The living Jesus Christ, who is ascended and reigning from heaven, hears our prayers, is aware of our needs.
It knows the hearts of all, as it says right here.
You are known not by an amorphous kind of cloudy God being.
You are known by Jesus Christ.
The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church.
May the Spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Well, this morning we'll be looking at our fourth message in the book of Acts, as we're now actually getting into the story of what's going on in this book.
And it is interesting, like First Samuel, which Pastor Sean is going through on his sermon days.
So too for Acts, it is it is more of a narrative.
It's a story for us to follow along and uh and and learn from as we're kind of watching the story unfold.
And so today we'll get into some of that narrative element.
We're going to be finishing up chapter one today.
So we are now moving a little bit more quickly.
We took we were slow there at the beginning, look at a f looking at a few specific concepts that are going to be important as we move forward.
But we're going to pick up the pace a little bit this morning.
So
If you recall, last week we were looking at this concept of the bodily ascension of Jesus, something that's sometimes missed in our tradition, in our camp.
But that Jesus, having been bodily crucified, bodily buried, and bodily raised from the dead, is then taken up into the presence of God in a body, in the in the human body.
He ascends to the presence of God where he remains to this day.
So we looked at that and we looked at what that means for us as those who are also in the body and united to this Christ.
So that's what we looked at last week.
This week, then, we're going to see how the reality of Jesus' bodily ascension, being at the throne, and when we say the throne, we mean that he's ruling, he truly is ruling all
things.
We're going to see how that ascension of Christ now begins the action in the narrative
Of this book, how the things begin to happen now because Christ is ascended and reigning from the presence of God.
And we're going to specifically be looking this morning at how the disciples continue to depend on and bear witness to and look to this same Jesus, even though he's not present
with them.
They their their their dependence upon him and their looking to him continues.
Even as he has ascended.
We're going to look at that specifically this morning, how Jesus remains the present and active Lord of His people.
So we're going to look at Acts chapter one, verses twelve, all the way through verse 26.
And rather than read that for you right now, all in one shot, we'll look at each section as it comes up during the sermon.
So let me just pray for us right now, and then we will begin the first section of that passage together.
Father, we thank you, Lord.
We thank you that you do hear us.
And we thank you that you are God.
We can come to you so easily as Christians that we forget that we're talking to God, and that you hold all things, Lord, each one of us our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our
memories, our our anticipation of what's coming.
The rest of this day, the rest of this week, the rest of our lives, these things are held by you and known by you and ordered by you in love.
And we thank you for that.
We thank you that we can come and open your word, not as a duty or a religious practice or just something we do because we're Christians.
So we come here on Sunday, but we can open this word as the little birds open their mouths to the mother bird to receive food.
To receive what is desperately needed, to receive Christ, to see again a vision of our Lord, of our King, reigning over all things, crowned with glory and honor, as the anchor
of all our hope and the promise of all our life.
So Father, I pray that you'd your spirit would work now, to give my words a weight which my effort can't give to them, and to give them a point and a sharpness which my language
can't give to them.
But that your spirit would grant them now to work in power for the convicting and the encouraging and the building up and the working in the lives of all those who are here.
So we pray these things, we look to you for this, Father, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So Jesus is raised from the dead, ascended to the throne, has sent his disciples out into the world, saying, Bear witness to the whole world.
What do they do next?
What do they do?
When you think about these things that have just happened, absolutely incredible things that have just happened.
What do they do now?
That's what verses 12 through 14 tell us.
So let's look at it.
Then they return to Jerusalem.
From the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.
And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.
Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James, not Judas Iscariot.
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women.
And Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
So what do the disciples do?
What do they do?
They've just seen their God slain, buried, raised up again, and ascended to the throne with all authority in heaven and on earth.
What do they do next?
They pray.
They gather together, it says, and devote themselves to prayer.
Do you see that in verse 14?
They gather together and devote themselves to prayer.
So I was thinking about this this week.
What Jesus unleashes on the world by sending out his disciples is the greatest change ever worked in human history.
