So today I was spending time with the Lord and I was just asking Him on what He wants me to do with prayer today.
And He brought up to me corporate prayer of what is corporate prayer, what to do in order to have corporate prayer, and what to expect in corporate prayer.
So, and the scripture He laid out to me as I was reading was Acts 1. So the first church, right?
So that's what we're going to dig into. So when I was praying and I was reading the scripture, now there's many ways that we can describe corporate prayer.
But the two words that were brought up to me was actually in the scripture. It's being with one accord in prayer with supplication.
So being with one accord in one accord with supplication.
So, and what those actually mean. So accord means agreement or harmony. And harmony means simultaneous combinations of tones.
And I think that's pretty beautiful. If you have an imagination, you can understand that with people now.
Supplication means humble petition and earnest petition.
So as I was reading Acts from verse 4 all the way pretty much to verse 2, verse 4.
When I was reading that, the Lord started to reveal to me how to get corporate prayer, things that arise that can distract corporate prayer.
And so there was four things that he revealed to me through the scripture. We're going to break that down.
The first one is just distraction less. The second one is the state of your mind and your heart.
The third one is being in one vein. And the fourth one is action.
So we're going to start with distraction less.
So we're going to read a little bit of scripture. It says in verse, Acts chapter 1, verse 4.
When they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has put in his own authority.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witness to me in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
Now, when he had spoken these things while they watched, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.
And while they were looking steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.
Who also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus who is taken up from you in heaven will come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.
So there is two distractions that the Lord revealed to me here.
The first thing he said, he gave them the promise.
He gave them the purpose of staying in Jerusalem.
He gave them, another word I'm trying to think of, he gave them directions.
Instructions on what they're supposed to do.
Almost like a vision.
This is what I want you to fulfill right now.
And in that, the first distraction, as soon as he finished telling them what their instruction was, they get distracted by asking him a completely different question.
So Jesus spoke to them about the precious Holy Spirit was to come upon them, which is a Jeremiah or a New Testament covenant that was prophesied by Jeremiah.
And they are distracted with physical happenings by asking Jesus about the physical kingdom of Israel, right?
And they said, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?
And I can imagine Jesus like, are you kidding me?
Like, I've suffered with you for three and a half years.
I've resurrected. I've not only died, but I've resurrected. I've been with you for 40 days.
And now you're asking me if we're restoring the physical, you know, Israel, like the kingdom of Israel.
But instead of sarcasm, the Lord chose mercy and grace.
Because how I feel all the time and how I say, I feel like we're just toddlers waddling around trying to serve Jesus.
And we stumble and we fall and we don't make the right thing.
And he just, as we see toddlers, it's not our first reaction.
It's like, oh, why can't you get it and you're angry?
No, you just want to like pick them up and cuddle them and just teach them gently, right?
And so what he does is he counters their question by redirecting them to the true kingdom of God,
which he says later on is power and witness.
That is the kingdom of God, to have the power of the Holy Spirit and to witness Jesus.
And the interesting thing is as we go in that scripture, it says you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you
and you shall be witnessed to mean Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
So the Lord was telling them, hey, I'm giving you power and the ability to witness with the Holy Spirit in His power,
not your power, in His power, but I'm giving you jurisdictions.
First in Jerusalem. For them, Jerusalem was their home. That's their brothers and sisters.
Those are their family. That's where they grew up, right?
The next is Judea. Now, not only is it their, I would say intimate family,
now they're taking a step back and broadening. Now, those are people that are around them.
They're still brothers and sisters, relatives, people close to you, friendships.
You have that jurisdiction because you have that relationship.
And then, wider out is Samaria. Now, if you guys remember or know Samaritans are Jews that married Gentiles
and so they became outcasts of Israel, but they are still in the bloodline.
They still have a tie to Jerusalem. They still have a tie to Judea.
And then, to the ends of the earth. That means everyone else.
And so Holy Spirit gave or Jesus was giving us a word of, hey, you're going to have power,
but not your power. It's only Holy Spirit's power.
And you're going to be able to witness, but I'm giving you a jurisdiction on who and where you can witness to.
Because if we witness to our families first, like, let's say, for example, sorry,
if we witness to the ends of the earth first, but we're not witnessing to our family,
that's not the heart of the Father, right?
So then, the next distraction, Jesus counters them, redirecting them, hey,
it's not about this physical kingdom.
It's about this new kingdom I've been telling you months and years about, right?
So then the next distraction, it says, Jesus ascends into the clouds, or a cloud takes him up.
He ascends and the cloud takes him up. And they continue to look steadfastly towards heaven, right?
And so they're distracted with the spiritual happenings around them.
