Acts 4:23-31
Please remain standing and turning
your copy of God’s word to the book of Acts. Our reading will
be Acts chapter four, verses 23 to 31. In this series of snapshots in
the book of Acts, there’s always a pattern, a pattern of an event,
the healing of a lame man. There’s a defense of that act,
Peter’s sermon. There’s the challenge from the
authorities. And so they get Peter and John
hauled in before the Sanhedrin. There’s the threats. And then
there’s the response of the church, which we’ll see today. And their
response is a meeting of prayer before their sovereign Lord.
So here now with me as we read God’s word. Before we do, let’s
pray together. God, I ask that you would help
us to to hear and to see and to believe the things which are
written in your word and the things which are preached to
us today. Give us your grace. And we ask
it now in the name of Christ. Amen. Pick up at verse 23 of
chapter four. Speaking of Peter and John, it
says, when they were released, they went to their friends and
they reported what the chief priest and the elders had said
to them. When they heard it, they lifted their voices together
to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth
and the sea and everything in them, who threw the mouth of
our father, David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why
did the Gentiles rage and the people’s plot in vain? The kings
of the earth have set themselves against the rulers. They were
gathered together against the Lord and his anointed. For truly
this day in this city, there were gathered together against
your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel,
to do whatever your hand and plan had predestined to take
place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats. and grant to your
servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while
you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are
performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. And
when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together
was shaken and they were filled, all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Amen. You may be seated. One of the unanswered prayers
of the Bible is the prayer of Paul. It’s the prayer of John.
It’s the prayer of many through these last 2000 years. And the
prayer is this. Come, Lord Jesus. Our prayer
is that God would send his son for his second coming, his return,
and he would make all things new. He would take away all pain,
all sorrow, all suffering. He would usher in the new heavens
and the new earth. He would judge both the righteous,
who will receive their reward by faith in Jesus, and judge
the wicked, their rewards given their due in eternity as well. But we have lived now 2,000 years
since Jesus returned to heaven. That prayer has not been answered.
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Some of us may think he’s a bit
slow. We’ve read through 2,000 years of church history, many
of us. We understand what began to take place in the church through
the book of Acts. We’ve read our medieval church
history, our early church history, our Reformation church history.
We’ve even understood most of us lived through the evangelical
church in America in the last century and now. But what if
the Lord tarries another 2,000 years? What will be written in
the history books about the church today? Should the Lord tarry? And there’ll be 4,000 years of
church history to write about. Well, we’d read of the ups and
downs. We would read of the positives, the negatives. We’d read of more
heresies, more hardships, but we’d read of triumph. We’d read
of things to come. What would be read about today’s
church in America, the 21st century? I mean, for sure, it’d be great.
They’d read of faithful churches, holding true to the scriptures,
worshiping our triune God, teaching generations the catechism and
the building blocks of the faith. For sure, there would be snapshots
of faithful church life. But I wonder if there would be
a missing chapter, a chapter on prayer. A chapter on the church
meeting together during hard times, during dark times, and
meeting like this church did in our passage from Acts. Oh,
sovereign Lord, who made heaven and earth. There’s trouble around
us. There’s dark times. Now, I think, in fact, they won’t
read about prayer meetings. We cut those out in the 50s. To where the church in America
doesn’t depend on prayer. It depends on ingenuity. It doesn’t
depend on the sovereignty of God. It depends on personality.
It doesn’t depend on the power of God making his word fast. No, it depends on the latest
gimmick. And those tarnishes on church history will be written
in the annals of God’s church. Our confession of faith warns
us of that. It says that the church will
be more or less pure in different places and in different times
and in different ages. Oh sure, there will be pockets
of faithful churches. But I think the missing chapter,
the missing practice will be prayer. And so as we think of
Acts chapter four today, the end of this snapshot, this second
snapshot we’ve seen into the early church’s life, I want us
to be challenged for the need to be a people who pray. I want
us to be challenged to see that the church at prayer is a successful
church. A church at prayer is a gospel
successful church. In the last couple of centuries,
there have been great preachers who’ve done great things. And
one of those was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prince of preachers,
the Baptist minister in London, preached in the 1800s. And he
was asked one time the secret to his success. It wasn’t his
personality, it wasn’t his pinstripe suits or his preacher sneakers
or whatever, you know, we see today in the world. He simply and quietly walked
the inquirer down to the basement and he opened the basement door
and no, it wasn’t the furnace keeping the place warm. It was
a group of people who began their prayer life early on Sunday morning,
praying for the ministry of the church, praying for the minister
of the word, praying for the delivery of the word, that it
would be received with warmth and grace and love and thanksgiving,
and that it would be put into practice in the lives of every
hearer and that London and even the world might be changed. Maybe some of you have been on
a military ship, a submarine or a destroyer, and there’s always
a room they won’t let you in. That’s the nuclear power room. And they can’t let you in there
because of state secrets and safety issues. But without that
nuclear reactor, that ship can’t power around the world and defend
our nation. And it’s the same for us without
our prayer meeting. without the saints of God on
their knees before God, praying for strength and boldness and
power and provision. Without that, we are a ship at
sail with no power plant. We are a church depending on
our own strength or our own circumstances or whatever may come. But there’s
a different story here in the life of the early churches. Peter
and John are released. Can you imagine their conversation?
