- Well, welcome to the Book of Acts. It's an exciting journey that we are on, and last week we started with chapter one. Luke who wrote the Gospel of Luke, his account of Jesus, and how Jesus wrapped Himself in flesh, He was crucified on the cross, He rose from the grave, and now the Book of Acts continues that story because Luke writes the Book of Acts as his sequel book, describing how it is Jesus Christ who wants to give us His presence and His power through the third person of the Holy Spirit as He lives His life through us, and we can experience this new resurrected life. It is a journey that starts with about 120 believers who turn the Roman world on its heels, covers about 10,000 miles, and now they're waiting, right before we turned the corner of chapter two to uncover what it means to have the power of the Spirit working within us, we're gonna look at a section today where they're waiting. They're waiting on God to act. Now, I don't know about you, but I hate waiting. Anybody else wanna identify with me? It's tough and to have that patience of saying, okay, God, where are you moving and how can I even observe where you're moving so I can align myself with you, that's a great principle, but God in the midst of this time, how do I put myself in a zone where I know I'm gonna see you act, I know you're gonna move in my heart, in my life, and then I'm gonna join you according to your will and plan? Well, we're gonna take a look today at what it means to live faithfully 24/7 as we wait to see where God's moving, as we allow Him to move in our heart in life, in that zone where God wants to use this, but we gotta wait, we gotta wait. So take your Bibles out and I want you to turn to Acts 1. Grab your phone, grab your iPad, grab the Bible that you brought in here, if you don't have a Bible, we've provided one for you, pull it out of the rack and go to Acts 1, it's page 909, and you'll land Acts 1:12. I want everybody to jump into God's Word together, as we're gonna read the passage, we're gonna talk about a few things, and then I'm actually gonna have you go to another passage, so that's why I want your Bibles open as we talk about what happens here in this pretty unique section, as the believers we're waiting for what we're gonna take a look at next week, the coming of the Spirit. So let's look at verse 12 together and lemme first read the account. "Then they returned to Jerusalem "from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, "a Sabbath day's journey away." So Jesus ascended to heaven, so guys you gotta go back to Jerusalem. Remember that? They were standing there looking at the angels, the angels had to remind them of what Jesus said, we'll come back to that in a second, but guys you need to start doing what Jesus told you to do, go back to Jerusalem. So that's what they did. Verse 13. "And when they had entered, "they went up to the upper room where they were staying, "and Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, "Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, "James the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, "and Judas the son of James." Now notice this. "All these with one accord were devoting themselves "to prayer together with the women "and Mary the mother of Jesus and His brothers. "And 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 the field was called in their own language Akeldama, "that is, Field of Blood." It took me so many years of education to figure out how to pronounce that word. Now, lemme stop there just for a second 'cause I wanna fill little gap. For those of you that are familiar the story of Jesus, when you go back into the Gospel accounts, it says, Judas hung himself, so how do we reconcile these things? Well, the best I can give you today based on what I've looked at, is he hung himself, the rope broke, he fell on the rocks and his guts spilled out, okay? So enough there. Verse 20, Peter in his speech says, "For it is written in the Book of Psalm." So now he quotes from two passages, he says, "May his camp become desolate, "and let there be no one to dwell in it "and let another take his office." Referring to Judas. Verse 21. "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 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 two, Joseph called Barsabbas, "who was also called Justus and Matthias. "And they prayed and said, "'You Lord who know the hearts of all "'show which one of these two you have chosen "'to take the place in this ministry of apostleship "'from which Judas 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 eleven apostles." He's speaking of the office of apostleship, they were 12, and God was going to use them to begin this church with these other believers as they were witnesses of the resurrection. Now, as we take a look at this interesting passage today, you'll see why in just a minute, these were 120 believers, there was the momentous events of the crucifixion and the resurrection, they are being sent out. And as we saw last week, Jesus was clear before He ascended to heaven when He was up in Galilee, He gave them what is oftentimes referred to as the Great Commission. And last week we talked about the message given to us and then the mission to communicate His resurrection, the hope, the forgiveness that can be found through Christ and Christ alone. So here's what Jesus told them, "Go therefore and make disciples." The command here is to go and make disciples. As you're living your life, make disciples, followers of Christ of all nations, every ethnic group, everyone is included here. And then He says, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, "the Son, and the Holy Spirit." How do I make disciples? How do I guide people into a relationship with Jesus Christ? I gotta teach them some truth and that's why He says, here's how, "Teach them to observe all that I've commanded you. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." And He is gonna be with us through the person of the Holy Spirit, we'll discover His coming in chapter two. So the mission is clear, we gotta go out, we gotta spread this message through the mission of communicating that Jesus Christ is alive and people can find forgiveness. And then, how are we gonna have the ability to pull that off because it's absolutely beyond what we can humanly do? Well, that's where Jesus right before He ascends, if you look at verse eight of chapter one, He tells them, "But you will receive power." Dynamic power in a way they hadn't experienced before. And it says, "When the Holy Spirit has come upon you." And what's the point? "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea Samaria, "and to the end of the earth." The word witness as we said last week occurs no less than 39 times in the book. And this is really the key verse of the entire Book of Acts. As a matter of fact, you could just lay it out this way, this was the known Roman world, and they were to actually move from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, and we're gonna follow that progression as they communicate the message and the mission, go on mission to be a witness to communicate the resurrected Christ. That's the point. Now the question though, is the Spirit hasn't come yet? We'll discover that in Acts 2. So what do we do in the meantime here? Here's a principle I want you to think about, it's really a great principle, I heard this years ago, whenever you see or where you see God working, go join Him there because then you know you're gonna be aligning yourself with His will. Now the question though that comes up is, okay, what if He hasn't revealed Himself yet, okay? While we're waiting, and then how do I place myself in a situation where I'm living faithfully so that when I see Him at work I'll recognize it, and then I'll be able to go join Him in that task and I'll follow Him along? Or whenever He prompts me and moves me, how do I put myself in a position where I'm living faithfully, and here's the key, day in and day out? What does that look like? Well, I think this is one of those passages in the Book of Acts that teach us what that looks like. These believers, we're back in Jerusalem, they're waiting for the Holy Spirit to come, Jesus teaching about the kingdom for 40 days, and there's about a 10 day gap here before chapter two shows up, which is the Feast of Pentecost. We'll come back to that next week, okay? So if you're wondering what the Feast of Pentecost is, just come back next week and I'll tell you, all right? But in the meantime, there's some important things here that they were doing. If you'll look at verse 14, he says, all of these believers with one accord. In other words, they were joining with one another. If you wanna live faithfully 24/7, you have to put yourself in a position that begins right here with joining other believers in community. Now we find this principle throughout the New Testament. You are never called to live the Christian life in isolation. If there has ever been something that taught us in the midst of this pandemic and COVID-19, it's this, you weren't meant to live this life in isolation, okay? We need one another, and we need to be living in community discovering God's Word. I need to see your face, okay? And so I got so frustrated with these crazy masks, you need to see my face. We need to interact with one another and know that we're with one another, okay? So that's an important thing, and obviously we emphasize that, we encourage you to get involved in a number of different ways where you're joining other believers in this task of serving faithfully and growing together. But the other thing that's mentioned here, which I think is important, they were with one accord joining, and then it says, devoting themselves to prayer. You wanna live faithfully? Get in community with others, and then also begin to develop a robust prayer life. And this is important. Now it doesn't say specifically what they prayed for, but it comes up twice in this passage. My hunch is they were probably praying what Jesus told them to pray. And here's where I want you to keep your finger in Acts 1, and I want you to go back to the first Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew. So you're gonna go through John, you're gonna go through Luke and Mark, and you're gonna end up in Matthew, go left, and I want you to locate chapter six, verse nine, and we're gonna take a look at the prayer Jesus gave His disciples to follow as a model prayer because my hunch is, that's what they followed. And I think it fits perfectly in this passage as we look at developing a robust prayer life waiting for God to move, waiting for Him to act. Look at what it says. Jesus instructed them, He says, "Pray then like this." Verse nine, Matthew 6. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, "your kingdom come, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts "as we also have forgiven our debtors, "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." I'm gonna land here for a while 'cause there's just so much stuff here. If you'll go back up to that first phrase, He starts with our Father in heaven. Notice, anytime you move into the presence of God, do so with Him in your sites first and not yourself or your needs, you start with God. If you wanna pray effectively during this time, if you're trying to figure out where God's moving, start with Him, okay? Don't start with yourself. He is the holy God, the Creator God, He is all powerful, all knowing, I start with Him. Now, quite frankly, how many of us, I got five minutes to pray, we blow into God's presence, and I'm gonna use this phrase, we vomit all over Him, and then we run out and expect Him to answer our prayers. We all do that, it's pretty graphic but that's what happens. What He says here, now wait, you start with me because when you do, that's gonna change your perspective about everything else you pray for that flows out of this. Now it does say, "Our Father." What is our mean? Well, that means I have a relationship with this holy God. Our Father means, I can walk into the holy presence of an Almighty, all powerful God. Why? Because I've embraced Christ as my Savior and Lord. How does that happen? The way you enter into that relationship is when you finally come to grips with it, God already knows it's true about you, that you're separated from Him because He's holy and you're not. That's called sin, and because of that, I'm separated from Him, but when I come to that moment in my life where I'm sensing, I don't want that anymore, I want forgiveness, I want everlasting life, I wanna have a change of my life in my heart, well, that I believe is the work of the Holy Spirit in you, changing you. And when you finally admit you're a sinner and then in repentance, you're turning from your sin and yourself to Jesus Christ as a person, and you're putting your trust and faith in Him as the one who paid the price for your sin that God demanded so that you can find forgiveness and everlasting life, and you believe that He rose from the grave. And if you put your trust in Him, that salvation and forgiveness come by way of His death on the cross, not your works. You embrace Him as Lord and Savior, there's a change that happens, you have now a relationship through the perfect work of Jesus Christ, not your own. So He is our Father, I enter into this relationship. Then notice, "Hallowed be your name." Hallowed means we praise you. So there's a point where you're saying, I'm coming into your presence and I am going to focus my gaze on you, and then I'm going to praise you. It gives Him highest honor and I'm studying Him apart. And then we end up with this interesting phrase that says "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth "as it has already been determined in heaven." Now lemme give you a few things, if you're taking notes, you're gonna want to write these things down. This phrase first off begins as it is a prayer of humility. When I begin to say, "Your kingdom come, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," it is a prayer of humility because notice it is your kingdom, not my kingdom. How many times we live our life and it's about my kingdom? It's about what I want in this life and not what He wants. And sometimes those are two completely different things. This is coming before Him and laying aside my pride, my selfishness, my arrogance, and laying all of that before the cross, and in a sense of humility saying, you are the God who's all powerful, and I am now coming to you with a sense of humility, removing myself because it's about your kingdom not my own. And then it becomes a prayer of submission. It's a prayer of humility, but then it's a prayer of submission because it is your kingdom, I want your plan, your agenda in my life and in the world not my own. Life is full of heartaches and trials and suffering and difficulties, and quite frankly, events we would never, ever, ever ask, and this is coming before Him and praying submissively in the midst of all of that and saying, God, what is your kingdom plan in and through me and in the lives of others in the midst of what I'm going through? Some of you I know 'cause I've been here long enough to know and over the years, I mean, some of you have had in the past recently diagnosed with cancer let's just say, that's just one illustration. Some of you have gone through some immense hardships and suffering even in the past year and a half of what is going on in your life. And we are experiencing things in our world that I just have to be honest with you, I don't like one bit, I don't like the persecution of believers that I'm hearing about, I don't like what's going on in Afghanistan right now, I am so saying this online, so hope I don't get in trouble, but I am furious with how that whole thing was handled. I mean, we're getting reports, images of what is happening, it is absolutely horrific of what is happening over there. It makes me righteously angry, but at this point I stop and I say, wait a minute, God, it's not about me, it's about you, and you will take the hurt and the trial and the circumstances and the persecution in life and what is happening there and happening around the world and all the stuff that I'm going through. And this is that prayer of submission of saying, wait a minute God, I'm gonna submit to your plan, what is your will and your kingdom in and through me in the midst of some pretty ugly stuff in my world 'cause it's not about me. It's not about my comfort, it's about His will and plan. And then it becomes a prayer of joyful anticipation waiting for God to move and act. But now I gotta a right, I get the right to Spirit, I'm praying for Him to move in my heart and life. I'm praying for Him to bring about His spiritual kingdom in the lives of people as they put their trust and faith in Him. I am praying to be the kind of witness Acts talks about. I'm praying for His kingdom to be established in the hearts and lives of people until he physically comes again and sets up His earthly kingdom, but in the meantime, I'm praying for Him to grow His church through all of that stuff. Why? Because I'm starting with Him and not me. And then He says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Now I start looking at my life here in light of His power and His authority and what He wants to do. Now, daily