So not only is it the physical things, but now they're distracted with the spiritual things.
Because this is something that I've never experienced, and I'm guessing most of you haven't either,
of someone ascending to the heavens and then not seeing them anymore.
That is like, that's like a miracle, just like Jesus resurrecting from the dead.
That is like, no one's done that before, right?
So they are now distracted and earnestly looking up to heaven.
And I don't know, maybe in awe, as we can imagine.
Maybe I'm thinking like, what's going in their brains that they're frozen still looking at the sky thinking,
okay, maybe he's coming back now. He said he's going to come back, you know?
And so they're distracted with the actual miracle of Jesus leaving.
Instead of remembering, hey, Jesus told us we need to do something.
They were like, no, but this, this is the cool thing. This is what I want, right?
So then there were two angels that are two men that were in white right next to them, two angels.
And they say, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?
Which is kind of, for me, it's like, what do you mean? Did you not see Jesus go up?
Like, that's amazing. But they said this same Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven
will come in a like manner as you saw him go into heaven.
They're redirecting the disciples, they're countering the disciples
and redirecting them to the real person of Jesus who is God.
He is fully man, and maybe that was a concept for them, even though he resurrected from the dead
and, you know, Philip touched, I believe it was Philip, he touched, oh, Thomas, thank you.
Thomas touched the whole and, you know, all of these things.
And he was walking through walls and visiting people.
But they still kind of like, oh, but he's still a body, he's a human.
It's hard for us to grasp some of the spiritual things.
And so then now he resurrects and they're like, wait a second, you know?
But the angels redirected them saying, hey, it's not about the miracle of Jesus of ascending into heaven.
Even though that's good and it's important, it builds our faith.
But he said it's about Jesus.
You know, it's not about the miracle of healing, it's about the healer, right?
We've heard that, we've meditated on that.
And so they're just redirecting the attention of the disciples from this, you know, from the miracle to back to Jesus.
And then I'm guessing they snapped out of it.
And we keep on going to the next, where they go back home.
So the next thing the Holy Spirit showed me is in order to be in corporate prayer,
it has to be a state of mind and heart.
And that can also distract us.
So it says, then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey.
And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying.
So as you enter, or as they enter the building, you got to make sure you always go up to the place you're supposed to be staying in.
Which is Jesus.
So building means anything that is built or constructed.
So for an example, what have you built or constructed in your life?
It can be a lifestyle that you've built or constructed, relationships, a routine or a schedule.
And all of those things are good, they're needed, we are needing to build the kingdom of God, we need to construct things.
However, when these are constructed, when these constructs that you guys have, when you enter, you should always be staying in the upper room.
So that's what it says in the word, it says, as they entered, they automatically went up into the upper room where they were staying.
It's a state of mind of always, no matter what you're doing, you're always in the upper room with Jesus.
And so when I think of the upper room, I think about the story of Acts 1.
When I think of upper room, I'm thinking of intimacy, right?
A husband and a wife, when they have intimacy, then it's closeness, then it's love.
If you're married to a spouse and you don't have any intimacy, that's not even a marriage.
So up here, he says they entered their construct, this building, the thing that they have built, but they automatically went up into the upper room.
So the upper room is intimacy.
And when you have intimacy, you're abiding with that person in every construct.
I can be intimate with my husband if he's at work and I'm at home.
But when we jump on a phone call, it's like we're connected as one, right?
So the intimacy, there's multiple facets, but it's being connected to one another.
So it's abiding in him in every construct.
In other words, one thing that I love someone shared, abiding in a different word of words, is acknowledging him in every construct.
So when I'm going about my routine, you know, the Lord wants to be there with us.
So it's acknowledging him in everything that I do.
You know, so it can be waking up, there's a book called Good Morning Holy Spirit, but Pastor Benny Henn woke up.
He said, Good Morning Holy Spirit, acknowledgement.
He acknowledges that Holy Spirit is there.
You know, sometimes when I'm cooking and my mind starts to wander,
then I can tell, oh, Holy Spirit's talking to me.
I'm acknowledging him there.
If I'm folding laundry, sorry, things that are pertaining to my life, right?
When I'm folding laundry, if I acknowledge him, I force, sometimes I have to force my flesh to acknowledge him.
I force myself and say, Holy Spirit, thank you for being with me today.
Thank you for walking with me.
Thank you that I have the ability to fold clean, many clothes for my children.
Thank you for washing machines that can do that for me, right?
It's acknowledging him in everything, conversating with him.
So it's abiding that upper room of intimacy.
So as we continue going on, the next thing he showed me is being of one vein.
And that goes a little on.
It says, verse 14, these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, right?
