Acts 2:42: Dedicated to Church Prayer

Scripture:

The Fellowship of the Believers

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Prayer:

Message: A very blessed week to you all, friends and neighbors and family of the Vandalia Church of God. I’m so happy you’re here. It’s always a good day when we’ve gathered to hear the Word of God. Today I read from the second chapter of Luke’s recounting of the Acts of the Apostles. The new church was exemplifying the new life of faith. They gathered together as often as they could to hear sound teaching from Christ’s apostles, they fellowshipped and ate what they had to share and most of all, the new church prayed. I’ve talked to our church about this passage before, but I want to focus on that last action: The church prayed together. They were dedicated to prayer. Their getting together not only included prayer, but was dedicated to prayer for the church and for the people the world around the church. These were folks who shared the Lord’s Supper as well as meals together. They were dedicated, wholly invested in hearing the teachings of their Apostle brethren and applying that teaching. The church was dedicated wholeheartedly to prayer for each other and for the growing church. And it did grow, blossoming in the Lord from 120 dedicated souls to over 3,000 in a short matter of time.

On this day, this Sunday, we’re separated by snow and cold temperatures. That happens in our neck of the woods some of the time. We were so blessed to be able to have met and read the Word from Scripture on the first Sunday in January. We rededicated our vision for seeking the building of God’s Kingdom in our little corner of southern Michigan. We celebrated the Lord’s supper in humility and faithfulness. We prayed together as a people, as a group of dedicated Christ-followers. Now, believe it or not, even when the snow flies and it’s hard to get down the road to our physical house of worship, we are still able to pray to the Lord in full dedication to Him and to each other. I said in our first message of the year that church is not a “one and done,” activity, but something we’re dedicated to living with and in all of our days. Prayer especially is not a one and done act, but something that is lived out always. Did you notice that today we’re reading out of the Acts of the Apostles? It isn’t called the Apostles waited around ignoring the will of God. The life of the Christian is an action, a life of verbs describing dedication to prayer to the Lord our God.

This week was not my greatest week of prayer. I was honest about that and confessed the problem to God. I asked the Lord why I was spending more time every goofy thing, but shirking prayer and that He correct this. After all, I wondered, how can I watch football, look at facebook, read books, check ebay, listen to the news and then throw a quick little hail mary prayer to Him. I noticed again how when I did pray, the volume and the intensity of my prayer was based on how bad my life situations were. When the car was spinning on an icy freeway ramp, my dedication to prayer was suddenly increased. I suddenly became like the old lady on YouTube, shouting “Oh, Lord Jesus, it’s a fire!” Here’s the thing about the example of prayer from the early church: they didn’t just hear the Word, eat a good meal and take a nap. These were people fervent in prayer. Constant prayer is the act of “going to church” all week long, it’s the act of living as a church all day, every day.

You might ask, “Well pastor, how am I supposed to pray? What do I pray for?” It seems difficult, we don’t feel confident in prayer. We look at all the folks in church and all the saints in the neighborhood and think “Let them do all that, they’re way better than me.” You are called to a life of prayer, too. We see in Matthew 6

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do,

Notice there that before Jesus taught the disciples what to

pray, he taught them how to pray righteously between themselves and God. It doesn’t matter how beautifully and wordy the saints pray, it matters how you pray before God. The goal isn’t to pray in front of the church, it’s to pray with your God when you’re having a 1:1 conversation with Him. The goal of prayer isn’t to make sure everyone know that you’re praying. The goal of prayer is to get yourself into conversation with God. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, a president or in the pew. We don’t pray to raise our own names up, but to praise and thank the God that created us and sustains us always.

It’s tough to pray, though, isn’t it? You’ve got things

going on from the time you get up until the time you lay your head on the pillow. Can I tell you something? That’s exactly when you should pray. Your prayer between you and God isn’t a set of rules. You are encouraged to set aside time for it, but you don’t have a big long list of how and when to pray. It matters more that you’re in that conversation with God, that life of praise and thanks and intercession and request. I’ll mention another little secret the world doesn’t want you to know: Prayer isn’t always going to be on a mountain top. It’s not necessary to pray at sunrise on a cliff overlooking a beautiful land. You’re not always going to be in a big cathedral with stained glass windows. Those are the world’s expectations for prayer, not God’s. People want to have the experience of sitting in a lotus position and hearing a special message from God, but that’s not what to expect from prayer. That brings me to my one little take away message for this message: Prayer is the ordinary communication you have between God your Father and yourself.

#1: Prayer is found in the ordinary, but not always in the

outrageous. If you wait to pray because it’s not an experience that knocks you over and makes you run out into the street, you miss the relationship with God that takes place each day and night. Think of it this way: When you marry someone, it’s one of the most exciting moving days of your life, just as that day when you come to a saving relationship with the Lord. The thing about is, your still married to the person you love 10 days later, at least hopefully. You’re still married to them 10 years later, at least hopefully. The expectation is an ongoing conversation with them for life. The same is true with prayer, only more so. When your child is born, it’s a phenomenal, monumental day in your life. Maybe one of the very most important. It’s magical, just as the day you’re baptized into faith in Jesus Christ and repent of the sin that held you down. The thing about having children is, you still have to raise them after they come home from the hospital. Two days after our child was born we took her to Target and her car seat fell into the cart. We were ordinary parents, teaching our child and learning from them. We all kept the conversation going.

My message her isn’t to stop talking to your spouse if they

quit wowing you over every day. If that were the right thing to do, my wife would have left me single years ago. The point isn’t to be excited by parenthood and then start dropping your little one. The message here is to the extraordinary, life-changing work of prayer in the most ordinary times of your life. Are you standing in line at the store? Thank God for your ability to purchase the food you want and need. Are you walking outside to your car. If it’s safe for you, take one moment to look at your surroundings and praise the God of creation for revealing His nature through the earth. Are you waiting at the Secretary of State’s office to renew your driver’s license? That will give you a lot of time to pray while you wait. Pray silently to yourself for your neighbors, for your brothers and sisters in the church who are hurting, for your own safety in the car. For good roads. Prayer isn’t about the process and the mechanics of talking quietly with God. It’s about the life of being in prayer, constantly confessing the specific wrongs you’ve committed to God, renewing your walk of faith and calling on Him in your every need, which is part of the life of faith. Nobody ever said you couldn’t pray quickly in the moment. When you need to call on God in the big moments and the small, go ahead and do it. You may start out thinking you have no time, but the time with is a priority like life sustaining water and food.

let me conclude by praying for you today: