A Shared Focus

Real Community September 15, 2024 Acts 2:42-47 Notes


When you visit another country or even another part of our country, you’ll notice several unique features to their community, to their culture. What they believe, whether they are relational, friendly or not, what kind of food they eat and of course what language or dialect they speak. A shared language is one of the key marks of any community.

The same was true of the first century church. They had their own way of greeting one another. They had a shared language–– it was the language of prayer. It was a shared focus, one that focused on spending time together talking to God in prayer.

We can experience this authentic community when we pursue the four devotions of the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Today, we’re going to focus on the 4th devotion, “A Shared Focus.”

Audio

Transcript

Good morning, church. We're glad to be back with you. We had a couple of Sundays off. We went to a family reunion in our hometown of Bristol, Virginia. I thought I had a Sunday off there, but the pastor there that I grew up under, who's in his eighties now, pastor Cook, called me a few months back and asked, “Hey, I understand you're coming Labor Day weekend. Can you preach for us at Victory Baptist?”

And I said, “Yes, sir.” As soon as I heard his voice on the phone, I knew who it was. And so it was a privilege to preach at the church I grew up in, and humbling as well, to be in the pulpit of one who's had 60 years in the ministry there. And so, speaking of family reunions, that's really what this series is about, “Real Community: Four Devotions of Authentic Fellowship.”

Now, I'm back with you. I feel like I'm at another family reunion, because you're my family. Many of you came to me in the lobby as you were coming in, saying, “Hey, we missed you” and it feels good to be missed. I mean, if you would have said, ‘You know, you could have stayed gone. We had a good time while you were gone” that would have felt different.

So I'm glad you're missing me, and I missed you, and I'm glad to be back with you today. Now, one of the things about a family, about a church family or any culture is, if you will, they have a shared belief system. Usually they believe in some similar things. They have a shared family, they have connectivity. They may eat the same kinds of foods.

We were talking about this last Sunday, that if I say, ‘I'm going to go eat Mexican’ or ‘I'm going to go eat Chinese,’ you know what I mean. It came from that culture, and it's a certain kind of food. But today we're going to be talking about a shared focus, a shared language, which is really the language of prayer. And so any country you visit has its own language. And so we go on a lot of mission trips with our church.

This past summer, we sent a team to Uganda, for instance, and I've been to Uganda many times. We've sent teams to Guatemala. I try to learn how to greet them in their own language because people seem to really care how you spend at least enough time to learn how to say “hello” to them. And so, if I'm in Guatemala, I say “hola como estas.” If I'm visiting someone from Haiti or from someone in France, I'd say, “bonjour.”

We've been on some trips in the past to Indonesia, some mission trips to Indonesia. Recently, I was going to lunch up in Rocky Mountain with my son, Jonathan, and we were looking for a sushi place. He said, “I don't think we have a sushi place in Rocky Mount.” I asked him, "What's this “Saku Sushi” thing?”

He says, “I don't know. I haven't been there.” So we went in there to check it out. Turned out to be really good. But the waiter that walked up to us didn’t look Japanese to me.

He looks Indonesian. Jonathan asks me, “Well, dad, how can you tell?” I said to him, “I don't know. It’s just something about the way he looks.” So, when he walked up to me, I said, “Hallo, selamat pagi al khabar.”

And the dude, like, his eyes welled up with tears. And he just starts speaking to me a whole lot in Indonesian. All I know is ‘hello and good morning.’

’How are you?’ That's it. That's all I can say. Oh, “Where's the bathroom?” I can say that, and that's all I have. But he was so thrilled that I could say that in his language.

The first time I went to Uganda, Uganda is a former British colony, so the official language of the country is actually English. We go to Kosoro, Uganda. They actually prefer their tribal language that they grew up with; it's called “Rufimbira.”

And so when I first got there, they taught me how to greet the church members. So when I would come to a church and I was getting ready to speak like I am today, I wanted to at least say something in Rufimbira. So they taught me how to say a greeting, “Yesu ashimwe.”

And I knew that “Yesu” was Jesus. I knew that. I wasn't sure about “ashimwe.” I wasn't sure what that meant, but I knew it was good. They taught me to say it as a greeting.

And so I'm saying “Yesu ashimwe” to people downtown when I'm buying souvenirs. Everywhere I go, I'm saying, “Yesu ashimwe.” Now, when I said it downtown, they didn't say it back to me. They looked at me funny and I noticed that. And I thought, Well, it's because, you know, I'm an American.

I'm white. Because they don't see very many white people where I was at. That's what I thought it was. And then when I come to church the next day, Pastor George says, “Pastor Gary, everywhere he goes, he says, ‘Jesus be praised.’ Even when he's downtown with non believers, he says, ‘Jesus be praised’ everywhere he goes.” I said, “Oh, that's what I was doing?”

But there's nothing wrong with that, is there? Really? Here's the thing: being part of a family system has its own language and the language of the first century church.

Listen to me. The language of our church, it should be the language of prayer. That should be our shared focus that we share, a language of prayer. How are you doing in this area? Do you pray?

Do you have a prayer life? If you're married, do you pray with your spouse? I mean, that's hard to do, isn't it? It's hard to pray with your spouse, because then the thing about prayer is you kind of expose your heart. Do you pray with your kids?

And I'm talking about real prayers. Like, I'm not just talking about memorized prayers. We teach our kids to memorize prayers, right? “God is good. God is great.

Let us thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed…” Yeah, you guys have it memorized. It's a great prayer.

Listen, that's a great prayer, but we want our kids to grow up hearing us pray like we're talking to God, not with memorized little speeches, but to actually hear us talking to God. How are you doing with that? Are you praying as a family? And are you part of a group of believers who get together regularly to talk to God? That's what we're talking about today.

The fourth devotion that we're covering in this four-part series is the devotion to prayer, to have a focus of prayer. And that's really been the four devotions. “They were devoted to the apostles teaching to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. And so they had a shared faith, a shared family, a shared food, and a shared focus.” And that's the focus of prayer.

So we're going to be looking today at three steps on how we can share in this focus of prayer. Let's look at it. We're going to be looking at the book of Acts, chapter two, starting at verse 42. Now, here's something we've done unusually these past four weeks.

We've “camped out” on the same text every week. And if you've been here now for four Sundays, hopefully this text is really becoming part of your DNA. This is the founding document of the church; what the church looked like. And I believe that the church of the first century can look like the church of the 21st century if we lean in and devote ourselves the way they did. Let's read.

Acts 2:42-47 (ESV) 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three steps on how to share the focus of prayer in Christ's community. Here's the first step:

1. Grow up together in communicating with God.

Grow up together in communicating with God. I want you to look at verse 42 again. We've covered this word. This is now our fourth time.

The word, “devoted.” The word, “devoted;” it’s the Greek word, “proskartereo;” “pro” means “to face towards” and “skartereo” has the idea “to be steadfast at a thing, to be strong at it.” And so it means “to be continually facing a thing.” In other words, “to focus on it, to be earnestly focusing on a thing.” And so, this word, “devoted,” has the idea here. They had four devotions, four things that they kept their faces towards. They were constantly devoted to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and then to the prayers.

Notice, they “devoted themselves;” this is a corporate prayer life that they have. They “devoted themselves” and then notice the plural prayers. Now, I've noted that some English translations just say they were devoted to prayer. And I understand what they're doing. They're trying to smooth out the English so it's easier to read.

But they lost something when they did it here. I like what the ESV does here. It agrees with what the King James and the new King James do here. It leaves it as it was found in the original Greek, which the New Testament was written in Greek originally. And it's literally to the “prayers;” plural.

That's important. That's first of all important because that's what was written. But it's second of all important because it really includes two categories: One, the different occasions of prayer, because there are different occasions that call for prayer, and then there are different kinds or different types of prayer. So let's think about that.

