While You're Waiting

Our microwave at home has been broken for almost a year.

I didn't realize it at first, but having a broken microwave is a spiritual practice. It helps you learn to wait.

Waiting has gone completely out of style in our culture.

Diploma mills allow you to purchase a degree

Swiffer mop

3-hour shipping from Amazon

We get our celebrities from viral moments rather than long careers

We are being formed by a culture that only likes to focus on the flashy things

There used to be pride in being middle-class. Now, you're either rich and famous or you're nothing.

Nobody posts a picture of themselves in jogging pants mopping the kitchen floor. So, we are formed to feel like we're missing life when we are in jogging pants mopping the kitchen floor.

But in reality, life is made up of jogging pants and kitchen floors. Most of life is lived in-between the flashpoints.

Most of school is neither the first day nor graduation.

Your career happens between the day you get hired and the day you retire.

You go to the restaurant. You wait for a table. You order, then you wait for the food. You eat, then you wait for the check. If you can't find some sweetness in the waiting, the restaurant will be a rather drab experience.

The fact is that waiting is such a big part of life that how you wait is a major factor in how you experience life.

God wants to give us grace to wait well. But we have to be willing to cultivate it.

Read Acts 1:6-14

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 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.” 9 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. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

The disciples are caught in one of the strangest moments in human history.

They've seen the resurrection — death defeated, hope vindicated.

Then they ask a question about timing, “Will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel” and they receive the answer “Don’t worry about the timing…God has a plan.”

And now Jesus has gone up, and the Spirit hasn't come down yet.

They're suspended between two massive moments.

And they've been charged with one of the most important and most difficult tasks in life… WAIT.

I want to preach a sermon today called: While You Wait.

PRAYER

#1: While You Wait — Release the Past (vv. 10-11)

The angels ask: "Why do you stand here gazing into heaven?"

The Greek word for gazing is ἐμβλέποντες — to look fixedly, with locked focus.

These disciples aren't casually glancing up. They are staring. Transfixed. Frozen.

I can imagine they were thinking about all they had gone through with Jesus

Peter was there

Let down your net for draft.

Walking on water.

The betrayal.

The Resurrection.

Mary was there.

Raising of Lazarus

The alabaster box

Standing at the foot of the cross

Coming to the empty tomb

Each person had a story…a profound set of experience…highs and lows

The angels essentially say: That moment is over. He's gone. You can't live there.

The past — even the glorious past — is not where we are meant to live.

You have to release all of that.

You have to let it go.

What are you gazing at this morning?

A relationship that ended.

The ministry God used you to do in a different season.

A younger version of your body…of your mind.

A season of faith that felt more alive.

How it used to be before we had kids?

How it used to be when we still had kids living in our home?

The angels' question to the disciples is the Spirit's question to us: Why stand ye here gazing? That day is gone. Release it.

#2: While You Wait — Remember the Promise (v. 8, v. 11)

Two promises bracket the waiting on both sides.

Jesus gives them one before he goes up — "You will receive power... you will be my witnesses" (v. 8). The angels the angels remind them one after — "This same Jesus will come back" (v. 11).

For the believer, waiting is not nebulous and formless — it is shaped by promises.

Jesus doesn't just say wait. He tells them what they are waiting for.

You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. (vv.5)

We celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the church…the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

May 24, 2026…count fifty days.

Jesus didn’t say, “you will baptized with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost”

They didn’t have it on the calendar…

They just had the promise to cling to.

But because they had the promise, the waiting had a shape.

They were moving toward something.

They buoyed by hope.

What has God said to you?

Through the scriptures

Through the Spirit

Through Spirit-filled saints?

The promises don't make the waiting shorter — but the do the give the waiting shape…and meaning...and hope.

#3: While You Wait — Remain in Community (v. 15)

Early Christian tradition, quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:6 affirms that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people after the resurrection.

Five hundred eyewitnesses.

Perhaps even 500 on this mountainside in Acts 1

But when they gather in Jerusalem to wait and pray — only 120 show up.

That's a 76% dropout rate.

Four out of five people who saw the risen Christ with their own eyes didn't make it to the upper room.

Why? Because waiting is not exciting.

Waiting happens after the initial rush fades.

Waiting happens while life is getting busier and busier.

Doubt creeps in when you’re waiting.

Maybe I imagined it.

Maybe it won't happen.

Maybe I'll come back when something's actually going on.

The 120 weren't more spiritual than the 500. They were just the ones who were committed to showing up.

Beloved, you need a group of people in life who represent your upper room.

People you're going to show up for, and show up with,

even when nothing dramatic is happening

Even when you don’t particularly feel like

I would love you to make Ambassador Church your upper room

But if not here, commit to showing up somewhere.

The temptation to isolate in the waiting is real — but isolation is where hope goes to die. Remain in community.

#4: While You Wait — Resolve to Pray (v. 14)

The text says they "devoted themselves to prayer."

The Greek word is προσκαρτεροῦντες (proskatero) — to persist, to be steadfast, to attend to something continually.

This is not passive waiting.

This is active, disciplined, engaged prayer.

And notice what happens in the prayer — they discern the need to replace Judas, they seek God's guidance, and Matthias is appointed (vv. 15-26).

The Spirit is already at work in the waiting, preparing them.

Pentecost fills what prayer has formed.

Waiting is not the absence of activity — it's a different kind of activity.

God uses the waiting to speak,

God uses the waiting to align.

Resolve to pray — to keep an active conversation with the Lord. Because God has left you in the waiting, God is working in the waiting to make you ready for the next season.

Beloved, we must learn to wait well.

Most people don't walk away from God on the day of tragedy.

It's after the urgency has passed —

while you’re waiting for your life and your heart to be restored.

Most marriages don't fall apart on the wedding day or anniversary or the day the first baby is born.

It's while you're waiting for the career to take off,

and the kids to grow up,

and the body to return to normal after giving birth or surgery.

Because waiting is so much of life. We must learn to wait well.

I believe that the testimony of the church in this age must be that we have learned how to wait.

God wants us to get so good at waiting that people around us become about it. curious

"What do you mean you're waiting? Sounds to me like you’ve given up on your dream?"

No I haven’t given up on my dream —

I'm holding onto the promise of God that though the vision tarry, wait for it. Because in the end it will speak and not lie.

"Are you saying you're happy with the way things are?"

Oh no. I recognize how hard things are. And I'm feeling all the emotion.

But I heard the psalmist say: "Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart…"

"But don't you just get so tired of waiting for things to change?"

Yes… I get tired sometimes.

But I am reminded of the words of Isaiah: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

I want to pray for people who are in a process —

you are not where you used to be and you are not where you want to be.

You are living right now in that volatile middle.

You know all that is behind you.

You're believing God for something that is ahead.

Beloved, I come to tell you that

You can have joy in the waiting.

You can have peace in the waiting.

You can have hope in the waiting.

God doesn't want you to give up. God doesn't want you to lose hope. God doesn't want you to rush in. He is going to deliver on every one of His promises. And He wants us to wait well.

Releasing the past.

Remembering the promise.

Remaining in community.

Resolved to pray.

Make an altar…pray for grace for the waiting.