Prayer for our Waiting

Ben Miller

The Way of Prayer • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Big Idea: Patiently wait to see God's power by prayerfully seeking God's Kingdom together.

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Have you ever felt like you were in a season of life where you were just WAITING for what is next?

At the turn of the new year, it was evident that a lot of people were WAITING for 2020 to be over and behind us… I’m not sure if this week gave them much hope that 2021 would be any better… and so maybe they are waiting for 2022 now, I don’t know… or 2024...

We can often find ourselves WAITING for situations to change… maybe you are WAITING to find a new job...

For you singles, maybe you are or have been “in between” relationships… WAITING for the right person to come around.

Students, maybe you’ve found yourself waiting for that far off day when you will graduate and you won’t have to go to school anymore.

Married folks… maybe you are WAITING for God to do a work to change your spouse in some way.

Maybe you are waiting for a relationship to heal… or for one of your kids to come back to the Lord.

For our church, we’ve been WAITING for a long time to know if we are going to be able to buy THIS building or another building… (no updates BTW)...

I’ve talked to some people recently who are waiting for the Lord to help them know which church they should be part of because of some changes in their situation.

The truth is, If you’ve lived on this earth for any period of time, you are familiar with WAITING... and in most situations, waiting isn’t easy. How many of you HATE waiting?

We have to come to grips with the fact that we are time-bound creatures… and we don’t like it.

Waiting makes us feel helpless… it makes us feel out of control.

We wish that we were able to be like God and see all of the past, present and future at once.

But God has not created us to see it all…

He has created us to live in the now. To wait. To trust. To be dependent on HIM as the one who holds all time in his hands.

This may not be something you want to hear... but I would suggest to you that WAITING is the default position of the disciple.

There are few moments in the life of a disciple where we can see EXACTLY what God is doing in EVERY SPHERE of life…

Pastor Nate used to use the analogy of surfing...

You paddle, paddle, paddle… and then you wait, wait, wait… and only for a minute do you get to ride the wave.

That’s life.

God designed it that we would have to wait.

Consider this: Why do you think that is? Does God just get pleasure from watching us squirm while we wait?

Is he just messing with us?

NO! He is gracious and compassionate and kind…

So why has God designed it that we should spend so much of our lives WAITING?

I believe God makes us WAIT because it reminds us that HE is God and we are not.

Waiting increases our dependence and purifies our devotion to Jesus.

It is a HUGE part of the way of a disciple… it’s a huge part of how we GROW as a disciple… and it is the essence of the way of prayer.

Prayer is the activity of waiting upon the Lord.

We cannot be people of action… people whose activities carry eternal weight… if we are not first people of prayerful waiting.

Our GCC President Dave Harvey writes this about waiting, “In this life, our growth in grace will always involve looking forward to that final, blessed hope. Waiting is a display of glorious weakness wherein we move deliberately and consistently toward God in prayerful dependence, asking him to do what only he can do.” (I Still Do, pg 27)

Today we are going to learn how to display our glorious weakness through prayerful dependence.

We are in our sermon series called “The Way of PRAYER”… and we’re learning how to support one another by praying TOGETHER on the path of discipleship.

Today from Acts 1 we want to learn how to WAIT TOGETHER in prayer...

Big Idea: Patiently wait to see God's power by prayerfully seeking God's Kingdom together.

Your Bibles are open to Acts chapter 1...

In this series on prayer, we are going to be studying the role of prayer in the early church, specifically through Luke’s writings in Luke and Acts.

Last week we looked at what Luke records about Jesus’ model prayer life and the model prayer he gave his disciples… we called it “the Lord’s way of Prayer”...

And over the next two months we are going to see how the church APPLIED the Lord’s way of prayer throughout the book of Acts.

We’re not going to preach the whole book through… we are going to get a theology of PRAYING TOGETHER according to Luke.

So what we want to do throughout these sermons is zoom in and zoom out...

Zoom in on a moment when the early church was found praying...

And zoom OUT to see why and how and what they were praying ABOUT.

And our goal is to learn how WE should be praying and what WE should be praying about from their example.

So let’s ZOOM IN on verses 12-14… and then we will ZOOM OUT to get the context and understand what sparked this prayer meeting.

Read Acts 1:12-14.

In this scene Luke names 11 apostles (the twelve Jesus chose after a whole night of prayer minus Judas who had betrayed Jesus)...

