Pressing Forward in Prayer

And we'll be continuing to read from the book of Acts, chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

I'll be reading a large section all the way down to verse 31,

chapter 4, verse 1 through 31.

Listen carefully now and give attention because what I'm about to read is the

holy and inspired word of God.

And as they were speaking to the people, the priest and the captain of the temple

and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching

the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day,

for it was already evening.

But many of those who had heard the word believed and the number of the men came to about 5,000.

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem

with Annas, the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander,

and all who were of a high priestly family.

And when they had sent them in the midst, they inquired, By what power or by

what name did you do this?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people

and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man,

by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you,

to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified,

whom God raised from the dead, by him, this man is standing before you well.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders,

which has become the cornerstone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven

given among men by which we must be saved.

Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were

uneducated common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one

another saying, what shall we do with these men?

For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all in

the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

But in order that it may not spread further among the people,

let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.

So they call them and charge them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them and said, whether it is right in the sight

of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge.

For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

And when they had further threatened them, they let them go,

finding no way to punish them because of the people. For all were praising God for what had happened.

For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old.

When they released them, they went to their friends and reported what the chief

priests and elders had said to them.

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 they 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 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 had performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was

shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the

word of God with boldness.

This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Father, we ask now as we do that you would send your spirit,

that we might understand your word, this story, and the whole book of Acts,

and the glory of the resurrected Jesus Christ that not simply knows some more

facts, but love our Savior more and more. We pray in his name. Amen.

So we're pressing forward through the book of Acts, and at this particular point

you see that the apostles and those gathered with them are also pressed against

by the authorities and they are then pressing forward.

But how do they do that? How do they press forward as a church?

And I think it's a good question and I'm trying to do my best as a pastor to

ask the questions of the text that also lead us and help us as a church, as a congregation.

We're not too far from the end of the year. So as we come to the new year,

a lot of you guys, I know I'm one, I admit, I set New Year's resolutions and

goals and try to exercise and eat right, all that.

Well, what is a church supposed to do besides eating right and losing weight?

What's a church supposed to do as a church looking forward to the next year?

The book of Acts has a lot for us, a lot for us.

And the book of Acts is a book that speaks to the formation,

the literal formation by the gift of the Holy Spirit of the church,

the foundation of the apostles,

and then the creation of the church, and then the movement of the church,

and the life of the church.

So there's a lot we can learn about this coming year. What do we want to look

like this next coming year?

Well, guess what? We want to look like an apostolic church.

And you know, by now, since we went to the gifts of the Spirit,

I'm not talking about apostolic gifts, jumping, shouting, screaming, healing, miracles.

But I'm talking about what it means to be a holy, Catholic, and apostolic church.

You know, we confess it almost every Sunday. And I don't think we,

I think we maybe read it. I know, I'll give you an example for myself.

First time I read the Nicene Creed, it was all about the Arian controversy and the doctrine of Christ.

But when I got to the section on holy, Catholic, and apostolic,

Like as a former evangelical, I might even say as a recovering evangelical,

I was like, well, I can see why God's in there.

Trinity, who God is, we have to know that. I can see why Jesus is there,

who he is. He's God for our salvation.

But when you put in the creed, like I believe in, and when the creed was written

in Greek 1,700 years ago, the word pistos was used.

It means I have faith in, I trust in. You can understand when it goes through

God, the Trinity, Christ, and so forth, but the holy Catholic and apostolic

church, what's there to trust in?

Why do we put that as a main portion, along with resurrection of the dead and

the forgiveness of sins?

It's important to note that we confess the holy. That means holy means that it's set apart by God.

And I'm mentioning this because the book of Acts just really pushes against

this modern evangelical narrative that you don't really need the church.

Church is optional. Even having some pushback recently on, you know,

why not just meet at home?

You can no more, by the way, create your own home church than you can create your own government.

You can't just declare yourself to be a new nation. The church has been made

holy by Christ and the Spirit. Holy means set apart.

You don't just get to start your own church. You have to follow after the authority

and pattern of Christ in the apostles.

The church is set aside by the Holy Spirit, given the Holy Spirit,

given Christ in the Holy Spirit.

And it's also universal. So the last half of Acts, we'll see that a lot.

It's no longer belonging merely to Jews or a national identity.

Our identity is all the tribes and all the nations.

