What role do we play in our day-to-day lives? And what role does God play in our day-to-day lives? Are we to perhaps pray and sit in a closet and expect God to take care of everything in our lives? Does grace mean we put no effort forth? Or perhaps we pray about things that are more religious in nature, or maybe personal in nature, but then we take care of all the other things, the business, all the other activities, on our own, in our own power. Or is there another way that we pray and God comes in and we work together? We have our part and we have God's part. And that is what we're gonna talk about today. I'm Sam Hunter. This is 721 Live, the video arm of 721 Ministries. Thank you for joining us. I'm glad that you're here with us today. By the way, before we get started, you can hit that subscribe button. We're on a variety of podcast platforms, a variety of video platforms. So do that right now before we get started so you'll get these as soon as they come out. Okay, here's the backdrop on today's discussion. In my own personal Bible reading time in the morning, I just flipped over to Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther. I don't do that very often, you probably don't either, but I was there reading it, and every time I do it, I really enjoy it, and they're things that I'd forgotten, things that I learn each time. But at the same time, I'm down in Charleston, South Carolina, and I'm teaching a Bible study down there on Acts chapter one. Now those seem to be completely disparate books of the Bible. One's in the Older Testament, somewhat of an obscure book. Acts is in the Newer Testament. But as I was doing those independently of each other, the Holy Spirit, really, and I mean this, Holy Spirit came in and said, Sam, do you see the connection between these two? Because I'd already been stung by a passage we're gonna open with here in just a moment in Nehemiah chapter four, and it really made me sit back and think, and then the Holy Spirit showed me that, well, we're seeing the same thing in Acts one, so let's start with that. Let's look at this Nehemiah four passage so that you can kinda get a sense of where we're going. Now, Nehemiah, has come back he's followed as rare as we came back first from babylon the persians are now taken over there than they're the new world powers in as we came back first rebuild the temple now nehemiah few decades later comes back to rebuild the wall surrounding the city yes permission persian king and so he comes back and he's building this wall The people that have been living around this area have gotten used to the Jews not being there, and the Jews not being in power, and they learn that he's building the wall, he's fortifying the city of Jerusalem, and they don't like that. So they plan to attack them, to stop this progress on this. Nehemiah learns about this. And this is the part, when I got to this in chapter four, it kind of made me sit back and go, whoa, there's more to this than just running right through. So let's take a look at this. This is Nehemiah writing. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. But we pray to our God. Now, let's just stop there for a minute. Couldn't he have just as easily said we prayed to our God and went back to work. We prayed to our God. We trusted him. We knew he loved us. We knew he was all-powerful. We knew he would take care of us. Couldn't he have just as easily said that? And we'd have all taken that as theologically sound. That would have been exactly what we'd have expected a powerful man of God to do. Just pray to God and then go back to work. But that's not what he did. He said but we prayed to God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat Our part God's part we prayed to God we asked him to come in and be a part we needed his help We know that we needed his help, but we didn't just go back to work. We posted a guard We were going to do our part and I just find this fascinating. I Because it brings up the question, what is our part and what is God's part? And by the way, there's no simple answer to this and there's no black and white right or wrong answer. There are times we read in the scriptures where we do pray and God does take care of himself. Let's just think about Jericho. They walk around the city of Jericho seven times and the walls fall in. They did that little bit of their part, which wasn't much. God did the heavy lifting. And then there are other times where God says, come on, let's get in there. We're going to do this together. So let's think for a moment about what is our part and what is God's part. And it reminds me of one of the definitions of wisdom, which is knowing the right thing to do. But the second part is, and when to do it. So what we'll find as we look at this topic over the next several videos is can we discern when it's our role to do certain things and when it's God's role and what are those different roles and how do they play out? I want to read just a little bit more to you out of the scriptures in this same chapter four. When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work. From that day on, half of my men did the work while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows, and armor. Don't you just love that? The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other. I love that. And each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked, but the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. They're doing their part. They're praying to God. They're seeking His presence. They're seeking His help. But they're doing their part. They're prepared. Now later on in the next lesson, we'll see where Gideon starts off with a certain number of fighters, and God whittles them down, and you'll see again an example of those who are ready to do their part, but also relying on God. So, as we think about this, what is our role, and what is God's role? Now, in the Newer Testament, in Philippians 2, we see another, just really the quintessential example, the quintessential statement of how this all works out. Let's take a look at Philippians 2. Here's our part. Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Not work for your salvation, but work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Reverence and respect, awe and reverence. But then verse 13, this is God's part. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Now, I've read Philippians 2, 12, and 13 a hundred times, a thousand times. I've used it. I've quoted it. And just in this last reading, did I see something that I had not seen before? For it is God who works in us both to will and to act. See, I've just slid right by that. It's God who works in us to act the way we're supposed to act, to help us do the things we're supposed to do. But I notice this. It to who works in you to will and to act so let's pause there for a moment God has to work in our hearts to get us to the point where we actually want his will we Seek his will you see my progression as I before I even knew Jesus now again remember I was raised in the church, but my progression was I didn't want his will at all and Before I knew Jesus I didn't want his will because his will would clearly be more boring than mine It would clearly not be what lined up with with my will. No, I didn't I didn't just Wasn't interested in it. I didn't want it Because I wanted my way. I was born again in 1995 But I still wanted my way. I just wasn't against his will. I didn't understand it. But I wanted my way. As time went on, and I got my way a few times and saw how that worked out, typically a C minus to maybe even an F, I started to seek his will in the areas of my life and decisions I had to make and the actions I had to take. So I went from not wanting it to, well, his way, his will is probably better, but it was only begrudgingly. And then, as time went on, I realized His will is the best way. So I started to want His will. And that was the next step in my progression, to really want His will. And that's a wonderful place to be, but I grew one step further in that, and that was, I went full circle, and from not wanting His will and wanting my way, to wanting His will and not wanting my way. So today I'll tell you, and I say this in my prayers all the time, if anything I'm getting ready to do, if anything I'm asking for, if any action I'm getting ready to take is my will and it's not yours, stop it. If you have to slam the door so hard, you break my nose, you break my knees, you knock me down, I don't want my will. I do not want my will ever, unless it lines up with your will. It is our part to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But it is God who works in you to will and then to act according to his good purpose So you see there's the perfect example of what it looks like God's part in our part He's playing a role in everything we do. There are some some situations where we're doing more We're still praying still inviting him into the situation, but we're doing more activity There are others where he's actually doing all the heavy lifting And I suspect that when we get into the presence of God and we're in heaven, we'll see that he really did all the heavy lifting all the way through. But for now, let's leave it at that. Now, as I'm reading Nehemiah and I'm teaching Acts 1, I start to realize that this whole topic is converging. And let me just back up for a minute. I hope that you would read Acts as often and as joyfully as I do. Acts is an incredible story. It is Luke, who has written the Gospel of Luke, following up with what happens after Jesus ascends to heaven. It is a fascinating book. We tend to run through it like it's a history book, but if you'll slow down and read it like a novel, It is just amazing how Luke pulls all this together to show us what happens for the next, say, 60 years, and how these stumbling, bumbling disciples learn to live with the power of the Holy Spirit after Jesus leaves them and then sends the Holy Spirit. Acts is a fascinating book. Luke writes both Luke and Acts, just a little Bible nerd information. They're both written on papyrus scrolls, which are typically anywhere from 20 to 31 feet, but they're never longer than 31 feet. Both Luke and Acts are right at 31 feet, so they're almost identical in length. Luke has been proven to be a world-class historian. He gets every detail right. Skeptics over the years have said, well, he shouldn't call that magistrate a magistrate. He should be called a precept, or he should be called a governor in that particular city. And as we go along, archaeological studies show us, no, he got it exactly right. They are called precepts