You have the women (Luke recorded in Luke 9 some very devoted women to Jesus)… these would have been the women who saw the empty tomb...

You have Mary the mother of Jesus and Jesus’ step-brothers through Joseph...

And if you look at verse 15, eventually there were 120 disciples who were together.

So look at verse 14 - how does Luke describe this group? (First) They were of one accord and (second) they were devoted to prayer.

They were united in prayer.

And if we look at the context, we see that this was a ten day day long prayer meeting… a prayer meeting where they are WAITING for something very specific:

They are WAITING to be clothed with power from on high through the Holy Spirit.

They are WAITING for what God wants to do in the next phase of the unfolding his Kingdom.

Dependent disciples occupy themselves with UNIFIED, DEVOTED PRAYER as they WAIT upon the Lord. [repeat]

So what does that prayer look like?

How did they KNOW that they needed to occupy themselves with prayer while they waited?

What made PRAYER their first response after Christ ascended?

One of our goals for this series is that we would GROW in making PRAYER our first response when we are together… stop drop and pray… TOGETHER.

What drove the early disciples to that place of first-response prayer?

And how did they know WHAT to pray about to keep their hearts united?

I believe we see the answers to those questions as we zoom out and look at verses 1-14, which we are going to study through this lens of prayer today.

I believe what we see in the prayer meeting of v. 14... is disciples who were patiently waiting to see God's power by prayerfully seeking God's Kingdom.

They had learned from Jesus that if they want to see the power of God and the kingdom of God, they needed to pray “Your Kingdom come.”

Let’s start to see that in v. 1-3 [Read Acts 1:1-3]

Patiently wait by prayerfully seeking...

1) The Kingdom's Characteristics. (v. 1-3)

Explain: Verses 1-3 is the prologue to the book of Acts… it’s Luke’s his opening description… and her points out that ACTS is really part 2 of the Gospel of Luke.

Luke addressed both Luke and Acts to a guy named Theophilus… and he said that he wanted Theophilus to be CONVINCED about the things that he had been taught about Jesus and what it means to follow him.

He wanted Theophilus to be convinced about the way of a disciple.

So in the first book, he dealt with all that Jesus BEGAN to do and teach… until the day when he was taken up.

Which implies that this SECOND volume is all about what Jesus CONTINUED to do and teach from the day he was taken up.

Before Jesus was taken up into heaven, he gave commands THROUGH the Holy Spirit to the apostles...

AFTER Jesus was taken up into heaven, he spoke THROUGH the Holy Spirit using the Apostles and the churches they established as his mouthpiece.

Before Jesus was taken up, he proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is at Hand...

After Jesus was taken up, his Apostles proclaimed that good news of his kingdom to all nations.

In these first three verses, we see the essential characteristics of the Kingdom of God: JESUS’ POWER (what he DOES) and what JESUS COMMANDS (what he teaches)...

As we pray “YOUR KINGDOM COME,” we are asking for Christ’s power and commands to take over in our midst.

First, the Kingdom is about...

Christ’s Power ("do"... "proofs")

These books are all about what Jesus began to DO… the PROOFS of his resurrection power...

In his Gospel, Luke presented Jesus as the Messiah… the Promised one who was ANOINTED by the Spirit of God as KING of the Jews...

He was anointed to proclaim good news to the poor and liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty those who were oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus was the PROMISED ANOINTED KING… he is the one who fulfills all the law and prophets...

And AS the Promised Anointed King, he suffered at the hands of the religious leaders… he died on a cross... and he rose again to save his people from their sins.

And in the 40 days after his resurrection, Luke says he presented himself by “Many proofs.”

He showed himself ALIVE after death.

That’s power.

The POWER of Christ is evident in all that he does...

The POWER of Christ is seen in every place where lives are transformed by his life, death and resurrection.

When we show, by our lives, that we have DIED with Christ… and we are ALIVE with him… that we are NEW IN CHRIST, the Kingdom is on display.

That’s the first thing we are praying for when we pray “Your Kingdom Come”…

We’re praying for the death-defeating, sin-destroying, life-transforming power of God to be on display in our lives.

And that power is understood and clarified through...

Christ’s Commands ("teach"... “commands”..."speaking")

All that he began to “do AND TEACH”… he gave COMMANDS through the Holy Spirit… he SPOKE to them about the Kingdom.