The things that these disciples were going to do would change the world in ways nothing had changed it before, and in ways nothing has changed it since.
This group of people.
That Jesus sends out, sends out would turn the world upside down and change it forever.
But see how that movement begins, this massive movement of world change.
Look how it begins.
Once Jesus has ascended, it begins with prayer.
It begins with prayer.
And it seems to me that that's important for us to note.
So the disciples, having received, as it were, their marching orders from Jesus.
They don't immediately begin drafting plans.
Okay, you do this, you do this, you'll go here, I'll do this.
They don't start creating strategic approaches to how they're gonna canvas Jerusalem and get this job done.
They don't start running marketing trends and sending out audience surveys and what do they need us to hear?
What would they like to hear?
What does Jerusalem wanna hear today?
They're not doing this.
They're not worrying about how much they have to do.
Did he say to the ends of the earth?
You know, they're not worrying about this.
They're not saying, how are we gonna do this?
How are we, what is gonna happen?
And they're certainly not asking Chat GPT what the next step is.
You know, what should I do next?
They're not saying, I'm not saying any of those things are inherently wrong, but what they do is they pray.
They pray with this whole task set before them.
They say, We need to devote ourselves to prayer.
And it's not just a quick prayer, as valid as that is.
You know, you're going into the dentist's office, Lord help me with this, you know, whatever it might be.
Those are those are legitimate prayers.
But what they're doing here is devoting themselves to prayer.
And the word for devoting here carries this idea of persistent repetition, continued, there's something that is continuing.
They're devoting themselves to prayer.
And what does that look like?
Look at verse 14.
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women, Mary, and Jesus' brothers.
So the the idea there where it says we're devoting themselves.
If it just said something like, and they devoted themselves to prayer, you might think one night they really focused on prayer.
But this were devoting means the disciples were continually doing this.
This was a pattern that was established.
The earliest followers of Jesus had a pattern of continually meeting together.
This is something they did.
They were doing it.
They were devoting themselves to prayer.
So this would point to a lifestyle of prayer.
Now, of course, being faithful Jews before the coming of Christ, they would have had hours of prayer, day time set aside to pray.
So there's this pattern of prayer that would be built into their lives.
Which sadly most of us have lost the idea of a a pattern of prayer that shapes our days.
But that's what they were doing.
They were praying continually, and they were doing it together.
Do you see that?
Again in verse 14, all of these, with one accord or with one mind, were devoting themselves of prayer to devoting themselves to prayer together with the women, with Mary,
Jesus' mother, and with his brothers.
So they were doing this all together.
It is valuable to pray by yourself.
It is valuable to have a time set aside to pray.
Absolutely.
But it's also valuable to pray together.
And that's what they were doing.
That's how that's what started, you might say, the church.
Of course, Christ starts the church, but the movement at the beginning of the church is praying together, praying with other believers.
And here in the margin of my Bible, I have written.
I saw this while I was preparing this week from sometime before we changed the name of the church to Kingstree.
So this would have been back in 2020 or 2021.
It says, Ah, Lord, for such a devotion and community to be raised up at Community Christian Church.
And I looked in my older Bible, and at the same place it said, Lord, let this happen here in Washington Courthouse, which is where I was at the time.
And so I reiterate that prayer now.
I let that happen here.
That we would be a people who pray, who come together to pray.
Now we that that's why I mention it every more every Sunday that we have this prayer meeting Sunday morning.
That's valuable, that we're praying together.
The stuff we're doing Sunday morning in my office is what's changed the universe, changed the world, started the whole movement that we're in the midst of.
And so it is, it is meaningful.
And what might this look like?
I mean, I don't know.
I would love to see the Lord create this here.
Would it mean a Saturday night prayer meeting?
You know, a Wednesday evening prayer meeting?
I know it's hard to come out.
You say, Well, I've got my my show is then, you know, my kids have this practice then.
That's right.
I know it's hard.
It's hard.
But when when when your wife men says, you know, it's our anniversary this weekend, do you say, Oh yeah, but I had to change the gotta change the oil this weekend?
