"Understanding the Foundations for Answered Prayer" - Pastor Greg Addison - Jan. 21, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Man, I love that chorus.

Thank you, choir, and praise team, Jessica, orchestra, and everyone for leading us in worship.

And I really do love that hymn, and that may show up again in just a minute in the sermon.

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 4, and we're continuing our study on being a house of prayer.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

We talked last week, and if you were not able to be here because of the weather and all that, I hope you'll go online and catch up if you didn't see that.

We talked about why Jesus said that and what it meant to him when he said the church, his people, will be called a house of prayer.

And today we're going to look at what that looks like.

Now, here's a fundamental question, though, and I get this a lot as a pastor, and I as I talk to my pastor friends, we got we get this a lot as well.

They'll say things like, Why in the world do we have to pray if God already knows what we need?

Like, what's what is the exercise here?

What's going on with that?

Now, I know we have a relationship with the Lord, and we're supposed to talk to him, but really, I mean, what is happening in this?

How does this work?

Well, it's because we are learning as a people how to approach the Lord, and we have to learn to approach the Lord because we have to have a faith developed that God answers prayer and what that means.

And so in James, uh the Bible says this you don't, you have not because you ask not, or if you do ask, you ask wrongly or with the wrong motive.

And so prayer is something that we learn about who God is and how this communication works, and those are built on certain biblical foundations.

Now, here's one of the foundations we need to see, though, is that God answers prayer and he has promised to answer prayer.

And we're going to learn those foundations today in the context of an answered prayer here in the book of Acts.

Now, where we find ourselves in Acts chapter 4, Acts chapter 3 is a part of this ongoing narrative and experience.

Acts 4 · chapter mention Acts 3 · chapter mention

So what happens is the apostles, you know, Jesus has ascended, the gospel is breaking out, the day of Pentecost has already happened, the apostles are preaching the gospel, people are getting saved.

Peter and John and probably several of the others are on their way to the temple, and there's a lame man, a man who's been lame, he can't walk.

The Bible tells us he's 40 years old, and it was what happened in those days.

They couldn't work, and so they would be beggars to use that term.

They're panhandling to use a modern term.

They're asking for help because they can't work, and they would put themselves at key locations where there's lots of traffic, and you put yourself at a key location where people of God supposedly are going.

So this guy's here at the gate to the temple, and he is constantly there.

He's been there for a long time.

People know who he is.

As they walk by, he asks Peter for money, and Peter and John tell him this silver and gold, we don't have any of that.

But we do have Jesus.

And so in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.

And they heal this lame man, and a man who has been lame his whole life, right there in front of all these people, many of them recognize who he is.

He stands up and he can walk.

And as you can imagine, the Bible says he began walking and then leaping because he figured out he could do that, and then he's praising God because this is the first time he's walked in his whole life.

As you can imagine, that creates an incredible stir.

There's no question about is this some fake deal, like on television or some other kind of a deal, because they've been seeing this guy for a long time.

He is known, and even if they don't know him personally, they know, and they know his family, and they know what's happened.

And now he's walking, he's running around, he's praising God, and this crowd begins, and so Peter and James and John begin to preach.

And this creates an incredible stir in the temple area, uh, as we'll see, and then we pick up in chapter four.

And so I'm going to skim through some of this till we get to the main part of our text.

And so, if you'll look here in chapter 4, verse 1, the Bible says, as they were speaking to the people, the priests, the commander of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them because they were provoked.

That means they were hacked off, that they were teaching the people and proclaiming the resurrection from the dead using Jesus as an example.

Now they're hacked off for a number of reasons.

First of all, they're wreaking havoc in the temple.

We talked about last week how Jesus wreaked havoc in the temple and messed up their commerce and selling and all the stuff they were doing when he threw out the money changers, and now all of a sudden you got these Jesus people, they're wreaking havoc again.

And so the temple police are all upset.

What's this world?

It looks like a riot, what's going on, all this kind of stuff.

The Sadducees and the Pharisees are mad because they put Jesus to death already, and now these people are bringing Jesus back up.

Now, who are the Sadducees and all that?

Real quick lesson here.

Um there was a there were a couple of groups of leaders in Jewish society.

