A praying church (Acts 4:23-31) // On mission with the risen Jesus

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people

and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to

them. When they heard this, they

raised their voices together in prayer to God, Sovereign Lord,

they said, You made the heavens and the earth and the sea and

everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit

through the mouth of your servant, our Father David.

Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers

gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed

One. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate

met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this

city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you

anointed. They did what Your power and

will had decided beforehand should happen now.

Lord, consider their threats and enable Your servants to speak

Your Word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal

and perform miraculous signs and wonders for the name of Your

holy servant, Jesus. After they prayed, the place

where they were meeting was shaken and they were all filled

with the Holy Spirit and spoke with the Word of God boldly.

So Acts chapter 4, we've got the writer of Acts, a man called

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Luke is showing us something he thinks is really important.

He's showing us the early church when it prays.

So this bit of Acts 4 is an example of the earliest

followers of Jesus praying together.

And Luke puts it in his history of the early church because he

knows we can learn a lot about what it means to pray as God's

people from this bit of Acts. But as we begin this morning,

I've just a question for all of us to think about for a moment.

Why do we often find it hard to pray?

That's a really big question, but I want you to take a few

minutes to think about that. So either just on your own,

reflect on that. Why do I find it hard to pray?

Maybe you can turn to the person or people next you get some

suggestions why we often find it hard to pray.

But let's just take a few minutes to think that through

and then we're going to think how this passage might help us.

So take a few minutes, either talk to the person next to you

or think in your own. Why do we often find it hard to

pray? Go.

OK, I've given you a couple of minutes there.

Anyone to share things that you talked about why we often find

it hard to pray or have a microphone if you're willing for

you to point it in your face. But yes, why do we find it hard

to pray? Any suggestions from people that

you were talking about? The person sitting next to you,

if you like. OK, let's do that.

We can feel shame for what he thinks we don't feel.

We feel like we can't come to God with our prayers.

Richard, thank you so much. We just feel shame or guilt.

Why would I go to God? I feel shamed or guilty.

You don't want. To admit failure.

Or that you need. Help.

Really. OK, we don't want to admit

failure again. Prayer.

It seems like an admission that we need help.

We might not like that. Tiredness or distraction.

Tiredness or distraction very much so.

Yep, Yep, that could be another thing.

Maybe another suggestion if anyone has any more.

Oh, this is good. Where?

Oh, sorry. Sorry, Laura.

We forget or we think we can do things ourselves.

Yes, thank you. We forget or we think we can do

things ourselves again. Actually, prayer is just another

thing and we just kind of forget it sometimes.

There are loads of different answers we can give actually to

why we can find prayer difficult.

I think there's a couple of ones that this passage in particular

this week I was thinking really helps us with.

I mean, we link into some of things we've been saying.

The forgetting bit, I think particularly we forget who we're

praying to. We forget who God is and why we

can pray to him. We lose sight of God in the

midst of everything else. And so as we don't know how to

pray in hard times, again, we sometimes imagine that prayer is

something that spiritually strong people do.

But when we're struggling or not sure what we believe, when we

just don't know where to start in prayer.

But this passage is an example of how the earliest Christians

pray together in hard times and brought their needs before God.

So let's just remind ourselves what has just happened in the

book of Acts. So if you look back at Acts

Acts 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and 4, if you were here with us last few weeks,

Peter and John are just healed, a lame man in the temple in the

name of Jesus. Then they taught the crowds in

the temple proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

That's chapter 4, verse 2. And when the Jewish religious

leaders saw what Peter and John were doing, they didn't like it

because religious leaders are those who had rejected Jesus,

refused to believe he was God's anointed one.

They are the ones who had Jesus executed kneel to a cross just a

few months earlier, and they were threatened by what the

apostles were doing in the temple.

So we're told in the first bit of Acts 4, the religious leaders

had Peter and John arrested, thrown into prison overnight.

They put them on trial, all in order to silence them, and they

commanded the apostles. Peter and John do not speak to

anyone else in the name of Jesus.

And so this is what happens next.

The apostles are released. They go back to their people and

they respond by praying together.

