Acts 1:12-14 While We Wait
Good morning! Turn with me to Acts chapter one, page 909 in the pew Bibles. I think it is appropriate to remind you that the book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles is not just a storybook, not just a description of past events but it’s a pattern for the church today, a prescription for the church to follow. This is going to be a constant and consistent theme in our study.
So this morning we are going to take a look at what the church was doing during the period of time between the day that Jesus ascended into heaven and the day the Promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples.
You may remember that the disciples are on the Mount of Olives when Jesus was taken up and a cloud hid Him from their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.”
Our text picks up from there in verse 12.
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 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 Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Let’s pray.
This was not the first time that Jesus had left His disciples. When Jesus was crucified, died and was buried the disciples were at a loss as to what they should do. Even after Mary Magdalene and some of the other women found the stone rolled away from Jesus’ tomb the disciples still didn’t understand what had happened and in John’s Gospel is says they returned to their homes. Even after Jesus appeared to the disciples in the locked room and showed them His hands and feet and side that had been pierced they still chose to go back home. John 21 says that Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John, and two other disciples decided to go back to fishing on the Sea of Galilee. They went back to what they knew before.
There on the shore of the lake Jesus reinstated Peter by asking him, “Do you love me?” And when Peter confessed that he loved Him Jesus commanded him to feed His sheep and to follow Him.
The disciples didn’t respond in faith when Jesus was crucified, they responded with fear and doubt.
After appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God He commanded them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, who they would be baptized with not many days after Jesus ascended. Ten days to be exact.
And during those ten days the disciples waited in a very different way than they had previously.
Before, instead of waiting they wondered and they wandered. They wondered if it was all for nothing, if Jesus wasn’t really the Messiah, and they wandered back home.
This time they waited in obedience to what Jesus had told them, they waited in Jerusalem together in that upper room where they had been staying because this time they believed what He said.
Luke, in his precision, tells us exactly who was gathered together there in the upper room in Jerusalem.
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.
How good are you at counting? How many disciples is that? Eleven.
But the Eleven were not the only ones there. Verse 14 says, All these with one accord (The first mention of a car in the Bible!) were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
This faithful group was made up of the Eleven remaining disciples, the women who had accompanied them from Galilee, John Calvin believes that these were their wives. Not that it really matters that much, it is possible that some of them were the wives of the disciples though the Greek word just means, “females of marrying age,” otherwise known as, “women.”
Who else was there? Mary the mother of Jesus and His brothers.
“Brothers,” there is the word, adelphoi, which can also mean brothers and sisters. We know that Joseph and Mary had other children after Jesus both sons and daughters that previously did not have faith in Him but now here they are numbered among the faithful.
This is the last mention of Mary the mother of Jesus in the New Testament. She is nowhere in the Bible referred to as the Queen of Heaven, she is nowhere in the Bible prayed to, she is nowhere in the Bible held up as anything other than she was, a chosen servant of the Lord to bear His Son Jesus. To think of her as exalted as anything other than that is idolatry.
So we have the Eleven, the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, Jesus’ siblings, gathered together, faithfully waiting, and what do they do while they wait?
Doomscroll. They just cruise through Facebook marketplace looking for deals. They watched countless Tiktok videos. Listened to podcasts and got caught up on the national news.
No, they didn’t? Maybe there’s a lesson there for us.
While they waited they prayed. “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer…”
With one accord simply means that they were of one mind, they were united in spirit, and they prayed as such. They dwelt together in unity because of their common love for each other and for the Lord Jesus. It’s been said that, “in union there is strength.”
And united in that love, they prayed. What do you suppose they prayed for? New job, new car, new house? How about, “Help us be faithful, help us be patient as we wait for your promised Holy Spirit, help us understand the Scriptures.”
The Lord had great work in store for this little group. We’ll see in the next section that it was about 120 people there in Jerusalem. But not many days in the future thousands would be added to their number. They needed to prepare for that work, even though they might not have known exactly what it would look like.
While they waited they prayed, and while they prayed they were preparing. Because praying IS preparing. When we pray we are preparing our hearts for the Lord to work in us and through us.
Maybe you are in a season of waiting, maybe we all are, but are we praying? What are we praying for, for problems to go away and for the Lord to just fix everything and make life easy?
Of those eleven disciples, all but one would be martyred, killed for the Name of Jesus and for preaching the gospel, and even the one that died of old age would die in exile after many attempts on his life. They needed to be prepared for a life like that.
So what have you been praying for?
I’m going to keep saying it, the book of Acts is not just descriptive it’s prescriptive. It is the prescription for the church to follow.
I praise the Lord that CrossRoads Church is more of a family than any other church I’ve ever been a part of, but are we truly united, in one accord, of one mind about what we are supposed to be doing here and what we are praying for?
Maybe we ought to join that faithful group in praying, “Help us be faithful, help us be patient as we wait for your Holy Spirit, help us understand the Scriptures, help us mature as disciples, help us tell others about Jesus.”
Maybe the Lord will answer those prayers in the same way He did back then, with a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit to do the work that the church is designed to do, to be witnesses of Jesus to a lost and dying world.
Will you pray with me?
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
