You can turn back in your Bibles to Acts chapter four. Acts four, we're going to read verse twenty three to verse thirty seven, which is the end of the chapter, and we'll consider that central portion there, the main portion versus twenty three to thirty one, the prayerful activity of the early church. Let's read Acts four, beginning at verse twenty three and
Scripture Reading
being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth. and the sea and all that is in them, who by the mouth of your servant David have said, Why did the nations rage and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.
Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness. Now, the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.
Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who laughed, for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and they distributed to each as anyone had need.
And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet. Amen. Well, let us again go to God in prayer.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you now for this portion of worship, the preaching of the word. We do pray that you would bless this time, that you would own this time, Lord God. We pray for preacher that you would grant to him what is necessary to preach your word faithfully. We thank you that you do grant aid to your ministers.
And we do pray for that this morning. We pray for those gathered, Lord God, in the pews, that you would strengthen your saints, that you would give them what they need to hear, what the spirit has to say to them. We do ask, Lord God, for those outside of Christ, that you would, by victorious grace, with the preaching of your word, call them to believe in the Savior, that they would repent and believe and find all things in Christ Jesus, our blessed, saving King. We just pray again that what we do now would be to the praise of Your glory, would be to the praise of Your grace, that Your name might be hallowed and that You might receive all Lord God.
We pray in Christ's name, Amen.
Introduction
Well, the portion that we read follows certain occasions and certain events in the early church, Peter and John specifically. being involved, the greater context. First, remember that we're still in phase one, if you will, of the ministry of the early church. The early church has been commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ in Acts chapter one and verse eight. You will be my witnesses, Jesus says to his disciples first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Well, we haven't yet moved. We will in Acts chapter eight to Judea and Samaria. So we're still in phase one, if you will, stage one of the ministry of the apostles and the early church following the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ to preach his name and his gospel. And so that is the larger context, the more immediate context.
Now, remember, in our reading, Peter and John heal a man in Acts 3. They heal a man. They proclaim the gospel to him. The healing and the wonder done in his miraculous physical healing is something that signifies, that vindicates, that testifies to the legitimacy of this Christ and the proclamation of him by his ambassadors.
And then we see Peter and John arrested. Peter and John are arrested by the unbelieving Jewish authorities and are threatened to not preach Jesus Christ. That does not do anything for their bold proclamation of Christ. They rejoice. in their persecution, because they have been persecuted for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are released.
And then we see them gathered together here with their companions, where they share this victory, if you will, of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we're going to look at verses 23 to 31 by simply observing three things. First, the people. Secondly, the prayer.
And thirdly, the response. So the people, the prayer and the response.
The People
Notice, first off, the people, they are steadfast. The people, the Christians gathered here with Peter and John, are steadfast. That is, they are not moved away from the cause that Christ has commissioned them to carry out. They have just received news, verse 23, And being let go, they went, Peter and John, to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.
So they would have heard about these threatenings that the chief priests and the elders gave to Peter and John. They would have heard this ungodly command that you can no longer preach Jesus Christ and him crucified and raised again. They would have heard of all these threats and everything that was visited upon Peter and John. But nevertheless, they don't scatter.
They don't scurry away. They don't say, woe is me. They don't lament their misfortune, if I can use that word. But rather, verse two says, so when they heard that, they raised their voice to God.
You see, they were steadfast. And as the text will bear out, We find them not praying for deliverance from this persecution, for deliverance from this threat. We don't see them praying, Lord, take us far away from here, that we might live in a utopian society. But rather, they pray for boldness, that Lord God, look upon their threats and grant your servants boldness, that we may faithfully proclaim Jesus Christ to all who were given here.
They are steadfast. And so that is something that marks the early church. Yes, it is something that the apostles of the New Testament need to continually exhort the early church unto. Therefore, be steadfast are commonly repeated words in the New Testament.