”They were devoted to the prayers.” In other words, they were devoted to praying on all kinds of occasions and all kinds of prayers. All types of prayer, it says Ephesians 6:18 (NIV) “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests…” Paul's “unpacking” it here.

He does it again in Timothy. He says, 1 Timothy 2:1 (ESV) “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.” And so we see there are different occasions and different kinds of prayers. One of the acronyms I learned early on when I was being discipled as a young believer and one to help you remember different types of prayer is the acronym ACTS..

Have you heard of this before? The A stands for “adoration.” “Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The C stands for “confession.” “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The T stands for “thanksgiving.” “And give us this day our daily bread.” The idea of being thankful for God's sustenance. Then, “supplication” is the S. “Lead us not into temptation.” May your will be done in heaven as it is on earth. And so, ACTS is Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. That's at least four types. Paul actually mentioned another one.

He mentioned supplications and thanksgivings in 1st Timothy. But he also says “intercessions.” That's another type. What is that? What does it mean to “intercede” for somebody?

That means you're praying for someone else. So there's all types of prayers and there are all kinds of occasions that call for prayer. And here's what I want you to hear - the first century church, the church that turned the world upside down, the church that was the most effective of any church probably in 2000 years and seen the gospel go forth across the nations. That church was a praying church, and they were devoted to the prayers.

How did they learn, how did they grow up and know how to pray like this? Well, first of all, I would say to you, they asked Jesus to teach them how. Notice what it says in Luke 11:1 (ESV) Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

And a couple of the disciples knew that because they had formerly been disciples of John the Baptist. Who were they? They were John and Andrew. John and Andrew had been disciples of John the Baptist and John the Baptist when he baptized Jesus.

We had a baptism service this morning, a beautiful service. When John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus, he turned to them and said, “This is the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.” And so, they stopped following John and started following Jesus. And if you remember, that's when John and Andrew went and talked to their brothers and told Peter, the brother of Andrew, and James, the brother of John, about Jesus, and that they were going to follow him anyway. They knew about being taught to pray by John the Baptist, but here they go.

’We want to pray like you, Jesus.’ Why would they say that? Because they had heard Him pray. Now, they grew up memorizing Hebrew prayers. These are Jews.

And they had all kinds of Hebrew prayers, just like we had the prayer that you've memorized - “God is good, God is great…” They had the “baruch,” which they prayed. I understand that Stephen last week had you sing the “baruch” over the bread.

I'd never sung it before. I memorized it. I've led tours to Israel, and one of the things I try to do, like I do in other places, is to know a few things. And so I knew the Baruch, “Baruch ata adonai elohenu melacho, elam ham minha eretz, amenhenna.”

It means, “blessed art Thou, o Lord, king of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth. Amen.” That's the prayer over the bread. Notice he does something different than what Americans do. We pray, ‘God bless our food.’

Which. That's cool, that's good. But instead, they bless the God who brings the food. We could learn from that, couldn't we? “Blessed are you, O Lord, king of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth.”

I kind of like that correction from that memorized prayer. So they grew up with memorized prayers. But then when they heard Jesus pray, He would pray, ‘Abba, Father’ and just pour out his soul. They had never heard anybody talk

to the King of the universe. And so then He taught them how to pray. And we see two records of His teaching prayer. We call it the “Lord's Prayer,” but really it's the Lord's teaching prayer. The real Lord's prayer is in John 17. If you want to see how the Lord's praying,

read John 17. That's how he's praying. But this is His teaching prayer, “Our Father (Abba,) which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…”

And so He's teaching them. That's how they learned. So then, how did the first century church learn? They learned from the apostles and disciples, who learned from Jesus. Now, how did you learn to speak English, by the way?

How did you learn? I've been talking to some of you about this. Our church is like the church where people move down from the North.

We've got a lot of people here locally. I'm not from here. I moved down here. I was transferred down here by a corporation I worked for 30 some years ago before I answered the call to preach. But a lot of you are coming here because, well, maybe you tried Florida out first, and it was too hot, and they didn't have any seasons.

And we've talked about this like, you “fell halfback.” We call a lot of you “the halfbacks.” You left New York or New Jersey or somewhere up there, and you went to Florida. It was too hot. You didn't have four seasons, so you fell halfback to Wilson like that.

So welcome, “halfbacks.” Glad you're here. But your accent is different from the local accent, and my accent is different, actually, a little bit. If you're from the North, you won't notice it, but the Wilsonians noticed that my accent is different from people from Wilson. When I first moved here, I would hear strange things, like, ‘Where do you stay?’

And I'd be like, ‘I actually bought a house. I mean, I live here.’ They would go, ‘Hey, can I carry you…’ Carry me? What?

They meant, give me a ride. I also heard people referring to Wilson as “Wiltson,” like that. And then there's a county nearby called “Johnson,” which is spelled Johnston. And so my theory on that is they took the “t” out of Johnston county and put it in Wilson. I don't know how that happened, but there are these linguistic

differences.We learn to speak from the people who brought us up. And it's not like they had a class. We just heard them talk, and we picked it up. The little one says, ‘dada, mama’

and then the third word that pretty much all three of our children learned was “no.” That was the third word they learned because they heard us ask them, “Say, dada and mama. No, don't say mama, say dada.”

That was the competition me and my wife had a lot of, you know, say, ‘dada;’ say ‘mama.’. And then they heard ‘no.’ That would be the first word they learned apart from our names.

That's how you learn. It wasn't a class. You learned by hearing them speak. And then you began to speak the same way with the same accent, the same rhythms. How do you learn to pray?

For generations, believers all the way back to Jesus, teaching the apostles how to pray, you learn from the older christians, the ones who've been a believer longer than you. How do you learn? By taking a prayer class?. You could by hearing a sermon. It'll inspire you, I hope.

Here's how you learn; by praying with other christians that have been a believer longer than you, especially those that seem like when they're talking, God's in the room with them. And when you start praying with those believers like that, you grow up in communicating to God with prayer. You grow up in it because you're around others. Are you actively praying with others? Are you part of a weekly group, we call them “Community Groups,” that you're learning to pray and growing up with those that are praying with you?

Maybe you're in a ladies prayer group or a men's prayer breakfast or these kinds of things. Are you growing up in your prayer life? That's number one. That's the first thing to be devoted to. It means to grow in it, and to grow in it means to pray together because we learn from each other.

2. Pray together as the family of God.

Pray together as the family of God. One of the benefits of praying together is it creates unity. It creates a family of believers.

Perhaps as much of any of the four devotIons, they're all critically important, but this one particularly creates a unifying experience for believers, especially when they pray transparently and authentically. When they pray real prayers, prayers from their heart. Notice verse 42 says “themselves.” So they devoted “themselves.” This is a gathering.

Verse 44 says, 44 “And all who believed were together and had all things in common.” The word, “common,” comes from the same root as “koinonia.” It's “koina,” “common,” “koinonia,” “fellowship.” And so they held all things together. Verse 46, “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,”

Now, the ESV could have perhaps done a little better job right there. The idea of “one accord” is present in the Greek. The New King James says it like this, “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple.” And so they were together.

But the Greek word there has more of the idea of “being one, being so together” like that. There's something about prayer that creates that. It creates an environment of one accord. And here's the other thing I would say about it.

It also reveals if you're not in one accord. It does that. It creates an environment for it. But it also kind of reveals if you're not in one accord. Here's the mark of that first century church right after Pentecost.

It says in Acts 1:14 (ESV) “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” What's the description there in Acts 1:14? It is the description of the 120 that were praying in the upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit before Jesus ascended. Remember, Jesus ascended 40 days after His resurrection. For 40 days He appeared multiple times in front of multiple groups of people.

