The Secret Place // A Prayer for Courage and Boldness // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen.

You can find a seat. And man, what a great worship service. And I love the music today. Wasn't it powerful? And I tell you, I'm grateful that His mercy is new each and every morning.

And I'm in desperate need of His mercy. And didn't our little helpers do a good job today? Let's give them a hand. And they did a great job and excited about them. Many of you don't know this, but Matt Davis and I went to grade school together. We were in school together my entire childhood, all the way up until I graduated.

He's a year older than me. And it's amazing, first of all, that God's grace brought us back together. Because if you had, you know, some of our people, we went to school about an hour from here. I don't mention the name of it, because it's one of our enemies now that I work and serve here. And so we play them from time to time. And I don't really say who it is.

I just want to beat them worse than anybody else. That's kind of how I feel about it. And but, but honestly, we see some of our former administrators from time to time, and they always come up to me.

And I don't really know what this means. But they just come up and say, it's by the grace of God that you're here today. And I think that they would say the same to Him as well. But it is amazing how that relationship has come full circle.

We never, in a million years when we were getting out of high school, thought that we would be serving together years down the road. And having His family here is just such a blessing to us. And just as they minister, having the kids up here, you know, we are a multi-generational church. And that is one of my favorite things about our church is that we are not just a church for a certain demographic of people. We are a church for everyone, for the entire family. And that means children all the way up until some of you who are a little older than that.

Okay. And so we are, we are here for everybody. And we're going to invest in the next generation. I'll just tell you that that's what we're passionate about.

And we're going to put emphasis and energy into that. And we love that. In fact, we try to celebrate as much as we can any of our young people's achievements, whether they attend our school or whether they don't.

And this past weekend was a big weekend for our Christian school. We had our conference fall tournaments, which includes your soccer and your volleyball. And our teams always just represent so well. And I'll say this, they represent more importantly than just on the field and on the court, which is something we love to see success in. More importantly than that, I love how we represent off of the field and off of the court.

And that is the most important thing that we try to drill home to our students all the time. But listen, we brought home, we came in second place. We were all in the championship yesterday, JV soccer, JV volleyball, varsity soccer, varsity volleyball, all four of our teams were in the championships yesterday. Three of them came home with the championship trophy.

And one was runner up, which is awesome. And if you were a part of any of those four teams, would you please stand any of everybody in here that was a part of those teams? Would you please stand if you're a coach as well?

Coaches, everybody. You guys are are awesome. And we could not be more proud of every single one of them.

So I hope that you looked around briefly saw somebody standing after the service catch them before that they leave and congratulate them quite the achievement. And we are so excited for them and love all of our students in our in our church. Well, if you have your Bible, go to Acts chapter number four today, I mentioned this earlier, that we are continuing our series called the secret place.

The secret place. This series is all about prayer. It's all about our relationship with God. It's all about how we talk to God, how we address the Lord. And in week one of our series, we looked at some attitudes of, of when we go to the Lord in prayer, what attitudes do we need to have? Last week, we looked at the Lord's Prayer and Jesus and how he showed us kind of a model prayer to how everything that we are in need of we can ask according to the way that he modeled for us in the Lord's Prayer. And so we learn to pray like, like Jesus told us. And today is just a little bit of a of a different message on prayer.

In fact, it's really a prayer and prayer asking God for something specific. I'll talk about what that is here in just a moment. But I want you to think about this, how many of you in your life, you might be in it right now, but how many of you have faced some type of adversity or a trial in your life at some point in your life?

Please raise your hand. Okay. Listen, every single one of us have gone through some form of adversity or trials or trouble or pain. And a lot of times we go through moments like that. And the natural response, if you're like our family, the natural response is for us to pray safe prayers, right? The safest prayers that we could possibly pray that is our go to. In fact, you can regularly hear us say, and I don't want to guilt you. If you're going to be here in a moment, I'm going to say some of the prayers that we say from time to time.

And you're probably going to identify your family with these. I don't want you to feel like I'm guilting you. I want you to know I'm not preaching at you. I'm preaching with you because we struggle with this as well. But anytime we go through any form of trial, any form of adversity, any form of even persecution or anything that we experience or something we don't like or whatever, here's what we always go to. We go to prayers like, God, protect us. God, deliver us. God, keep us safe. God bless us.