Nevertheless, by God's grace, by God's spirit, his people are empowered to to show that steadfastness before their enemies and among their companions. Turn with me, if you will, to first Corinthians 15, first Corinthians 15, because we need to understand a couple of things with regards to the steadfastness of the people of God. One thing, of course, is that this steadfastness is not conjured up by us. It's not something native to us.
We're not to be those who are marked by steadfastness natively and innately. But rather, it is something that needs to be prayed for, and it is something that God needs to bestow upon His people. In fact, that's one of the reasons why they pray this prayer. Also, we need to see that our steadfastness is built upon the foundation of something.
What is that something? First Corinthians 15, verse 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So we read the therefore.
What is this exhortation to be steadfast, immovable? What is it built upon? Verse 57. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What victory? Everything that the apostle had written before that, that victory of Christ's death and resurrection, the victory over the sting and curse of the law, which is damnation due to sin and unbelief. The Apostle had written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast immovable.
Our steadfastness depends on God, depends upon His Spirit, And it is built upon the foundation of Christ's perfect and finished and victorious work. Therefore, be steadfast.
A Prayerful People
Secondly, with regards to the people, they are prayerful. They are prayerful. Remember, it is an inevitability that God's people are to be a praying people, as Pastor Butler has worked through his exposition of the book of Matthew. He has noted this on many occasions.
The command isn't necessarily given, therefore pray. The command or the expectation, the inevitability that prayer will be present among the people of God is acknowledged. Praying, therefore, is really a paraphrase of Christ's words, when you pray. It is assumed that God's people will pray.
We come to the text of Acts 4, following the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the commission of our Lord Jesus Christ to his earthly representatives to spread the gospel. We see them gather together and we see them praying. Now, we might not find that a marvelous thing, but we ought to humanly looking at the circumstances. They're threatened with death.
They're threatened with persecutions. They're threatened with violence to be brought upon them, arrest and all these sorts of things. But nevertheless, the response is to pray to God. The response is not, let's get out of here.
The response is not, let's launch some sort of counter strike. Let's gather together all the weapons that we can and throw down this ungodly government. The response isn't to go on some sort of aggressive letter writing campaign, you know, just smearing the name of the civil magistrate and just running them into the ground with pen and paper. No, the response is that the gathered people of God pray.
And the content of the prayer, which we'll get to, gives us much instruction. The content of the prayer, again, isn't, Lord, deliver us from the tyranny of evil men. It is, Lord, look upon the threats of these ungodly men and give us the boldness to speak your word to them and to all who will give an ear before us. And so the people are a prayerful people.
Again, that ought to be the response. Not again, because I haven't said this yet, but we've said it before. That ought to be the response of God's people, shouldn't it? When difficulty comes, when trial comes, when hardship comes, when whatever madness comes upon Christ's people, it seems to be that that never really is our first response.
If we can just sort of scan the landmarks of our memories, The first thing that we do very often when hardship comes upon us is either, you know, retaliate to the person who has brought that hardship upon us, or it is to say, woe is me, to, you know, to cower in our beds, to, you know, maybe for whoever it's to hit the bottle or hit a 12 pack of Tim Hortons donuts, to do whatever other than to pray. You see, it is the natural response of the man to go to anything else other than his savior and prayer. But the spirit wrought, blood bought children of God are to immediately fly to their God in prayer because that is the place where we are to go. That is the only place where we should go when hardship, trial and affliction come.
And we need to be constantly reminded, constantly reminded. And that is much of the apostolic pen writing is spent upon that topic or a related one. Be steadfast, be prayerful, do not fall away, do not run away, but rather in unity stand fast for the cause of the gospel and be a prayer bringing people. They are prayerful.
United Around the Gospel
Lastly, with regards to these people, they are united. They are united. They are not of different minds. They are not of different spirits.
The text says, verse 24, So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said, Christ's gathered people, wherever they are, are to be a gathered people who are unified. First and foremost, we are to be unified because we are all in union with Jesus Christ. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. In love, having predestined us unto adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself.