But it's also apostolic. Our church should be a church that really strives to

be in accord with and under the authority of the teachings of the apostles under Christ.

And you'll notice that one of the main items or elements of an apostolic church

are that they don't rely on anything

other than Christ and the means of grace, just the means of grace.

Simple things. Well, what are the means of grace? Sometimes they're summarized

by the word, prayer, and sacraments. There are other means of grace.

What's a means of grace, you're asking? As you should.

What's a means of grace? It's a way in which God has chosen to provide us or

channel to us or give to us, provide us His grace.

Of course, the means of grace would be the things in which you exercise holiness,

godliness unto growing sanctification. You want to be like Christ.

So what is the apostolic church? This is just a bit of a quick introduction.

I'll make it quick, I promise.

But the means of grace, that's what we're about as a church.

And that's what we will be about next year and the year after that.

And as long as you want me here as your pastor, that's what I'm going to be

focusing on. The means of grace.

Many churches today say the only way you can build and grow a church is other things, programs.

You have to have a praise band. You have to have a youth group.

You have to have a gymnasium. You have to have an outreach program.

In Africa, all the churches I worked with in Africa said, you have to have a

school or a medical clinic.

You have to have these things alongside the church in order for the church to grow and prosper.

But in the apostolic church, as we see in Acts, they prayed.

They prayed. And you think, you can't build the church with just prayer.

It almost seems ridiculous. Just like we said last week, they also preached

the word of God. People say, well, that's weak.

Just preaching, just proclaiming Jesus? You need more than that.

No, the apostolic church, in order to sanctify God's people and build her church,

and they did so powerfully.

You'll notice all throughout, there's thousands converted at Pentecost.

Now there's 5,000 males, and later there'll be thousands more.

It's just growing and growing and growing. They didn't have a youth group.

They didn't have a praise band. They didn't have a medical clinic.

They didn't have anything like that.

They simply preached the word of God. They prayed together and they worshiped.

Partook of Holy Communion as well. So our passage this morning,

it's just a quick introduction to what, you know, if you want to set a New Year's

resolution, pray that our church is laser focused on the means of grace,

the word, sacrament, and prayer.

That's how Christ grows, grew, and grows his church.

All right, well, what happens in our text? So these guys are arrested.

Are you ready? I'm done with the introduction.

Okay, the guys are arrested. They're taken in. after they're released, they go back.

The first thing they begin to do is pray. Again, just very, very simple,

almost profoundly simple.

A church is a church of prayer. Before the apostles set out,

they prayed. And you'll notice this in the book of Acts.

Before they did almost anything great, anything magnificent,

they were praying beforehand.

There were usually people praying during, and they prayed after.

They prayed, they prayed, they prayed.

You know I think it's important because we did a whole Sunday school series

on prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer.

I was setting you up for this. They prayed.

In Luke's history, you see, every time you turn the pages of the story in the

book of Acts, Luke is reminding us of the life and mission and faithfulness

of the church in the means of grace, the word sacrament and prayer.

And prayer, prayer is significant. Prayer is central. Prayer is the before,

during, and after of the entire church's activity. And you'll notice something

powerful about this particular prayer.

They prayed the word of God. They prayed the word of God.

The first response may strike us as a bit unusual. They immediately turn their

attention to God in the Old Testament.

And that's another thing I'm gonna keep trying to weave into your consciousness over and over.

In the New Testament, the New Testament gospel comes from the Old Testament.

I can't tell you how many times in my life I've heard people say, I'll say something.

And as a matter of course, as if it ends the argument, they'll say,

well, that's the Old Testament. Have you ever heard that?

How about we tithe? That's the Old Testament. How about we do this?

That's the Old Testament. When you look at the New Testament church,

everything they're saying is from the Old Testament.

That's how the New Testament is built, from the Old Testament.

As if they go together, oh yeah, because they do.

They are connected organically and intimately. So they begin to pray,

and they begin to pray the Old Testament scriptures.

Fascinating prayer. Remember when we went over our prayer study,

the best way to learn to pray is to look at prayers in the Bible.

And then mimic them and use them and then make them your own.

Here they begin to pray. There are echoes of Exodus 20, 11, Psalm 146, 6.

The truth that God is the creator is a magnificent starting point for them.

It also should be clear that the sovereignty of God is a key component in their

prayers and in their speeches. They're always mentioning this.

Not that we're just persnickety Calvinist, always itching for a fight about

predestination, but I got news for you over and over in their speeches,

They just come out and they said, Acts 4.28, to do whatever your hand and your

plan had predestined to take place.

Do we believe in predestination? Of course.

Everybody who receives the words from the scripture should believe it in some

way. And everybody does, even though they twist and change it.

In Deuteronomy chapter four, God promises both to judge his people Israel and

to restore them. This is one of the things they're praying.

In Deuteronomy four, it's interesting because when they pray the Lord who made

the heavens and the earth and they start praying what we would call covenantal

prayers, they're reaching back into the Old Testament and praying God's word.

For instance, in Deuteronomy four, it says, O Lord, the God of Israel,

you are enthroned above the cherubim.

You are the God, you alone, all the kingdoms of the earth.

That you have made because you have made, ready, the heavens and the earth.

Creation. The psalmist and others contrast the one true God from all other gods

because he's the only God that created the heavens and the earth.

Those of you who are here for our Jonah study, that's what struck the sailors

on the ship immediately. Like, oh, wait a minute.

Yahweh, the Lord, is not like our gods. Our gods are local gods,

maybe household gods, maybe ethnic gods, tribal gods. but your God is different

because your God made the heavens and the earth.

Psalm 146, and these are the kinds of things, by the way, that they're praying

and that we can pray when we pray together and learn to pray.

Men are encouraged to put their trust in God who made the heavens and the earth and who is eternal.

Psalm 146 says, don't put your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation.

When his breath departs, he returns to the earth and on that day, his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob. whose hope is in the Lord his

God, ready, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in

them, who keeps his faith forever.

God as creator, sovereign creator, is central to their prayers.

He is Israel's creator, Isaiah 44, which connects us to the idea of the fact

that we are his new creatures, his new creations.

God, God's power as creator is to be connected to our understanding of him as our redeemer.

Jeremiah chapter 32 contains a striking parallel to our text.

Jeremiah 32 · chapter mention

Here, Jeremiah is thrown into jail by Zedekiah for prophesying that Jerusalem

would fall to the Babylonians.

If you ever think you have a hard time as a New Testament preacher,

you should read Jeremiah because what a tough ministry.

I feel light and easy compared to Jeremiah. Nobody's throwing me in pits and

binding me and beating me.

The response to all that happened, Jeremiah prayed beginning with these words,

O Lord God, behold, ready?

You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm.

Nothing is too difficult for you. That's a key part of the way they prayed.

And remember it says they prayed for and they prayed with boldness.

How do you pray for boldness in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

The way you do it is you go back to the God who doesn't have an obstacle.

There are no obstacles to God. Why? He's the maker of heaven and earth.

There's nothing he can't do.

There's nothing that he's unable to do. Nothing too difficult for him.

Jeremiah and the other Old Testament prophets were always referring to God as

the maker of heaven and earth.

The psalmist would say, where does my help come from? My help comes from the

Lord, maker of heaven and earth, over and over.

The New Testament is filled with the theme that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth.

Paul says in Colossians, for in him, Christ, all things were created,

both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions

or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things.

And in him, all things hold together.

It's a powerful passage that seems to indicate that it's not just that he created

one time and just set everything into motion like a clock that he wound up.

But right now, right here, every second of every day, the power of Jesus Christ,

creator of heaven and earth, is continuing to hold it together.

And if he didn't, the indication from Colossians is it would fly into nothingness.

Disintegrate. Here, according to Paul, the Lord Jesus creator of heaven and

earth also is what we call sustainer.

I don't think sustainer just gets the power of that passage enough.

He's not just sustaining it like, how are you doing? Or how are you doing?

Everything okay over there? Like a manager. He's in it.

Nothing lives, nothing breathes, nothing moves, no planet in its orbit.

Nothing does anything without the power of Christ in it now, holding it together.

That's a good way to think of God if you need to pray for boldness, which they did.

Remember, they were under attack. It sounded great. Remember I said,

act starts out great because it's all Holy Spirit, hallelujah.

Holy Spirit's coming. People are getting healed.

Church is growing. All of a sudden now they're getting beat up and arrested.

It's not as fun anymore. They're getting beat up and arrested.

They're getting told, keep quiet,

don't say anything more or we're gonna beat you and arrest you more.

