A Praying Church Part 4

A Praying Church part 4

We’re in a series where we’re trying to take it a step deeper in our prayer lives. So many of you have mentioned to me throughout the past few weeks how you’re spending more time in prayer. Maybe you’re being a little more intentional. Several of you have mentioned that you’ve tried fasting for the very first time, took a day this week. Last Sunday night we had over 800 people come to our prayer workshop. It was so popular we put it on the Southeast website, so you can go there any time this week and you can watch it. God is teaching us a lot of new truths and He’s stretching us, but I don’t want this to simply be another sermon series. This has got to become a part of our daily lives. In addition to that, it has to come from our hearts. If it doesn’t come from our hearts then it’s not true, genuine prayer to Him. Some of Christ’s strongest rebukes were for those who just went through the motions, people who didn’t understand what it was like to really have a heartfelt conversation with the Lord. On the outside they did what was right. They did everything they were supposed to—they’d look so reverent—but on the inside they didn’t have a clue what was going on. They bowed their heads but they didn’t bow their hearts. They’d speak eloquently but not fervently. The truth be known they may not be certain why they do what they do.

We’re trying to be as practical as we can in this series, so before I get into our text today let me just give you some simple steps that can help you start your own prayer life or can kind of recharge your prayer life. Now remember prayer, simply stated, is just this: It’s having a conversation with God. That’s what prayer is. I want you to think about the word “ACTS,”

A-C-T-S. Maybe you can use that as something that will help you to kind of know what to pray. The “A” stands for Adoration. So think of it like an acrostic. The “A” is for Adoration. You can begin your prayer or your prayer-time by simply worshipping and adoring God for who He is and praising Him for what He’s done. That is what we’re going to talk about mostly today. The “C” stands for Confession. You look in your own life and say, “What do I need to confess to God? What do I need to tell Him? What sins have I not repented of?” The Bible says that “If we confess our sins He will be faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The “T” represents Thanksgiving. So whether it’s for a minute or for five minutes or for an hour—whatever—you spend that time thanking God for what He’s done. Thanksgiving is not relegated to just one Thursday in November. It should be part of our normal communication with the Lord. The “S” stands for Supplication. It is what we talked about last week. That is another fancy word for intercession, which simply means “to pray for the needs of others.” We get the word supplication because we are praying that God will supply the needs for someone else. So the order of the letters flows in natural progression. The “A” (Adoration) is looking upward. The “C” (Confession) is looking inward. The “T” (Thanksgiving) is looking upward again. Then the “S” (Supplication) is looking outward. That is what we can do when we pray.

Now we tend to struggle with the amount of time and forethought that we put into the first part. We start to adore God and quickly it fades into something else. And if we’re not careful, “How Great is our God!” becomes “Give us clean hands. Give us pure hearts. Give us this. Give me that,” and it kind of gets twisted into “all about us” when it should start off being “all about Him.”

Today we’re going to learn in Acts chapter 4 that from the very beginning of the church Satan’s desire was to silence believers. He always was trying to say to the Christian community, “Hey, just keep your voice down. Just keep your voice down. Keep that to yourself.”

Why don’t you take your Bible out? And I want you to turn to Acts chapter 4. It’s very easy to find. It’s in the New Testament. It’s the fifth book. There is a Bible right in front of you. Just turn to page 773. You’ll get a lot more out of this if you can look at Acts chapter 4 right in front of you. The church of Acts knew that it was only through their voices being raised to God in prayer that they would be empowered by God. The early New Testament church that we see in the book of Acts is constantly a bold church because of the prayers that they have offered. Look at . It says, “All the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God.” That’s what we want to focus on. We want to focus on why we lift our voices up in prayer to the only One who is worthy of our praise.

