Praying in Faith | Acts 5:12-42

Good morning, Watermark. How are we doing today? All right. Hey, good to see you. Welcome to church. I'm glad you made it. If this is your first time ever with us on a Sunday, thanks for trusting us with your Sunday morning. We want to be a place where you can take either your first or your next step with Jesus Christ.

We're going to jump into studying the Word of God right now, so I just want to give you an opportunity to prepare your heart not to hear from me but to hear from God. If God wants to speak to you this morning, do you want to hear it? I just want to give you a chance to talk to him and to pray. Would you just say, "God, would you speak to me this morning?" Then, would you pray for the people around you and just ask God to speak to them as well? Then, would you pray for me and ask God to speak through me to you?

Lord, we don't want to take it for granted that we could gather together this morning freely, and we don't have to do it in secret. We can come together, we can turn the volume up, we can sing, and we can hear from you. We can study the Word of God together. I'm just asking and praying right now, Lord, that there would be nothing routine about this Sunday, that no one would just go through the motions of sitting and leaving but we would truly meet with you and that you would speak to our hearts, that you would do something in our lives during this time that ripples through the rest of the week.

So, we just give it to you. We give you our minds. Lord, we pray against any distraction. We give you our hearts. We pray, God, that you would speak in a way that we wouldn't just capture things in our minds but it would impact our hearts in a way that would lead to life change. We love you, God. Meet with us now. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I'm half-Palestinian, and my dad is the youngest of 10 kids. Those 10 kids have all had kids, and then those kids have had kids, so on my dad's side of the family, I have over 230 relatives. I have over 30 cousins. So, when we get together, we rally strong, people. If you end up at an Ateek family reunion, you will be like, "This is no joke." We love to get together. We truly do.

When the Ateek family gets together for a reunion, there are certain things that are just nonnegotiables. There are things that are true of every time we get together. The first is that we're genuinely excited to see each other. There's no obligation to it. There's none of the, like, "Okay. I've got to gear up. I'm about to walk into a bunch of drama." No. There's just genuine excitement, like, "I can't wait to see my family." So, that's the first nonnegotiable.

The second is that, at some point, we're going to eat some really good Middle Eastern food. I don't know what you think you've eaten, but you haven't eaten it. Okay? When we get together, we eat some really good food. My aunts know how to cook. The third thing is that, at some point, there's going to be impromptu dancing and singing. I have a cousin who travels with a hand drum. He just travels with it.

I don't know where he keeps it. I don't know where he hides it, because I can look at him, and he's not holding it. It's nowhere in sight. Then in a moment in time, he has the drum and there's a beat. You don't see it happening until you hear it happening. He'll lay down a beat, and you're going to find yourself carried along, where everyone is in a circle and we're just dancing together. That's the way the Ateek family reunion goes. It's just what happens.

I've said this before, but at our wedding… My sister-in-law was in high school at the time. She brought some of her high school friends. Because of the way the Ateek family gets together and parties, her friends left saying, "I want to marry an Egyptian." I'm not Egyptian, so I hope that worked out for them. But family reunions among the Ateek family are a wonderful thing.

I tell you that because when we get together on Sundays, this is a family reunion. That's what this is. As there are nonnegotiables for the Ateek family when we get together, there are nonnegotiables for us. There are things that should be true. My hope is that our family reunions on Sundays look and feel a little bit like an Ateek family reunion.

I hope there is a genuine excitement when we get together. I can just picture some of you driving down Central or down Coit, like, "I just can't wait to get there." Some of you are like, "That was not my reality this morning." Well, that can change. We've been saved into a family. We haven't just been saved from sin. Christ has saved us into a family. You are my brother in Christ. You are my sister in Christ. It's so good to be with you this morning because you're my family. So, I hope there's an excitement.

Secondly, we get to eat good food. What do I mean by that? Well, Jesus Christ declares himself to be the Bread of Life, so when we come here, we get to feast upon the wonderful realities of Jesus Christ, who is the one and only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of our souls. You don't have to sit and listen to my opinions. Jesus says, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." We have in our possession the Word of God. So, we get to eat good food today because we know Christ.

