Prayer Under Pressure
July 25, 2010
by Geno Hildebrandt
Lesson:
Believers who continue to pray boldly when facing tremendous pressure know something about their God and about how to approach Him.
Texts: Acts 4:23-31
Ice-Breakers:
- Describe a time or a season when the Lord met you and/or your group in prayer and made Himself known in a powerful, moving way.
- What are your favorite verses to pray back to God?
Background:
Peter and John had just been arrested, jailed and ordered not to speak any longer in the name of Jesus. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Peter essentially told the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council, that they were choosing to obey God rather than men in this instance.
After this threatening episode they were released and went back to their friends to report all that had occurred. It is important to note that the Sanhedrin saw them as uneducated hicks and marveled that they had been with Jesus. This, the text implies, is what gave them both the boldness and the wisdom to address the political and religious leaders of the day with confidence.
Both Annas, the high priest, and Caiaphas, a former high-priest, were part of the deliberations to arrest, try and execute Jesus (John 18:13-14). Here, we see that Jesus is still on trial. Having failed to stop Him earlier and seeing His work being reproduced in the lives of his followers, the Sanhedrin now opposes the apostles.
The question for all of the followers of Jesus today is, “Will we answer when we are called upon (subpoenaed) to bear witness to Jesus?” Each of us will receive a summons at some point, whether around the water cooler in the cafeteria or at the grocery store. Will we bear faithful witness to Jesus when called upon?
Those earliest believers understood this and prayed three wonderful things:
(a) They prayed to a Sovereign God;
(b) They prayed the words of Scripture;
(c) They prayed the purposes of God.
Digging Deeper:
Scholar John Stott pointed to three verbs describing the sovereignty of God:
In verse 24 they pray to the One ‘who made heaven and earth’, thus he is the God of creation. It doesn’t get any more powerful than that.
In verse 25 they pray to the One who‘said by the Holy Spirit’, thus He is the God of revelation. Only He can tell the future because He is Lord of time.
In verse 28 they pray to the One who ‘predestined’ what would happen to His Son, thus He is the God of History, ruling and overruling in the affairs of men to accomplish His purposes.
- What do you think the Bible means when it talks about God being ‘sovereign’? Does that have any bearing on how we should live and pray? If so, how?
- Compile a list of ‘most helpful’ texts and verses to pray back to God which you have use when under chronic pressure.
- How did those earliest believers pray for the purposes of God? How can we pray in this fashion today?
Wrap Up:
- In groups of two or three share a situation where you would like more boldness to bear witness to Jesus.
- Pray for one another to increase in such boldness.
Outreach/Mission:
- Go somewhere in Austin that the name of Jesus is being mocked or just ignored. As a group pray in that place that God would raise up bold witnesses to His name and His ways.
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