So they go back and they need to pray for boldness. How do they do it?

They meditate on God as creator.

He is greater than all things. He's greater than all creatures.

He's in control of all things. He's sovereign. He predestines all things.

Oh, him obedience and allegiance, whether they like it or not.

And that's what they say in their speeches. And that's how they pray together.

In this doctrine, there is also a call to worship. The Lord made the heavens and the earth.

The moment you say that, the moment that is owed, everybody who hears it and

understands it means to say, praise be to God.

Why do you think they wanted it so badly? out of our schools.

You begin teaching little children that God created them, then all of a sudden

they're going to know, oh, I should probably obey him, right?

The little catechism says, why do you glorify God? Because he made me and takes care of me.

You owe him worship. You owe him praise. You owe him honor because he's your creator.

That's why Darwin was so anxious to create some sort of theory where we could

come into existence with some sort of big bang or evolutionary theory of our origins.

Also why lawless and men who are rattling and fighting against the glory and

rule of King Jesus don't want our children to know that they're created and that there is a creator.

And if that's all true, and it is, they should obey him, honor him, and worship him.

The book of Revelation, God is worshiped as the creator of heaven and earth.

It says, and when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him

who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders will

fall down before him who sits on the throne and they will worship him who lives forever and ever,

casting their crowns before the throne saying, worthy are you,

O Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power for you, created all things.

And because of your will, they existed and were created. And we,

from Colossians say, they continue to live.

It's a common teaching in Hebrew rabbinical tradition to cause people to think

of something so great like God is creator.

In other words, if God is creator, there's nothing he can't do for us on this low earth on our level.

Nothing, nothing he can't do.

If God, if it's true, you know how Paul teaches like this, if God cares for

this, if, well, it said in Romans 8, If God did not withhold from us his son,

his only son, how will he not along with him freely give us all things?

It's Hebrew teaching tool called kalwomer, from light to heavy or from heavy to light.

If God cares for the sparrows and knows their number and knows when they fall,

I felt bad the other day I had to destroy a sparrow's nest.

But I was comforted, it was in my vent. I was comforted that God cares about him.

If God even cares for a sparrow that is an annoyance to us, how will he not

along with that take care of us who are more of more value?

Is light to heavy or heavy to light? In this case, if God is the creator of

heaven and earth, do you really think the Sanhedrin or the Romans or any army

or any governor or any ruler could stop the kingdom of God?

No, I'll give it to you. I'll give you the answer, no.

If God is creator, nothing will stop him, and nothing is too difficult for him.

And then they add to this Psalm chapter 2. It's like a double punch from the

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

Old Testament scriptures.

They add to that the fulfillment of prophecy in Psalm 2, where not only is God

creator, not only has he created all things, sustains all things,

and is all powerful, and predestined all things that come to pass,

also he conquered death.

He was raised to the right hand of the Father after the resurrection and the

ascension. And they go to Psalm chapter two, where it says, why do the nations rage?

And why do the peoples plot a vain thing?

The rulers gather and the people gathered together against God and against his anointed.

Psalm two is more than just an Old Testament psalm.

It's actually a prophecy, a prophecy that now we're seeing fulfilled in the

book of Acts, where now these apostles are saying, wait a minute,

this is exactly what happened.

Psalm 2 was talking about the day that they would come when God would bring

Messiah and Messiah would come and people would fight against him and be raised

up against him and gnash their teeth and try to kill him.

And they did. In fact, these apostles could say, oh yeah, and these guys are the guys.

The very Sanhedrin, don't forget, these are the same guys who put Jesus on trial.

This psalm is about the kingship and dominion of God's anointed,

the Messiah, the Christ.

It was a prophetic psalm about the coming of the kingdom as Jesus was declared

to be the son when he accomplished redemption.

Today you have become my son. You did what I sent you to do,

be welcomed into the kingdom, be welcomed into heaven and be enthroned as the king over all.

At Jesus' glorification on the Mount of Transfiguration, God said,

this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

The baptism, this is my son in whom I listen to him, hear him.

So the event in our Acts text, the nations assembling themselves together against

Christ to crucify him, to kill him, to cut off his kingdom was prophesied already

in Psalm chapter two. And here these guys are praying it and quoting it.

They knew, by the way, these guys were not confused about their eschatology.