And on the 40th day, He ascended from the mount and the disciples saw Him ascend. And the angelic host there said, ‘Why are you looking up? Don't you know He's going to come back the same way he left? And what did he say to you? He said, return to Jerusalem and when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.’

And so they've obeyed that. So they're in the upper room. And that day they had prayed ten days, the 120. That's a crowd up there in that room. Boy, they prayed for ten days.

And so we call that day, 40 plus ten is 50, right, Pentecost. That's what that means. The 50th day. And so on Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit fell upon them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

And Peter rolls out of that place and starts preaching in the streets of Jerusalem and a crowd gathers. So just kind of catch this up. Let's do our math for a second. They prayed for ten days,Peter preached for ten minutes and 3,000 people got saved.

Now, here's what the American church, here's what the Western church does. We do the same math, but we just flip it. We preach for ten days, we pray for ten minutes and wonder why nothing happens.

The first century church was a praying church. They recognized the need for prayer. They recognized that prayer is like the plow that plows up the hard soil, the human heart. They recognized that prayer is asking God to move ahead of them. Before we preach, before we share the gospel with a friend, before we go and visit someone in the hospital, we say, ‘Holy Spirit, go in front of me;’ we pray forward like that. I know of a pastor who built a new worship center and he said, “I want a prayer room built beneath the platform.”

So, the platform that the worship team and the pulpit is on has a prayer room below it. He said, ‘I'm going to call it the “furnace room.” It's going to be that which sets the heat of the service.’ He has people praying while he's preaching, while they're worshiping. He has people in the “furnace room,” the prayer room below. Prayer is that which moves people and puts them in one accord.

But it's also, as I said a minute ago, that might mark that you're not in one accord. Look what Peter says about it to husbands and wives. He says, 1 Peter 3:7 (ESV) “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” Listen, men and women, it's hard to have a fight with your spouse and then pray together. It's hard to pray together, and you think things are right, but they're not. But may I say, if you have a commitment to pray together, it might be that thing that helps you keep “short lists” with one another, because it's just impossible to be transparent with God if you're not being transparent with each other.

Men, I believe the scripture calls you to be the priest of your house. You're supposed to lead your wives and your children to the altar of prayer. And I'm not trying to guilt you. I'm just telling you the truth. You're called to it. Trust me this.

Your wife and your kids will follow you there. If you'll lead, they will follow and sure, there'll be distractions, but if you'll lead, but if you will pray together. Often men feel less spiritual or less spiritually qualified than their wives. I don't know why that is. I suspect it's because women are often quicker to understand relational things, and perhaps men often are a little slower at that.

I don't know what it is. So they feel a little underqualified. My wife prays better than I do, like it's a prayer competition or something. I'm afraid if I pray in front of her, she will pick at it later.

Because, see, that's a warning to the wives. If he reveals his heart, then later on she asks, ‘Now, what did you mean by that? You were afraid about something?’ He's thinking to himself, Now, that's why I don't want to pray with her, because now she wants to pick at it instead of just recognizing, hey, I wasn't really talking to you. We were talking to God, and I wasn't trying to get you to counsel me, which is a good point for community groups, by the way.

If you're in a community group and you're praying together, that's not a time for everybody in the circle to give you a counseling session, right? That's called “cross talking.” That's where a person gives a prayer request, and then you start counseling them. Then, that person never wants to give another prayer request because they

weren't interested in what you thought about it. They wanted you to pray for them. They didn't want counseling. They wanted prayer.

Amen. And so one of the reasons that people aren't transparent in prayer is because of trust level.

One of the reasons that husbands and wives aren't praying together is trust.

Praying together reveals where you're at on your trust, but it also encourages and improves it if you stay at it, if you stay devoted to it. And then it becomes that thing, that habit in your life that you can't do without because it makes you more and more one. The purpose for marriage, God says, “The two shall be one flesh.” His desire for us is oneness.

What's His purpose for the church? That we should be in one accord. What's one of the greatest habits, one of the greatest devotions He gives us to make us in one accord? Prayer. Prayer.

I've noticed in my International travels, I've talked about visiting and hearing different ways of speech. But another thing I've noticed is there's a great difference in the prayer life of people in third world countries and American churches. What we have here is in American churches, we are wealthy in teaching seminaries, books, bible translations, air conditioning. And usually our “confidence monitor,” in the back, works. Usually.

Except for today. Right? So the band was up here with music stands today. But we have all the stuff, we have all the glitter, we have all the material things in the American church, and we learn to lean on it. In fact, we will say, ‘That church doesn't have enough parking or I don't like their style of music or it's too hot in there or it's too cold.

The preacher preaches too long. He doesn't preach long enough.’ We've got a lot of opinions because we’ve got a lot of available stuff here. I remember the first time I was in Kosoro, Uganda, and we had a prayer meeting.

Most of the people that were gathered there for the prayer meeting were American missionaries. And so we're pretty mature. We're mature believers. But then, also in the group were some Ugandans..

So we started praying. This is some good prayer. We're praying real prayers. We're talking.

And then one of the Ugandans started praying and they started calling heaven down in the room. And I was like, Okay, wow, we don't know how to pray, do we? Because they don't have material things. They have two sets of clothes if they're doing well. They have one pair of shoes.

They live in a little place with a dirt floor. They have to go get their food every day because they don't have refrigeration, so they go to the market every day to get that food for that day. And they'll walk 20 miles in the rain to come to a service that we're leading when we go there. And when they pray, they pray heaven down.

And we can learn a lot from them about the unity they have in prayer. Here's the third:

3. Come together seeking the presence of God.

We've talked about how we can grow up in prayer. We've talked about how prayer creates unity, but it also reveals a lack of unity, which should move us to pray more, not less. And then finally we can come together seeking the presence of God in prayer.

Come together seeking the presence of God. Look at verse 43. It says, “And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.” For the word, “awe,” the Greek word there is “phobos.”

It's where we get the word, “phobia,” which normally would be translated, “and fear came upon.” But it doesn't mean fear, like trembling, like being afraid of a ghost or something like that, or being afraid of harm. It's more the sense of reverence, of awe, like God's in the house. And this sense of, “Holy Ghost goosebumps” on my arms.

Or like suddenly feeling like I'm going to cry for no reason when I don't want to cry. I'm a man and men aren't supposed to cry. It's what I was taught, don't cry. And then something happens to me and I'm praying and I'm praying with you and we're praying together, and all of a sudden my eyes start leaking.

There's like this sense of awe comes on me, and I realize I'm actually talking to God. He's actually in the room. He's actually in the house. I'm not just talking “Christianese” and going through the motions of prayer because we're supposed to. No, I'm talking to God in awe.

And so awe came upon them, and wonders, signs and miracles started taking place in this church. And they were praising God. Verse 47, “Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” The Lord was adding to their number. People were getting saved. Look at this church and look at this “furnace room,” if you will, of prayer.

Prayer is like the plow that plows up the human heart, so that when the seed of the gospel drops in, it takes root. Prayer is all the things that God does that you can't do, which is pretty much everything. But you can be obedient to pray and you can be obedient to proclaim, but He does the saving. He does the work.

He does the miracles. I want you to notice two places in the book of Acts that prayer meetings took place. And let's just notice some features about these two prayer meetings in the way God showed up and the way He was present. One is when Peter and John had been going up to prayer at the temple.

And as they were going up the steps to the temple, going into the gate, called “beautiful.” There was a crippled man who'd been crippled since birth. And he was doing his job. I guess his parents would carry him up there and set him up. There he would beg, “Alms for the poor.”