The first was a group called the Sanhedrin, and you might think of them as an elder body or maybe the Supreme Court of Jewish law because, you know, this is a theocracy, basically, to the extent that Rome would allow them to do that.

And so the Sanhedrin is made up of these leaders, it includes priests, it includes Pharisees, it includes this group called the Sadducees, and so they are the ones that make decisions and adjudicate the law and things like that.

They're the ones, that's the court that officially put Jesus to death.

Okay?

And then there are two political groups that are active in society in Israel at that time, and they make up political factions as a part of the Sanhedrin.

See, politics has been around as long as there have been people, right?

And so the Sadducees are a group of people, they're very conservative, they're pseudo-religious, but they're even more political or as political as they are religious.

And there were certain beliefs that they had.

They believed in the law and the Jewish faith, but they had interpreted it differently.

And because God had not been moving for a long time until the time Jesus came, they didn't believe in the resurrection from the dead.

That's another reason they're mad.

They put Jesus to death, Jesus rose again.

They don't believe that happens.

They believed he was a heretic anyway, he was causing all kinds of problems, and now these people are preaching that Jesus was risen from the dead, and they're all hacked off, and and and their plan when they got rid of Jesus is coming apart because there are now more people beginning to follow Jesus than did before.

And so they're mad because of all that.

And then you had the Pharisees, and they are much more religious than political.

Sadducees as a political group are more um are more political or equal political to religious.

They're trying to accommodate Rome so that Rome stays out of their business so they can continue to be Jewish and all that.

Pharisees are much more religious, they are anchored in the law.

In fact, they are so anchored in the law, they are very much performance-driven, legalistic, as we would say today.

You have to obey all the pieces of the law, you have to obey all the things in the law.

And so that's when, now these two groups did not get along, Sadducees and Pharisees.

These are political battles, except for, as we would say today, um, a common enemy makes us partners.

And so Jesus was the common enemy of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and so they come together when they wouldn't agree on anything else, but they agreed they didn't like Jesus and he was a problem, and so that's why they joined together and they put him on the cross and crucified him and all of that, and now all of that Jesus stuff is coming back.

And these Jesus people now have the audacity to do miracles and heal people.

And if that's not bad enough, they are preaching that Jesus was raised from the dead and they're creating this whole new religion.

And so that's what's going on here.

And that's why, as you continue to read through the book of Acts, the persecution of the church grows and continues to move forward.

But here's what you see.

This is beginning to break out now.

As the people were speaking to the people, the priests, the commander of the temple police, and the Sadducees, they confronted them because they were provoked that they were preaching the, uh teaching the people and proclaiming the resurrection from the dead using Jesus as an example.

So they seized them, put them in custody until the next day, since it was already evening.

So they took them, put them in county lockup, kept them there all night.

But the Bible says many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of men came to about 5,000.

And in those days, the way they would count, they would count the male population of things, but that means there were women and children that got saved also.

So revival is breaking out from the preaching of Jesus.

An incredible period of time.

The next day the Bible says, if you continue to read, they pull them in, they start lecturing them.

You guys have got to quit all this.

They threaten them.

They say, look, it's up for y'all to decide whether, you know, you think it's right or wrong or not before God and all that, but we're just telling you, we cannot stop telling people about Jesus.

We were with him, we saw him, and we can't stop.

They threaten him again, they let him go.

Right?

They go back to the church folks in that day, and here's what happens, beginning in verse 23.

Read with me.

After they were released from this threatening time in prison and all that, they went to their own people, that's the church people, and reported everything the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

So they came back and told everybody.

Everybody's going, Where have y'all been?

Where have y'all been?

Let's tell you what happened.

When they heard this, the people heard this, they all raised their voices to God.

Praying together is the picture of the church.

Just as this church prayed together, it is the role of the church to pray together.

That's why God said, My house should be called a house of prayer.

And we know the church is not this building.

Pastor, where I grew up, used to say all the time, this is just premature rubble.

We are the church.

And so our response to be house of prayer is to be praying together all of the time, and you see it modeled, and you see it modeled again.

They all cry out to the Lord, and here is their joint prayer together.

Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them.

