 I wanna invite everybody, take your Bible in your hand and hold it up. If you have a Bible with you, hold it up. Okay, you can put it down. If you don't have a Bible, let me strongly encourage you, this week, get a Bible and plan on bringing it with you over the next 18 weeks. And you say, well, why 18 weeks? Because this is gonna be an 18 week series as we're going through the book of Acts. You see, right now you're going 18 weeks in one book of the Bible. That's a long time. No, it's not. You guys watch like 14 different seasons of Seinfeld on Netflix and nobody gets to season three and is like, this was really long. You're like, no, give me another, give me another. That's what wind and fire is gonna be as we journey through the book of Acts. And I want you to have a Bible, number one, because I want you to start a good habit. Digital Bibles are wonderful, but you can't take notes. Reading it on the screens are great, but I want you to be able to write notes. So bring a journal, bring a pen, bring your Bible. If you don't have a Bible, steal somebody's Bible and then repent later for it. Or sell something out of your basement and order a Bible on Amazon. Go to one of our resource centers at both of our campuses and get a Bible. Go to a hotel, find a Gideon's Bible. Get yourself a B-I-B-L-E. Because that's the book for you. That's right, that's right. So great. Open it, if you have your Bibles, to Acts chapter one. Brand new series that we're launching this morning. I am very excited about teaching through the book of Acts. I have read the book of Acts almost every single month since college because when I was in Bible college, I had, I was in a Bible college that did not believe that God was still doing much of what we read about in the book of Acts. And so long story bit in the middle of one of my semesters, I sat down, I had a long weekend and I read the book of Acts and it's so awakened my heart with expectation of what God wants to do and will do for a people who are expectant for him that I made a vow to Lord, it's like Lord, I never wanna lose that fire that I feel when I read the book of Acts. And so I'm gonna read the book of Acts every month just to keep my heart calibrated to that because I believe the book of Acts is a blueprint for not only revival, but the church and individual followers of Jesus being used to transform the world. If I were to lay out for you a blueprint and say, here's how you spark a revolution. If I were to lay that out and say, here it is, it would be the book of Acts. It would not be Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. It wouldn't even be the Federalist Papers. It wouldn't be anything necessarily political because all of those things have had their moments. But the book of Acts is how heaven invaded the world by the power of the kingdom of God and through a small group of disciples that followed the God man Jesus and his death, burial and resurrection, how God used them to turn the world upside down to the point that here we are today 2000 years later and what began in Acts chapter one with 120 in an upper room is now 1.6 billion alive at one time and millions more that are already in the throne room of heaven. That, my friend, is a revolution, not just of the external, but a revolution of the heart. And so today I'm gonna introduce to you this series. I'm gonna introduce to you chapter one, the entire book of Acts, I've entitled this message. The day the revolution began. The day the revolution began. And we've subtitled this series, the extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the uprising of the church in the book of Acts. Because make no mistake about it, the church of Jesus Christ is a revolutionary army that heaven has sent empowered by love, empowered by the Holy Spirit with the good news that can change people's lives. And if you change people's lives, you change families, you change cities, you change communities, you change nations, you change generations. And if you look back over the last 2,000 years of church history, you will discover that this pattern that we find in the book of Acts, every single time that pattern is reinvigorated and followed, it produces change. And every single time that the church gets away from the pattern of the book of Acts, we go into decline. So we're going back to the pattern, all right? Let me introduce you to the book of Acts. Number one, you need to know who the author was. The author was a man named Luke. He was, according to Colossians 4, verse 14, where Paul describes Luke. Luke was, he says, our beloved physician. Luke was not Jewish. Luke was a Gentile, probably Greek. And he was a physician. And he was also the travel companion of the apostle Paul. So on all of Paul's missionary journeys around Turkey and Europe and in the Holy land and North Africa and in different places that Paul went bringing the gospel, Paul, or Luke, was his travel companion. Some believe that Luke was also his personal physician, because if you read 2 Corinthians, all the things that Paul went through as an apostle, you need your own physician. He was beaten with rods. He was whipped with Kettinine tails four different times. He was shipwrecked a day and a half, bit by a poisonous snake, imprisoned into dungeons that were rat infested. He was chased down by robbers. He was persecuted by his own countrymen. He was rejected even by the church. I mean, if you've ever wanted