I don't know about the dancing part, but we at least get to sing together, which is an awesome thing. There's one more thing I hope is true for us when we get together. It's on the walls outside in the Town Center. We want to be a praying church. We don't want to just be a church that prays sometimes. We don't want to just view prayer as a transition, the thing you do right before the message, the thing you do to let everyone know the sermon is now over. Prayer isn't a transition; it's the primary pathway to intimacy with God, and we get to do it together.

So, this morning is a family reunion. We get to be together. We get to sing together. We get to eat together. We get to pray together. This morning is going to flow a little bit differently than normal in the sense that we're about to jump into the Word of God, but the way things are going to go is that we're going to eat for a little bit, studying the Word of God, and then we're just going to pause and pray together.

What I mean by that is not this stale, awkward, silent moment in the service for 30 seconds where you just sit by yourself. I'm talking about us praying with our family members. Like, turning to each other, turning to the people you came with, or meeting some people around you, and us going to God together.

Now, if you're here this morning and you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that might make you feel uncomfortable, so I just want to say all pressure is off. You're more than welcome to sit there by yourself, but I want to encourage you to even lean in with a group of people and say, "Look. I just want to listen this morning. I just want to observe." That's totally okay. But we're going to turn and pray together. We're going to do that hopefully three different times this morning. I'm excited about where we're going.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to Acts, chapter 5. Acts, chapter 5, is where we're going to be, and it's going to guide us in the way we're going to pray. First, I'll tell you what we're going to pray for, then I'll show you from the Word of God why we're going to pray for that, and then we'll actually pray for it.

The first thing we're going to pray for… And I'm going to tell you from now, because for some of you, it might take some courage for you to engage with this. We're going to pray for physical healing for those who are sick or in need of physical healing. In a little bit, I'm even going to ask if you're here today and you want prayer for physical healing. I'm even going to ask you to stand in that moment. So, this is just an opportunity for you to prepare yourself for that moment if you would like that. Let me show you why we're going to pause and pray for miraculous physical healing among members of our church. Acts 5:12-16:

"Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed."

When we look at what's happening in the first century, it is this spectacular season in the life of the church where there are signs and wonders taking place, and the text tells us what those signs and wonders are. Miracles are happening at the hands of the apostles in the form of the Holy Spirit giving them power and bringing healing for those who are sick or afflicted by unclean spirits.

My question is…What do we do with this? Is there anything for us today to learn from the first-century church? I would say, "Absolutely." That's why, in a moment, we're going to pray for physical healing. But let me just share this with you. When we see what we're seeing in Acts, chapter 5, where there are signs and wonders taking place, let's start with this understanding: this is descriptive of a unique period of time in history.

Here's what I mean by that. The apostles are serving in a unique role, and they are empowered in a unique way as eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection. God gives them the responsibility of establishing the church and the church's doctrine, and the signs and wonders they performed gave them credibility and validated their message that Christ had raised from the dead. Their signs and wonders fueled the growth of the church as it was getting off the ground. So, it is descriptive of a unique time in history.

That's why, after the service, you're not going to find me out by the pond finding the sun and making sure I have a nice shadow so that as you walk to the parking garage, if you have any sickness, you can just walk right through my shadow, and I've got you taken care of. I'm not going to start carrying around a handkerchief because in Acts 19 you see people getting healed just by touching Paul's handkerchief. This is descriptive of a unique period of time.

At the same time, what we have to be clear on is the book of Acts is chronicling the birth of the church, and we belong to the same church. We are filled with the same Spirit, we share the same salvation, and we leave here on the same mission that was true of the first-century church. So, it's good for us to understand that there are values and principles and patterns established in the book of Acts that are then affirmed in the New Testament Epistles that should make those values and principles we see in Acts prescriptive for the church today.

So, should we still expect to see miraculous physical healing by the power of the Holy Spirit in the church today? To that I would say, "Of course." If there's any question in your mind, any skepticism, all you have to do is look at James, chapter 5. Listen to what James says in James 5:13-18.

