I am interested in prayer meetings like the one we read of
today. Where situations change miraculously because God’s people are praying
together. In fact, throughout Acts, we see prayer meetings that do battle for
souls; that overcome obstacles and move God's hand and that turn the world of
their day upside down. We are asking God to teach us how to pray as a
congregation as well as individuals. Last week we saw that:
Praying
together was a priority for the apostles
Praying
together was modelled and practiced by Christ
Praying together occurs throughout the New
Testament
Praying together has changed history
Praying together works today
This week we are going to look at 4 Principles of Powerful
Prayer Meetings that we can lift from the prayer meetings of the early church.
They Are:
God-focus
Deep fellowship
Clean hearts
One accord
God-focus
By this I mean Tune
in to God’s agenda.
Have you ever noticed how the apostles change between the Gospels
and Acts? In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, their requests included calling
fire down from heaven to consume those who rejected Christ, sending people away
hungry, and sitting on the right and left hand of the throne when they got to
heaven. Their actions were also telling. They constantly demonstrated a lack of
faith, prohibited children from coming to Christ, and tried stopped someone
from casting out demons. Now and then, they would get it right, but most of the
time they were not in tune when it came to Jesus and His mission. Consequently,
our Lord rarely ever did what they asked.
But when you turn to the book of Acts, you find a
completely different focus in their lives and in their asking. Acts records no
account that they ever failed in their faith again. When God looked on their
prayer meetings, 3000 were converted in a single day, the place where they
prayed was shaken, and prison doors swung open. Obviously, some tremendous
transformation, some radical change had occurred. What made the difference?
Very simply, they went from being on their own agenda to
being on God's agenda, and I touched on that last week. They stopped seeking a
seat on Jesus' right and left and began praying for boldness to testify in the
face of persecution. They stopped flirting with a return to fishing and focused
on shepherding the people of God. They changed from being self-centered to
being God-centered.
In Acts
4, Peter and John were released with threats of what would happen to them
if they spoke in the name of Jesus again. They reported this to their friends
who immediately, reflexively went to prayer:
When they heard this, they raised their
voices to God unanimously and said, "Master, You are the One who made the
heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them. You said through the
Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David Your servant: Why did the
Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot futile things?
Why are they praying these things, quoting Scripture back
to God and reflecting on the history of God's purposes? They spend five verses
telling God who He is and two verses asking Him for boldness. Why didn't they
pray, "Thank you Lord for getting our friends out of this mess. And Lord
we want to be honest and tell you we're scared. Please protect us"?
Well, here’s why: Their concern was not their protection
but God's purposes being secured above and beyond and through their suffering;
not for their reputation to be vindicated but for His Son's; not for shelter,
but for boldness. And the result was the place where they were praying was
shaken as a physical sign of the power of God falling on them and they were all
empowered by the Holy Spirit for Gospel purposes. (Adapted from John
Franklin, And the Place Was Shaken)
Let's be honest here: we spend a whole lot more time
praying for God to keep Christians out of heaven than for Him to get the lost
out of hell. "God heal and help us" is prayed far more often than
"save and sanctify."
Don't get me wrong: God is our Healer and we are commanded
about praying for sickness and provision. But that's just one of many, many
Kingdom issues about which we are to pray. When most of our praying is about
our wants, our needs, and our concerns, we will see the working of God in trace
amounts. Our culture needs to see His mighty power manifest through His church,
and that comes about when our agenda is God’s agenda … or as I’ve said quite a
few times recently, when God’s mission becomes our mission!
I call you again to join our monthly Tuesday night prayer
gatherings. If you haven't been in a while, it will feel very different. Between
now and our next Tuesday meeting I encourage you to come to our daily 7am and
noon prayer meetings. Our goal is God and we're asking Him to teach us to pray.
Deep fellowship
There are three episodes from the life of the Early Church
that I want to show you. In each scene, a common reality emerges that sets the
stage for power in prayer.
In each instance, believers are loving one another. They
shared their possessions, cared for those struggling financially among them,
met daily in one another's homes and in the temple, were together in one
accord, and brought out the sick and demon-possessed. As a result, the Lord
added daily those who were being saved, filled them with great power, great
grace was upon them all, and they were all healed.
