Stories of Harvest
Notes
Transcript
INTERCEDING IN PRAYER
Based on a sermon transcript by Jason Elsmore
Authoratarian regimes throughout the world do not tolerate dissent.
They see anyone who is different, anyone gathering a following as a threat to their power.
If we look around the world today we see that this is true in so many places.
Wether it be the Middle Eastern countries, Asia, South and Central America or Africa the result is always the same.
If you are not of the majority religion or ethnic group if you are one who speaks out or attracts attention, if you do not follow the party line then you will be silenced.
It was the same for the early church.
Jesus’ followers lived out the Lord’s prayer
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven”.
The good news of the Gospel spread, the sick are healed, the hungry feed and good news is given to the poor.
The Kingdom of God is breaking into a broken world.
The Gospel message demands attention.
To the authoritarian ruler of the day this was a threat.
The King of Judea was named Herod Agrippa.
His standard approach, just like many rulers of his day and ours was to oppress any group who could grow into a threat to his control.
He had a workable relationship with the Jewish Religious Leaders who controlled the opinion of the majority group in his area.
As long as he protected the temple rituals and their position they would ensure the population remained complient.
A complient population ensured stability.
Stability protected revenue flow to Rome.
This ensured he remained onside with the Roman Emperor.
So the growing influence of the church and the message of the Gospel was seen as a definate threat and had to be surpressed.
About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword.
This would have been a devastating blow to the Church.
The death of James, one of their key leaders would have hit hard.
I wonder how would we respond in similar circumstances.
If our leaders were getting locked up and executed, would we continue.
Then it get’s worse.
When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration.) Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.
What Luke is wanting to do here is contrast the power of King Herod with the power of this little group called the Church.
It says, King Herod kept Peter in prison.
Everyone knew what was going to happen next.
Once Passover had finished, Peter was going to meet a similar fate to James.
The Church.
Had no military power.
No weapons.
They had no political sway.
They are a minority.
The only power that they have is to pray.
He says that they are earnestly praying.
It is the same Greek word that Luke uses when he records Jesus praying in Gethsemane, as He is crying out to His Father.
They are praying earnestly, fervently, passionately, unremittingly.
This isn’t a Lord I need a carpark as you drive round in circlies for the 5th time at teh shops int he lead up to Christmas.
These are the prayers you pray when a loved one is at risk of death.
What is it that you are praying earnestly for?
Because loved ones are at risk of a Christless eternity and Lord I need a carpark prayers aren’t going to cut it.
Prayer is personal. Prayer is praise. Prayer is also intercession.
This is a prayer of intercession, asking God to intervene on somebody else’s behalf.
To pray earnestly, two things must happen.
You must care about the person you are praying for and you must believe that God cares about them.
If you are indifferent to their need and you believe that God is indifferent to their need, you will not pray earnestly.
Who is God putting on your heart to pray for earnestly today?
Prayer in the early Church was the normal atmosphere of the Church.
Prayer was what they did in all situations and circumstances.
If the Church does not respond in fervent, earnest, extended prayer in times of crises, then the church’s faith is clearly in something or someone else.
What are we earnestly praying for?
The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists. Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered.
Peter has such peace that he can sleep, knowing full well that he will face a show trial and then death.
The first message he hears from the angel is to ‘get up and get dressed!’.
Luke is painting a vivid picture here, making it clear that Peter has no other power, except for the people that are praying for him.
He is completely unarmed.
He is chained up next to two soldiers and normally you would only get chained up with one soldier and one chain.
Herod is getting insecure about his power, he has heard of Peter’s prior jailbreaks, recorded for us in Acts 5 and he is going to do everything in his power not to let it happen this time.
Luke wants us to understand that Peter has been there for some days and it is now the night before he is about to get executed.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes God leaves prayer unanswered until the eleventh hour?
When we are interceding for people in a situation, we would like God to do ‘zap’ prayers.
We would like the answer in an instant.
God is calling us to live every day in a place of complete dependence on Him.
There is no magic formula.
There are no zap prayers! Instead, we walk with Him and we work with Him and we listen to His voice and He shows us how to pray.
I wonder whether some of us have had a prayer that we were praying earnestly for.
We were interceding for a person or for a group of people and we have given up too soon?
God also wants us to pray endlessly.
In Luke 18 Jesus teaches a parable about a bad ruler, who doesn’t care about the person coming to ask for help in their time of need.
Eventually the ruler gives the poor widow what she wants to stop her from bothering him.
Jesus says, God is nothing like that ruler.
He is a good King.
He wants good things for His people.
He has compassion on those in need.
He loves to hear our prayers.
He wants us to keep praying in complete dependence on Him and not give up.
Jesus finishes the parable by saying, when He comes again, will He find faith on the earth in the midst of this broken world that we live in?
Will He still find people of faith that are praying endlessly and haven’t given up?
We are called to pray earnestly and pray endlessly.