in that city. They are called magistrates in that city. He's a world-class historian. And I've always thought that he tells us that he went around and interviewed everyone to get eyewitness testimony. And I've always thought that when Paul was in Caesarea for two years, awaiting to go to Rome, that Luke used that time to travel around and get those eyewitness reports. But in Acts, he starts off Acts almost identical to the way he finishes Luke. And so I'm gonna read first from Acts 1, and then I'm gonna stop and point a couple things out to you. So, he starts this way. In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit. Now, if you were raised in the church, you were probably raised to think of the Book of Acts as the Acts of the Apostles. But that's not right. It's the axe of the Holy Spirit. It is crystal clear that Luke's entire message here is the thrust of axes. This is what living with the power of the Holy Spirit looks like. As a matter of fact, just throwing a little commercial here, we published a book called The Missing Link. You can get it on our website. You can get it at Amazon. You can get it anywhere. The Missing Link, which is the story of Peter and the other disciples trying to learn how to live with the power of the Holy Spirit as we see it progress during the Book of Acts. But here he is, he gave his instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, his crucifixion, he showed himself to these men and gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Wouldn't you have loved to have been a part of that? On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Now, let me just back up for a minute and say that after Jesus was crucified and he rose again on that Sunday, he appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. A week later, he came back and appeared again, this time Thomas was there. And after that, the disciples went back to Galilee, as Jesus had told them to do. While they're in Galilee, he appears to them on the beach after they're fishing on the Sea of Galilee. That's John 21. He appears to more than 500, and I think that's in Matthew 28 when he gives the Great Commission. He appears to James, and now the disciples are back in Jerusalem. They're back in Jerusalem because Pentecost is coming. Pentecost is the feast the festival that follows Passover 50 days later Penta 50 days later, so they're back in Jerusalem awaiting Pentecost and Jesus appears to him Since we know he has been appearing to them for 40 days. We know there's 10 days before Pentecost comes because it's a 50-day span and He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. And I want you to listen for the key word here. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. What is the key word there? Wait. Wait. Stay right here. Don't do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. Wait. Do not do anything. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Don't do anything until you have the Holy Spirit. That's what Jesus is telling them. Now, just by the way, it's a demonstration of how clueless the disciples were until the Holy Spirit came ten days later. We read this, verse six. So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? What? They still don't get it? After all the teaching, even these 40 days when he talked about the kingdom of God, they still don't get that he's not there to restore the kingdom of Israel, a physical restoration, running the Romans out, bringing freedom and independence to Israel. They still do not get it. You know why? Because they do not yet have the Holy Spirit. And that's why Jesus tells them to wait. Now, let me just ask you, why don't we wait? Why are we not willing to wait? Now, you can say, we want our will, we want our way, and that's true. But let's go another level. We don't want His will. We don't want his way We in the back of our minds still do not trust him completely and there's that part that lingers in all followers of Jesus that we really Want our way so we don't want to wait because waiting might mean we do not get our way. So we don't want to wait and that is a key in my in my experience with learning to live with the power of the Holy Spirit and Waiting on the Holy Spirit to give us that guidance that has been the key for me and that is the key word here wait It reminds me of a story that actually a friend of mine told me he was taking graduate MBA courses at Harvard and the professor gave them a complex problem and a business problem to solve. And of course, they set about setting up a decision tree to try to understand what their different options were. And they went through the different options, and they did a great job with that. They listed their five different options. And when they finished, the professor said, every class I teach misses the other option. No one ever lists this other option, which is always an option in every situation you're in. And you know what that option was? To wait. to not do anything, to wait and see how things play out. In our world, following Jesus, to wait and let the Holy Spirit give us that guidance. No one's willing to wait, but Jesus told them to wait until the Holy Spirit comes because you don't know what you're doing without the Holy Spirit. That was a crystal clear message to them. As a matter of fact, I have a little progression