Sunday, July 10, 2022 AM

Have you here to worship with us this morning at Sunnyside Baptist Church. A few announcements as we get started this morning. We have a fairly normal looking week ahead of us it looks like. Come back for our evening service tonight.

Starts at 530. We're gonna be starting a new Sunday night study on a theology of fear. So just a little tease for you. We're wrapping up Kingdom of God study that Michael's been doing for a while now but theology of fear.

Looking ahead to this Wednesday our meals at 545 in the Fellowship Hall. Prayer meeting for the adults starting at 630 and Children's Choir for the kids. Looking ahead toward the end of the month Wednesday July 27th at 630 that's our summer Children's Choir concert.

So looking forward to that. Truth group for the young adults that's going to be on Friday this time at the Barnett's home. Kind of a end of the summer truth group meeting there. Sunday July 31st communion.

Lord's Supper that morning during church. Alright any other announcements before I read our fighter verse? Alright our fighter verse for this week comes from the Psalms Psalm 91 verses 1 2. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord my refuge and my fortress my God in whom I trust. We're gonna have a time to prepare our hearts for worship this morning just in silent prayer and at the conclusion.

Of that Randy will come up and open us. Father how good it is to come today and.

To worship with other believers. I just thank you for this body of believers. I pray that you'd encourage our hearts today as we worship you and I pray that you would be glorified in song and in the message.

I pray that you'd give Michael just the freedom to share what your spirit has put on his heart. I pray that we would receive it and father pray that throughout this week that we would be faithful to tell others of the hope that we have in Christ.

I pray that you would just encourage us this morning. I thank you for your word. I thank you most of all for Jesus and I just thank you that we can come to him and take all of our cares and cast them upon him.

Thank you for how you care for us. Ask it in.

Jesus name. Amen. You stand with me for a call to worship. We're continuing in Psalms chapter 78. A retelling of God's powerful deliverance of his people in the land of Egypt and delivering them with the ten plagues that were placed upon Egypt and Pharaoh and then how God led safely them through the Red Sea and then eventually to the promised land in Canaan.

So with if you would read with me verses 51 to 55. He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the first fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham. Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

He led them in safety so that they were not afraid. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies and he brought them to his holy land to the mountain which his right hand had won. He drove out nations before them.

He apportioned for them a possession and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents. So if you would turn to your Psalms for worship hymnal. We'll sing this passage we just read. 78H. We'll sing both verses.

Two songs. It's on page 38. I will call upon the Lord. In 215 Alleluia, Alleluia. I would encourage you to turn to Isaiah chapter 29. Be reading.

Verses 1 through 8. So Isaiah 29 verses 1 through 8. I will be reading from the English Standard Version. Isaiah 29 verse 1. Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped. Add year to year. Let the feasts run their round.

Yet I will distress Ariel and there shall be moaning and lamentation and she shall be to me like an Ariel. And I will encamp against you all around and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siege works against you and you will be brought low.

From the earth you shall speak and from the dust your speech will be bowed down. Your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost and from the dust your speech shall whisper. But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

And in an instant suddenly you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

As when a hungry man dreams he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied. Or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking and awakes faint with his thirst not quenched. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.

This is the Word of the Lord. Would you pray with me? Lord as we read this morning in your Word through the Prophet Isaiah, Lord we are reminded that that you will judge the nations. You have judged your people for their false worship of just going through the motions, offering sacrifices, offering praise that is merely from the lips but not from the heart.

Lord you are just in your judgments. You are righteous in all that you do. And Lord when nations fall glory is revealed as you poured out your wrath upon Israel for their unfaithfulness and their judgment spoke to nations around them of your righteousness.

And yet Lord in this in this passage we see that in your judgment you remember mercy. That you did not make an complete devastation of the nation but that you reserved a remnant through whom you work.

Lord as we look at the world around us today we see the unrighteousness and the wickedness and we as your people as your holy nation a priesthood who has set apart to declare your praises. Lord may we be faithful in the midst of unfaithfulness.

Lord preserve us with your grace. Make us a light to the nations. Help us to walk Lord in holiness. Help us to praise you with glad and sincere hearts. Lord we desire more than anything to exalt Christ our Savior the one who has endured your righteous wrath against our sin and it is in Christ alone in whom we put our trust.