Were they pre-millennial? Were they pre-tribulation or rapture?

One thing they knew, and I'm not trying to say you have to be post or all or

whatever. One thing they knew is that the kingdom of God had come.

There it is, Psalm 2. Today, I'm enthroning you over your kingdom and there's

no going back. There's only going forward.

Now, whether you're optimistic about what happens or super excited about cultural

change, one thing's for sure from the text and from what we've seen in Acts

is that these guys believe the kingdom of God had come in the resurrection and

ascension of Jesus Christ.

They knew that the kingdom of God had come.

Maybe we can do a Sunday school and whether you're post-all or whatever,

but the pre and the pre-rapture and all this, out of the question,

at least from these texts. They quote Psalm 2.

Jesus is enthroned over his kingdom in spite of all opposition.

And we are to listen to him. The church had a sense then from this ascension

scene from what we saw at the very beginning, a sense of who they were and where they were going.

Who they were were the people of God, beloved tribes from the nations going

forward in Christ's kingdom and in his power.

This is a psalm, by the way, that's quoted a lot in the New Testament.

They were able to connect Old Testament events to their present situation.

The Apostle John's favorite Older Testament text in Revelation is Psalm 2.

Over 600 quotes and allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation,

he refers to Psalm chapter 2 more than any other.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 2, but particularly as you get to the end of the book of Revelation

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

where all things are put together and all things are made right.

St. John in Revelation 16, 13 says, three unclean spirits go out from the mouths

of the dragon and from the beast and from the false prophet.

And they went out to the king of the whole world to gather them together for

war on that great day, Armageddon, to assemble against Jesus Christ.

That's exactly what one of the Psalms describes.

These people are gathering together against God and against his anointed.

And I might add here, and you're gonna see this also in the book of Acts,

and this is, you know, good news and bad news always comes together sometimes.

Good news is Christ is reigning and his kingdom has come and it will be triumphant.

Bad news is they will hate us as much as they have hated Christ.

Sorry. Sorry. It's always a

bit disturbing, to be honest. I will be ordained the next year, 30 years.

And I'll have to be honest, over the years, I really still do wonder,

like, why do people hate us so much?

And it's just like this crippled man. I mean, Peter's like, do you hate us because

we just healed this guy that had been crippled for 40 years?

What's up with you people?

Why do you hate us for helping? Why do you hate us for healing and for loving

and for preaching and teaching the gospel.

But the reality is they will and they do.

This is going to be a part of our story now in the book of Acts is hatred,

violence, beatings, even murder.

But Christ has already said, blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness

sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you.

Falsely, don't forget that falsely, by the way, pretty critical.

Some people are like, I'm persecuted for righteousness because someone said I was gossiping.

You're probably persecuted for gossip, okay?

So don't forget what it says. You're not just persecution in general.

I don't know how many times I've heard people, I am just so persecuted.

We know why, but it doesn't fit in this text.

This text says, blessed are you when you're reviled and persecuted falsely for

my name's sake, not just because you're irascible and difficult to get along

with, You talk too much or whatever you do that's annoying.

For righteousness sake, if that's the case, then rejoice and be exceedingly

glad. For great is your reward in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you, and so they persecuted

the apostles, and so will they persecute us.

Right? The prophets who went before God were hated, persecuted, killed.

The apostles that came after Christ was persecuted, hated, and killed.

The apostles were hated, persecuted, and killed. Guess what?

Followers of Christ will be hated, persecuted, and killed.

Well, that's not very good news.

That's the reality. The good news is, as we see, they're looking beyond all of that.

They're looking beyond that to Christ and his glory and his resurrection power

and the future that he holds in spite of everything being taken, even life.

Knowing their own weakness, the church prayed for boldness in light of Psalm chapter two.

Help us, Lord. You're the maker of heaven and earth. You can do this.

Help us, Lord. You're the one enthroned in glory. You will do this.

They were optimistic about their future and emboldened. Though the whole earth

stand against Christ and his anointed, they will be defeated.

And so the church began to move out in that particular light.

Right? Though men lash out at Christ and us and his church, they cannot gain

ultimate victory. They will not.

That's incentive for keeping going. That's incentive for not growing weary in doing good things.

The enemies of God will one day become his servants, doing his own will,

according to his own predestined plan.