We’ll work our way through Acts chapter 4, but before we pick up the story you have to know what has been taking place. In the previous chapter back in , Peter and John…they head to the temple because it is a time of prayer. So they go there to pray. They come to this gate. And I want you to imagine that every day when you go to work that maybe there is a homeless man or there is someone begging right outside of the office and you see this individual every day. Well, that is how it was. There was a man over the age of forty who was crippled, and he sat at this particular gate day in and day out. This time when Peter and John went past he asked them for money, and Peter and John look at him and Simon Peter says to him, “We don’t have any money. No cash on us today. But what we do have we will give to you.” And he takes him by the hand and he says, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And this man, who everyone in the community had seen day in and day out for decades, gets up and he begins to walk and he begins to leap and he begins to run! You can imagine the entire city is taken aback by this incredible miracle, and this throng comes around Peter and John and they begin to preach and they share the message about Jesus Christ coming back from the dead. They are so upset—the elders and the chief priests and the religious leaders—that they have Peter and John arrested because of this huge crowd that has gathered to hear their story about Christ. They are thrown in prison and they’re ordered not to speak about Jesus Christ anymore. Peter and John look back and say, “Hey, we can’t do that. We can’t stop talking about Jesus. That is our DNA. He’s changed our lives. We’re not going to stop.” Finally they relent and they let them out of jail. Now look in your Bible back at verse 21 of chapter 4:

After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old. Now on their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.

You see, they raised their voices. Notice that the very first thing they did, the way they began, was they talked about the greatness of God and they just said, “Sovereign Lord!” Skip down and look at verse 29:

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

Here is what I hope that you will accept today: A praying church worships God for His greatness. That is why we are here. We have been called to make a difference. You lift your voice up to Him. What type of a voice is it? Well, one, we have ordinary voices—ordinary voices. Nothing special or spectacular about any of us. When compared to deity we don’t even measure up. Please notice that these prayers offered in Acts chapter 4 were not offered by the priests or the religious leaders. They were ordinary voices. But ordinary voices and ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they pray. Look back at what takes place in the middle of this story, earlier in Acts chapter 4. As they stand before the elite, as they stand surrounded by the most powerful men in the community, they share their testimony of Christ, and look at verse 13. It says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

I was ordained into the Christian ministry 27 years ago. This is my favorite verse of Scripture, and at my ordination I shared and I said, “Somehow through my ordinary life my goal in ministry is that people will somehow be able to tell that I spent time with Jesus Christ.”

This is an exciting passage in because it reminds us that the crowd knew Jesus, and somehow the preaching and the courage of these two men, Peter and John, resembled the Jesus that they preached about. You see, here is the greatest part of being a follower of Christ: We, as ordinary and unimpressive people, can somehow talk to the God of the Universe. Does that blow you away? We can talk to our Heavenly Father anytime we want. This week I want to challenge you to do something. I want to challenge you to pray a prayer at some time to God that is nothing but praise, worship and adoration. In other words, you can’t ask Him for something. Instead you just tell Him how great He is. We have this privilege that we can talk to God, yet we don’t always take advantage of it.

Praise Him for what He has done. Well, what is it that He has done? Well, kind of tells us in a nutshell: “God made Him (meaning Jesus) who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus Christ knew that His death would open the way for worship and would pave the way for a personal relationship with Him. Don’t take what He did for granted.

Let me illustrate it this way. Every day when I come to church, I park in the exact same place. I come through the sanctuary and I head up to my office. But there was a time about eight years ago when I started to come in here and every single door around here had a sign on it that said, “Do not enter. Do not enter into the sanctuary.” I thought, “Boy, why is that?” Well, I’ll tell you why it was. We had Grammy Award-winning Michael W. Smith that was about to make a live worship CD, so for two solid days all the sound technicians, all of his whole band and Michael W. Smith///they were here for two days practicing totally free of any distractions. I was drawn to this room even though it said, “Do not enter,” and I knew I couldn’t go in. I’d go to lunch and I would come back from lunch, and I’d start to open the door to come in here and I would see the sign which said, “Do not enter.” And I’ve got to tell you, I was dying to come in here. I was dying to come in here and meet him, to see him, to hear him sing, to worship with him, but I knew that I wasn’t allowed.