bread first and foremost, we'll get to your physical needs in a minute, but this is daily bread. Folks, this is the bread, go here first. Lord, show me daily from your word what you want me to know so that you can put me in touch with the bread of life, Jesus who wants to abide and work His power in and through me as I live this life to be a witness. That's what he's talking about here. And then eventually we get to our needs, but that's way, way down the list. He will be my sustenance. They probably were thinking of manner, okay? There were thinking, wait a minute, Israel was, you know, in the wilderness for 40 years, God gave them bread manna from heaven, okay? That's the idea, bread was sustenance for life, and the whole idea is that this is a prayer of dependence upon Him, that He is everything to me. I'm going to Him as the one who can satisfy my soul, I'm going to Him as the one who can provide all of this stuff for me, but ultimately He provides what I need in this life spiritually so that I grow and He abides in me and He lives in me. And then I get to, "And forgive us our debts "as we also have forgiven our debtors." What He's after here is, as I've been forgiven, I need to forgive other people. And then, yes, there's times in my life where I still sin. Now He's not talking about losing your salvation or any of that. Once you've trusted Christ, that is secure, you've been declared righteous, but what we find out in the New Testament is, when we sin, then the Spirit and we're gonna talk about next week, is quenched. And we don't have the same fellowship with the Lord and the power of the Spirit working in us, 'cause then again, we're fighting for our kingdom not His. And so this is that statement of Lord, these things in my life that are sinful, I confess them again so I can restore this fellowship with you and you can move in my heart and in my life. And then He closes it this way, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." This is a prayer of protection, so that as I'm walking in this life, we're asking for God not to allow me to move into a situation where I am overcome, overwhelmed by evil or the evil one. Here's how you kinda look at this 'cause God doesn't tempt us or lead us into evil, as a matter of fact, 1 Corinthians 10:13 says that, we all experience temptation, but with every temptation, God provides a way of escape that we might be able to endure it, okay? So you mix all of that in, and here's what He's saying. Come to the Lord after you've got His divine perspective you say, Lord, don't lead me down this road where I'm gonna give into myself and I'm not gonna trust you anymore, instead lead me down this road where you are moving me in a direction of trusting you and asking for your power to move in me so that I am not found in a situation where I'm relying on myself, and therefore I give in to this stuff. Give me your strengths. It actually, it's a request of God, give me your strength, and keep me from those moments in life where evil overcomes me because I am weak and I need you to be involved in my life every single moment, every step of the way, 24/7 living faithfully. That's the idea here. And then as we go back now into Acts 1, and I said, I would spend a lot of time there, now we can take a look at what else is going on here, because as I've set myself up for God to move in the midst through that time of prayer, my mindset is right, how else do I live faithfully? Well, what Peter does here is really fascinating, he goes back to the Word, and that's the other thing I wanna tell you here, get back into God's Word. You wanna live faithfully, waiting for God to act? Join a community, pray like this, that'll transform your life, right? And then go back into God's truth and that's what he does, he actually refers to a couple of Scripture passages, he says that the Holy Spirit was at work through David who wrote these, the Psalm passages he's referring to is Psalm 69:25, you can look it up later if you want, Psalm 109:8. His point is that David by way of the Holy Spirit was pointing to something greater and beyond himself. He's referring to what is oftentimes referred to as royal psalms that talk about a king. David was speaking of himself as an earthly king, but the Holy Spirit was working in him, so that even though he was talking about an earthly king here, it was an anticipation of the greater son of David Jesus Christ to come. And so the Holy Spirit was working in him. So yes, it was applicable to him as a king, he was talking about himself, but it also pointed and anticipated to something much greater and bigger than David. Because when he speaks of an earthly king, the greatest king is Jesus, it's pointing to him, it's looking forward. And if that's true about Jesus, then it's also true about the enemies that David faced, they also project forward into the future about the enemies of Jesus. And so Peter led by the Lord is referencing those particular passages as a reference to Judas who would become an enemy of Christ, and then it says that he needed to be replaced. And so as he searches God's Word, he comes before the rest of them and he says, look, guys, it's time to act. You know, this is as good a time as any. Now it seems to be a little bit of freedom there, I'll come back to that in a second, but this is a great time to act and we need to replace him. I mean, after all, Jesus said, and you can go back, Luke 9, is one of those instances that the twelve apostles would have the office of apostleship and they would actually sit on 12 thrones ruling over the tribes of Israel. So it just obviously made sense, we gotta replace this person. So he says, hey, as we look at our lives, this needs to be someone who was with us from John's baptism until the resurrection, in