You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our David, our father David, your servant, and now they're going to pray scripture from the Old Testament.

Why did the Gentiles rage and the people plot futile things?

The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers assembled together against the Lord and against his Messiah.

And just as it was prophesied and taught in the Old Testament, they're seeing it happen now, and so they are praying this scripture back to the Lord.

For in fact, in this city, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

Now remember, this is their prayer, and they're praying this back to the Lord.

To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, consider their threats and grant that your slaves may speak your message with complete boldness while you stretch out your hand for healing signs and wonders to be performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak God's message with boldness.

An incredible passage of Scripture here that we need to get our arms around, and I hope it becomes a vision.

This is a great passage of scripture for us to understand as we are talking about praying together as God's people.

Because don't you want to be in a church service where the Holy Spirit moves in and starts shaking the building?

I mean, really, this is what we get.

This is what should be happening in the church.

God should be shaking the very foundation of what's happening and how we're doing it, because the power of the creator God moves when his people pray together.

And you see that right here.

So the first foundation I want you to see, and I've just made it clear, it's not even part of the outline.

I just want you to see this first.

God answers prayer.

God answers prayer.

They called out to the Lord as his people, and he shook the building just to let them know that he heard them.

He shook the building just to get them excited.

The Holy Spirit comes in and moves in them, and there is a freedom for the Holy Spirit to move because God's people, together in unity, are calling out to the Lord.

He answers prayer.

Now listen, here's what we need to understand.

You can't let people and the fear of, you know, being the prosperity gospel or whatever kind of thing and all this stuff, we're always worried about that, and we should be worried about that, and that's wrong theology and all that.

We shouldn't listen to TV preachers, and I'm saying that as I'm preaching on television this morning.

But listen, we should never let that kind of stuff take away from us a fundamental belief that our God answers prayer.

Jesus died on the cross to save people.

And if we pray and ask for boldness and effective preaching of the gospel, don't you think Jesus wants to answer that prayer?

He died on the cross to answer that prayer.

And most of the reason that we don't see our buildings shaken with life change and people being saved is because we are not crying out to the Lord as a people enough with a fundamental belief that when we pray, God moves.

And we've always got to understand God is waiting to move.

Now, yes, God is not some slot machine.

Prayer is not, you know, our bank account, and we go draw from that, and just because you pray, it happened.

That is not what prayer is.

And we're going to look at those foundations in a moment.

Understand that.

You cannot always tell God what the answer is.

Now, here, they're praying for God to move, and they're praying against the persecution of the church, and they're praying for boldness to continue to preach.

And what happens, how does God answer that prayer as it unfolds?

Well, over the next seven or eight chapters, you find out what happens.

They do have boldness in preaching.

The number of people getting saved is multiplying, and the persecution gets infinitely greater.

So you cannot necessarily dictate to God what answer you want.

And we are praying because we believe he is God and we're not.

He knows more than we do, and he has a plan that he wants to accomplish, and prayer is trying to bring us in line with what he wants to accomplish.

But here's the deal: even though the persecution got greater, the gospel got greater.

And you even find out later on, after the stoning of Stephen, who's the first martyr for preaching the gospel that we know of, reflected in the book of Acts, here's what happens.

The persecution grows infinitely, and because of that, it's so bad, people spread out around the world, but what do they do?

All these Jesus people take Jesus with them, and they all become the first missionaries, and churches are planted in cities around the known world because God is greater than any opposition to the gospel.

And God answers prayer.

Look at what it says that they began to speak God's message with boldness, and that is how God answered their prayer.

And because he answered their prayer, people were saved, and they were used to advance the gospel.

Now that's what I want.

That's what I want to be a part of.

I want to be a part of God using us to advance the gospel.

I want to see people saved.

Man, I'm telling you, I got a hunger, and I'm just going to share it with you.

I don't say a lot of stuff like this because I don't want to be all dramatic and all this kind of weird and all that.

But but but I know of churches where people have started coming and getting saved, and they've just had to have a baptismal service, and they've had to do it right then.

I've decided I want to be a part of one of those services.

And I'm asking the Lord to do that.

I'm not for me, not because I want to brag about it or whatever deal.