That's all he could do. He was crippled. And so as they were walking up, Peter sees him and he looks at him and he says, ‘Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give to thee. Rise up, take up your mat and walk in the name of Jesus.” The man jumps up and he starts walking

for the first time in his life. He's not satisfied with just walking. He starts leaping and jumping and praising the Lord. And he comes into the temple courts and they ask, ‘Aren't you the guy…’

And he replies, ‘I was, but that guy right there, and he's pointing at Peter…’ And they ask Peter, ‘How did you do this?’ He tells them, ‘I didn't do it. I did it in the name of Jesus.’

And a crowd gathers. And then before you know it, here comes the temple guard. And they arrest Peter and John for preaching in the name of Jesus. And they put them in jail overnight.

And the next morning, the Sanhedrin, which are the Jewish leaders, hold a court, and they command them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. And Peter says, “Should we obey God or men?”

And so, they let them go and with a warning. And while this was happening, there had been an all night prayer meeting going on. That's where I'm finally getting to in Acts, chapter four. And so they come walking up into a prayer meeting, and here's what we read, Acts 4:23-31 (ESV) “When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign 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 all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” Man, I wish I could have been at that prayer meeting. Two guys, who were praying to get out of jail, showed up.

While at the prayer meeting, they come in. Hey, you know, the last time the Sanhedrin got some people together like that, Jesus got crucified. They were ready for it. But no,Peter and John got released. You'd think they would be praying, ‘Lord, protect us.” No, they prayed, “Lord, you handle their threats. Help us to keep proclaiming your word.”

And that place shook with awe and wonder. Oh, man, that's some prayer. Here's a second prayer meeting. This is a prayer meeting up in Acts, chapter 13. Saul hadn't been a christian long.

Now, Saul changed his name to Paul. Same guy, right? He changed his name to Paul, but he started off asSaul. He'd been a persecutor of the church, and so a lot of christians were afraid of him because they thought maybe he was trying to trick them.

Anyway, they were at this prayer meeting. Here's how it goes, Acts 13:1-3 (ESV) 1 “Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.” Have you ever been at a meeting where the Holy Spirit spoke? A couple things I want to notice about this prayer meeting is that Saul's name is at the end of the list. He's the least; everybody named there is ahead of him

in their Christian maturity. They kind of tagged him at the end. But then as they're praying, the Holy Spirit says, “Set apart for me Barnabas” and so on. Now, how did the Holy Spirit say that? I suspect it looked like this because I've been in prayer meetings where similar things have happened, that somebody in the room said, ‘I feel like the Holy Spirit's telling us that we're supposed to send two of our men off.’

And then somebody else in the room says, ‘I know who they are.’

And then, the elder of the group that's leading says, “Don't quench the spirit. The Bible says, “Don't quench the spirit,” so who's in your heart?” ‘It is Barnabas and then, I think the Holy Spirit's saying, Saul.’

The reason I think they said it like that is because after they had heard the Holy Spirit it says in verse three, “Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.” I think they were all in when they heard the Holy Spirit say, “Barnabas.” His name means in Hebrew, “son of encouragement.” He was well known, and so was Saul. But Saul was not well known for a good reason.

And so this is the first place where the church is laying hands. They were like, Okay, so the Holy Spirit said to lay hands on Saul. Now, Barnabas, we understand (I'm just kind of reading between the lines) but we better fast and pray another day. He really didn't mean Saul.

That's just me reading between the lines. However it worked in that community, the mind of Christ was present, and they began to speak to each other. I've been in prayer meetings like this where you only get part of the message. You feel like the Holy Spirit is pointing towards, we're supposed to launch a new ministry…

And then somebody else in the room agrees with that. He says, ‘I'm agreeing with you in prayer. I'm hearing that too. Holy Spirit, is that really you? Is that you?

Or is that just my thoughts?’ And then somebody else in the room says, ‘No, it's not just you. I was hearing the same word.’ So then, you get confirmation from each other. You can't do this kind of prayer by yourself, people.

You were with mature christians. You're not making this stuff up. You're being very sensitive. And then somebody says, ‘You're supposed to go.’ And then you go.

‘I knew it. I was not sure. But now that you're telling me, I know I have to go. Now it's God sending me.’ Man, what a prayer meeting.

The Holy Spirit shows up and starts speaking through each other, to each other. Now that's exciting. That's not just us getting together and praying for our next door neighbor's mother in law's hangnail. Not that she doesn't need prayer because it's a terrible hangnail, but when you're really getting together and praying, ‘Holy Spirit, move. Bring revival to our family. Bring revival to my marriage. Help me with my teenage son who's just not listening to the Lord right now.

Lord, help.’ Just get real. And the Holy Spirit speaks. Are you ready to pray together? Are you ready to pray with your family?

Are you ready to say “yes” to the Lord in community prayer? We've got a men's retreat coming up. There will be wonderful opportunities, men, to grow together in prayer. We have community groups that you can sign up for; we're always starting new groups that we'd love for you to get involved in. But there's a kind of prayer, you can pray by yourself and it's wonderful, but there's a kind of communal prayer that has these aspects that are worthy of our devotion.

I believe as we look at these four devotions, the apostles teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer, that we can see a church not unlike the church of the first century. Why? Because we serve the same God that they served. Speaking of prayer, let me pray for us now. Lord,

first of all, I just want to give You praise. I want to thank You, Lord, for Jesus. Thank You that we have the divine privilege to talk to You in His name. And we not only have that privilege, but we have the privilege of asking for anything according to Your will in His name, knowing that You will give us the very thing we've asked.

And so, Lord, we pray. First of all, I pray for that person that came in today far from You, but they're ready to surrender their heart and their life to you right now. Is that you, my friend? Right where you are,

right where you're seated,

would you pray with me? Pray like this. “Dear Lord, I'm a sinner, but I repent of my sin and I believe in Jesus. I believe He died on the cross to pay for my sins and that He was raised from the grave and that He lives today. I believe that and I invite Him now to come into my life and forgive me of my sin and I commit my life to Him to follow Him all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior.”

If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, the Bible says He will save you and He will make you a child of God. I'm praying for you right now. Others are here and you're a believer. You're a follower of Jesus, but you recognize that your prayer life is not what it should be. You're not praying with your family and you're not praying with your spouse. You're not in a community group, praying with other believers.

You're just kind of trying to muscle through things right now and your life is filled with heaviness, anxiety and trouble. You know better. Right now, would you repent and say, “Lord forgive me. Lord help me to grow in this calling to be devoted to the prayers.” May it be so. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Audio

Transcript

Good morning, church. So good to see all of you this morning. I'm very thankful you're here. Very encouraged to be preaching. The final part of this series we've done called real community.

If you missed any of those, they're all online. At Eastgate Church. You can see where we've talked about several different things together, about a shared focus or focuses today, but a shared fellowship, a shared food, a shared community of believers that really defines the early church and should still define the church today. So we're unpacking the fourth devotion today. Equally as important, if not in some ways, one of the more important of all the devotions, which is prayer.

A shared focus on Christ together through prayer. It's this idea of language, if you will, that the church should have a shared language. When you visit any other country, or even parts of our country, you'll notice there's a lot of differences. You'll notice differences in their culture, their faith, their food, their language being one of the most obvious. In fact, if you could just travel the US, you'll find a lot of different dialects just right here where we are.

But if you go around the world, you'll see all kinds of different ways to say just hello, if you will. You can pop up this image for me. There's a good list of them all. Some of them ola and guten tag. Just some great ones in there.

When I was in spanish class, you know, we were all learning this, and I probably should have paid attention better in Spanish growing up, because that one actually could be pretty useful. Now I know, like, two things, ola and como estas? And then if they start to think I've got something, I'm like, I know nothing. Actually, I shouldn't have said anything. Growing up with my dad, he had taken a similar amount of French and had about three phrases in his repertoire.