order to be, you know, a witness of the resurrection. Now Paul comes along later on in the New Testament. He says, if you want the office of apostleship, it's important for you to understand, you have to have seen the resurrected Christ. He says that, 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Corinthians 15, we could just keep going on here. But there also is this added stuff that Paul doesn't even mention where they gotta be there from the baptism of John all the way through the resurrection. My point is this, Peter searches the Scriptures, and then he acts on it, okay? Based on what seemed logical and reasonable. So as we read the Scriptures, we need to act upon it as it's applied in our life. And here's where I'm going with this, think about this, sometimes in our lives through the definite work of the Holy Spirit of God, He gives us specific direction to go. There's other times where there seems to be some freedom. Anybody else experienced that? There's a couple of choices through godly counsel. That's what I think is going on here, and eventually they get to the point to where they cast lots. Lemme just explain that 'cause you're probably wondering, what is this? Well, it was a way that they used in the Old Testament to determine God's will. Proverbs 16:33 says that the Lord's will is determined by casting lots. What they would do is they'd write their names on two different rocks, put them in a bag, and then throw it out, the first name that came out was God's will, but they did that and notice he said this, they were in a spirit of prayer, they were praying in verse 24, Lord, we want your will, we want what you want. Now, this is the last time that they cast lots. Why is that? 'cause next week we're gonna discover, we now have the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that guides us and leads us. Point is this, when it's time to determine God's will I would not recommend, heads it's God's, tails it's mine, okay? 50/50, you know, no, I wouldn't do that. I would put yourself in a position where you're with other believers, you're gaining godly counsel and wisdom, you're in the Scriptures, you're praying through this whole process, you're seeing what God is offering you, and you're ready to act when the Holy Spirit begins to move and prompt you and guide you. And there are times when I think there's some freedom. I'll give you an example. When we moved here 20 years ago, we landed in Mahtomedi. We were actually looking at three homes. Now I called my realtor who goes to our church and I actually picked a different home, we weren't gonna go there. And you know what he told me? He said, "There're already contract on that house." So what happened, did I lose God's will 'cause I didn't act fast enough? Well, of course not. That's not the point. Any of the homes I think would have been found within God's will and He's blessed us and He's used us. Now I think there's times when God gives us that option through godly counsel to move. And just because you went one way versus another way, if it's not a sin issue, it can be found within God's will, rest in that, He sovereign, He'll accomplish what He wants to do. Certainly it became His will once we said yes and signed the contract, now they got all my money, okay? But there's other times where we didn't have peace, you know what that was? That was a prompting of the Holy Spirit. There were times when I was pushing down a direction and going, and man, we were praying even, and it just wasn't right, and finally, some things happened where it was right. It was amazing what happened. Lynette and I just came together perfectly, we had God's peace, we had God's direction. What was going on there? That was the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And once we landed there, wow, was there peace, and we knew that was God's direction for our life. Are there times when that happens? Absolutely. See, I don't think it is simply as simple as God's will is point A and point B because actually God's will is for you to grow in Christ, and it's actually God's will is the process between point A and point B. And I want you to think about life that way, because that's where we pray for His kingdom to come, that's where we pray for His will to be done in our lives. And as we live faithfully, we also need to remember some pretty important lessons that I think emerged from this and here's where, lemme just give you a few final thoughts. We have to remember in this journey before we get into Acts 2, it's Jesus' church, not ours. As we walk through this passage, it's one of those passages where I actually like it 'cause I can take my breath, 'cause I'm telling you, we get into chapter two and it is full steam ahead. There is miracle after miracle, there's just all kinds of stuff going on. It's just one of those normal passages. And it's actually quite insightful because if you just look at, you know, tongues of fire, miracles and dreams throughout the Book of Acts, are you like me? I look at my life, I think, man, I got a boring life. But what we need to say is, well, wait a minute, Luke picked highlights, Luke didn't give 24/7. 