That whole text in Ephesians 1, you can count the times where the Apostle Paul writes, in Him, in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved. We are in union with our blessed savior. So by virtue of that, we are to be united together. We are to be of one accord.
We are not to be or our union is not to be based on a canon of our own idiosyncrasies. We're not to gather together our hobby horses, write them on a blackboard and say, we need to be about these things or else let's just not be a church. Our Church's unity and the gathering together of Christ's people, marked by unity, is to be for His cause, because of our union with Him. It is to be, first and foremost, for the Gospel.
And it is to be out of a desire to have God's name vindicated throughout the earth. We are to be united around the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that the instruction of the Apostle Paul? Remember that text in Philippians.
Philippians 1.27. He says, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy, in a conduct worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving for the faith of the Gospel. You see, our unity is not based on anything save for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don't unite because of social causes.
We don't unite because of a litany of dress codes and makeup restrictions and haircut styles and whatever else it might be, a canon of mad personal opinions. We gather together and we rally around the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our marching orders are based upon the doing and the dying and the rising again and ascension of the Savior, that complex of first advent redemptive truths. We rally around that and we seek to proclaim to a godless world the riches and the excellencies of Jesus Christ, that God's name and His purpose and His glory would be vindicated in all the earth.
They are a united people. And no, this is in most certainly in obedience to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, one of those glorious statements regarding unity. Jesus didn't say it about the United States. He didn't say it about, you know, some European Union.
He said a house divided against itself cannot stand. The house must be united. The kingdom must be united, not a geopolitical kingdom, but the kingdom of God, the people, the gathered people of God, those redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be unified. A house divided cannot stand.
And so these people come together. They gather together in unity. They are with one accord. When a church is united, the work of the gospel flourishes.
You see what's at stake when there's disunity in a church, you see what's at stake when we don't make the weird proclivities and fancies of our own minds the main things and we set the main things below. The gospel doesn't advance, the gospel doesn't flourish. The gospel doesn't go anywhere because we're all bothered and taken aside by trivialities and rabbit trails. We are to have as the pinnacle of our focus, as the main monolith of our focus, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Again, that's the point of Philippians 1.27. Do you know that fellowship does not mean it's nice to gather up in the church, the fellowship luncheon hall and and eat pierogies and chopped sausage from Rempel's Meats and sip coffee and eat pie. That's great and we should do that, gather together as people and eat and drink and be thankful to God that he gives us stuff to eat and drink. Fellowship, first and foremost, is rallying around unity around our common reality. that we've all been saved, we've all been pulled, we've all been dragged from that place whence we were found in deadness and trespasses and sins to a place of being found in right standing before God based upon the doing and dying of Jesus Christ.
That is where our fellowship is seen in that common reality that we all have. Whatever station we came from, whatever our race or creed was before, wherever we came from, we have that common reality that God, in His appointed and accepted time, by virtue of the perfect work of Christ, by His Spirit, has called us to believe in Him unto the saving of our souls. So let our unity be around that. Let our fellowship, though it's nice to eat pierogies together, be seen to have its central focus around the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Prayer
Moving on then to the prayer. To the prayer. Six points under this particular heading. The prayer, because there are many things to observe. First off,
God Addressed as Creator
the prayer addresses God as creator. Notice the text reads this way. Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. The prayer addresses God as the creator.
Now, you might say, well, you know, yeah, that's obvious. God is the creator. You know, the gathered Christians, they're just. They're just acknowledging a certain attribute of God because that's who God is.
And of course, that's there. God is the creator. Lord, the God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that are in them. But there is a specific purpose for these gathered Christians to use this language with regards to God.
He is addressed this way as a recognition of his greatness and majesty. You see, this is he's addressed this way. He's recognized as such. Yes, because it's true.
But because of the request that they bring before him, that you might look upon their threats and that you might grant us boldness. You see, it's that pattern of prayer, that paradigm of prayer that the Savior brings forth to us, that Pastor Butler has been preaching on in the book of Matthew. God comes first, his glory, his majesty, that he should be hallowed and then follows our temporal requests. And that is what they do.
