July 12, 2015 A.D., by Pastor Ben Willis
July 16th, 2015Acts of the Apostles 4:1-12 [NLTse]
While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees. 2 These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. 3 They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning. 4 But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of believers now totaled about 5,000 men, not counting women and children.
The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. 7 They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, 9 are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? 10 Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead. 11 For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says,
‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’
12 There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
Sermon
I have felt compelled to preach about prayer these past weeks and into the summer. During that time already we’ve acknowledged that prayer can be work and that it requires discipline: A place; a time; a pattern; and that’s in addition to all our more sporadic times of talking with God and enjoying His presence. We’ve seen that God calls us to pray and that Jesus assumed we would pray. But that the result of this “work” of prayer in our lives will be a relationship with God that is personal, friendly, and so very close.
I’ve encouraged us towards a prayer-pattern that parallels our Worship Service: Starting with Adoration & Praise; moving to Confession & Forgiveness; then to Meditation & Listening; a time of Petition & Intercession; and ending with more Thanksgiving & Praise.
Today I’d like to talk together about having greater and greater assurance in our prayers: Growing in confidence that the Father is, indeed, listening to our prayers, and growing in confidence that He will, indeed, answer.
Our Lord Jesus taught those first disciples three principles to help them grow in confidence and assurance about their prayers. Jesus taught them to always make their requests in Jesus’ name; to make their requests together, in agreement, in groups of two or three or more; and, to ask in faith, trusting Him to do what they had asked.
Let’s talk about these one by one.
First off, why should God listen to our prayers? Why should God listen to the President of the United States’ prayers, or even the Reverend Billy Graham’s prayers? Those who study such things say that if our galaxy – the Milky Way Galaxy – was a room like this Sanctuary, that in it all Earth would be like a pin-prick “there”. And if the universe were a room like this Sanctuary, that in it all the Milky Way would be like a pin-prick “there”.
So, [acting it out] this whole Sanctuary is the universe and “here” [pin-prick] is our galaxy. Now we’ll blow that pin-prick up to be the Sanctuary and now the Earth is this pin-prick “here”. And on the Earth, if it were this Sanctuary, each of us individually would be little pin-pricks, “here” and “here” and “here”. And we think that God Almighty, Who can fit the whole works – Earth, Milky Way, and the whole universe – into His back pocket should be paying attention to us? No. Not us. Not the President. Not Billy Graham. Nobody deserves to have God listening to our prayers. The very greatest of us is less than nothing, less than nobody, to the Great I Am!
But Jesus…
Let’s make clear that God listens to the prayers of human beings only because of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has merged humanity and divinity into an impossible whole. He is the God-Man: Not 50/50 but 100% God, 100% Man. And on the cross He has become a bridge for human beings to get to God, by faith in Him. John 14:6 makes clear, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus told those first disciples. “No one can come to the Father except through Me.”
There is power in asking in Jesus’ name because of Who Jesus is and because of what Jesus has done. The secret to prayer with authority and effectiveness is being a part of Jesus Christ by faith. Only through our relationship with Jesus by faith do we enter into communication and fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Acts 19 records the story of some exorcists who, imitating the apostle Paul, tried to use Jesus’ name to cast out an evil spirit. These exorcists did not have a relationship with Jesus, nor were they led by the Holy Spirit. And the results were disastrous and revealing. Acts 19:13-16 says: “A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus, Whom Paul preaches, to come out!’ Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered.”
These “sons of Sceva” were seeking to use Jesus’ name like a magical phrase – like “hocus pocus” – because they had seen Paul use Jesus’ name with such powerful results. But demon’s recognize those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and those in whom He does not, and they know whether or not people are acting in Jesus’ authority because of our relationship with Him by God’s Spirit, and when people are doing their own thing apart from Him.
When a child of God, rooted in a relationship with Jesus Christ, commands demon’s in Jesus’ name, they must obey: Because the Christian has the Holy Spirit; because the Christian is ministering out of his or her close relationship with Jesus. Jesus Christ is the only way anyone has any right to be in communion with the Father, and the only reason we can bring our requests to Him.
John 15:1-7 says: “I am the true grapevine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of Mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in Me.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in Me and My words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!”
My brothers and sisters: We have nothing in ourselves. We have no righteousness, no goodness, no reason why magnificent, almighty, holy-God should pay any attention to insignificant, small, sinful-us. We must acknowledge our helplessness and realize that Jesus Christ is our only hope.
Preacher R. A. Torrey said it like this: “There is no use in our trying to approach God in any other way than in the name of Jesus Christ, and on the ground of Jesus’ Own claims upon God, and on the ground of His atoning death whereby He took our sins upon Himself and made it possible for us to approach God on the ground of His claims upon God.
