In LUKE 24, we read the account of Jesus’ last day upon this earth. Please turn in your Bibles to that chapter and keep it there as we will come back and visit it again in a few moments.
This passage that we will read only covers a few days, yet so many things happened, it had to have thrown the disciples into a period of confusion and even worry. They had watched as Jesus died on the cross and had seen Him buried in the tomb. Three days later, they had seen the evidence that He had risen, mysteriously defeating death. And then, there were over 500 people in Scripture that had seen him AFTER he had risen.
Two of the many witnesses were walking on a road to Emmaus when a third man joined them. These two men were believers in Jesus and were understandably upset at what had happened to Him. After a bit, they stopped to eat, and it was during this meal that Jesus allowed their eyes to be fully opened and let them see Him for Who He really is; their Lord and Savior!
These two men came back to Jerusalem and found the 11 core disciples gathered together. And we will pick this up as they share their story about how they had just walked with Jesus.
LUKE 24:36-39 reads;
‘While they were still talking about this, Jesus Himself appeared among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at My hands and My feet. It is Me! Touch me and see – a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’
After saying this, Jesus ate with them. During that last meal, Jesus talked to them and opened their minds so they could finally and fully understand. He also told them that He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to take His place among them. And after He talked with them, He led them out to a place near Bethany.
Let’s read LUKE 24:50-53.
‘When He had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.’
And then two men in white (angels) appeared with the men and basically asked them why they were just standing there. The two angels told them that just as Jesus disappeared, He would return again.
IN ACTS 1:12-13a, we read where after the encounter with the angels, the disciples went back to Jerusalem, to the upper room in the house, in which they had been staying.
That walk must have been a very interesting walk. I cannot even imagine what was running through their minds. They had no clear understanding of everything that had happened, and they could not have known at that point what was going to happen. There must have been a lot of talk based on questions rather than answers. So, they had no choice but to store up all the information Jesus had given them in their hearts, waiting for a day to come when they could make sense of it all.
And it is this act of preparation that I want to talk about tonight. The act of getting prepared. The act of focusing and being obedient to our Lord, Jesus Christ.
For everything we do in life:
1. WE MUST SPEND TIME IN PREPARATION
When you get up in the morning, you must prepare yourself to go to work, don’t you? You must take a shower, dress, eat, and then get your car keys so you can actually make it there on time.
As the day progresses, you need to prepare for things: Things such as actually performing the functions of your particular jobs. And then at night, before you go to bed, you must prepare by changing clothes again, brushing your teeth, etc.
And so, as they stayed in the upper room, they spent much of their time getting prepared. Part of that preparation was in prayer and part was teaching and talking about Jesus. Part of their time was preparing to go into all the known regions and be His witnesses.
And part of it was anticipating this unknown entity Jesus referred to as the Holy Spirit. What would He look like? How would He present Himself?
I spoke about how much time we spend every day preparing ourselves to do the things we have to do. But how much time do we really prepare to do the Lord’s work? The average Christian spends less than 30 minutes a week in prayer; less than 8 hours a week in church activities of any kind; and less than 5 minutes a week talking to other people sharing with them what Christ has done for them. Getting prepared to serve God on a daily basis should be our number one priority in life.
2 TIMOTHY 4:2 gives us good advice on what we should be doing.
‘Preach the Word. Be prepared in season and out of season: Correct, rebuke, and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.’
We must always be prepared to tell others about Jesus. But we must do so with an extreme amount of patience because they do not know Him, and, as Paul said, since they do not know Him, they will tend to think what we say is foolishness.
And we must be sure to be careful and give full and correct instruction to those we talk to. There would be nothing worse than to give witness to someone regarding their personal salvation, and end up leading them further away from the Lord because we gave them the wrong information – because we were not properly prepared to do what Jesus told us to do.
So, tonight, I would like to take the time to teach you how to prepare for God and His Holy Spirit to work among us. And we will do so by seeing how the disciples prepared. And the text we will be using is found in ACTS 1:13b-26.
I will not read the entire passage tonight, choosing to let you read it for yourselves sometime during the remainder of this week. This will allow us time to more fully explore the meaning behind this passage, and it will also draw you into a habit of reading your Bibles even more than you do now.
Let’s first take a look at the type of people Jesus used to change the world. Jesus always used regular people. This show us that:
2. ORDINARY PEOPLE CAN DO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS
The people who were gathered in the room included what some would call very unlikely people to do great things. It is not a list of ‘Who’s Who’ in the religious circles of that day.
There were four professional fishermen. These were like not like the casual fishermen one might expect to find down at the local Bass Pro shop. These were rugged men, akin to the longshoremen of the 1800’s.
There was a Zealot, who belonged to a radical political party bent on overthrowing Rome. Next, there was a tax collector who was consider lower than low.
These people were as messed up in their lives as we are today! There was an adulterous woman there, and then there was even another woman who claimed to be a virgin even though she was ready to have a baby. There was a group of people who had denied Jesus was the Christ as early as one month earlier.
And then, there was a bunch of people who were just regular people; people who were never considered to be anything special and who nobody ever thought would accomplish anything in their lives.
