Acts 4:23-31
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Okay, grab a Bible and go to Acts chapter 4. We're working our way through the book of Acts. If you grab one of the black Bibles that's in the row, it should be on page 1057. We're going to pick up where we left off last week, and I'd like to begin by showing you all a map this morning to bring something to mind, help us consider something. This is a map by Open Doors.
They produced this map, and it is of nations, it's the top 50 nations that are hostile to Christianity, where there's persecution of Christians in those nations, tribally or governmentally. The State Department of the U.S. has a religious freedom report, and the most recent one, they wrote about the Maldives. They wrote about North Korea. They have these different reports, and the Maldives is on this list. It's one of the places, if you'll remember, when we raised support in our last |giv| project for 10/40 Hope, that they were doing some work in Sri Lanka, and it's one of the things that they're praying over with the hope to launch from Sri Lanka, to reach people in Sri Lanka, to plant churches in Sri Lanka, but eventually try to get over to the Maldives.
But the Maldives, in the report, the State Department of Religious Freedom report, it says this, The Constitution designates Islam as the state religion. It requires citizens to be Muslim. The Constitution provides for limitations on rights and freedoms, and, quote, to protect and maintain the tenets of Islam. It does not specifically establish religious freedom, nor identify religion as a category in which discrimination is prohibited. The law states that both the government and the people must protect religious unity, and the propagation of any religion other than Islam is a criminal offense.
The penal code permits the administration of certain Sharia punishments, such as flogging, stoning, and the amputation of hands. That's in their governmental system. North Korea is on this map in the same religious freedom report. It says, North Korea, and it says, A UN Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in the DPRK, which is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which found that authorities almost completely denied the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and determined the government in many instances committed violations of human rights that constituted crimes against humanity. The government reportedly continued to execute, torture, arrest, and physically abuse individuals for their religious activities.
In Algeria, they have a law that says, Anyone who incites, constrains, or utilizes means of seduction, tending to convert a Muslim to another religion. So they have laws against that. If you're trying to do that, they can arrest you and do other things. This is a map of places where they are hostile to the gospel in different varying forms. The question I think we need to ask is, which ones of these countries should we just not share the gospel in?
Should Christians just not share the gospel in? Should we just not send missionaries to because of their level of hostility? How do we respond in places like this? We're going to read in this passage today, in Acts chapter 4, how the disciples respond, how the church responds to opposition to the proclamation of the gospel. And I think we're going to begin to help answer the question of, what do we do?
We culturally face some pressure to not share the gospel. We don't face a political pressure, and we don't have laws against sharing the gospel. We just face some societal pressure, some let's not do that kind of feelings. We have some discomfort. So what do we do in the face of, we're not supposed to share the gospel here.
It's frowned upon, it's disliked, or the threat increases and the hostility increases. How are we to respond? And we're going to see how they respond. So if you'll look with me at chapter 4, verse 23, we're going to pick up where we left off. It says,
When they were released.
— Acts 4:23 (ESV)
Okay, so they, it's John and Peter, they were released from prison. They were arrested overnight. It wasn't a long stay. They were arrested in the temple by the authorities that have that ability in the temple, the Sanhedrin. And then they were brought before the Sanhedrin, this council, and they were threatened.
They were told, don't speak anymore in the name of Jesus. That's what's just happened. They spent a night in jail. They went before the very council, ruling council that executed Jesus, that, that tried him, convicted him, and sent him to the Roman authorities to have him crucified. So they have been in front of people who are powerful and able to harm them.
They were threatened and they were released. And so when they were released, here's what they did. Here's how they respond to opposition.
They went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
— Acts 4:23 (ESV)
So they go tell what happened. And it says they went to their friends. And I think this is interesting, that they went to their friends. It tells us that detail. I think that means that it wasn't just the apostles.
They didn't just go back to the apostles because it would say the apostles. So it's got to be some, some set of people, subset of people that's either smaller than the apostles or just includes a different group of people. I think it's actually probably broader. That's why it says friends. They went back to Christians who would have been Jewish, Jewish Christians.
And, but they, there's 5,000 of them now. We just heard that the gospel has spread. So they didn't go back to the whole church. They don't know all of these people. They went back to the ones that they know.
And so the apostles would be some of the other leaders at the church at the time, be people that they were close with. And they explain what's going on. And so they talk to their friends. And it says, reported what, what happened in verse 24. It says, and when they heard it, that's their friends.