They highlight God is addressed this way as a recognition of his greatness and majesty so that upon the heels of that recognition and observation, they can bring forth their request, their petition, their plea. When the church gathers Or when the church engages in corporate prayer, we are to pray this way. When we gather in corporate prayer, we are to address our God, our creator, the only living and true God. You see, we don't come in prayer as a gathered church and bring our prayers before some sort of neighborhood deity.
You know, you've got this God over here, but you've got this God here that you can pray for, for this specific need. That's pagan madness. See, we don't come to prayer in our gathered church and bring our supplications and our petitions before angels or before dead saints. We don't gather together and grip on to some hellish deeds like the Roman Catholics and pray to a woman.
No, we come and we gather together before the only living and true God, the creator of the heavens and earth and all and the sea and all that are in them. And we make our requests known to him and to him alone. They address God as creator again to recognize his greatness and his majesty. And our church gathered together 2000 years later, follow in their pattern footsteps.
We address our God as the sovereign creator, heaven and earth, of everything seen and unseen. And we come to that God with our specific requests, praises and thanksgivings.
God Addressed as Revelator
Notice they address God as revelator. They address God as revelator. That simply means someone who reveals. God is someone who reveals.
And again, we should always stop at this point to marvel in this truth. Again, it is of the highest condescending mercy that we have the Bible. God deemed it well and wise to reveal to his creation his will for them, his redemptive plan for his people. You see, there are notions of God out there in other religions and in other philosophical systems where God has created and now he's wholly removed from his creation and it's up to man in the finite reality of his own mind to somehow mount up and find God by his own efforts, by his own intelligence and that sort of thing.
That's the religion of the world. There is a God. But we must find him somehow. That is, among those religions that actually profess a God.
We have in the Christian and in the real world a God who has created a God who, yes, is wholly other, separate from his creation, but a God who is condescended to give us his word in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. Isn't that marvelous? I mean, we should repent right now and I'm not repenting for anyone. But if we, you know, for not availing of our Bibles as often as we should.
Remember what we have here, we don't have a dusty tome of collective literature that, you know, some people gather together and bound and, you know, hey, avail of some of these precepts and see how your life goes. We have God in his mercy, in his grace, condescending to by servants give us his perfect, inerrant, infallible, inspired word that we might be saved by the power of the Holy Spirit working by this word and we might proclaim his excellencies before a dying world. We have God condescending in great mercy to reveal. They acknowledge God as revelator.
Notice in verse 25, who by the mouth of your servant David have said. See, God is a revelator. He reveals. Not only did He create, not only did He, in one sense, in that, generally reveal His majesty and His glory.
Remember Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. But God has condescended to reveal in the Scriptures the will and the way for His redemptive plan of salvation.
God is revelator. He is addressed this way as a recognition of his promise and the certainty of its fulfillment. You see what they do here. They acknowledge God as creator, recognizing and calling upon, if you will, his glory and majesty.
And then they recognize and address God as revelator because in his revealed scriptures, he has made promises and they are calling upon those promises and the certainty of their fulfillment as a reason for God to grant them this boldness and to look upon those threats and to give them what they require to be strong for the cause of God and true. When the church engages in corporate prayer, she prays to the one who has given us clear and certain promises. You see, this helps us as a church to know how we are to pray. We have a God who has given us certain promises and truths in the scriptures.
We return those back to God as items of praise, but also as reasons to hear us and to grant, according to his will, things for the advance of his gospel, for the advance of his kingdom and for the good of his people. And so we gather together and we pray to the one who has given us clear and certain promises. And you see, this would serve as comfort for them. They read song or as they cite song, too, as they apply it to their own time and as they consider the threats of their enemies, the promises of God and the fact that though the nations rage, though people plot vain things, though kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Christ.
