Intro: A bus driver and a minister were standing in line to get into heaven. The bus driver approached the gate and St. Peter said, "Welcome, I understand you were a bus driver. Since I’m in charge of housing, I believe I have found the perfect place for you. See that mansion over the hilltop? It’s yours.
The minister heard all this and began to stand a little taller. He said to himself, "If a bus driver got a place like that, just think what I’ll get."
The minister approached the gate and St. Peter said, "Welcome, I understand you were a minister. See that shack in the valley?"
St. Peter had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when the shocked minister said, "I was a minister, I preached the gospel, I helped teach people about God. Why does that bus driver get a mansion, and I get a shack?"
Sadly St. Peter responded, "Well, it seems when you preached, people slept. When the bus driver drove, people prayed."
The pagans of Jesus’ day were known for babbling on and on with the understanding that the more words that were involved in prayer the more effective the prayer.
Matt 6:7
7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Jesus instructed that prayer was to be an intimate conversation between two parties that deeply cared about each other.
Matt 6:6
6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
When you get a card from a in the mail what matters the most to you? The professional poem written by a professional, or the hand scribbled note at the bottom written by your friend? For most of us it’s not the professional poem it’s the hand written note at the bottom because it’s an intimate expression from someone who cares about us.
Prayer is not to be a formal ritualistic activity of repeating the same words over and over until we don’t even think about the meaning. It is to be a genuine expression of the soul. A personal conversation with the heavenly Father.
Acts 2:42
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Now there are times we as Christians should be praying in solitude and as a family but what I want to talk to you today about is those times we ought to be praying together as a church. Maybe it’s praying here in the assembly or in small groups.
Let’s look at four examples of prayer in the early church as we look at how they are recorded in the book of Acts. In each instance lets notice which request was made of God, and how specifically the Lord answered the prayer. Hopefully this will motivate us in our prayer life to more frequent, more meaningful, more intense prayer as a church.
The first instance I want us to look at is recorded in Acts chapter one and chapter two. After Jesus’ ascension He gave the disciples instructions to go to Jerusalem and stay in the city until they received the power of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 24:49
49I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
So in Acts chapter one we find the disciples in the upper room in constant prayer praying for the “power from on high” that Jesus spoke of. This is the prayer and we find the answer in chapter two.
Acts 2:1-4
2:1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:7-8
7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?
As a church we need to be praying that God will continue to anoint our ministry with the power of the Holy Spirit. What has happened here in the last year can’t be reduced to a human formula. It’s just that God has chosen to pour out His Holy Spirit on us.
There always seems to be two major qualifiers for the anointing of God’s Spirit.
1. It is always dependant upon obedience to God’s commands.
1 Sam 16:14
14Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.
Because he walked in continual disobedience with the Lord.
Just because God blesses a place, a minister, or a work of God for a certain time doesn’t mean he always will. The more God’s people walk in obedience the more the Spirit of God can flow, that’s why it’s so important to live out our faith on a daily bases.
1 Thessalonians 5:19
19Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;
2. It’s often dependant on the prayers of God’s people.
They spent 10 days in a prayer meeting then came the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Before a Billy Graham crusade the team spends weeks in prayer that God would bless the meeting. I’m thankful for all the people in this church who lift me up on a daily bases in prayer. It’s good to know that when I approach this platform that some of you are praying, “Lord anoint him with your Holy Spirit to preach your Word in power and in truth.
Matt 7:9-11
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Many times our problem isn’t that we’re not praying our problem is we aren’t asking God for specific things when we pray as a church.
Illustration: Have you ever heard of George Mueller? One day he looked down the streets of Bristol, England, & saw 100’s of homeless children. He was so moved with concern for them that he decided that something had to be done.
He had only two pence in his pocket. That’s two cents. But he decided to start an orphanage. In 60 years, beginning with two pence, George Mueller took care of 10,000 orphans. He looked out & saw homeless kids. He could have said, "But, I don’t have any money. But, there is no way to care for them, to meet their needs, to buy the food."
Instead, he looked at them & said, "Therefore, I will reach out & help them." And God blessed his efforts in a mighty way. He told amazing stories of answered prayers.
He kept a record of his prayers, & his prayer records filled more than 3,000 pages. His notes show that more than 30,000 prayers were answered.
One night there was no food in the orphanage to give to the children for breakfast. But at 3:00 in the morning a baker called him up & said, "I just can’t sleep. I’m going down to the bakery to bake some bread. Would it be all right for me to bring some over to you this morning?"