The kingdom is governed by the COMMANDS of the King.

And Jesus spent 40 days after his resurrection SPEAKING TO THEM about the Kingdom of God...

He was clarifying the power and commands of his kingdom.

He was defining the characteristics of his kingdom.

Now think about this: That’s what consumed the 40 days leading up to the 10 day long prayer meeting in verse 14.

They spent 40 days seeing Jesus’ power and hearing his commands for his Kingdom.

Do you think that affected their prayers?

Do you think that fueled and directed how they prayed and what they prayed for?

And if we are going to seek the kingdom together, we need to fill up our understanding of the kingdom’s characteristics.

We need to understand that the Kingdom of GOD is not the same as the kingdoms of this world.

The Kingdom of GOD operates in the power of the SPIRIT, not in the power of the flesh.

In the Kingdom of God, the least is the greatest and the greatest is the least.

The Kingdom of GOD is found in the hearts of those who learn to WAIT upon the LORD… who seek HIS will and not their own.

And that’s the hard part about waiting, isn’t it?

As we wait, we are forced to wonder, “Do I really WANT what God wants? What if God wants something COMPLETELY different than what I want? Am I OK with that?

As I wait, I’m faced with the question, “Do I really WANT to admit that HE IS WORTHY and I AM NEEDY?

Do I want to feel my weakness through my waiting in order to see his power?

Do I want to surrender my will to his commands?

That’s the hard part about waiting. ... But it’s also the beautiful part about waiting.

Because God… in his mercy… gives us TIME to align our hearts to his kingdom characteristics.

He doesn’t just force himself upon us.

God gives us time to increase our longing for him and get our heads and our hearts in the right place.

And that won’t happen unless we fill our waiting with prayer.

We need to spend PLENTY of time ADORING HIM and ALIGNING our hearts with his!

Apply: Here’s what this looks like practically: it means we learn to pray scripture.

That’s where we fill up our hearts with the Kingdom’s characteristics.

One of our goals for this series is that our whole church would participate TOGETHER in Spirit-led, Scripture-fed, worship-based prayer (that’s what we did earlier this morning).

And the reason we need our prayers to be SCRIPTURE FED is because that’s where we come to understand the Kingdom’s characteristics.

As you are following the Lord’s pattern of prayer in any given moment, have the scriptures open.... or if you can’t do that, have specific scriptures memorized that fuel your prayer.

In fact, any time you are reading the scriptures, respond in prayer...

Look for what that scripture says about who God is and what he’s done… and then adore him for it.

Look for what that scripture says about Christ’s Kingdom characteristics… and then align your heart to that.

Make sure whatever you ask for (physically, relationally, and spiritually) is grounded in scripture.

That’s how you make sure you are seeking the Kingdom’s characteristics.

Sometimes God makes us WAIT so that we will have the time to understand and align our hearts to his!

Prayerful waiting forces us to seek the Kingdom’s characteristics…

Second… Prayerful waiting makes us seek the...

2) The Kingdom's Timing. (v. 4-7)

Look at verse 4 - “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”

Prayerful waiting makes us seek the… The Kingdom's Timing.

Explain: Do you see what Jesus told them to do in verse 4? WAIT. Don’t leave Jerusalem. Just. Wait.

And what are they waiting for?

To be baptized with the Holy Spirit. To be clothed with power from on high.

And how did we see them wait in verse 14??? By devoting themselves to praying together in one accord.

But that wasn’t always their first impulse. Their first impulse was to say, “Is it NOW Lord? Is it time NOW to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

They had heard about the Kingdom’s characteristics, but they still did not understand the Kingdom’s timing.

God WILL eventually restore the kingdom to Israel… but not until the invitation of the Kingdom goes out to the nations… to the very ends of the earth.

And the last 2000 years have been God saying, “Nope… still not time. I still have work to do. Trust me and wait.”

Jesus says, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”

We want it now, don’t we.

We’re like the kid in the back seat, “Are we there yet? Nope. Are we there yet. Nope. Are we there yet. Nope.”

God says, “Wait. I’m still working. My rule and reign are still playing out in THIS part of what I’m doing.”

When we prayerfully wait, we are saying, “Even though I want resolution now, I’m willing to trust that you are in control and your timing is best.”

