Preparing for Pentecost (Waiting for God to Work)
Acts 1:12-26

Do you enjoy waiting? What do you do while waiting? (Get angry, or get ready?)
Is waiting on God entirely passive?

Obeying God while we actively wait on the Lord (v 12-14)
How did the disciples obey? (Luke 24:46-49; Acts 1:4)

Where was the upper room?

What is active waiting?
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They prayed continually, devotedly and with one mind. (Luke 24:50-53)

Those with one mind cannot be divided

What are our prayer meetings like?

Peter’s Scripture Motivated Proposal
Are Psalm 69 and 109 about Judas or do they apply to Judas?

Is Judas responsible for his sin even if it was preordained? (Acts 2:23)

Why was Replacement necessary? (Luke 22:28-30; Matthew 19:28)

Why is 120 mentioned?

Luke Comments on Judas (v 18-19): Was Luke or Matthew right when it comes to Judas?

Qualifications of an Apostle: Who are the apostles and what do they do?
Electing New Leadership
Searched the Scriptures
Common sense (qualifications)
Prayer
Cast lots (Lev 16:8; Numbers 26:55; Prov. 16:33; Luke 1:9)
Should we cast lots today?
Lessons
How do we prepare for Pentecost? Remember Judas
 

Vital Godliness: Hope
With some it is common to speak slightingly of hope. Surely such do not draw their views from the word of God, nor from the experience of his people. These well agree in giving it a high place among the Christian graces, and in declaring its excellence and usefulness. “We are saved by hope.” We are rescued from the fell influences of despair, we are aroused and animated in our whole course, and are finally made victorious by the power of hope. This is one of the great bands which holds together the church of God. As “there is one body and one Spirit, ....one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” so also “ye are called in one hope of your calling.”

Hope consists of desire and expectation. It is the opposite of fear, which is composed of aversion and expectation. Richard Baxter says, “Hope is nothing but a desirous expectation.” It is also the opposite of despair, which though it desires, does not expect. When we regard any thing as impossible, we cannot hope for it, although we may greatly wish for it. As to the general nature of hope there is no dispute.

The hope of the Christian is a longing expectation of all good things both for this and the next world. It embraces all the mercy, truth, love, and faithfulness promised in Scripture. It lays hold of the perfections and government of God as the sure foundation of its expectations. It has special reference to the person, offices, and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Scripture the word not only means the sentiment already described, but sometimes it is used for the thing hoped for. Thus Paul speaks to the Colossians of “the hope which was laid up for” them in heaven, where he plainly designates the good things hoped for. The hope of a Christian relates to the whole of what is promised in God’s word. There grace is promised. And on every child of God comes the blessing: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.” In like manner hope finds aliment in all the divine perfections. It looks for them to be continually exercised for its good. Thus it expects bread and water, raiment and shelter, guidance and protection during life, with a blessed victory in death. It goes further. Each Christian can say as Paul, “I have hope towards God....that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust.” Yea, more, he is always “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Yea, more, the souls of believers are sustained “in the hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” – William S. Plumer