Pray While We Wait!
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Things happen when God’s people pray.
Tonight we will look at a passage of Scripture which is connected to the idea of praying while we wait.
As a matter of fact I will point to a more recent event than our text as a matter of introduction before the text.
Haystack Prayer Meeting (1806). Eight Williams College (western Massachusetts) students led by Samuel J. Mills met regularly for prayer in a grove of trees near the campus. In August of 1806, five of those undergraduates were caught in a thunderstorm while returning from their prayer meeting and took refuge in the lee of a haystack. While waiting for the storm to abate, they felt drawn to prayer, and when they finished, each of them felt called to foreign missions service. Historians of Christian missions date the start of the American foreign missionary movement to that gathering.
You see these men took notice of a moment and utilized/redeemed the time to speak with the Lord.
When God’s people seek Him, He answers and often does far more than we can imagine.
Tonight’s Passage:
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
What is significant about the background of our passage?
The context of our passage is where the Disciples have just observed the departure/ascension of Jesus.
4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me;
Jesus had ordered them to depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the Spirit.
If we look to the Disciples example: What should we do was we wait?
We should be a people of prayer as we wait upon the Lord.
Acts 1:14 (ESV)
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Why Pray?
Why Pray?
In church, corporate prayer time has been reduced to a transition from one activity to another.
“Let’s have everyone close their eyes and bow their heads, so that transitioning the praise team on and off the stage isn’t as awkward.” John Onwuchekwa
Sometimes prayers has become the thing we do to prepare for the big event — the Sermon.
E.M. Bounds says it this way:
“Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” — E.M. Bounds
There is a reason we call it corporate Worship.
Church should never be about people in a pew watching people on a “stage” sing or a man on a “stage” speak.
One way we can all participate in corporate worship is prayer.
Prayer can be silent in your pew.
Prayer can be silent at the “altar”.
Prayer can be audible where you sit.
Prayer can be audible in front of the church.
So pray to participate.
We pray to seek from our God those things He would do according to His will.
Philippians 4:6 (ESV)
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
We are called of the Lord to be a people who seek Him and as we seek Him, He answers beyond our imagination.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
So we pray because He answers.
But let’s go back to our focal verse:
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
The text reminds us that while they were together…
They were “with one accord”
They were “devoting themselves to prayer”
Further, these men/women were being faithful and preparing.
Walking Away, But In...
Walking Away, But In...
We are waiting on a decision…PRAY!
Once the decision is made…PRAY!
All the way thru the process…PRAY!