Praising God for His Provision

Introduction

In a year unlike any other, 2020 taught us a lot of things. Some of those things were negative and we genuinely missed so many things that we were accustomed to. Yet, we also learned of some positive things. Some of you all learned how to use social media possibly for the first time in your 60 years of life! Others of you were able to use features on your phone or computer that allowed you to FaceTime or Zoom with family members to see them or attend meetings with other people. Some of you learned how to slow down a little bit. Others might have learned a new mindset that allows you to spend more time with the Lord and have better conversations with your family. Parents, maybe you learned that you are not meant to be a teacher or maybe you feel as though you missed your calling to be a teacher! While times have been difficult across the board, we have learned many things over the last 15 months - things that we can confidently say we wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

One of the things that many Americans have said and I’m sure many of you can resonate with is that we have learned of the importance of prayer over the last few months and we have been reminded that a life that is satisfied in Christ is only possible whenever we are saturated in prayer. Prayer is important and there are times where we can get so busy that we forget to simply give thanks to the Lord for all that He has done. Studies have shown us that more and more Americans are praying on a daily basis today than in the last few decades, this is positive - but what do we do whenever we pray?

Spurgeon once told his church, “The substitutionary, penal, atoning death of Christ on the cross provides Christians cause for daily adoration and hourly thankfulness. Since Jesus has loved us so well, it is impossible not to give to him all that we are, and all that we have.” Because of Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross, we have cause for daily adoration and hourly thankfulness. Are you thankful today? Maybe life has you down in the dumps because work is hard, relationships are stressed out, you have a million things going on in your life and you’re overwhelmed. Friend, if this is you, let me point you to the cross where we are reminded of what our Savior has done. If you are having a problem with being thankful for something, remember the cross and fall on your knees in prayer.

The great hymn writer Fanny Crosby penned over 8,000 songs during her lifetime. Despite her difficulties and trials such as being born blind, she continued to fulfill her God-given calling. Crosby said that she never attempted to write a hymn without first kneeling in prayer - she spent a lot of time on her knees doing this! There came a time in her ministry, though, where she was stressed about meeting a particular deadline in 1869. She had to have something turned in but she couldn’t write anything. She was having writer’s block. As she struggled through this moment, she remembered that she had forgotten to spend time in prayer. After her time in prayer, she immediately got with her writer and came up with the words for “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross.”

Prayer is so important and it is equally important for us to give thanks for all that God has done and is doing in our lives! In our text this morning in the book of Acts, we see the early church do exactly this: give thanks! Here we find one of the greatest prayers in all of Scripture as they praise God for His provision and this is what we should do each and every day of our lives.

Acts 4:23–31 CSB

23 After they were released, they went to their own people and reported everything the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 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. 25 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? 26 The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against the Lord and against his Messiah. 27 “For, in fact, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28 to do whatever your hand and your will had predestined to take place. 29 And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand for healing, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 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.

Pray with Humility (23-24)

Last week we left off in the book of Acts with Peter and John being released from the Sanhedrin with the command to not teach about Jesus Christ any further. Rather than kick them out of the city or punish them further, the Jews simply let them go. Where do Peter and John go? They go back to their community of believers and they begin to pray. Think about this moment - they have been captured, arrested, put on trial, and now released! The natural thing to do in such a triumphant moment would be to pray. Consider, though, when do you often pray? If you’re like my family, we always pray before meals - even if we’re out to eat at a busy and loud restaurant, we spend time praying and thanking God. We often pray whenever something serious happens and we find out that someone is critically sick or injured. We often pray whenever something bad happens. We often pray whenever a major event is about to take place such as an interview or a trip. These are all good things! But, shouldn’t we pray in the good times just as much as we do in the bad?

Shouldn’t we bring our praises to God just as we bring to Him our requests?

We often have a long list of requests to bring His way but our list of praises should be present as well. Sadly, it can be easy to forget all the many blessings we have received from Him! It can be difficult to maintain an attitude of humility whenever we pray. Maybe you’re thinking that this doesn’t make any sense because whenever we pray we are asking things of God - yes, we do, but anyone can and does do this. Take for example the student who is praying before a test that God would help him get an A so that he would pass the class and be able to get into the school of his dreams. That student acknowledges that there is a God who helps His children - on one level that exemplifies some humility (there is a God and I am not Him!). However, true humility is deeper than simply acknowledging God’s existence, it looks deep into the very character of God Himself and how God differs from us. In our text, the church gathers together and they pray - after this time of opposition, they immediately celebrate not by eating food, singing songs, or watching VeggieTales. Rather, they do so by falling to their knees and praying. They acknowledge who God is and all that He has done!

They start out by acknowledging who God is - He is our Master. In the Greek, the word “despotes” carries with it the meaning that God is the Sovereign Lord. This specific Greek word was common in the Greek world to describe a victorious leader or ruler and it is occasionally used in the New Testament to describe God. The prayer begins with acknowledging that God is the Sovereign Ruler who has acted: verse 24 shares that God made the heaven, earth, sea, and everything in them. As we’ve been studying in Genesis the last few Wednesday evenings, our God is the Creator who spoke everything into existence! That is the person who we get to pray to each and every day - isn’t this a tremendous privilege?

Not only do we get to pray to our Master, but He genuinely wants us to pray. As 1 Peter 5 reminds us

1 Peter 5:7 NLT

7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

We are to give our cares to Him. He already knows because He’s all-knowing, but He longs to have that type of relationship with His children. This requires us to be open and humble rather than reserved and prideful. God already knows our struggles - after all, He is the one who made the heaven, earth, sea, and everything in them!

This statement occurs several times in Scripture and one of those places is Isaiah 37:16 where Hezekiah is crying out to God to deliver Jerusalem from the hands of Assyria

Isaiah 37:16 CSB

16 Lord of Armies, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you are God—you alone—of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

Before Hezekiah brings His request of deliverance before the Lord, He starts by ascribing the attributes of God. He starts by giving God glory for who He is! God is God and we are not - this is a distinction that some people do not like, but it is a good distinction for us to make. Before we do anything, we praise Him for who He is.

Think of your prayer life. Do you pray regularly? If so, what do you start your prayer with? These Christians start by saying that God is their master. That He is the sovereign Lord of the Universe. Whenever we start our prayer with a correct view of God, we have peace. This doesn’t mean that our prayers are answered how we would like, but it does mean that we acknowledge that God is God and that His ways are higher and better than ours. Because of this, we can trust in Him. We can find peace in Him because of the truth in Romans 8

Romans 8:31 CSB

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

If this is the God we serve, who can stand against us? This gives us confidence, sure, but it must make us humble because it’s not our power, it is His!

Pray in Accordance with Scripture (25-30)

One of the interesting things to see in this prayer in Acts 4 is that these people knew Scripture and they prayed Scripture in their prayer. The quotation here is from Psalm 2:1-2 where the Psalmist talks about God’s triumph over Israel’s enemies. The early church looked at these verses as being fulfilled by Jesus Christ because of what comes in verses 27-28. The Gentiles rage - the Roman leaders executed Jesus | The people plotted in vain - the Jewish leadership planned to crucify Jesus | The rulers assembled against the Lord and His anointed Messiah - The Jews and Romans worked together to kill Jesus.

Why are they quoting this Psalm in this prayer? Because this was God’s plan. Why did Jesus die? Because it was God’s plan. Can we see every single detail in this plan? Absolutely not. There are many things that we cannot see, but we can trust in the Lord.

Whenever we better understand Scripture and see that it is pointing to Jesus Christ, we have reason to be full of hope. Scripture speaks of a great drama that is unfolding before us: There is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. We have the benefit of living after Christ and in this time of restoration. Christ Himself said

Matthew 4:17 CSB

17 From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

What does this mean? It means that we are in the last days. It means that there is work to be done today! It means that we must study Scripture and proclaim its truth with others.

In this prayer, Luke takes time to note a wonderful truth in verse 28

These evildoers who plotted against Jesus and who continue to plot against His Church do so in vain. Why is it in vain? Because God has predetermined the outcome. This is the 3rd time this theme of God’s sovereignty shows up in Acts (Acts 2:23, and Acts 3:18). These people use their human freedom and choices, yet God’s sovereign plan remains in tact and unshaken. God’s plan prevails every single time! This is what Scripture shares with us. We see this in the Old Testament. We see this with Jesus Christ as He was crucified and raised to life. We see this with the early church and we experience this in our lives today. Again, we are living in the final act of this grand narrative. Some people believe that there is a dispensation to follow the one we are in right now - to which we find that the King of Kings

Hebrews 9:28 CSB

28 so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

This is God’s plan. This is the clear teaching in Scripture. Jesus has come and He fulfilled everything necessary for our redemption according to God’s predetermined plan. It is also God’s plan for these bad things to happen. It was God’s plan for Herod and Pilate to play the role they played. This was all done according to His predestined plan - yet, at the same time, they did so out of their human choice.

