Sermon for CATM - June 7, 2015 – Pray Together
Over the last number of weeks we’ve been looking at some very intense moments in the life of the early church, when the Holy Spirit moved powerfully and the number of people who believed in and received Jesus was in the thousands.
Often when God moves to do a new thing, there are some serious fireworks at the outset. Even if they take a while to notice, even if they’re pretty humble and only mean something to you.
I recall within a month of becoming a Christ-follower, a Christian, after having been raised an atheist all my life, that I was walking one day to school.
In the middle of the intersection at Coxwell and Danforth a complete stranger walking the opposite direction comes up to me and says: “Hey, so you’re a Christian?” I mumbled something like; “Ah...yes...how did...?
The light changed and the fellow moved on. I scratched my head and eventually, realizing that it was an encouragement from God, gave thanks to God for it. About two years after I became a Christian it dawned on me that nearly all of my prayers had been answered in the affirmative in those 2 years.
It evoked a sense of wonder in me. Shortly after that the answers to my prayers became, as they normally are: Yes, No or not yet.
Maybe a 6 months to a year after I came to Christ, I was in one of the music practice rooms at school, honking noisily on a tenor sax. I had the usual beginner confidence level of zero, which accurately reflected my abilities at that point.
In one of the few times that I’ve heard God’s voice directly, God spoke to me very clearly and said "Be faithful and music and I will be faithful to you".
That both terrified me, and then when I got over it motivated me, powerfully to invest my time and energy in music, for what reason I did not know.
In hindsight, it was the catalyst to me coming to The Yonge Street Mission and becoming a pastor here.
The Christ-Followers in this room have their own stories of God moving in ways that have lifted their hearts; stories of healings, stories of words of encouragement coming at just the right time.
Sometimes it’s fireworks, sometimes it’s intensely personal and meaningful only to you. But you just know it’s God. You just know it is God.
And for the early church, not yet particularly organized, still quite vulnerable, still facing opposition from many, God moved powerfully.
Over the last 2 weeks we’ve looked in some depth at Acts chapters 3 and 4, up to today’s Scripture reading. It began with the miracle of the disabled beggar begin healed through Peter and John, and that led to a trial of sorts in front of the ruling religious elite.
After being commanded to stop speaking and acting in Jesus’ name, their response to the judges was this: “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:18
And with the very awkward reality of the man born lame and now completely healed standing right in front of the ‘judges’, the worst they could do was tell Peter and John to, again, stop preaching in Jesus’ name.
Now today’s Scripture: 23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.
After this remarkable event, a real high, Peter and John went back to their own people, the church. They knew their home, the church. They were accountable to the church.
When the church heard this, all, along with Peter and John, prayed to God. The celebrated this victory by seeing it not as an event unconnected to everything else God had done.
This was their collective prayer, likely a combination of Peter, John and many others, put into a single prayer for our benefit.
Imagine us, after a major event, gathering to pray, and someone recording what we prayed. This prayer is just like that.
I’m not sure any of US would love to have their prayers looked at with a microscope, but that’s what we’re going to do today to this prayer of the early church.
And this prayer is an excellent model for us, it helps us to align ourselves with the things that should truly matter to a gospel-focussed people and a gospel-focussed church.
“Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. Why did they begin their prayer this way?
Why didn’t they start with their situation, their troubles, their hardships or their fear?
Well, similar to the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name...”, they begin their prayer with God.
By acknowledging Who they are praying to, by addressing their prayer to their Creator, the One Who is sovereign over everything. It’s really a worshipful prayer that acknowledges God’s power and that He, not we, are at the centre.
25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
You are the God who speaks, they prayed. All the other gods, false gods that they are, are mute. They are mute because they don’t exist. The one true God speaks.
Let’s think about this for a moment, Now someone here might say: ‘But God never talks to me!’ Or ‘But there are times that God is silent in my life’.
I would counter that with: Sometimes it can really, truly FEEL like that is true, and we might adamantly and emotionally state that God is being silent.
But I believe that God never ceases speaking to us since the sending of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we are attuned to His voice, sometimes we’re not.
Like a radio that seems to be producing only static, we can say the radio is not working, or we can tune to the right station.
The primary way that God speaks to us is through His Holy Word. Are we being attentive to it? Are we in the habit of trusting God, that He speaks through His Word?
Do we follow what it says or do we fight what it says? All these things contribute to hearing or not hearing God when He speaks. But God is not silent.
I’ve faced a lot of death in my family in the past 8 years. At times my grief blocked my capacity to hear the God who speaks. I could've said that God wasn’t speaking.