You know, you we we make choices based on values.
And it would be good for us to gather together and pray.
And I'm not saying I know what that looks like, but Lord, lead us into that.
That's what I am saying.
Lead us into that as a church.
Now there's something else I want us to see here is that devoting themselves to prayer comes before their action.
Action is not wrong.
We need to act.
You need to do things.
But before they proclaimed any word to Jerusalem, before any diseased was healed, any demon was cast out, before the city was turned upside down.
As the as the leaders will say later on, before any of that, they gave themselves to prayer together.
They devoted themselves to prayer together.
And it's reasonable to think before we see the Lord do something here in our county, in our cities, in our families, in our lives, it's he can do whatever he wants.
But it's reasonable to think prayer would precede that.
It's reasonable to think that the gathering of his people and the praying of his people would
Would precede Christ's conquest of Wilmington or Sabinah or Leesburg or wherever it may be.
So may we be praying together.
Now, obviously, I'm I'm aware of this, that this was a unique moment.
Jesus told them, wait for the Holy Spirit.
He told them to wait.
So this is unique.
But the principle under what the disciples are doing here remains true: that prayer precedes action.
Prayer precedes action.
And this is true today.
And it's and it's more true, you might say, the bigger the action, the bigger the thing, you know, whether it's proposing or whether it's a new job or whether it's going into
surgery or something like this, prayer precedes actions.
But it's also true for mundane things.
Wake up in the morning.
Pray.
You can pray at the beginning of the morning for the actions that you're going to take out before you start a project.
Before your family embarks on a new season, whether it's a season of blessing and fullness or a season of difficulty and hardship, before we gather on Sunday mornings, it's right
that we should pray before we act.
And I'm saying that to myself too.
You know, we just, we just do stuff.
But it's right to pray before we act.
And you can call, you can do this together.
You can do this together.
You can call someone up and say, Can you pray with me?
You can text them and say, Could you pray with me?
Yeah, I'll be praying for you.
No, I mean right now.
Can we pray?
And they'd say, Oh, okay.
And you can pray with them.
You can pray with them.
Or we can we can meet up and pray together.
Or we could have, like I said, rhythms of prayer here at the church.
But this was the pattern of the early church.
It was the DNA of the early church.
And may it be more and more the pattern here.
Things like this, may that help us move in that direction.
Now, having prayed together like this, what happens?
Peter stands up and says something.
So it it would seem that the Holy Spirit impressed this upon Peter, and while they're meeting during these this time, he stands up and he says something.
What's he say?
Look at verses 15 all the way down through 22.
It's a longer section, but follow along with me if you can.
In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was about 120, and he 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.
And now Luke interjects something here to tell us what happened to Judas.
Now this man acquired a field with 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 that the field was called in their own language Al Kadema, that is the field of blood.
So Luke wants to say, listen, Judas didn't turn out all right.
It didn't work out for Judas.
But then we get back to what Peter is saying.
For it is written in the book of Psalms: May his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it.
That's Psalm 69, verse 25.
And
Let another take his office at Psalm 109, verse 8.
So one of the men, Peter continues, one of the men who have accompanied accompanied us during all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of
John until the day he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us, must become with us, a witness to his resurrection.
So there's a lot to point out here, but let's start.
Before we even get to what Peter is arguing, what he's saying needs to happen.
Let's look at how he's approaching scripture.
Because this whole thing Peter says comes from his reading of Scripture.
See, he says, brothers, brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled.
So he's getting all this from his reading of Scripture.
I want to point out two things about it.
Look at verse 16.
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.
So the first thing to see about what Peter says here is that Peter acknowledges David wrote this.
This is from David, but he also at the same time says, God said this.
The Holy Spirit spoke by the mouth of David.
And so Peter and the other apostles, the beginning of our the church that we are a part of, started with this vision of scripture, which says, it is the words of true historic
men, and it is the words of God, such that I can say, David said this, and God said this.
That's how Peter is reading Scripture.
And he says, these words speak not only into their own context, you know.