God be with us. And let me say this, there's nothing wrong with those prayers, right? Those are good prayers. And I do think there are moments where we got to run to God and ask specifically for those things. But here's something I'm learning about our relationship with Jesus and your relationship with Jesus is this, that following Jesus is always the best thing for you. But it is not always the safest thing for us. Maybe, perhaps, there's a better prayer when we are faced with trials, when we are faced with adversity, when we're faced with things like that.

Maybe there's something we should be asking for that is better than just our safety, our protection. I've heard it said, and I've probably said this from time to time myself, that many will say that the safest place for us to be is the center of God's will. And that's a true statement.

But I'll tell you this, there's an even truer statement. The best place for you is in the center of God's will. But it might not always be the safest place for you. Listen, following Jesus is not always easy. It's not always a bed of roses.

It's not always just the easiest path. In fact, this past week, we had one of our mission partners who serves in Madagascar over in Africa. And he was sharing with us on Wednesday night a little bit about their ministry and what God has called them to. And we've been supporting him for about a decade. And so we've been supporting him for a long time. And he came and he shared with us. And he was sharing with us a little bit about some of the challenges that they're facing. And he has a young child that is over in Madagascar with him. And he said their next door neighbor is a witch doctor.

She's a witch. And he says that there's tons of that right around them. And the oppression and demonic possession is so, so real to him.

And listen, I was burdened. I'm thinking, man, you know, like for me, the persecution that I face here where I'm at is absolutely nothing compared to the oppression that they're faced. But I want you to understand something that being wherever God wants us, if that's in the middle of Madagascar next to a house that has a witch living in it, let me say this, that being in the center of wherever God wants us is the best place for any of us. But it does not always guarantee that it's the safest place.

If you look back at the early church, many of the early church apostles that kind of started the church after Jesus left and ascended into heaven, many of them, they died a very ugly death. And I think if they were here today to talk to you, they would say the very same thing to listen, being in the center of wherever God has you. It's the best place for you.

But it does not equal always equal the safest place for us. Today, I want to talk about that prayer. And we've been asking this question and we always put this up and we're going to at the end of this service, God, I want you to do blank.

We've done this in all three weeks of this series. And if you think about it, what is it that God is asking you to do or God's calling on you to do or what prayer do you have that you've been coming forward to this altar and praying, God, I need you to heal this person. God, I need you to restore this relationship. God, I need you to fix this problem that I have at work.

God, I need you to meet this financial need that we have in my life. Whatever you've been coming to God with, I want you to pray for it today with this word in mind, boldness. Boldness. In fact, look to your neighbor and say, you need to be bold. Okay. Listen, we're going to see in Acts chapter, it was pretty bold for some of you to say that.

I can tell. Acts chapter four, we're going to see a text with the early church and we are going to see that when they were faced with adversity, they did not probably pray like many of us prayed. Acts chapter four, we're going to pick it up in verse 23 and being let go.

And let me give you just a little bit of background so you know exactly where we are. In Acts chapter three, Peter and John, they went into the temple, very familiar passage of scripture. They went into the temple to pray and on their way in, they saw this man who was about 40 years old. He had been dropped off at the temple and he was there. He's lame. He couldn't walk.

And he was dropped there every single day. And as they were going in, he was begging for money. He wanted some money. And so Peter and John, they responded.

They didn't have money, but such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. How many of you, when you read that verse, you always think of Sunday school with the little songs. Any of you like that?

Okay. That was me. I just, I almost sang it for you.

It's that familiar in my brain. And then most of you would have left and exited our church forever. But he said, Hey, listen, I don't have any money, but I have the name of Jesus rise up and walk. And this man who had sat there every single day, he rose up and walk. And the Bible says he went leaping and praising God. He was rejoicing. He was excited. Many in the Baptist church probably were like, Whoa, slow down, my friend.

They probably said, and he was so excited as he ran around, just so excited. Well, that made a lot of the religious leaders and the political leaders. They were nervous about that. They were like, they didn't like people preaching in the name of Jesus.

They didn't like healing. They didn't like all of these things that, that what God did through Peter and John. So what they did was they brought them before all of these religious leaders and, and they had to give an account for what they just, just did. So Peter, he used this in chapter four as an opportunity to preach the gospel chapter three and four, you can find his entire sermon. Here's basically what his sermon consisted of. He told them, he said, listen, that Jesus is our chief cornerstone.