So may we give you praise today because Christ has conquered and will return victorious. Lord we look forward to that day. We long for that day. Keep us Lord in your care that Christ may be exalted. We give you thanks in.

Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Not only is Jesus Christ Savior and Lord he's also a friend. Whether we're going through joyous blessed times or through trials and tribulations what a friend we have in Jesus.

Classic example they're giving praise glory. I was reminded today that this song was sang at Ryan and Haley's wedding. It's also a favorite song amongst the praise team here. So let's all together worship and praise in Christ alone.

Father I thank you for.

Gathering us here today. What a joy it is to come together and to sing your praises to confess together and to one another your goodness and your truth the preeminence of your Son Jesus Christ the blessings of your Holy Spirit.

I thank you for providing us this time in this place and the grace to worship you. We ask today that as we open your word and we read what you have provided to us concerning your Son and by your Spirit that we would take of this meal and that you would nourish our lives that we would rejoice in what you provide to us here today.

I pray that as we see your Son Jesus Christ revealed to us in this word that you would conform us to him our head that you would grow us up into him that we would look like him in this world. We pray all of these things asking for these mercies for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ the one with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts and we will be reading Acts chapter 1 verses 12 through 14 here in a moment. Acts chapter 1 verses 1 verses 12 through 14. The title of the sermon today is Prayer Meeting.

Prayer Meeting. We spent a few weeks looking at the first 11 verses of the book of Acts and introduction to Luke's second volume. We have the gospel of Luke and we have the book of Acts. Luke's patron Theophilus has obviously supplied the means for this massively expensive undertaking to write more material of the New Testament than even the Apostle Paul and he writes to Theophilus so that Theophilus would have an orderly account of all that has taken place so that he would be established in his faith that he would know the reality of what has happened with the birth and life, death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

And in the gospel of Luke we are shown the bringing in of the kingdom of God and in the book of Acts we see the spreading out of the kingdom of God. Jesus comes and establishes the kingdom and his life and death and resurrection and from his ascended place at the right hand of the Father he reigns by the power of his spirit and the lives of his people and his kingdom begins to advance from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

That's what we've been considering in the introduction here in Acts chapter 1 verses 1 through 11 but now we have a prayer meeting in verses 12 through 14. I invite you to stand with me if you're able and we're going to read this text.

This is the word of the Lord, a word of our Savior and Sovereign Jesus Christ by his spirit through his servant Luke. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet which is near Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey and when they had entered they went up into the upper room where they were staying Peter, James, John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the zealot and Judas the son of James.

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be.

To God. You may be seated. What do you normally do on Wednesday nights?

Sometimes you go to prayer meeting, right? What are we to think about prayer meeting? We could think of it in terms of perhaps religious history. Look back to the 1800s and see how the tradition in Baptist life began in 1800s to have a midweek service, a Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Maybe we could think of a prayer meeting in historical terms. Maybe we could think of it in terms of productivity. How helpful is it for a church? What are the statistics? What are the numbers? What is the utilitarian argument for having a Wednesday night service?

And many studies have been done concerning that. How are we to think of the Wednesday night prayer meeting? Maybe we should think of it in terms of felt needs. We should have a Wednesday night prayer meeting if people feel like it's meeting a need.

How are we to think about a prayer meeting? I submit to you we should think about prayer meetings as biblically as we can. I think everybody should agree about that. And see here in our text a prayer meeting.

Consider what it means given the facts of Jesus's ascension to the right hand of God and his promise that the Holy Spirit will come down upon his people in power and in the meantime they're to wait. You see that in verse 4 of Acts 1.

His instructions to his followers is to go wait. Now he's told them that they are to be his witnesses preaching the gospel of the kingdom and repentance from sin and salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.

That this is to be proclaimed in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Indeed this was foretold by the scriptures we read in Luke 24 that this would all come to pass. And they have a big job ahead of them.

A huge vision of proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. This is going to take more than just a handful of them. It's going to take thousands of them. Indeed tens of thousands. Indeed millions. It'll take languages beyond their reckoning.