You’re probably aware that for centuries there was another sanctuary that was off limits to people like you and me. In fact, only the high priest could go in and he could only do it one day out of the entire year. Can you imagine the frustration and the longing of the Jewish people when they saw the “Do not enter” sign that just stayed posted all the time? But then Jesus came and it didn’t stay like that. God in the flesh. And when He died on a cross to pay for all of my sins and your sins an unusual thing happened in the sanctuary. The Bible says that at the instant when Jesus Christ breathed His last breath, do you know what happened in the temple? The veil—a four-inch thick veil, a curtain—was torn in two from top all the way down to the bottom, signifying that it was God who was doing it. This was the veil…this was the curtain which separated the Jewish people from the Holy of Holies. In other words, the “Do not enter” sign was shredded, signifying that you don’t need to go through a priest anymore. You don’t need to go through a preacher anymore. You can talk directly to God. You can talk directly to the Lord. You can worship Him on your own. You see, Jesus Christ was literally dying for you to be able to come into that sanctuary, because you were on His mind and He wanted you to be able to personally worship Him and get close to Him. No longer was God at arm’s length. And because of Calvary now you can talk to Him with eyes open wide on your drive home today. He will listen whether you are standing up, sitting down or on bended knee. He cares when you extend your hands and your hearts and lift up the needs of others. God revels in hearing voices raised to Him in praise. sums it up: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain…” That’s a reference to that veil, but it’s metaphorical because the next phrase says, “that is, his body.” His body was the curtain that was torn. “And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God.” It begins by saying, “Since we have this confidence now we can talk to God—with our ordinary voice and, secondly, with a bold voice. The Hebrew writer says that we do so “with confidence.” That means that we’re proud of our God. We’re not ashamed for anyone to hear us talking about Him. It’s not something we have to do behind closed doors and we’re upset about it or we’re private about it. No, it’s something that we’re proud of.

But that is not always the case. I mean, we’ve lost some of our boldness. We are more reserved in what we say. We’re more general in what we pray. We talk a lot about God but we’re careful not to say the word “Jesus” around some people, and our boldness falters. We struggle with the different postures of prayer. We feel uncomfortable. “What will people think? What will they say if they see me being that expressive or…? Man, people will think that I’m just some lunatic or some fanatic.” People might think you’re not a fan, that you’re actually a follower of Christ. the Apostle Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” You see, the early New Testament church prayed with a confidence. They prayed with a boldness. They allowed the Holy Spirit to empower them and their prayers. They knew that this wasn’t something that was just a coincidence. They knew that God was involved, that it was a God incident, that He was showing up in a major way. And each time they saw God working, it caused them to become even bolder in raising their voices to Him. You see, the message of the book of Acts is that you can change and I can change, and we can begin to see prayer as our lifeline. The Lord can give you courage to take a stand for Him. says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but He gave us a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” There are many in our culture who would love to stifle your speech and mute your voice, to take away your rights. You make certain that you boldly exercise your freedom to worship the Lord.

Ordinary voices, bold voices and unified voices. You see, it’s easier when you are participating together, when we’re united. It becomes easier when you’re not doing something all by yourself. For those of you who might work in a work-setting that has no Christians, I hope you’re prayed up when you go into the workplace. I hope…I hope that you’ve talked to God and that you see that as your mission field. For those of you who are wired like me and you have a million things going, well, make certain that you put prayer someplace in your calendar so that you’ll be certain that you follow through. Put it in your Blackberry someplace. Write it on your to-do list but make certain that God doesn’t get the short end of the stick. Perhaps you try to stretch yourself and you fast. You say, “I’m going to skip a meal this week and during that meal I’m going to talk to God.” And you’re going to reflect a greater devotion and a greater desperation and dependency upon Him.