He is the center of everything in life. And he said, it was you. He actually told them, and I can imagine Peter pointing his finger at his, at his audience and all these religious leaders in the multitudes from the community who had kind of made their way into to kind of see what they are going to do to Peter and John after this lame man, all of a sudden can walk and, and they're all watching. And Peter looked at him and I bet he pointed his finger at him and he told him this can find this in chapter three and four. He told them, you need to repent because it was you who crucified him. It was you who placed Jesus, the hope of the world, our chief cornerstone. You were the ones who placed them upon the cross and you need to repent. So everybody's angry at Peter and John for what they, they did.

Isn't that wild? A guy gets healed, but yet the, the oppression that they faced was so full of hatred and anger for the name of Jesus that they forgot. They didn't even care that the lame man was healed. They just did not want to hear anyone preaching in the name of Jesus. So they decided the religious leaders were like, man, I guess we can't arrest these guys. And there was hatred and bitterness and anger towards them.

So they let them go. And that's what we find in verse 23. And you can imagine just after they're getting let go, they're thinking that this could be the end. They're thinking that Jesus, this could be it. This could be the moment that you've called me to that, that I, that, Hey, we're going to be, we're going to be killed and, and crucified just because we preached in your name because the religious leaders could have done that. We see that they did that several times in the early church. And so after they were let go, let's see how they prayed in the midst of persecution being let go. They went to their verse 23 of acts four being let go. They went to their own company and they reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them, they went back to the disciples, the people that they had reached, the people that had been you know, trusted Jesus as their savior. They went to them and they told him everything that was happened. Verse 24. And when they heard that they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is.

So let me, let me say this real quick before we move on, cause I want you to get this story. This is so powerful is in the midst of the persecution. I mean, Peter and John, they walk in and they tell them everything that happened. They're thinking, Oh my goodness, here's what they're going to do. I bet the religious leaders they're talking right now. They're going to come find us.

We're, we're all gathered together. They could easily come in and just arrest us all, throw us in prison for preaching in the name of Jesus. We could lose our very life, but yet look at what their first response was after they heard what Peter and John said. Their first response was pray, was prayer.

Isn't that wild? Because if let's just be real, if, if that happened here, I don't know if that would be our first response from being fully transparent. If I'm running for my life and, and I'm thinking, man, I just escaped that. Here's probably the conversation that would have happened here in our church. Here's probably what we would have said.

We would have said, okay, Peter and John, you guys, you need to stay here and bunker down. Okay. Because everybody in this community, they know who y'all are. You need to stay right here and you don't need to leave the house. You need to play it safe. You need to stay here where it's safe and you don't need to go out or be seen by anybody.

And if you do say, you have to run to the grocery store or something like that. Guess what, Peter and John, y'all can't be seen together. That's a problem because every time you guys are together, bad things happen. So we need to keep you guys separated and keep you guys apart.

And then the rest of you, you need to lay low. In fact, I don't even know if preaching in the name of Jesus is the best thing that we should do. Peter used the word repent. The people didn't like that.

So why, let's, let's stop with that. Let's just tell the, the prodigal son story and start there because everyone loves that. It makes them feel way better than repent. You were the ones who crucified Jesus.

Do you get the picture? That would have probably been, we would have come up with a strategy or a different way of, of preaching, or we would have thought whatever, but, but here's what they did. They said, listen, here's what we got to do in the midst of our adversity. Let's pray in the midst of our trial. Let's pray in the midst of our persecution. Let's pray in the midst of us unsure if we're going to live to face another day. Let's pray verse 25. This is their prayer. Who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ for a true of a truth against thy holy child, Jesus, whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. You see, they recognize that, that God is Lord, that he has a sovereign plan and purpose, and we want to be a part of that plan.

We want to be a part of that purpose regardless of what happens to us. And then they ask God for something in verse 29. And now Lord behold their threatenings. Think about that word threatenings. I don't want you to skip over it.

Here's what he's saying. Behold their threats upon our life. Behold God, we get it. They can pronounce us dead.

They can come and arrest us and kill us. Behold their threatenings. Grant unto thy servants safety, protection, deliverance. Bless us God.

No, it's not what they ask God for, is it? They said in the midst of our threatenings, God give us boldness. Give us boldness. Can you imagine?