So he would every once in a while say, bonjour, children, comme televous. You know, and I didn't. I knew what to say then. I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do with French, but Uganda, you go there. Their official language is English, but in Casoro, they have this dialect called Rufimbira.

And I don't know what the greetings are, because everywhere I went to the churches, we would say yesuashimwe, which means Jesus be praised. And you could go out in the streets and say that. The people would kind of go, that's not our normal greeting. But in the churches, ye Suashimwe, if you go down just so you know, you can try this if you want, but go down to. If you like sushi or japanese food, you can go to our local saku sushi.

And about three or four of the guys in there that look. They may look Filipino to you. They're actually Indonesian. You can go up to them and say apacabar, and they'll look at you like, hallelujah, a native tongue. And then that's all I know.

And I'm like, uh oh, now I'm in trouble. But you can say this to those servers, and you'll find out, though, just doing something as simple as that. If you meet people around town or in our community that are clearly from somewhere else, and you figure out greetings with them, it really opens them up to more conversation. So that's why I make myself look foolish sometimes, maybe for the possibility of the gospel. But language is like this.

Language makes you feel like home. You talk to somebody around here that's got a different dialect, they're gonna feel. They might feel very uncomfortable around here for a while with all of our howdies and y'alls and all the mess that we say. But as soon as they get around some of their family, they feel right at home again with all the. Whatever dialect they have.

The same is certainly true with the church, certainly the first century church, that they had a shared language, a shared focus, and that language was prayer. The thing that you could say, maybe as much as anything about the early church as viewed in the book of acts, is that they spoke more in prayer than just about in any other way. They spent tons of time in prayer. And I think often, certainly as Americans, this is an area of lack for us. Maybe it's because we are, in some senses, doing much better than the third world as far as material goods and as far as needs.

You might feel today like, well, I don't have a lot. I'm not doing all that well, but comparatively, it's very different. And this shared language somewhat isn't as pressing as it ought to be in the church. And how we doing in this area, I wonder? How are you doing?

Are you praying regularly? Is this a habit in your life? Is this a devotion in your life? Do you pray with your family? Do you pray with your children?

Do you do that wild, uncomfortable thing and pray with your wife, pray with your husband? You'll suddenly hear things in prayer. You're like, why haven't we been talking about that? You know, that's the wonderful thing about praying with your spouse or praying with your kids, are you praying with other believers? I do this really uncomfortable thing in my small group, and it seems like my men are growing up quickly into it.

I mean, not that they all had to mature, but I think some get in this circle and get very uncomfortable with the fact that we share our requests. And then I say, all right, now pray for the guy to your right or to your left. And sometimes they weren't ready for that. They're like, I gotta say words. Yeah.

Not just that, I hope you were listening to his prayer request, because now you gotta pray for him. But it breaks people in so quickly. It's such a good challenge to certainly not just take care of one another. There's something about praying for someone else that really opens up your heart to what they're going through. But not just that.

It opens up your heart to the divine. It opens up your heart to the Lord who's ready and willing to speak. Are you nervous about praying with others? Look, the book of acts. Luke describes this authentic community, this wonderful explosion of belief that happens in the first century church.

And he shares these four devotions, this faith, this family, this food, and now this focus, this prayer life. And that's where we want to spend time today on the fourth and last devotion. So let's get into it. We're yet again, once more into the breach, my friends, if you want to quote King Henry V. But that's where we're going to be again.

Yet again. Acts, chapter two. We've been there four weeks. If you're getting sick of it, then maybe you'll remember it. That's my hope and prayer.

They say it takes six weeks to make a habit, so technically, I should have added two. But here we are in acts, chapter two, verse 42. It says, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and finally, the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord did this. He added to their number. Day by day, those who are being saved.

God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Amen. What a powerful thing that occurred in the first century. And here's the great news.

God isn't done. We're still here. Therefore, God is not finished. His story is continuing. His kingdom of God, church of God story continues.

And the devotions that worked then, I'm convinced still work. And where we're going to be today in this thing called prayer is maybe one of the, if you will, the power that's underneath the preaching and teaching of the gospel. How do we share this focus of prayer in Christ's community? Here's the first. We grow up together communicating with God.

We grow up together in communicating with God. Now, we've shared week after week this word devoted, it's the key word. It's the key word that drives the whole section of scripture, that these young believers, these early believers were devoted. This is the greek word proscartoreo, which means literally, with strength, with steadfastness to face towards something. This is this idea that I'm going to be intently looking upon a thing.

And for them it's four, it's fellowship, it's the apostles teaching food and then prayers. Prayers, it says they did this together. In fact, they devoted themselves as a corporate group to the prayers. Now, I don't like to miss little words like that. You might read through that and it might not hit you the first time, but I would encourage you as you read scripture over and over again throughout your life that you really try to focus on details at times.

That's called, that's what it really means to have a Bible study now, just reading for devotion and just taking your time in prayer. You may not catch these things. That's great. That's fine. But maybe the second or third time you're going through it.

Notice every single time it says the apostles teaching the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers and not just the prayer. This is an interesting thing that I had to wrestle with this week, is what does it mean that first of all, it's the. And what does it mean that it's plural? Now, I've came across several commentators writing on this, but I think it's rightly understood to mean two things. First of all, that these are different occasions for prayer.

That when it says the prayers, that there are different occasions or opportunities for prayer. I like what John Gilwyn, writing on this, says. He says there's different occasions for prayer not only in their prayer closets in their families, but also in the church and in the public prayers of the church. They observed all opportunities of this kind and gladly embraced them. So when it says they devoted themselves to the prayers, it means they were taken every opportunity to pray together, every occasion for prayer, whether it's personally, alone by your bedside, if you had a prayer room, if it's with your family, not just over dinner, though, that you might actually take time to pray for one another.

This can be a challenge, young families, this can be a challenge to say, well, I'm doing a couple things. I'm praying over the meal and I'm praying with my kids at bedtime. That's good. That's all I do at times. There's seasons where I don't do more, and I ought to, you know, but there's an opportunity there to pray for your family about needs and about faith and about things that are going on.

Sometimes we don't take a little extra time. There's this corporate prayer, too, that we would take time as a church to pray together as a group, as small group. This is what this means. But also not only opportunities or occasions for prayers, but also different kinds of prayers. The Bible lists write many different kinds of prayers.

In Ephesians, Paul writes chapter six, that we pray in the spirit on all occasions and with all kinds of prayers and requests. He goes into a little more detail with Timothy when he writes in one, Timothy two. First of all, then I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people. There's a couple of different types of prayer right there in your orientation, like supplications, intercessions, is the idea of interceding for another, that you hear the request and you pray on their behalf, that there's a time for praying thanksgiving or prayers of praise. What did the early church do?

They devoted themselves to all these kinds of prayers and all occasions for prayer. And God moved. God stirred in a mighty way, and he's still doing that today. The disciples, in fact, learn how to pray from Jesus. This is the interesting thing.

If you've ever read this story where the disciples asked, Jesus, teach us how to pray, here's what's crazy about that is almost every one of those young men had been taught how to pray certain prayers. Every young boy, when in the season of bar mitzvah, every single one of them would be taught certain liturgical, rabbinical kinds of prayers. And these are good prayers. All right, don't hear me say, hey, there's something wrong. No, there's incredible value in some of this prayer life.

But Jesus, when they're hearing him pray, they're going, you're doing some stuff we don't know about. For instance, you pray our heavenly father. This is not a typical rabbinical or old kind of prayer. Their prayers would have rightly so. Would have said more like, Lord God Adonai and put him on a distant picture.

And that's true. That's true. But Christ shows us there's some familiar relationship. So in Luke chapter eleven, it says Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, his disciples said to him, lord, teach us to pray.