Peter says to John, do you think they’re really gonna do all they
threatened? Are they really gonna seize our assets? Are they gonna
cut our tires? Are they gonna, well, we know
they’re gonna get beaten. A Jewish flogging in a chapter
or two, 30, 40 lashes less one, 39 lashes, just as Jesus had
and as Paul will. Probably threatened to kill them.
Probably threatened to arrest their family. Probably threatened
to, well, you let your imagination run wild. And so as they’re released,
as they’re walking back to the church, as they’re walking back
to their fellow believers, they’re wondering. And I imagine one
says to the other, no, it’s time to be bold. It’s time to strengthen
our faith. It’s time to go before the Lord.
It’s time to do like Jesus did in the hardest of hours and get
on our knees and pray. And so as these two are released
and returned to the rest of the congregation, we see in verses
23 and 24, they make a report. And you can imagine one telling
the news, the other filling in the blanks, the other telling
the news and the other filling in the blanks. Oh, you forgot
to tell this. And you forgot to tell what Ananias said. And it was just like they did
with Jesus. They hated him so, they hate
us so. And there was no conversation
I would imagine about, well, let’s just quit now while we’re
ahead. Let’s stop now while we have our dignity. We don’t want
our assets frozen. We don’t want to lose our 401,
three C nonprofit status. You know, we don’t, we don’t
want the governing authorities to be upset with us. So we’ll just
move on quietly. Go back to Galilee. No, the report, the report, whatever
was contained in it to the rest of the congregation that had
gathered the rest who were there to receive these two back. was
a prayer meeting. The response was, our passage
tells us, with one accord, they went to prayer. And in verses
24 to 30, give us that prayer. All sovereign Lord who made the
heaven and the earth, all sovereign Lord who said in your psalm,
number two, that the nations would rage, the Gentiles, Herod
and Pontius Pilate, the peoples, even Israel, even the children
of God would rage against Messiah and his His efforts, his work. It’s a reminder not only of Psalm
two that people will plot against God, but it’s a it’s a reminder
all the way back to Genesis three. Remember, Adam and Eve, they
were tempted. They ate the fruit. They hid
themselves, they covered themselves with fig leaves. God came looking,
God found them, God brought them before him, Satan also. And as he dealt out their judgments,
he issued a curse. And he said to Eve, you will
bear children in pain. but from you will come a great
one, an offspring, Jesus, and he will crush this serpent’s
head. Satan knew his doom from that
moment if he didn’t know it before. And so these are little snapshots
of Satan’s nipping at the heels of his church. Maybe this morning
as you got up and wanted to come be with your church family in
Sunday school and worship, you had those Sunday morning frustrations.
Satan’s good at those. You lose your keys. You lose
your Bible. Well, you lose your religion.
Maybe you have a little snip in the car on the way over. Maybe
it’s hard to get the kids ready. Maybe those little foxes that
spoiled the vineyard came. Satan loves to disrupt God’s
people from worship. He loves to make a marriage fail. He loves parents to busy themselves
and not raise their children. And on and on, the big things
God values, the huge things God puts in our lives, Satan wants
to destroy. And well, that’s what the church is facing here.
That’s what the church is facing in the 21st century. Don’t preach
Jesus. Don’t mention sin, that’s too
negative. Don’t preach marriages between one man and one woman
and for life. Don’t say this, don’t do that. It’s not politically correct,
not expedient. Well, these folks are praying
for boldness. And notice it says they pray
together in one accord. Somebody in our extended family
recently married to the Korean culture. And I don’t know what
you know about the Korean culture, but they’re a praying people. All of my Korean Presbyterian
friends, they get up early to pray, like four and five o’clock
in the morning. It’s a thing. It’s in their culture.
It’s built into their faith and practice. Most of us are snoozing
at five. Most of us are snoozing through
the prayer meeting. And remember, my goal is to encourage
you, the congregation of God needs to be a praying congregation,
seeking the power of almighty God. And they come together with
one accord. This is their one activity, their
one voice together. It’s the natural thing to do.
You know, the church has busied itself these days with this activity
and that activity and worship is eclipsed for sure. But where
is the prayer meeting? I can remember as a kid, Wednesday
nights headed to church, seven o’clock Wednesday night and 70
people sitting in our fellowship hall. They’d break into groups,
get into circles. We’d pray for missionaries. We’d
pray for each other. And afterwards we’d pray for the sick. It was
the power plant of the church. It was the nuclear reactor, but
the church in our age has thought better. We think God’s ways are
old ways and our ways are better ways. And so we, well, we just
don’t pray. And I don’t mean individually,
we just don’t pray as churches anymore. Yet we watch the news
and say, look at those statistics, aren’t they sad? We listen to
political pundits or read a column in the paper or a good theological
biblical journal and we say, isn’t the news sad? This is a
dark and dying world. This is a crooked and depraved
generation. Somebody’s got to do something about it. And we
begin to tap our foot and we think, who are we going to elect?