So accord, like I said earlier, means agreement or harmony, which means simultaneous combination of tones.
So not only are we in agreement, or let's pretend this back to the disciples.
Not only are they in agreement of what Jesus told them to do.
He said, hey, go back to Jerusalem and stay there. Do not depart. It was a command.
He didn't tell him, he might have told him nicely, but it was a command.
It wasn't like, hey, if you want to.
So he said, go back there and wait for the Holy Spirit to come.
And I'm saying that in my own words.
And so they came there up into the upper room into a place of intimacy.
And they were in agreement for that vision, for that instruction, for that fulfillment to happen, for that promise to happen.
And so they were not only in agreement, but they were in harmony.
I love that word harmony because we all know harmony and music.
You can have a bass, an alto, a soprano, and a tenor.
And so three completely different people, even genders.
And four completely different people, different backgrounds, different upbringings.
They come together and they can come into agreement and sing one song, but in the way that they're meant to sing it.
So a tenor is not going to come in and be like, well, I want to sing it like a soprano.
Like, that's not going to work. That's not going to be beautiful. It's not going to be harmonious.
They're going to walk the lane that God told them to together in agreement with that song.
So it's a combination of tones.
And supplication, like I said, it's humble petition and earnest petition.
Humble, in the other word that I love to use is lowly petition and earnest petition.
So we'll jump into lowliness here in a second, but earnest petition means I want it.
I want this to happen. I want this to do, like, let me know what I can do to get this done.
I'm earnestly, like, with everything that I am able to, I'm earnestly trying to get this done, right?
So when we go to... sorry.
So a humble and lowly petition and an earnest petition.
So how can we achieve this?
How did Jesus achieve a multitude of followers?
And it's by lowliness.
And I love lowliness because lowliness is a state of being humble and unimportant.
And this is a phrase I love to use because you first use it on myself and I use it on my kids.
It's not about you.
Like you're crying over to me, I understand, but it's not about you.
You think about your brother.
If you were in his shoes, how would you feel if you were in his shoes?
Right?
And that's what lowliness is.
It's not about me at all.
I am so unimportant.
And it's about them.
It's about them.
It's about Jesus.
And because it's about Jesus, it's about them.
And so how do we become lowly?
And pastor Igor will be actually diving into that very soon of what lowliness means.
But there is a scripture that came up in Philippians 2.1-4.
It says,
If any affection or mercy,
fulfill my joy by being like-minded,
having the same love,
being of one accord,
of one mind.
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition
or through selfish conceit.
But in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem others better than himself.
Let each of you look out not only for his own interests,
but the interests of others.
Lowliness.
It's not about me. I'm unimportant.
There's nothing about me that I can even bring up.
Because the breath that I breathe is not mine.
The clothes that I wear is not mine.
My relationship with my husband is not because of me.
The position that I'm placed with is definitely not because of me.
It's all because of him.
My heart is pumping because of him.
The blood is going through my veins.
It's because of him.
I can't even take a little bit of credit.
I am so unimportant in this situation
that it just bounces right off of me
and goes back to him.
Lowliness of mind.
So with one accord and supplication,
they're in one vein together.
Not only are they agreeing on the same thing.
Hey, Jesus told us the Holy Spirit's coming.
We're not leaving this place until that happens.
And being lowly and earnest in their petition.
Lowly. It's not about me.
It doesn't matter if it's 120 people stuck in this tiny room
and everyone's sweating.
I don't care. I want him.
I want what he wants.
So this is kind of how it goes.
This lowliness leads into, not about you,
which leads to, it's about Jesus,
which leads to what he wants.
If he wants me stuck in a room with 120 people,
with no AC, I don't care.
Let me do it.
That's how I can serve my master.
That's how I can serve the one that I love.
If Igor wants me to stay home,
he wants to build me a thousand square foot house
and he's like, hey, I want us to stay in this house.
I do it. I love my husband.
I want to fulfill his desires.
I desire him and I want to do what he wants.
So that's what it is.
After that, he wants the Holy Spirit to come.
He said that that's what the Father wants
and what the Father wants is what Jesus wants.
And what the Spirit will bring is power and witness.
And what that will bring is the kingdom of heaven
and down to the earth.
And who is the king of that kingdom?
It goes all the way back to the Father.
And that's the beauty of lowliness.
That's what lowliness produces.
So let's keep on reading.
Now, they are continued with one accord and per in supplication.
Everyone in this upper room.
And all of a sudden, 15 through 26, something happens.
All of a sudden, they're not in one accord.
And they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Now, I think prayer and supplication, this right here,
I believe this is intercession.