They lifted their voices together to God. So they, they pray. They go back to their friends. And then in response to what this opposition, they pray. And they said,
Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.
— Acts 4:24 (ESV)
Okay. That's a good start to a prayer. You might want to memorize that and start some of your prayers that way. They said, sovereign Lord, King of all things, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. That's a really helpful, orienting sentence for your mind.
Because what is not under his sovereignty? What is not under his purview? What is outside of his realm of authority? Nothing. When they go to begin to pray, they set their mind on who he is.
They know who they're talking to. They, they wrap their head around how big and how glorious and how wonderful he is. I was talking to Jorge Garcia, this past week, he was up here playing guitar a minute ago. and, he said he was at work and he got on the elevator with some, some random guy. He was also on the elevator. And the guy said to him, Hey man, you just making small talk.
You excited for football season? Jorge was like, no, no. He's like, you a Gamecock fan? And he's like, no, not really. Not a football person.
Yeah. I was like, okay. And they rode from there. And that was fine. That was the extent of the conversation.
Jorge walks over, gets off the elevator. They go in different directions. One of his coworkers go, dude, you were just on an elevator with Shane Beamer. How was it? Shane Beamer, head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Just, just like, Hey, you excited about football? And Jorge was like, no, don't care. Just meant nothing to him. Now, imagine for a second, I think Shane was just making small, talk. Imagine for a second that Shane just travels around Columbia and tries to find people to hand away season tickets to.
Well, Jorge failed miserably because Jorge didn't know who he was talking to. If he had, he might've responded differently. I know Jorge, he's a kind person. He would have pretended to be excited about football for Shane's sake. Not my thing, but I'm happy for you.
That sort of thing. When they went to pray. When they went to pray, they knew who they were talking to. They set their minds in the correct framework. Which if you understand the sovereignty of God and his control over all things, it settles us.
Do you know how, how safe you are? If this is true about who you're talking to, who you belong to. Do you know how much we can trust him? If this is how he rules. So that's what they begin.
They pray.
Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father, David, your servant said by the Holy Spirit.
— Acts 4:24–25 (ESV)
Okay. Verse 25. They're just praying, but they give us our theology. It's not the only place, but this is one of the places where it perfectly lines up with our understanding of what scripture is. This is our understanding of scripture.
They're just praying it in normal. This is how we understand scripture. It says, who who's the who? That's the sovereign Lord. Through the mouth of David by the Holy Spirit said, and then they're going to quote scripture.
So who said it? Well, David said it. How by the Spirit. So whose words is it? The Lord's.
That's how we understand the Bible. Peter says this in 2 Peter. He says,
No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
— 2 Peter 1:21 (ESV)
So the Spirit from God gives the word. So we're saying this is we'll quote and say this. David said, Isaiah says, okay. As I say it, Isaiah said, yes. How by the Spirit from God.
So whose words is it? Isaiah's or God's? Yes. It's God's through Isaiah. That's how we understand that.
So they're quoting scripture here. They're praying scripture back to God, which is a good way to pray. So not only are they praying, they got their Bibles open, or at least they know these passages and they pray this.
Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.
— Acts 4:25–26; Psalm 2:1–2 (ESV)
So that's Psalm 2. That's how we began our gathering this morning. Spencer read that as we began this morning, read Psalm 2. So the first Psalm talks about the goodness of the word and those who abide in the word. And the second Psalm in the psalm book, in the book of Psalms is this one, which specifically says, today I have begotten you.
Now
You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
— Psalm 2:7 (ESV)
And it talks about this kingly figure that's going to divide the world, rule over all the nations. The Psalm 2 is this proclamation of the gospel. It's this declaration of Christ. So they pray that back and they're basically going to say, this has happened. That's what they're praying.
So they say for truly, this is verse 27
In this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.
— Acts 4:27 (ESV)
So they're saying, okay, Jesus is the one who's in Psalm 2. You proclaim this prophetically. Jesus is the Psalm 2 king, the Psalm 2 son, the Psalm 2 anointed,
Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.
— Acts 4:27 (ESV)
So they say they've lived that out, that the nations have raged and plotted in vain against you and your anointed.
To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
— Acts 4:28 (ESV)
But because you told us they were going to do it, we know that you were at work in it. And in some ways what they're praying is that they're continuing that. They're doing it now to us. We're standing in the name of Jesus and they're still opposing us. That's kind of where this goes next.
