On Your Mark, Get Set...GROW! Part 4-Part A

Now that's the first thing we should do.

Why is it that it is so often our last resort? And it's sort of like, there's nothing left to do but pray. I've heard that. Listen to that. There's nothing left to do except pray. Oh, you should have started with that. And it's almost like, I've tried everything. I've exhausted my resources. And now I have to trust God.

You see how weird that sounds? And welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig, weekend edition. Can we look at the role of prayer today as Skip begins a brand new message, On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow, Part 4. Did you know we often make a common mistake when it comes to prayer? Though it's probably the most common aspect of Christianity, it can also be the least understood. It's a vital part of our Christian life, but how we approach it is as varied as the stars in the heavens. So what's the secret?

Is there a secret to prayer? On today's broadcast, Pastor Skip examines this topic and how it applies to our growth in Christ. But before we begin today, we have an excellent new resource for you this month at connectwithskip.com. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the reevaluation of priorities, life choices, and the path forward. This illuminates the question, what do I want out of life? Here's Skip Heitzig with some thoughts on priorities.

Don't we all want the life with a happy ending? A life marked by growth, a life marked by productivity and refreshment, and God's touch of blessing and prosperity and maturity upon it. Here's our special offer for this month for those who support this media outreach. The Daily God Book by Skip Heitzig, plus playlist, eight CD messages on significant psalms. Start 2022 with Skip's Daily God Book. And they're both our way of thanking you when you give $35 or more today to help more people connect with God's word. Call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com. Now, here's another playlist sample from Skip. When you pursue Him, when you pursue holiness, happiness tags along.

Call 800-922-1888 to give or visit connectwithskip.com. If you'll open your Bibles once again to Acts chapter 2, we begin today's study as Skip Heitzig shares his story of answered prayer. Friday I was at a local hotel meeting my friend Josh McDowell, who was here Friday and Friday night. And while I was waiting for Josh, one of the managers came up to me with a big smile on his face, gave me a big old bear hug and said, I just want you to know that I came up to you after church one Sunday and asked you to pray that I get a job.

I had been unemployed and I got the best job, this job, this week at the hotel. And then last night after service, a young girl came up to me, just a little gal. We prayed a few weeks ago that she would make the orchestra that she was trying out for. She's a little violin player.

And she was all smiles last night and she said, I'm in the orchestra. So that's not to say that my prayers necessarily are better than anybody else's prayers. Your prayers are as good as mine or anybody else's. But the point is, isn't it great when somebody tells you or you discover something you prayed for and to see it answered. I want to talk to you today about prayer.

And I want to begin with one parent's experience. I think you'll like this. Last week, I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads, he said, God is good. God is great. Thank you for the food. And I would thank you even more if mom gets us ice cream for dessert and liberty and justice for all. Amen. Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, that's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray asking God for ice cream.

Why, I never. Hearing this, my son burst into tears and he asked me, did I do wrong? Is God mad at me? As I held him and assured him that he was going to do something for him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table. He winked at my son and asked and said, I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer.

Really, my son asked. Cross my heart, he said. Then in a theatrical whisper, he added, indicating the woman whose remarks started the prayer, too bad she never asked God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes. Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment and then he did something I will remember for the rest of my life. He picked up his sundae and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the woman.

With a big smile, he told her, here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes and my soul is good already. Don Harris of ABC reported just a couple weeks ago that nearly 60 percent of Americans claim that they pray every single day.

We get all excited in hearing that but let me tell you the rest of the story. The ones that top the list, Jehovah Witnesses. Second in the list, Mormons. Fourth are evangelicals.

Fourth are evangelicals. Said Don Harris, older people are more likely to pray than younger people. Women pray more than men. The poor pray more than the rich. Republicans pray more than Democrats.

No comment, just reporting what I read. Everybody knows that prayer is a huge topic in the Bible. You can't read the Bible without coming to the issue of talking to God in prayer.

And so I did a little search this week. I tallied up all of the times pray or prayed or praying or prayer or a variation of that word appears in the Bible. 370 times the Bible mentions prayer. It's huge. It obviously then must be huge to God and it was one of the priorities of the early church.

We find it in the list in chapter 2 verse 42. Now I know you've read this title in your bulletin. This is the fourth week. It's the same title.