That would have FELT very true, but it would not have actually BEEN true. In my case, at the time I was barely aware that my ears were blocked.
The truth is, God comforts those who mourn. He doesn’t leave us alone in our distress. He speaks, and as He speaks we have to make the choice to listen, AND to not doubt.
Perhaps James, the brother of Jesus, has something to offer us in the first chapter of his book: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind”. James 1:5-6
God also speaks through nature, through people - through art.
When He speaks through those things, very importantly, what He says is always in line with the Bible.
If we think we’re hearing God speaking through anything but the Bible, and yet the message does not align with Scripture, that’s how we know it is NOT God speaking.
But sometimes we may want God to speak, but only to say what we want Him to say.
There’s an illustration about a man who had regularly prayed for many years began to wonder if God heard his prayers at all. During one of his routine times of prayer, he started this doubting pattern once again. He stopped praying and thought for a moment. “Enough of this,” he said.
He then lifted his eyes toward heaven and yelled, “Hey up there, can you hear me?” There was no response.
He continued, “Hey, God, if you can really hear me, tell me what you want me to do with my life.” A voice from above thundered a reply, “I WANT YOU TO HELP THE NEEDY, PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL AND GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR THE CAUSE OF PEACE!”
Faced with more of a challenge than the man really wanted, he answered, “Actually, God, I was just checking to see if you were there.”
The voice from above now answered with disappointment: “THAT’S ALRIGHT; I WAS ONLY CHECKING TO SEE IF YOU WERE THERE.”
Back to our passage, they early Christians gathered on that day not only acknowledged that God speaks, but that God speaks through His anointed servants.
They identified King David. They identify Him as their ‘father’. Why? David had died a thousand years earlier.
God called David a man after His own heart, and God had promised David that He would always have an heir on his throne. Jesus, who was from the birth line of King David, is the ultimate heir, and Jesus is the King of Kings that the early Christians followed.
So they quote King David from Psalm 2:
“‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 26 The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord
and against his anointed one.’
David had written about his current situation, as the anointed king of Israel, again a thousand years earlier.
But David was a prophet, able to see the future as well as understand his own times and, knowing their Scriptures well, the Christians gathered that day with Peter and John noted the application of that ancient passage to what they were experiencing in real time.
So they continue in their prayer:
27 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.
So with wisdom and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these Christians see the connection and the prophetic nature of what David wrote. King Herod, who was in cahoots with the Roman overlords as well as the pharisees conspired against Jesus in order to kill Him.
Now, this is interesting, and it connects directly back to the first 2 words or the prayer that we are looking at today.
28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
The religious leaders, conspiring with the Roman government, truly figured that what they were doing was just them figuring out a way to get rid of Jesus,
who they feared because of His power, His influence over the people and His deep connection to common people.
They feared that they would lose the people to Jesus.
So they acted to falsely accuse Him and have Him beaten and crucified. In their minds, that’s what they were doing.
But because God is sovereign, because God, since before time began, had planned to send Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins,
these early believers noted in their prayer that what was done to Jesus was only what God’s power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
Now we might think, ‘well then, since they were only doing what God had ordained, they must be innocent’. Well, consider Judas.
There’s an interesting conversation that happens in the upper room during the last supper.
When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”
Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
Matthew 26:20-24
We can think of it like this: God is really, truly, actually sovereign. He knew, before time began, that Judas would at first follow, and then betray Jesus into the hands of those who would crucify Him.
Knowing this, and knowing Judas’ heart inside out, God used Judas to accomplish His purpose - that Jesus would go to the cross for us.
But Judas is still 100% responsible for his actions. That’s why Jesus says: ‘Woe to the man who betrays me’.
Likewise, although actions of the Pharisees and others led to the crucifixion of Jesus - they nevertheless did what God’s power and will had planned beforehand.
But even in their guilt, as we discovered a few weeks ago earlier in chapter 2, when they acknowledged what they had done, they were allowed by God to repent and be forgiven of the murder of the Son of God, such is the extent of God’s mercy and gracious love.
29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
So after all that, the prayer starts to wrap up with...a plea to God for their safety and security? With a request that they be spared further harassment?
That their lives might be easy? No. Not even close. They wanted to be equipped to give something to God, to do something for God.
ILL.- “What can I do for you, Madam?” Abraham Lincoln asked an elderly lady who had been ushered into his private office.
Placing a covered basket on the table she said, “Mr. President, I have come here today not to ask any favor for myself or for anyone.
I heard that you were very fond of cookies, and I came here to bring you this basket of cookies!”
