What the apostles did as they waited on Jesus’ promise suggests what we can do when we must wait on God and don’t fully understand what He is doing in our lives.

I have three quick scriptures for you to consider as we begin the message today. The first is Psalm 147:11: "The Lord favors those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindness."

The second is Isaiah 40:31: "Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles,

And the third is Lamentations 3:25-26: The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.

In these passages, waiting on the Lord is a favorable thing, a strength-building thing, and a good thing in the sight of the Lord.

We’ve just begun a new series from the book of Acts. We covered the first 11 verses of chapter 1 last time. There we saw the apostles of Jesus waiting for the Holy Spirit, waiting for the kingdom of God, and waiting for Christ return in the clouds. Today’s lesson, the third in the series, is called, "What to do When You Have to Wait." If you have a hard time holding still when it seems that nothing is happening, this is could be your sermon. Our text is Acts 1:12-26:

What the apostles did as they waited on Jesus’ promise suggests what we can do when we must wait on God and don’t fully understand what He is doing in our lives. During this period when the apostles waited, we see first that:

Look again at verse 4 which we considered last time: "And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised…."

Now drop down to verse 12 in our text for today: "Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away."

Jesus commanded and the apostles obeyed. That may not seem like much of a big deal to us today but let’s not forget that these men had only recently run for their lives in the wake of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Recalling the hatred manifested toward Jesus, they were painfully aware that they could receive the same treatment. It had only been 40 days.

There are times in your life and mine when it is difficult to obey God. We don’t fully understand what is happening. We don’t know what is coming next. We’re anxious. We’re not sure what to do. The only thing we do know is what the Lord has commanded. What will we do under such circumstances? Many simply will not obey unless they have a clear understanding of what God is doing and that understanding seems favorable to them. Of course some won’t obey at all, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Are you one who will obey unconditionally or are you one who must first know what God is doing so you can calculate the risk? The words of the Hebrew writer in Hebrews 11:8 continue to challenge to me: "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going." Do you see the quality of Abraham’s obedience? He obeyed unconditionally.

In sharp contrast I recall that time in First Samuel Chapter 13 when King Saul was at Gilgal. The Philistine army had assembled to fight Israel. God’s people were greatly outnumbered. Saul was waiting for Samuel the priest to come and present the burnt offering to the Lord for their victory. Samuel was supposed to arrive in seven days, but the time passed and there was no sign of him. The Philistines could attack at any time. Finally Saul took it upon himself to offer the sacrifice – a clear violation of the Law of Moses. This was something only a priest was allowed to do. Because of this poor choice, Saul’s kingdom did not endure.

Are you one like Saul who, when God’s way doesn’t match your timing or the way you want things to work, takes matters into your own hands to the point of disobedience? Or, are you like Abraham, a man who obeyed even when he didn’t know where he was going or what was coming next? I don’t think I need to remind you that Abraham is known as the "Father of the Faithful" while Saul was stripped of his kingdom and died in disgrace. Psalm 37:9 says, "Evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth." KJV

Not knowing exactly what was coming next when Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem, there are many things these apostles could have done. The one thing they did do - they obeyed. That’s a fine example for us. Secondly:

Most of us have read the book of Acts before. We know that in ten short days a great miracle would take place. The Holy Spirit would come upon the apostles and they would be empowered to speak the word of God. They would be greatly used by God to turn the world upside down for the cause of Christ. But remember, they did not know the future. They only knew that Jesus had told them to go back to the city that so recently rejected and crucified Him - and wait. Oh, they wanted more information, just as we do when we don’t understand what’s going on. They asked Him about the timing of the kingdom. But He gave them nothing other than the generalities He had already expressed. Then He left and went back into heaven, leaving them gawking at the sky! And what did they do? Did they run? No. They obeyed. Now look at verse 13: "And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James."

From this verse we see that they had made arrangements to stay in the city. Apparently they had rented an upper room apartment and were staying there. Again, remember the danger this would present for them. Those who had hated Jesus would still hate his followers. The longer they stayed in the city the more danger they would be in, it would seem. Yet Jesus, in so many words had commanded, "Go back into harm’s way. Stay in harm’s way. Trust Me." So they obeyed and they stayed.

How is your staying power? Do you have the patience to stay when things are less than comfortable or convenient? Do I?

