Introduction Zig Ziglar story of boy that went with his mother to the old general store. He liked to sneak away from his mother and when no one was looking he would dip his finger into the large barrel of molasses. The storekeeper caught him doing this and decided to teach the boy a lesson. He picked up the boy by his britches and dunked him head first into the barrel of molasses and then set him out on the front porch of the store. But instead of crying the boy was out there praying, "God, give me the tongue to equal this opportunity."
Well in today’s story the disciples found themselves over a barrel, but instead of crying to God about it they pleaded with God to give them tongues equal to their opportunity.
Facing the threats of the most important people of their community, they didn’t even ask God to keep them from harm, but rather asked for boldness. Now that’s a pattern for prayer!
Interogative: But my question is: How could they do that? Better yet: How can I do that? How can I learn to pray the hard prayers like they did?
Transition: Well true to the series title, I’d like to look at this story as a pattern for praying the hard prayers. In this pattern I see four things we need to remember to embolden us to pray the hard prayers. The first is...
The Promise
vv. 25-26 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:"’Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.
When I say that they remembered the Promise, I’m thinking primarily here about the promises of Scripture. In particular here they note that God had predicted that the rulers of the earth would stand against them but that the earthly rulers would not prevail, but that they would plot in vain against the Church led in Triumph by the Lord Jesus.
Don’t fail to take note of this foundational Pattern for prayer: Pray the Scripture, remember God’s Promises as you call out to Him. If you remember God’s Promises you will be emboldened to pray the hard prayers.
Armin Gesswein learned about praying God’s promises in a hayloft. Armin was a longtime Pastor, interdenominational prayer organizer and founder of the "Revival Prayer fellowship." When he began as a young Lutheran pastor trying to establish a church on Long Island and having a tough go of it, he had an elderly gentleman in his church fellowship--a retired blacksmith, 50 years his senior. Armin had noticed that when this man prayed, things happened. Wanting to learn, Armin asked if he could join him in prayer. At the old blacksmiths home he followed him into the barn and into the hayloft. Armin prayed and then Ambrose Whaley prayed. Armin said "You have some kind of secret in praying. Would you share it with me?" Young man," the old blacksmith said, "learn to plead the promises of God." The old man had knelt between two bales of hay. Open on each was a large Bible, as he prayed he layed a knarled hand on the pages of each, and recalled the promises found in those pages. Armin recalled: I learned more about prayer in that haymow than in all my years of preparation for the ministry. (Harold J. Sala, "Heroes: People who made a difference in our World")
I believe in using the Scriptures in prayer, not as some kind of magic spell, not as though the Bible is our ticket to force God to act in a way that we wish, but to get our hearts right before Him, to remind us of the nature of the God we serve and to build our own faith. Remember his promises and you will be better prepared to pray the hard prayers, secondly we must remember...
The Past
v. 24When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them
vv. 27-28 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.
To gain courage to face the future and to encourage themselves to pray the hard prayers, the disciples remembered the faithfulness of God in the past
On the Sunday before Ash Wednesday this year, the central dining facility in Camp Udairi (Kuwait) caught fire, flames quickly spread to engulf all five tents and completely destroyed them in less than 30 minutes.
After the smoke cleared, and all units checked the status of their soldiers, it was apparent that everyone had made it out alive. Amazing. It was Sunday morning and a worship service had just concluded, but most of the worshippers had left. A Catholic service was scheduled next, and one of the tents would have been packed. During breakfast, all the tents were packed, but not at the time of the fire. What could have been a major catastrophe merely resulted in the loss of some equipment and soldiers eating MREs for a few days. Chaplain Barbara Sherer of the 603rd Aviation Support Battalion called it a miracle. I mentioned that the fire occurred on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. This is the day many Christians observe the beginning of the season of Lent. It is a time of penitence-being sorry for sin, in preparation for Easter. As a symbol of this time of preparation they mark their foreheads with ash. Chaplain Sherer had planned to offer ashes for Protestant soldiers who wished to observe this ritual. Traditionally, you burn palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration to make ash for Ash Wednesday but she didn’t have any. So it seemed to her that the most significant ash to use for this occasion would be ash from the DFAC.