As John taught his disciples. Now are they saying, hey, we don't know how to pray? Now? I think more specifically they're saying, we want to pray like you're praying because there's something different about how you're praying. And what does he do?

He teaches them, our Father, who art in heaven. Now, notice Jesus doesn't say, my father. He brings the corporate dialogue right there into his prayer life. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.

In the model prayer itself, he gives them such a glimpse at various types of prayers right there. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That is a prayer of adoration. That is a prayer of God. You are great and I love you.

That is that kind of prayer. There's give us this day prayers. Give us this day our daily bread. That's a prayer of need, a prayer of supplication supply. For me, there's another prayer in there that I don't know.

It seems like some believers are a little hesitant of this prayer of forgive us our trespasses. That's that prayer of repentance, confession. I've often heard it put this way. Think acts. We're in the book of acts.

But think acts, when you pray. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication acts, you see it. And so there should be a time of forgive us our trespasses. And guess what else? Lead us not into temptation.

Lord, protect me from those sins that easily entangle and easily bog me down. This is how he teaches them to pray. He gives them the prayers right there. And then guess what happens? These disciples go on to teach and to teach.

And this is how the early church explodes with a devotion to the teaching and to the breaking a bread together the fellowship and to the prayers. They're learning together how to adore God who deserves our praise how to confess their sins with one another, how to be thankful and how to ask for God's supply. They're learning a prayer life. It's not that odd, really. It's just like most of, I would say all of us learned how to speak.

You don't really have to go. In fact, I would say you don't have to go to school at all to learn how to speak. Now, maybe you do. To learn how to speak well, especially if you grew up in some of your households where some of the words were not great, some of the words were not very, very astute, but you all learned how to talk from a very early age. In fact, a child is learning how to speak while he's in the womb.

He's hearing words in the womb. The ears are developing. That's why a child can easily recognize its mother's voice, even it's fathers, if the father's always in the picture. How did you learn to talk? Oh, you didn't learn it in a class.

You didn't need a baby talking class. You learned by just living together with your family. And for some of you, that means the way in which you talk is really defined by your family's culture. So if there's a bunch of foul language, that was your family's culture, and it can be difficult, as a believer, to break through that. How do you learn to pray then?

I would argue prayer is no different.

Fathers and mothers in the room, let me just say this. This isn't meant to be a parenting conversation, but know this. Your kids are learning how to speak from you. They ought to be learning how to speak spiritually from you. If your kids grow up and say, I never saw daddy pray, that's messed up.

Work on that. They should see you. They should hear you pray.

I've got a habit, or I had a habit, really, with all of my little ones, that I would pray for them until they could get to the point where they could pray for themselves. And the problem with that is, maybe I don't pray with them as much as I did. And that's kind of something I was considering this week as I wrestled with the topic is that doesn't end at any point, that they should see their father, they should see their mother pray. They learn how to pray from their parents, from their siblings, from their church, that we should be having opportunities, certainly down this hallway where kids are learning to pray. And I hope that's happening.

I pray that's happening, and it doesn't end. Believers, guess what? It doesn't end for me. In fact, when I've done foreign missions in the past, those are some of the most eye opening experiences for me as a believer, is to see people in Africa pray and go, ho, ho. Y'all got something over here.

Y'all are doing something over here in Africa with your prayer. And I came back feeling real different about my own prayer life about just the gravity that they take when they're praying is, this is necessity, this is a must. And sometimes, God forbid, I make it less than that. No, that's not how we were taught. Praying together.

This is like life. This is like speaking. This is how we commune and communicate with God. Just as the lord's disciples learned to pray by listening and learning together with him, we still do this now. We pray with our families.

We pray with our kids. We pray in our groups. Don't be afraid to do this. I've got great news for you young believers in the room, or you believers in the room, that maybe you've been in the faith for a while, but you've just never had a. You've had a fear for a long time to pray with others or to pray in groups.

Guess what? You can't mess this thing up. You just can't. You can't mess it up. You can pray and say something that no one's ever heard, and they might just look at that and go, that was a way of putting that I had not considered.

And instead of frowning at you or thinking less of you, they'll think, wow, okay. Your prayer life is different. I don't be afraid in our community groups or in your. Your walks with others. Pray together.

Pray, pray. Here's the second way. Pray together as the family of God. Grow up together and communicating with God, and then pray together as the family of God. You'll notice a couple of words that appear there later in the text in verse 44.

And then in verse 46, it says in verse 44, all who believed were together and had all things in common. Together is the idea. It's the word homothymodon or homothiumidon, which means one accord. Thumos is where we get the word, like thermos or thermometer. It has to do with heat.

And so Hamas means one. Hamas means one, and then one heat, passion, that it says, the people were together, and they had all things in one accord, one passion. Now, this is part of why the early church was earth shattering is because these small number of people. Oh, they were small, but they were connected. They shared one vision, one passion.

We're about Christ. We're about his mission. We're about what he's doing. The king James, in fact, says, continuing daily with one accord in the temple. Verse 46 says it this way.

It says, day by day, attending the temple together, that word together there. One passion. I've heard it said before, in fact, that a family that prays together stays together, as y'all have probably heard that saying, that is certainly true of the family of God. If the family of God is not praying together, it's not well connected. It's not well connected at all.

I want you to notice a few things about the way in which the early church is praying and how that might motivate us as Pentecost is happening here, Pentecost is happening here for the early church. They're praying in one accord. It says in acts, chapter one, all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. Now I've heard it famously said, and it's rightfully so, that at Pentecost the disciples got together and they prayed for ten days. For ten days they prayed together.

Now they're probably eating and doing some other things, but the Bible says they're praying for ten days, waiting for the Holy Spirit as Christ had commanded after his ascension. He says, stay here, pray until I send the comforter, until I send the Holy Spirit. And they prayed for ten days. And then Peter after that, when the spirit falls on the place and inhabits them, Peter goes and he preaches what seems to be a very short sermon. I've heard it said this way.

They prayed for ten days, Peter preached for ten minutes and 3000 people got saved. That's the economy of God. The economy of God is not human wisdom. The communication, the way in which God works is not that I would get up here for 30 to 40 minutes and say something so perfectly that it would move and stir your heart towards God. That's not exactly how this works.

Instead, it's the power of the Holy Spirit in your life moving and motivating you that has hopefully already been been introduced through prayer that there's someone in your life, or maybe you yourself, that is in a state of prayer and that that's what's moving in, stirring hearts. They got it right is what I'm arguing. At Pentecost. They got it right. And we as a church sometimes miss this.

We think, oh, how are we going to reach our city? What events, what things are we going to do, what mail outs? How are we going to stir the people to be more invitational? And don't hear me say this, those things are fine. Those things.

Trying to get the word of Christ out there is important. And what a wonderful opportunity we have with phones and media and all this stuff that we could be using it for the gospel of Christ. But don't miss this part. If we're not pouring prayer over all of that, it won't be very effective. They prayed for ten days, preached for ten minutes, and God did what God does.

The same is still true believers. This is why some of you have been praying for family and friends for years and years and years. And then one day some of you have this wonderful story. One day you have a five minute conversation with that person and a light goes off. Is it because you said the right things in those five minutes?

No, you just said the right things in that moment because God had been stirring and stirring and stirring. You don't know how many conversations with other people they had had for the years prior till they finally heard you for the first time. Prayer. Prayer. Unity in prayer.

The power of preaching in prayer. This stuff is empowered by prayer. Praying together both helps, and it exposes unity issues or the lack of unity. This is what Peter writes in one, Peter three. He says, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered, husband and wife, if you're not getting along very well, have you observed that your prayer life is hindered if you're having trouble as a parent, as a father, as a mother, it can be difficult to pray with that child.