Put yourself there. You just, you just escaped what could have been the end. And yet you leave and you say, God, instead of praying for safety, instead of praying, hey God protect me, instead of praying for any of those things, here's what they pray for. God, we want to be bold. God, give us a boldness to do what? That they may speak thy word. You know what they wanted in the midst of their adversity?

They wanted boldness to share the word of God. They didn't care about their safety. They didn't even care about their deliverance.

They didn't even care about their own life. They only wanted to see Jesus' mission moved forward. And if that meant then be persecuted, if that meant walking through the water, if that meant walking through pain, if that meant walking through trials, if that means going through the valley, then so be it. God, even in the midst of the valley, give us the boldness to preach your word.

So listen, think about your life. What are you praying for? Here's what I want to challenge you in the few moments that we have. I want you to challenge it through this word boldness. I want you to say, God, I want you to do that and in the midst of whatever you're praying for, give me the boldness to preach your word. Give me the boldness to invite people to church. Give me the boldness to proclaim your name even in the midst of adversity.

Give me the boldness to share with my neighbor about you. Give me the boldness to speak your word. Verse 30, by stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, look at this, when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together.

They were all they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. Father, in the few moments that we have, I pray, God, for every single person in this room. Lord, we don't pray for boldness very often.

I get it. When I go to you in prayer each and every day, Father, boldness is not one of my top things a lot of times. But Father, I pray that every single one of us, we would pray each and every day that you would give us boldness to proclaim your word in the situation that we are in here today. We love you, for it's in your name we pray.

Amen. You say how can we pray and experience boldness for Jesus? Three things that I think the early church did here in their prayer. Number one, if you want to experience boldness and you want to pray for boldness, you have to trust in the sovereignty of God.

You have to trust in the sovereignty of God. I want you to look back at our text in verse 24. When they heard that, that is the disciples, they heard what happened to Peter and John.

They lifted up their voice to God with one accord and they said this, Lord, thou art God which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. In verse 24, that phrase, Lord, thou art God. The word Lord is from the Greek word despotes. Here's what that literally means. It's referring to a slave owner.

It's the word, you might have heard it, Adonai. It carries on the idea of master or ruler. It is referring to the one that governs all things. Listen, I don't want you to skip over how they addressed the Lord that they were praying to. They said, Lord, and when they say that word, Lord, they are saying sovereign ruler of all things.

Sovereign God who has a plan for my life. Sovereign Lord who has a plan and a purpose for every single person in this room. They're saying, God, you are the God of all things. It shows ownership. They're recognizing, like we learned last week when we approached the Father, we need to recognize that he is the Father and we are his children. They're recognizing ownership. They're talking about supremacy and authority. They're showing that he has the authority over their life. They are not their own.

They've been bought with a price and the price that paid for their life was the precious blood of Jesus and because of that, they can now approach him, Lord, you are over all things. Look at verse 28, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. You see, what they're saying is, listen, God, I want you to have a sovereign plan and I know you do. You have a sovereign plan. You have a sovereign purpose over every single thing.

I might not like it as your children, but guess what? You have a plan. You are the boss. You are my authority.

You are supreme. You are sovereign. You have a plan over my life and if that takes me through the valley, if that even kills me, if that takes my very life from me or you take my family's life, God, that is okay. All I want is the boldness to proclaim your word. You see, if you're like me, we would probably pray for a lot of different things in the midst of the adversity instead of complaining or begging God for deliverance in your situation or begging him to take it away. Have you ever thought about whatever it is that you're praying for, whatever persecution or trial that you're facing, instead of complaining about it or instead of praying for safety through it or instead of praying for deliverance through everything and it's okay to pray those things, but have you ever thought, what if you went to the Lord and said, God, you are sovereign over my situation and listen, I don't like where you have me right now, but God, all I ask for you is to give me the boldness in the middle of my situation to preach your word. God, yes, that thing at work isn't working out like I wanted, but Father, I want you to grant me the boldness that even at my job, even through the persecution, that I can point people to you and not to myself. Give me the boldness to preach your word at work. God, my neighbor, things aren't going well in that relationship, Father, but even in the midst of that, I don't want them to move. You have a sovereign plan, you put them right next door to me, God, give me the boldness to share your word with them. You see, so often we're praying for deliverance and we want God to just send us through life the safest way possible with the easiest road possible and we're asking for all of these things and God is sending us through some different detours along the way and sometimes we forget to pray for boldness to speak his word.