Though all this is happening, what do we have? The promise, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. You see, enemy after enemy will mount throughout history, throughout history, coming against the church. the living and true God. But time and time again throughout history, the church is victorious, not because of the greatness of her people, but because of the greatness of her God, not because of the greatness of her constituents, but because of the greatness of Jesus Christ, who made that promise and who made it effectual and who makes it effectual, ruling and reigning, subduing the hearts of the elect and reigning victorious over his enemies.
They address God, as revelator, recognizing his promise and the certainty of its fulfillment.
Psalm 2 Applied to Christ
Thirdly, under the prayer, notice they apply, or this prayer applies, Psalm 2 to Christ. You see, don't miss this in the narrative and don't miss things like this in the narrative of Acts and elsewhere. The early Christians engaged in proper biblical interpretation. They come They cite Psalm 2, a psalm written, if we can just throw out a whole number and round up, round up, round down.
A thousand years before the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 2 is penned by King David. One thousand years later, Christians gather together following the threats, the enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. can cite that in their prayer and say, for truly, this has been fulfilled among us in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. You see, the early Christians engaged in good biblical hermeneutics, good biblical interpretation. This prayer is biblical.
It cites the scriptures. It shows that they were taught. You see, these were taught and stable brethren. They were not perfect.
They were not sinless. No doubt they had their trials, their problems, their proclivities and all their idiosyncrasies. But nevertheless, they were taught and stable. They could see events.
They could cite scripture. They could bring those things before God and basically say, based on your promises and the certainty of their fulfillment, grant us, Lord God, what you will for the advancement of your kingdom. They knew the scriptures, they were instructed well in the scriptures, and they rightly applied the scriptures.
God's Sovereignty Acknowledged
Fourthly, we see that this prayer acknowledges God's sovereignty. Just skipping past. Well, yeah, we'll read the whole section beginning again at verse twenty seven. Notice for truly against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed.
Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, note verse 28, to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done. You see, there were no, at least not that I'm aware of, Arminians in the early church. There were no Pelagians or deists here gathered together, listening to Peter and John report, and then praying. We have the sovereignty of God disclosed quite clearly and owned as a glorious reality and serving as a foundation to now therefore, God, look upon their threats and grant to your people what they need to proclaim with boldness your word.
The sovereignty of God, specifically at the point of his eternal decree to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done. Comfort of comforts in their circumstances, isn't it? The enemies of Christ are railing against them. The unbelieving Jews and their mad murderous rage and their frothing mouths are coming against them.
They're not cast into a state of woe is me. There is no lamentation. There is no hiding. There is no scurrying.
There is no God if you were only sovereign and could intervene. No, it is God. Based on your sovereignty, based on your eternal decree and the providential bearing out of it, Lord God, look upon their threats and grant. Look upon their threats and according to your promises, according to your character, according to your perfections, Grant, Lord God, what your servants need in order to carry out their commission of proclaiming the glorious one.
The text acknowledges God's sovereignty, and remember, this isn't the only point where in the life of the early church that this is brought up. Remember, the same author who wrote the book of Acts writes in Luke 22, 22, Jesus speaking of Judas. He says that the son of man must go as it has been eternally preordained, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. You see, this theme of sovereignty and the providence or the eternal decree, the sovereign and eternal decree and providence bearing it out, the providential means used to bring about that eternal decree come up very often in scripture. all over the place.
Acts 223, Christ was delivered up according to the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. But you, by lawless hands, have taken him, have crucified him and put him to death. The events of history, providence is the events of history bearing out according to the predetermined purpose of the Lord God. So this prayer, in this prayer, Christians acknowledge God's sovereignty, they acknowledge God's providence.
We just barely or just briefly alluded to that. We have the decree determining before to be done. And then we have the historical bearing out the providential fulfillment of that decree before the foundation of the earth for truly against your holy servant, Jesus, verse twenty seven, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together. You see, there's so much in this prayer, brother, creator, Revelator.