But they're just saying, Lord, we know that you're sovereign over this. We know that you're big. We know that you're good. We know that you're at work in the middle of this. And we know that you're working out your plan.
And we know the hope of the gospel that's in Jesus, that he is the promised one. That's how they begin their prayer. And now they're going to make their requests. They're going to bring to God what's going on. So verse 29.
And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
— Acts 4:29–30 (ESV)
So they make three requests. They say, and now, Lord, and then they make three requests. Request number one. Look upon their threats. That's the first request.
Look upon their threats. And I very much appreciate how they pray this. And one of the reasons I appreciate it is because I think I would pray so differently in this situation. Because I would have so much more to say. They just say, look upon their threats.
And then they move on to the next thing. I'd be like, look upon their threats. And here's what I'm going to need you to do. And then I would have a lot of specific things I wanted them to do with the Sanhedrin. I got prayers for Annas.
I got prayers for Caiaphas. I got all these things I need you to get in here and do. They would, I would have some specifics. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think we can pray specifically.
But I think there's some beauty and some freedom here. Some humility here that I actually think can help us in our praying. If I was served papers and was being sued, I would read them. And then I would think, I'm going to need a lawyer. And then I would take those papers to a lawyer and I would hand them to them.
And then I would wait. Because I don't really know what I read when I read it. I got the gist. But I don't know all the things that are going on here. I wouldn't walk in and hand them to the lawyer and go, here's what I need you to do.
Because I wouldn't know what I needed the lawyer to do. I need the lawyer to know what to do. I've gotten a lot of MRIs on my knees. Like a lot. And they don't give me the pictures.
They've never just been like, here's your MRI stuff. I'd be like, neat. What's it mean? What's going on in there? I need someone to look at it.
I need someone who knows what they're doing to tell me. And I think so often we come to the Lord and we're like, hey, I know what to do. Listen to what I'm going to tell you to do. And there's some freedom to come to him and go, do you see this big problem? All right.
Next thing I need to pray about. Like they just, they're just like, we want you to look into it. We need you to, we need you to see it. Do you see what, do you hear what they said? Look at their threats.
You get in there, do what you want to do with it. And then they move to the next thing they're going to pray for. And there's some freedom. There's some joy there. There's some hope there.
And there's some humility there that God can step in and do whatever he wants on that level. And then here's what they actually asked for. They asked him to look into that. And then they say, second thing,
And grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.
— Acts 4:29 (ESV)
So they say, you look at the threats. We just need you to grant to us. We need you to give us the ability in the face of the threats to continue to proclaim boldly. We need you to empower us to continue to tell people about Jesus. That's what we need.
You look at the threats and then empower us to be faithful. That's the prayer. They know that they need him to even allow that to happen, but they're asking for their own faithfulness, for their own ability to move forward. They're saying, you grant us the ability to do this. And then their third thing they pray for.
While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.
— Acts 4:30 (ESV)
So they say, look into their threats. Give us the ability to pray with boldness. While you go to work and do only the things that you can do. You do the things that only you can do. Not only the things you can do, but do the things that only you can do.
So they had just had a healing and a sign. That's why they got arrested, because they had healed a guy who was paralyzed from birth. And that was one of the reasons why they weren't harmed more, because the Sanhedrin said, well, a notable sign has been done through them. We can't just go to beating them right now. We're going to have to wait.
And that's why they threatened them, but they let them go, because a sign had been done. And a sign means something happens to point you to something else. So the point of the sign wasn't just the healing. It was to point you to Jesus. That's why the crowd gathers, and he says, don't think this is something special about us.
Jesus is the one who is special. This was done in Jesus' name. Jesus is the one who heals. And they proclaim the hope of the gospel. They say this is about Jesus.
So this idea of signs and wonders that you'll see throughout the book of Acts, it's just moments where God does something miraculous in order to co-sign and to point to the gospel. So some of them are healings. Some of them are just miraculous things that happens. There's time where there's like an earthquake, and a prison opens up to release people, like that kind of stuff. An angel shows up and helps Peter get out of jail.
There's different things that happen that are signs and wonders and healings. And they're saying, you do that. You do as you see fit. You reach your hand out. You work in the name of Jesus to co-sign what's happening.
That's their prayer. Help us be bold. You look into their threats, and you go to work. So when we consider how are we to respond, we're going to see how God responds to this in a second. But when we consider how are we to respond in the face of opposition, difficulty, persecution, well, this is what they did.