They see their needs. They don't claim they can do it

in their own strength. And so they get together and

they raise their voices to God in prayer.

And again, I think Luke is wanting to teach every church

principles about prayer here. I think Luke wants to show us

the God we pray to in our first little section and then how to

pray in hard times in our second section.

And between those two bits, we're actually going to

celebrate the Lord's Supper, take some time to sing and

worship together as well. But let's look at the first bit,

then the God we pray to. That's verses 23 to 28.

So again, we saw that verse 23. On their release, Peter and John

went back to their own people and reported all that the chief

priests and elders had said to them, their own people.

That's probably a reference just to other believers.

It could involve their family and friends, but it's usually a

reference to the people of God. This early church in Jerusalem.

And actually we saw last week that Peter and John, Peter

Bertilli, and once as he'd had a really impressive performance in

front of the Jewish religious leaders, he refused to be

silenced by the religious leaders.

The Holy Spirit filled him and gave him the courage to live for

Jesus. But you see, being filled by the

Spirit, someone saying that means, well, that just means

you're superhuman and you can just do anything.

But actually being filled with the Spirit doesn't mean you

still don't need other people or that you don't need God's help

the next day. You can't just live off past

victories, past experiences in your life.

We always need God's help every moment of every day.

So Peter and John came to the other believers.

They said they needed the love and support of other Christians

in this difficult time. They needed God to meet with

them and help them keep living for Jesus.

So verse 24, they raise their voices together in prayer to

God. Again, I think it's amazing what

Peter and John show us here. They don't just keep their

struggles bottled up to themselves.

They don't say, well, let's not tell the other Christians what

happened because we don't want to look weak.

They say, no, actually Christians, here's what

happened. Please, let's pray together for

courage to keep living for Jesus.

And also they could do something else.

They could just have gotten together and just complained

about the religious leaders. They could have just moaned

about what happened, get angry about what had happened.

But no, they prayed together. They did the best thing they

could do is they said, God, we need your help.

We can't do this on our own. And they reminded themselves of

the gods that they trusted in because as Anne said, actually

in Montes, we can, we can forget to pray.

Life is busy. We can lose sight of who God is.

And so they begin this prayer by reminding themselves who the God

of the gospel is. And the first thing they said to

remind us is that he is the sovereign Lord who made us.

That's that's verse 24. That is so if you look down

there, sovereign Lord, they said you made the heavens and the

earth and the sea and everything in them Again, you might say,

well, what's that got to do with religious leaders?

What's that got to do with all the early Christians are

struggling with? Well, well, one reason why we

often don't pray much in our lives is our God is too small.

We make God a very small God. So our problems and our

struggles seem massive and God is small by comparison.

The the things that threaten us seem huge and God seems small by

comparison. And in the case of the early

church, the religious leaders would have looked huge to them.

They had huge power in Jerusalem.

They had the power to arrest the apostles.

They are the guys who even had Jesus executed.

It'll be very easy for the early church to feel overwhelmed by

the forces ranged against them, but that's why they opened their

prayer by reminding themselves who God is.

God is the sovereign Lord who made us.

God is the sovereign Lord. That word sovereign, What does

it mean? It basically means the living

God is the king and ruler over the whole universe.

It means that every human ruler we can think about, every human

ruler we might be scared of, whether that's a king or an

emperor or a president or a military leader.

Every spiritual authority we might be frightened of, every

single one of them is ruled over by the living God, by the

Sovereign Lord, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And the early believers remind themselves here, our God is

greater than any of the forces raged against us.

So we go to him and ask him to help us.

Yeah, it's amazing. They just stop and go.

Actually, let's remind ourselves who God is.

He's the God who made us. He made the heavens and the

earth and the sea. And somebody just really help

you just to stop and think about that.

Think about the vastness of the universe, the stars in the sky,

solar systems and galaxies we know nothing about.

Think of the sky at night or the sky in the morning when the sun

is rising. There's this vast expanse.

God made that. Think of some of the wonders of

the world, the place maybe you've been to, you've seen on

TV. Think about the Grand Canyon or

the Pacific Ocean or the French Alps or Victoria Park, these

wonders of the world and God made them.

