Acts 1:12-26 - Devotion And Intestines

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed By Apple Podcasts)

Welcome to Tabernacle Talk, a Bible study podcast hosted by Brian Self, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church. We hope this time in God's Word will be an encouragement to you. Let's dive right in.

Thanks for watching! Last week, we began our study through the Book of Acts, and we started off in Acts 1 and verse number 1, and we saw Jesus finally go off the scene from, he had been there through all the chapters of Luke.

If you're reading through the Bible, just kind of in the order that we have it here in our English Bibles, you've got Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, you've got the Gospels, you've been with him for many, many chapters, and now he's gone.

And I'm sure for these disciples, there was some fear and some trepidation. What do we do now that Jesus is gone? Let's see what they did in Acts 1 and going into verse number 12.

It says, Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

When they had entered the city, they went up to the upstairs room where they were staying, that is Peter, John, James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James.

He was the one that all throughout the Gospels, every time it mentions him, the Gospel writers go out of their way to say, not a scare yet.

All these were continually devoting themselves with one mind to prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.

At this time, Peter stood up among the brothers and sisters, a group of about 120 people was there together, and said, brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a

guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry.

Now, this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.

And it became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, as a result, that field was called Ch'keldamah in their own language, that is field of blood.

For it is written in the Book of Psalms, may his residence be made desolate, and may there be none living in it. And may another take his office or position of oversight.

Therefore, it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of

his resurrection. So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsobius, who was also called Justus, and Matthias.

And they prayed and said, You, Lord, who know the hearts of all people, show which one of these two you have chosen to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they drew lots for them.

And the lot fell to Matthias. And he was added to the 11 apostles. So here, there's not many things that we read it and we go, oh, yeah, that's real big for me today.

But I see some incredible things in this passage. One of these is in verse number 14. All of these were continually devoting themselves with one mind to prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.

What an incredible thing it is when the people of God decide to together with one mind, that is one purpose. There's not fighting egos or different things that people want to pursue. It's one mind.

It is all together, they were devoting themselves to prayer. It can be difficult to get people to decide on anything. Many of us have tried to get food with two or three other people.

I can think back to this past Sunday and even my family, my in-laws were in town for my kind of ordination to ministry at Tabernacle specifically.

And after we had been hanging out for a while and it was time to eat again, we were talking with them and I asked Samantha, what would you like to eat? And she goes, I don't really know.

And her mom said the same and her dad said the same and I was like, oh my goodness. It was just humorous how hard it can be to get people to all be on the same page and on the same mind with something.

But what an incredible thing when the people of God devote themselves to prayer. Are you devoted to prayer? I see here in the verse it says all these were continually devoting themselves to prayer.

It wasn't just a one-time decision. It's not, okay, I'm going to pray and then suddenly for the rest of my life, it becomes an easy task. It becomes a mindless task.

No, no, no. I think it's an incredible thing that when we choose to pray, we are going to have to choose to pray again. Though we pray without ceasing is the command.

It's that we should always be in an attitude of prayer that we're constantly calling on the Lord.

When we devote ourselves to prayer, it is an altogether different and wonderful thing that we would say, God, I'm going to place a reliance on you at all of these different points that says, I'm not going through life by myself.

I'm not witnessing to my family by myself. I'm not going through my relationship struggles by myself. I'm not engaging with my coworkers by myself in every area of my life.

I'm going to do it with you. I'm going to call on you. I'm going to ask for your help.

Are we continually devoting ourselves to prayer? I can see there the unity that Jesus brings, that it was all of these people that I think of Matthew, who was a tax collector for the Roman Empire.

And you have Simon the Zealot, who would have hated Romans and especially hated the tax collectors, traitorous Jews who were working with the Roman government against the Jewish people. And God brought those people together.

He brought together men and women.

Men and women at this time especially were deeply at enmity with one another that has not faded throughout the years, but that enmity that kind of started taking place after the fall in the Garden of Eden and the domination and the distrust that took

place. You can see, read all throughout Scripture of the various events in which men and women are at odds with one another. Here, men and women together are devoting themselves to prayer. And I can see Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.