I've got a sentence that I wrote. They went to their friends who prayed, in light of God's character, and the scriptures, and the gospel, for God's work, and their faithfulness. How do we respond to opposition? I'm going to be honest with you. I think that's a good way to respond to everything.
Not just persecution and opposition, but like all the stuff you have going on in your life, that's not bad at all. That's helpful. Marriage problems. Money problems. Work problems.
Kid problems. Anxiety problems. That's good. That's good. So you go to your friends.
Some of you are like, yeah. Let's pause for a second. You go to your friends who are going to pray with you and point you to the scriptures. I don't know if you're willing to admit this to yourself, but if you're honest, I think there are times where you choose which friends you're going to go to because you know some friends are going to talk to you about Jesus, make you pray with them, open the Bible, and you don't want to hear that right now, so do you go to your friend who's just going to gas you up and tell you you're right? That's not wise or helpful.
Also, don't be that kind of friend. That's our cultural offering for friendship right now. Your friends are the people who just back you up no matter what. Ride or die. How about a friend who says, maybe we shouldn't ride and die right now.
What if we prayed and calmed down? Hand me the keys. Get out of the car. Let's go inside. Like, you need some friends who are going to take you to the scriptures.
We've committed to community groups as a church family. This means go to your group. This means there's some people in your group who you can call, that you can connect with. You can have friends that used to be in your group. You can have friends that are in this church.
You can have friends that are in other churches. The quality of the friend, though, is that they're going to stop you at some point and say, I think we've talked enough. Let's pray. I think we've gone in circles enough. I think we've ranted enough.
He's like, I just need to vent. No, you need to pray. And they pray in light of the scriptures. They say, let's talk. Let's see what the Bible says about marriage.
Let's see what the Bible says about money. Let's see what the Bible says about stress. Let's see what the Bible says about anxiety. Let's pray that. Let's remind ourselves of the hope of the gospel.
Let's remind ourselves of the character and the sovereignty of God. Let's pray that. And then they pray about the problem. But don't miss. They pray for their ability to be faithful in it.
I think so often we pray. It is so easy to think. Work wouldn't be a problem if this guy would stop blank. My marriage wouldn't be a problem if my spouse would just blank. My kids wouldn't be a problem if they would stop it.
And we just pray about the circumstances. We just, you know, care nights can devolve at times into just talking about the circumstances. This is what we're trying to do when we have care nights. It's like if we're talking about things, we actually need to stop. We need to pray.
We need to pray for our own faithfulness in it. Do you realize you're actively a part of all the situations you're in? And you can make them better by being faithful in them. So a lot of your prayers need to be, Lord, help me to be the husband I'm supposed to be in the middle of this situation. Not just fix her prayers, but help me to do what I'm supposed to.
Help me to handle my finances right, well. Help me to set my eyes correctly on this. Help me to focus here. Grant to me to behave the way I'm supposed to, to trust you the way I'm supposed to, so I can begin to help us dig out of this hole. Help me to be a good worker, a good boss.
Grant to me the ability to do that. But they're not praying about any situation. They're specifically praying about opposition. They're specifically praying about difficulty. Verse 31 tells us how God responds.
And when they had prayed, so it's in response to prayer, and when they had prayed,
The place in which they were gathered together was shaken.
— Acts 4:31 (ESV)
Add that to your signs and wonders category. Local earthquake.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
— Acts 4:31 (ESV)
I love this. Because they say, Lord, you look into their threats. You help us to be bold. Grant to us to be bold while you go to work in signs and wonders. And God immediately goes, yes.
He shakes the place, fills them with the Spirit, and they go out and do it. He answers that immediately. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes to that prayer.
It's wonderful. I want to make a quick note on the concept of being filled with the Spirit. Because, if you've been paying attention, this is the third time in the book of Acts that Peter will have been filled with the Spirit. Filled at Pentecost. Filled earlier in this chapter when he was speaking to the Sanhedrin.
Filled again. I want us to have a little bit of a category for that. Because it's not like the Spirit leaves and returns. That when you're sealed by the Holy Spirit, when you become a believer, when you have placed your faith in Jesus, the Spirit fills you and you are, you belong to the Lord. The Spirit is at work in you.
He indwells you. This idea of filling is in some ways like an empowering might be a way to think about it. That the Spirit goes to work. I actually think that if we'll consider how we use this with other things, it can help us think about it. So we'll say phrases like, filled with remorse, he wrote a letter to his grandmother.
