New Testament Prayer — Acts 1-2

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. It is a privilege to be here and to stand before you again and to open god's word and I really appreciate the opportunity to do this. Roger and I were going back and forth about what I was going to speak about. And we we had a couple of options and the part in Ephesians five about husbands and wives was brought up.

0:27 And I said, I'll leave that to someone more mature. So I I needed to decline that one. But when we were talking about prayer in the church, prayer in the New Testament, my first thought was, well, yeah, they prayed. And we know that they prayed but what else is there to say about that? But I knew that a a further study would be enlightening seeing the types of prayer that were used, how prayer was used, what it was used for in different context.

1:03 It's it's very informative. We know that we're supposed to pray. We know that prayer is important and prayer as a church is also important. Corporate prayer. We know that that's important.

1:15 But to take a little bit of time and to look into acts and maybe some other books if we have time to see the different types of prayer and and how they're used and what they're used for. So before I go any further, let's commit our time. Father, we come to you this morning one more time and we would like to ask for your blessing on this meeting. We ask that you would open our hearts to hear the things that you would have say, that you might remove me from the equation and that those listening might be able to hear you through me. We just ask that you would bless all of us, that you would bless me, and that you would bless those that are hearing, and that we may be able to understand and to humbly accept the things that you would that you would say.

3:04 So, we could put that together in a more cohesive sentence as saying, to be steadfastly attentive with constant readiness and unremitting care that one might persevere and show oneself courageous. That Greek word is used together with prayer in the context of prayer 10 times. Let me rephrase that. That word is used 10 times and six out of those 10 times, that word is used in reference to prayer. So I know that I said that in a convoluted manner, but I'll do it one more time.

3:38 So that word is used 10 times in the New Testament. Six out of those 10 times, it is used in reference to prayer. So nothing else in the New Testament, no other New Testament act is talked about with such emphasis. Not giving of money, not attending church, not showing hospitality, exercising of gifts, doctrine, preaching. All of these are important things.

4:07 But none of those other New Testament principles are talked about with such a degree of importance. None of them are given that Greek word six times. Only prayer is used. Only prayer gets that word. And all six of those are in a continuous action sense.

4:28 That Greek word is used in such a tense that shows that it is happening and it continues to happen and it's an ongoing thing. It's a continual thing. It's not they did it this way once. It's not that you do it this way occasionally. It's the continuous action sense.

4:48 And it shows the continual responsibility we have to prayer both corporately and individually. We can look at those references briefly and it's not necessarily what I want to spend most of my time about. I'm gonna be jumping around in acts quite a bit. But to give you a little bit of context on those cases where that Greek word is used to emphasize the steadfastness of prayer, the the unremitting, the unrelenting case of prayer. We see it first in Acts one fourteen.

5:48 It's not that you're not supposed to pray this way privately but a lot of what we see in the book of acts is talking about corporate prayer. Prayer in the church and the importance of prayer in the church and how we pray. We see it also in acts two forty two. And they were continually devoting themselves. Now, they give a list here.

6:09 I'm gonna and I'm gonna come back to this list but they were devoting themselves to one, the apostles teaching or doctrine to fellowship, the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Four really important New Testament principles. Those are four principles that the New Testament church was founded on. That's those were the principles that they practiced the most. Those were the most important things.

6:30 The apostles doctrine, fellowship, among believers, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Really important things. Acts six four, is where we see that word again but we will devote ourselves to prayer, Devote is how that's translated here to the ministry and of the word and I'm going to come back to this this part. This part is talking about the elders delegating some responsibilities so that they had more time to devote themselves to prayer. That's how important prayer was.

7:00 They needed to delegate some other responsibilities so that they had more time as elders. Now, and I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to that. We see it also in Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians. So, Paul uses that word to emphasize the importance of prayer and the type of prayer later in some of his letters. Most of what we're going to be going through today is acts like I said.

7:24 We could go through a whole study on the prayers of Paul. As I was starting to study for this, the first thing I did was find all the references to prayer in the New Testament from acts to revelation. And that I kind of got away from that because I could just do a whole sermon on Paul's prayers. Both his prayers for others and his prayers for himself. And that's another very interesting study and very revealing into the heart of Paul and the mind of Paul and the kind of man that he was.

7:57 But getting back to topic here, we're gonna go back to acts one and and go through acts at least chronologically to bring out some of the cases in which prayer is talked about. Now in acts chapter one, obviously we have the ascension. Jesus appears to his disciples and, you know, he goes back to be with the father. And and one of the important things we can see about prayer right from the beginning is that united prayer was a and can and is a comfort for a disconsolate church. So after the ascension, so Christ had left.

