Acts 4:23

INTRO

Knowing where to go when trouble arises is important. When the house is on fire, who do you call? When someone breaks into your house? When a pipe bursts? When your hurt as a child?

We call the right person because we trust that they can make it right.

A FOLLOWER OF CHRIST KNOWS THAT GOD IS THE PROVIDER WHO MAKES ALL THINGS RIGHT.

The New International Version Chapter 4

23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

IT HONORS GOD TO DISPLAY OUR NEED FOR GOD

What if the police or the firemen or doctors or our moms for crying out loud when we reached out to them in our time of need. Thats what they are there for.

The believers new they only had one hope to make it through this situation. It is by God alone that the gospel would move forward. That was true then and it is true today.

Where are we going in our times of need. eg a relationship, sinful passions, our phones, the news,

The enemy will try and detour you in any direction possible to make sure you dont seek God because he knows that when God is called in the battle is over. He has lost. Dont take the bait

The New International Version Chapter 4

“ ‘Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

26 The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the Lord

and against his anointed one.’ b

27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

What we see here is the apostles taking what they observed in Jesus and applying it to their life. We must do the same.

These apostles saw the sanhedrin conspire to kill Jesus and stop the gospel, and it didnt work, they then have the sanhedrin conspiring against them and it didnt work, and if we submit to God when the enemy conspires against us and we seek God, IT WONT WORK.

now let me stop here for a little bit. I am stopping here not necessarily because there is some special exegesis I discovered but this is where I stopped in my study. In the last week it has been abundantly clear to me that I dont know what I am doing. Now that is a scary thing to hear from a “leader”. Im not saying I dont know how to preach or how to lead a church or make things run smoothly. What I mean is, there are so many obstacle ahead of Knoxville Community Church when it comes to making disciples in this community. How do we reach them? Where do we start? What do we do with kids? What do we do with students? How do we draw people to be apart of this community of believers? and the enemy, satan, the deciever has tried to convince me that I am right many times. That it is impossible, That I have bitten off more than I can chew. That we will never see what we want to see..........then I planned to do almost through chapter 5 and I got to this section of prayer and couldnt move forward any further. If I think this is impossible or that I am not capable then Imagine what these believers felt after literally being forbidden to speak of Jesus or they would be killed. They had no books or support or anything that we have, yet the solution for them is the same for us tonight. And my prayer is that we pray with such conviction and believe with such faith

The New International Version Chapter 4

31 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.