When Jesus ascended to heaven, He gave His disciples a command. Matthew just referred to it before. It's in the book of Matthew, chapter 28. And Jesus says to these disciples, "Go and make disciples of all nations." We see it again in what we read from Acts chapter 1 in verse 8, where Jesus says to His disciples, "You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." This is a big task. Essentially, Jesus is commissioning His people, His disciples, to go out and complete the work that He has begun. He has begun the work of saving sinners to Himself. He did that by taking on flesh and living among us, by suffering and dying on the cross, bearing the awful weight of sin upon His shoulders so that all who believe in Him would have eternal life, would go from being in the kingdom of darkness to being in the kingdom of light. What a project! Millions and millions, billions of people that Jesus is wanting to save. And He gives His disciples the task of carrying on this work by speaking and witnessing about who Jesus is and what He has done, not just in Jerusalem, but in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, all the nations. That's a big task. That is a tremendously big task. And you know, Acts 1 records for us—we didn't read this actually, it was the next verse—in verse 15, it records for us just how many people there were following Jesus when He gave them this task. "In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120." About 120 people. You know, He had His 12 disciples who were to lead the charge, and then there was another another 110 people around them, thereabouts. That's what this room would look like when it's full, basically. 120 people. And He says to them, "I want you to go and speak of Me everywhere. In all of Israel, in Egypt, in Rome, all throughout Europe. I want you to go to China and Africa and India. I want you to sail across the sea and speak of Me in America and Australia." That's right. Now, if you were given a task like that and you had 120 people, what are you going to do? How is it that you're going to plan to go out there and tell everyone about the way to have eternal life? Well, I want to point out just one aspect of the passage that we just read which I believe is the primary—in that I mean the first—thing that we need to do if we are going to think about continuing this work. Because the work's not done. We too carry on this legacy of speaking of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world, to our neighbors and our friends and our workmates and our family. And it's still a big task. In fact, today it's probably even bigger, in that there's now 7 billion people in the world. There's some tens of thousands within a couple of kilometers of here. How on earth are we going to reach them? And if you're anything like me, your mind immediately goes to strategy. You know, maybe we need to plan an event. Maybe we need to print some flyers and go out and talk to people. And maybe we need to do some training so that we can understand what the gospel is so we can speak confidently about it. But I want you to notice in Acts chapter 1 where His disciples, where Jesus's disciples, lay their attention and where Jesus Himself tells them to place their attention. Look at Acts chapter 1 verse 4 and 5. "And while staying with them, Jesus 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." And then have a look again at verse 8 of the same chapter. "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." This is what is important when it comes to seeing the Lord's work continue in us and through us: the power of the Holy Spirit. This is vital for us to remember and to recognize. And the reason the power of the Holy Spirit is so important is because the task is too big and we are too small. The task is immense. There are billions of people to reach. There are tens of thousands in our area. But worse than that, the people who we are to reach don't care. The world out there is blind and deaf to the importance of their soul. No one is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God, is what Romans 3:10-11 says. Ephesians 4 says, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart. They are dead in their trespasses and sins, following the prince of the power of the air. The sinners whom Jesus Christ wants to reach and has commanded us to reach are dead, hardened, not seeking God, ignorant, darkened in their understanding. It's not just that it is difficult to get people to understand the gospel, to see their need to see their sin and their need of a savior and to comprehend and lay hold of the grace of God that's found in Jesus. It's impossible to even get them interested. You know, a non-Christian walking into a church is a miracle. It's a sign of God starting a work in them, because without God starting a work in them, they don't care. They're happy living their life, following their sin. You can go out into the streets if you want and preach to the lost and dying world. Some of us here do that. Some people in our congregation go out to town hall. Ask them. Go and ask Steve and and some of the others. Ask them how many people just walk on by. You can speak into this world on the streets about the fact that we have an eternal soul that is destined for either heaven or hell, and that we are