Receiving Orders (1:6-8)

Kingdom is spiritual; Kingdom is international; Kingdom is gradual in expansion.

Jesus says to his disciples just go and wait.

But they didn’t just wait. They were active.

They prayed for the Spirit to come. Prayer comes up quite a lot in the Bible and in the teaching of Jesus.

Verses 12-14

They walk back to Jerusalem.....Healthy combination...praise and prayer.

Their prayer was united.

Who met to pray? ‘A group of about 120.’ Significant number because you needed 120 Jewish men to establish a community.

They met in the same place. Togetherness is a big theme for Luke, it’s one of his favourite words. Homothymadon. He uses it ten times, and it’s only used once elsewhere in the New Testament.

It goes beyond togetherness as in being together; they were of one mind, purpose or impulse.

Their prayer was persevering

Constantly from the verb proskartereo. Meaning to be busy or persistent. Doesn’t mean just to try it now and again. If you’re going to do it, you have to keep doing it

What were they praying for? The Spirit to come. There were persevering. For the Spirit to come. Like I was saying a few weeks ago, we want to keep the Spirit safe, sometimes we want to keep it so safe, that we won’t even pray for it, read about it and certainly not persevere to seek the spirit out.

Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the spirit, no Christlikeness of character without his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the Church without the Spirit is dead.

Today is the Day of Pentecost, the day the disciples received the Spirit...what are you waiting for?