Beth Moore (is) probably the most popular women’s Bible teacher in the country. She has spoken here at Southeast and done conferences a couple of different times. A couple of weeks ago she spoke at a conference in Chicago and it was simulcast all around the country, and in that conference she shared about a dream that she had had. And Beth prefaced her comments by saying, “Now you need to understand, I never dream. I’m not saying I rarely dream.” She’s saying, “I never dream. But,” she said, “Recently one morning I awakened after a very vivid dream and the details just stood out so much to me. I dreamed that I was at a conference and,” she said, “that’s a common dream. Everybody dreams something about what they do, where they work. But when it came time for someone to speak instead of me coming up to the podium…instead,” she said, “I saw a friend of mine walking up to the podium. It was Steven Curtis Chapman’s wife, Mary Beth.” She said, “My friend Mary Beth started walking up to the podium and she wasn’t by herself. Her five-year-old daughter, Maria, was with her.” And you need to know that Maria died in a tragic accident two years ago when she was five. And Beth Moore said that as she walked up, as Mary Beth walked up to the podium…that her five-year-old Maria…she was just beautiful and she was just running around in circles underneath her mom’s legs and coming up alongside of her. And Beth said, “I just awakened after a minute of that.” And she said, “It was so lifelike and it was so real.” And she said, “Knowing that such a dream might be disturbing to Mary Beth I decided that I wouldn’t call her or I wouldn’t email her or say anything about it.” She said, “I knew what the Chapmans have gone through the past two years and how difficult this grief has been. But,” she said, “the Lord just kept impressing it upon me.” She said two days later after the dream she just couldn’t get it off of her mind, so Beth Moore picked up the phone and she called the Chapmans. From Texas she called to Tennessee. She got Mary Beth on there and she said, “I just wanted to check up on you.” And she said, “You know, I need to tell you that I had a dream about your daughter.” And on the other end of the phone there was just silence. Beth Moore said there was just a long silence that was followed by sobbing. She said that Mary Beth just began to cry. “And now,” Beth Moore said, “I felt so badly so I began to cry, too, and I apologized for bringing up a painful memory.” Finally Mary Beth Chapman spoke and she said, “Beth…” She said, “What night was that?” And Beth said, “It was just two nights ago.” And when Mary Beth was able to regain her composure, she said, “Well, that night Steven and I were with a friend and,” she said, “I was just missing Maria incredibly, so much so that the three of us…we got down on our knees and that very evening I prayed that God would just give me a dream. Let me see her one more time. Let me see her so that I know that she’s okay.” And she added and said, “That was the night that you had your dream, Beth.” Beth Moore explained, “Mary Beth, if God would’ve allowed you to see Maria, like most moms, you would’ve been tempted for the rest of your life just to pull the covers up over your head and sleep all the time in an effort so that you could just catch a glimpse of your daughter.” And she said, “So God showed it to me so that I could tell you.” Later Beth Moore said that that is the very first dream that she has ever been able to remember in her entire life. Is God good or what? There is power in prayer, and in the midst of her pain, as she prayed, God answers a prayer in long-distance, creative fashion as only He could do.

You see, the first church realized that their voices were ordinary, but they had an expectation of the extraordinary. That is what prayer does. Look back in our text in Acts chapter 4. Skip down to the end. I want you to see what happened when they prayed. , “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Did you see that? The place where they were praying was shaken and the result was that they spoke the word of God more boldly. God gave them a physical miracle to validate their prayers. Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not asking you to pray for an earthquake, all right? Can I get an “amen” from those in the balcony? (Laughter) I’m not asking you to pray for an earthquake but some of you…some of you, you need to have your life shaken up. God needs to do something and you need to start regularly praying and saying, “Okay, Lord, shake my foundation so that I know that it is founded on You. Shake me up so that I know that You are who I belong to.”

