Bible Reading 2: The Prayer of the Early Church

Today we'll think about the prayer of the new born church in Acts 4.23-31. We need to learn from this window on to the inner life of this group of believers. Because this is a church that God used to turn the world upside down. It is not a perfect church – far from it. They had much to learn. But they had learned a lot as a result of what they seen and heard of God in action in the person of Jesus.

I have three headings: The Need; The Prayer; and The Result. And that's the process of believing and effective prayer in a nutshell: we see a need; we take it to God in prayer; God answers the prayer. Of course, there's nothing either magic or mechanical about it.

First: THE NEED

Here's Acts 4.23:

When they [that's Peter and John] were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

What had the chief priests and elders said to them? In the wake of the healing of the man lame and unable to walk from birth, the crowds were excited at what they had seen. But there was no pandering to the people from Peter. He told them that they were responsible for killing Jesus, "the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead" (that's Acts 3.15), and he called them to turn from their "wickedness" as he bluntly calls it, and turn to Christ for forgiveness and new life. Acts 3.19:

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out …

And many did. The church leapt in numbers from around 3000 to around 5000 men.

Don't you hunger to see something even remotely like that? Don't you long to see our culture profoundly changed by the impact of the gospel? Don't you long to see the dire decades-long decline of the church reversed and replaced by dramatic church growth? I do. I've been praying and waiting for that all my adult life. But I'm aware too of how easy it is for us to close our eyes to the price the apostles paid and the guts they had to display in parallel to the church growth they saw.

Because the powerful religious elite did not like any of this. They didn't like the healing, though they had to admit that it was real, or they would have looked stupid, because everyone could see that it was. Acts 4.2: They were …

… greatly annoyed because [the apostles] were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

So they didn't just have their venues cancelled. They lost their liberty and their lives were endangered. But Peter and John courageously and outspokenly continue their testimony in this new, potentially intimidating and dangerous context. Dragged before the hastily assembled rulers, elders and scribes, and asked to explain themselves, they explained the miracle by telling those who held their lives in their grasp that it had happened …

… by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead …

Talk about pouring petrol on the fire. And they go on (Acts 4.12):

And there is salvation in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

And that's followed by that glorious comment in verse 13:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognised that they had been with Jesus.

But that didn't stop their bullying, because their hearts were hard. Verse 18:

So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

Peter and John boldy refused to comply. Verse 19:

But Peter and John answered them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

And (verse 21):

… when they had further threatened them, they let them go …

Which brings us back to verse 23:

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported …

What, then, is the need they have? Their whole reason for living now – the spread of the gospel – is under threat from these very powerful men.

The apostles could be silenced in one of two ways. They could be prevented from speaking by being detained or killed. Or they could be prevented from speaking about Jesus by being intimidated and giving in to their fear for the sake of a quiet life. It seems from their subsequent praying that they were more worried about being scared into silence they were about being imprisoned or killed. But that was their need: their mission, given to them by Jesus directly, was under threat from persecution.

Many believers around the world today face pressure just as great. The Barnabas Fund prayer diary the other day was about the Central African Republic. I quote:

Islamist armed groups … have attacked Christian communities and their leaders, and burned down churches. They have also destroyed Christian homes, killed many, and forced thousands to flee … In 2019, two pastors were shot dead by Muslim militants while travelling in their car on Christmas Day.

We too face persecution from the powers of evil, but the tactics they are using on us are more subtle, and therefore potentially, if possible, even more spiritually dangerous.

Those early Christians had a great need. Their witness was endangered. We have the same need. How did they respond? They prayed. That's my next heading:

Secondly, THE PRAYER

Verse 24:

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God …

Before they prayed, they heard about the need. Peter 'reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them'. Before we can pray in a focused way, we need to get informed and keep informed so we can pray in a specific and focused way.

Then, like these early Christians, we also need to pray corporately. This was clearly some kind of prayer meeting – or at least spontaneously became that. And Luke says …

… they lifted their voices together to God.

Exactly how they prayed together is not the point, nor is it clear. That they prayed together is instructive. Of course we can and should pray individually. But there is some indefinable power in believers praying together. God likes to hear us uniting with a common mind in prayer.

Keep informed; pray with others. Then we come to the content of their praying. And let's notice four things about what they pray.

First, they have a firm grasp on the fact of the complete sovereign power of God the creator of all things. Verse 24:

Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them ...

And they know that this sovereign control of God is not contradicted by the 'raging' of the nations. Verse 25 continues:

… who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit [this is Psalm 2], 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed' …

I wonder if we have that same confidence that God is in control – and not just when things are going according to our plans, but when those plans apparently go awry.