Imagine the glory and mystery of predestination where Peter and his apostles

are offhandedly saying, oh yeah, you had a plan.

Guess what? It had already been planned for you.

You just carried out the will of God as a foolish, raging servant of God, not even yourself.

You can't even do things on your own.

You're just carrying out the will of God as a servant of God.

And that's the way the future is going to unfold.

The psalmist hears the very word of God as Yahweh speaks his decree.

This decree, by the way, came thousands of years before this moment.

Very encouraging. This is a prophetic decree that was given thousands of years

before this and now is being fulfilled in their midst and continues to be fulfilled in our own.

Jesus Christ reigns and rules from his seat at the right hand of glory,

and the church is his visible earthly institution that will triumph in the end.

The gates of hell will not prevail against the church, cannot,

in spite of being pressed down, pushed down, persecuted, and even martyred. Why?

Because Jesus loves us. Jesus loves his people.

That's a good sermon. It ends on Jesus loves me because it's true.

The whole of this event is all about Christ coming and dying for our sins and

being raised from the dead and ascended into glory that he might rule on our

behalf, the ones he loves, the apple of his eye, the Hephzibah.

God's anointed is serving his people. I will give you the nations. That's us, beloved.

As we continue to explore why this new church quotes this particular psalm in

response to the oppression of the Sanhedrin, the words of Jesus Christ and his

love compel them forward.

The father and the son have already covenanted for salvation for the world and

the father has decreed it, the son has accomplished it and now it's taking place.

The early church knew what they were doing in terms of the promises and decrees

of God. They had a sense of uninterrupted optimism.

No, not because they were taking over all the institutions of the culture,

but because they were faithful in the means of grace to be faithful to their

Savior and faithful to see the church growing in those same means.

The means of victory for some of them, suffering, persecution,

hardship, and even death.

And when that happened to them, they went on their knees and they prayed for

boldness to continue to follow Christ Jesus.

Why? Because Christ loves us so much that he gave his son for us.

He rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he will take us there with him without fail.

And there's nothing that will stop that. Nothing.

God has brought us into this place at this moment so that you would even hear

this particular message no matter what you're going through.

Because some of us are going through things where we wish that we weren't going

through, things that we can't overcome on our own strength, things that we can't figure out.

But one thing we do know is that Christ will work things out according to his

power. He is the maker of heaven and earth.

He is the one who will do it. It's not too small for him.

One of you even sent out a little song this past week that I enjoyed on Facebook.

I won't say who it is, but you know who you are.

A little song that was a good song, reminding praying for family.

And in the verse, I think it said, you're the one who moves mountains.

You're the one who divides the water, et cetera, et cetera.

Those kinds of songs remind us that all our little problems that we have are not too small for God.

He has the power to overcome. He has the power to fix them, to respond to us.

And he gives us the strength to pray for boldness as we pray his word.

And all of it is situated in the love of God for his people.

All of it is this is the gospel.

This is the good news, that Jesus Christ died for sinners, and nothing and no

one will ever be able to separate us from that love.

Before we take the Lord's Supper, I want to end on a verse that we read earlier.

I want to repeat it from Romans chapter 8, where Paul is meditating on this very idea.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

He says that we know that all things work together for the good to those who

love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew.

He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son,

that we might be the firstborn of many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called,

he also these he justified, and whom he justified, he glorified.

What shall we say then to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son,

but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, along with him,

freely give us all things?

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore,

who is also risen, who is even, get this, at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress

or persecution or famine, nakedness, peril, or sword?

As it is written, for your sake, we are killed all day long.

We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all things,

we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,

neither angels or principalities, nor powers, nor things present,

nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall

be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Amen. Let's pray.

Lord, how we thank you that this little early church prayed for boldness in

the context of the promises and prophecies of God, who is creator,

and in the context of the prophecies that Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven.

Even now, he's sitting at the right hand. He's praying for us.

He's overseeing us. He is working to defeat all his and all our enemies.

He will rule to the end until every enemy is conquered and even the last enemy, death.

Lord, how we thank you for Jesus Christ. And as we approach this Lord's Supper.

We pray that we would come to it with great hope and optimism,

whatever our circumstances,

whatever its persecution or hardship or betrayal or difficulty,

we come to Christ Jesus with whom or from whom we will never be separated from

his love because he is with us.

Feed us in that hope with great thanksgiving, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.