If the foundational principle of powerful prayer meetings
in the church is God-focus, the second principle flows from it: it is deep,
authentic, loving fellowship among God's people. John Franklin concluded from
his study of how the believers in Acts cared for one another that "God
worked in their lives in proportion to the degree of their koinonia, the
quality of love between believers. Their favor with God flowed from His
pleasure in their depth of fellowship." All of us sense the need and the
value of this principle in prayer. We want people in our lives who truly care. You
and I will pray with more fervency when we can trust those with whom we're
praying. And trust is built when our lives brush up against one another; when
we share our burdens and troubles, and we walk the hard miles together. This is
why small groups are increasingly a key element in our church's life. We simply
don't have time to build close, open, honest relationships in an hour on
Sunday. The second principle that fuels fervent, effective praying together is
being real, binding wounds, and sharing our stories with one another so that
care rises. Without it, our praying together will be surface only, and our
pleading will be restrained.
Clean hearts
God has always required a right heart from those to whom He
will reveal Himself. All who miss this point miss God. In the first pages of
Scripture this was established. In Gen. 4, Cain and Abel bring their offerings
to God. The Bible reports that God respected Abel and his offerings, but He did
not respect Cain and his offerings. The Bible makes it plain that God's
accepting or rejecting of their offering followed His acceptance or rejection
of the person making the offering. God's willingness to respond was directly
linked to the condition of the heart of the one worshipping.
What was established in this early incident rings true
throughout Scripture: God answers an individual or a church in proportion to
how they are walking with Him. He never differentiates between the thing
requested and the one making the request. Another way to say that is this: God
doesn't just answer prayer; He answers you.
A classic example of this occurred in a prayer meeting in
the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland (I read this story on the htb media archive). Christians
there had been imploring God for some time to send revival and awakening.
Finally, during a Friday night prayer meeting, a youth of sixteen prayed from
Ps. 24: 3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand
in His holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not
set his mind on what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. He then began to ask God if his
heart was pure.
Others in the room began to inspect their walk with God, to
confess their sins, and to renew a right relationship with God. God began at
that moment to transform those islands. In fact, as they were praying God woke
up most of the town at midnight, and they gathered at the village square asking
how to be saved. Once the hearts of those Christians were cleansed, God worked
mightily through them.
It has been my observation as a pastor who has served
churches that have two or more worship services of similar format on a Sunday, that one would be
Spirit-filled, vibrant, the hearts of all responsive, while the other
service-with the same music, same singers, same message-was cold, flat, and
unresponsive. For years as a pastor, I puzzled over this. And then God's Word
made plain what the difference was. The spiritual condition of the hearts of
those in attendance affected the freedom of the Spirit of God to work. The
psalmist is absolutely right when he says, "If I had cherished
sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;" (Ps.
66:18) The Message puts it like this: “If I had been cozy
with evil, the Lord would never have listened.” We help or hinder the movement of God's
Spirit in accordance to the depth of our repentance. This is one of the reasons
we often start a prayer meeting with a time of personal confession.
One accord
Five times in the first five chapters of Acts, the Bible
tells us that the disciples were in "one
accord." Time for another Greek lesson. Each time, it's the Greek word
"homothumadon," a compound
word that basically means "same
passion, combined heat, shared glow." There was among them a mutual
experience of the same burning heart, the same heart passion. They were united.
3000 years ago, David wrote (Ps
133)
How good and
pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious
oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life for evermore.
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life for evermore.
It is as if the
dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion:
Does this look familiar?
And this:
The one is the highest point in the UK, the other the
highest point in Norfolk.
When God’s people live and pray together in unity, God
commands a blessing; and that blessing is like the dew from Ben Nevis …
… falling on Beacon Hill
Can you see praying together, and more especially praying
together in unity, is so important? Please consider attending our corporate
prayer meetings, so that we can pray in unity and in one accord.
Let me conclude:
Praying
together was a priority for the apostles
Praying
together was modelled and practiced by Christ
Praying together occurs throughout the New
Testament
Praying together has changed history
Praying together works today
Praying Churches are used by God to change the world; especially
when they are characterised by:
God-focus
Deep fellowship
Clean hearts
One accord