It's sort of like Groundhog's Day, the movie. Every time you wake up at church it's the same sermon but it's not the same sermon. It's part one, part two, part three, and today part four of On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow because these are the four pillars that marked the priority system of the early church. But this final one on prayer, this is the one we feel most uneasy about personally.

Guilt rises, admit it whenever we hear the word prayer or the topic of prayer because all of us, I venture to say, would admit that we could use more of that activity in our lives and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good. I heard about it when the gospel first came to Africa and there was one particular village that had a church and the elders of the church taught the people to gather in the morning at church and then go out into the jungle to their own spot, secluded, and have their devotions. Well, eventually you could see where that person went because a path was marked out and when you walk on grass it takes away the grass and you have a bald spot or a single track and so you could see these marks going out from the village out into the jungle but you could also tell if a person was slacking off in his or her devotions because the undergrowth would come back, the grass would start filling in and so when one of the elders saw that he would simply walk over to the brother, put his arm on his shoulder and say, brother, there is grass growing in your path and I have found that in my own life that sometimes the grass grows in my path to God and I'm not communicating with him as a priority like I should.

Now this morning what we're going to do is move from general to specific. We're going to look generally at how the early church prayed and what was their prayer life like. So we want to look at a description of the prayer life of the early church generally but then second we want to move to something more specific and look at a depiction of their prayer life specifically. Actually go in to one of the prayer meetings of the early church of the early church and listen to them. Let's begin then with verse 42 where we have been beginning now for four weeks and we notice they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers in prayers. If I were to give you a description of the prayer activity of the first Christians I describe it in three ways. First they prayed regularly, not sporadically, regularly. It was the regular practice of this group of believers. Every chapter in the book of Acts brings that truth to the surface.

I just want to take you back and have you notice a couple of things. Go back to chapter one and look beginning in verse 12. This is just after Jesus ascends into heaven from the Mount of Olives verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet which is near Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey and when they had entered they went up into the upper room where they were staying. Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication or strong praying with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. At this point Peter stands up and says one of our 12 is gone that's Judas Iscariot.