The Bible speaks to this. Why is that? Is it because God suddenly doesn't want to talk? No, it's the opposite of that. He's pointing and digging into that one spot so that when you pray, you go, something needs to be fixed here.

There's a reason we can't communicate together with God. It's because we are. We have a broken state that we need to repent of and reconcile from.

I would say american Christians tend to not pray together like those in other countries, certainly the third world. I've made this argument already. I think it's. I think it's pretty evident, honestly. I don't think a lot of study would need to be done to pick up, pick this up.

We tend as. As believers here, we tend to depend on our own resource, our own experiences, our own ability. And it's because in some ways we have been truly blessed and we must admit to that. But in other ways, it's our God awful pride that gets in the way. It makes us think.

I've got this. That tendency for you to say, oh, I've got this on my own. It's probably one of my greatest weaknesses. I wouldn't even say it's necessarily pride. It's at times thinking that I don't want to bother others.

It's at times even thinking that if I let them in and let them help, they're going to do it in a way that I don't love. And so I'm scared to let them try. That's some of you. There's reasons why you don't let other people in, in prayer. Maybe you feel like, you know what?

I can handle this. I don't need to ask for help. But where there's great need, where there's great lack, prayer grows. Prayer explodes. Where the people say, we need one another and we got to pray for one another.

And guess what? That's a good thing. So how do we get at that? Even in this season of plenty, it can be a real challenge to pray with others. It could be challenging to pray with people at the church.

I want to give somebody in the room just a little bit of nudge. All right. If your community group is at night, and about 80% of you are in community groups, all of our community groups are at night, so I don't even need to preface it that way, but I don't think we have any morning groups. Y'all want to start a morning group? That'd be wild.

But if the first time you're praying is at the community group night meeting, it's kind of obvious, you know, for the rest of us, we're, like, knocking out the prayers, and you, my friend, are having your first prayer of the day, and you've got a lot to say to the Lord and thank the Lord for that. However, you can front load some of that. All right, I'm picking a little bit, but sometimes when you're in prayer with people, you're like, wow, these people are long winded. They got a lot to say. And it makes me wonder, did they have their devotion today, or did they wait till now to have it with us?

That's okay, I guess. But that's me. That's part of my issue. It can be hard to pray. It can be hard to pray with your wife.

It can be hard to pray with your husband. Do you know why? I. Because your brains are wired different. I'm a to the point kind of guy.

I say, lord, I'm a sinner. Here's what I've done. Would you please help me to stop being this way? My wife might say, lord, I did this and that, and here's kind of why I did that, lord. And I don't know what's wrong with my emotional state.

And why I did this thing, and it's a spider web as to why in the world she committed such a sin. For me, it's simpler than that. I'm an idiot. Help me. That's all I had to do.

It's a challenge to pray with others. Oh, it's a great challenge to pray with your kids as they're going to bed. I don't know if you've got that kid yet. If you don't have another, it is coming, this kid. Several of mine have been this way that they just want to drag out bedtime.

So they come up with some creative things to pray, things that make no sense at times. You're like, all right, but what do you do as a pastor with a child? You can't say, can you please wrap it up? You just. That would be so, so, you know, unholy to do that.

So I just let them rattle it off. 1015 minutes later. I'm like, I don't know how you thought of all that stuff, but praise God. I mean, we just prayed for people. I didn't even know you remembered these people.

I certainly haven't been thinking about them. Maybe there's something to that. Your kids, even if they're trying to delay the inevitable, pray wonderful prayers. I'm saying all this to say, I have area to grow in my prayer life and that sometimes the things that bug me are the very things where God's like, I'd like to kind of work on you in this. You're forgetting people your kids don't forget.

You know, your wife is praying for some details about things. And the reason you keep coming back to the same sin is because you're not praying about the details. Oh, it's not that you're an idiot, my son. It's that you keep putting yourself in this position that tempts you to pray to sin. And your wife seeing that in her life, pray the details.

These are opportunities and challenges for us to grow in our prayer life and learn how God wants to speak to us. And that's the wonderful beauty of the church. Getting together and praying together from all walks of life, from all cultures and races, is that we would look at each other and go, wow, you've got a whole different way of thinking. And it helps me, in my belief. Will you commit to praying together?

Start at home, starting yourself, at least if you don't have five to ten minutes every day to pray, your life is insanely busy, I would argue impossible. There's no way, unless you're not showering, which is gross, by the way. But you got five to ten minutes right there where? I don't think you need to think that hard about how to put the shampoo in. You've been doing it a long time.

Pray, then. Pray on the way to work. None of us have less than a five minute commute to work. It takes me five minutes to get out of my neighborhood. I could pray.

Here's the third way. Come together seeking the presence of God. Come together seeking the presence of God. It says in these last few verses, first in verse 43, it says, all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

This, all this wonder is happening, I think, by the power of the Holy Spirit on the people, the word all hears. It's actually the word phobos where we get phobia. It's this overwhelming feeling of reverence produced by the miraculous. And then it goes on in verse 47 to say they were praising God, having favor with the people, and the Lord was adding to their number the devotion to prayer. I would argue for this church, your devotion to prayer will always impact your praise.

The more time you spend talking to God, the more apt to praise you'll be. And thanksgiving, the more you speak with the Lord, the more you'll go. You know, everything's not perfect in my life, but that's okay because he is amazing and what he's already doing and has done in my life. If that was all he ever did, it would be enough. It would be more than enough.

The more time you spend in prayer, the more just welling up of praise happens, certainly in the church. The more the church devotes itself to prayer, the more the church just blows up with praise. Notice how God shows up in a couple of prayer meetings. I want to share a couple. These are both from the book of acts.

Book of acts. If you've not read it, church is the story of the early church. There's some amazing things that God does in the first century. But there were two prayer meetings I wanted to bring to light. I could have probably talked about more, but the first one is in acts, chapter four.

Peter and John had just spent the night here. They spent the night in jail for healing a lame beggar in Jesus name. They healed the man and got in a whole lot of trouble for it because they were preaching Christ. It says in acts, chapter four, verse 23, it says Peter and John here. When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them.

And when they heard it. They lifted their voices together to God and said, sovereign 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. I.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. They do a lot of things right in this prayer. First of all, they don't sit there and waste time thinking about all the chief priests and the scribes are saying, they're going to persecute us. They're going to put us in prison. They may even kill us for this.

Instead of spending great deal, and I might have done this, I might have been like, Lord, did you hear it? Oh, my goodness. They didn't do that. They said, lord, God, you hear their threats. But for us, help us to preach with boldness.

They move on quickly from the actual conflict. They move on quickly from it. Say, God, you got that, boy. That's powerful. I know you already got this piece.

Lord, help me to be the man, the woman you've called me to be. Help me to be bold with my faith. Help me to be bold as a parent, as a co worker. Help me to be bold. And the place was shaken.

There's this second meeting that I would like to bring up that's even more amazing to me in some ways that the spirit speaks to the believers there in the early church, directs them to send Barnabas and Saul. Look at this. This is in acts 13. It says there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was also called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul, Saul, who we know as Paul, while they were worshiping the Lord in fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them.

What did they do after fasting and praying? They laid hands on them and sent them off. Now, I ain't never been to a church service quite like that, where they're sitting there praying and listening to the Lord together. And they felt a sense that God was calling Barnabas and Saul, soon to be Paul, to go on the mission field. And what did they do?

They spent some more time in fasting and prayer. They laid hands on those two men and said, y'all gotta get out of here and don't come back. And they didn't y'all got a mission to do? And Barnabas and Saul, I don't know how they felt about the whole endeavor. Have you ever been in the middle of class, 30, 40, 50, maybe 100, and some people in some group, and all of a sudden somebody stands up and says, I feel like this is a good thing for Paul to do.