Our family has been going through a mini-transition with our daughters in recent days. My older daughter, Savannah, and her husband are doing fine. Patrick has had three, all-clear reports on his cancer being gone. (Applause) And we praise the Lord for that and we… So many of you ask how he’s doing and he’s here. He’s here today. He’s doing great. We just appreciate all your prayers. But they’re finishing up at Cincinnati Christian University and two weeks ago Patrick accepted a call to minister on staff at Compass Christian Church, which is just outside of Dallas, Texas. And yeah, I know… And early indications are that Savannah is actually going to go with him. (Laughter) But we’re…we’re really excited. When your kids are in ministry, you know, you have no idea where God might take them, but the important thing is that they are faithful and that they answer that call. It’s a great church. He’s going to do awesome there. It’s 854 miles away and they leave in a couple of days. At the same time, our middle child, Sadie, recently headed off to college, so now it’s just Sam the Man. He has no siblings close by and, I’ve got to tell you, I feel so sorry for this kid because we are in his business all the time. You know? (Laughter) He calls us “the helicopter parents.” So your prayers are appreciated. But life has changed and life is very different with those two things taking place right around the same time. But this weekend was parent’s weekend at the college where my daughter attends in Nashville. And I knew that I was unable to be down there on Friday and Saturday for that and it has really been killing me because, when she headed off to college, I said, “Okay, great. We’re going to let you be on your own for a few weeks and you feel free to come back and visit.” Well, she hasn’t come back to visit, you know? And we miss her but she is having the time of her life and she’s making so many new friends. Well, on Wednesday, when I knew Beth was going to get to go on Friday and I knew I wasn’t going to, I was going crazy. It had been over five weeks since she left, so I changed…on the spur of the moment, I changed all my schedule that I had in the afternoon and I flipped it around to the morning, and I got in my car at about noon and I buzzed down to Nashville. I didn’t tell her I was coming. Gonna surprise her. And I was so excited the whole trip down there. I got down there. I sent somebody up to try to find her. They couldn’t find her. I texted one of her friends and she said, “Oh, yeah. She’s asleep. She’s asleep in her room.” And I said, “Well, you know, can you wake her up?” She said, “She doesn’t want to wake up, okay?” I said, “Well, tell her to look outside of her window at her dorm.” And I’ve got a bouquet of flowers, you know, and I’m standing out there on the lawn. She looks out the window and here’s Dufus Dad—you know? (Laughter)—standing there. So she sends me a text, “I’ll be right down. I’ll be right down.” And I wish you could’ve seen the male students walking past as I’m standing out there. (Laughter) They had a look that said, “Find someone your own age,” you know? (More laughter) “Don’t hit on our girls.” So I went inside and I waited for her to come down. And it’s tough for me to try to describe what that was like, because I knew she was coming down and I hadn’t seen her in five weeks and three days and I knew that just in the next few seconds she was going to be there. And if I could somehow take you there with me, my heart…my heart was about to just pound out of my chest. And she came bounding down the steps and she ran over to me, and I hugged her and I held her so tightly. And I tell you that story because your Heavenly Father wants to do the same with you.

And for some of you it’s been over five weeks and He’s saying, “Are they going to check in with me?” And He is literally dying for you to have a conversation with Him, for you to turn you television off, for you to disconnect from Facebook, for you to hibernate your computer and just have a visit with Him. And let me tell you something, His heart beats for you. He longs to talk to you and He longs to listen to you. He longs to be in a right relationship with you and He’s waiting. My challenge to you is if you say you love Him more than you love your family then prove it.

I can’t think of a more fitting way for us to wrap this message (up) than for us to offer a prayer of adoration. The Psalms are filled with them. We’re going to pray together an entire psalm. It’s just five verses. It’s Psalm chapter 93. I want you to read it aloud and I want you to pray it to God as we raise our voices together. (Audience reading aloud with Dave):

The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;

the LORD is robed in majesty

and is armed with strength.

The world is firmly established;

it cannot be moved.

Your throne was established long ago;

you are from all eternity.

The seas have lifted up, O LORD,

the seas have lifted up their voice;

the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,

mightier than the breakers of the sea—

the LORD on high is mighty.

Your statutes stand firm;

holiness adorns your house

for endless days, O LORD.

Father, we just exalt Thee and we worship You. And we promise You that we will check in with You more often and that we will talk with You on a more regular basis, that we won’t just…that we won’t just go through the motions like a trained pet, but that, instead, we will actually talk to You from our heart. It’s in the powerful name of Christ that we pray. Amen.

If you have never turned your life over to Jesus Christ, this could be your day. This could be your day of salvation, and we would invite you to say, “I’m ready. I’m ready to humble myself. I’m ready to confess Christ and turn my life over to Him.” There are others of you who need to say, “You know what? I want to be a part of this church family and I want to commit to being a member here.” Whatever your desire and your need is, we’ll try to guide you on that journey. You just meet me down front as we stand together and as we worship. (Audience applauding)