“While we have no claims upon God because of any goodness or service of our own, Jesus Christ, as we have said, has infinite claims upon God and has given us the right to approach God in His name, and we ought to go boldly to God and ask great things of God.”
Torrey goes on: “…Do you realize that we honor the name of Christ by asking great things in that name? Do you realize that we dishonor that name by not daring to ask great things in that name? Oh, have faith in the power of Jesus’ name and dare to ask great things in His name.”
When we pray in Jesus’ name we are acknowledging our unity with Jesus Christ: He the vine, we the branches; He the head, we His body. So when we pray in Jesus’ name we are praying as Jesus would. The prayer-pattern I’ve been setting before us gives us time to meditate on God’s Word and listen for the Holy Spirit’s direction before we go on to our varied requests for ourselves and others. When the Lord Jesus promises us that “we will receive whatever we ask for in His name,” He is not giving us a blank check, He is offering us a relationship with Himself that will grow us to know His mind and His heart and to join with Him in asking the Father for it all.
Praying in Jesus’ name, that is, knowing we’ve asked for what Jesus would ask for, and, praying in His name because He is God-the-Son and because He has taken away the sins of the world – Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done – praying in His name gives us great contentment and assurance that the Father has heard and will answer our prayers, because we know He hears and answers for the sake of Jesus.
The Lord Jesus also calls us to pray together, and if we are truly praying His will, then we should be able to agree with each other’s prayers knowing they are from Him.
In Matthew 18:19-20 Jesus says: “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, My Father in Heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as My followers, I am there among them.”
We practice discernment in our praying when we pray together and agree in prayer. Just as we seek the counsel and confirmation of other Spirit-filled Christians when we believe we have received some kind of special direction from the Lord, when we pray together and agree in prayer we are seeking the confirmation of the other Spirit-filled
Christians we’ve been praying with to see if what we’ve asked for is truly Jesus’ mind and will and so can truly be asked in His name. If it can then we are assured that Jesus has been present and been praying through and among us, and we can be confident that God has heard and will answer our prayers.
I’ve been in many prayer meetings where this one prays this and that one prays that and it all seems so disheveled and chaotic. And I have been in many prayer meetings where this one prays, and then that one carefully agrees with the prayer, perhaps repeating different parts of it in his or her own words, or perhaps echoing the sentiment while adding new aspects of their own. There is always such a sense of intensity and immensity in those times of agreed upon prayer – I’m not talking about things feeling good or emotions “getting all-fired-up” – but a heaviness and sense of expectation, as though Heaven were tearing Earth wide-open and invading as we were speaking!
Of course, our faith in Jesus – and living according to that faith – is supposed to continue growing our whole lives long. It begins when we recognize that we are sinners and begin believing that Jesus’ death served as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. That’s where faith begins. But just as we’ve believed Jesus to have done what He said He’d done on the cross, the Lord Jesus wants us to keep on believing that He will keep on doing all that He has said He will do.
In Mark 11:23-24 and Matthew 21:21-22 Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”
And in Matthew 8, when the Lord offers to go to the home of a Roman commander to heal his servant, the Roman commander says: “Lord, I am not worthy to have You come into my home. Just say the word from where You are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.” (Vv. 8-9)
Clearly the command-structure of the Roman army gave the centurion a way to understand the command-structure of Heaven and Earth. And we can grow in such mountain-moving faith as we read the Bible, believe what we read, pray ourselves, and experience God’s answers to our prayers, and as we keep on asking the Holy Spirit to fill us, and as we keep on doing the works of Jesus that the Holy Spirit leads us and empowers us to do.
We see it all around us in the world: God does seem to work according to the largeness or smallness of our faith in what He can do. To those who trust Jesus, He is able to do great things. To those with no trust, or who discount Jesus altogether, He is able to do only a little. According to His sovereignty over the affairs of human beings, God has chosen to make faith the means by which He works in the human sphere. Faith: That deep trust that Jesus will do what He says He will do. When we greatly trust that He will do what He has said, we see great things happen! When we don’t ask Him for great things, or when our faith that He will grant us our requests is slight, well, are we surprised that we see little if nothing at all in answer? Faith is the open door that welcomes and enables our cooperation with God. And faith welcomes and enables us to receive answers to prayer.
Next Sunday evening from 7:00 to 8:30pm we will be meeting next door in the Manse for prayer. Come and pray in Jesus’ name. Come and let us agree together in our prayers. Come and let us believe together that God will be listening and that even here in sleepy little Milford that Heaven wants to tear open Earth and pouring out the riches of the God’s Kingdom and every good thing among us.
Pray in Jesus’ name this week. Pray together in agreement, when you can. And pray with faith that our Abba can and will do great things as we agree together praying in Jesus’ name!
And then, next Sunday evening, let’s come and pray those ways all together! He is worthy! With Him all things are possible!