"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit."

Let's just be clear. James is talking about miraculous physical healing from physical issues, and the call to the church is to pray. He says, "Let them call for the elders and let the elders pray." But this isn't just prescriptive, like the only way to experience healing is if the elders pray for you. No. The elders are to serve as godly examples of how to pray. But did you see verse 16? It says, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed." God empowers all of us to pray for one another.

Christ's kingdom breaks through into the physical realm at different times and brings physical healing. The picture here in James…let's just be clear…is people gathering around the bed of someone who is sick, and it says, "The Lord will raise him up." That's not talking about when he dies; that is talking about this side of heaven. It's not the prayer that heals. It's not the people who heal. It is the Lord through the people who raises up the sick.

I want to make sure you see. James gives an example of Elijah. What did Elijah do? Elijah prayed for a miracle. "I pray that it doesn't rain." And what did God do? He answered miraculously. It didn't rain for three years and six months. What is James teaching us? He is teaching us that God still performs works of miraculous healing in the church, and it's accomplished by the faith-filled prayers of his people.

That's why, in just a moment, we're going to pray together for physical healing in our church, because that's what healthy families do. This is a family reunion. If you're a part of this family… Look. If someone is sick or hurting in your family, it's good to show care to them. So, if you're a part of this family and you're sick or hurting, we can lean in together and beg God on your behalf. Before we do that, let me just ground us theologically in case anyone here is like, "I don't know about this, and I don't know what to think."

Here's the first thing. This is really important, because I think some people have incorrect theology when it comes to suffering and healing. Here's the first thing: God's answer to Christians' prayers for the healing of other Christians is always "Yes." God's answer is always "Yes" when Christians pray for healing for other Christians, but here's what you need to understand: sometimes God heals immediately, sometimes God heals gradually, and sometimes God heals permanently. Let me unpack those.

Sometimes God's answer is "Yes and immediately." Meaning, God chooses to intervene in a miraculous way that no one else can get the credit for. Doctors can't explain it. God, in his kindness, by the beautiful, healing, miraculous name of Jesus, heals someone immediately and miraculously.

There are other times where God's answer is "Yes," and it's healing gradually, where God uses modern medicine, and he brings about healing gradually into the life of someone struggling. But let's be clear. God's immediate healing and gradual healing are both temporary healings, because this side of heaven, everyone dies. I don't know if that's new news to you. Everyone dies at some point.

For some people, God's answer is "Yes," but it's permanently. It's permanent healing, which means God takes them home. He doesn't heal them this side of the grave; he heals them on the other side. God's answer to our prayers for healing for the saints is always "Yes," but sometimes he heals immediately, sometimes gradually, and sometimes permanently.

The second truth we need to understand is God's permanent healing brings sadness and heartache and even frustration for those who lose a loved one. In our frustration, we have to stay grounded. Here's what I mean by that. Our frustration is not in God telling us "No" to healing; our frustration is in God telling us "No" to healing immediately or gradually. God's answer to our prayer for healing is "Yes." If you've lost a loved one, they are healed.

The third truth I would tell you is God's Word calls us to pray in faith for him to work a miracle. To pray in faith. I think so many of us pray in doubt. We don't pray in faith; we pray in doubt. If someone knows, I would love for them to come and tell me, but I don't know where we got the model for prayer from where, when we're praying for healing, we're like, "God, we know you can. We pray that you would heal them if it's your will, but if it's not your will…" Where did that model come from?

When you look in the Scriptures, the faith that Jesus celebrates… Go read the gospel of Luke. Do you know the faith that Christ celebrates? It's the faith that looks like a child. How many of you have kids who come up to you who are like, "Mom or Dad, I'd really like sugar right now if it's your will. If it's not your will, I'm going to just ask you to help me be okay with it, that you would help me have peace, if it's your will. But if it is your will to give me sugar, then great, and I ask for it. If it's not, help me to be okay with that."