David had something he was saying in his time to the people who are reading the Psalms, but they continue to speak now with divine authority.
They continue to bear with Peter says, we have to do something.
Because what David wrote, because of what the what the Spirit said through David, we have to do something today.
And so this vision of Scripture is down at the roots, down at the foundation of the infant church.
It's a vision of scripture that says it is truly historically.
Written in a context, and it is the word of God.
It is the word of God that has a bearing upon us now.
And so to the extent that one would reject that idea of scripture, one is rejecting the foundation of the church, because that's that's where that's where they're reading as the
church begins.
Now, the second thing for us to see here is that scripture or the infant church, not only built on prayer as we saw.
continual prayer, not only built on a view of scripture as God's word, but specifically the early church read scripture as God's word about Jesus Christ.
They approached Scripture Christocentrically, with Christ at the center.
Look how Peter is interpreting the Psalms.
Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, he says, he says, this is what the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand
Concerning Judas.
This the these Psalms are about Judas and his betrayal of Jesus.
Now, for the sake of time, we're not going to go back and do a close look at each of these psalms, but just so you know, you can look at it on your own time.
Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, these are about the sufferings of the righteous man, or even the king, the sufferings of the royal righteous man.
And Peter now.
Comes to those Psalms and says, Well, that's about Jesus.
Of course, the righteous sufferer is Jesus.
And therefore, the enemy of the righteous sufferer must be Judas, who betrayed him.
And what the scripture says happens to the enemy of the righteous sufferer must happen to the enemy of Jesus.
And so somebody needs to take Judas's place.
Let another take his office.
Now, as I said, we could go deeply into those Psalms and Peter's reading of those Psalms, but for the sake of this being a sermon, what I want to point out to you is that Peter is
reading his Bible, which is our Old Testament.
He is reading it as speaking about Jesus.
That makes this is clear here with his interpretation.
Peter and the other apostles, the beginning of the church, when they open the scriptures, they come to it saying.
This is talking about the crucified, buried, risen, reigning, and proclaimed Jesus Christ.
That's that's their interpretive lens.
And you might say, well, that's simple.
We talk about that, you know, a lot here at Kingstree.
But what this is saying is an entirely different way of reading the Bible has happened.
Because the Jews, these men, remember, these men are Jews.
They they were Jewish men.
The Jewish Jews.
People believed their Bible to be God's word, to be God speaking.
But now the Christians say, yes, it's God speaking about Jesus.
The whole thing: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, all the way through the Psalms and the prophets, it is about the man who just died and rose in our midst and is reigning now
from heaven.
And remember, that's what Jesus Himself says in Luke chapter 24, verse 44 to 48, where he says, I'm paraphrasing now, there is no understanding of the scripture until you read it
as the witness of the Christ who must suffer, die, rise, and be proclaimed in all the world.
That's what Jesus says in Luke chapter 24.
And so, as I said way at the beginning of this series, part of what I want us to see is the apostles.
Read their Bibles as bearing witness to Jesus.
This speaks, this psalm is about Jesus, this prophecy is about Jesus, all of them in different ways, all of them in beautiful ways, but they speak about Jesus.
And for us, right?
We who say, This is our final authority, this book is our final authority.
It really matters how you interpret this book, then, doesn't it?
It really matters how we're reading this.
We want to read this the way the apostles read it, not the way 20th, 21st century evangelical me decides to read this.
I want to read this the way Peter and Paul and James and John read this.
And the Acts tells us: well, then read it in light of Christ.
Read it as bearing witness to Christ.
Okay, so that's that's to say about Peter's vision of Scripture.
Now, what does he actually say?
Well, ha having this vision of Scripture.
What does Peter say needs to be done?
Well, he says to summarize what he says, someone needs to take Judas's place.
That's what it comes down to.
He says, brothers and sisters, in light of scripture, someone needs to take Judas's place, to fill up his empty spot in the 12 apostles.
And if you pause and think, that's interesting.
Because, right, Judas failed, he turned against the Lord, he turned away.
Into destruction.