here that I want to share with you. I call it see, seek, want, wait. See, seek, want, wait. And here's what I mean by this. The progression of learning to live with the power of the Holy Spirit, we have to first see that he's real. He's not an it. He's a he. He's part of the Trinity. He is real. We start to understand that and then the next step is to seek him in Everything we're doing to seek his guidance and I do this simply about saying Holy Spirit Show me what it is. You want me to do show me what the next step is Help me to see what it is that I should do next. I don't want to do it if you're not with me I don't want to do it if it's not your plan and if I'm not working in your power That takes me to the next one. I want his will I want the Holy Spirit to be involved I no longer want my way over his way. I want Holy Spirit power. You know, we call Holy Spirit power energy, clarity, and creativity. I want that, and I ask for it in just about any situation I'm walking into. business personal a meeting I'm gonna have a Difficult discussion I'm gonna have with my wife or my children or a business setting Holy Spirit give me the energy the clarity and the creativity of how you want me to handle this and Then the next step is to wait to wait to let him unfold and show the path and So many times in especially in personal relationships. I will say heavenly father. Holy spirit I know this is something you want me to do. I can sense that you've made it clear But i'm going to ask you to open the door because I don't want to just go barging in And then i'm going to ask you to work in my heart and work in their heart as we get into this discussion so that my heart is right and I discuss this thing with the right heart and that their heart hears it and receives it. I do this all the time. I highly encourage you to start doing that. See that he's real, seek him in every detail, want him to be involved, want him to go ahead of you, and then be willing to wait. Now, we go on to the next thing that Jesus says, and this is Acts 1A, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. You will receive power. That Greek word is dunamis, and it means dynamite. Now, is that only for these disciples? Are they the only ones who are going to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, a dynamic power from the Holy Spirit? Is that just for them? And I think we all know the answer to that. It's for all of us. For all of us to live with the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells them to wait. Wait until the Holy Spirit comes. And when he comes, you will receive power. You will live with a whole new power. Now, just one last reference to the book we published, The Missing Link. I start that book with a chapter I call My First Christian. I set it up as if you say you live in China or you live in India and the only book of the Bible that you have is John 14 15 and 16 which is where Jesus talks about the coming Holy Spirit and then the book of Acts and that's all you have And so you read this and you study it, and then the time comes when you can go to America. And so you plan to go to the Bible Belt of America, you go to the South, and I live in South Carolina, and you're gonna go to South Carolina. As a matter of fact, you're gonna go to Greenville, South Carolina, where we have Bob Jones University, a very fundamentalist Christian school. Fine one but known for its fundamentalist views and approach so you're gonna go to Greenville because you know that this is where these all-powerful these Dynamic these dynamite power Christians are going to be and you know, it's going to be incredible to see them so you come to Greenville to South Carolina you come to any state in America and you Don't see anybody that looks any different So you start going to the churches? And you still do not see anybody that looks any different. And you think, what happened? We're all the dynamic, Holy Spirit-driven, powerful Christians. And you start asking around, and finally someone says, now just settle down, just settle down. We've learned that that's just a little too extreme. You'll get used to living just a normal Christian life. And that's what we see. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Let's take it a step further. Do we know when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives? I got an email from one of our 721 men and he asked, how do we know? Can we know when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives? And what I have said to so many men so many times, you will know. It will look different for each man. It may look like a choir of angels, and you may fall out crying and be overwhelmed, or it may be, just for me, it was just a puff of light that went off inside, and I knew that I would never be the same. It can look any different way, but the common theme is you know it when it happens. And not to be unkind, But to be forthright, if you don't know, then you probably don't have the Holy Spirit living in you. Let's look at John 14. This comes from the message version. Eugene Peterson said, and this is Jesus, but this is the way Eugene Peterson translates it. This is Jesus' last night with the disciples. In just a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you're going to see me because I'm alive and you're about to come