to be an apostle, just go and read that and then check yourself before you wreck yourself. Because Paul went through some things. Paul needed a physician, but more than just being a physician that traveled with him, he was a friend and a companion of Paul's apostolic team. Luke wrote two books. Luke wrote, in fact, two volumes of one story. The first volume was the book of Luke. The second volume is the book of Acts. The first book, the gospel of Luke, is all about how Jesus came and he gave his life to redeem us. The second volume, which is the book of Acts, is all about how Jesus came and empowered us by giving us his spirit. And he wrote both books to a single individual whose name was Theophilus. Oh, excellent Theophilus. This is how he addresses him. Who is Theophilus? Well, Theophilus was a common name. Theophilus means friend of God. And how many know that's a pretty good name? When you're picking out names, names matter. And friend of God is a great name to name your kid. Theo for short. So when I was a youth pastor, I had two studly kids in my youth group. And I mean, they were just athletes, good looking to sharp. One of them's name was Skip and the other was Spike. Names matter. The parents, I asked them, I'm like, why did you pick names of Skip and Spike? Are they short for something? No, Skip and Spike. What was more interesting is they had two dogs, huge dogs, bull mastiffs, that look like horses. And you know what they named their dogs? Abby and Katie. Names matter. Theophilus means the friend of God. And there's a lot of different theories about who Theophilus was and why Luke wrote to Theophilus as he says to give an orderly account of all the things that Jesus both began to do and teach. Some in church history believe that Theophilus was a high priest who was of the family of Anna, or Anas, the high priest. And so he's trying to give him an explanation of Jesus. Others more reputable believe that Theophilus was a very wealthy Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, who was very influential. Others still believe that Theophilus was potentially Paul's lawyer in Rome while Paul was under house arrest. When you get to Acts chapter 28, it ends abruptly with Paul under house arrest awaiting his trial. What we know is that ultimately Paul would be found guilty of insurrection against the Roman government and he would be beheaded because he was a Roman citizen. Unlike Peter, who would be crucified upside down because he was not a Roman citizen, they never would crucify a Roman citizen. Paul being a good Roman citizen from the city of Tarsus was beheaded. But many people believe that Theophilus was either the prosecutor who was trying Paul in the Roman courts. And so Luke, who's trained in rhetoric, or he's trained in law, as well as in medicine, because those all went together, presented a legal briefing to undo a lot of the rumors about who the Christians were. Because in Rome at this time, the Book of Acts is written in around 62 to 65 AD, about 25, 30 years after the resurrection, Christianity is exploding in the Roman Empire, but there are all kinds of rumors about who Christians are and what they believe. They spread rumors and said they're cannibals because they talked about eating the blood and eating the flesh of their savior. So a lot of people in Rome thought Christians are cannibals. They also called Christians atheists. They said, well, how can they call them atheists? They believe in God, we believe in Jesus. The problem was Christians were the only subgroup in the whole Roman Empire that refused to pay homage or worship to the Roman gods. They had a pantheon of gods. Christians would not bow the knee, they would not acknowledge that Nero or that any of the emperors were deities. So they called them atheists. And when Nero actually lit the city of Rome on fire and burned it down, and public opinion went against him, he had to find a scapegoat to blame it on. So he blamed it on the Christians because he said they write in their scriptures that when Jesus, their Lord returns, he's gonna judge the world with fire. So it rose to a persecution level and now Paul has been arrested and many believe that Luke was actually writing to this prosecutor presenting a legal argument for who Jesus really was. That's the gospel of Luke and how the church began and what their goal was. That's the book of Acts. I think the most likely case is what Irenaeus, who's one of the early church fathers believed about theopolis, is that theopolis was a very wealthy benefactor from the city of Antioch who helped finance and support Paul on his missionary journey. He was a benefactor who financed him from Antioch where Paul had spent much time and was financing the expansion of the gospel and the reproduction of New Testament letters that would ultimately become half of the Bible that you and I have today. And so as a gift or as an explanation, he's writing to this man theopolis. Whoever he is, he's writing with a very specific intention and the intention is to give an explanation of the expansion of this seemingly unsung group of followers of a Nazarene and how that church and how that message called the gospel grew and expanded from Jerusalem all the way to the ends of the earth and ultimately even into the emperor's home in the city of Rome, the most powerful city in the world. He wants to give an explanation. The book of Acts is 28 chapters that covers