But why can't the remaining 11 apostles just be faithful and do the work the Lord's given them?
Why does there need to be one more?
Because Peter says we there has to be somebody else.
Like we have to.
There must look in verse 22.
One of these men must become with us a witness.
Why couldn't there just be 11?
Why can't Jesus just send out 11 apostles?
Why must there be 12?
And I think the answer to that comes from the number 12.
From the number 12.
In the Old Testament, 12, as you probably know, is the number of God's people, 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, such that the number 12 comes to mean the fullness of God's
people.
Where you have 12, you have God's covenant people, fully as they ought to be.
And so it was not.
It was not Jesus just saying, Hey, I I like even numbers.
I'm gonna pick 12 men to follow me.
When Jesus picks 12 apostles, all of his Jewish audience knows, wow, this is like a new start.
This is like a new Israel.
This is like the new tribes, the new heads of the of the family.
When Jesus picks 12 apostles, it is a theological and historical statement.
He's saying, I am beginning to.
The new Israel, or he might, you might also say, I am, I am creating what Israel was pointing toward the whole time.
Remember Galatians?
It was all pointing toward Christ, and now Christ opens out into the 12 apostles and into those who follow him.
So the number 12 matters.
As 12, the apostles represent the new and true Israel.
They represent the new and reborn people of God.
And so it's it can't just be 11.
That'd be like starting out not fully there.
It has to be 12, because this is the beginning of God's final, true, always planned from the beginning, covenant people in Christ.
Here's the true Israel.
Here's the new Israel begun in Christ, spreading out in his people.
Now, so that's why Peter stands up and says, Hey, we need to get one more guy in here.
With that in mind, I want to take you back to something we looked at a few weeks ago.
A few weeks ago, when Jesus says in verse 8, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.
If you can remember, I said when he says that, he's echoing a passage from Isaiah: Isaiah 43, verse 10.
Now
In light of the fact that the apostles are the true Israel, the regathered people of God in Christ, we can see something more there in Isaiah.
So I'm going to turn back to the Isaiah passage.
You can just listen with me or come with me if you'd like.
Either way, whatever allows you to focus best.
Isaiah 43, verse 10.
This is what Jesus is echoing when he says, You will be my witnesses.
Here it is in Isaiah.
You are my witnesses, declares Isaiah.
The Lord, declares Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.
Now let's push further back, because in the context, that statement I just read is being spoken to Israel, to the regathered Israel.
Israel regathered after the exile.
Look in which which didn't happen.
Judah came back with it.
Israel as the twelve tribes.
was scattered and and never came all the way back together.
And so there's this lingering sense of how's that going to happen?
So in ver in Isaiah 43, verses five through seven, let me show you who this is talking to.
Fear not, I am with you.
I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.
I will say to the north, give up, and to the south do not withhold, bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth,
Everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory, whom I formed and made, and it's these people gathered from all around the world, God's people, true Israel, gathered
back together, it's them that Yahweh then says, You are my witnesses.
So, when we come to Acts, and the risen Lord Jesus gathers his apostles around him and says to them,
You are my witnesses.
Peter says there have to be 12 of us.
We're the regathered people.
We are the people of God because Christ is the Lord.
And he is, and in union to him, we are his people.
And so Peter says, we can't do this with 11.
If we're fulfilling all these words, all these prophecies, we need 12 of us.
There has to be 12, because this is this is the fulfilling of the of of the true Israel.
Now, what is the witness going to be?
And I again, two weeks ago we mentioned this, but I wanna I wanna zoom in on it now that we're actually here in the text.
What is the witness going to be?
Well, in Isaiah, the text Jesus is echoing, in Isaiah, the witness is this that you would know and believe and understand that I am He.
In Isaiah, the witness is essentially that you would know who I am and make me known.
That's the witness regathered Israel, end time Israel is given in Isaiah, that you would know in your bones who I am, and bear witness in your life that the one true God is like
this.
Okay?
That's the witness Jesus is echoing in the beginning of Acts.
Now, what does Acts tell us the witness is?