My experience with human nature tells me that most of us, when things get tough, don’t want to stay. We want to run! The job gets tough - quit! The marriage gets hard - leave! The ministry gets difficult - move! Where are those who are willing to stay when they don’t know what is coming next? I realize that I am among people who have stayed through difficulties in many areas of life. I’m not trying to discourage you if you’re already there. I simply point this out in reminding you of a quality worth emulating.

By the way, I spent quite a bit of last week’s message keeping you on track with the pronouns of this passage. The words "apostles," "Men of Galilee," "these," "them," "you," "they" -- all of these point to the apostles who, up to this point are the recipients of all the action. Now Luke emphasizes that by mentioning the apostles by name. Verse 13: "And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James."

Tuck that away as you did before. It will be important very soon.

So what do you do when you must wait? How about obeying those things that you know God wants you to do? How about staying when you know it’s the right thing to do? That’s what these men did and God was about to bless them richly. They obeyed, they stayed, thirdly:

Verse 14: "These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers."

What can you do when things don’t seem to be moving in the direction you want to go, at the speed you want them to go, and there’s nothing you can do at the moment to change them? You can do the one thing that is so easy to forget - you can pray!

Perhaps you’re one of those who often says, if not to others, at least to yourself, "I don’t have time to pray. I’m always too busy." A period of enforced waiting can give opportunity to rectify that.

One of my favorite phrases from the 23rd Psalm is that part where the psalmist says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures." Philip Keller, in his book, "A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm," points out that the emphasis of that sentence in the Hebrew is on the verb "makes." The idea is to compel or to force. Sheep are very flighty. If one is nervous, all are nervous. Once this contagious anxiety gets started and moves through the flock, there can be a stampede. A practice of the ancient shepherd was to place his hand in the middle of a panicked sheep’s back and push down. Though the animal wanted to run, the spindly legs could not withstand the pressure and would buckle under him. The sheep was literally made to lie down. In this condition, with his nose nearer to the ground, he would be reminded again of the fragrant grass and what a peaceful and helpful thing it was to graze under the watchful protection of the shepherd. This enforced reminder had the effect of calming the entire flock.

Could it be that those times we feel forced to wait when we don’t want to wait are times when we ought to renew our connection with the Good Shepherd in prayer? We can’t always move ahead but we can nearly always pray. It may well be that our waiting time is, in reality, a lesson for learning to depend on God rather than on our own resources.

As these apostles of Jesus waited on the promise of the Father, they obeyed, they stayed, and they prayed. Finally, we see that:

Yes, re-arrayed is a word. When something is arrayed it is organized, constituted, put in order. When it is re-arrayed, it is put back into previous order – the way it was before it was disarrayed. In the days prior to what we read here the band of twelve apostles had lost a member. Judas had betrayed Jesus and committed suicide. Now there were eleven and not twelve apostles. As they waited, Peter saw the need to correct this. Verse 15:

120 persons - that may have been all the disciples of Jesus living in Jerusalem at this time. It’s even possible that it was all the remaining disciples living in Israel. Luke uses numbers throughout his book to tell us of the progress of the church. In chapter 2 he tells us of 3000 Christians. In chapter 4 he tells of 5000 men. After that he quits counting and refers to "multitudes" of disciples. At this point though there were only 120 people in the movement. That isn’t very impressive. In fact if you consider the odds at that point from human perspective they don’t sound very good. If anything ever had humble beginnings it was the church of Christ. You might recall Jesus taught that the kingdom would be like a tiny mustard seed(1) that would grow into a giant tree. That potential of something small becoming something great is still in the church today. We shouldn’t be discouraged when things appear insignificant. As long as we’re on the right track God can bless us. Verse 16…

An amazing thing to me is that while Peter and the others had been slow to understand God’s plans surrounding the crucifixion, suddenly now Peter is explaining how the betrayal by Judas was foretold in Scripture. How did he move from confusion to understanding this issue? I think the answer lies back in Luke’s Gospel. In the final chapter of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, verse 45, speaking of Jesus with His apostles, Luke tells us that the Lord "opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." Whether this opening of their minds was supernatural or simply based on his explanation, the apostles were much clearer on the meaning of all that had happened up until this time.

Luke now adds a parenthetic statement in verses 18 and 19 describing for us in graphic terms what happened to Judas after the betrayal.