And you're thinking, I think it might be a good thing for you to do. Why are you calling me out about it? That's what happens in this room. And Barnabas and Saul are like, aye, aye, captain. I heard it too.

Oh, I have no doubt they heard it as well. The way in which Paul does ministry. He heard clearly the Lord's call on his life. He didn't do this accidentally. What would that be like, to be a part of a service like that where we just listen and we do what we're told?

When Christ says, hey, set apart some people to go help in downtown Rocky Mountain, and we just do it? Tim Keller, when writing on this, he has a book called prayer. He says you can tell a great deal about a person's relationship with God by listening to him or her pray. You can tell if a man or woman is really on speaking terms with God. So true.

I want you to know something as I'm coming to a close here, that my prayer life is an area for me where I felt like God has worked on the most. And I have so much growth and so much room to grow. I have a natural tendency, just the way my brain works and tendency towards scripture and towards study. And I really, if you will, it really makes sense to me quickly, and it's always been my shape since I was a young boy. But prayer for me has always felt somewhat mysterious and confusing.

But it's also the very place where I've seen God do the most miraculous things in my life. And I just want you to know one of the things we do every single year, our PMT, our pastors management team, we get together from both of our campuses, and in January we go off for a couple of days and try to plan out what we think God is telling us to do that year, what we think the Lord is leading us to preach, to accomplish. And we've not always done it perfectly, but I've liked what we've done over the last few years. And Michael Caine's on my team. You can ask him how this goes.

It can be a little bit uncomfortable at first, but the thing we do for the first several hours of our PMT retreat is we just turn all the lights off. We all get in different places of the room because this is how men are, all right? Men don't really want to be super close when things are getting sort of intimate feeling, right? And we don't want to look at each other. That's why we turn the lights off.

We don't want to look like, ah, that guy. He might be crying. Ugh. Like, we just turn everything off. We kind of get in separate places in the room, and we really just try to hear from goddess, lord, what are you saying?

And we do this thing corporately that I've encouraged people to do privately, and that is pray yourself empty. Pray and pray until you can't think of another thought to pray. Some of you, that'll take some time. Cause you've not been spending a lot of time with the lord. I would say, do this today, do this tomorrow.

As soon as you might pray yourself empty. And say, all right, these are all of the things I'm thinking about parenting. I'm thinking about being a husband. I'm thinking about my work. I'm thinking about, God, what you would have me do.

And there's just stuff, stuff, stuff. And then there's sin, and then there's other things. And pray yourself empty, empty. And you can do this until eventually you go, okay, I don't think I have anything else, God, then you can finally pause, go, what are you saying about any of that, Lord, if you don't have a sense of him speaking in that. All right, God, would you like me to get into this?

And where would you like me to pray yourself? Empty. And then listen. And we try to do this corporately. It's wild because people are praying stuff that I didn't realize they were dealing with or I didn't know it was something we were thinking about as a group.

And we pray and we pray and we pray until all of us are kind of empty. And then finally, at the end of that, sure, we've brought various things to the agenda, but by the time we're done, these roughly eight men, by the time we're done with that, we go, okay, what did we just hear God say? And he says a lot of the same stuff to us every time. Not every year, but I mean the same stuff to each one of us. So one year, it was like, I want the church to have an emphasis on prayer this year.

And it seemed like every one of us felt this. I want you to have an emphasis this year on discipleship and how you're moving people from one to the next. How are you discipling people every year? It seems like God kind of shapes our agenda now. We don't get it perfect here as a church.

I just wanted you to hear that story so that you might know we're really trying to pour prayer over our planning. Trying to pour prayer, in fact, and our worship team could work on this. We pray a little bit on Sunday mornings. I could use some people that just come in the building early and just pray their guts out for this place. I could use some folks like that spending time praying in this place, because I believe what happened in acts is true.

You pray for ten days, speak for ten minutes. I could cut back on my sermon time. That would be efficient.

Praying together, asking God, God, what's your will for us doing this personally? And then as a group, every community has these certain traits, and we've talked about these. They've got beliefs, and certainly we do as a church. They've got fellowship, which we have in the person and body of Christ, a food which we have in the breaking of bread. And a language that, there's no better language than the language we speak in prayer.

The most authentic community, I would argue, better than your home, better than wherever you're from. The most authentic community is the one that's eternal. You are part of an eternal community now, church, do you understand this? These people will be with you forever, and you're learning how to fellowship with them. Now, authentic community, will you grow up together in prayer?

Pray together as a family, and let's come together asking God's presence and will in our church. Let's pray now. Heavenly Father, we ask. We ask, God, that you would do miraculous things first in us. I have a sense, Lord, that there's people in the room right now, that their amount of speaking to you is so slim right now that the idea of praying themselves empty is terrifying because they know that could take a while.

God, I pray that you would just rest on them right now, that their sense of need to be with you in prayer would be so great that they would not be able to escape it. I'm convinced of one thing, God. You made us for yourself. We're not accidental. Nothing that's happened so far in this life is just purely coincidence.

Not so, God, you made us for yourself. Your creation was for you. It was to sing your praises and us specifically made in the image of God. We were intended to be with you for all eternity. And you want a relationship.

You made us that we would spend time with you. It will make even more sense in glory, I have no doubt when we can see you face to face. But right now, you've called us to prayer and you're ready to speak. You're ready to speak, certainly in your word. But you're ready to speak in prayer and move and stir our heart as we open it up towards you.

God, for that believer in the room right now, that is got no habit of prayer. I pray that you would impress upon them this need, that they wouldn't be able to escape it, that they would be challenged today, maybe before they even lay their head down on their pillow tonight, that they would pray themselves empty with you and let you hear every thought and care and worry and stress and sin and positive, encouraging things, all of it. That they would just lay it at your feet like a loving father. So, God, what would you have me do? How would you speak into my life?

God, I pray for that person today. I pray for myself. This is an area of weakness for me. I know this. You know this, Lord, I'm so thankful for your word.

It's been such a blessing to me in my life. But also, Lord, I pray for my. My ability to spend time with you in prayer, stirring it, moving me. I pray for our church that people wouldn't just know us as, oh, man, they preach the word of God there. He really gets into the Bible.

I pray. That's what folks say, that church. They're serious about spending time together and they feed each other and they seem to talk about really important issues. They don't. Just shallow conversation.

I think that's pretty true of our church. We get into deep stuff. But what do they say about how we pray? Wow, that church is serious about praying. I'd like to hear that, God, I'd like to see you stir and move in a way you did in the first century.

I don't think you're done with that. The wonders and the signs and the awe that fell into place, you're still doing all of that same stuff. It's happening all over the world. God, let it happen here. Let us be devoted to prayer, God, for that person who's come in today and all of this is a wild ride, reason being because they don't know you.

This is the first of many prayers that I would ask that person to say with me. The first prayer that you could have, my friend, is this. That you would confess that Jesus is Lord of your life. It comes simply that way. It says in the book of Romans that when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead.

We will be saved. It starts with prayer. And if that's you today, my friend, please pray with me. Jesus, I believe that you are lord of my life. You're king, you're in charge.

Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, for my sake, my shame, my guilt, my mess. You paid for it. I believe that today. And God, I believe that you raised Jesus from the dead. And because of the cross and the resurrection, I am saved.

I'm thankful for that today. Lord, I pray that you would begin in me a heart of prayer, that you and I would have a daily, constant conversation, dear friend, if you prayed with me. Welcome to the family of Goddesse. And we're asking similarly with you, that God would help us to have a daily conversation with him. That we would be like Paul who said, pray without ceasing.

Pray continuously. Help us to have that heart. As believers do all of this in Jesus name we pray. Amen.


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