Church: Acts 4:23-31
We want to become a praying church. A people who allows prayer to be the power of what we do together, who pray Scripture-fed and Spirit-led prayers, who seek intimacy with God that leads to fulfillment of his purposes in us, through us, and around us. We want to seek his face, cultivate his presence, and position ourselves to meet with him. To that end, we’re looking at biblical prayers from all across the Storyline of Scripture. Each week we’ll look at the context (understand where we are in the story and how that shapes the pray-er and his/her prayer), the content (what is emphasized, requested, described, etc.) of the prayer, and the connections (how we can or should use each prayer as a model for our own engagement with God). We’ll practice praying together each week, using the prayer as a model. This week we look at a prayer for the Church in Acts.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Read Acts 4:23-31
As the Church and as a community, why is it so important to engage God as, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them […]” when we pray?
What is your first response to opposition and trials in your life? Is your response evidence that your hope is in Jesus and his finished work, or that your hope is in something else?
What would mark your life if Jesus is sovereignly on the throne in the midst of trouble? How would others experience you during those times?
As a community this week, make your needs known to one another, and then together spend time praying for boldness to speak the God’s word, for God to stretch out his hand and heal, for signs and wonders to be performed in Jesus’s name, and for the Holy Spirit to refresh and fill you as a people.
August 27, 2023 - Matt Beumer