's doing the same things time and time again. There is this nasty thought out there that says to do the same thing over and over again is born and repetitious. I want to encourage you, church, this is how you are formed to look more and more like Jesus. It's not about necessarily creating everything new, it's about simple practices that cultivate a heart that looks more and more like Christ. And so I want to invite us into this. And so we're gonna be I'm gonna pray for us, and we're gonna have one more song here. But as we pray, I'm gonna lead you in a little bit of what this practice looks like, just a midday practice that I do that I want you to experience too that you could do on your own. Okay, so let's pray together and then we're gonna sing one last song. So, Lord Jesus, thank you that you are present in the room, that you are here. And Lord, with everybody else here, Lord, you know where they are with you. Lord, there are some in this room that have been after your heart for a long time. There are others in this room that are new to faith, or others that are just in spaces of I'm just even not even sure yet about all these things. And yet, Jesus, the invitation is to become more and more like you no matter where we are in our lives, that we can journey together, that we have the same footing. And so, Jesus, just even now, I would just pray that for each one in this room, that each one would just pause in their heart and take two deep breaths in and out. And as you are breathing, just become attentive to the fact that Jesus is with you, that he is here. Just become attentive to his presence. Jesus, I pray that as we become more attentive to you, would you bring to mind something on our minds or on our hearts that is weighing on us? Or maybe it's something we heard this morning before we were out the door. Maybe we have a relationship that feels tense that we have to head home to after this, that just feels heavy. Or maybe it's something to do with work, something to do with our kids, perhaps. Or would you just gently bring it to mind what it is that's on our hearts? And Lord, as each one just kind of brings that moment to you. And with every head bow, I just want to invite you, if you feel okay and comfortable, just to extend your hands in front of you like you are holding that in your hands. And then just in your own heart, I just want to invite you to pray, Jesus, when it comes to this situation, this thing, whatever it is, you can name it in your mind. Then just simply say to Jesus, I want you to have your way and have your say. And then just simply in your mind's eye, just envision yourself giving it over to Jesus. And now with another deep breath, Lord Jesus, thank you that you invite us in that we might be able to live a life of continuous prayer. That whenever things come to mind, that we just might be able to bring them to you, that if it's regards to our own life, if it's if it's maybe in regards to what's going on in the world around us, Lord, there's so much to pray for these days when it's going on with what's happening in our own church. Jesus, there are things to pray for here. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would burden us to pray, that we would be marked by prayer, that we would understand that this is the fuel that gets ignited by the Holy Spirit that sets us forward on mission, that moves the church forward. So, Lord Jesus, I pray this week for each one here in this room that they might take a step forward in putting into practice what it means to be formed through prayer. Lord, that all throughout this week they would find themselves praying in the morning before they leave, praying midday during the break, taking each moment that comes up and offering them to you and then ending their day with you. And Lord, over time, may they just start to feel the peace, the presence, the joy, and contentment that you have to offer. And may it move them forward in your mission. So, Lord Jesus, thank you, and we love you. We ask these things in your name. Amen.