I just want us to be a part of seeing people saved like that, don't you?

I want to see people saved.

I've also started praying.

I want Pastor Joel's church to experience that in London.

That's why we're in partnership with gospel people, because we want to see people saved.

And I've just decided I may even give up experiencing it if God will let them experience it in their church.

Because of the nature and the spiritual coldness and the darkness in London, man, if He'd shake their church and people get saved, I would consider that participating, wouldn't you?

I'm good with that.

Like, let's go with that.

And so as we talk about the church praying together, we we should always talk about that in the context that we believe with a faith down to the bottom of the soles of our feet, that God answers prayer.

Now, there is a way that we are learning how to pray.

As we come to him, as we reach out to him in prayer, we learn that what those foundations of prayer are are the ways or the truths, however you want to say that, of how we learn more about God and we connect with him and we surrender ourselves to him and his plans.

Now, I've been working through the last few weeks a prayer study.

I would highly recommend it to you.

It's been around a long time, but it's been around a long time because it's that good and it won't go away.

It's called the Disciples Prayer Life, written by a man named T.W.

Hunt, who's a longtime prayer leader.

I mean, this thing is as old as I am, if not older.

Okay?

I mean, it's been around a long time.

But I'm telling you, it's incredible.

It is an incredible study.

And he grabs for us in a way that I think fits in this setting really well four foundations that we can look to that are biblical principles about why and how God answers prayer.

You see those on the screen like that.

He answers prayers first that acknowledge God as God.

He answers prayer that are supported by the intercession prayer ministry of Jesus as our high priest.

He answers prayer that are supported by the intercession prayer ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And he answers prayers that come from people in relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

Now, all four of those are valid biblical reasons.

One of those is enough.

Some prayers cover two or three of those because they are interrelated spiritually.

And this particular prayer, it's a great for us to look at this one because it has all four.

It touches all four foundations and it helps you see them.

Now it's important for us to understand as we pray as a church, we want to learn to shape our prayers so we are coming to the Lord as focused on him as we can and trusting in him and aligning ourselves with him as best we can in those prayers.

That's why they're reaching out to the Lord here.

They're seeing people saved, thousands of people have been saved, they're seeing miracles like people healed, and they don't want that to stop.

And so they come to the Lord and they reach out and they plead to him as a church.

And we can learn those foundations of answered prayer so that we can see the shaking and the boldness that they saw in their prayer.

Now, here's uh let's look at um at each of these kind of individually and just kind of show you how they work.

Now, these also work in your life and my life.

So this is lesson both personally and for us as a church.

And so the first foundation is this God answers prayers that acknowledge God.

Him as God.

I mean, when we come to pray, the first thing we're doing is we are, in a sense, whether it's in our heart or physically, we are kneeling before him because he is God and we are not.

We are in surrender to him, we are acknowledging he is God, we are acknowledging it that he is the one who is powerful and that we don't have the power.

We are literally surrendering ourselves to him when we acknowledge him as God.

It changes the presumption that we come to God and we expect him to give the answer that we want.

We come knowing that he has the power and he has the plan, and I need him more than anything else.

Now see this in their prayer.

They even begin it on the foundation of Scripture, and it's always awesome to use Scripture as a foundation for your prayer.

They use that foundation, they quote that scripture from David about the kings of the earth standing against the work of God, they connect that to them, and here's what they say: that they are assembled against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

They said, God, this is your plan.

You established the gospel, you set apart Jesus, you are a part of a work, and they are standing against what you have designed.

You see, they are acknowledging, look, we can't do this the way we want to, and we are dependent on you, and this is about Jesus, and you sent Jesus, and it's your plan, and so we need to tap into you.

When they begin to make their request, verse 29, and now, Lord, they acknowledge him as Lord.

Prayers that acknowledge God as God are prayers that say, Lord, you are the sovereign God of the universe.

You are the creative God of the universe.

All this is yours, and this plan is yours, and you are the one in charge.

It is acknowledging that when I gave my life to him as a follower of Christ, I placed my faith in Jesus as my Savior.

It was that I surrendered my life to him completely and totally, and he is in charge of my life.

Look at what they say.