No. The faith that Christ celebrates… He points us to children in the Gospels. He's like, "They get it." What do kids do? "Please, please let me have more sugar! Please let me have dessert! Would you please give me some?" Go read the gospel of Luke. People come to Jesus. "Please come and heal my child. Please come and heal my servant. You don't even have to come. Just say the word. You have that kind of authority. Would you please do it?" Someone has been bleeding for 12 years. "If I just touch a thread, it might bring healing."

God wants us to pray in faith. What does it mean to pray in faith? It means we pound on the door of heaven until God answers, either immediately, gradually, or permanently. We pound on the door of heaven. I get it if you're like, "I did that. I did that, and he didn't answer." No, he did answer. We pound on the door of heaven because God is glorified, and then he has the freedom to answer however he wants. Our responsibility is to pray in faith.

So, I want to give us an opportunity to do that right now. This is that moment. If you're here, and you want prayer for physical healing… And let me give you some guidance on that. Here's what I'd say. If it's stealing your joy, then I want to invite you to stand right now, to stand and give us the opportunity to know that you would like prayer, at least in this moment. I'll just give you a moment to think about it and decide if you want to stand. If you don't, that's okay.

If you look around, there are different people standing right now. If you're by one of these people who is standing, I want to invite you to stand up around them. If you're one of those people who stood up asking for prayer for healing, if you feel comfortable to give… If it's private and personal, that's okay. You can just say, "Just ask God for healing." If you feel comfortable giving a little information, you can do that as well.

In just a moment, the people who are surrounding these people… I want to invite you to pray out loud so they can hear you praying for them. If you're not standing by one of those people, here's what I want you to do. I want to encourage you to pray for the people who are standing. Pray for people in our body.

This is a fitting time for us to be praying. This feels like we're in a season. The stories I'm hearing of deep pain, struggle, sickness, illness, disease… The stories feel like they're stacking up. So, I would encourage you, if you're sitting, to pray for those battling cancer, battling ALS, battling chronic pain right now. Would you pray for them?

Then, I just want to talk to the people who are sitting at home or in a hospital room right now, and you physically can't be here because of what is going on in your life. I want you to know that we see you, we care about you, and we're praying for you as well. So, if you're sitting there, you can pray for the people, and maybe you can even respond right now and let the people sitting in hospital rooms right now, watching, know that you're here and are praying on their behalf.

This is a time… Don't caveat your prayers. This isn't going to horse races and betting on all of the horses so you make sure you win. No. This is "God, we are asking you to heal, and we're asking you to heal immediately, to do something powerful and miraculous." So go ahead. Spend some time praying.

Lord, would you hear the prayers of your people? Lord, we pray in the beautiful, wonderful, powerful, miraculous, healing name of Jesus. We are asking you to heal, to bring physical healing now. We're asking for miraculous healing in the lives of people in our church who are battling chronic pain, cancer, ALS…all different forms of diseases.

Lord, you know. Thankfully, you know every single person in our church who is battling sickness that doctors can't diagnose. Lord, I am asking you. Would you do it? Lord, we believe you can. We believe and we acknowledge that you can. We ask that you would. Lord, we trust you. We beg you, God. We are begging you for healing today. In Jesus' name, amen.

The second thing we're going to pray for is salvation. Look back at verses 12-14. "Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women…"

For years, I've loved those three words more than ever. Those three words have actually driven my prayers at different points over several years now. The reason I find those words so meaningful is because of where they land in the book of Acts. If you think about it, in Acts, chapter 2, Peter gives his first sermon, and 3,000 people trust Christ. Then it says, at the end of Acts 2, that the Lord is adding to their midst daily.

You get this sense… Like, one sermon, 3,000 people trust Christ… That's unbeatable. You get this sense that people are coming to Christ every day. That feels unique. Yet, after all of that, Luke says, "And more than ever…" It's like it's only gathering steam. The gospel is continuing to win more and more and more, more than ever. There's great horsepower right now behind the gospel, and people are trusting Christ.

