As I’ve probably shared with you once before, I was tremendously challenged by a conversational exchange in a short-lived situation comedy. It was a comedy where the late Danny Thomas played a doctor. There was a scene in “The Practice” where a nurse overhears Thomas’ character praying. When she comments on it, the doctor denies it. “I was not praying,” he argued, “I was talking to God.”
How horrible it is that society thinks of prayer as something where we have to use archaic language and “Insert the right pious-sounding theological term or expression here.” How sad it is to think that prayer has become, at least in the minds of the general public, something that is separate and distinct from conversing with God. Frankly, the very fact that we can converse with God is testimony to the fact that we have a relationship with the living Lord.
As we read our text this morning, the first thing I notice is that Peter and John leave the custody of the Sanhedrin and head right away to meet with the other people in the church. They share the situation with the church and the first thing the church does is to pray. They don’t have a clinic or training session. They don’t schedule a revival meeting. They don’t create a new church program. They don’t suggest books to read on the subject of dealing with the authorities in a “culture war.” They don’t make excuses as to why they’re going to have to miss a few services or why they have to resign their positions. They don’t accuse the church leaders of being lazy or simply consign everything to being in the “last days” as an excuse to do nothing. Instead, they pray. And that’s exactly what we should do in crisis or opportunity. We should gather together and pray with one accord.
Today, we live in an era when society has turned against those of us who believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation. Today, we live in an era when hostile invective is thrown at Bible-believing Christians because our values and beliefs are a roadblock to their secularizing plans. Today, we live in a country where the political environment has turned hostile and we see more and more laws and interpretations of laws being turned against us. Today, more than at any other time in our lives, we need to learn anew how to pray. And I can’t think of any better tutorial for praying in a “culture war” than this prayer in Acts 4:24-30. (Read it and lead in prayer)
The very first word in this prayer is absolutely amazing. The King James translates it as “Lord” because that noun represented powerful authority in the days of King James. This isn’t the usual New Testament word for “Lord,” though. This is the word, “DEHS-poh-tah”—the Greek noun from which we get the word, “despot.” Now, since that word often means “tyrant,” I don’t think we’d feel very comfortable opening a prayer by appealing to God as “Tyrant.” Yet, the New Testament church wanted to underscore just how powerful God was and how much authority God wielded. Some translations use words to emphasize the sovereignty of God in translating this prayer, but let’s face it, the early church is admitting to God that “He’s the baddest!” They’re saying that if God wanted to be, God COULD be the fiercest tyrant of them all.
And why was God so powerful? Why does God wield this authority? It is because God is Creator. God didn’t merely make the solid ground where we feel comfortable standing, but God created the seas that seemed so threatening and unsettling to the Hebrews and the heavens beyond where they could see. God not only created all, but God populated all. Therefore, it all belongs to God. It’s all God’s intellectual and real property.
And this is precisely why we are in a “culture war,” today. The hostile atheists do not want to admit that God is Creator because such an admission would give God authority over their lives. They would rather serve chance so that all experience is relative and so that there are no absolutes—except perhaps, their certainty that there is no God. Cruising down the cable dial the other day, I saw a portion of a “South Park” episode. I don’t recommend this cartoon and its foul-mouthed, spoiled children but this particular episode caught my attention because a character was literally praying to science. The episode posited a future where the atheists had won. They said, “Praise Science!” “Thank Science!” and “In the name of Almighty Science!” such that Science had taken the place of God in that prayer-like language (and, I’m sorry to say, in the episode’s profanity, as well). The essential thrust of the episode was that people like Richard Dawkins (parodied by name) had taught the world that religion created hate and that no one was supposed to hate UNLESS THEIR SCIENCE DISAGREED WITH OUR SCIENCE. I think it is most interesting that, when it comes to evolution as the mechanism for beginnings, so-called scientists break their own rules of empiricism and insist that there could not be an Intelligent Designer and there could not have been a Creator God. Why? Because if God is Creator, there is implied meaning, direction, and authority in life! If everything is chaos such that it is without meaning, direction, and authority, then no one can tell us what to do. It’s ALL GOOD! At least, that’s what they say. It’s just that it isn’t.
The early church recognized that God’s authority is established and verified in God’s creation. We submit to God because God created us and knows what is best for us. That is insulting, dehumanizing, and frightening to the secular progressives. They want the waters of morality and values to remain murky enough that they can make their own rules. So, powerful prayer begins by admitting God’s authority.
Notice also that the early church prayed the Scripture. In verses 25-26, they quote from Psalm 2—the Psalm we read together earlier in this service. Psalm 2 describes the heathen nations conspiring against God’s people in general and the Messiah in specific. To be sure, the psalmist considered the Davidic King to be the Anointed or Messiah (which means Anointed) and conspiracies against that King to be challenges to God’s authority. So, the psalmist pictured God as hooting and howling in derision at the feeble attempts of worldly kings and generals plotting against God’s people.
