Praying In The Storm
Sermon Notes
Praying in the storm: contrast their prayer here with their “prayer” in the boat in Mark 4.
The first time Jesus put them in a situation where they thought they were going to die: Mark 4 when he asked them to row across a lake at night in the middle of a storm.
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41)
Uncertain destination
Zero-visibility
Water coming in from all sides
Bailing as fast as you can with less and less of the boat above water
Their response in that situation
Terror: “Lord, don’t you care that we’re about to die?”
Pessimism: I’m sure they would have called it realism but Jesus called it “no faith.”
Contrast that with our text for today, Acts 4:23-31
23 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. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 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?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.’
27 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. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
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. (Acts 4:23-31)
How do we move from Mark 4 pray-ers to Acts 4 pray-ers? What did they do differently in Acts 4 than they had done in Mark 4? Four things:
They recognized who they were talking to
They recognized who they were in relation to him.
They asked for what they need to accomplish his purposes.
They received the answer to their prayers.
They recognized who they were talking to
Who you're talking to shapes how you approach and what you ask.
What changed in them? They moved from praying me-centered prayers to praying God-centered prayers.
Me-centered prayers start with present circumstance rather than transcendent, heavenly circumstance.
And because of that, they often amount to little more than worrying in the presence of God.
And the result is that such prayers are rarely answered with power. I know we're taught that God ALWAYS answered prayer, but what if we're not really talking to God?
God-centered prayer
They prayed into the sovereignty of God, which means that God is in control.
We must start praying in the storm (in any circumstances) by recognizing that the storm is not in charge.
Faced with the threats of the rulers of Jerusalem, they started by acknowledging who the real power in the room was.
We need to develop this habit of putting the powers in their place.
God mocks the powers.
He says to then, "Do your worst."
And when they do, he takes the evilest thing they could do, and transforms it to the greatest act of love and redemption that's ever happened on this planet.
How did they learn to pray this way?
They read their Bibles and they applied the truth to their circumstances.
They lived on the basis of revealed truth.
Are we praying boldly to one who hears us, loves us, and is able, or are we worrying in the presence of God?
They recognized who they were in relation to him.
They had to come to the realization that they weren't in charge either.
That was their problem during the storm. They thought Jesus was there to help them get across the lake.
They forgot that they were there to help him get across the lake (not that he needed them to).
If He is LORD, who are we? Servants, subjects. The problem is, we’re not charge. It’s not our boat.
They moved from consumers to servants (“Enable your servants…”)
Consumers vs servants = cruise ship vs battleship
It's not His job to make the voyage smooth. It's our job to do whatever He says.
The difference between a servant and a consumer. When things get hard for a consumer, they leave. When things get hard for a servant, they ask for more resource.
Consumers mill about
Servants have a mission.
They asked for what they need to accomplish his purposes.
When you see yourself as a servant, your requests become for the things you need to be about your master's business.
What did they ask for? Three things:
"Consider their threats." They don't deny or gloss over the circumstances. They look directly at them and invite God into them. They were honest. Honesty honors God.
What did they ask for? Boldness.
What would a consumer ask for? Well, first a consumer probably wouldn’t ask. They would just leave. A servant always directs themself toward the master.
But, hypothetically speaking, a consumer, if they asked, would ask for a way out.
Now, to be fair, there’s nothing wrong with asking for deliverance in the middle of suffering or asking big questions.
There are plenty of other places in the Bible where people do pray for deliverance, including Jesus.
But how does Jesus pray for deliverance? He prays willing to receive any answer.
They didn't ask for miraculous judgement or deliverance. They asked for more healings!
They received the answer to their prayers
Part of the problem with me-centered prayer is that it doesn't involve listening and receiving.
Have you ever used a two-way radio before? You know if you're always transmitting, you're not receiving.
We just keep mashing the button and don't listen for an answer.
Notice, when they prayed God-centered prayers, they positioned themselves to receive, and the answer was immediate. Now, I'm not saying that the answer is always going to be immediate, but I am saying that God delights in answering these kinds of prayers.
The result in this case was different than the outcome of the calming of the storm.
In that instance, Jesus calmed the storm because it was in his way and because he wanted them to know who was in the boat with them.
And that revelation of who was in the boat with them helped to change the way they approached the storms.
In this instance, he didn't calm the storm, but they just kept on rowing. An early church father named John Chrysostom famously said, "At the end of their prayer, the room was shaken but they were not."