Tears trickled down the gaunt face of the great President. He stood speechless for a moment; then he said, “My good woman, your thoughtful and unselfish deed greatly moves me.
Thousands have come into this office asking for something since I became President, but you are the first person to come bringing something!”
These early Christians prayed NOT for themselves; they weren’t consumed with their own interests.
They prayed that God would enable, empower them to speak and preach with boldness. They asked God to consider all that had just happened, their trial, the warnings given and to give them - all of them - not just Peter and John - MORE boldness.
That word that we translate in English as boldness - in the Greek it’s parrēsia (pal-rey-see-a). It’s a rich word that means ‘freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech, openly, frankly, without ambiguity, without a lot of confusing words’.
They wanted more parrēsia. They wanted passionately to witness to Jesus, to testify of His love and power and goodness. They wanted their lives to count for the gospel.
And they prayed that God’s healing power as well as signs and wonders would go with them. That had just happened, in the healing of the beggar lame since birth, who we met a few weeks back. And they saw how that miracle confounded the authorities.
Should we be praying that God’s healing power touch many lives? Should we be praying that God send signs and wonders to confirm His word? Of course.
Why in the world would we not? God save us from any theology out there that would try to constrain God from doing what He wills in order to reveal the beauty and majesty of Jesus to all people!
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Pretty much right away there was a sign - the building shook. More importantly, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and what was the result?
They spoke in tongues? Nope. Not here. They spoke the word of God, the gospel with parrēsia (pal-rey-see-a).
So, I hope you, like me, find this to be a very encouraging passage. It models for us the kind of church we’re called to be and the kinds of prayer we can be praying when we gather together as a church or just a few of us.
Of course we pray for each other, we pray for healing; we pray for our community our city, our world. You know that if you’ve been coming here for a while.
And as we do that, our prayers need to be primarily God-focussed. God’s mission-focussed, much more than US focussed.
And just as Peter and John went back to ‘their own people’ we need to own our belonging to one another. I need to see Pastor Lee, William, Jan, Hazel, Breda...all of you as ‘my own people’, which I do.
So if my prayers are about me and I don’t identify with the local body, what needs to change? The church or me? Well…Me!
And then when we do that - when we do that - together, on the same page - we begin to see ourselves as what we are. We are none other than a continuation of the story of the church in the book of Acts. We are the church on mission to the world.
We are the church on mission to the world, to bring the knowledge of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to our community.
To serve God and people. To live as a blessing, and to live in such a way as to be ready and able to invite others to follow Jesus.
We need to do that, and we need to each embrace our part in this community and in God’s mission. What if we don’t know our part?
Well, the only way to discover our part is to engage in general service to the church and to the community.
When I started to go to church I had no clue what my part was. I’d just come in early to church and maybe organize the Bibles. I’d come early to shovel the snow or sweep the walk. I’d tidy things up. I would talk to people, connect with folks.
Eventually as my skills developed on musical instruments I offered myself in service to the church that way.
I got to be known, and then at one point, in what seemed to me to be a crazy bad call on the pastor’s part, he put me in a room with a man who was desperately sorrowful and suicidal because his wife had left him.
On that day I got my first taste of ministering to someone who was hurting in a way that was far worse than I had ever hurt at that time in my life. It helped me to develop empathy and to learn that I could offer real comfort and consolation to a hurting brother.
I had no clue that one day I would end up as a pastor, and I would have been scared away if I had known.
That’s my story, but the principal holds - general service - offering yourself to be a blessing and a help when you’re not sure what exactly you’re supposed to be doing - it leads over time to specific service based on the ways that God has uniquely gifted you.
In the fall we plan to run a course that will help you identify your spiritual gifts, personal style and ministry passion. I hope you join us!
And...here’s a question. What if we hear this historical account of the early church and the power of God that was displayed and the thousands that were added as people responded to the gospel.
What if we understand the story, what if we get what the pastor’s trying to get at...and we still, really, just don’t get it? We can’t imagine ourselves having that kind of passion for people to come to know Jesus?
The answer to that one is really simple, but a lot of people don’t do it.
The answer is to keep coming to church, preparing your heart beforehand to receive from God; listen to the Holy Spirit; perhaps confess some things that need to be confessed that are blocking your passion for the gospel.
Doing these things, and growing in your fellowship with God and with each other, you will grow to care about people responding to the gospel.
You will align with God’s intention for you to be a part of His mission in this, our, community.
The early church was great because they were a church of prayer.
It is through prayer that the awesome Presence, grace and power of God is experienced and where battles are won. The Lord Jesus will build His church whenever His people will seek Him and call out to Him in prayer.
May that be true of us. Amen.
