“Wait on the Holy Spirit”- Acts 1:1-8.

Friends, what are you waiting on this week? Don’t be afraid to praise God in the hallway while you wait for doors to open! God will always be there in the waiting, and His best is always worth waiting on. Have a blessed day! 

“Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing your labor in the Lord is never in vain.”- 1 Corinthians 15:58. 

Transcript

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It comes to us from the Acts of the Apostles from chapter 1. It's verses 1 through 8. And remember, this is set in Jerusalem and it's in the upper room. The resurrection has occurred. The ascension of Jesus has occurred. And now we have the apostles who are awaiting the Holy Spirit's empowerment to begin Christ's mission worldwide. In my former book, The Elophist, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is the word of God for the people of God.

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Thanks be to God. He succeeded. Thank you, Will. And now, Lord, may the words of my mouth, meditation of my heart, be fully acceptable, graceful, and worthy in your sight. For you are and forever shall be our strength and our redeemer. Amen. So today is Pentecost. Now write down a quick note, friends. Real quick, so I don't forget. Today is Pentecost. The day the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples, and the church was born. Yes, if you like potlucks and you like all things church, you can blame Pentecost for that. We are here today because of what happened and the events that took place and the acts of the apostles. Now, there's lots of things we can say about the Holy Spirit. We could spend all day talking about it. We still wouldn't cover enough. But here's a few lines to consider when we talk about the Holy Spirit. The third person of the Trinity, the Nicene Creed, refers to the Holy Spirit. Listen to this: as the Lord, the giver of life. Yes, Jesus is great. Yes, God is great. But you walk into this service today because the Spirit led you to be here and lead you to do all things that lead to life and life abundant. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, he taught in Romans 8, verses 15 through 17 that the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of each believer and assures them that God is their Father. And that we are co-es with Jesus. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption. When we cry out out the Father, the Spirit and Self testifies together of our Spirit that we are God's children. Heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ, seeing that we suffer with him, that we might also be glorified with him. And here's just a quick side-teaching note. You hear a lot of times in the world today that everyone is a child of God. Well, you're made in his image, to be sure. But Paul's clear here, right? He brings in the terminology of adoption for the church. For those who have confessed and seen Jesus as king and lord of their life, and assured that such a king is their father, their daddy, to translate the word from Abba. Friends, as the church, that's what I want as a follower of Jesus, and that's what I want for all of you. I don't want to be assured by things that do not last. Things that are temporary. I want the Spirit of life to pour out into your life and in my life. So let's get to it today. Let's get to it. If that's what we want as a church, let's talk about a few of the ways the Holy Spirit gives life to us. Number one, the Holy Spirit, check this out, invites us to life in a tense environment. Do not leave Jerusalem, Jesus said. In Acts 1, verse 4. This is among Jesus' final words to his friends just before his extraordinary event of ascending to heaven. It is a shocking request. Right before Jesus leaves, he tells his best friends, go to the most dangerous place on earth for you and wait there. Is he serious? Does he really want the disciples to stay in Jerusalem? Don't the authorities want the disciples arrested? Put them in cuffs and put them in a prison? John 20, verse 19 tells us that they stayed in the upper room for fear of the Jews. Friends, I've been in the room right above where the upper room was. And I gotta tell you, there's not a lot to look at. But the stone of the waited there. This is where we're supposed to wait. What's going on here? I've been to Galilee, and let me tell you, the entire area is more pleasant to look at than the entire old city of Jerusalem. It is a massive lake with, I know we got some people who like to fish in this room, right? It's a massive lake with some fishing. You can do some hiking, you can do some prayer. That sounds far more productive. For Jesus to tell them to go to Galilee and wait there. They wait in an area where the disciples were wanted by the authorities. Even so, no protest is recorded from the disciples. No one says, Hey Jesus, did you get this wrong? Can I go to Galilee and go hang out with my buddies so I can go fish for them? We can start the church. No protest is recorded. Apparently, they were okay with staying in an environment that was uncomfortable for them. Why is that? To understand that, you have to understand the story of Pentecost. Pentecost is known in Judaism as Shavat. It is a harvest festival that occurs seven weeks after the festival of Passover. Originally celebrating the wheat harvest and later commemorated the giving of the Torah and Mount Sinai. Jews and Gentiles could attend Shavat. Translated Pentecost. Jews from across the Roman Empire and beyond made pilgrimages to Jerusalem to celebrate Shabbat as it was one of the three pilgrimage festivals per year. If you go to the Torah in Exodus 23, 14 through 17, in Deuteronomy 16, verse 16, it tells you of these festivals that Jews are obligated to celebrate. Gentiles are God fearers, non-Jews who worship the God of Israel and observe some Jewish customs but hadn't fully converted. They could also come to the temple. They could also come worship and be a part of Shabbat or Pentecost. This is reflected in Acts 2, verse 5, when it says that devout men and women from every nation under heaven were there. A group that historically always included Jews and Gentile proselytes or God fearers. So why Jerusalem? Why there and why not go to Galilee? The disciples stayed because they knew the Father's promise would have the most impact around the most people. See? You hear me? Hard things don't get done in an easy environment. Hard things get done in a place that is not the most comfortable. As tense as it was, the disciples stayed because they knew Jesus had something in store for them and they wanted to share what he promised. After all, this theme of the Spirit given life and a tense environment, friends, it is prevalent throughout the New Testament. Acts 14, verse 22 says that Paul and Barnabas strengthened and encouraged the disciples and told them, it is, listen to this, necessary.