It will take generations beyond their expectations. They have a job ahead of them that is a big job. The second Adam. The second Adam intends to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

And he will do so through his people that are empowered by his Holy Spirit. Boy do they have a job. There's a lot of work ahead of them. But before anything happens he says go wait. Go wait. Now you understand there's an expression in the Bible.

You've heard it before perhaps. Waiting upon the Lord. It's in Christian vernacular. I'm just waiting upon the Lord. What does that mean? What does that look like? Well it's not fiddling away your time.

It's not wasting time. Jesus tells his followers go wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. In other words wait on the Lord. And when they get back to Jerusalem you know what they do? They have a prayer meeting.

And we're going to think about that today. About how to wait upon the Lord. And how we need to have prayer meetings. A prayer meeting is a gospel gathering. The prayer meeting is not some sort of possible option for Christians.

But prayer meetings are gospel gatherings. And we're going to see that here in our passage. And we're going to think about first of all what kind of people is a prayer meeting for? What kind of people was a prayer meeting for?

And then we're going to think about what kind of purpose does a prayer meeting serve? What kind of a purpose does a prayer meeting have? First of all who shows up to the prayer meeting? Well what do we see in the text?

Peter, James, John, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas the son of James. Also look there's Mary and the women who were with Jesus for most of his ministry and supporting his ministry out of their own pockets.

Who were there when he was crucified, who were there when he was buried, who were there when he rose from the dead. Also his brothers, Jesus' own brothers, Mary's other sons are there in the prayer meeting as well.

Look who showed up to the prayer meeting. Now how are we to understand these folks? Speaking of church tradition, in some tradition such folks would be venerated, bowed down to. I've even seen across our street years ago they had a worship service to the mother of Jesus and they sang and they danced and they lit fires before her picture on a table and danced and they brought offerings to her.

How are you to think about these saints? Peter, James, John, Mary. Wow look at these names. Let's be biblically minded and think about what the Bible has said about these folks. Even just reading the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew and Mark and John.

You know reading through your Bible, you read the four Gospels, you come to Acts, you see these names. What are you to think about these names? What are we supposed to remember about these names? Well think about Peter.

Peter is known as the one who denied Jesus Christ. I mean not so long ago Peter was having trouble with Jesus's main message. Jesus prophesied to his followers and he said, look we're going up to Jerusalem.

It is necessary that I go to Jerusalem that the religious leaders there are going to persecute me. They're going to cause me to suffer. They're going to put me to death and I'm going to rise again the third day.

And how did Peter receive that message? Well he didn't receive it, he rejected it. And he said, you know, may it never be. God forbid. It can't possibly be. We're not going to let that happen. And Jesus recognized the temptation for what it was and the deception for what it was and he said, get behind me Satan.

This Peter who even in the garden of the Gethsemane, having slept through the prayer meeting, confronted the soldiers and the religious leaders who came to arrest Jesus. He confronted them with his sword and tried to cut the head off of one of them and missed and got the ear.

To whom Jesus then said, Peter, those who live by the sword will die by it. This very same Peter who had said, I'll never deny you, in fact I'll die for you. Yet on the night of Christ's trial, when confronted by accusations, intimations that perhaps he was indeed one of Jesus's followers, before the rooster crowed twice he denied Christ three times.

And look, Peter's at the prayer meeting and if his name being first in the list and verse 15 being in the indication, he's the one who's leading the prayer meeting. Interesting, isn't it? What about these apostles?

What about these disciples? James, John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, all these different apostles. Weren't these the same guys who kept misunderstanding what Jesus was saying? Often missing the point of the parables and weren't these the ones who are always arguing with one another about who is the greatest?

And trying to jockey for position of power? Trying to play off of the name of Jesus to gain power? Weren't these the same group? And when the shepherd was struck, didn't the sheep scatter? They all forsook him and fled, Mark says.

They forsook him and fled. These are the deserters. Peter's a denier. Here are the deserters. And look, they're the honorable participants of this prayer meeting. We also see Bartholomew, a name which means the son of Ptolemaeus.

His other name is Nathanael. Wasn't he the one who said, could anything good come out of Nazareth? A doubter of Jesus. Look there, Thomas. Thomas, remember his nickname, Doubting Thomas? The others had seen him, he had not.