24/7 is right here where they were wrestling. Now sure the Holy Spirit shows up, but they were trying to figure life out. And yes, He shows up in some dramatic ways and He still does, but it is just as much as supernatural work when He transforms someone's life. And Jesus said in Matthew 16, "I will build my church." And here's something to think about, Jesus is about building His church not building platforms to show off superstar Christians. Keep that in mind 'cause you won't be so disappointed when you start reading the press reports that we've seen over the past couple of years. That's not what it's about gang. It's easy to look at Paul and Peter and John and all of these guys, but you know what? God used normal people. It's not about personalities, it's not about high capacity people, oh, I resist that. And I'll tell you why, 'cause the last time I checked, the apostles were not high capacity people. We could just have so much fun there this morning, but I'm gonna run out of time. They resisted God's movement. They did not immediately go to Jerusalem, they did not go from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, by the time you get into Acts 6, there was prejudicial stuff going on in the church. They were struggling with the issue of racism within the Early Church in Acts 6, 'cause they weren't feeding everybody that didn't look like them and think like them. And then what happened? It was through persecution that God had to push them out of Jerusalem, Judea, and then in Samaria to be with people that weren't like them, and then the uttermost parts. And what does that do? I love that because when I get to those passages, I am reminded that Jesus uses humans like me who are ordinary and not perfect and mess things up. And here's the winner, He still accomplishes His sovereign plan to grow His church. Isn't that an amazing thing? And He does so in all of us. Man, that gives me hope. 24/7 I make mistakes, and yet He still accomplishes His sovereign plan. And Jesus doesn't always use supernatural events to build His church either. Remember there's highlights along the way. It didn't happen all the time, Acts is a collection. There were seasons where Paul and Luke and others were riding in a boat, they were having conversations, they were trying to figure all of this stuff out. Believers were simply trying to deal with all that was coming at them, and yet they were trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now does God show up in dramatic ways? Oh yeah, I shared some stories last week. There are thousands of people coming to Christ today in the Middle East through dreams and visions. In the Muslim world, but also now it's beginning to take place with Jewish individuals. God just showing up in remarkable ways, okay? That's His department though, right? My department is to follow His will, not to be running after another miraculous experience, but to ground myself with others in prayer, in His word, and seek His kingdom and not my own, and then if He begins to do that, hey, let's ride that wave. Our job is to remember this, Jesus asks us to step out in faith and watch Him work. And that's it. I love this phrase I heard it years ago, God always draws straight lines with crooked sticks. Have you heard that? He uses all of us even though we're crooked sticks and He draws these straight lines, He uses us to accomplish His plan and His purpose, and that's why God it is about you and your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, grow your church, grow it through us as we seek to be your witness in this world however you move. Now, lemme say this. If you've not joined many of us on that journey that we're gonna unpack even further next week as we take a look at the coming of the Holy Spirit, and you're still investigating a relationship with Jesus Christ, you just, Holy Spirit, what's that? I thought there was Jesus, Holy Spirit, there's God, what are you telling me, man? I don't know what you're talking about. And you're trying to figure this out, then there's probably a really good chance you haven't crossed the line yet, you haven't bought the package, you haven't accepted Christ as Savior and Lord. I'm not gonna mince words. And in order to join us on this journey to experience this kind of incredible life the way that we were meant to live as an image bearer created in God's image, it happens in a moment when you finally realize that you're a crooked stick, you're broken, and there's no way you're gonna put your life together in order to be pleasing to God. And some of you are here, and some of your worshiping online and you're wondering, man, I gotta piece my life together in such a way that somehow, you know, I'll be acceptable to God. You can never do that. He's holy, our Father, He's holy and perfect. The only way you gain a relationship with Him and join us is to finally acknowledge what the rest of us have, we're sinners and you need a Savior and so do I. And isn't it time to just set all that stuff aside and acknowledge before God in so many words, God, I'm a sinner, but I wanna be saved, and you turn in repentance to Jesus who paid the price already for your sin. He did what God asked so that you could find forgiveness, and trust Him and believe He rose from the grave, and trust He's the only one that can provide forgiveness and eternal life and say, God, I want your everlasting life and forgiveness. So Lord Jesus, I believe you died for me and you rose from the grave and I embrace you now as my Lord and my Savior. And then for the rest of us that have made that choice while we wait, let's commit to His kingdom and not our own, and then let's look with joyful anticipation and recommit to that cause as we begin to discover this new life in the Spirit to become a witness for Jesus Christ 'cause we know how much our world desperately needs that hope through Christ and Christ alone. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the hope that is found through you and the joy of walking this journey together. May you move through your spirit in our hearts and in our lives that as we leave this place, we will be looking for where you're working, we will be anticipating how you're going to be moving in our hearts and lives as we seek to follow. And may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth and in our lives as it is in heaven. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.