But really it’s a call to get on our knees. And it’s a call
to the church to get on their knees in prayer. They went to
prayer together with one accord. And there’s a couple of things
that pop up in their prayer. Very interesting things that
pop up in their prayer. One of those things is faith.
When we get in trouble, when we get in hot water, when life
comes at us as it does, and the waves of life are washing over
us, where else do we have to go? Who else can we pray to and
look to but to Almighty God and to their faith? Ah, sovereign
Lord, the one who rules, the one who reigns, the one who has
control over all things. We speak of God in terms of his
power, his strength, but also his providence. God’s works of
providence are his ordering and his governing, his sustaining
and ruling over all things that he’s made. R.C. Sproul said it
so well, there is not a maverick molecule in this universe. Abraham Kuyper, the prime minister
of the Netherlands in the 1800s and into the 1900s, he said of
Christ, there is not one square inch of this universe over which
Christ does not say mine. And that’s who they go to. That’s where they go in prayer. And so their faith is in God.
Not only their faith is in God, their understanding is in his
word. And so it’s easy to say, oh,
yes, I have faith in God. He’ll see me through whatever.
But our understanding and how do they understand the times
where they understood the times through the scripture, Psalm
two, it said to us, it says to all generations since David penned
it. People hate God. People hate Jesus. People hate
the church. People hate the Christian family.
People hate nurturing our children in the fear and admonition of
the Lord. People hate marriage. People hate anything that’s godly,
that’s good, that is right. And so how do they interpret
the times where they go to God in faith, they read their Bibles
and they say, oh sovereign God, we pray to you, but we know from
your scripture what is going on here. And all of this, putting
to death the Messiah, Jesus. It was all done according to
your definite plan and foreknowledge. And so when they go to God in
prayer with one accord in faith, they have understanding. And
then they bring their petition. You know, so often our prayers
are this, dear God, you know, we’re out of Cheerios. I’m serious. It’s the way we pray. Dear God,
we treat him like Santa. Dear God, Life’s unfair. Dear God, I expect
by Christmas morning you to put it all under the tree, just as
I ask. Dear God, I deserve it. And that’s not a bit how they
pray, is it? All sovereign Lord, you rule heaven and earth, you
made the world and everything in it. These are things you do,
good and evil. God doesn’t do evil, but he allows
it. Their understanding led to their
petitions. Give us boldness. What would our prayers be? Make
them go away. Take away the hardship. Take
away the complainers. Take away the Sanhedrin. Take
away whatever. We gotta get through it here. We gotta keep preaching, keep
proclaiming, keep healing in Jesus’ name. Lord, that’s our
petition. You’re able, you are mighty.
And notice, notice God’s response. There was another shaking, another
earthquake. There was another rushing of
the Holy Spirit. There was great power. All were filled with the Holy
Spirit and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Here’s a chapter in church history
you won’t read very often. Most of church history is about
timidity. It’s about heresy. It’s about people falling short
of God’s commands and expectations. It’s about doing the church’s
work in the world’s ways. But here is how we’d love for
church history to be written about our age, our church. We
trusted God. We prayed to God. The place was
shaken. Maybe that’s just for apostolic
times. but they were filled with all boldness and they continue
to speak. And as you read through the rest of the book of Acts,
the word of God is going to keep spreading and spreading and spreading. The numbers will keep adding
to the church and it’s because of their faith. It’s because
of their understanding and it’s because of their prayer that
God sees fit to work in the world and do many mighty and great
things. So how do you change history?
How do you change history? Is it through elections? We had
a big week, historic week, a lot of change in our nation. Is that
how change comes? Well, maybe a little. God is
sovereign and Lord over that. But it really begins at the prayer
meeting. We pray for each other. We pray for health. We pray for
strength. We pray for generations to walk with the Lord. We pray
for boldness in this dark generation. We pray that the gospel will
speed ahead. We pray for numbers to be added,
for conversions. We pray for children yet to be
born. We pray for our sick, our suffering, our heartbroken. That’s
where you change history because there you go to the one who makes
the world go round. One thing to remember about the
apostles, it’s gonna be said of them later in the book of
Acts, they turned the world upside down. I like to think of it this
way. They turned the world right side
up. It’s an upside down world, friends, that needs the gospel,
but it needs us on our knees, praying for boldness to speak
and to proclaim Jesus’ name. Let’s go to God in prayer. Our
Lord, forgive us for our timidity. often found in situations where
a few minutes later we have the regrets. I wish I would have
said this. I wish I would have spoken that.
Or we’ve lived for some time and we may have regrets about
our prayer life, even the church’s prayer life. And so we pray now
for a moment of turning in each of our hearts, that we would
gather when the church prays and pray together in one accord
for boldness, that the name of Jesus might be proclaimed and
spread across the land. We know, Lord, that what ails
this world, what ails our culture, can only be fixed by the power
of the gospel. And so we pray that through our
lives, our testimony, our church’s mission, that men and women and
boys and girls would come to faith in Jesus and rest in him
alone for their salvation. and live forever for his glory.
We ask this in the name of Christ, amen. We want to prepare for
the Lord’s supper by singing number 354, not all the blood
of beast and we’ll stand to sing together. so