They told him, Jesus has risen from the dead. He said, I will not believe until I can put my finger in the nail prints in his hand and put my hand in the wound of the side. And he doubted that Christ had rose from the dead.

Notice also in the group is Mary and her other sons. Mary and the brothers of Jesus. Mark chapter 3 verse 21 says, but when his own people heard about this, when his own family, it's the expression, his own family heard about the things that he was saying and the things that he was doing in his ministry.

They went out to lay hold of him for they said, he is out of his mind. So Mary and her sons, her other sons besides Jesus, and perhaps even Jesus's sisters may have come with him if they were still in the home.

And they show up and they're going to try to create an intervention and we're gonna get Jesus back home. He is out of his mind. They doubted him. So they're also at the prayer meeting. Look who showed up to the prayer meeting.

One who denied Christ, those who had deserted Christ, those who had doubted Christ. And look, there's a tax collector. Matthew, tax collector. How many people did he cheat? How often had he labored for the profit of the oppressing government at the expense of his own people?

How often had he cheated them and lied to them and undercut their good, right? Classic politician. And then there was one president who would belong to a group that was famous for assassinating such people, Simon the Zealot, who also brought all kinds of disruption to his own country through radical ideas.

Somehow they're in the same group. Both of them had despised one another and both of them were despised by the general populace. And look, the women were with him too. You know, when the Jews got together in synagogue, the men would meet on one level and the Jews would either... the women would meet either on the balcony or in an entirely different room.

But look here, all the men and the women are together in the same room, right? And one of those women was Mary Magdalene. You can see this in Luke 8 .3 and the list of the women who were with Jesus. She had been delivered from seven demons.

She had lived as a demoniac. She had lived under the possession of seven demons. And we don't know the background of how she ended up that way and whatever she suffered and whatever she did while she was possessed by demons.

But Jesus had delivered her, but she still had that background. So we have the deniers, we have the deserters, we have the doubters, we have the despised. This is who shows up to the prayer meeting. And we need to ask, we need to ask, how are all these in the same place?

How have these gathered together for this prayer meeting, given their background, given their failures, given the fact that several of them should be at each other's throats right at this moment, given their backgrounds.

How in the world have these been brought together in the same place for a prayer meeting? It's not because these are saints worthy of veneration and worship and prayers and sacrifices. They're not there based upon their own merits.

They're there because the lost have been found and the weak have been made strong and the sick have been healed. They're there because as sinners they've been saved. There's only one reason. One person has brought all of these together in the same room at the same time to have a prayer meeting and his name is Jesus Christ.

Do you remember his stories about that which was lost and then was found? The story of the lost coin, where the woman lost one of the ten coins, the silver coins that decorated her wedding headdress, and one of them was gone.

And she put everything on hold. The whole family went on a hold until she cleaned every last inch of her household and she finally found her lost coin, a precious coin to her. And she stopped everything and said, now we're gonna have a celebration.

What was lost has been found. And the story of the lost sheep, where the shepherd lost one of his sheep and he left the ones he had to go find the one that was missing. And he searched all over the place till he found the lost sheep and he brought it home and said, everybody let's celebrate, let's rejoice.

That which was lost has been found. And the story of the lost son, who betrayed his father and sinned against his family and abandoned them and went and and and ruined his life. But by God's grace he came to himself and came back and there was a huge celebration for the son who was lost was now found.

What did Jesus say about himself? What did he say about his ministry? Luke chapter 5 verses 31 through 32. Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The religious leaders were using religion for a covering to look good. They said we're well, we're righteous. But Jesus came with a religion of communion to love God.

He says no, you're sick, you're sinful, you're estranged from God and you need to be saved. And Luke 19 10, Jesus says the Son of Man, the royal title, the King of the kingdom of God, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Look at who's in the room. From Peter to Mary, who's in the room? Those who were lost and they have been found. Those who have been scattered have been regathered and there they are in the prayer meeting.

That's why the prayer meeting is a gospel gathering. Is anybody there in the prayer meeting to come together and to appeal to the Father as the children of God in the name of Christ by the power of the Spirit?