Maybe there is a prayer today that you have given up on too soon and God’s reminding you to persist in prayer until you see it happen.
Read Acts 12:9
So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was actually happening.
How awesome is this?
Peter is in prison and about to die and he is sleeping!
He can’t even work out if this is a dream that he is having, or if it’s for real.
Do you ever have dreams like that?
Sometimes you wake up and you are glad that it’s a dream.
There are other dreams that you wake up from and you’re hoping it’s real and it wasn’t.
You just dreamt that your wife bought you a Porsche because you were such a good husband.
You get up and run down to the garage only to discover that you are not such a good husband.
You still have a Camry.
This is what is happening for Peter.
He is looking at all that is happening and asking… Could God really be this good?
Would He intervene in such a miraculous way for me?
They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him. Peter finally came to his senses. “It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me!”
Now he knows without a doubt!
He is in a jail cell that just gets miraculously lit up without electricity.
An angel wakes him up and tells him to get dressed.
His chains fall off.
The gates miraculously open and no one stops him as he walks through the walls of the prison!
Now he is walking free in the street and he knows without a doubt that God really is this good!
Charles Wesley, after he put his faith in Jesus and discovered the amazing love of Jesus, wrote a hymn, that is one of his most famous hymns and is still sung all around the world three centuries later. He based some of it on Acts 12. It says this,
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Can it be that God really is this good?
That he would die on a cross to set me free from the power of sin?
The chains of sin have fallen off!
It cost Him His life!
Can it be that God would do that for me?
Romans 8:32 promises us that he is
Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
Some of us need a revelation of the goodness of God in our prayer lives.
He is a God who loves to listen to our prayers.
He is a God who loves to break into this broken world with healing power.
He is a good King. He wants good things for His people.
Peter was surprised by the answer to their earnest prayers but have a listen to the response of the people who were earnestly praying.
When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!” “You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.”
What are they praying for? For Peter to be released from prison.
How were they praying? Earnestly.
What happens when the answer to their prayer knocks on the door? They said, “You are out of your mind! They are astonished!
Do you see yourself in this story?
Sometimes we are praying because we believe it’s the right thing to do but we are anticipating the worst.
I love this story because of the different people named in this story. Firstly, there’s Mary. Mary is a wealthy woman.
She has got a big home where many people can gather, with an outer entrance.
Then there was Rhonda.
She’s a servant.
She doesn’t have wealth or influence.
It also says there are many unnamed people.
God is no respecter of persons when it comes to prayer.
He listens to the wealthy. He listens to the poor.
He listens to the crowd that feel insignificant, but when we pray together in unity, there is a blessing that flows.
Jesus said in, Matthew 18:19-20 when two or three of you gather together, in my name, there I am in the midst, when you agree together in prayer, my father will give you what you asked for.
The Church is a big messy group called by God to agree together in prayer.
There are wealthy people and poor people. Young people and old people.
People that stand on stages and people that at times may feel insignificant.
When the church stands together in unity in prayer, there is a power that flows.
There is a blessing that God commands.
The kingdom of God breaks into the earth and people get set free. People get new hope. People find new life.
It is why we are agreeing together in all our churches in Qld to pray together for revival for 21 days.
As the Church prayed, God moves sovereignly!
We don’t fully understand why he didn’t move in the same way for James, but we see without a doubt that the king on earth is no match for the King of all Kings.
There is only one sovereign King.
We pray, Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
His kingdom gets established in our hearts as we surrender to His will.
We are called as a church to surrender to His will.
The way that the kingdom breaks into this broken world is by people like you and I surrendering to the King.
Revival begins with repentance from sin and surrender to the Lordship of Christ in the church.
Revival starts with us on our knees declaring our complete dependence on God in prayer.
Revival starts in the church as ordinary people fully surrendered to Jesus, get filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and take the Good News of the Kingdom into the community with passion and boldness.
We pray to the all powerful God.
The powers of this world are only tempory.
King Herod died.
and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them. The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!” Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died.
This is recorded in our history books, not just in the Bible.
Herod was a king who had some power for a while, but he died.
He was eaten by worms.
He tried to use his power to restrict the spread of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God breaking into this broken world but he did not succeed.
His power could not match the power of prayer. Listen to these next few words…..
Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread, and there were many new believers.
Jesus is a good King.
Jesus is a powerful King.
Jesus is an eternal King.
He is risen from the dead and seated on His throne.
There will be a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, but it will be too late for some.
That is why we are praying together for revival for 21 days.
We are praying that the Word of God will keep spreading in our day and the church will keep growing in Queensland.
We are praying that the Kingdom of God will keep breaking into this broken world to bring healing to the broken and salvation to the lost.
It begins with His Church surrendering to His will.
Response Our heart is a castle with many rooms. If there is an area of your life that you are holding onto your own power and saying ‘My will be done’. Start to pray today, ‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to surrender today. Take some time to surrender and say, not my will but Your will be done. Invite people to continue praying during the week and interceding for the lost in your community.