about 30 years. A lot of people read the book of Acts and go, wow, what a week that was. Now, it was 28 to 30 years. And here's one little nugget that you'll notice about the book of Acts. If you skip ahead to the end of the book, which I know a lot of you do when you read books because you wanna see how it ends, what you will find out is that in the book of Acts there is no amen at the end of the book. Most of the New Testament epistles that you read end with an amen, which is a Hebrew word that means let it be, that's it, it's done. But there's no amen at the book of Acts in Acts chapter 28. Why is there no amen? It's because it's still being written. Not literally in the sense that it's included in our Bible but the Holy Spirit did through the church, beginning 2000 years ago in Jerusalem, is still happening across the face of the earth. You and I are still living in what God started at the very beginning of the book of Acts. It's still happening. When's it gonna be done? When Jesus returns? How many know that's gonna be a good day? I can't wait to get to heaven and hear the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. So give me the rest of the story of what God did. And when you really think about what has happened with just 11 disciples because Judas hung himself, who met together with Jesus in Jerusalem and what has come of that, it's nothing short of miraculous. There's no explanation. You know, one of the most powerful ways that we can live our lives is to live our lives with the desire in our lives that says this, God, I wanna live my life so full of your Holy Spirit, so focused on your mission and so in love with God and people that at the end of my life, when people look at it, there is no natural explanation for my life. That there has to be a supernatural reason for it. And I believe that that should be true in us. It's definitely true in the book of Acts. So let's kick it off. Look with me here at verse number one, Acts chapter one, verse number one. We're gonna read several verses here and then I'm gonna give you some thoughts about how Jesus prepared the church and brought the church to a place of critical mass. Here we go, verse number one. In the first book, Otheophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day that he was taken up after he had given commandments through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs and appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 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 to ask him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. 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 is taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, about a Sabbath's day's journey away. And when they entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, Peter, John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas and Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Elpheus 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. So Acts chapter one is the introduction to what Jesus began to do and teach in the first volume, which is the book of Acts and now what we begin to see is in the last few days, last 40 days that Jesus had with his disciples before he ascended, took the throne over the universe, exalted at the right hand of the father, that he spent 40 days preparing the disciples to carry on the mission of Jesus. You see when you read your Bible, if you look at the headline of the book of Acts, this is the Acts of the apostles, but in reality, we could call it the Acts of the Holy Spirit, the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles and everything that we will study in the next several weeks, it's not the wisdom, it's not the strength, it's not the education, it's not the cleverness of human beings that made it happen. It's actually the power of heaven, the wind and the fire of heaven in natural, normal, average, everyday people that made a supernatural difference, but it starts with Jesus preparing and prioritizing for the disciples the things that are going to position them to be ready for when the fire comes. Next week in Acts chapter two, we're gonna talk about God sending fire, the power from heaven, but before he does that, he has to prepare them. If you've ever made a campfire like out in your backyard, I'm not talking about the kind you click, click, click and the flames come up. I'm talking like old school where you make a fire. You know that before you strike the match and throw the flame into the fire pit, you've got to prepare the wood and the fuel to receive the flame. And what we see what Jesus doing, he says, for 40 days, Jesus, after his resurrection, met with the disciples and taught them about the things of the kingdom of God. How many think that that's a pretty good Bible college to go to, where Jesus is your instructor? For 40 days after his resurrection, we sometimes in the church have a mentality it's like Jesus rose from the dead and then whoop and the church was like, wow, that was powerful. All right, let's go. That's not at all how it happened. Jesus was raised from the dead. We celebrated that last weekend on Easter or on Resurrection Sunday. And when Jesus was raised from the dead, we need to understand, he was not raised as a spirit. He was raised physically. His physical body was raised back from the dead and then God transformed it into a glorified body which means it had no more sickness, disease. It