Because they knew the Hebrew scripture, the early church was able to draw from it in a time of crisis and lift that scripture up to God. Naturally, God didn’t need to be reminded of His own words, but the early church DID need to be reminded of God’s words and the speaking of those familiar words was an act of faith in agreeing with God. In the same way, I challenge you all to pray the scripture—not just the psalms, but the prayers of Paul and even this prayer. We don’t do this because God needs to be reminded, but we need to do it as a means of agreeing with God. How much more agreement can we have than to claim His Word in prayer?
So, powerful prayer begins with the admission of God’s authority and continues by praying the scripture and ensuring that our prayer is in alignment with the Bible. BUT, the early church didn’t stop with the historical prayer. They didn’t just read the scripture and let it stay in the past. Nope! They reapplied it and reinterpreted it in the light of their own experience. They recognized that just as the heathen authorities had stood against Israel’s king and people in the past, the rival authorities of their age had stood against Jesus Christ, the True Messiah. In verses 27-28, they lump Herod who slaughtered the innocents, Pilate who washed his hands and allowed the crucifixion of Christ, the Gentile soldiers who executed the sentence upon Christ, and the Hebrew authorities and people who instigated the action all together. But the intriguing thing is that the early church states in these verses that these villains conspired against Jesus but they DID what God’s hand (God’s own efforts) and God’s counsel (God’s royal plan) had determined needed to be done—far in advance. Their free will played into God’s MASTER PLAN.
So, if these villains were acting such that they merely played into God’s hand with regard to Jesus, all of their machinations against the church could also play into God’s hand. So, in verse 29, that’s exactly what they pray. They ask God to pay attention to the malevolence of their enemies and the important task assigned to God’s servants. Do they ask for a special dispensation to keep from being thrown into prison, beaten, stoned, or crucified? They do not! Instead, they pray for BOLDNESS.
Now, this word may be much more than you think it means. The Greek noun (“pahr-ray-SIH-ahs” or “pahr-ree-SEE-ahs,” depending on your pronunciation system) means to have standing in the presence of authority or in a court of law. It means that you can speak candidly without the necessity of hiding anything. Wow! Instead of praying for protection and instead of praying to be spared the persecution, the early church prayed to be given a hearing, to be given access to those in power, and to be able to speak without having to hide anything or to be ashamed of anything.
This is so amazing, particularly in the United States, where we spent so many years with the freedom of speaking a case for Christ anywhere at any time. Now, we live in a time where it isn’t okay with everyone to speak of Christ at school or at work. We live in an age where it is considered intolerant, almost hate-speak, to suggest that a homosexual needs Jesus or a cohabiting couple might need to repent. We are proclaimed insensitive when we suggest that abortion on demand is used as an excuse to murder and that lying in high office—whether it be to cover up the seduction of interns, to seduce our country into a shameful war on false pretenses, to subvert our justice system, or to out the wife of a political enemy—is sinful enough to call a politician to account. The secular progressives say that we do not know what we’re talking about.
That’s why we need to move to verse 30. The early church didn’t merely pray for words, they prayed for deeds. They asked for God’s mighty acts to demonstrate the meaning (signs) and the supernatural potential (wonders) that can be done by means of the name of Jesus, God’s holy child. Note that it is NOT by what is done by means of the name of church, denomination, pastor, evangelist, or para-church organization. These signs and wonders are to be done by the power of Jesus’ name. It is through Jesus that God intended to change the world and it is only through Jesus that we can expect to change the lives and bless the lives of those that we encounter.
People will be healed, families will be transformed, crises will be averted or solved, lives will be given meaning, and individuals given direction in the name of Jesus. To the secular progressives, this makes us narrow, intolerant. To those who know the truth, it means we don’t have to operate under our own understanding, mental prowess, innate strengths, or native charm. We know that it all depends on Jesus.
Not all prayers are answered as swiftly and dramatically as the one in this chapter, but look at verse 31. The answer to their prayer shook them to their foundations. You know, we don’t really expect to be shaken when we come to church. We expect the service to have basically the same shape Sunday after Sunday. We expect to be entirely comfortable with the morning sermon and we expect to go away feeling good about ourselves.
To the early church, that wasn’t good enough. They were aware of the opposition around them and the opportunity said opposition presented. They affirmed the fact that God was in charge from the very beginning of their prayer. They were familiar with the prayers of God’s people from long ago and not afraid to use them when they were relevant. The reapplied the prayers of their forebears to their new situation and they expected God to honor their desire to present a clear witness for Jesus. They expected their words to be backed up with God’s action—God’s deeds to back up their words for the glory of Jesus. And when they came together with such expectation, God filled them up to overflowing with His presence through the Holy Spirit and they were able to speak about Christ without being silenced and without anything to hide. Ah, if only this could be said of us.
[The following direction applied to the first time this sermon was preached.] This morning, we’re going to sing a hymn of decision and then, we are going to close in a round of sentence prayers. Let’s let that be a lift-off to a week of boldness where we all share Jesus in some way.