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Necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul question, if any uncomfortable or bad situation could prevail against the love of Jesus, who was united with the Spirit of God and his Father, who can separate us from the love of Jesus? Can anguish? Persecution? Affliction? Famine? Nakedness? Sword or danger? Friends, go in any modern-day thing you're thinking about that's bothering you into that text. What does Paul say? No, no, in all these things, we are more than victorious through Jesus who loved us. Romans 8, verses 35 and 37. In these passages and more, the presence of the Holy Spirit is provided as the primary reason why the disciples were okay with staying. They were okay with staying in Jerusalem in a tense environment. Now, don't get me wrong, situations that affect your health or your soul, if they are damaging either, get out of it. You need to leave. Those are never okay to be in. But for most of us, our issue is not our health or even our soul. We just want the conflict to end. We want peace. There are tense moments in church history when the Spirit brings such peace to a group of people in a tense environment. That was in Wales in 1903. Wales in the early 1900s, that's Ireland, by the way, wasn't spiritually neutral, it was tense. Poverty was crushing. If you were an alcoholic, that was rampant everywhere. Industrial communities were losing their businesses. No one took responsibility for their sin and their mistakes. They passed the buck to someone else. It's their fault. Churches were open, but they just gave people a routine. It didn't have the power of God right within it. Then the Holy Spirit did what only he can do. He gave life as a sense of environment. It was here that Evan Roberts in Wales, a 26-year-old former minor, he began to pray. Not to organize or seek revival or seek answers. He just prayed. But in the midst of such depravity, he had no other recourse than to pray. There's a lesson here. Hear me clearly. Tension isn't always a problem to escape. Tension is often the environment that the Spirit chooses. Tension is not always a problem to escape. Tension is often the environment the Spirit chooses. It was in this environment of depravity and passing the buck on sin and all the things. Within months, the Spirit of God moved through Wales. They call it the Welsh Revival. You want to know what happened? According to the number, 100,000 people said, I've got it all wrong. I repent and commit my life to Jesus. Courts, if you were a judge or a lawyer in that time, sorry, you're fixing to be out of the job. They didn't have any crimes to try. Judges reported in Wales. They said, I showed up to work and there was nobody there. Amen. That's right. People were coming to Jesus. Crimes are no longer being committed. They were giving speeches. Judges were thanking God for the revival and the Welsh revival in Wales. Entire communities were changed, not just individuals. Here's the point. The Spirit just didn't give people an emotional high. Campers that go to camp complain of that all the time. He gave life. Feuds between neighbors? You had a bone to pick with your neighbor? That ended. Best modern illustration I could come up with. It's not Christmas time, but go watch the movie Klaus sometime on your own. It's on Netflix. Great cartoon of families and communities that would fight each other and they changed. See? That's what happened in Wales. Thieves who used to steal, they became generous. They gave. Said, I'm no longer going to steal money, I'm going to give it out of my generosity to churches, to families who need it. Family divisions, those are gone. All this happened in Wales. All this happened in the Welsh Revival. The Holy Spirit invites us to life in a tense environment. The Holy Spirit also gives life while we wait. Here's the part of a sermon that's going to be hard, right? While Jesus was together with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait. Wait on the Father's promise. Yes, he said. This is what you heard from me. He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons in which God has set in his authority. You see, church, Jesus instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem, not because he was ignorant of the environment he told them to wait in. He knew what was going on. He told them to wait because he wanted to do something big in their lives. That big thing was the birth of the church. That's why he told them to wait, see? I'm not asking you to wait just for the heck of it. I'm asking you to wait for a reason. The disciples, I'll tell you this, had to wait a long time for the birth of that church to happen. I wish the Lord could just give us what we wanted after we prayed for it. It doesn't work that way. I heard something the other day that was profound. I shared it in my reunion group on Thursday, and I share it with you. Please write this down if you haven't yet. Waiting is not something we endure before we know God. Waiting is not something we endure before we know God more. Waiting, listen to this, is the process. That is the road we walk, friends. If you want to know God, you gotta wait. Learn how to be a Christian who waits upon the Lord. Because waiting is the process by which we know God better than we did before. What seems odd to our modern ears to wait on God. That wasn't the case for the disciples. God told them to wait. Wait, go do. That's exactly what they did. One. The petition to wait appears over 30 times in the Hebrew prayer book, the book of Psalms. And from our Bible scholars in here, I know 30 is a conservative number. It's probably more. At least 30 times the petition to wait is in the Psalms. Indeed, none who wait for you, Psalm 25, 3, shall be put to shame. Wait for the Lord and be strong and let your heart take courage. I say again, wait on the Lord, Psalm 27, verse 14. Be still before the Lord, Psalm 37, 7, and wait for him to act. Wait for him to act. When I was on the way to Israel with a team back in February, we were on a layover in Germany. I remember we were in our waiting area and we saw about two dozen what's called Herodine Jews. Jews who