Raise Your Voice - Acts 4:23-31

Somebody higher

What do you do when you need to talk to somebody higher?

(video)

That’s a humorous take on talking to somebody higher. How many of you have been in that situation? We all want to talk to the supervisor, right? Henry and I were in that situation about a week ago when it became obvious that our question could not be answered at the window. Can we see your supervisor?

If you had to write up a definition of what prayer is, I think most of us would write it out like this:

Prayer is talking to God

That’s not a bad definition. Prayer is definitely that. That is definitely the churchy answer we all grew up with. But… as we consider how prayer is being portrayed in our story today, I think it would be good to talk about the why of prayer:

Prayer is talking to God, because he’s ultimately the One in charge

Right? I would love to spend a lot of time talking about prayer and we may circle back around to this topic in the near future. Because prayer is central to who we are as human beings.

We are human and God is not, and so we pray.

It’s for this reason that prayer can be found in just about every major religion. In fact, one might be hard pressed to find a religion that doesn’t have prayer, and if it doesn’t have prayer, is it really a religion? Whether you live here in the U.S. or hundreds of miles to the south in Oaxaca or on the other side of the world in China, you’ll find prayer to be part of the culture. A study done a few years back shows more than over half of American adults pray daily. 4 out of every 5 American adults have prayed at least once in the last 3 months, regardless of religion. And one doesn’t have to be religious. More than 20 percent of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated pray daily. But almost all of this praying is done alone. Of the 4 out of 5 who pray at least once every 3 months, only 2% pray with someone else or in a group.

But what is prayer? At the very least, most in our culture, whether they are Christians or not, would answer along the lines of saying:

To pray is to reach for someone or something beyond oneself.

You are either asking for something, or being thankful for something, or simply talking to another, but it is communicating beyond oneself to something or someone usually not seen. There is an implicit acknowledgment that there is something or someone bigger than ourselves. Humanity knows that there's more to life than what we can see. Whether it is the tree, whether it is an alien, whether it is some force, or some unseen essence, or some spirit, or ancestor, or stone, or saint, religions have prayer because we recognize our limitations, our weaknesses, our humanity… in need of help or rescue from things we cannot see. To be human is to pray… even those who claim to not believe in prayer have substituted something or someone who is providing salvation or rescue, even if it is their own selves.

And that’s true for our story today where we find a group of Christians, in a very stressful situation, who are reaching beyond themselves to a God who is outside of themselves, with the expectation that he is able to listen to them and does listen to them.

Scene 1: The Healing

What we have in front of us today is a continuation of last week’s story. The first scene of the story is Peter and John going to the temple and finding a guy who can’t walk and when it’s all said and done, the man is not only walking, but leaping and praising God. This healing brings the house down. The people in the temple celebrate, but the religious establishment isn’t in a celebrating mood. They’ve seen this before. The rabbi Jesus was doing the miraculous. They got rid of him and now his followers seem to be doing the same thing… and they are attracting crowds.

Scene 2: The Hearing

And so Peter and John are arrested. And they are dragged in front of the same judicial body that had met in the middle of the night in order to get rid of Jesus. They are told to stop preaching and healing… Peter preaches what amounts to a third sermon here in Acts, and Peter and John basically say, “we can’t promise you that we’re going to stop.” What a difference a few months makes. This hearing is quite remarkable. Peter and John who abandoned Jesus the night of his own trial. He’s crucified. He rises from the dead. He spends 40 days with his best friends, the disciples and many others… and then ascends to the right hand of the Father. And as if the scenes are being repeated, here are his friends who had abandoned him now facing the same guys who tried to get rid of Jesus and they are not the same guys:

Acts 4:13 “When (the religious council) observed the boldness of Peter and John...they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

If you had asked anyone months prior if Peter and John could be described as having boldness in talking about Jesus, they would have laughed in your face. In fact, Peter and John would have laughed. Peter and John get off with a warning and they go back to their group and give their report. What are they going to do? Take to the streets in protest? Skip town?

Scene 3: The Prayer

Here’s what the text says they did:

Acts 4:24 When they heard (the report), they raised their voices together to God...

How many of you had “raised their voices” as part of your definition of prayer? We’re going to come back to this, but what we need to see here is that the raising of voices matches the tension and the stress and the threat of the situation. The hearing in front of the religious council wasn’t fun and games. They know what the council is capable of.

Why do we raise our voices? We raise our voices when we want attention. We raise our voices when we want attention and we feel like we’re not getting the attention or response we think we need or deserve.

One of the fascinating things about this scene is it is one of the few places in all of the Bible where we are given the content of the prayer of the early church. We are told what they pray about and pray for. And what we see here are all sorts of examples of what prayer is and what it is to be about.

Praying the Scriptures

Right off the bat, we see that the early church is using the Bible as its source or launch pad for prayer. And they do it twice. The first is a quote from the Old Testament’s book of Exodus:

Acts 4:24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them.”

“The one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them” is a direct quote from the Ten Commandments and it’s a phrase that shows up in a number of places throughout the Bible. Remember how we said that prayer implies that there is something bigger than us? This is that. In their prayer, they acknowledge that they are praying to the Creator of the Universe. It doesn’t get any higher than that. There is no one to appeal to above the One who made all of this, who is in control of everything.

The second quote of Scripture immediately follows:

Acts 4:25–26 “You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David your servant: Why do the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot futile things? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against the Lord and against his Messiah.”