sinful by nature, facing the wrath of God, and that there is love and peace to be found in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You can speak these glorious truths to people wandering by, and they will not even turn their heads. They have no heart to hear. And so, we need God to act. We need a power of God that revives dead souls, that opens blind eyes, that shines light into the darkness, that gives understanding where there was none, that gives interest where there was none. We need the breath of God to come and move the interest and understanding of people stuck in their sin. We need God to make people alive. We need God to renew people in the spirits of their minds. You know, this is all easy to say and easy to agree with. This is all basic Christian truth. But do you believe this deep down in the recesses of your heart? Because if you did, you would know that you must be driven to waiting on the Lord to give His power and His strength and pour out His spirit to work in you and through you if we are to have any impact at all in God's great plan of saving sinners. Our instinct, like I mentioned, or at least my instinct, is to plan, to start acting, to find something to do. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do things, but what I am saying is that before that, and in that, and through that, at all times, whatever you do, you need the strength of God and the spirit of God at work for it to have any effect whatsoever. You know, when God brought Israel out of Egypt, they sinned against Him by worshiping a golden calf at Mount Sinai. And the Lord was angry with His people. And He said to Moses, He's going to take them into the land of Canaan. And He said to Moses, "I'm sick of these people. Go up from here, go to the land of Canaan, the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will send an angel before you. And I will drive out the inhabitants. I'll give you victory, I'll give you success. But I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on your way." And Moses says to God, "No, that's not acceptable for me. I need You to come with me." And the reason I bring this up is because, as Matt mentioned earlier on, Jesus promises that He's with us always, even to the ends of this this age. After Pentecost, every Christian has the Holy Spirit at work in them and through them. But it is obvious in the scriptures and throughout church history that you can have a work going with some of God or with lots of God. You know, if God sent His angel before Israel and and gave them victory in the land of Canaan, it would have still been God doing something. God would have still given them victory and He would have been the one bringing that about. But Moses says, "No, I want You with me, because if You're with me in Your power and in Your presence, then we will have a greater victory." You could say that the Lord sometimes sends His angel with us and gives us small victories. But then at other times, and this is actually the language that people who experienced revivals throughout church history use, at other times, the Lord Himself descends and the Holy Spirit begins to work in power. John Wesley said it this way. He said, "I had preached more than six score times at this town." That's 6 times 12, 72. "72 times I've preached at this town, and I found scarcely any effect, only that a that lots of people heard and gaped and stared and went away much as they came." And then one evening, "while I was in doubt if I had labored in vain, such a blessing of God was given as has continued ever since, and I trust will be remembered unto many generations." Do you see what he's saying? He did the work of the Lord 72 times, and I'm sure some people were converted. But one evening, God descended and worked powerfully through his preaching, and that moment brought about such a blessing that will be remembered for many generations. In another place, John Wesley says, "I began preaching at seven and God applied it to the hearts of the hearers. Tears and groans were on every side among high and low. God, as it were, bowed the heavens and came down." You see the difference? Now Wesley didn't stop preaching. He kept preaching and preaching and preaching, but he understood and he was desperately needy and pleading with God for a mighty act of God to work through his preaching. Do you and I know how needy we are? Do we understand how desperately we need the power of the Holy Spirit? Do we understand how little we can do by ourselves? As we work, we must work crying out to the Lord to bless our labors. We must work understanding that His work, His activity is far more important than ours. In preaching this, I condemn myself. Lord, awaken our sluggish hearts. Remove all sense of self-dependence from us. Have you seen how big the task is? Have you seen how glorious it is? God has sent His Son to die for the sins of many. And He's sent us out into the world to preach the gospel to all nations. You know, I wonder what what it would have been like in that room with the disciples. What sort of prayer would they have been praying? There's not much detail in the text, but we do know that they were devoting themselves to it. We do know that they were interested in praying together. We do actually see an example of the sorts of things they might