Today was my church's 33rd anniversary celebration, and I think it was a sign of God’s pleasure over us and his joy that 33 people were baptized on Saturday and Sunday between the three services. During the 9:15 service, a few prayer warriors met in the our Lighthouse prayer chapel and interceded through the early morning service, and for the next 33 years. We prayed for our church’s future history, and in this ministry we call the Outlet Prayer Ministry, we often wrestle with silent questions:
- What does God want?
- How can we get there?
- How can we glorify Him?
- We ask God to draw more KCC’ers into a saving relationship with Jesus.
At the core of these questions lies the idea of revival, and getting back to the influence on the world around us that the early church exercised. After Peter’s first sermon, over 3000 people were saved and baptized. (Acts 2) Throughout Acts, sermons brought conviction and conversation. As we prayed this morning, two ideas bubbled to the surface.
1) The apostles waited on God’s promise of anointing and power at Pentecost before they began to preach the gospel. Jesus had asked them to wait for this promise before venturing into the world with his message of grace and forgiveness. One the Day of Pentecost, just before God’s power fell, Luke writes that the apostles were “all together, and in one place.” Did the detailed doctor repeat himself, or is this an important component to the day’s miraculous events?
In another translation, this phrase is rendered “the apostles were together in one place, and in one accord.” It wasn’t enough for them to be physically together. They had spent the 10 days between Jesus ascension and Pentecost praying, reading the scriptures, and building deep community. I imagine that they talked through Peter’s denial, Thomas’s doubts, James and John’s desires to have the first place in line, and how Jesus had to appear to them two or three times before they were ready to really, really believe. They came to a place where they were not only all together, but they were in one accord, ready to speak to the world about this life-changing Jesus.
2) The church had lost everything. Those who believed in Jesus cowered in that upper room for fear of the Jewish leaders and the Roman guards. For three years these young idealistic disciples followed Jesus around the country learning his Way, Truth and Life. They had gone all in, and now Jesus promise was all they had.
These conditions describe the hearts that God found when he poured out his power, and the church began to change the world. They didn’t have any allusions about building kingdoms, businesses or fortunes. The One they loved most had been cast out, and eventually crucified by those who were threatened by his power. As his followers, they could not expect to be “better than their Master.”
I’m not writing to suggest that Christians should choose a path to deliberately create conflict with the world around us, or that being a ‘real’ Christian means selling everything we own and finding a room to rent in a hotel somewhere. I’m saying that Jesus brought his followers into a place there they could honestly say that they had Him and only Him on which to rely. They waited in that place, and in that place God poured out his power which equipped them to change the world.
As we prayed this morning, we prayed and asked for God’s power to once again fall, and continue to fill KCC, our people, staff and services in the years to come. Yet in the midst of our prayers, I had to confess that too often we are dependent on ourselves, serving divided interests, and at odds with each other. . . and yet we still ask God to come and do great things. Throughout the scriptures, God connected the dots between the condition of his peoples’ hearts and lives with his ability to answer their prayers in great ways. As we start our 34th year, let’s pray with King David, and ask God to:
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Ps 139. 23-24
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