Think about something we’ve been praying about for a LONG time as a church… a Kingdom desire… we want a building to permanently call home.

So many people say, “that’s what you need to be considered a stable, long-lasting church. People won’t want to call your church home until you have a permanent facility.”

To which we would reply, “If we believe that to be true, then we would have the wrong motives for wanting a building.”

We don’t want people to come to Oak Hill because they know we are permanent or because they validate us for having a building.

We want them to come because they know GOD is at work here and they want to be part of that!

And we aren’t AGAINST having a building… it’s something we very much hope God provides… but if HE hasn’t provided it yet, then it’s not something we want right now!

I’ve had pastor-friends say to me, “I don’t know how you do it… waiting this long. I would have pushed the issue.”

And I just respond… we just see the value in WAITING.

Like the Lord says, “Those who WAIT upon the Lord will renew their strength.”

And it’s not that we haven’t done anything… we’ve done what we can… what we are responsible to do… but God has clearly said, for a season, “Wait.”

I’m doing something bigger. I know something you don’t know. Wait for my timing. And fill your waiting with prayer.

Are you still praying for that, by the way?

When we want God to give us what we want NOW, we must RUSH to prayer and seek the kingdom’s timing instead.

God is working out a kingdom that is bigger than what’s going on in our own little world.

Our minds would be BLOWN by all the pieces God is putting together if we saw them… and so we WAIT.

Our lives are PART of his Kingdom… but HIS kingdom is ultimate.

And so PRAYERFULLY WAIT SEEKING THE KINGDOM’S TIMING!

Now one of the reasons God is delaying the full restoration of the Kingdom is that he’s giving time for ...

3) The Kingdom's Expansion. (v. 8)

Look at verse 8 - “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8, ESV)

Explain: Understand what is happening here: they wanted something so small compared to what God wanted to do.

They wanted the Kingdom restored to Israel… and God says, “No, I want my kingdom EXPANDED to the nations!”

God is using the time from when Jesus ascended to heaven… to the time when he returns… to expand the gospel message to the ends of the earth.

His disciples were to be his WITNESSES.

They were to testify to the resurrection power they had seen and experienced.

They were called to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that King Jesus commanded.

In other words, the kingdom wasn’t just about them and their own little thing that they THOUGHT they were waiting for!

It wasn’t about their positions of power sitting at the right and left hand of Jesus like they argued about during his whole ministry.

It wasn’t about Israel having control of the nations.

It was about the glory of God covering the earth as water covers the seas.

When we pray, “your Kingdom come,” we are breaking out of our own little world with our near-sighted solutions… and we are seeking God to use us in his bigger plan.

I believe that was the heartbeat of their 10 day prayer meeting in verse 14.

During those 10 days of prayer, they selected an apostle to replace Judas… they made sure the team was ready...

And then they kept waiting to receive the power from on High that Jesus promised.

And guess what… he showed up!

As they prayerfully waited, God powerfully responded!

Acts 2 tells us that there was a whole bunch of people from all different nations in the city of Jerusalem for the feast of booths…

And the Spirit caused these Hebrew disciples to speak the good news of Jesus in languages they themselves did not understand (but everybody else did)...

It was just a foretaste of what would come… from there, the Gospel went out from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, to the very ends of the earth.

That’s what the book of Acts is all about!

And it all started with a prayer meeting.

120 people gathered in a room… waiting on the Lord… seeking the kingdom together in prayer.

If you think prayer meetings are boring… I would challenge you to think again!

I’d challenge you to participate in prayer differently.

Engage your heart with others in expectant, devoted prayer.

Powerful things happen when we get together and seek the expansion of God’s kingdom.

You see, in Acts 1:8, Jesus is saying, “Your lives are no longer about you. They are about bearing witness to God’s power and commands in your life to the very ends of the earth”

And if the expansion of God’s kingdom is the purpose of our lives, then it must become the heartbeat of our prayers.

Perhaps the reason we don’t pray… or find it hard to pray… the reason we find prayer boring or unnecessary… perhaps the reason we are unmoved in prayer… is because our prayers are too small.

Perhaps we are too near-sighted in our praying.

We want God to make these small adjustments in our lives to make our lives more comfortable or easy…

Our prayers can easily become inward focused rather than focused on God getting the glory he deserves.