was not subject to death or weakness and it was not limited to the three dimensions that you and I are familiar with or even the five senses. It's his body plus. It was a human body plus. You and I have a human body but it comes with weakness. You and I have a human body but it gets old and it gets tired. You and I have a human body that maybe when you were 18, you had a six pack and now you're 50 and you got a six gallon. That's just because of the fallen state of the world that we live in. But the Bible is very clear in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection which means if he's first, there's more to come. When Jesus returns, you and I are going to receive a physical glorified body just like Jesus now has and we will live forever and ever and ever in that physical body. So the body you have right now is going to be your body plus. It's just gonna be better, stronger, never getting weak. Your hair's never gonna grow gray. I mean, I'm believing for six pack abs again. Maybe for the first time ever. I don't know, but it's gonna be glorious. Jesus though, it's important for us to know that when Jesus appears and he teaches to the disciples for 40 days, it's Jesus. He made a campfire next to the Sea of Galilee. He cooked a fish breakfast for them. He ate with them. They hugged him. Thomas touched his hands and his feet. So I want you to get this idea that Jesus, he spends 40 days from Passover or shortly after Passover until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost 10 days before that for 40 days, the disciples are meeting with Jesus and he's teaching them. Can you imagine in your living room all of a sudden resurrected glorified son of a living God walks through the wall and says, all right, take your notepad out and begins to teach you about the kingdom of God. Why did Jesus do that? Because Jesus knew that on the other side of Easter, on the other side of the resurrection, what is needed is a kingdom perspective if we're going to be effective at transforming the kingdoms of men. We can't make disciples of the nations if we are disciples of the nations. We can't transform the world if we're being transformed by the world. And so Jesus zeroed in on the kingdom of God and taught them all things about, not only the kingdom of God someday when he returns and he sets up this earthly kingdom, but he taught them about the spiritual truths and principles of the kingdom of God and how to do ministry, the power of the Holy Spirit. He taught them all kinds of things related to this idea for 40 days. So he would come and teach them and that's it. And then he'd disappear and then he would come back. And then on the last day that he's with them, Jesus takes them up onto the Mount of Olives. And he says, okay, guys, I want you to wait here in Jerusalem, power of the Holy Spirit's gonna come. Then you're gonna be my witnesses. And then all of a sudden they watch Jesus lift off. If you've ever seen a space shuttle launch, it's pretty awesome to watch it just go up and the burners just go up. They're standing there with Jesus. And then all of a sudden he begins to, reee, I mean take off. Can you imagine what that must have been like? You're just watching Jesus go up into the clouds, seeing sunlight come through the holes in his feet. Just watching him go. It's like, whoa. And then there's two angels staying there going, men of Galilee, why are you gazing into the heavens? Well, because I'm watching Jesus fly. And I think that's worth watching. Anybody else? I mean, it's not like you go, all right, see you later, Jesus, all right, boys, let's go. No, I mean, I'm like, wow, how did he do that? But the angels were literally drawing their attention away saying it's time. It's time, and I want you to remember this. The same way that Jesus left is the same way that he's coming back. He's coming back. He reminded them of all things Jesus had said that he is coming back. But in the meantime, he's called them to do and to carry on the work of the ministry. In the gospels, what we see is Jesus, the son of God in a physical body, doing the ministry of the father and setting a pattern for the disciples. It was training them, goes to the cross, dies for the sins of the world. Now what we see in the book of Acts is Jesus is handing the baton to them and he's saying what I did and how I taught you and how I showed you, now you go and do the stuff. It's very reminiscent of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was a prophet, Elisha was his protege. He said, follow me, but there came a day when Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire, but he told Elisha, if you're there when I'm taking up, you can have a double portion anointing. And so when Elijah was taken up, he dropped his mantle and Elisha took it up and what the Bible records is that Elisha did twice as many miracles as Elijah ever did. This is their Elisha moment, where they are there when Jesus is taken up and now what we're about to see is that after 40 days with Jesus where he's prioritized certain things, a pattern for them, he's about to drop the match of the Holy Spirit onto the church and ignite a revolution that will not be quenched, will not be stopped, will not be slowed down until Jesus returns. And church, you and I are a part of that. So let me give you the four things that I believe in this chapter. Jesus prioritizes for the disciples that are necessary for the