alive. You're about to come alive on Pentecost, just 50 days later. At that moment, you will know absolutely that I'm in my Father, and you're in me, and I'm in you. You will know absolutely that I'm in you, and you're in me. When Jesus says you will receive power, he means it. He also means to wait on the Holy Spirit. Here we are in Acts chapter 1 and what we've been talking about today is our part in God's part and the next thing we see is Peter Who doesn't have the Holy Spirit yet? Acting on his part without and it's almost comical. It's so sad that it's not comical But it really is if you just pull back and pull the emotions out of it. It really is somewhat comical Here's the setting that they're they're sitting in the upper room There's the disciples and perhaps there's 120 others with them but we know that core disciples are there with met with the mother Mary and Jesus's brothers and sisters and They're praying And at some point, Peter stands up, and he starts quoting Older Testament scripture. Now, I've gone back and read those two sections from the Older Testament that Peter quotes, and I think it's a stretch to pull those out and say, we must choose a twelfth apostle, a twelfth disciple, who will become an apostle. The difference between a disciple and an apostle, a disciple is a pupil, is a follower of their rabbi. An apostle is someone who is sent out. The disciples become apostles after the Holy Spirit comes in to live in them, to dwell them. but peter says we must choose a twelve now who said they must i see nowhere where anybody jesus holy spirit god told them that they must replace the twelve the space left when judas died but peter decides that they must and he quotes older testament scripture to support himself now I can just see peter because he's like all of us. They're praying maybe they're praying for a few days And peter says, you know, this is good prayer is good, but dad government we got to do something Enough prayer. Let's take action. So, you know what they do They choose two candidates now Let's just pause there. Who told them those were the two candidates to choose? They got a hundred or so around. Who told them that those were the two candidates to choose? So right off the bat, they're taking things in their own power. Don't have the Holy Spirit yet. Don't have the guidance. Don't have the wisdom. So they choose two. One of them is Matthias. Now, Acts 124 is comical if you understand the backdrop. So in their view, here's God's part. Then they prayed, Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen. So you see, automatically, they've limited God to two. They didn't give him 100 and say, choose out of these two. They limited him on their own power to two. And then verse 25, to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs. And then our part. Was that to cast lots? Do you see what's happening here? They thought they were bringing God into this equation. They prayed to God. They asked him to help them. Of course, as we said, no one told them they needed to replace Judas. Peter decided that on his own, no Holy Spirit, no Holy Spirit power. So they themselves present God with two, so they figured out who the two are, and then you know what they do next. They roll the dice. They roll the dice! They cast lots! We are in a new era. Jesus said, don't do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. You don't know what you're doing. Wait until he comes. And they, using Older Testament techniques, which was done in the Older Testament, they cast lots. There's no casting lots in the Newer Testament. Nowhere else does anybody cast lots because you now have the Holy Spirit. So there we are. Nehemiah says we prayed and we posted a guard We we prayed we asked God to do his part, but we did our part Peter without the Holy Spirit Says yeah, we're gonna pray but then we're gonna catch lots and It is almost comical that they would take this approach So, my friends, today we're talking about our part and God's part. Do we pray and sit in a closet and wait for God to do His part, or do we pray, wait on the Holy Spirit, sometimes that's a 30-minute wait, sometimes it's a three-day wait, it may be a three-week wait, For all I know, it might be a three-year wait, but typically, it's a pretty quick turnaround when he will show you what to do next. We pray, we ask God to come in, we want him to be a part of it, and then we do our part after we've waited for that guidance. My friend, Cubby, has two questions. I'll close with these. The first one's kind of a trick question. With a group of men around in one of our settings, he'll say, Raise your hand if you want God to be a part of your story. And everybody, of course, raises their hand. It's a Sunday school kind of setting, so everybody raises their hand. Whether they really do or not, they raise their hand. Yes, I want God to be a part of my story. The second question is, raise your hand if you want to be a part of God's story. Now you can see the difference. Who's the major player in the first question and who's the major player in the second question? I want God to be part of my story or I want to be a part of his story. God's part and our part. Let's always seek the Holy Spirit's guidance in everything we're doing because there's more. You know it. Come follow Jesus and find it.