If you read through the Gospels, most of the time, other than in Luke 1 and 2, most of the time when you see Mary or Jesus' brothers mentioned, it's because they're trying to get Jesus to stop preaching. They're like, you're going to get hurt.

People are going to get mad. You need to come on home. And over and over again, Jesus basically gives, hey, you know who my real family is?

My real family is those that listen to the voice of God speaking through me and they follow it. Those are my real family members.

And here, those that were trying to stop Jesus from preaching, again, out of a misguided love for him, but now they are following him wholeheartedly. They have staked their lives on Jesus. I think of this too.

I gotta close because I'm running out of battery pretty quick and already gone eight and a half minutes so far on my count here. The one other thing that I want to note, two things. Number one, Jesus brings all of that unity back in.

He is able to reconcile people. He works through those that devote themselves to prayer. Are we devoting ourselves to prayer?

Are we reconciling with others? I see Judas, and I think of the tragedy it is that just because people know what to do, just because people know some things about Jesus or about God or about the Bible, does not mean that they are all saved.

I think of Jesus' warnings when he says, not everyone who says to me in that day, Lord, Lord, in your name haven't we done all of these things and haven't we proclaimed you? And he will say, depart from me. I never knew you.

Man, I don't want to be that person. I want to constantly on my face before God, in my prayer, in my mind, claim Christ alone and say, God, it has to be you.

If it's my righteousness, if it's my goodness, if it's my works and my miracles and my teaching and my whatever, I'm never going to make it. Instead, the only thing I can cling to is Christ alone, always for salvation.

Have you clung to Christ alone, his righteousness, his sufficiency, his holiness, his worthiness for your salvation or are you trusting in works? Think of Judas, that he was one that walked with Jesus for years. He was one that had cast out devils.

He was one that had performed miracles. And yet all of those things don't save us. It is only through knowing and following Christ.

Do you know him as your Savior? Are you following him as the Lord of your life? Do you know Jesus?

Have you clung to him alone for salvation? Then there at the end, kind of a weird thing for us, we have the Holy Spirit now and we have the completed Word of God that we rely on for our decisions.

But for these people, as they were praying and as they were seeking the Lord's face, they felt as though God was leading them to adopt one more apostle. And they could have just gone by maybe human metrics. Who's the best speaker?

Who knows the most? Who went to Torah school the longest? Who was with Jesus the longest amount of time?

Who did Jesus like and talk about most? But they didn't do that. Instead, they called on the Lord, they prayed to Him, and then they selected based on the criteria of who had been with Jesus.

Is that what we do? Do we value people that are well-esteemed in the world's eyes? Do we value people that are merely intelligent?

Or do we value those that have been with Jesus? And ask God, like God, lead us to leaders. That's my prayer as a part of Tabernacle Baptist Church, is God, I want you to make it clear and evident who is with you.

And Lord, as you raise up pastors and teachers and deacons and elders, Lord, as you raise up these people within our midst, as we train and disciple, make it clear and evident who you have to shepherd and to lead this church along with myself.

I'm so thankful for Pastor Ron and how he has continued with our church.

And my prayer would be that we would see over the next many years more and more and more pastors and teachers and deacons and those that would serve the church be raised up, those that would serve in areas where maybe they don't have maybe a

biblically designated title, but they say, I want to serve, I want to love, and what an incredible thing that would be. So to that, are we devoting ourselves to prayer? We can devote ourselves to a lot of things.

It can be easy to devote ourselves to the Word because this can become for us just a mental exercise. Prayer is something that depends totally on God. Are we devoting ourselves to prayer?

Are we reconciling with others, knowing that God wants to bring reconciliation? Do we realize that it's Christ alone in knowing, believing, following Him, obeying Him that makes all the difference in the world?

Not doing things, but actually knowing Him. And then, are we relying on Him and valuing what He values, which is godly character, as opposed to just worldly metrics? Hope to see you as we get to the day of Pentecost.

It is a wonderful, incredible passage and can't wait to study it with you tomorrow.