bowed before God. They were dressed in black, they had uh some had beards, and they had little strings of hair falling down from their beards. Some of them had prayer tassels around their waist. And I remember being in the waiting area. I really wish I had taken a picture, but it would have been sacrilegious. At least I felt like it would have been. But about two dozen of them went to the Western Wall, the waiting area, and they're doing this. And yes, at the time there was chatter in the air that maybe conflict was coming to Israel. We went anyway. I remember going to one of them and I said, some of us in our country, I'm just gonna say it, if conflict was coming to many older Texas, we'd leave the first day. You're going home. Why? Why are you flying into conflict and not leaving it? And I never forget what he said. He asked me my name and he said, John, Adonai teaches us to wait. And we will wait as long as it can until things get better in Israel. Y'all know how many times I've heard in this country will never settle over there? That's not what the Jews believe. They believe one day we'll get back. Because Adam and I is with them. Even our guide, our Christian guide who walked us through Jerusalem, his name is George. He made comments about Jesus teaching the apostles to wait for his return. So when I asked him, I said, George, why didn't you take that offer to Colorado? You could have gone and taught theology, conservative theology of that, and had a great life with your wife and your kids. He said, John, Jesus taught us in Acts 1 to wait for his return. Lives 10 minutes from the wailing wall. Had to leave to go into his bomb shelter at least three dozen times in the last two months. But he's waiting. This sounds crazy to our modern ears to wait, even in the midst of conflict. But is waiting so foreign to us? Waiting is not so much not a part of our DNA than we care to admit. I love what I heard from a pastor the other day, and I shared it with the kids. When you walk into a nice place to eat, you don't walk into the kitchen to get your food. You sit down, and a waiter comes out or a waitress and they say, What do you want to drink? What do you want to eat? What do you want for an appetizer? What do you want for your dessert? We wait, don't we? We are trained to wait and we don't even know it. We don't even realize it. Sometimes I wish we were the same in our walk of God. Don't rush ahead of him. Don't sprint ahead of the Lord thinking you know what he wants for your life. Slow down. Ask God, what would you have me do in this season, Lord? What would you have me do in this season of waiting? What do you want me to learn in this moment? What is your word for me as I wait? You ask any person who just always shows their patience all the time. So irritating to me. My wife will tell you, I'm not there yet. I'm learning. But you ask anybody who is resilient and patient and doesn't get rattled when bad things happen. You ask them, why are you that way? We'll let you in on a secret. A secret that they know is vital in their season of waiting. They know something important, and it's this. God is always there in the waiting. Always there in the waiting. What does he do in the waiting season? Kids come to know Christ. A business gets better. A couple works through a hard season. Society settles down after a controversy. Friends, that's God in all of it. God is always there in the waiting, and they'll also tell you, listen to this, God's best is always worth waiting on. Why are you rushing to go somewhere where you see abundant blessings already there? Ever occur to you that God maybe wants to work through your life. Long and slow the process may be. Timothy Keller, one of the greatest preachers of all time, knew God's best is always worth waiting on. After graduating from Gordon Cornwell Seminary at 24 years old, Keller was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America and began pastoring in a small town in Virginia for nine years. He was served faithfully in that church and in various churches, but then he got the call of a lifetime to plant a church in Manhattan and New York. He goes to New York, plants Redeemer Presbyterian. Church grew to 5,000 people a week. Keller was known for his sensitivity, for his sermons. He always made room for people who were younger than him and older. Older because he wanted to listen to them. Younger because he wanted to pass on advice to them. Yet he did not choose to publish his first book, The Reason for God, until he was 58 years old. 34 years after ministry. People asked him all the time, they said, Why? Why'd you wait so long? You're one of the most famous preachers out there. And I love what he said. He said, I wanted to gain experience in answering questions from the people of New York before publishing a book. His point is well taken, and we would do well to listen to this. He didn't want to rush, making something he wasn't ready to defend. He didn't want to rush, making something he wasn't ready to defend that would not glorify God. Be willing to wait. God's best will always be there. And God himself will always be there when you wait. So my question today is this where are you waiting for God to show up? That's the question. What doors are you waiting to open for an answer? I encourage you. If you're waiting on that door to open, if you're waiting on your waiting to end, I invite you to praise God in the hallway while you're waiting on that answer. Remembering that the promises of God are yes in Christ's 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20. We do not wait alone. You hear any message in this sermon, hear that. We do not wait alone. Walk with Christ. Wait with him. Wait with him, whether it's on the stump, whether it's on the couch, whether it's in your life, wait with him. The Bible promises that God always moves when we do so. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters in the faith, be steadfast, be immovable. Always giving yourself to the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor, you're waiting for God is not in vain. In the name of the Father, in the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.