Now, Lord, consider their threats and grant that your slaves may speak your message while you stretch out your hand for healing signs and wonders performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

God answers prayer when we come to Him and we acknowledge we are praying to you because you are God and I am not.

I am dependent on you.

God, don't let us see you move and people saved through our church so that we can brag about our church because Jesus is the only one who saves.

And anything that's good that happens in the church, it happens because Jesus did it.

And we are acknowledging Him as God and we are surrendering ourselves to Him and we are saying, God, you are God.

This is for your glory, this is in your power, it's according to your plan.

God, we are surrendered to you and we are asking that you show us, guide us, give us the faith and the strength to go through this.

This is whether you're pleading for God to move as a church or as Jacob shared before, if we're going through a struggle in life, when we acknowledge God as God and we and we kneel before Him, we are saying, Lord, I know that you are God, that you are powerful, that you can do whatever.

I know that this is your plan and you have a purpose in this plan, and I need you to protect me and guide me and strengthen me in this plan.

This is the foundation of that prayer.

The second foundation, we see them pray, Jesus as our high priest.

Now, just a quick lesson to make sure folks don't understand this.

The Bible describes Jesus as our high priest.

Now, the Jewish faith is built in the Old Testament deal where there are priests and there is a high priest, and he kills the sacrifice, takes the blood, puts it on the altar once a year.

That's the role of the high priest.

And that was an Old Testament picture that one day Jesus would become the Lamb of God, who would be sacrificed once for our sins.

And so in Hebrews, as it explains all these pieces of components of the Jewish faith and how Jesus fulfilled them, it says over and over again, He is our high priest.

He is the sacrifice for us.

He is the Lamb of God whose blood was shed for us.

As he rose again, offering us life and eternal life, and we place our faith in him, he becomes our mediator before the Lord.

He is the one who goes to the Lord before us.

Sometimes when I'm explaining salvation, I'll say this: Jesus died on the cross for our sins, rose again, conquering death and sin.

When I trust him as my Savior, I acknowledge him as Lord, like we talked about that first foundation.

I take my life, everything I've been, I am, and I ever will be, and I give all of that to Jesus.

It's all his.

And now what happens?

My sin, the price for my sin is paid for by Jesus as I've trusted him as my Savior.

And then what happens is his righteousness becomes mine.

And when God looks at me, he looks at me through the blood of Jesus Christ, and I am now forgiven and clean of my sins because of what Jesus did, and he is the one who mediated that and goes before us and brings us into the presence of Jesus.

In Hebrews chapter 10, it explains that we should boldly come into the Holy of Holies in the presence of God through the blood of Jesus, because he is our high priest, he is our mediator that brings us before God.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

The Bible also says, as we talked about, I think last week, maybe the week before, it's been in one of your readings, several times Scripture describes Jesus as right now being at the right hand of the Father, praying for us, interceding for us.

He is doing that as our high priest, Jesus.

He is praying for us, he is bringing us to the Lord, He is giving us the freedom to be in God's presence.

So when we come and we pray to Him, we are literally doing that because of the work of Jesus.

It is because of the gospel.

And as they pray, they are recognizing we are praying for the advance of the gospel, we are praying in the name of Jesus, we are praying for the glory of Jesus as the one who accomplished the gospel, and they have built that all throughout their prayer.

They assembled together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

They are acknowledging that Jesus was their high priest.

He was the one who accomplished the gospel, he is the one whose blood shed for our sins.

He is the one who brings us before the Lord.

And then he says that when you do all this work, it is through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And they are surrendering themselves to the work of Jesus and the advance of the gospel and what Jesus has done, and they are acknowledging that they can come into his presence because of the work of Jesus, and that is what Jesus is doing for us.

He is bringing us into his presence.

But if Jesus is going to be praying with us and for us, the first most important and most priority prayer that he is going to pray is that we get on gospel mission and that people are being saved.

And so when we pray and we bring ourselves in line with Jesus and the work of Jesus, we are bringing ourselves in line with the prayers that Jesus is praying for us.

Foundation number three.

The Holy Spirit is, if Jesus is our mediator, I describe the Holy Spirit as our prayer partner.