Think of the most awe inspiring thing you've ever seen.

God is the God who made us and that reminds these Christians

He's the sovereign Lord. He's greater and more powerful

than any people or forces that threaten us.

That's why we pray to him. And even more than that, it's

not just that he's powerful and big because again, as as we

said, that might just make us just to want to hide from him.

But actually, secondly, they realize he's the God who speaks

to us. That's verses 25 to 26.

He's the God who speaks to us. God hasn't left us in the dark.

Just to guess what he might be like from looking at the world

around us. Know the God we pray to is the

God who speaks to us. That's what the early church

remember here, look at verse 25. They say you spoke by the Holy

Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our Father David.

Now, there's a whole doctrine of Scripture in that one verse.

What Christians believe about the Bible, the Bible, what we're

looking at this morning is God speaking to us by the Holy

Spirit. He does that through the mouths

of human authors like King David.

It's written by human authors. But the Bible is God's word

speaking to us by the Holy Spirit.

The living God is speaking to us right now by His Spirit as we

look at his words. And what's that got to do with

prayer? Well, that's got everything to

do with prayer because prayer isn't just a one way

conversation. I think one of the reasons why I

suddenly struggle with prayer is it feels like I'm just talking

to the ceiling and I'm not getting much back.

I'm just, I think what Shakespeare said.

I troubled deaf heaven with my bootless cries, which is a nice

line, but it feels like heaven's deaf is all.

Like, is God really there? Is God really listening?

But actually the Bible reminds us we are speaking to the God

who has already spoken to us. It's actually a two way

conversation. We hear God in his word and we

speak to him in prayer. Prayer is US speaking to the God

who speaks to us in his Word. And that changes the

relationship. And it's a particular bit of the

Bible the early church looks at here.

It's Psalm 2, which is one of the kind of foundational Psalms

he looked at in the summer. Here sets the tone for all the

Psalms that follow and and the bit the Kurdish church quotes is

this. They say, why do the nation's

rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together

against the Lord and against his anointed one.

It's kind of a weird thing to to cool from maybe but but it

really fits with what's going on for the early church and in fact

for any local church like ours. This sum reminds us that we've

seen a few times already, there will always be people who oppose

God and God's people in this world.

That's because we all have a problem without God's help.

We are all dominated by what the Bible calls sin.

And sin's not just bad things we do though.

It is that it's actually an attitude in our hearts towards

God. Years ago, someone help me with

this in a kids worker, it was shove off God, I'm in charge.

No to your ways. That's a good way of thinking of

sin. Sin's an attitude in our heart.

So it goes. I don't want God, I don't want

to listen to Him. And that's exactly what the

religious leaders were guilty of here.

And that's exactly what a lot of people in our world are.

They don't want to know God. And the early Christians remind

themselves of this. Amazingly, in Psalm 2, it says

the nation's rage for Israelites.

They thought that meant the Gentiles.

But here the early church goes. Actually, even the Jewish

religious leaders who reject Jesus are in this Psalm.

But then they also remember from this Psalm that Jesus, he is

God's king, come to put things right.

Jesus the focus of the hatred of of people, but that's because

he's God's king. He's God's king come to put

things right and to follow Jesus.

The early Christians say that means we're on the winning side.

That means no matter what the religious leaders say, actually

we are following God's king. We're on the winning side, we're

on the right side and they want to hold on to that truth here.

I think the final thing we get from Psalm 2 is that they're

remembering that as Christians, we share in Jesus suffering and

Jesus shares in our suffering. They might think, well, maybe

we're doing it wrong, Lord, are we doing it wrong that the

originators don't like us? Maybe they should like us more.

But no, Sam too reminds them that the opposition they were

facing is a sign that they were being treated the same way Jesus

was treated. They were sharing in the

sufferings of Jesus. It was actually a sign that they

truly belonged to Jesus, that this was happening.

It's amazing to think they're not alone in their suffering.

Jesus knows what it's like to face opposition, and he's able

to help us when we face opposition.

So again, these early Christians remind themselves, who is the

God we're praying to? He's He's the sovereign Lord who

made us, the God who speaks to us.