church to reach a state of critical mass. You can see these four priorities, by the way, in any move of God throughout history of the church. You can see it in the Reformation under Martin Luther and John Calvin. You can see it in the anti-Nicene fathers in the first three centuries of the church. You can see it in the Moravian Revival. You can see it in the Pentecostal Charismatic outpourings of the Holy Spirit. You can see it in the holiness movements of the Methodists. You can see it everywhere because whenever these priorities are set back in place, like dried kindling in a fire pit, it always leads to an empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the church returning back to its original call. And make no mistake about it, this is our call. As we're going back through the book of Acts, church, as your pastor, I don't want you to just get information. I want there to be an eye-opening revelation that we go, this is what I'm called to. I'm supposed to live like this. Think like this. And as we see that, what I don't want to happen is you to be, I've missed the mark, I can't start. No, I'm just, I'm too entrenched. No, I want it to literally turn over the soil of our heart and go, oh, I was created for so much more. God wants to do so much more through me. And I want our faith level to just skyrocket in the day and age that we live in. So here's the four priorities that brought critical mass to the church. Number one, Jesus said this. Here's the priority that they were to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. I want, Jesus said, I want you to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse four and five in Acts one, here it says, and while they were staying with them or he was staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you've heard from me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Jesus knew that the same Holy Spirit power that fueled his ministry was required and necessary to fuel the mission of the church. And Jesus says, don't leave Jerusalem until you receive the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, we can have a tendency to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You know, the first four books, the gospels that tell us everything about Jesus's life. And we can be tempted, or maybe it's our default setting to think, well, of course, Jesus healed the sick. Of course, Jesus cast out demons. Of course, Jesus was able to discern and answer supernaturally questions that were meant to be traps because of course, Jesus did all that because Jesus was God and because he's God, and of course he's gonna do those kinds of things, but I can't do those things because I'm not God. Well, you're right, you and I are not God and that's a good thing. It's a good thing we're not good. It's a good thing I'm not God because I would react a lot differently than my merciful, long-suffering, patient father does. So everybody just wipe your brow and go, I'm so glad Pastor Lee's not God. But here's the reality, is that if we believe that Jesus did those things because he was God, then we're missing really the point, one of the major points of Jesus's life in ministry. You see Acts 10, 38, Luke, we'll get to this chapter, looking back on the life of Jesus, it says, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power who went about doing good and healing all those who were sick and oppressed by the devil. How did Jesus heal the sick? How did Jesus set people free who were oppressed by the devil? He did it because of the anointing of who, of the Holy Spirit. When did that happen? Matthew chapter four, Jesus at the beginning of his earthly ministry goes to the Jordan River. John, his cousin baptizes him, not because Jesus needed to have his sins washed away, but because he was stepping into priestly ministry. This was a mikvah, this was a cleansing and a washing and a ceremonial purification before a priest began ministry. And when that happened, the heavens opened up, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus. And the father said, this is my beloved son and whom I am well pleased. Jesus goes into the wilderness and tempted for 40 days. When he comes out of the wilderness, he goes to his hometown synagogue. He opens a scroll of Isaiah chapter 60 and he reads these words. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. How did Jesus do what he did? Did he do it because he's God? No, Jesus could have done it because he was God, but Philippians two says that Jesus actually set aside certain attributes that he had as God for a period of time in order to show us a prototype of what can happen when a human being fully yielded and empowered by the Holy Spirit can do. So Jesus operated under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Why is that important? Because that means if Jesus did it under the power of the Holy Spirit and he told the disciples to wait for that same power, that means Jesus' expectation was that we were gonna receive the same anointing that he had and we would be able to do the very same stuff that he did, that you could heal the sick, that you could cast out demons, that you could operate in discernment and wisdom and knowledge. It's Matthew, or it's Mark chapter 16. These signs shall follow those who believe. And listen, we only raise our levels of expectation up to the level of our knowledge and belief. So if we don't think that God wants that for us, then we'll never strive for that or we'll never grow in that. But Jesus is wanting to prepare them and one of the priorities was, I want you to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit because you're gonna need it. D. L. Moody, who was a great revivalist, said this. He said, there is no use in running before you are sent. There is no use in attempting to do God's work without God's power. A man working without this anointing, a man working without this anointing, a man working without the Holy Ghost upon him is losing time after all. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. Second priority that Jesus said in place, and I gotta move quickly, is he prioritized them mobilizing the church to reach the ends of the earth. In verse eight, he says, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. So that's the first part. And then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world. What was the power for? The power was to be mobilized to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. This is what Jesus commissioned the church to do. I want you to go and preach the gospel. Matthew 28, verse 18. I want you to go and make disciples of all nations. But before you go, you're gonna need the Holy Spirit. But once you get the Holy Spirit, the point is to mobilize you and to get you moving. Cause Jesus did not create the church to be a stagnant institutionalized monument to himself, but a Holy Spirit-empowered catalytic movement that would reach the farthest corners and the unreached people of the earth until he returned. See the power of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it's not for us, it's for the world. Now, I can pick on my church family, not you, but I grew up Pentecostal, Pentecostal Charismatic. And we love the work of the Holy Spirit. This is a Charismatic church. You know, I grew up and we talked about the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift of tongues, gift of prophecy, healing, you know, all those kinds of things. But very often, one of the criticisms I have of the Pentecostal Charismatic movement as a whole is that we oftentimes looked at the power of the Holy Spirit as for us. For us to enjoy and us to be entertained by. Go to a conference and you know, it's like people are falling down when they're getting prayed for and man, I really felt the Lord. I got the goosebumps and it was amazing and I got a word for myself and it was amazing. And listen, we get to enjoy that, but that's not the point. If we're not careful, we can turn the Charismatic gifts into a Charismatic carnival. How many have seen those carnivals that come to town? They set up in the mall parking lot, you know? Got a little Kearney guys running around there. They got machines you would never put anybody you love on, but because you've had two elephant ears and one of those long hot dogs wrapped in corn or whatever they are, you know, you get on that thing and and you know, you're trying to hit the top of it and you're throwing, trying to get the stuffed animal for your first day. And these machines are held together by duct tape and spit and you have no idea whether you're gonna survive the twirly whirl or the, you know, whatever those things are. And those carnivals come to town, they set up, everybody has a good time. They go home and throw up. They swear they're never gonna go back and the next time, you know, the next week you drive by that, it's gone. There's nothing lasting there. Listen, the church is not meant to be self-centered. It is meant to be a compass that's pointed outward, filled with the Holy Spirit, to the North, to the South, the East and the West. And as we go, the Bible says in Mark chapter 16, it says, God will confirm the preaching of the message with signs and wonders following. I'm about to say something that's gonna rock your world and then I'm gonna miss the last two points because I don't have time. But one of the reasons why we don't see more signs and wonders in the American culture is because there is a direct correlation to our lack of going. We've taken Jesus from being our personal Lord and Savior to now Jesus becoming our private Lord and Savior. And we keep him to ourself. And God says, I will confirm the message with signs and wonders. But I'm not just gonna give you signs and wonders so that you can stand there and wonder. If we start preaching the gospel more in our culture, one on one and boldly proclaiming it and being unashamed about the name of Jesus and being motivated by what motivated Jesus and being a mobilized mission movement. I'll tell you what's gonna happen. God's gonna pour his spirit out and you're gonna see things you've never seen before. You can go to third world nations where they don't have lights, they don't have buildings. They got lawn chairs and tarps and they are persecuted but they are preaching the gospel. And you know what God's doing? Miracle upon miracle upon miracle upon miracle. It's because God's not interested in entertaining us. He's interested in empowering us for mission. And just for the sake of being consistent, point number three is Jesus prioritized anticipating his return to rule and to reign. And number four, he prioritized them staying united in prayer. Look at verse 14, after Jesus did all these things, it says, and all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. What was their response as Jesus takes off? As he said, wait for the power, go into all the world and know that I'm coming back. What was their response? Their response was, let's go to prayer. Let's go to prayer. Jesus said, wait, how long did they wait? How long did they pray? 10 days! Can you imagine a 10 day prayer meeting? I think we need one of those. 