Matthew 27:5 tells us that Judas, when he could not return the thirty pieces of silver he received for betraying Jesus, went out and hanged himself. Here Luke completes the story of Judas’ demise. According to verse 20 in our text this betrayal was predicted in the Psalms.

Notice the qualifications that Peter lists for someone to become an apostle of Jesus. He must have been in the company of Jesus and the other apostles during all the time that the Lord was with them – (Now pick it up in verse 22):

Those who claim that there are still apostles today or that they themselves are apostles cannot meet these Biblical qualifications of a true apostle. As I told you before, the role of New Testament apostle was foundational.(2) There are no apostles today in the sense the word is use here.

A couple of things to note in these verses... First, look carefully at how they selected these men. Some have the idea that Peter and the others just grabbed a handful of straws to represent everyone in the room, drew one of them, and picked someone at random. Those with this idea then proceed to the conclusion that they can throw together six or eight possible choices, some bad, some good, choose one at random, and say that this is God’s choice. That is not the way this was done. The apostles first put forth two to qualified men, either one of which would have been a good choice. Then they chose one by lot. There is no justification here for mindless, irresponsible decisions. Don’t, for instance, take two straws and have one represent the question, "Should I marry this non-Christian?" and the other represent, "Should I not marry this non-Christian?" The apostles didn’t use this to choose between a right and a wrong. They used it to choose between two rights.

By the way, this is the last time the drawing of lots is found in the Bible. If they used this method once the New Testament was in force, the Bible doesn’t mention it.

Second, note that some have read this passage and wondered whether this choice of Matthias as the twelfth apostle to fill Judas’s place was actually authorized by God since it took place before Pentecost. Knowing that later Paul would be chosen to be an apostle, they reason that Paul should have been the twelfth apostle, not Matthias. Could this be?

I think not. Let me tell you why. Luke is the author of the book of Acts which tells this story. Luke was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. Surely had there been a mistake here in choosing Matthias as the twelfth apostle, Paul would have known it, and in associating with Paul, Luke would also have known about it. Yet he tells the story of the choice of Matthias mentioning no such thing.

Actually, Paul was the thirteenth apostle. Those of you who know the New Testament understand the reason why. In the first two chapters of the book of Galatians Paul defended his apostleship. In chapter 2 he made it clear that the twelve were apostles to the Jews and he was the apostle to the Gentiles. Verse 7 of that chapter says this, "…but on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to this uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised…" [dropping down to verse 9] "James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised." So, there were 12 apostles to the Jews, and one apostle to the Gentiles. The number thirteen then, is no problem at all.

Getting back now to the issue we have been pursuing in this message, What to Do When You Have to Wait, we see here that the apostles used the time to good advantage. They used it to re-array, that is to set the things in order that had become out of order. A time of waiting is not time to waste. If you lose your job and are unemployed, it’s a great time to polish up your resume, hone your skills by taking a class, or do something else that will help you when you can move ahead. A time of waiting can be a great time to reorder your spiritual life as well. Revisiting the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, meditation, ordering your life to do good - these are all great activities to move you ahead when you cannot otherwise move.

A childhood accident caused poet Elizabeth Barrett to live life as a semi-invalid before she married Robert Browning in 1846. In her youth, Elizabeth had been watched over by her tyrannical father. When she and Robert were married, their wedding was held in secret because of her father’s disapproval. After the wedding the Brownings sailed for Italy, where they lived for the rest of their lives. But even though her parents had disowned her, Elizabeth never gave up on the relationship. Almost weekly she wrote letters to them, waiting hopefully for some reply. No reply ever came. Then after ten years, she received a large box in the mail. Inside, Elizabeth found all of her letters. To her great disappointment, not one of them had been opened! Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. Had Elizabeth wasted that time of waiting for reconciliation with her parents, these letters would never have been written, and the world would not have been blessed by the writings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

What can you do when you have to wait? You can take a page from the lives of the apostles of Christ. You can continue to obey, you can stay and not run from responsibility in your frustration, you can pray, developing a relationship with your heavenly Father, and you can use the time to re-array those parts of your life that are out of order. There are no real down times in the life of a true believer. There are simply times of different focus. May God bless you richly as you consider the examples of the godly people in his Holy Word. Amen.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place

1. Matthew 13:31-32
2. Ephesians 2:20

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

[Archive]    [Home]   [Comments]   [Search]