It's relatively easy to believe in the sovereignty of God when we are seeing our prayers answered and the enemies of the gospel losing out. The real test comes when the enemies of the gospel seem to be getting the upper hand – as when Peter and John are forbidden to preach with threats, and as so often in our culture today. When we can't see God's hand, when things seem to be going badly, that's when it becomes clear whether we, too, understand that God really is in control, however things look.

And it is vital that we know that if we going to pray with faith. How can we with confidence ask God to change the world if in our heart of hearts we doubt whether he can. If we really think that things are running away from him out of his control, we're not going to be bold in our praying. These praying believers really do know that God is sovereign.

Secondly, they have a firm grasp on the fact that God is working out his purposes through current events – even when those events are hostile. Look at verses 27 and 28:

… for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

They understand that the attack on Peter and John is really all part of the wider attack on Jesus himself. They realise that they are being hated and rejected because of their identification with Jesus – and Jesus, of course, was sent to the cross.

They know that none of this hostility can prevent God from fulfilling his plan that the gospel will go out to the ends of the earth, even if they don't quite understand where this all fits. And they know that God is actively and powerfully at work through these events that they are living through.

We need that same awareness. We need to be reminding ourselves constantly as we read the papers, as we listen to the news, as we see the leaders of the nations gather to decide the future of the world, as we hear of vicious attacks on Christians, as our churches comes up against obstacles to our mission, as we face trials in our own lives, that behind it all, God is working his purpose out. He is actively engaged in the nitty-gritty of our lives and troubles, as well as in what we see as our successes. The clearer we are about that, the more quickly and readily we will turn to God in prayer when we're in a tight spot and we're feeling under pressure.

So they know that God is sovereign, and God is active. Thirdly, their request is centred on the fulfilment of God's purpose in the Great Commission. They might not have put it quite like that, but that, it seems to me, is what's going on. Here's verse 29:

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness …

It's very striking and impressive that we don't hear them say "look upon their threats and keep us safe from them". What they're concerned for is the continuing spread of the gospel, and what they're worried about is the possibility that they'll be intimidated by those threats into keeping quiet so they can have a quiet life.

They know that they must continue the process of taking the testimony about Jesus to the ends of the earth, whatever the cost and whatever the circumstances. Let that be our supreme concern also. Not comfort. Not wealth. Not a quiet life. Not keeping in with the authorities – whether secular or ecclesiastical. Not even protection for our families. But the growth of the kingdom of Christ and the spread of the good news about Jesus.

Fourthly, they ask for and expect God to work miraculously. This is in verse 30:

… while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

Clearly the focus of their praying for miracles is in relation to physical healing. The context here is that God has just used the apostle Peter to heal that lame man unable to walk from birth, in such a way that the whole community was aware of it. That is what provoked this whole crisis. And they are asking for more of the same.

That focus on physical healing is not a model for all time and for us. God can heal and it's right to pray for physical healing and God does heal in all kinds of ways. But the New Testament does not encourage us to expect this kind of instant, dramatic physical healing as the norm of the Christian life. Far from it.

Before Christ returns, physically we all face decay, disease and death. We should expect that. The resurrection of our physical bodies will happen – of that we can be completely confident, because God's word does promise us that. But that will be when Christ returns and not before.

But the danger of interpreting these events of the apostolic era in that way is that our expectation of direct intervention by the Spirit of God to change things dramatically can fade. We must not let that happen.

The creation of faith is a greater miracle than physical healing. Why do I say that? Because physical healing is temporary (that man healed by Peter died long ago); it changes what is living but diseased into what is healthy. But faith is eternal and to create faith in an unbelieving heart is to bring the dead to life.

It is that kind of miracle above all that we should continually expect, and pray for, and that God has promised will happen again and again and again before Christ returns. We live between the two comings of Christ. This is the last days. This is the era of miraculous new birth all over the world; and of church growth; and of changed cultures. Like those early believers, we need to ask for and expect God to work miraculously.

How then, briefly, does God answer their prayers? This is my final heading:

Thirdly, THE RESULT

The result of their praying is there in verse 31:

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Shaking is an outward sign of God's presence with them. Exodus 18.19 says that when God's people met with him at Mount Sinai:

the whole mountain trembled greatly.

The filling with the Holy Spirit was no doubt invisible but the effects quickly became evident.

And what was the effect on them? As they had asked, they "continued to speak the word of God with boldness". Their faithful prayer was answered.

Isn't that what we need, perhaps above all, if God is going to do miraculous things through us, and bring thousands to Christ, and change this nation? Let's learn from our fellow believers 2000 years ago, and recognise our need, and pray boldly, so that whatever the opposition, we will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak boldly about Jesus.