The site was under guard, so she asked an MP to fill a cup with ashes from the fire. He walked to the rubble, scooped up some ash, and returned it to her. She placed the cup in a Zip-loc bag and put it in her tent.
Two days later she decided to open the bag and see if she needed to crunch up the ashes into smaller pieces. She was digging around in the cup with a plastic knife when she noticed the edge of something metallic. She reached in, and pulled out a cross. A flat, metal cross--just like this one [show picture]. It had some dark smudges on it from the fire, but it was otherwise undamaged. She could still read the etching on it: "Jesus Christ is Lord."
Chaplain Sherer wrote "I can’t even fathom the odds of picking the exact site of that cross out of the acreage destroyed by the fire. It doesn’t matter. The message to me is clear: God walks with us through the terrible firestorms of our lives, and we are lifted unharmed out of the ashes. We may be marked in some way, like the cross of ash placed on our foreheads during Ash Wednesday. However, that mark is a symbol of God’s love and protection."
She wears that cross now on her dogtags. She says "No matter where the Army may send me, or what God may ask of me, I will cherish this special reminder that God will never leave us alone to face the tragedies in our lives. With God’s help, we will always rise out of the ashes." (http://www.jknirp.com/shere.htm)
The cross should always be a reminder to us that we serve a God who turns tragedy into triumph, for it was at the hands of cruel executioners that Jesus paid the price for our sins and won the victory of eternal life.
Just like Chaplain Sherer I think that we should have reminders of God’s faithfulness in our lives. We should tell the stories of God’s victories on our behalf, in doing so we fortify ourselves to pray the hard prayers.
Thirdly if we are to pray those hard prayers we must remember...
Our Purpose
vv. 29-30 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldnes. Stretch out ysour hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
Somebody has said "When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s difficult to keep your mind on the fact that your primary objective is to drain the swamp."
The disciples were certainly up to their necks but they had the presence of mind and Spirit to keep their focus upon their purpose.
CS Lewis wrote "To glorify God, and, as our only means of glorifying Him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life."
So often when we find ourselves in a tight spot we can only think to ask God to get us out, but we never contemplate that His intent might be that we go through the difficulty that we might see his goodness and have opportunity to shine the light for Him. And in fact we never consider that the opportunities to serve Him afforded by the challenges in our life are the only thing that truly gives our life purpose and meaning in the first place.
Charles Kingsley noted that "We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."(Charles Kingsley, Bits & Pieces, December 9, 1993, p. 16.)
That something is sharing the Good news about Jesus--letting our light shine in a dark world. If we remind ourselves of our purpose, we will be willing to pray the hard prayers. There’s one last thing we must remember to pray the hard prayers...
Our source of Power
v. 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.
As a new missionary, Herbert Jackson was assigned a car that would not start without a push. After pondering his problem, he devised a plan. He went to the school near his home, got permission to take some children out of class, and had them push his car off. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running. He used this ingenious procedure for two years.
Ill health forced the Jackson family to leave, and a new missionary came to that station. When Jackson proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started, the new man began looking under the hood. Before the explanation was complete, the new missionary interrupted, "Why, Dr. Jackson, I believe the only trouble is this loose cable." He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and to Jackson’s astonishment, the engine roared to life. For two years needless trouble had become routine. The power was there all the time. Only a loose connection kept Jackson from putting that power to work.
The Bible says "How tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God (Eph. 1:19-20, Phillips) ." The Disciples understood that power and they were wired up tight. I imagine Dr. Jackson was hesitant to use his car when he was unsure about the road ahead and where he might have to stop. If we’re sure of our power source though, we don’t have to hesitate to ask God to helkp us to serve Him boldly.
If I was responsible to convict people of sin and get them saved, I would never preach the Gospel--but that’s not my job, it’s the job of the Holy Spirit--the same is true for you--you can have confidence of God’s ability to take His message to people’s hearts when you share it. You can trust Him to empower you when you ask Him to give you opportunities to serve.
I’d like to conclude by asking you to pray this hard prayer with me: Verses 29-30
"Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldnes. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." AMEN