We need to replace him. Look down at verse 23. And they proposed two. Joseph called Barsabas who is surnamed Justice and Matthias and they prayed and said you O Lord who know the hearts of all show which of these two you have chosen. I just want you to imagine the scene of 120 brand new believers all huddled together in some room somewhere in Jerusalem. Their leader has just left them ascended into heaven and now they huddle together with one huge question what now what do we do now and the only thing they knew to do and they do it regularly is gather together and when they gather to pray. As I read this my mind went back to when I was 25 just turning 26 and we had started a bible study at a nearby apartment complex and that Thursday night bible study had grown to a hundred people. We didn't know what to do and I remember after one of the bible studies somebody came right up into my face a couple people and said now what now what and I didn't know how to answer them because I didn't know what to do I didn't know how to start a church I'd never done this before so I immediately said well now Monday night we're going to pray so we started a Monday night prayer meeting and that's the bulk of our question God now what what do we do now what do you want us to do now how would you have us proceed and that is essentially what the church did and continued to do. Dr. R.A. Torrey once wrote pray for great things expect great things and work for great things but above all pray that was the early church above everything else they prayed and they prayed regularly not only in acts one but they pray in acts two on the day of pentecost in acts chapter three verse one at the hour of prayer they go to the temple in acts four when a persecution breaks out they pray we'll read that in just a moment and in acts chapter six verse four the leadership crystallizes their calling by saying but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word so they prayed regularly second thing I want you to notice is that they prayed customarily now let me explain that one will you notice in verse 42 of chapter 2 that at the end of that verse when it introduces this fourth priority of prayer my version perhaps yours simply says and in prayers I discovered that in the original language there is a definite article before the noun prayers it is the prayers so it would best be translated most literally they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine fellowship the breaking of bread and in the prayers many scholars believe this refers to a known practice manner of praying or set of prayers that the apostles were used to okay what was the apostles background they were what they were jewish and being jewish people they had ways of praying they had been brought up with and now in this transitional period between judaism and following the jewish messiah and freedom in jesus christ they would naturally resort to the prayers that they were familiar with so we notice in chapter three verse one now peter and john went up together to the temple to the temple at the hour of prayer the ninth hour that's three in the afternoon that's the time of the evening sacrifice now what does that tell us the early church were still observing the set times of prayer if you lived in jerusalem there were three nine in the morning twelve noon and this one three pm and no doubt they would have prayed familiar articulations before the lord no doubt they would have uttered the shama uttered twice a day by fervent jewish people shma israel or hear o israel the lord our god the lord is one a compilation of verses out of deuteronomy and numbers they probably would have prayed the shimoness today or the 18 prayers that were uttered three times a day these hours of the day by the faithful jewish people then there were prescribed prayers there were prayers for light prayers for darkness prayers for fire prayers for rain prayers for the new moon and prayers for travel beautiful prayers all different scriptures out of the old testament and although that to you and perhaps even to me sounds a little bit ritualistic and stilted when we hear that they were praying recited prayers the idea is to bring every aspect of life into the presence of god every aspect of life in fact the jewish talmud said there's three things that can change the course of a person's life teshuva tzedekah and tefillah teshuva repentance getting things right with god if you've made a mistake you ask god to forgive you if you've done something with somebody else you ask them let's clear the path and start over that's teshuva number two tzedekah righteousness acts of goodness towards somebody else and number three tefillah heartfelt prayers to god heartfelt prayers so rather or whether or not they memorize these prayers or they were recited prayers it was heartfelt prayers that they customarily prayed now the third thing i want you to notice about their prayer life generally is that they prayed instinctively it was their first response it was the immediate reaction the knee-jerk reaction when something happened let's pray go with me to acts chapter 12 now about that time harrod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church and then he killed james the brother of john with a sword it's one of the apostles and because he saw that it pleased the jews he proceeded further to seize peter also now it was during the days of unleavened bread so when he had arrested him he put him in prison delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him intending to bring him before the people after passover peter was therefore kept in prison but constant prayer was offered to god for him by the church please notice that that's how christians responded to being hassled doesn't say peter was put in prison and they started a letter writing campaign against the government or they picketed in front of harrod's house or they filed a class action lawsuit no they they wanted real power they wanted real results and they talked to god and they prayed that was what they did that's the first thing they did that's the response now that's the first thing we should do why is it that it is so often our last resort and it's sort of like there's nothing left to do but pray i've heard that listen to that there's nothing left to do except pray oh you should have started with that and it's almost like i've tried everything i've exhausted my resources and now i have to trust god you see how weird that sounds and typically it's only when it's really a big issue oh god i'm giving this one to you is if you can handle the little stuff i i suggest you bring the little stuff to god before it turns into the big stuff to god before it turns into the big stuff there's a widow that came to g campbell morgan i've always loved this story and she said dr morgan do you think god would terribly mind it if we brought to him the little things in our life in prayer and he smiled and said madam can you think of anything that's big to god isn't that a great perspective now to you it's big to me it's big but is it really big to god is it like does god ever go uh-oh i wish she wouldn't ask me for that does god ever bite his fingernails is cancer any more difficult for god to heal than a cold nope it's all little stuff to him so this was the church nothing more nothing less apostles doctrine fellowship breaking bread and prayers if you wanted to see their mission statement if you were to ask the leaders hey what are you guys into they would say we're into this stuff these four we're into this and they prayed they depended i love it they didn't have a manual on how to start a church they didn't have anybody telling them you got to do a 501 c3 for the government if you want to be a religious organization they didn't have any kind of organized plan on how to start a singles ministry or pastors conferences or schools of ministry they just relied on god and this is what god was doing so this is a a description of their prayer life generally well hopefully church isn't just another part of your weekly routine but rather something that helps you routinely grow and mature in christ especially in the area of prayer and that's all the time we have today for this message from the series church who needs it and i'll tell you how to get a copy of today's teaching here in just a moment but before we go Skip points to invite you on an unforgettable trip to israel lenya and i are taking a group to israel in 2022 and we want to invite you to join us we'll visit places like nazareth the jordan river the dead sea and jerusalem including the temple mount and the garden tomb and that's just a fly-by look at the itinerary find out more about the trip at inspirationcruises.com c-a-b-q thanks Skip now if you'd like a copy of today's study on your mark get set grow part four just call 1-800-922-1888 or order online at connectwithskip.com we'll send you today's message on cd for just four dollars plus shipping you know routine prayer is helpful but if we get too comfortable in that routine it could be more harm than good next time we'll examine how sincere prayer can help us grow in christ right here in connect with Skip weekend edition a presentation of connection communications make a connection make a connection at the foot of the crossing and connection connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever-changing times