And so you see the intercession of the Holy Spirit at work here, and you know that the Holy Spirit is working in all of this because we're past the day of Pentecost, right?

The Holy Spirit has started to come.

He started to have it, people, they're starting to learn what all this is like.

As they are praying, they are learning the role of the Holy Spirit that we'll see in a minute, that he steps in and intercedes with us and translates our prayers for us alongside us to the Lord.

And the Holy Spirit has stepped in and he is now praying with them and for them and translating that answer to the Father.

And as the Father answers those prayers, it includes the indwelling, the filling of the Holy Spirit, the empowering of the Holy Spirit in what they do.

And look exactly what the Bible says.

When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak God's message with boldness.

I just want to show you on the screen, write it in your margins if you want there.

Romans chapter 8, verses 26 and 27.

Romans 8:26

This is an incredible message right here.

I don't have time to go into all this because I'm trying to get these foundations down, but I want you to see that your greatest prayer partner is the Holy Spirit.

In Romans chapter 8, he's explaining the effect of salvation to us.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

He's just described in verses before this that you through Jesus were adopted by God, and he is now your heavenly father.

And when you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you adopted, you are adopted, never to be disinherited.

You are now a joint heir with Christ.

You have access to the Lord.

He even gives that beautiful verse where he says, you can crawl in God's lap proverbially, spiritually, and call him Abba Father, which is what we would say daddy.

Or I'm dreaming of the day when Killian jumps in my arms when we go visit and says, Hey bomber, because that's my granddad name.

Abba was God's name to them as God the Father.

And then he says this in the same way that God's Spirit bears witness through our spirit, because we are his adopted children, in that same way, the Holy Spirit also joins to help us in our weakness.

Because we do not know what to pray for as we should know, but the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.

And then he describes those in this next verse.

He searches the hearts and knows the Spirit's mindset because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

In other words, what happens is the Holy Spirit knows what's in our hearts, and because he is God, part of the Trinity, he knows the heart of God.

And he is bringing us together.

I may not know what I need.

If I'm in that church, I may be praying in my heart, God, stop all of that persecution of your preachers.

The Holy Spirit comes back and says, Lord, listen, I know Greg asked you to stop the persecution, but I know that you understand that persecution is going to make them stronger and it's going to spread the gospel.

So here's what I'm going to tell you.

What Greg really means is he needs to feel your presence and your hand in that.

You need to give him a boldness that's greater than the persecution.

And then he brings that back into my heart, and God begins to answer that prayer, and he changes my heart and he aligns me with him.

And it even is down to the level, I love verse 26, prays for us, and one verse that says, groaning and utterings that we can't help.

Have you ever been in this moment where you were, you had such emotion?

I mean, you were just in this moment and you couldn't even put words to it.

All you could do was just the Holy Spirit knew exactly what that meant.

And he translated it word for word in its purest meaning to the Lord.

And he connected that back to our hearts.

That's why the Holy Spirit responds and fills them in this moment.

Because the Holy Spirit is acting as their prayer partner and he is connecting those prayers and drawing us in.

And when we are praying and we are seeking the Lord and we are genuinely acknowledging him as God, the Holy Spirit is doing exactly what he said.

He is helping us and translating us and coaching us through those prayers and translating them and translating the Father back to us.

And all of that is the work of God because Jesus saved us and we are now God's child.

We are in relationship with him because of who he is, and the Holy Spirit is working, and he moves in and fills and empowers in response to those prayers.

That's why so often it is described as a movement of the Holy Spirit when God begins to answer those prayers because that's literally what's happening.

Because we are praying, and he is praying alongside of us, and he is connecting us to the Father.

It's an incredible power.

And so, man, how is God not going to answer that prayer when the Holy Spirit is praying it alongside of us and bringing us the answers?

And the fourth foundation: God answers prayer when we acknowledge Him as God, as God.

He answers prayers when it lines up with the intercession work, the prayer work of Jesus as our Holy Spirit, when it lines up with the intercession work of the Holy Spirit as our prayer partner, Jesus is our high priest, and finally, he answers prayers because we are in relationship with him.

Look exactly what they said.