We are a lot like those people. We think we cannot do great things for God because we don’t have what it takes. And that is one of the tools Satan uses to keep us from preparing ourselves.
..... I don’t know enough about the Bible.
..... I don’t know how to talk to people I don’t know.
..... And the list goes on.
In reality, God would never ask you to do something He wasn’t sure beforehand that you could accomplish. But you must first be willing to prepare for the job. God wants, and expects, to use all of us. He does not look at what we ARE, but looks at what we CAN BE if we will just be obedient.
Even though we might just be ordinary folks, we can still do wondrous things for God. But to do them, our first job is to:
3. WE HAVE TAKEN THE ’PROPER’ PREPARATIONS
A great part of getting prepared to do anything for God is to talk to Him. And that is where prayer comes into play.
ACTS 1:14:
‘They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women an Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.’
They devoted much of their time to actually going into prayer, both individually and as a group with others! How much time do we actually devote to praying? Most of us tend to rely on the ‘McDonald’s Drive-thru Prayer.’ That is when we go to God with a very quick prayer request and then hurry and end it so we can get back to what we were doing before.
That might be okay when faced with an unexpected emergency situation, but it is not what I would call ‘devoted prayer.’ Devoted prayer is when you set aside a certain amount of uninterrupted time each day, just so you can talk to God in prayer. This should be done with other believers, and with just yourself.
In the disciples case, they spent about ten days in prayer before the Holy Spirit came at the time of Pentecost. How many of us would allocate ten days to stay constantly in prayer about anything? Sounds a little overwhelming, doesn’t it?
What comes to your minds when you hear the word ‘pray?’ We tend to think sitting there, with our eyes closed and our hands folded, whispering the right words to God, right? But true prayer is much more than that. It is about hanging out in God’s presence; inviting Him into your universe; and not about sitting in the right position and saying the right words.
We started this church on a motto: ‘Not how, but why.’ We wanted to get rid of the traditions many churches have conjured up as to how we are supposed to do things, and get back to the basics of God’s Word so we could concentrate on why we were supposed to do things for God.
Sitting with hands clasped together while we say words we would not normally say is not praying. Walking with God and sharing your daily life with Him and then just talking to Him as you would someone you love and respect is prayer.
Here is the difference as best I can put it. Picture yourself calling me on the phone and asking me to meet you here at the church. When we both get here, you want to talk over a problem you are having with me. What would your demeanor be like? It would be more of a person going to church kind of being a bit uneasy, as they talk to their pastor, right? Information could be exchanged, but it would not be on a heart-to-heart level; a trusted and intimate level, would it?
Now, let’s say you have that same problem, and you call your best friend. You have known him or her for years, and your relationship with that person has only gotten stronger. Now, how would you feel if you talked to that person?
You would have more of a tendency to drop the pretense and uneasiness and just talk from your heart. You would feel comfortable enough to just lay it all on the table. And you would trust that person explicably to keep it confidential. That is the difference between going through the motions of prayer and going into prayer. When you go into prayer with God, you are tapping into the most powerful thing in existence; a one-on-one meeting with the Creator of the universe.
Who do you think is busier, you or God? I would say God is much busier than any of us. Yet, when we think enough of Him to actually devote some of our time to Him, just to talk to Him, He will devote that same amount of time to you, and He will listen to every word you say. And He promises to answer our prayers in the best way and at the best time.
But we must prepare our hearts to come before Him by humbling our attitudes and understand it is about what He wants, not about what we want.
We must prepare ourselves to be obedient by not only being willing, but being eager to do whatever it is He wants us to do. And we best do that by knowing that He will have given us every tool we need – even before He called us to work.
And we must prepare our minds. We must fully trust and rely upon Him through His Son, Jesus. We must develop a knowledge of His Word so that we will know who God is and what His plans are. And once we study and get to know His Word, we will have prepared ourselves to receive the power of His Holy Spirit, and it will be in that power that we find our abilities to do exactly what God wants us to do.
We need to live a life of prayer; a life spent in His presence; and a life that depends on the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can serve our Lord. Are you ready, willing, and available?
Let me explain to you the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Take a small desktop fan and leave it unplugged. Explain to the congregation that this fan is made to create a breeze. Turn it on. Tell them that since it is not plugged into the power source, it cannot do the job it was intended to do. Now, turn it off.
Plug it in and then turn it on again. Let the congregation see how it is now turning on and doing the job it was intended to do.
Tell them that only when we are plugged into the source of power, can we do the job we were created to do, also.)
ACTS 1:8:
‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea, and in Samaria – and to the ends of the earth.’
Just like the fan needs power to do its job, we need power to do our job. The Holy Spirit will give us that power at the right time to do the job we have been given; as long as we have tried to prepare ourselves for doing it.
If you feel that God has a calling upon your life, and you are unclear as to how to pursue that calling, I want you to talk to me. If you see the need to shore up, or make your Christian walk more solid in Christ, again – I want you to talk to me.
My entire ministry is to help others come closer and get prepared to meet Jesus Christ. May I help you do that?
INVITATION