You see, the reason he has you in the situation that you're in right now is probably to speak his word to the people around you and so few of us are doing that. We're complaining. We're upset about it.

We're praying for safety. We're mad about where we are and you know how it is. It's like you go up to somebody and they're always like, man, I can't believe this has happened to me. Why is God doing this to me again? I can't believe he's sending me through this again. We've been through this. I don't get it, God.

How much more can I take? We've all been around people like that. All I want you to do and listen, trials are no fun. I get it, but instead of praying for all the safety and deliverance and take this from me and bless me and this and that, have you ever stopped to say, God, you're sovereign. I don't understand why you're sending me through the trial that I'm in, but God, all I want in the midst of it, if this is the path you have for me, God, give me the boldness that I need to proclaim your word and tell every single person along the path that you've placed me about your name because it's about making his name famous, not our own.

We have to trust in the sovereignty of God. Psalms 46, 10, we all know this, be still and know that I am God. We love that verse, right? That's one of those verses that if you go into Hobby Lobby, it's probably on signs everywhere, right? That's kind of one of those verses. Some of you are laughing because you have it on a coffee cup or something like that, right? It's one of those verses, but what we don't realize, if you read the entire chapter, that sounds really good.

That sounds awesome. You know, like you can read a book and have a coffee cup with it laying on your couch in front of the fire with a pillow next to you that says be still and know, and you can take a picture and post it to Instagram and it'll look really good. But let me tell you this, Psalms chapter 46 is all about wars. It's all about threatenings. It's all about the psalmist running for his life, and you see the principle here that I don't want you to miss with a verse like this. Yeah, it's an awesome verse, but it's in the middle of some pretty messed up stuff that he was going through. He's running for his life, and in the midst of that, he's not praying for, you know, the things that you and I pray for, and he comes and he says this.

Listen, his conclusion to all of the wars and threatenings and everything going on in his life, he says, listen, God, I want to be still and I want to know that you are the sovereign ruler over all things. You see, we want God to fix our problems, and I think God is asking us just to trust his plan. If you're like me, you like to fix things, right? We like to fix situations. I don't like, I mean, every time somebody emails me or, you know, somebody comes to me with a problem, I have three solutions, okay?

I want to give you solutions, and that's how I am. Anytime Abby comes to me a lot of times and she'll say some situation, I'm like, okay, here's what you need to do. Here's the plan, and sometimes she's like, look, I don't want you to fix this. Anybody else deal with that couples, okay?

Or is that just us? We struggle with that because I want to fix everything that I, because I want to fix everything around me. My kids, you know, they go through problems more so my daughter than my son because I'm learning that girls bring drama.

Is that like a forever plan or what is that? She's 11 years old and she comes to me and tells me problems about school. My son, he comes and says, dad, I got beat in soccer on the playground today. You know, that's a much easier problem, but my daughter comes to me with drama and she comes to me and she says, dad, this happened at school today. You want to know what my instinctive response is?

Well, here's what you need to do, and I give her two or three things, pretty much a sermon. My family, they get preached to all the time. They hate every second of it, okay? They hate it as much as you probably hate it every now and then, right? But listen, that's my natural response.

Why? Because we like to fix problems. We like to fix our solutions. We don't like when we are not in control. We like to be in full control and when life spirals out of control and we've lost all control, that's when we get real frustrated. That's when we get real discouraged.

That's when we jump on Facebook and we get all mad about everything in our whole life. And all I'm saying is this, ask God to give you the boldness to proclaim his name in the middle of your situation. If you want to do that, you have to trust in the sovereignty of God. What if we saw everything in life as sovereignly ordered by God? What if you saw every single situation, every single detour along your life?

What if you saw it through this lens? God, you're sovereign. This path is sovereign. You have ordained this plan for me. God, as I go through this detour, it's not the way I would have drawn up life, but God, I'm not the boss.

You are. And as I go through this way, God, you are sovereign. Give me the boldness to proclaim your word to everybody I come and contact with. If you want boldness and you want to pray for boldness, you've got to trust in the sovereignty of God. Number two, you have to deepen your knowledge of the word of God.