Can you just put yourself there? Can you imagine being a part of the first-century church where every single day you're like, "Yeah, he trusted Christ yesterday. She came to faith. That's a crazy story. Remind me to tell you about that later. He trusted Christ." Every day, they're just like, "Man, we have 20 more people. Thirty more people trusted Christ. They're outside getting baptized right now."

Can you imagine being a part of that, being part of a church where, every single day, the dead are being raised to life? People every day are realizing, "Oh, my rebellion against God is kind of not working for me. I have everything the world says I need to be satisfied, yet I still feel empty. What's up with that?"

Every single day, people are realizing, "Everything in life… The satisfaction I long for is only found in the person of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ can satisfy me. Only Jesus Christ can forgive me of all of my sins. Only Jesus Christ can make me right with God. Only Jesus Christ can fill me with joy and hope and confidence that I will be with God forever." Can you imagine being a part of a church like that? I want to pray that that would be the case.

I don't know if you noticed it, but right over the entrance, inside of the Town Center…look at it on your way out…the "Jesus is Lord" board has been installed. I told you all about it at the end of last year. It's a sign made up of 169 light bulbs. Anytime someone puts their trust in Jesus Christ at Watermark, that is just a physical representation that someone came here walking in darkness and is leaving filled with the light of Jesus Christ.

If you go and look at it on your way out, there's one light bulb right now in the "Jesus is Lord" board. It's because almost two weeks ago, a high school student at Shoreline, on a Wednesday night, knelt down and prayed to receive Christ. So, that's that light bulb. That's what that is. We don't put that up there as an incentive. Don't trust in Christ and be like, "I just want to put a light bulb in that wall." That's not the point of it.

But we do want some way of just reminding ourselves God is working in our midst. How great would it be if every few weeks we're having to start over, if over the next few weeks, 169 people come to Christ, so we have to start over for the next 169? I just want to ask you… Who in your life right now is living in darkness? Who do you long to see filled with the light of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Look. Maybe you're here this morning, and you're still walking in darkness. What do I mean by that? I mean, you've heard about Jesus, maybe you know some things about Jesus, but you've never received Jesus. You've never come to a place where you've said, "Jesus Christ, I'm begging you to be my Savior. I'm begging you to be my King. I need your death on the cross to count as my death on the cross. I need your resurrection to be the thing that makes me new, that forgives me and makes me right with God."

If that's you, today can be the day you walk in here in darkness and leave filled with the light of Jesus Christ. So, let me just pray really quickly. If that is you, I just want to invite you right now to say, "Jesus Christ, would you come into my life this morning?" Just say, "Thank you, Jesus, that you died for me. Thank you that you rose from the dead for me. Would you come into my life? Would you forgive me of all of my sins and lead me in a new life with you as my Savior and King? Amen."

Here's what I want to invite you to do now. You can circle back up again. We're just praying for salvation. Easter is coming up. I just want you to think about the people in your neighborhoods. Think about the people in your workplace. As we look toward celebrating Christ's resurrection, let's beg God that, by Easter, there would be many people who have been raised to newness of life with Christ.

Just think about what's happening in the war in Iran right now. This is a moment where we should pray for the salvation of people in Iran, for people in Israel, for people in our country. This is a moment where, in the midst of war… There's so much going on and so many different things we need to continue to pray for regarding what's going on in the war, but this is a moment where we should be begging God for salvation. So, I just want to invite you to turn to the people around you and take specific names to him, asking him to save. Take a few minutes and pray together.

Lord, we pray that you would save many. Lord, I pray that we would see that "Jesus is Lord" board fill up, not because we want to see a board full, because light bulbs are just light bulbs, but we are asking and praying that the light of Jesus Christ would shine into the dark places of our neighborhoods and workplaces and gyms and kids' sports teams and apartments. Lord, would you just do it?

I pray, God, that you would hear all of the names that were just prayed for, and we're asking you to save many, that those who are dead would come to life spiritually. We acknowledge that only you can save, but I pray that you would use us in the midst of it. In Jesus' name, amen.