And finally, he's the God who works all things for our good.

Again, the early church gathered in that room in Acts 4.

They must have felt pretty scared.

The religious leaders have told them do not speak to anyone else

in the name of Jesus. And the religious leaders, they

are stronger than the early church.

They had greater resources. The early church looks small and

weak by comparison. But by raising their voices

together in prayer to God, they're remembering the God we

pray to is the God who works all things for our good.

Even when things look hopeless and bleak, God is working for

good. And the greatest example of that

they remember is the cross of Jesus.

If you look at verses 27 to 28, they remember the events leading

up to Jesus death on the cross. They remember the conspiracy

against Jesus. Powerful rulers united against

him. King Herod, Pontius Pilate, the

Roman governor, the Gentiles, the people of Israel.

There's a huge number of people all out to get Jesus.

And it looks hopeless. It looks like Jesus is defeated.

He's on the cross, he dies, he's buried.

Game over. But even at the cross,

especially at the cross, God is working for the good of His

people. God was still sovereign.

He was still in control. He was still working out his

saving purposes. Verse 28 All of Jesus enemies

did what God's power and will had decided beforehand should

happen. Both enemies didn't win at the

cross. Jesus won at the cross, and it's

the same for the early church. God's enemies aren't going to

win against them. Jesus is going to win.

And that is why we pray to God in hard times, why we look to

God to help us in hard times. Because the God we pray to is

the God who works all things for our good.

He's the God who made us. He's the God who speaks to us.

So we come to him and ask Him to help us in hard times.

So we take the Lord's Supper. We remember the way the early

church remembered who the God is that we pray to.

And we're going to finish our time really briefly thinking of

actually how do they pray? The first bit of the prayer is

all about them talking to God about who He is and about how

they can trust him, what He's done for us.

But how do they actually pray? How do we pray in hard times?

Just a couple of things as we finish.

What's really striking when you look at the prayer of the early

church's praise is they don't ask God to destroy their enemies

or to remove their enemies. You might expect that just

Sovereign Lord destroy our enemies.

They don't do that. Instead, they pray for boldness

and courage to keep speaking the word of God in the midst of

their enemies. So their prayers less about

changing their situation and more on asking God to be with

them in their situation. So we look at the prayers they

pray, they say, first of all, consider their threats, Lord,

they ask God, God, see what the religious leaders are saying,

see what they're saying to us. Keep a record of it.

Don't, don't miss the way they're treating us.

They're asking God to judge his enemies when the time is right

to do that because they take confident the fact that living

God will one day judge all evil and all evildoers.

And because of that, we Christians don't have to take

revenge. We don't have to take matters

into our own hands. We can trust God to do what's

right so they don't have to set up a freedom fighting movement

against the religious leaders, the early church.

Do they say consider their threats?

Lord, you see this. Consider it.

Do what is right when the time is right.

And that's a precious thing we can do.

We look at our world, we look at the situations we're in, maybe,

maybe challenges in our family and our workplace.

We kind of think, how do I fix this?

I've got to, I've got to do something.

I've got to take matters into my own hands.

But actually the, the place we start is going, Lord, you see

this. Lord, remind me that you see

what's happening. Consider what's going.

Will you do what is right in the end?

They trust God and they trust God's justice.

And so can we when we pray about our world, about situations,

it's not all on us. We go, Lord, you see, consider

their threats. The heart of the prayer really

is verse 29. Enable us to speak your word

boldly. Now again, in one sense, the

Spirit's already done that for Peter and John in the early bit

of of chapter 4. Again Peter filled with the Holy

Spirit declared boldly the good news about Jesus.

But again, they don't just say, well, I did it in the past, so

it's I can do it again. No, they say, Lord, we need your

help. Keep giving us the courage and

the love we need to live for you.

Prayer is a day by day, moment by moment dependence on God.

We can't just go, well, yeah, I did some great things for you a

few years ago, Jesus, so I'm fine.

You go. Even if, even if you were really

used powerfully by God yesterday, you need to come to

him today and say, Lord, just enable me to follow you.

Enable me to live as your witness.

There are people around us who need to know the good news of

Jesus, People in our community of Clarendon Park, on the

streets where we live, in our families and our workplaces.