You have to deepen your knowledge of the word of God. In verse 25, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? This is their prayer up to God and they immediately, here's where that's from, they are quoting what David says in Psalms chapter two.

It's a direct quote. If you look back to Psalms chapter two, you see the Christians in that day, they knew so much of the scripture that when they faced adversity, the scripture is what flowed out of them. That when they faced trials and tribulations and pain, the first response was the scripture. You see, I want you to know that the real you comes out when you face adversity. The real us comes out when we face adversity. If life doesn't go your way, that's going to show the real you way more than when life is going your way. That's what I tell my kids all the time.

They come all mad about something or I tell them something that they don't like. It shows a whole lot more about a person when they face adversity than when life is just going great. And you see here they were facing adversity and the scripture bled out of them. You know, I don't use illustrations like this because you know what team I like to pull for, but I'll tell you this is that, you know, I believe, and if you're younger in here and you didn't have the chance to watch them play, I firmly stand upon you and I'll tell I firmly stand upon the hill that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. How many of you would agree with me? Okay. How many of you would say that is wrong, Pastor Josh? Any of you? Okay.

A couple of you. And so I get it. And so listen, that's a big, you know, conversation. Anytime you turn it on around basketball season, you're always talking about who's the greatest of all time and all this kind of stuff. And I really, I watched tons of documentaries on Michael Jordan.

That's just my stance on the whole thing. And he said something really interesting in his freshman year when he was at, I'm not even going to say where he went to college, but he was at school. He enrolled in this local high school for college. Just kidding.

Okay. It's a real school. And he enrolled, okay, I can't even say it, but I'm going to North Carolina, University of North Carolina. There it is.

Oh Lord, forgive me. And he enrolled there. And here's what he said to coach Roy Williams, who was an assistant at that time. They told him, he told him this, he said, I want to be the greatest basketball player ever. And Roy Williams looked back at him. I mean, at that time, I mean, Michael Jordan was a really good ball player.

But in his freshman year, he wasn't the greatest and nobody thought he was going to be the greatest at that time. So Roy's thinking of all these greats that had played and he's thinking, okay, that's pretty lofty goal. But here, if you want to achieve the goal, here's what you're going to have to do.

You're going to have to work harder than anyone has ever worked. And here's what Michael Jordan said. Michael Jordan looked back at him. Roy Williams says this in an interview.

He said, I will show you that no one will work harder than I will. And Michael Jordan went on from there to achieve six NBA finals rings and many believe is the greatest of all time. There was many situations where in the last moments of the game, Michael Jordan would take over a game and single-handedly in some ways win it for his team. You say, how can somebody do that?

Did he just show up that one game and just run out there and play? No, here's how somebody achieves greatness like that. It's the much work behind the scenes that led to the outward success.

You see, in life for you and me, we all want the success, but few are willing to do the work that gets you there. You want to know why the early church, why Peter and John and the disciples, why they immediately ran to God and why the first response was prayer and the first response for them in the face of adversity was recognizing who they're talking to, the sovereign ruler of all things. And the first thing out of their mouth after that was quoting the scripture, Psalms chapter two. You want to know why that bled through them in the midst of adversity when life was just destroying them and cutting their body?

It's this. It's because there was a lot of times before that where they were in the word. They knew the Old Testament. They knew the word. They'd walked with God. They'd lived with Jesus. They'd walked with God.

They'd lived with God. They've done all of this stuff so that when the trial happens, when the adversity happens, when the pain happens, when the persecution happens, the first response is prayer. The first response is I'm going to pray and quote scripture. Isn't that what you want for your life?

That's what I want for my life. That when trials come, my first response isn't complaining. My first response is praising. My first response isn't jumping on Facebook and talking about how bad my life is. My first response is talking on Facebook about how good my God is.

That's what I want for my life. But you want to see it doesn't just happen when you face adversity. It happens before the adversity, the times that you're in God's word, the times you're meditating on God's word, the times you're memorizing God's word, the times you're studying God's word, the times you're praying to God, the sovereign ruler of all. It comes out of that relationship that when you face adversity, that when life cuts you and when life hurts you, you begin to bleed the scripture because of all the times you've been in the word of God before the adversity hits. See, we all want the success, but few are willing to get into the word to get us there.