Sovereign God of eternal decree. The One who, according to that eternal decree, brings about those decrees in time and in history. These Christians had glorious theology. We know that You are Creator.
We know that You have revealed to us by servants. We know that You are Sovereign. That You have an unrivaled and unabridged mastery over the entirety of Your universe, time and history. and that you have decreed certain things to come to pass. And we have witnessed and have heard these things come to pass.
All those things, all of those perfections and attributes of God, therefore, Lord God, most holy, most wise, most gracious, most sovereign, the only living and true God, tend to your servants, look upon the threats of your enemies, and grant what we need.
The Prayer as Petition for Boldness
This prayer then takes the form of a request. This prayer then takes the form of a request. Notice the language. Now, Lord, look on their threats, verse 29, and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.
So everything that we've prayed, Lord God, based upon everything that we've acknowledged and addressed in our prayer. Therefore, Lord God, bring this certain request to bear in our midst and for your glory. They pray for boldness. They pray for boldness, but again, it's not a boldness so that they might go out and engage in guerrilla warfare against their persecutors.
It's not, Lord God, grant us boldness to engage in military conquest against the oppressors. That's not what the kingdom of God is about. The kingdom of God is what they pray for, boldness, for the proclamation of God's word. And this is the proclamation of God's word, according to the text, is to be facilitated by God healing at the hands of the apostles.
Notice what the text says here in the progression and the language and the connectivity here, grant your servants that with all boldness, they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal. You see, in the early church, There were healings that were not healings unto the end of healing and just to sort of marvel in supernaturalism, but rather the healings served as a testification to the legitimacy of the proclaimed word. And so you see the gathered Christians here are praying, Lord, grant boldness to your servants that they may preach the word of God by by stretching out your hand to heal. So do again what you did in Acts 3.
It's what the Christians are saying. Let your servants go out. Let them heal the sick and let that be an instance or an occasion whereon the gospel of Jesus Christ can come in and be proclaimed to all who will hear. Of course, that act of that act of healing by the hands of servants ceased.
We don't believe that that continues. We believe God continues to heal. We believe that God continues to heal and to mend as the great physician. But as far as that activity being paradigmatic or normative for the modern church, it is confined to this point in redemptive history when we had not yet had the word inscripturated and the gospel gone to every nation under heaven.
So we have the gathered church praying for boldness, for the proclamation of God's word, this to be facilitated by God healing at the hands of the apostles. And it's important to note something here, to note something here. Now, as Christians, each and every one of us ought to pray for boldness. Each and every one of us ought to pray for boldness, for strength, for the courage to proclaim Jesus.
The text, the gathered Christians are specifically praying for Peter and John and for those called to proclaim the word of God at this particular time. There is a principle here with regards to proper goings forth of church and the proper goings forth of the proclamation of the word. This doesn't mean I just noticed the text again here. Verse twenty nine.
Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word. You see, don't shy away from you saying, Lord, help me in the workplace to, you know, if so and so comes up to me again and says, you know, Christianity is horrible and there is no God to with courage speak the Bible truly to them. But specifically here, Peter and John come reporting these threats brought upon them. The gathered Christians then pray to God for the ministers of the gospel.
The principle here, first and foremost, is brethren, pray for those who minister the gospel because it is a hard task. This isn't this isn't me up here self-serving. I don't preach as much as Jim. I'm not as much vocationally involved as Pastor Butler in the preaching of the word.
But please pray for Pastor Butler as your pastor here. You know, we need to be reminded not only to be a prayerful bunch. but to have certain targets for prayer. I don't mean targets, you know, make that person be nicer to me. I mean, we should have those targets for prayer where, okay, you know what?
Yeah, the Bible says I should pray for my pastor that he would have the boldness to proclaim the Word of God. We need to pray for those who minister the Gospel because if there is a first and primary target, the devil, it is those who minister the Gospel. He, rather, wants to bring down those who faithfully open up the word and proclaim the living and reigning Christ to a dying world. And so we need to uphold those in prayer, pray against those who would oppose, pray for those who minister the gospel, that they would have divine aid in proclaiming and in carrying out their job of preaching the word and going to God in prayer.