How does it, how does it add to that?
Acts tells us the witness is in verse 22 of chapter one, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection, to his resurrection.
So in Acts, the twelve apostles of the new Israel will be witnesses to all the world that the man crucified on the Roman cross is raised from the dead.
So in Acts, the witness is he is risen.
In Isaiah, the witness is this is who God is.
And as I said a few weeks ago, I say again, those are the same witnesses.
Those witnesses are brought together.
The new Israel of Jesus' church will bear witness to who God is by declaring the crucified one is risen.
That's how they're going to declare to all the world this is who he is, this is who Yahweh is, this is who God is, and there is no other.
And and and how can that be?
How can that well how is that?
How is the the proclamation the crucified one is risen?
How is that the witness?
This is who God is.
It's the witness because as I try to tell you over and over again, and I try to tell myself over and over again, because it is the most beautiful thing in all creation, that
Jesus Christ, the very one who is crucified in love for you.
Who is buried in your death, and who rises up again, transfiguring suffering to glory, and sorrow to joy, and giving hope in the face of death and bringing salvation where we had
none, this very Jesus Christ is who God is.
That's what God is like.
To proclaim this Christ is to proclaim who God is.
And here's the key.
All of that turns on the resurrection.
If there's no resurrection, then the man on the cross does not declare to us who God is.
He is a dead man on a cross.
All this whole witness, this whole book, all of reality, turns on, and he rose again.
He is risen.
That's why they say here we need to bear witness to his resurrection, because in bearing witness that Christ is risen,
We are bearing witness to everything God has done and who God is.
That's to me the the this beautiful reality for us to get that to say Christ is risen is to say who God is, rightly understood.
When you say Christ is risen, when the apostle said Christ is risen, the crucified one is risen, it carries all these implications with it.
Winter is past, spring has come.
Night is over, the morning has dawned, weeping has turned to laughter.
The place you were that you thought it was you were lost forever, you're found.
The beloved one that was lost forever is returned.
The place you went that could never you could never be reclaimed from, you're gathered in with love.
All these implications that surround this concept, Christ is risen.
To say that, to say Christ is risen is with all those implications carried in it to say who God is, such that using the text of Isaiah, we could say this: when we say Christ is
risen, with all of those resonances of Easter joy, we are ultimately saying what it says in Isaiah 43, before me, before him, say Christ is risen.
Here's what I'm saying.
Before him no God was formed, nor shall be any after him.
He is the Lord, and beside him there is no Savior.
He declared, and he saved, and he proclaimed, when there was no strange God among us, and he declared, You are my witnesses, and I am God.
Henceforth, forevermore, He is God.
There is none who can deliver from his hand.
He works, and who can turn back?
That is the content of the witness in Isaiah.
And we are saying that when we say, Christ is risen.
Christ is risen.
The only true God is the God of the gospel, who loves us unto death, who fills our graves with his presence, who bores a path through our hell into the everlasting gladness of his
own heart.
That is who God is, and that's the witness of the true Israel.
Of the apostles as they are in Christ.
That's the witness of the church.
That's our witness to this day.
And so that is what Peter is saying.
He says, We, as God's people, as the true people of God reconstituted in Christ, there needs to be 12 of us.
There needs to be 12 of us, because we have a message to give.
We are declaring the risen Christ, which is to declare who God is.
And then let's wrap up by looking at, okay, what actually happens.
Having said this, having st having prayed together and then stood up and called the other disciples to this, what then follows?
Look at verse 23 to 26.
And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias.
And they prayed and said, You Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have you have chosen to take the place of.
In this ministry and 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.
Now I'm not going to get into casting lots right now.
It is it seems odd to us, but it's not strange.
In the Old Testament, God's people do it all the time, in dependence upon him.
It is interesting that this is the last time it's done that once the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost, no one can.
That we ever see cast lots again.
But I'm not talking about that.
Now you can come and talk to the pastors if you have questions about that.
What I want to point out is that they ask Jesus.