We want God to give us what we need to maintain control of our little slice of the world rather than seeing his control recognized in every corner of the earth.

I heard someone ask this evaluation question of our prayers before: if God answered “Yes” to 100% of your prayers, whose Kingdom would expand: his… or yours???

The prayer “Your Kingdom Come” expands our perspective and keeps our prayers from being small and near-sighted.

Now, it’s not that we should never pray for things that seem like small things...

Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, right? That probably seems almost TOO small to some of us...

But I want you to consider this: the prayer for our daily bread comes immediately after the prayer for his kingdom to come.

I don’t think that’s an accident...

Everything we need… physically, relationally, spiritually…

Everything we need is given so that we can be his WITNESSES where we are right now… and eventually to the very ends of the earth.

We must see how those small needs are tied to the bigger purpose: the expansion of his kingdom.

In fact, sometimes the reason we don’t pray for those smaller things is because we don’t FEEL all that needy.

Sometimes we don’t pray because we have our lives in control… we have all we need to make us comfortable and to sustain our little kingdom efforts.

But when realize the call on our lives to be witnesses of Christ’s kingdom to the ends of the earth… well, that changes things.

Apply: Do you understand how NEEDY you are to be his witness to the ends of the earth? And does neediness that drive you to prayer?

So make this practical… as you pray for your needs… learn to include the reason why. Use these two little words for every request, “So that.”

Learn to pray, “so that...”

Give me this day my daily bread… so that I will have the physical energy to point others to you.

So that I will have the mental ability to think clearly and obey your commands.

So that the way I eat and drink that food will bring glory to you.

As you pray, “Lord, forgive me and restore my relationship with you...”

Pray the “so that”…

“So that I can praise your name with a clean heart.”

“So that people can see your grace at work in me.”

Praying the “so that” directs our hearts toward the expansion of God’s kingdom.

There’s so much more at stake in prayer than our comfort or security or control...

What’s at stake in our living and in our praying is the expansion of the kingdom of God.

Our witness of him to the ends of the earth.

So we are getting closer and closer to the start of that prayer meeting in verse 14...

The disciples are being prepared to seek the kingdom’s characteristics… the kingdom’s timing… the kingdom’s expansion…

But something has to happen FIRST.

Look at verse 9 - “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of 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.”” (Acts 1:9–11, ESV)

If we are going to seek the Kingdom, we need to prayerfully seek…

4) The Kingdom's Ruler. (v. 9-11)

Explain: Just put yourself in this scene: 40 days ago, you woke up totally depressed because your Rabbi… your Lord… your friend… was just brutally murdered by the religious leaders and government.

Then, later that morning, some women return from his tomb reporting that an angel told them he was alive.

Mary of Magdela had seen him herself.

And later that night, you would see him too.

And not only did you see him that night… you saw him many times since in the last 40 days… and he kept teaching you about the Kingdom… and you got to spend all kinds of time with him and you had meals with him… it was GREAT! Your heart was FULL!

And a similar thing is happening right now… you’re out at one of your favorite national parks… Jesus is teaching…

But all of the sudden he starts to lift off the ground.

You almost don’t notice it at first… but then he gets higher and higher…

This WOULD be crazy, but considering what you’ve seen in the last 40 days, NOTHING is really all that surprising anymore.

And then… all of the sudden he passes through a cloud and he’s gone.

And you are left staring into the sky… mouth gaping open.

We don’t know how long they stood there… but it was long enough for two angels to show up and say , “Hey! People! Snap out of it! He’s going to return in the same way you saw him go.”

Do you see yourself in the scene? Why are you standing looking into heaven?

Because you are already LONGING for him to RETURN.

Because you LOVE HIM and don’t want to miss an opportunity to see HIM if he shows up again!

Now, the angels tell them that seeing Jesus wasn’t going to happen by staring into heaven.

They would see him WORK in just 10 days as the Spirit came upon them in power...

But I think their staring is instructive for us.

Prayerful waiting is about seeking the Kingdom’s ruler.

It’s not just about the STUFF of the kingdom… it’s about the KING of the Kingdom.

We learn to seek the Lord’s FACE before we seek his hand.

Look at prayerful waiting this way: the longer God makes us wait in prayer, the more opportunity we have to spend with him in prayer.

We don’t just want the kingdom… we want the KING!