Again, undertaking this form of a request or under this prayer, taking the form of a request, the request is first for boldness, as we've noted, and secondly, for signs and wonders to be done in Jesus name. Notice the text continues there by stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done. through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. You see, in this point in redemptive history, those signs and wonders, those things done by the Holy Spirit by servants, testify to the veracity of Christ's claims and the legitimacy of the Christian religion. So, we have the gathered Christians praying, Lord God, cause this to continue so that Your name might be vindicated in all the earth, that ministry continued, that activity of signs and wonders continued, the Lord God empowering his church to bear them out until such time that the complete or perfect would come.
That is the Old and New Testament in 66 books given to the church. And thereafter, such signs and wonders cease. And we have the living and true God working by spirit and word to call men and women, boys and girls from deadness and sin to life in Christ. So they build this request upon the perfections of God, upon acknowledging and addressing God in his various perfections and stations.
And they pray for boldness to proclaim the word of God to dying nations. And then lastly, notice the response.
The Response
Notice the response. Verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness.
We see here an answer to the prayer. This great example of God answering prayer, God blessing is gathered Christians with an answer to their request. They pray for boldness and then we see they spoke the word of God with boldness. We see in here an answer to prayer in three ways.
First off, we see the answer to prayer in the shaking of the place of gathering. I don't believe we're supposed to see this as an earthquake because in other places in the book of Acts, we see it actually announced as an earthquake. Now, God delivers and brings earthquakes. Earthquakes don't happen outside of the sovereign providential rule of God.
But in this case, I believe what we're seeing here is God's presence with his people. Verse 31, And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken. We see this in the Old Testament when God's law is given and the presence of God is known. Mount Sinai, the shaking and the thunderings and the lightnings of Mount Sinai.
God shook the earth. to disclose a measure of his presence. We see that in the New Testament, mostly in the context of judgment. Get to the book of Revelation and we see places shaking. It is the presence of God in those cases as a juridical shaking, a rumbling of the thunders of God who will come to utterly destroy his enemies.
Here we see the shaking as a confirmation of God's presence in the answer of prayer. The place where they were assembled together was shaken. Secondly, we see it in the filling of the Holy Spirit. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
We see this promised on the day of Pentecost by Peter. Men and brethren, what must we do? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized for the remission of sins. And you shall what?
Receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. John Gill comments that that was the gift of tongues. That was the gift of prophecy, that it was the revelatory gifts given to the apostles and to ministers of the gospel in the early church to proclaim Jesus Christ to those outside of their own native tongue. They were gathered together in Jerusalem, every nation under heaven.
And so God empowers them by the spirit to proclaim with boldness the word of God, specifically the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice, that is what is the end of the filling of the Holy Spirit. They spoke the word of God with boldness, which again is the third evidence of the answer for prayer. God actually gave them what they made a request for.
Lord grant that your servants may proclaim with all boldness the wonders, the riches, the excellencies of Christ. God gives them that. The Holy Spirit is given for the express purpose of not marveling in the supernatural, not babbling back to God, not doing anything save for the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not anything but to advance with boldness, with a courageous zeal, the doing, the dying, the rising again of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Application
Oh, brethren, three brief things and then we'll close in prayer, sing the doxology, And we'll have a time of meditation and you can be dismissed. Three things. First, this shows us how to be as a church. This shows us how to be as a church.
Remember those three things. Steadfast. Steadfast and immovable in the things of Jesus Christ, we are to be prayerful when trial comes, we don't fly to every other means of pacification of our sinful hearts. We fly to prayer.
We fly to God in prayer. We are to be a church that is steadfast and immovable and that is prayerful. And we are to be united. We are to be united again around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You see, because there's so much unity out there rallying around certain programs where the first thing you can hear when you walk into a church is, do you believe in homeschooling? Homeschooling is great. But should that be the first thing you hear when you come into a church? Oh, this guy's new.