That's the that's the really fascinating thing here is they continue to seek Jesus' guidance.
Do you see in verse 24 where they say, You, Lord, know the hearts of all.
That Lord.
When they say Lord, remember up in verse 21, they just said, Someone has to be with us who accompanied us during the time the Lord, Jesus was among us.
So when they say, You, Lord, they're talking to Jesus.
They're talking to Jesus.
And you say, Well, yeah, that's we do that when we pray.
But think about what it meant for them.
Days earlier, they were looking at Jesus.
Days earlier,
They were standing in front of him, looking at his face, seeing him respond, seeing the compassion in his eyes, knowing the sound of his voice.
Just 48 hours before, 24 hours before, they were with Jesus.
And now he's ascended to heaven.
He's no longer visibly with them, but that doesn't change anything.
They still say, Lord, just as they were say would say if he was with them.
If he was there, they'd say, Lord, you know everyone's heart.
Who did you choose?
And he's ascended.
So they say, Lord, you know everyone's heart.
Who did you choose?
They their prayer is to the same man, the same Lord who walked with them on this earth.
And they are functioning out of the conviction that he is just as present, just as concerned, just as able to help as when he was visibly with them.
So the apostles don't say, okay, well, Jesus is gone.
But what did he teach us?
Let's try to figure it out.
They don't say, well, Jesus, you know, he's not here anymore, but but his philosophy, how could we apply that to this particular situation?
Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to do that.
There's times where we we have to do that sort of thing, but they say, Jesus is not here.
Let's ask him what we should do.
Let's ask him.
Let's ask Jesus himself, just as truly as we might call up a friend and ask for help.
What should I do?
What do you think I should do about this?
Just as truly, because remember, you don't see them on the phone.
You don't see them.
And if they say, hey, I have to mute my phone, but you can continue talking to me.
I just have to go through the drive-thru here.
You're talking to them and you don't hear them or see them, but you're talking to them.
And it's that real that the apostles say, We need to ask Jesus what to do.
We need to ask him.
And it just so collapses that barrier that we feel, that barrier of not seeing.
We're so simple.
We don't see, and we think, well, he's very, very far away because I don't see him.
But they realize he's here.
He's present.
He's listening.
The very same Jesus we knew is in our midst with us now.
And what happens?
What happens?
They ask him for help.
And what happens?
He chooses.
He chooses Matthias.
There's actually a choice made.
There's actually something that's done.
So G in this passage, Jesus chooses Matthias.
Matthias, the very same Jesus who worked in the gospels is working here to to act.
And so you don't see him in this scene.
He has no dialogue in this scene.
And yet he is acting in this scene to choose, to provide for his people, to care for his people's needs.
And that is an awesome reminder to us.
It really is, because two thousand years makes no difference.
Two thousand years is nothing.
On the grand scale of reality.
And we know this.
We know, okay, Jesus is with me, Jesus sees, Jesus cares, he's present.
But seeing this helps us to feel it.
The men who who held Jesus hours before, 48 hours before, are now speaking to the same Jesus, confident that just as he was helping and compassionate here, he is helping and
compassionate now.
And it's the same thing for us.
Jesus, the living Jesus Christ, who is ascended and reigning from heaven, hears our prayers, is aware of our needs.
It knows the hearts of all, as it says right here.
You are known not by an amorphous kind of cloudy God being.
You are known by Jesus Christ.
Whose heart of compassion is the form, the essential form of which every compassion is a disfigurement.
Even the greatest compassions in this life are a disfigurement of his compassion.
Same for love, same for mercy, same for wisdom, same for strength.
This Jesus knows what you're thinking about, what you're worried about, that thing right now coming up in your mind.
I gotta deal with that this week.
I gotta talk about that this week.
I gotta face that this week.
He knows that.
He sees that.
He's in control of that.
He's holding that.
And we can speak to him.
We can talk to him.
We can ask him, help, give me mercy, care for me, show me what to do, and know that he's listening, he's answering.
He may not give us exactly what we're asking for, like when my kids ask for ice cream right before bed.