This is a gospel gathering. It's Christ who has made the difference. It's Christ who has made the difference. That's why they're all gathered together. Romans chapter 5 verse 6 says, when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Those who did not cohere to the character of God, made evident by the law of God, which is the expression of his holy character. Those who were ungodly, in other words, those who they were made in the image of God, betray that uniform every day of their lives and they go AWOL and they fail in their duties to live up to the glory of God in whom, whose image they are made.

They are the ungodly and yet Christ died for the ungodly while we were still without strength. First John 4 .10 says, in this is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Our sins matter to God. They matter to God. God, when he forgives sins, he does not consider our lying and our thieving and our hatred and our bitterness and our envy and our prejudices and our perversions, our immoralities.

He does not take our sins and say, well I'll just let you go and he sweeps it under the cosmic rug like some unjust judge. Satisfaction of God's holy judgment must be made. That's what propitiation means.

And Christ, by his own blood, as the perfect Lamb of God, has made that satisfaction upon the cross. In this is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us. How did he love us? In this way, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world to save us from our sins.

Now consider 1st Timothy 1, 14 through 16, and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant. How is that? With faith and love. Where do you find faith and love? Which are in Christ Jesus. Hear it again.

The grace of our Lord is exceedingly abundant. How does this grace manifest? With faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Not the faith and love that you could conjure up by your own merits and your own strength and your own diligence and your own personal transformation, but the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.

That he brings to us. He's the one who seeks and saves the lost. Verse 15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.

Coming back to that. However, for this reason I obtained mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all long-suffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him free to everlasting life.

Paul says this is faithful, this is worthy of acceptance, double down on this, this is concrete, this is true. Jesus Christ had come into the world to save sinners. He did not come in to gather the people who already thought they were okay.

He came into the world to save sinners. You say, well I know people who can't be saved. Paul says he was the chief of sinners. And when it comes to saving sinners, there was none who were farther off, far worse off, closer to hell, more deserving of God's judgment than Saul of Tarsus, who had all of the understanding of God's holy word, the entire Old Testament, had taken it all up and twisted it in such a way to attack the followers of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, Jesus, when he confronted Saul of Tarsus, said, why are you persecuting me? And so Saul of Tarsus, day in and day out, breathing threats, breathing anger against Christ and his followers, stabbed again and again and again into the flesh of the bride, attacking the groom.

He was an evil man doing evil things. The chief of sinners. And God saved him. And he didn't save him in some kind of gentlemanly tap on the shoulder. Would you please consider this nice brochure? Jesus stopped him on the road to Damascus, knocked him flat on the ground, blinded him for days.

Said, you are going to deal with the Lord of glory. You are going to deal with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And you're going to stop hurting my bride. For when you hurt her, you attack me.

And Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle. Paul says, this is an example, a pattern to all of those who are going to believe upon Christ for everlasting life. There are many people in this world, maybe some of you in this room, who have said, there's probably not any reason to hold out hope that God would ever love me, accept me, and say, we're on perfect terms, you and I.

You may know people in your life who you you're just about ready to give up hope on. Perhaps you've already given up hope on them, because you see that they are so far gone. And you have said, well there's no chance for them to be saved anymore.

If God saves Saul of Tarsus, after everything he did to Christ in the church, He can save you. And He can save those that you have a burden for. Because who shows up to the prayer meeting deniers, deserters, doubters, and despised?

But notice, that's not who they are anymore. Peter is no longer a denier, he's the chief confessor. And he's going to be put in time after time, a test after test, where he confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and says, do whatever you want, I'm going to preach the gospel.

And consider that John, even his preaching partner John, who once used to strive to get the better position amongst the disciples, who once, because of an insult from a Samaritan village, wanted God to incinerate them in fire.

Now the apostle John preaches the gospel, and he becomes known as the apostle of love. Look how different things are. The apostles who deserted Christ are now gathered to Him so that they may go out for Him in His name.

And there's Thomas, he's no longer doubting. And there's Mary, she's no longer doubting. They're his brothers, they're no longer doubting. Do you see the change that has occurred? Mary Magdalene used to be possessed by demons, but no more.

Do you see the change that has taken place? Listen, all the identifiers that we mentioned, those who denied and deserted and doubted, those who were despised, all those identifiers are not their identity.