Filled with rage, he kicked the door down. And assaulted everyone. That filling, filled with remorse, filled with rage, filled with sorrow, is telling us what is the active agent at work in the scenario. What's the animating force? Now, don't think that the Holy Spirit is like an emotion or a feeling.
But do understand that what it's saying is that the Spirit is the animating force. The Spirit goes to work to animate what's happening here. So that you don't want to be filled with rage or wine when you go make choices. You want to be filled with the Spirit so that the Spirit is the animating force here. The Spirit is at work to lead this thing to happen.
And so the Spirit swells or surges or goes to work in them to accomplish God's will. That's this idea here. And it is something that God chooses to do. So I want us to think for a second. How ought we to pray when it comes to opposition and persecution?
Well, I want to show you all the chart I made with the help of ChatGPT. There's a threat level of opposition. And then there's a boldness level needed to meet it. They pray, Lord, you look to the threat but here's what we need from you. We need you to give us boldness to meet it.
We need boldness that matches the threat, exceeds the threat. The more of a threat, the more boldness needed. Your friend who's been your friend for 20 years, who you're very close with, comes to you and says, hey, I've been really considering Christianity and I know you've talked to me a decent amount about it. I know you're a Christian and I've been reading the Gospel of John. Can you help me understand this thing?
Well, you have an opportunity to articulate the Gospel. But the threat level is real low. It's wonderful. You should share the Gospel. But it's not a real threatening situation.
You get a phone call from a friend who's bawling their eyes out because something horrific has happened in their life. And they called you. Well, you have an opportunity to share the Gospel. Threat level's increased a little bit. The difficulty level, the discomfort level.
You're at work. And someone says, you're not a Christian, are you? After some comment you made. Well, you have an opportunity to share the Gospel. They actually just requested it.
Threat level's a little higher. I showed a map earlier. Countrywide threat levels. How are we supposed to respond? What's the threat level where we as Christians say, oh, that threat level's too high?
Difficulty level's too high. Discomfort level's too high. What's the one that we're supposed to say that? And I would offer to you that there isn't one. We're just supposed to always bring them to the Lord and say, grant me boldness to match it.
And I'm going to be honest with you. I think if we were describing our threat level situation to global Christians, some of those conversations would be very confusing for them to comprehend. You're like, yeah, I can't really share the Gospel at work. What do you mean you can't? Well, I mean, there's policies against it.
Oh, the police, yes. They will arrest you. No, not police. Policy, it's different. You can like get written up.
Does that involve ropes? No. Like you might have to go to HR. Is that like a tribunal council or something? It's more like a lady in a pantsuit.
What happens? Is that, do they, she beat you? No, she didn't beat me. I could get fired. Oh, they burned you.
No. No. Our threat level's really low. I think the reason we don't share the Gospel is because we don't ask for boldness. I think most of our praying is actually just trying to clear the threats.
Any of them. Any amount of discomfort. I was playing a game with my three-year-old at one point. He's wearing a helmet. He's got a shield.
He's got a sword. I'm the king. He comes to me. How the game worked: I would give him quests for the kingdom. I was the king and then I was also whatever the quest was.
So he came to me at one point and I said, I'm so glad you're here. The kingdom! Which also, it's also, look, if you have children and you don't go out of your way to do weird voices and play silly games with them, you're missing out. They're there for it and the amount that they can't, like it's so much fun. You've just, you're doing it wrong if you don't do some of this.
But anyway, it's like, you must go kill Mor’du. That's what I told him. Now, he had been watching the movie Brave a lot and Mor’du is a very scary bear in that movie. So I told him that's who he is. And I was fully aware I'm about to have to be a bear who's beaten with this stick.
That's how the game works. Mor’du's not his mom. It's me. I have to go in the other room, be a bear, get attacked with a sword. So I said he had to go fight Mor’du.
And he went, is that a bear? And I said, yes. And he went, no, I don't fight bears. Maybe like, maybe like a duck, like a mean duck. It's hard for the king to explain that we're not overrun with mean ducks, man.
You gotta, you gotta meet the challenge here. But I, what he wanted was it set to his skill level. And I think that's how we go about sharing the gospel. I think what we want is God to set the threat level to us so that we only ever meet the things we're already capable of meeting, maybe. So that we're excused based off of ourselves to not meet other challenges.