Why is this the way things happen? We don’t know. But we trust in the Lord’s timing and in His plan. We know that He works all things together for our good and for His glory - therefore, we can have hope as we pray because we see throughout Scripture that He is at work in the big and little things. If suffering does come our way, it’s alright! We can look back on hundreds of Christians who faced similar or worse situations than ourselves and know that we are in good company. Their prayers and struggles help to give us perspective and their deliverance and courage helps to give us strength as we follow after God.

Pray for Courage (31)

We pray for many different things depending on the situation. Sometimes we pray for rest. Other times we pray for help or healing. Other times we pray for discernment. Sometimes we, like Hezekiah in Isaiah 37, pray for deliverance from a situation or obstacle. In our text, though, we see something different. Peter and John have been persecuted and imprisoned. They have been put on trial. Whenever we have difficulties, what do we often pray for? We pray for them to go away! This is natural and it’s what we long to have. We don’t want to suffer, so we pray that God takes the suffering away. We don’t want to be sick, so we pray that God makes us happy and healthy again. I was talking with an individual a couple of weeks ago about this very thing. Whenever we face obstacles, we pray that God removes them - we have faith in Him and we know that He can remove them because He is sovereign. God has the goods to get it done! The person was talking about the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in Daniel 3 and how they had faith that God would save them. They had faith that they wouldn’t suffer. Is this true? Partly! In Daniel 3:16-18 we read of this story as the 3 Hebrews stand before Nebuchadnezzar and they say 3 things: We know our God can save us, we believe He will save us, and even if He doesn’t - we’re not going to worship your golden statue because it’s wrong. We know He can, we believe He will, and even if He doesn’t… it’s ok!

There is nothing wrong with praying for restoration or for healing - in fact, we’d be weird to not pray for such things! But, what we see time and time again in Scripture is that we are to pray for God’s will to be done. We make our requests known, for sure, but ultimately, we know that God’s will will be done and our prayer should be for that to happen and for our hearts to be prepared for that. Notice in our text here, after Peter and John suffer, they don’t pray to never suffer again. They don’t pray for future deliverance - like Hezekiah does in Isaiah 37 - instead, they pray for boldness in verse 29. They pray for courage as they experience persecution. They don’t pray for persecution to go away. They don’t pray for a get out of jail free card - although we will read about God rescuing His followers from jail in future chapters - that’s not their focus. Their focus is that they would have boldness and courage to continue to be obedient, even when it’s hard.

Church, can we learn anything from this type of prayer? It’s normal to pray for deliverance from opposition but what if we instead pray for courage as we go through opposition. Instead of praying for persecution and hard times to cease, what if we prayed for strength to remain obedient during the difficult times? What if we prayed that the lost would see the power of Christ in our lives rather than for ourselves to be sheltered from tragedy? Isn’t this a paradigm shift?

Consider the prayer of Raquel Stephens, whose husband, Tim serves as a pastor in Canada and who was arrested earlier this week for keeping his church open for services. Following a trial on Tuesday morning in which Tim was not released, she wrote, “I am praying for the Lord’s mercy to bring him home soon. Perhaps even today! Pray. Saints. Pray. But if not… He reminded me that all of this is happening that we might share in Christ’s sufferings, and that we might become more like Christ. Please pray that God would comfort, protect, and strengthen him. He needs our prayers.”

We are never guaranteed the answer we’d love to have. In such moments, does this mean that we shouldn’t pray? No! Instead, we pray that God would use us in whatever situation we are in to bring glory and honor to Himself and to share the good news of Jesus with others! For our brothers and sisters in other countries who are being thrown into prison, their prayer is that God would be glorified. That they would be faithful to speak boldly about Jesus Christ regardless of the cost and this must be our prayer as well!

Conclusion

As the saying goes, “God is good… All the time. And all the time… God is good.” We have so many reasons to praise God today, but they can be hard to find at times. It can be easy to remember the difficulties, frustrations, and struggles, and fail to remember the answered prayers, relief, and peace. My charge for us this morning is simple: What are 3 reasons you have to praise God?

In our text we see several such reasons and as one Christian songwriter put it, there are 10,000 such reasons to bless the Lord! We don’t have time to think of 10,000 - but let’s brainstorm 3 reasons in closing.

We should praise God because He is the Creator.

We should praise God because He sent Jesus to die in our place.

We should praise God because His Spirit is always with us.

In good and bad times, there are many reasons to praise God. The next time you find yourself about to pray, start your prayer off by thanking God for all that He has done. Pray with humility, pray the truth of Scripture, pray for courage and be filled with the power of God as you proclaim the Gospel to others with boldness.