One time a milk truck just happened to break down in front of the orphanage on a day when they had no milk. The truck driver came in & said, "This milk is all going to spoil. Would you like some of it?" And their need was met.
Time & time again, 30,000 times in 60 years, God answered George Mueller’s prayers
Acts 4:24
24When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.
We tend to pray more fervently when we’re threatened by some kind of pressure.
Illustration: Three ministers were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background. One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.
By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground."
What did the early church pray for? You would think they prayed for exemption from persecution, but no they prayed for boldness.
Acts 4:29
29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.
And there prayer was answered.
Acts 4:31
31After 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.
One of the things we need to pray for as a church is courage. We in the U.S. are not threatened with arrest or imprisonment. We are sometimes threatened with lawsuits and politically incorrect labels. We need to call sin … sin not morally challenged. Not to be obnoxious with it, but speak the truth in love.
Eph 6:19
19Pray for me, too, and ask God to give me the right words as I boldly tell others about the Lord and as I explain to them that his salvation is for the Gentiles too.
TLB
The ACLU has had way too much sway in our Christian Society. Bob Russell tells that in Louisville, Kentucky one of his graduating seniors was told that for the baccalaureate service they couldn’t mention God or pray. That seems foreign to us but if we’re not careful we will be next.
We need to pray for Christian Athletes, political leaders and entertainers that they will boldly speak out for our faith. We need to pray that all of you go into you world and speak the truth.
Acts 6:1-6
6:1In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
Their prayer was that God would bless the personnel involved in the ministry and in affect bless the church.
Acts 6:7
7So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
God answered and the early church grew. We should pray that God would bless our Sunday school teachers, deacons, choir, praise band, and everyone involved in ministry in this church.
Acts 12:1-17
12:1It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 4After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
5So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
6The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
8Then the angel said to him, "Put on your clothes and sandals." And Peter did so. "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me," the angel told him. 9Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.
11Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."
12When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!"
15"You’re out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
16But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another place.
We ought to be praying for the leaders of the church.
Conclusion: One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all we could do she died, leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator (we had no electricity to run an incubator) and no special feeding facilities.
Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. "And it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed.
As in the West it is no good crying over spilled milk, so in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over burst water bottles. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways.
"All right," I said, "Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm."
The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chills. I also told them of the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.
During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children. "Please, God," she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, as the baby’ll be dead, so please send it this afternoon."
While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, "And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know You really love her?"
As often with children’s prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, "Amen"? I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything. The Bible says so. But there are limits, aren’t there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever, received a parcel from home; anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator!
Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses’ training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box.
From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys; eyes sparkled as I pulled them out. Then there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas --- that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend. Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt the ..... could it really be? I grasped it and pulled it out --- yes, a brand-new, rubber hot water bottle! I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could.
Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone! She had never doubted.
Looking up at me, she asked: "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?"
That parcel had been on the way for five whole months. Packed up by my former Sunday school class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God’s prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child --- five months before --- in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year old to bring it "that afternoon."
Illustration: Tony Campolo, A Baptist minister, was invited to speak at a college in Valley Forge Penn. He drove to the college and before he spoke several men took him in the back room and began to pray for him, that God would use his speech. While these men were praying, one man, just off the cuff began praying "And Lord, about Burt Harris. Lord, Burt Harris needs you really badly. Because he lives in that trailer down the street and he is considering leaving his wife and family. And Lord if you could just get through to Burt Harris...that would be great." and then went on with his prayer. Campolo thought, "that is strange that he should pray that here." He went out and he spoke and finished his message and then he got in his car and was driving home. And he picked up a hitch hiker. He said he knew that he wasn’t supposed to pick up hitch hikers, but he thought, ’being a preacher, anytime I can get a captive audience, I’ll take advantage of it." So he gets this guy in the car and he is talking to him and he says, "By the way, what is your name?" and the man said, "Burt Harris". Campolo stopped the car, turned it around and immediately headed the opposite direction. The man looked at him and said, "What are you doing?" Campolo said, "I am taking you back to your wife and family whom you are trying to leave." The man went white! He never said another word, he sat there speechless and Campolo drove him straight up to this guys trailer. And the guy says, "How do you know where I live?" Campolo said, "God told me." (in a way He really had.) Campolo said "I took this guy inside his home and the family and marriage was restored and God did an exciting thing."
Contributed by: Michael Cassara Sermoncentral.com