They're interceding in order for this Holy Spirit,
for Holy Spirit to come and give them power
and the ability to witness.
So when you intercede, as we have seen
in these intercessional prayers once a month,
and you'll see more often,
when we start interceding,
we start seeing things produce
and actions needing to be fulfilled.
And so, when they were coming together,
they started interceding.
They started praying with earnest prayer
and with one accord.
They had one thing they were agreeing on.
And all of a sudden, action comes up.
So it started, like I said, start off one accord,
then there was a matter that happened,
and then it went back to one accord, as we'll see.
Now, as I was reading this,
there was two things that kind of came up.
Pastor Vern did talk about this.
I want to say this year, maybe last year,
I remember him talking about this.
But there was two things that came up to my mind
of why this happened, right?
So, the first thing is they were impatient.
It says, and now in those days,
Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples.
Altogether, the number of names was about 120.
And he said,
Man and brethren, the Scripture has to be fulfilled,
which the Holy Spirit spoke before the month of David
concerning Judas, who became the guide.
And so we know, so on and so forth,
they need to replace Judas' position.
And so they cast lots.
And so one of the things Pastor Vern said,
he said, and pretty much I'm saying this in my own words,
they got impatient.
They were days in there.
Like I said, it's awesome.
Like when you go to prayer,
when there's an event that happens consistently at church,
you're at the first one like, yes, I want to do this.
I'm fired up. Let's do this.
Like even let's say, open heavens, right?
I'm going to go every Sunday.
I'm going to be an hour early.
I'm going to spend time in prayer before it happens.
And by like Wednesday, you're like,
oh, I got to go to church.
Right?
Because sometimes we have this fire,
but our flash is like,
I want you to sit on the couch for another 20 minutes.
And so what I'm thinking has happened is the first day
they came up into the upper room,
they were excited.
Jesus said, this promise is coming.
It's going to give us power,
the same power that Jesus had.
And then maybe a couple of days then they're like,
oh, it's sweating here.
You know, they're like, I'm exhausted.
We've been praying day in and day out
for hours and nothing is happening.
So I'm thinking maybe they got impatient.
Maybe it was longer than they expected.
Maybe they took matters into their own hands
and they wanted things to happen quicker.
So maybe if we fulfill this one need that needs to be done,
well, then let's do whatever we can
in order for the Holy Spirit to come.
In order for this promise to be fulfilled.
And that could be the...
I'm hypothetical, it could be.
The other thing is maybe there were issues.
Maybe there were some things that the group needed to deal with
before the fulfillment of the promise was to happen.
To deal with the physical stuff sometimes with physical things.
So there was this need.
Obviously they were in one accord and supplication
and then all of a sudden they're not.
This issue arose of Judas' position.
And so maybe they're like,
hey, this is bothering a lot of people.
Maybe they felt this need to fulfill this position.
Whatever the case may be.
But they felt led for Peter to stand up and say,
hey, I hear the whispers, something's happening.
Let's fill this.
There's a void here that we need to deal with
in order for that promise to come.
And so it could have been one of those two things.
It could have been they were impatient
or maybe they had issues.
But either way, whatever reason why they did what they did
they came back into one accord after that.
So whether it is something that we are impatient with
or it's something that is something we need to deal with
eventually, not eventually,
we should always come back to one accord.
It should not be division.
So, as that happened,
those are the four things that the Lord taught me
about the road to corporate prayer,
and what it means.
And just going down a little bit more,
some of the things that will happen
after those things are fulfilled.
So making sure when we're in one vein,
making sure we are in the state
of mind and heart of Jesus,
making sure we're not distracted
with physical or spiritual things,
but we're making sure our eyes are on Jesus.
So, there was one thing that they should have known,
okay, should have a subjective,
but I'm thinking they should have known this,
like, come on,
is that God is poetic and romantic
because the day of Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit came down,
they were actually celebrating a...
one of the three...
I'm going to say biblical,
but one of the three things that they had to celebrate
was...
I'm going to butcher this.
Shuvot...
Shavaot.
Okay, thank you.
When I tried to find the pronunciation
it was really hard.
So,
that holiday, they celebrated it
because the Ten Commandments were given to Moses
and they were thanking God and celebrating,
thank you for giving us the law.
And Pentecost, as we now celebrate Pentecost,
it was the Holy Spirit was fully given to us.
And this reminded me of Jeremiah 31.
He prophesied the fulfilled promise of the covenant
was birthed at the day of Pentecost.
Because Jeremiah says, but this...
well, not he says, he wrote this,
but the Lord said this.
But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,
says the Lord.
I will put my law in their minds.
Who do we conversate in our minds?
Holy Spirit.
And write it on their hearts.