have been praying in Acts chapter 4. Let me read to you a a prayer that we see the apostles praying in Acts 4:23. And when they had heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, Your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, 'Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Anointed.' For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to Your servants to continue to speak Your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of Your holy servant Jesus." That's a bold prayer. That's a prayer that's laying hold of the promises of God in scripture and presenting them before His throne, arguing for God to fulfill what He said He would fulfill. "Lord, You said the Gentiles would rage and the peoples would plot in vain. Lord, they're raging at us. Let it be in vain. Let it not stop the message from going forward. Let it not stop us from preaching with power." An example of this sort of prayer can be found in the far northern islands off the coast of Scotland. Not too long ago, actually, in November 1949, two old sisters—they were in their 80s, their names were Peggy and Christine—began to pray. They were spiritual women. Peggy was completely blind and Christine had severe arthritis. How useful do you think they could be in the work of God? Surely they're past it. But they were deeply spiritual women who knew what it was to seek the Lord in prayer and to wrestle with Him. They saw the depressed spiritual state of their village, and they knew they needed God. They devoted themselves to prayer from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Yes, 10 p.m.—I didn't get the a.m.s and the p.m.s the wrong way—from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., two to three nights every week. After several weeks of this, Peggy had a vision of a revival occurring in their community through an unknown minister. She told her minister, who was a wise man, and asked the leaders of the church to pray every Tuesday and Friday night as she and her sister prayed from their cottage. So this minister and his elders got together in a barn and they prayed late into the night for six weeks, every Tuesday and Friday. One of these nights, a deacon got up among those elders who were praying and read Psalm 24, which is "who may ascend to the hill of the Lord and who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart." And he said, "It seems to me be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God." And he lifted up his hands and prayed, "God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?" This pushed the elders to seek holiness and godliness. And actually, after this prayer, I don't think they had to do too much. The community was gripped with a sense of the things of eternity. The account of this says that the next day after this, they hadn't told anyone anything. The next day after this, hardly any work got done in the local village because everyone was considering their soul. One of this the praying sisters then told her minister to invite a speaker to come to the island. She said, "I don't know who, just invite someone." He invited Duncan Campbell. Duncan arrived late one night to this place. He knew no one, and the minister said, "I know you're probably tired, but come and preach for us at 9 p.m." And so he came and he preached. This is what this is what he said happens. This is his own words. "We got to church about a quarter to nine to find about 300 people gathered. I gave an address. Nothing really happened during the service. It was a good meeting. There was a sense of God and a consciousness of His spirit moving, but nothing beyond that. So I pronounced the benediction, and we were leaving the church around a quarter to 11. Just as I was walking down the aisle along with this young deacon, the deacon who had read the psalm in the barn, he suddenly stood in the aisle and looking up to the heavens, he said, 'God, You can't fail us. God, You can't fail us. You promised to pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. God, You can't fail us.' Soon he was on his knees in the aisle praying, and then he fell into a trance. Just then, the door opened. It was 11:00. The door of the church opened and the local blacksmith came back into the church and said, 'Mr. Campbell, something wonderful has happened. Oh, we were praying that God would pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground, and listen, He's done it. He's done it.' When I went to the door of the church, I saw a congregation of approximately 600 people. Where had they come from? What had happened? I believe that very night, God swept by in Pentecostal power, the power of the Holy Ghost. And what happened in the early days of the apostles was now happening in the parish of Barvas." He preached to these 600, and then he went home, I think it was something like 3 a.m., he got a call and was told, "You need to come down to the the policeman's station, because there's another hundred people gathered out the front of the policeman's station seeking how they might be saved." Do you see the point? What brought about that revival? Was it Duncan Campbell? It was God descending in power in response to His people's prayers. And even as I read this, I don't know if this happens in your head, even as I read this, I go, "Ah, surely that's