10 day prayer meeting! And did you notice who's at the prayer meeting? It's his brothers, the same brothers that didn't believe in him until the resurrection. You've got James and Jude who would both write two books in the New Testament. During Jesus' earthly ministry, these two brothers did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Can you imagine, by the way, you're growing up with Jesus as your older brother? Mom and dad all the time looking at you going, why can't you be more like your brother, Jesus? Well, he's God, mom! Sinless, I mean, something in the hearts of these two brothers, half brothers, resisted believing in Jesus. But after he was raised from the dead, now we see them in the upper room. And what are they doing? Praying together with the mother of Jesus Mary Mary Magdalene, the other women who supported him and the 11 and some of the 70, there's about 120 of them. What were they doing? They were positioning themselves to receive the wind and the fire of heaven. And when that spark, when that match head was ignited and thrown on the day of Pentecost onto the church, in that upper room, it ignited an inferno. A move of God on the earth that would totally transform and change society, people's hearts, overthrow the Roman Empire and take the good news of God's salvation to the ends of the earth. You and I are here today because of what happened in Acts chapter one and how they gave themselves to these priorities. Why is that important? Because here's our default setting. Our default setting, instead of having a kingdom focus is to actually be shaped in our mentality by the world. Our default setting is not to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit and depend on God's power, it's to trust in our own strength, our own ability, our own intellect or the ins and outs and the wisdom keys of this world. Our default setting is not to go to the ends of the earth but it's to live our life focused on me and my needs and my wants. Our default setting is not to go to prayer but it's to become divided, distracted and discouraged. That's what the devil wants. If the devil can keep the church divided between themselves, distracted from prayer by everything else that the world has to offer, he will get us discouraged and now we become like wet wood that cannot hold the flame. But when we come back and we say, Jesus, your priorities are my priorities. God, I want a kingdom perspective. I need the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm called to be a witness to the world. I'm anticipating your return and I'm gonna live my life committed to the place of prayer, united together. I'll tell you what happens. You can begin the countdown. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. Acts chapter two requires an Acts chapter one preparation. Would you stand with me all over the room? I don't know about you, but I want an Acts two outpouring which requires an Acts chapter one response in me. And I want that for you. I want that for our families. Listen, I believe all of my heart as we look at the darkness in the world today. I'm convinced that darkness only exists because there's an absence of light. Darkness is not a force. Darkness is not an energy source. It's a void. Did you get that? Darkness is a void that has to flee whenever light is introduced. Church, the darkness is not stronger than the light in you. The darkness of hell on the earth, the darkness on our generation, the darkness that wants to encroach on our families, the darkness that we see all over the landscape of the earth. It has no power beyond the power of us as the church allowing it to. But as soon as we recognize we are the light of the earth, we are the light of the world. And we begin to say God light the flame with Holy Spirit, fire and wind in my heart once again. I'll tell you what, you're gonna begin to see the darkness dissipate. Demons have to flee at the name of Jesus. We saw this morning people getting baptized and there's testimonies of Jesus coming and pushing back the darkness and transforming in our lives and saving them and healing them and changing things in their lives. And that might be true in your life. It's one life at a time and it's one church in a moment and it's one generation in a city that can change everything. I want that level of faith and expectation to fill us today. So all over the room, would you right now just bow your head something, I'm gonna pray that God would right now stir expectation inside of us as we go into this season and into this series. Holy Spirit, we need you. Jesus, we love you. Father, we adore you. And we wanna serve faithfully to you. Lord, we have been appointed one life, one moment in human history in which we are the stewards of this time. We are the stewards of this message. And I pray, Lord, that you would kindle inside of our hearts a flame, a fervent love for Jesus. And in the places of our life, maybe where we've grown dull and distracted and complacent, Lord, would you fan into flame, our passion and our love for you all over again, Jesus. Blow the wind of heaven and fan into flame the power of your spirit.