All of a sudden, sometimes we speak out Scripture,
maybe not word for word,
but we speak out Scripture because he lives in us.
He is the written law on our hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No more shall every man teach his neighbor,
and every man, his brother, say,
know the Lord, for they shall know me.
From the least of them to the greatest of them,
says the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin,
and their sin I will remember no more.
So this day of Pentecost,
the day that they were celebrating that God gave them
the Ten Commandments, the law,
the Holy Spirit came and wrote it on their hearts physically.
And so now they were breathing and speaking.
And so then, at the end,
it says the day of Pentecost had fully come,
and they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as if of a rushing mighty wind.
And it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire,
and one sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other tongues
as the Spirit gave them utterance.
So then, after they became one accord with supplication,
things start to happen.
So they started hearing things.
They started seeing visions.
They had a physical presence,
and they had manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
So when we are in a corporate prayer together,
and we are in one vein,
our state of our heart and our mind is on Jesus.
We don't have distractions of physical things
or even sometimes spiritual things.
And we have fulfilled the actions
that the Holy Spirit asks us to fulfill.
Then things start to happen.
Then as a corporate body,
we are able to experience the hearing of things,
the visions of things,
the physical presence of Him,
and the manifestations of Him.
And it's going to be natural like they were.
So prayer is communication.
It's intimate.
When I conversate with my husband,
it's an intimate conversation.
Always.
Because it's with the one that I love.
And so sometimes,
we as people
have a loose tongue,
and our conversations are no longer intimate.
They don't have value. They don't have intention.
They're just talking to be heard.
And so we have to remember that prayer is communication.
It's intimate with the Father.
And so there's heavenly language.
We can communicate with heavenly language,
the speaking of tongues.
We can communicate in our earthly language,
the language that we were taught and we know.
And there's also a physical language
that we can communicate to God with.
And that's tears and wailing.
And even motion.
For example, lifting up our hands.
Where there's a word in Hebrew that they do,
it's called shuckling.
Shucking, shuckling.
Which is a rocking back and forth motion.
If you notice, I love to do that.
I don't know, it's just natural.
But there's different ways that we can communicate in prayer
as a corporate body.
Because we are communicating intimately with the Lord,
with our brother and sister in Christ.
Just like we gather on together at the table
with our siblings to talk to our parents.
We can all talk to our parents together.
There's still one accord there coming before our parents.
But it's done in our own way.
With our own tone.
Like harmony.
So now let's bring this back
and bring it into our area.
So, what vision
or what instruction
or what promise has the Lord given us?
One of them is the generations, right?
Some ones that every person has is to witness
and to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.
So how can we become
distraction less with that?
To be in one accord, to have one vein
to know that this is a promise that we're going after.
Not to be distracted by some of the physical things.
Not to be distracted by some of the spiritual things.
Though they're good and they're needed,
they can build faith.
But it's not about that. It's about Jesus.
Like, cool, someone walked out of the wheelchair.
Jesus, you know, it's beholding the maker,
the one who did that.
Making sure our state of our heart and our mind
is intimate with the Lord. It's always in that
upper room with Him.
Making sure, like I said, in one vein,
and that there are actions that are needed
to be fulfilled.
Whether sometimes we choose to do that action
or it's actually led by the Holy Spirit
to make sure that we come back
to being in one accord.
And then when that happens,
with all of us, corporately,
things will start to happen, right?
So, we have a little time of prayer
that I want to get into.
I want to pray these things out.
I want to pray that the Lord builds us
a corporate prayer of intimacy,
builds us into harmony with each other,
to build us to be lowly of mind,
to not think of ourselves,
not think about what we want,
how I want to do this, what prayer requests I have,
what issues are in my life.
No, I'm unimportant.
I'll deal with these things with Holy Spirit,
but it's not about me.
It's about Him in every facet,
not just here at church,
even when I go home and I'm talking with a friend.
Even if I go to work or to the store,
it's not about me. It's about Jesus.
And I trust in that He'll take care of me.
So, that's what we're going to do.
Again, you guys, we have nine minutes,
so let's make it a quick prayer,
make it powerful, Lord,
for Him to come here and just to manifest Himself,
but to give us the seed of His Word
to be birthed in our mind of revelation,
of what it actually means.
Okay?
So, if you want to walk, you can walk.
If you want to lay, if you want to dance,
if you want to wail,
if you want to chuckle,
make sure it's done by the leadership of the Holy Spirit,
because if it's not, it's flesh.
I want to wail, so I'm louder.
I want to chuckle because Tanya does it, you know?
So, make sure it's done by the Holy Spirit,
but really connecting with Him in the upper room.