It puts us in this position where we don't actually ever need to be filled with the Spirit. We don't ever need to trust God. We don't ever need to submit to him. We just wait for challenges that, you know, are on the mean duck level. Because we don't ask for boldness.
And we don't expect to be filled with the Spirit. And we need to flip this on its head. We consistently are praying, Lord, open the door, make this path clear, make it obvious, make it plain, give me the opportunity or whatever. And then I think sometimes we still skip those. And we need to start saying, you need to start praying over your work.
You need to start praying over your neighborhood. You need to start praying over your gym. And you need to say, Lord, give me boldness to match whatever the threat level is. Some of us need to get that map out because we need Christians who get that map out and we say, Lord, I know that country's red. So grant to your church the boldness to match the threat.
Because what they pray back to him is Psalm 2. And Psalm 2 says, we read it, kiss the son, serve him with gladness for his anger is quickly kindled and blessed are all those who take refuge in him. Do you understand that the way that the world works is Jesus is king and you will receive his wrath or you will take refuge in him. Those are the only two options. That's the only thing that matters.
That's the only message that matters. And it doesn't matter that people don't want to hear it. Of course they don't want to hear it. They've gathered to rage against the Lord and his anointed but some of them will be saved and regardless of the threat level the Spirit can fill us with boldness and the Lord delights to answer that prayer. They say, Lord, you look to the threat, grant us boldness.
He shook the place, gave them the Spirit and they left to proclaim with boldness. Because he will empower us to meet the level of the threat, the level of the persecution, the level of the discomfort. And right now, most of us are in level, what, one and a half, two level scenarios? And we absolutely need to be begging the Lord that we would be filled with the Spirit to proclaim with boldness so that our friends and neighbors and co-workers might know. And if you get fired, which I will tell you is unlikely, you have to do a whole lot to get fired on a religious basis.
It's a protected status in the U.S. You have the ability to share the gospel at work. You can't hand out pamphlets. You can't be a boss that makes everybody pray or you fire people. You'll get in trouble for that.
But you can absolutely talk to people about your faith at work. But if you get fired, rejoice on that day because he saw you worthy to suffer persecution for the sake of the name. But may we be people who begin to ask the Lord that we would be filled with his Spirit to proclaim a message that eternally matters with a boldness that exceeds the level of the threat because that's what they do and that's the prayer that he answers for the sake of his name. And let's ask him to work miraculously in it. We're going to take a moment to pray and in a moment we're going to take communion.
What I want us to do before we pray, before we take communion, is pray in repentance, pray however you need to deal with the Lord, but I want you to ask the Lord for boldness in the circumstances that you find yourself in. Let's pray. Lord God, we're thankful that our hope is in the gospel that we get to take refuge in Christ. Lord, if we know this message, if we know this hope, if we know the eternal reality, Lord, grant to us as your servants to proclaim the gospel with boldness, to be empowered by your Spirit, to speak in a way that is understood, that is clear, and to trust you with those results, to trust you with the miraculous work of salvation, to trust you with kingship, to trust you with sovereignty, to trust you, with the outcomes of persecution and difficulty, but may we be people who match the level of threat, exceed the level of threat with boldness. And may that be granted to your global church, that those who right now are in fear of getting arrested, may they be filled with the Spirit to proclaim with all boldness.
May you shake things up. May you work in a mighty and powerful way to send people to places that are hard to go to so that people might hear and believe. Help us to be faithful where we are. Grant to us faithfulness. Be empowering us in your Spirit.
We lay all this before you and we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. As the band comes back up, we're going to prepare our hearts for communion, which is where we celebrate that Jesus died to save sinners. If you belong to Jesus, your hope is in the work of Christ.
It is not in you. So this is a meal where we as Christians remember his body was broken, his blood was shed, we've been brought into a new covenant, we have a hope accomplished through him, not accomplished through us, so that we repent and that we need him to have died for us. It's one of the reasons that we rehearse this. It's one of the reasons that it's real. It's one of the reasons that as I'm walking at times holding the bread and the juice is dripping into my hand, I remember that he really shed his blood, that his body was really broken and that my hope is really in that and not in me.
So if you've placed your faith in Jesus, you are welcome to take communion. If you are not a Christian, we would ask you to refrain from this, but we would offer to you that you can trust in Jesus because he is the king and blessed are those who take refuge in him. When you're ready, take communion.