It doesn’t matter what you THINK you are waiting for… it doesn’t matter what you THINK you need.

The thing we are really waiting for... the thing we really need... is the King to come in power.

Every feeling of lack in our life will be restored in his coming.

You see, our longing for the Kingdom of God is not just a longing for everything to be better… it’s a longing for the better king...

...the King who died and rose again to save us...

… the King whose ways are always righteous and just and true...

… the one whose authority will restore perfect peace and whose dominion will have no end.

They are gazing into heaven because their eyes were fixed on Jesus.

That’s what prayer does.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus… look full in his wonderful face… and the things of earth will grow strangely dim... in the light of his glory and grace.

And so even when the disciples stopped looking into heaven physically… they return to Jerusalem and keep looking into heaven spiritually...

Back to our prayer meeting in verse 12 - “Then they returned 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 Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” (Acts 1:12–14, ESV)

Jesus had prepared them to prayerfully seek the kingdom’s characteristics, timing, expansion, and ruler… but to do that, they had to prayerfully seek...

5) The Kingdom's Unity. (v. 12-14)

Explain: I find this so interesting: While Jesus is with them, they talk to him together. As soon as he ascends, they pray together.

For forty days, the upper room had been their designated spot to eat together and talk to Jesus together.

Now it’s their designated spot to pray together.

It was only natural to return and be with one another and talk to their Lord in prayer.

What else would they do while they waited?!?!

THESE were the people of his kingdom!

THESE 120 people were the only other people on the planet who truly understood what it meant to live under the authority of Jesus.

So they go back to the upper room in Jerusalem to pray.

Now this upper room is REALLY important to our understanding of prayer… because the word for room shows up in another important verse on prayer that is often misused and misunderstood.

In Matthew 6, Jesus is talking about not being boastful with your praying… not praying on the street corners like the hypocrites who like to be seen by others...

And he makes this statement in Matthew 6:6 -

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6, ESV)

That word for “room” is the same word as the “upper room” where 120 of them were devoting themselves to prayer.

They were following the Lord’s instructions about how to pray.

Now here’s the problem: the King James translates that word in Matthew 6:6 “Go into your closet.”

And everyone is like, “SEE… I don’t have to pray with other people… that’s PROUD anyway! I’m supposed to pray in my closet!”

By the way, The King James the only translation that translates it that way...

And that’s because when the King James was translated, closet MEANT room!

It didn’t mean tiny space where you hang your coat...

It meant “gathering space!” “living room”

And so some people have built this whole theology of individualistic prayer off of one word in one translation that doesn’t mean what they think it means!

When Jesus says, “Go into your room,” he has in mind a space where a whole group of people could humble themselves before the Lord together.

Daniel Henderson says, “If your prayer closet doesn’t fit more than one person, it’s not big enough.”

Now the reason I go into all that is because it’s one of the biggest verses I hear used against people needing to pray TOGETHER or against praying in the public gathering.

But here we CLEARLY see that there must be ROOM in our lives for praying with others.

When we realize that God’s Kingdom is BIGGER than us, we we will see that our praying requires more than just ME by myself in a room.

My praying… my sustained waiting… my anticipation of God’s powerful work… is fueled by praying with others.

It’s the most natural place for a disciple to be… praying with God’s people.

My hearts desires are shaped by the prayers of the people around me.

And my kingdom prayers are affirmed and amplified by the AMEN’S of my brothers and sisters joining with me.

Praying together DEMONSTRATES the UNITY of the Kingdom we are seeking in prayer.

And it increases our longing for the day we will stand together around the throne...

Forever devoted to him… and forever satisfied in him.

As John comes to play get us ready to response… Are you ready to wait on the Lord through prayer?

Maybe you are waiting to see God work in power in some area of your life TODAY… if you don’t have anything you are longing for and your just satisfied in your life right now… you probably don’t know how great his Kingdom will be...

And so seek the kingdom in prayer.

Is what you are waiting for… It is in line with his Kingdom’s characteristics?

Are you seeking HIS timing, not your own?

Are you seeking the expansion of HIS kingdom in your prayers? What’s the “so that”?

Are you cherishing the time you get to spend with HIM… your SAVIOR KING… while you wait in prayer?

Have you brought others in to pray for that thing with you?

Let’s be a church who learns to Patiently wait to see God's power by prayerfully seeking God's Kingdom together.

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