They come to him and they call him Lord because they have surrendered their lives to him, they have placed their trust, they have cast their lot, their whole life is dependent on the Lord.

They have given their lives to Jesus because he gave his life for them.

And they come and they pray, Lord, we are yours.

And then look what he says.

They rely on their relationship.

Lord, consider their threats and grant that your slaves may speak your message with boldness.

God, we are yours.

We are your people.

Peter, James, and John are preaching the gospel because you called them to do that.

Lord, I'm sharing Jesus with my family and my household.

I'm sharing Jesus with the people that I work with because you have commanded me to do that, and I am your slave because I have given my life to you and Jesus has saved me.

Why would God not answer that prayer if you are his?

There are two ways that we're in relationship with him, if you want to think about it this way: as children, as it says in Romans 8, or as servants of the gospel and working bearing fruit as he directs us, as slaves.

That's what they're talking about, as slaves are slaves to the gospel.

Paul said that often.

I'm slave to the gospel.

Describe men on mission trips with him as a fellow slave of the gospel.

And so here's the deal.

Which one do you pick?

What is the work?

Well, it doesn't really matter.

Sometimes it just depends on the circumstances.

Right now I'm going through a struggle, and God, I'm your child, and you promise to answer my prayers as your child.

When did he say that?

Right in your margin, Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Jesus teaches the version of what we call the Lord's Prayer right there at the beginning of chapter 11, and then he tells them to cry out the Lord, and he says, You keep knocking, you keep asking.

And he says, Listen, your heavenly Father loves you.

And if you as sinners would give your children good gifts, why would God not give you the Holy Spirit and everything he has for you?

Because you're his child.

Jesus has saved us.

We're in a relationship with him.

Why would he not answer that prayer?

He loves us.

He's waiting for us to bring those prayers to him so that he can answer them.

And when we learn to pray in those ways, man, we are lining ourselves up in that place where God can freely answer our prayers.

Where he can answer prayers that ways that blow our minds.

He will answer the prayers that Jesus died on the cross to answer for us.

And when we're pleading for the souls of boys and girls and men and women to come to faith in Jesus Christ in the river valley, and we are coming together as God's people, and we are praying in that way together, God will answer those prayers.

I believe it in the depth of my soul.

And based on the foundational authority of God's word.

Why did he show us how that church prayed?

Because he's teaching us how to pray too.

It works for us as a church, and it works in your life.

I am unashamedly calling us to prayer as a church.

Part of the invitation this morning, now we've gotten past ice and all that, is God calling you to a role in the prayer ministry of our church?

We've described them before.

You can go back and listen to the podcast or a prior message.

Come next Sunday night.

I know it's the playoffs.

Just record it, okay?

God calls us as people to prayer.

Is he asking you to commit to be a part of those prayers?

Second thing I want to ask you.

Have you acknowledged that God is God?

Have you trusted him as your Lord and Savior?

Have you acknowledged that you're a sinner and that means you have violated God's law with your behavior?

And acknowledge that as the giver of life and the creator of life and the author of the gospel, he sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, just as they've prayed in this passage of Scripture.

That he died for us and that he rose again conquering death and sin.

And have you given your life to him?

That first prayer you pray is to trust him as the Lord and Savior of your life.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, whether you're watching online or by television or you're here, I'm going to invite you to experience prayer on the first foundation of prayer.

Pray until the Lord that you acknowledge that He is God, that He planned the gospel and accomplished it through Jesus.

And you're going to surrender your life to Him.

Friends, He'll do more with your life than you could ever imagine.

You'll be an adopted child.

You'll be used for the advance of the gospel, and you'll spend an eternity in heaven with him.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you to come.

I'm going to pray, and God's people are going to stand and sing.

We'll have deacons and pastors up in the balcony here at the front of the aisles.

And if you need Jesus, you come.

Lord, we love you and we thank you.

And we come now acknowledging that you are God, but you planned and accomplished salvation.

We know that Jesus is there at your right hand praying for us.

The Holy Spirit is moving and speaking as we pray and translating this to your heart and giving you the opportunity to come and to speak to hearts and to speak to our church and move.

And Lord, as your children and as your servants, we ask that you move.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.