just a one-off. Like that's a pretty crazy story." But I can read to you story after story after story like this that have happened since Pentecost, all the way through church history. There's almost never been a time where God has not been moving in this way in some place in the world. All revivals throughout history have begun in this way. You know, revivals are many and varied throughout history. There's all sorts of, there's no one sort of formula, but I can tell you one thing that is consistent in all the revivals throughout history is that they begin with people praying. And they begin with people praying in an unusual way, in an uncommon way. In that what I mean by that is people seem to be called out by God to devote themselves to fervent and earnest prayer. Sometimes it happens really quickly. Like there was a a businessman's revival in 1857. A man started a prayer meeting in New York. The prayer meeting the first week it had six people turn up. The second week it had 20 people turn up. The third week it had 40 people turn up. Within six months, 10,000 people were turning up to his prayer meetings, and the prayer meeting had spread into more and more prayer meetings all across America and Canada. For two years, out of this one prayer meeting, for two years, by by the time it finished, an estimated 50,000 people every single day were committing themselves to Christ. 1 million people across America, in a population of 30 million, 1 million people throughout that time came to faith in Christ. So that was quick. Sometimes it's not quick. Before Billy Graham came to Melbourne and had a crusade where basically, I think it was a quarter of a million people came and heard him preach in Melbourne, there were about 10 men who prayed for 10 years. And that built up over time, but that's a long time. The point of all this is that every single revival starts with people praying because they recognize the size of the task that God has given and they recognize their own inadequacy and the impossibility of them actually achieving anything. Do we see the size of the task? Do we feel the weight of the task? Do we, I think even before we get to the stage of trying to figure out how to do it, so often our hearts are just cold towards the idea of it. We don't have the heart of God in us. We don't weep over the sinners who have not heard or received the gospel of Jesus. We see people living their lives next to us and we're unmoved by their eternal destiny. That's not what God is like. God looked down upon this world and saw people who were in active rebellion against Him, who were actively hating Him and hiding from Him, and He moved towards them in love. I've said it again before, but you can't say it enough. He was so moved that He took on flesh. He was so moved that he he said, "You know what? I'm going to do this myself. They can't come to me, so I'll go to them. They can't pay for their sins, so I'll pay for them for them. They can't revive themselves, so I'll send my spirit into this world. They can't figure out the way to God, so I'll send my people out to tell them." God is a missionary God. God is a God who has His heart so desirous that people would come to know Him. He loves His people and He wants them to come into His kingdom. And He responds to His people's prayers. He responds to needy people who are desperate for Him to come and work in them and through them. There's a remarkable passage in John chapter 15 and chapter 16, actually. In John chapter 15, Jesus is talking to His disciples and He's telling them, "Abide in Me and I in you." He talks so much about how He wants them to draw near to Him, like a a vine and the branches being connected into the vine. And then, in chapter 16 verse 23 and 24, He says this, "Whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." God wants us to walk with Jesus, to walk beside Jesus, to get to know Jesus to the point where the things that are on His heart become burning desires of our own heart. He wants us to abide in Him, and then He wants us to ask Him for the desires of our heart. He wants us to plead with Him for the desires of our heart, to beg for those things, to lay siege to His throne of grace until He gives us what we ask for. He promises, "Whatever you ask in My name, you will receive it." If we believed that, we'd be a praying people, wouldn't we? We don't sense our need of power, and so we don't pray. We're content with little victory over sin. We're content with a few sinners saved, so we pray a little. How many of us know what it is to wrestle with God that He would give us what we need, power from on high? You know, this is what Jesus is doing right now. Jesus hasn't finished His work. Right now, Jesus is praying. He's at the right hand of the Father and His heart is still bent towards His people so much that He intercedes for His own. He prays for His people. Night and day, Jesus says, "Father, give me the desire of my heart. Give me the people for whom I died. Give me the joy that was set before Me, that led Me to the cross. My people in my presence, in perfection, forever. Lord, Father, give me that." That's the prayer of Jesus. That's why any of us are here today. Because Jesus wants us in His presence so much that He pleads for us. Is that the desire of our heart as well? Let's pray.