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Let’s be honest, most of us pray small, selfish prayers. We pretty much pray for ourselves, our family, and for two or three sick people we know. And the things we pray for ourselves are pretty basic. It’s stuff that’s going to happen anyway and it certainly doesn’t tax God’s energy. “God please give us a safe trip, give us rest tonight, let this food nourish us,” you don’t need divine intervention for things like this. God’s like, “I set it up so that when you eat food it nourishes you, bro. Let’s get to some stuff that’s more consequential.” I wonder if God ever thinks, “Come on, try me, test me, ask me for something big! Lean into my heart and listen to my voice and let me inform what you should be praying for!”
One of the great gifts of Pentecost, is that it brought boldness to some otherwise nervous disciples. Peter and John, who had been cowering in the upper room, started courageously preaching in the temple to the point that they got into trouble with the authorities. Imagine how worried the rank-and-file Christians were. They had already seen what happened to Jesus when he got arrested and now the next-man-up new leaders had also been arrested? This can’t be good. The authorities told him to keep their mouths shut. Peter’s response, “You do what you need to do, but we’re going to keep doing what we need to do because we can’t stop talking about Jesus.” They’re released and they go to find their fellow Christians. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief that Peter and John are safe. Barely escaped. This time.
Let me ask you, in that moment, how would you pray? I think our instinct would be to pray, “Protect us, bless us, keep us, guard us, guide us, cover us, give us a hedge of protection, put a dome around us and helmet on us, give us a bullet proof vest, make us bubble boy, bury us under warm covers. In Jesus’ name, amen.” We would have probably put some other parameters in place. “Pete and John, you guys are not allowed to travel together anymore. We can’t lose you both. Designated Survivor style. We’re going to need two tricked-out, heavily fortified escalades. We already lost Jesus; we can’t lose you guys too. And listen, we need to tone down the rhetoric. No more resurrection talk. John pull out your sermon archives on love, we know you have a lot of research on that. And Peter let’s stick to workshops on the spiritual disciplines. When this blows over we can start talking about Jesus again.” Ok I’m being dramatic, but at some level, that’s how we think.
Here’s how it actually went down in Acts 4:23-29,
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.
They rejoice in God’s faithfulness and sovereignty. Then they quote an Old Testament verse. What’s it about? Messianic persecution,
You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.’ Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
Finally, in verse 29 they get to their prayer request. This is the part where they beseech God to give them stuff like safety and comfort, right? Here’s what they ask for,
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.
Wait… isn’t boldness what created the problem and got them into this mess? Plus, from our perspective, they’ve been pretty bold already. I think you’ve got boldness covered. You’re good.
Have you ever in your life prayed for boldness? Do remember the last time? So, the first prayer request is for boldness. In verse 30 they make their second request.
Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
The second prayer request is to heal and perform signs and wonders. Again, when is the last time you asked God for that? You say, “No we’re not one of those kind of churches.” That’s fine, because they weren’t praying for it to happen inside the church, they were asking for God to do this in the streets, in the marketplace. Where people would see them and say, “That must have been an act of God.”
What if you prayed, “God would you demonstrate you power through me in a way that points people to you as I’m going about my life? Please do something among my family, among my friends. They’re so smart, so cynical, so frustrated with the status quo, but if they saw something supernatural, it might shake them to their core. God would you do something supernatural through me? Look what happened when they prayed these bold prayers in verse 31,
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
God shook the place. Can you imagine what would happen if the people of your church, your team, if Christians across your city, would expand their current prayer list to include requests like: “God, would you give me a bold faith? Would you help me see opportunities? Would you do something miraculous through me? Would you demonstrate your power? Would you do something in me that would help the people around me give you another look?” Once we start praying bold prayers, I believe God will begin to provide opportunities that will make sense of whatever crossroad we’re at in life.