The third thing very quickly is this. By being filled with the Spirit of God, so you say I want to pray for boldness. How do we do that? Number one, we have to trust in the sovereignty of God. We got to deepen our knowledge of the word of God. We got to be filled with the Spirit of God. The third thing, we got to be filled with the Spirit of God. Verse 31, when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Listen, we got to be filled with the Spirit of God. You see, if I was to say, you know, we went through a study several months back with our church on Wednesday nights and we went through a study verse by verse through the book of Acts. And when you look at the book of Acts, there's a few things that separates the church, the early church with kind of what I would consider modern church with things we struggle with. And one of the things that separates it, you see it throughout the book of Acts is this, is that the church was regularly asking God to fill them with the Spirit. It was a regular thing that every day they recognized that they are absolutely nothing without being filled with the Spirit of God. So you see prayers and these moments where the early church, they're begging God, God fill us with the Holy Ghost. And here, even in this, we see that. And it's interesting that when God comes down, things happen, doesn't He?

Doesn't it? When God touches down to earth, things happen. When Christ died, Matthew 27, there was an earthquake. Christ resurrected, Matthew 28, it was also an earthquake. Noise and wind from heaven in Acts chapter 2 when the Holy Spirit came down to indwell the believers. And then here we see that the place was shaken in Acts chapter 4. Listen, crazy things happen when God's people are filled with the Spirit. But let me say this, the more the place was shaken, the less the Christians were.

The more the place was shaken, the less the Christians were. Let me say this, when you are filled with the Spirit, everything around you can be shaking and falling apart and you can still be stable. You can still have stability in the midst of everything around you falling apart, but you have to ask God to fill you with the Spirit. So look at your life, many of you are facing adversity, many of you have gone through adversity, some of you might not even know it and you're about to enter into some form of adversity. Instead of just praying the safest prayer possible, instead of just praying, God bless me, God deliver me, God take it all from me, why don't we learn from the early church and say, God, I don't know why you're sending me through it, why you're sending me through it, but you are sovereign, you have a plan for my life, you have a purpose for my life.

And yes, it has some detours along the way that I don't enjoy, but you're the boss, I'm your child, you're the sovereign Lord over all things, you are God. And what if we recognized and went to him and then the second thing, what if the first thing, because we chose today, we're going to get up every single day and maybe even as a family, you're going to read the word of God together with your children. Many of us have kids and we want our kids to as they grow up, when life gets difficult, we want the first thing that they think about as the sovereign Lord over all and we want the first thing that comes out of their mouth to be the scripture and things like that. Well, listen, it's not just going to happen, we got to work and spend time with God daily and read the Bible together. Some of us are wondering why that's not happening today in our lives. It's probably because we haven't taken the time to get around the word of God with our families and read the word of God together.

That's where it's going to come from. It's going to come out of meditating and memorizing scripture together. You see those things, that's what when life just falls apart around you, you can speak the word of God.

You can trust in the sovereignty of God. And then why don't you ask for the filling of the spirit of God? If you're a Christian in here, you already have the indwelling spirit of God.

It's not what we're talking about. When you get saved, you get all of the Holy Spirit that you are ever going to get. But when you're filled with the spirit, that's when he gets every single bit of you. Why don't you today ask God to fill you with the spirit like he has never felt or never filled you before? In a moment, we're going to pray. The altar is going to be open and I'm going to ask this question again. God, I want you to do blank. God, I want you to do blank.

What is it? And maybe it's the same thing you've prayed for the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's just, hey God, heal this person. God, deliver me. God, save this person. God, bring that person back to you. God, restore that relationship. God, help my family through whatever it is that you're going through. God, help me through the issue that's happening at school that nobody else knows about. God, I ask you to do blank.

What is it? In a moment, we're going to ask you to come and pray for your blank and here's what I want you to pray for. I don't want you just to pray that God would deliver you. I want you to take your blank, whatever that is, to the altar and I want you to say, God, in the middle of this, I want you to give me the boldness to speak your word and to speak your truth into the people around me today.

Would you stand with me? I'm going to pray. Father, we love you. God, I really believe that you want to do a work in everyone's situations in here.

I believe it. But Father, I think so often we struggle to pray for the things that you want us to pray for. The boldness in the midst of our adversity. God, I pray that you would give us boldness. I pray that you would speak to our hearts today, for it's in your name we pray. Amen.