The last thing we're going to pray for is bold living. My hope is that we, as a family, would leave here today with an urgency and excitement. Like, something would spill out from this week that would ripple forth and we would feel full of courage to go and share. So, look with me. I'm going to pick it up in verse 27.

If we had more time, this would be a fun story to read together. Just to summarize it for you, the apostles get put in prison. This is the first time we see all of them get imprisoned. It's not just Peter and John, which we saw in chapter 4, but it's now all of them, which is just showing this is the norm for Christianity. Persecution comes for Christians.

They get arrested. An angel breaks them out of prison. Luke thinks it's sufficient to just use two verses to tell us about that. I'm like, "A little more detail would have been nice." It's just amazing, because the Sanhedrin all went to bed like, "Finally! No more talking about Jesus in the temple." Then they wake up, and someone comes in like, "Yeah, I don't know if you want to hear this, but the apostles are in the temple preaching about Jesus."

So, they bring the apostles. They put them before them. We pick it up in verse 27. "And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, 'We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.' But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men.'" That's a good place to be.

I love this, because they're like, "We told you not to talk in this name," and they're like, "Oh, you don't want us talking about God?" Verse 30: "The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree." "Are you talking about that God, that Jesus?" "God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." "That Jesus?" "And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."

I love this. This is so great. This is just straight boldness. This is where life and joy and freedom are found. It's in obeying God. I just want to invite everyone to say the words the apostles said. Let's all say it out loud together. "We must obey God rather than men." You're like, "I don't want to say that." Let's just say it. Say it out loud. "We must obey God rather than men." This is why the underground church in Iran is the fastest-growing church in the world. Why? Because no government, no authority, can arrest the gospel. You have Christians who must obey God and not man.

Let me just say this. This is just to ground us. I'm so thankful for the religious freedom we have in the United States. The fact we can gather publicly today and use a PA system and turn the volume up… Some of you are like, "It's too loud." Well, at least we have volume. Be grateful for it. We can sit with our Bibles open in coffee shops. Many of you have prayer gatherings in your workplace.

But let me just say this. If a day ever comes when the government takes away our religious freedom…let's be clear…the gospel can't be arrested. No government, no authority, can stop God. In fact, it seems like God does his most powerful work in the most hostile places while many Christians in the free world sit in complacency. Look at how the story continues. Verse 33:

"When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, 'Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!'"

Just to make sure everyone understands what's happening, Gamaliel's message is basically like, "Just wait and see if Christianity is a fad." Like, just see if it's the equivalent of Beanie Babies in the 90s or a Livestrong yellow bracelet in the early 2000s or a fidget spinner. "Just wait and see if this is the latest fad."

Two thousand years later, we are sitting in the reality that the gospel has only been increasing in momentum and impact. We are a testimony to Acts, chapter 5, that this is a work of God, not of man. Look at how it finishes. "So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them…" That's the first time there is physical violence toward Christians post-resurrection.

"…they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus."

Do you see it? Joy and confidence are the result of persecution. So, I just want to give you one more opportunity to pray together for a moment. Here's what I want to invite you to pray for. Pray for the spread of the gospel in places where Christians are persecuted most. We're going to talk about the persecuted church in just a bit in the book of Acts. Not today. Not in a bit today, but it's coming in the series. Don't freak out.

I love the wording. It said, "We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching." Would you pray that we would boldly fill Dallas with the gospel, that we would leave here and God would use us to fill Dallas? Just take a couple of minutes to pray. Pray boldness over each other. Pray it for one another. Pray boldness. Pray against the fear of man. Pray against a need for approval. Pray against people-pleasing and pray boldness for one another.

Lord, would you hear the prayers of your people for boldness? Lord, would you press out any fear of man, any people-pleasing? Would you just press it out of us like an olive in a press? Would you strengthen us and empower us and use us this week mightily, boldly? Lord, would you strengthen the church in Iran right now, for the followers of Jesus there who are living in the midst of unbelievable times? Would you use them boldly, God? Lord, for countries all over the world where it is illegal, where you can be tortured or killed for believing in Jesus, I pray strength and boldness for the followers of Jesus. We love you, God. Amen.