Acts 4:23-31
Have you ever had something happen in your life that slowed you down, or maybe even caused you to give up on something? Something that someone else did, or maybe said to you that threw you off course, derailed you in a way?
When I was in high school, I loved playing basketball. My freshman year, I tried out for the JV team, and at the end of the tryouts, they told me that I was too short for the team. Now granted, I was 5’3” and 85 pounds when I entered high school, but still, that reality hurt, and I didn’t even consider trying out for the team the next few years. That experience had created in me a fear of failure, so I didn’t even want to go through that again.
Fast forward to my senior year, and I was about this height, and the varsity coach took notice of me, and for the first few months was telling me he wanted me on the team. Having him speak that into me helped me to overcome that fear, and so I ended up trying out, and then getting cut on the last day. It’s a longer story, but the following Monday, the coach came to school and told me he couldn’t sleep knowing that I wasn’t on the team, and then some other stuff happened, and I didn’t end up on the team anyways. But that’s a story for another day.
The point is, I put myself out there my freshman year, and the rejection that I experienced caused a fear in me that I was not able to overcome. See, when we face opposition, we have a decision to make. Will we let that opposition derail us? Or will we be emboldened to keep fighting for truth?
Big Idea: Prayer is the key to boldness in the face of opposition.
Read Acts 4:23-31
After Peter and John were sent out of the presence of the Sanhedrin, they go back to the fellowship, and they share with them everything that happened. Just over a month before, they saw Jesus arrested, beaten and crucified. They saw the brutality of it. Now, there are threats being breathed against them, and what do these young believers do? They immediately go to the Lord in prayer. And while this isn’t the only model of prayer we see in Scripture, it is a good blueprint for us, especially when we are staring down the barrel of opposition.
1. The Church Prayed
Before we get into the specifics of how they prayed, it’s important for us to see that when they prayed, they did so “together.” Some translations might say “with one accord.” They were united in their prayer. They were in complete agreement that what they were bringing to the Lord was what was needed. This is a really important concept for churches today. We must be united in our pursuits. We must be united in our desire to see Jesus proclaimed. And we must be united in faithfully praying. Look how they started.
A. They praised the Lord (24b)
Sovereign Lord. Having absolute control over His creation. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing is outside of His control. Notice that the attributes of God that they are confessing are right in line with their situation. They are facing persecution for preaching the gospel. Things are beginning to happen that are outside of their control. So they turn their attention to the One who they know has control. They are admitting their need for a Sovereign Lord. So they begin by praising the character and nature of God, and then they pray the Scriptures.
B. They prayed Scripture (25-26)
As they are praying, they turn their attention to Psalm 2:1-2. Again, praying Scripture that applies to their situation. In fact, they believed that Psalm 2 was a prophecy of what they saw happen with Jesus. The Gentiles were the Romans, known for being hateful towards the Jewish people. The peoples, the crowds who called for the death of Jesus. The kings and rulers of the Earth, the High Priest and others in high leadership. They were “gathered together,” in other words they were of the same mind and mission, to kill the Lord’s Anointed, to kill Jesus.
We see this in verse 27. But even so, look again at verse 28, “to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” Here’s why this is important. They are acknowledging that God is sovereign over all, even in the midst of oppression and persecution against His people, He is still in control. Even though it was by human decision to crucify Jesus, that is what had been agreed upon in eternity past. Nothing is outside of His control, including the death of His Son.
So, if God is sovereign over that situation, and through the power of the Holy Spirit David writes these words in Psalm 2, showing that God knew what was going to happen, then they can trust that God will continue to be faithful in His sovereignty over their situation as well.
Church, when we can know the character and nature of God, as well as His Scriptures so well that we can see that God is unchanging , the same God He was then in the midst of whatever we are facing today, that is an amazing thing. It provides assurance. It provides confidence. And as we see in our passage this morning it provides a Holy Spirit driven boldness.
I want to step outside of what we see explicitly in our text, and point out something that we don’t see.
C. They did NOT pray for deliverance
Notice that nowhere in this passage do we see the early church asking for the Lord to stop the oppression. Why? I mean think about what Jesus said in John 15. “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” We also see Jesus say in Matthew 5, “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.” The early church took this very seriously! We’ll see this next month in chapter 5 of Acts, but there in verse 41, after the apostles are arrested, beaten and threatened further, they “left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.”
They rejoiced that they were suffering for the gospel because it meant they were doing something right! They didn’t want to shy away from that. So instead of praying to be removed from a difficult situation…
D. They prayed for boldness (29)
Re-read vs. 29.
I don’t know if you remember the Big Idea from the first few weeks of this series, but let me remind us: The Holy Spirit empowers believers for gospel mission. If you’ve been here for these first couple of months of the series, you’ll hear this common thread each and every week, and there’s a reason for this. There’s a reason we are walking through the book of Acts together. We want to become a church that is emboldened by the Holy Spirit to proclaim. And I understand that this makes some of you uncomfortable. But this is what we are called to do.
I’m concerned that we’ve become so passive in America under the excuse of “times have changed” or “it’s not the same as it used to be.” In the New Testament, they were beaten and killed for their faith. In parts of the world, like Syria, Nigeria and Somalia, Christians are beaten and killed for their faith. In America, at worst we are shunned or rejected. Yet we are fearful of proclaiming the gospel. I mean, what ever happened to Jesus’ words, “you will be hated for my name sake?” Yet we tiptoe around so as not to offend people. Church, I am convinced we have gotten it wrong.
Now I’m not saying we need to be brash, or unwise, or arrogant. But what I am saying is that we need to pray that the Spirit would wake us up out of our passivity to do the main thing that we have been called to do, and that is to “go and make disciples of all nations.” I don’t think there’s any way around this.
And then look at what the Lord does.
2. The Lord Answered
(Re-read vs. 31)
We see 3 things happen here: An earthquake, a renewed empowerment by the Spirit, and boldness to proclaim.
The Lord heard the prayer of His people. They were praying in harmony with His commission to them, and He answered. He reminded them of His presence through the shaking of the earth beneath them. And then we see this idea of being filled by the Holy Spirit.
We need to understand what this means if we are to live in light of its truth. At the point of salvation, we are given the Holy Spirit. He indwells the believer. We also see all throughout the New Testament this idea of a filling once the Spirit already indwells. Well, what does that mean? While the Holy Spirit is present and active in the believer’s life, there are certain times when He enables believers for a special or specific task. This is what we saw on the day of Pentecost, believers enabled to speak in other languages. This is what we saw from Peter last week, when he gave his defense before the Sanhedrin, the Spirit enabled him in that moment to speak.
This is what we see here as well. The Spirit enabled the believers to be bold in their proclamation of the gospel, even in the face of persecution. Let’s take our minds back to the Big Idea: Prayer is the key to boldness in the face of opposition.