Here, the early church is quoting Psalm 2, one of the most quoted Psalms in the New Testament. The early church see that the language of the Psalm is anticipating Jesus, the Son of God who rules all the kingdoms of the world. And the kingdoms of the world don’t like it. “Why do the nations rage?” What a question. But this is in keeping with the entire tone of the story. They have been threatened. They “raise their voices”. Why do the nations rage?

Praying their circumstance

They are quoting scripture in prayer because they see themselves in the story of Scripture. The Bible is the story of Jesus and they see themselves as a significant part of that story. The nations raged against Jesus. Killed him. And now they are raging against the church. But at its basic level, they are reminding God himself that this is their story. That this is their predicament. The nations raging leads to this:

Acts 4:29 And now, Lord, consider their threats

They pray to the One who is highest of all, the One who is in control of all things, who knows all things, who hears all things… they are raising their voice to get his attention AND to let him know what is going on. This is a reminder that the Lord of the Universe to whom we pray isn’t some unknown figure hiding behind a curtain like the wizard of oz. The One who hears all and sees all and knows all is our friend. The One who loves us. The One who cares. Lord consider their threats. Do you see how they’re talking about you, Jesus? God wants us to talk to him about what we’re going through, what we are feeling, what we need. Even when we are raising our voices.

Praying on Mission

What they are praying for is absolutely remarkable.

Acts 4:29 “Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness.”

Yes, Peter and John have been bold. Yes, there are threats. Give us even more boldness. Give us the same boldness again and again and again. The word “bold” here has the idea of freedom of speech. Through your Spirit, give us the internal freedom to speak what needs to be spoken: the Good News of Jesus. Ironically, that’s the real threat here. The religious council has threatened the church because the Good News of Jesus, the Gospel threatens them. The Gospel is a threat to their power, is a threat to their need to control behavior, is a threat to control access to God himself. Give us more boldness to speak your Good News about Jesus’ love and grace and forgiveness.

What would you pray for in this instance? You know what they don’t pray for? They don’t pray for condemnation and judgment to fall on the religious council. They don’t pray in defiance. They don’t pray for God to change their circumstances. They don’t pray that God would somehow change the minds of the religious council. They don’t pray for the laws to be changed. They simply pray for boldness in the Gospel and Christ to continue his work of healing. That’s it. I always find it interesting that people who want to pray damnation and judgment prayers have to run to the Old Testament to get it, because you will not find the early church praying this way. You will not find Jesus praying this way. You will not find St. Paul praying this way.

You know what the common denominator is in all the prayers for judgment and changing the other guy? Power. We are always looking for things to swing our way. We pray these kinds of prayers so that we can be in control of our circumstances… so that we can be right, so that we can have the upper hand. We pray this way so that we can win. It’s all about power and control. Peter and John and the early church are being persecuted and the church doesn’t pray to remove the persecution. They pray for boldness to continue what they are doing, in spite of the persecution.

Does this mean they never prayed for the persecution to go away? Does this mean they went of their way to embrace the persecution? I’m not saying either of those things. But what I am saying is that’s not the pattern of prayer given to us in the New Testament. Because the story isn’t about us. The story is about Jesus. The myth that is trafficked in these circumstances is… just think of what the Gospel could do if we had the platform and we were in control? The Gospel doesn’t need a platform and it certainly doesn’t need us in control of anything. In fact, you can’t find that kind of promise or even method in the Bible. It’s not about us. It’s about Jesus. It’s about Jesus who is for sinners. Who loves unconditionally. That is the Gospel for people who need to hear of his love and forgiveness whether we are in control or not.

Answered Prayer

And God answered their prayer, positively.

Acts 4:31 When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.

When they had prayed… when they had raised their voices together… they began to speak the word of God boldly. Just as they prayed, it happened. Almost as if it is a self-fulfilling prayer. There are some prayers in the Bible it’s almost as if God is never going to say no to that prayer. Being bold with the Gospel is one of those prayers.

When this church is getting threats, they double down on the Gospel. It’s all about mission. If there is fear in this prayer, it’s not the persecution. The fear is that they will stop proclaiming the Gospel. The fear is that they will stop talking about Jesus.

Here is what Peter says in his sermon to the religious council:

Acts 4:12 “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”

Salvation is in nobody else. Hope for everyone can’t be found anywhere else. No one else. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Peter was convinced of it. That motivates this passion and this desire to be bold with the story of Jesus. They don’t want to stop talking about it because that’s the only hope for anyone. And so they raise their voice. They raise their voice to the only One who can give them that kind of boldness in talking about Jesus: Jesus himself.

Our Prayer

Their story is our story and every story for every church. We need this kind of boldness in this community. We need this for San Benito. I thought it would be good for us to raise our voice and ask Jesus for boldness. Boldness to talk about Jesus where we live, work, learn, and play.

Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them. You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David your servant:

Why do the Gentiles rage

and the peoples plot futile things?

The kings of the earth take their stand

and the rulers assemble together

against the Lord and against his Messiah.

And now, Lord, grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness. Use this place as a house of mission. May our church be a launch pad for sending workers into Your harvest. You have many people here in San Benito who have yet to know your love and your grace, so use The Table Church and this gift you’ve given them to connect people to yourself and add more members to your household. Amen.

May Jesus use the desires of His people to reach people where they are here in San Benito.

Let’s Pray

The Table

You know where Jesus grants the answer to the prayer for boldness? Right here. At this Table. When Jesus provides us with life, forgiveness, and salvation here at this Table, Jesus is providing his healing so that we would heal others. So that we would provide life for others. Through His Word. This boldness isn’t just for pastors. This story today is about all of us. As we receive His mercy and grace here at The Table, he gives us Himself to share with others.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.