This is a prayer. We need to pray.

Enable us to speak your word boldly.

It is frightening someone's living as witnesses of Jesus.

We can get it badly wrong. That's why we need to come to

God and OK, Lord, show us what to do.

Enable us to speak your word boldly.

And the last thing they pray is they say stretch out your hand

to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your

holy servant Jesus. That's verse 30.

How are we meant to understand that verse as a church family

here at Ave. today? Well, if you hear last week, we

we said this in the time for questions that Ave. we're kind

of we're call, we'll call it as cautiously continuationist,

which there was a very bit of a word for our mindful.

But that means we believe as a church that God has the power to

step in and heal people. If that is his will, we can ask

him to do that and we rejoice when he does do that.

He has done that in recent years for some people in our church

family and we rejoice in that. But the cautious part of that

says we can't demand it or insist, but you have to heal

this person because I want you to.

No, we have to trust Him. We're not in the new creation

yet. We still live in a fallen world.

Our situations may not always change, just like the early

churches situation didn't change.

I see. What they ask God to do is to

stretch out your hand. Be at work among us and be at

work through US. Lord, the early church knows

they need God to work. It's not just up to them to be

witness of Jesus. Say, Lord, stretch out your

hand. Make us more like Jesus.

Give us boldness to speak for Jesus.

Give us courage and love in this world.

And stretch out your hand not only in our lives, but in the

lives of the people around us. Transform the lives of the

people we spend time with, just as God transformed the life of

that lame man in the temple. We should be praying.

Lord, stretch out your hand to do what only you can do.

The danger, we just go, well, well, what can we do as a group

of people? That's all God can ever do

through us. But as you know, God is the

sovereign Lord who made us. He's the powerful, loving God,

and we need to pray. Lord, stretch out your hand.

Be at work among us and be at work through us.

An older friend of mine once, he says that the job of the local

church is to show people around us, this is what God's Kingdom

looks like. This is what it looks like to be

part of the Kingdom of God. This is what a loving community

look like. This is what a forgiving

community looks like. This is what people who share

their lives together. That's what it looks like.

People who boldly proclaim Jesus, who pray for their

enemies, who seek to love the people around them.

We need to God to stretch out his hands to make us like those

people that we need to be if we are to be witnesses for Jesus.

So this prayer, stretch out your hand, heal us, change us,

transform us, make us more like Jesus and verse 31, God

reassures them that he is with them by his Spirit.

After they pray, the place that they were meeting was shaken.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word

of God boldly. This group of people who grew in

their love for God and their love for people, speaking the

word of God boldly wherever they went.

This is a powerful passage. It's it's a passage that

stretches us because do we really believe this is the God

we pray to? Do we really believe God can

work among us and through us as a church family and as

individuals in this particular place?

Do we trust God's justice, not take matters into our own hands?

Do we ask for boldness to speak for Him?

Do we ask God to change us in ways that only He can?

Next Sunday night, we've got opportunities to pray together

as a church, our family meeting. Every month we have an

opportunity to pray together as a church, our home groups.

We've opportunities to pray for each other as a church family.

We do that because of the God we pray to and because even in hard

times, even especially in hard times, He draws near to us and

we can worship him and see his work in our lives.

So let me pray for us now as we prepare to leave this passage.

Let me let me pray. Father God, we started this

morning thinking each one of us actually can find it hard to

pray to you. Lord, we, we, we don't see you

the way we want to. We have such busy lives.

There's loads of other things around us.

It feels like that the people and the situations around us are

big and you are small. But Lord, please, would you

forgive us for that? And would you open our eyes by

your Spirit to your majesty, Your goodness, Your love, and

Your power at work among us? Would we rejoice in your

sovereignty? And will we ask you give us

boldness, Stretch out your hand to change us.

Help us to trust you in this world.

Lord, if we're going to live as witnesses for Jesus, we need you

to work among us, and we need to learn the dependence on You that

the early church knew all about South.

Lord, as a result of this time together, would you teach us how

to pray and teach us how to live as your people in this world.

For we ask it in Jesus precious name, Amen.