Identifiers are not your identity. In Christ, there's only one at the right hand, and that's Christ. So when you're in Christ, He's your identity. That's how I show up. He's my name tag. He's my place of origin.

He's my destiny. He's my walk-up music. Everything about me is about Christ. In the Scriptures, those who are left with identifiers as their identity, the thieves, the covetous, the rebellious to parents, the perverted, the murderers, the haters, those who remain identifying themselves by such things, they're the ones who are left out of the kingdom of God.

They're the ones who are left out of the kingdom of God. But the resounding statement of the Bible is, such were some of you, but no longer. You're justified and sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ, meaning that's your new identity.

Everything is changed now. And that's why all these kinds of people, from all these kinds of backgrounds, people who should be at each other's throat, eventually we'll see in the book of Acts, Jews and Gentiles, the greatest racial divide, ethnic divide that ever there was is completely and thoroughly healed together.

And there they all are in the same room, praising the same God because of the salvation that they have in Christ, because He's their identity. And so we come together, not because we're elite saints. The prayer meeting is not for the elite saints.

You show up to a prayer meeting, it's not because you're elite. We're just children by the Son petitioning the Father for the Holy Spirit, the blessings of the Holy Spirit. Not many noble, not many wise, not many strong.

That's who it's for. That's who it's for. Well, what kind of purpose does a prayer meeting have? We say, well, that's obvious. It's for prayer. Yes. And we have more than that in the text. I want us to take a look at what kind of purpose a prayer meeting has.

There's verse 12. Then they return to Jerusalem from the mount called Olavet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. Sabbath day's journey. What in the world does that mean? That means about 1 ,600 steps.

If you count your steps when you walk around and say, oh, I've got 10 ,000 today, you would have broken the Sabbath. 1 ,600 steps. That's about a Sabbath day journey, three quarters of a mile, 2 ,000 cubits.

Now, Luke, he's a Gentile, writing to a Gentile named Theophilus, and he tells him, by the way, you know, where Jesus ascended to heaven on Mount Olive, the Mount of Olives, his followers obeyed his instructions.

They went to go wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now, the distance it took for them to get from the Mount of Olives to this upper room where they all gathered is about a Sabbath day journey.

Now, how does that, how is that the normal vernacular of a Gentile author? And how is that the understanding, easiest way of understanding things for a Gentile audience, Theophilus? That's pretty strange.

All kinds of ways to mark out how far it is from the Mount of Olives to the upper room. Why does he say it's a Sabbath day's journey? Yeah, well, maybe it was on the Sabbath, you know. Maybe it was Saturday, seventh day of the week.

In six days, God created all things. On the seventh day, he rested and gave a pattern for all those who would fear the Lord to have that pattern of work and rest. And indeed, a pattern that was more fully realized in the Exodus, when the Jews were delivered from their slavery and their labors to serve the Lord.

And to serve the Lord in the wilderness, they recognized that their sustenance was not dependent upon their own abilities. Their salvation was not dependent upon their own abilities. They'd work for six days, they rest the seventh, and trust God to provide manna from heaven and provide whatever else that they needed.

Maybe it was Saturday. Was it Saturday when Jesus ascended? Nope. It wasn't Saturday. It wasn't the Sabbath. It wasn't the Sabbath of the Jews, you know, that day that Jesus was always getting in trouble healing people.

They always get mad at him for healing people on the Sabbath. You healed someone. No, it wasn't Saturday. Maybe it was Sunday, you know, first day of the week, as the Puritans and the Reformed covenant theologians have given to us for generations, that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.

Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day, the day that he rose from the dead. And we're just going to transfer all the requirements of rest from Saturday to Sunday. Well, it wasn't Sunday either.

And this is really going to hurt all the Baptist traditionalists. It wasn't Wednesday night either. Sorry. You know what day it was? It was plain old Thursday. Plain old, uninteresting, boring Thursday.

I don't even think Thursday has a name. We don't even have a slang name for Thursday. That's how boring this name, this day is. And that's the day that Jesus ascended to heaven to the right hand of God, promising the full effects of the blessing to the new covenant by the arrival of the Holy Spirit.