Let's make sure that he's all about homeschooling. Let's make sure he's all about, you know, cloth diapers. Let's make sure that he's all about, you know, I don't know, denim skirts. You can wear denim skirts.
That's fine. But, you know, it shouldn't be a canon that we have on a multitudinous list of reasons why we have fellowship. We are, as they did, to unite around the gospel of Jesus Christ. This tells us, secondly, or this shows us, secondly, how to pray as a church, how to pray as a church.
We pray to God, the creator, God, the glorious revelator, God, the sovereign, God, the one who bears out and governs according to providence, and God, the one who blesses his people with boldness, with strength, with peace to carry out their tasks. We are to pray as these early Christians pray. Now, we can pray about small things to our God, can't we? The Bible tells us that if you don't have rice and you need rice, pray to God for rice.
You don't know what you're going to do for the next week for whatever, for your house. Some of us have been brought to that point where how are we going to get food on the table the next week, the next month, whatever it might be. You can pray for those small things. God hears.
God's gracious. He hasn't abandoned us. He won't abandon us. He's promised that.
But remember to pray for these big things. The proclamation, the unhindered proclamation of the gospel of Christ that the servants of God would not cower, would not waver, would not fall away, would not entertain heresy, but that we would with spirit-wrought boldness proclaim the gospel of Jesus And then thirdly, this gives us confidence that God is with his church and gives her what she needs to advance his gospel. Isn't that what we see here? We can have confidence that God is with his church.
They gather together to pray for boldness to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. God is there. He answers and he empowers. We can have confidence, brethren, that when our prayers are directed by the Bible, when the pattern of prayer, the content of prayer, and when we approach our God faithfully and biblically, that the Lord our God most certainly answers.
He is with his people, and he gives her what she needs to advance the glorious gospel of the blessed God. And before we pray, remember, old and young, if you're gathered here this morning, The only way to heaven, the only way to salvation, the only way to eternal life is through the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Savior. You see, maybe up until now you've been, you know, looking somewhere else. You've been thinking about what's for lunch.
You've been worrying about, you know, your next mortgage payment and that sort of thing. But right now, if you're outside of Christ, hear me. There is a living and true God of perfect holiness, perfect justice, perfect wrath, perfect anger against sin. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.
And sin isn't this, you know, mist or this ambiguous sort of idea that floats out there and that lurks in the sewers. Sin is a lack of conformity unto. and transgression of the law of God. We have all broken his righteous and his holy precepts. But you see, that's not where it stops.
It isn't bad news. It isn't glorious news of God or glorious realities of God. And then the bad news that all stand condemned in sin. There is good news that God sent Jesus Christ to come into this world to save sinners.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You shall be washed. You shall be sanctified. You shall be justified in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And you can sing along with us. Hallelujah. What a Savior.
Let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for what it discloses to us concerning, in this case, the early church, its characteristics of steadfastness, of prayerfulness, Lord God, of unity, of being in one accord, of one heart, of one mind. We pray that for our church, Lord God, that we would rally upon those high and heavy things of gospel truth. We'd rally around those and seek to advance your interest in this world. We do pray, Lord God, that You would help us to be prayerful, to pray for these things, to pray in this manner as these gathered Christians prayed.
And Lord God, we know and we have confidence and courage in the fact, comfort in the fact that you are with your people and that you grant them what they need in order to advance the gospel in this lower world. And we just pray, Lord, that you would go with us, that you would go with each and every one of these, that your people, Lord God, would Be well instructed and well filled by a day of worship today to go out into this upcoming week to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Lord God, I pray that by your spirit and by your word, sinners in our midst here will be saved, young and old, and that they would profess with great joy our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We just pray that you go with us now.
Help us to do all that we do for your glory. and for the praise of your glorious grace. And it's in Christ's name that we pray.