HoHum:
Daniel Henderson- In our culture of rugged individualism we have come to the conclusion that it is better to pray alone than with others. Unfortunately, most of us never learn to do either one very well. Like most disciplines of the Christian faith, we learn best to pray alone when we have been taught in community.
WBTU:
We are part of the Restoration Movement. Trying to restore the church back to the ideals found in the NT. Some say that we have restored the church back to primitive Christianity.
We accept the Bible as the infallible Word of God. Based upon that we attempt to preach the Bible simply without alteration or explaining it away. We preach and teach the plan of salvation as proclaimed in the NT with baptism- Acts 2:42- Apostles’ doctrine
We practice the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day as following NT example. Acts 2:42
We are committed to the fellowship of the Lord’s church. Acts 2:42. Talk about few Sundays
Just a brief glance in Acts 2 we find two things that are lacking, needing restoration:
Vs. 45- Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
Vs. 47- And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Oh, yes, and one other thing that might be lacking and that is prayer. Acts 2:42.
When we look in the book of Acts we find a emphasis upon prayer.
How can we restore prayer to its rightful place in the church and in our lives?
Thesis: Let’s restore prayer as found in the book of Acts
For instances:
Let’s restore the practice of prayer in the early church
In Acts Christians prayed privately, in small groups, and in larger groups maybe even involving the whole church.
1. Privately
We find Peter praying privately in Acts 10:9: Peter went up on the roof to pray. In answer to both Cornelius and Peter’s prayers the two are brought together where Peter preaches and the first full blooded Gentiles are converted to the Christian faith.
We find Paul praying privately. As Saul he is praying privately for 3 days before the coming of Ananias who leads him to the Christian faith. When he became a Christian, we find in Acts 22:17: When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple. private prayer.
We find in Acts 6 that the apostles want to give the waiting of tables to the deacons and they give this reason in vs. 4: will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.
2. Small groups
talking about private prayer but these are words of Jesus. Matthew 18:19-20: Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.
In Acts we find Peter and Paul praying over the sick. James 5
Paul and Silas in the jail in Philippi. Acts 16:25: About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.
3. Larger groups
From the 1st chapter of Acts we see that one of the reasons for the success of the early church was the fact that it was a praying church. Actually the church began with a 10 day prayer meeting. Acts 1:14: They all joined together constantly in prayer
Acts 4:23-24
When Peter was expecting to be executed in Acts 12 we find in vs. 5: the church was earnestly praying to God for him. vs. 12: the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.
Acts 13:3: after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off
Acts 14:23: Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
Acts 20:36: When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. (By the way, our elders pray every morning before Sunday school)
So important was prayer in the life of the church that Acts 2:42 includes it as one of the 4 primary identifying traits. Can that be said of today’s church? How many churches can we name in which prayer is clearly one of their 4 identifying traits?
In 2005 Barna Reports said this, “Prayer is one of 3 critical spiritual dimensions which most local churches essentially ignore. Prayer is said to be one of the top priorities in less than 4% of the churches surveyed.”
This was many years ago but Martyn Lloyd Jones reported that one minister was fired from a church and one of the reasons given was that the minister insisted on having a prayer meeting and a Bible study on a weeknight. “This man only had a prayer meeting one night a week, and because he was determined to hold on to it, they asked him to resign.”
How different from the early church!
Let’s restore the content of the prayers of the early church
Louie Giglio describes the church accurately when he says sometimes “we pray like idiots.” The things we say in our conversations with God as a church are often absurd. The matters we choose to bring before God reflect our ignorance of God’s character and God’s concerns.
Jerry Paul, from whom I got a lot of ideas for this sermon, gathered as many church bulletins as he could and made the following observations from the prayer needs sections. I discovered 78% of the prayer list topics were health related issues. Personal life issues, such as job needs, filled 14% of the list. Talk about the health and wealth gospel, its seen on most of the prayer lists. Congregational issues, such as church events, consumed 5% of the list. Only 3% of the list focused on spiritual issues such as praying for the lost or the personal growth of Christians. Evangelism and missions were largely ignored on all the lists.
What a contrast many public prayers and prayer concerns are today from the prayer described in Acts 4. “enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness”
Their prayers were not centered on self concern, self comfort, or relief from their problems. It was praying focused on God. The focus of their prayer and the result of their prayer was that God would be glorified and honored.
The place was shaken. Shaken physically yes, but most importantly Jerusalem was shaken as the disciples left that prayer meeting and went out to change their world.
Someone says, “Is it wrong for me to pray for the sick?” No, it is commanded for us to pray for sick. But for what end? To be comfortable. No, for Christians Ephesians 3:16: strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. For everyone, James 5:15-16: And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
things that cannot be shared with church. Better for small group or privately. Common sense
Let’s restore the passion that drove prayer in the early church
Many times the way we view prayer is the problem. Is prayer just one of those things in our list of good works that Christians do, like Bible reading and going to church? Something that is good to do but not necessary.
When there is no passion for an activity, we tend to carry it out in a slipshod fashion. We do it when it is required but we have no inner compulsion that fervently drives us to fully involve ourselves in the activity being considered.
It is doubtful that we will restore effectively any aspect of prayer if we don’t first of all restore our passion for prayer. But is it really a passion for prayer that we need to restore? Illustrate
Two strangers, a man and a woman, meet for the first time and instantaneously a spark of interest is ignited. They begin meeting once a week for dinner. But that isn’t enough. Their growing interest in one another demands more contact. Result: their telephone bill soars. They far surpass the maximum minutes allowed on their cell phones and the bills move from $40 a month to $300 a month. What happened? Did they suddenly fall in love with the idea of telephoning? Did they develop a passion for the cell phone? No, they developed a passion for each other. They used the cell phone as their tool for feeding, maintaining, and developing their passion for one another. No one talked them into their using their phones more, or explained to them the benefits of phone usage. It was their passion for each other that drove them, not their passion for the phone.
Prayer is our spiritual telephone. It is the instrument God has provided for keeping in touch with Him. We do not need to restore our passion for the instrument, for prayer. We need to restore our passion for God.
Did Jesus get up early in the morning, leave the house, and go off to a solitary place because He had a passion for prayer? No, Jesus did that because he had a passion for His Father.
In the same way the early Christian’s passion for God drove them to prayer. Paul followed his own instruction to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), not out of a passion for prayer, but because of his passion for God. People who have this passion do not need to be pushed, persuaded, or programmed into praying.
Like David we will cry out in Psalm 42:1-2