It's not that I didn't hear them and and hate them.
It's just I'm not going to give you ice cream right before bed.
But but I hear them and I love them.
And it's the same with the man, Jesus Christ, who is our mediator between us and between God.
Jesus Christ has not stopped caring for his people.
He's not stopped watching over his people.
He's not stopped feeling their pain.
Remember what he says in a few chapters?
Why are you persecuting me?
To the people persecuting his church, he says, Why are you persecuting me?
He still feels, he still hears, he still knows, and supplies for the needs.
And just as he saw the needs of his infant church and provided them their twelfth apostle, just as he pours out the Holy Spirit, as we'll see in a few weeks, so too he continues to
see and know and care and serve for his church and for his people through the centuries.
Right down to August 23rd, 2026.
He's continuing to do this.
So Kingstree Church.
The living man who is our God, Jesus Christ, is the shepherd of this church.
He's the overseer of this church, of this flock, and of your soul and my soul.
He he is the shepherd and overseer of our souls.
We are under his care.
We are led by his will and we are we are servants of his purposes and precious to his heart because we're part of that same body that started with him and his twelve disciples
his twelve apostles.
We're part of that body.
And you can enter into that body.
It is it is the most awesome.
You can be joined to the life of God.
And you say, What do I have to do?
What does he require?
What does he require of me to be joined to his life?
He requires the recognition that I am insufficient.
I cannot, you must.
I am dying, you are life.
I'm suffocating your breath.
I'm blind and your light.
I'm starving and your food.
You, Lord Christ, bore all my failure, my death, my hell.
You died in my place.
You rose again.
Gloriously, you are living and reigning, and I am going to stand before you one day and give an account.
And now, before that day, I say, Here's everything I am.
Take everything I am and be everything to me.
And he and he weaves us into his life.
He binds us to himself.
He gathers us in to the life of God.
It it is a it is a gap from our death where we are to his life.
It is a gap.
infinities long, that is crossed by the merest, not even a step, by by falling over, by the fall of faith into his arms.
That infinite gap is crossed, and we enter him.
And if we've entered him, we can come to this table, because this same King, this same Jesus, spreads this table for us today, as his people.
The very same man who sat with his disciples
At the Last Supper and handed them the bread and the wine, is here today, by his spirit, present with us, acting in our midst.
And just as we saw Jesus Himself chose Matthias, so too, through the prayerful working of the apostles, through their prayerful working, Jesus acted to choose.
So too, through the prayerful working of your pastors, preparing this.
Putting this here, praying as we're doing this.
Jesus is giving you these elements today.
As you come up in faith to this table, Jesus himself is giving you this bread, giving you this cup, and saying afresh to you, Christian, take, you take, eat.
This is my body for you.
This is my blood of the covenant for you.
Jesus is here, our King, our shepherd, our Lord, calling us again to receive Himself, slain and risen, as all our hope, all our joy, all our life.
And as we do this, Christian, we're not only bearing witness I'm united to Him, we're also bearing witness we're united to one another.
One loaf of bread cut and split between us, broken between us, one drink of
Spread between us as we come to this one witness of this one Savior, we're saying, I'm his and we're together.
We're together in one body, because this is his body.
Let me pray for us.
Father, we thank you that Jesus Christ is risen.
We thank you that that's what you're like.
You are like the resurrection.
You are like what the resurrection does to the weeping of Mary on Easter morning.
You are like what the resurrection does to our hopelessness in the midst of our sin.
You are like this.
This is the witness of who you are.
We praise you, Father, that you are such a God, and we praise you.
For such a savior.
Jesus, we who have not seen your face yet, we praise you that you are our master, you are our king.
Bring us under your lordship.
Bring us under your shepherding.
Bring us under your kingship more completely, more entirely.
And thank you for this table that you give to us, this witness that you are ours.
And we are yours.
As we come to the table, may we know something of that love which to know is to know all the fullness of who God is.
Father, we pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio, to see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Come worship with us on Sundays at 10 a.m.
or visit our website at Kingstreechurch.org.