9:21 They return to Jerusalem, Acts one twelve, and they entered. It gives a list. And what did they do? They, with one mind, were continually devoting themselves to prayer. Why?

9:33 You know, prayer in this case, you know, they were waiting for the promise of the holy spirit. They were probably feeling rather lost. They didn't know what to do. So, this united prayer, the apostles coming together with some others, the most important thing to them after Christ's ascension and they had felt abandoned perhaps was prayer and prayer was used as comfort. It was as encouragement.

10:01 It was strengthening in a time when their shepherd had left. And they were given a job to do but were probably pretty petrified. United prayer is the comfort of the disconsolate church. Further in acts chapter one, the next time we see about prayer is the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas and in addition to the importance of prayer, I also want to bring out what we see in the book of Acts is response to prayer. We see people praying and god responds.

10:45 There's not very many things, I think, that are more encouraging to a believer or a body of believers than seeing prayer answered. And it's, no, it's not always answered the way we would like it. Sometimes, general prayers about a thing or a person or we can make very very specific requests and those can be answered. Those can be honored and and a lot of what we see in the book of Acts is the incredible witness that is praying and the answer to that prayer and we see it time and time and time again. So, they prayed about the choosing a and it was answered.

12:02 And this is corporate. This is the prayer meeting that we see in acts chapter two in Pentecost. We see that the prayer meeting was a place for the reception of divine power. What we see in acts two one and they had on the day of Pentecost, they were all together in one place. Doing what?

12:23 Having coffee? You know, context lends itself to say that they were together. They were praying. They were having fellowship and they were still eagerly awaiting the promise spirit with which with which Jesus had left them. But you shall receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses and so on.

12:44 So, they were waiting for that and they were all together in one place, praying again and here's the answer. You see the answer and suddenly, there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And you know the story of the Pentecost and what happened and so, Jesus had promised coming spirit but that came after they had had time. He could have sent the holy spirit immediately. He went up, holy spirit comes down.

13:19 Simple. He could have done it that way but god uses prayer as a means to accomplish his purposes and I'm going to touch back on that a little bit later too Is that we see prayer used as an instrument because god could do things however he wants them whether we pray or not. But by allowing us to pray, if we pray, and if we pray how we're supposed to, you know, we can see him working through that prayer and that's a privilege that we have and so the holy spirit comes on the day of Pentecost and you have all these fishermen who suddenly became powerful messengers, powerful witnesses to Christ. A bunch of nobodies that became somebodies. They were illiterate.

14:05 These were uneducated men that now there's something. And it didn't come from them. Now as a church, and I I would speak very in a generic way, in a in a very general way, but we hear a lot about the church wanting to feel the holy spirit more. We talk about the importance of feeling the holy spirit and we want the holy spirit here. And one of the best ways to do that as we see...

14:38 As we go through acts is that the holy spirit can be found in prayer. That's that's a really a really big place we can find it and the holy spirit responds to prayer and we can feel, like I mentioned, comfort if that's what we're praying for and and that's the reason we're praying. You know, we need as as a church, not necessarily us personally here but the church in general, we need greater numbers of people praying. We need a greater fervency, a greater earnestness, and a greater belief to go with that prayer because prayer is nothing even if it's earnest and it's sincere. If you don't have the belief to see it through and the belief to want it to come to pass.

15:32 It's not as it's not as important if if you don't have the belief that god will answer and it doesn't mean that god's going to answer the way you want him to but if you don't have that belief that he's going to answer, then it's it's hardly even worthwhile. Further on in chapter two, and I... This is one of the references where we see that Greek word that stresses the attitude of prayer is two forty two. And in Acts two forty two, we see we see the ramifications of that verse. The devotion, the Greek word postcatero, we see that word being used with devoting themselves to the doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayers and we see what happens when a group of believers does that.

16:26 In verses 43 to 47. And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need and they continue with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising and having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Wow.

17:07 That's what happens when you see a group of people incredibly earnest being with great fervor and enthusiasm and belief devoting themselves to very four, four, very important New Testament principles and and four important acts. Doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. It's our big buzzword. Next, as we continue through Acts, we see prayer and corporate prayer, the prayer meeting as a resource for a for a persecuted church. Let's look at Acts four and twenty nine.

18:25 Starting in verse 24, we can look at their whole prayer and this is after they had been released. Peter and John and when they heard this, they lifted their voices to god with one accord and said, oh lord, it is thou who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David, thy servant, did say, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city, they were gathered together serving Jesus whom that didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur. I'm going to stop right there.

19:20 So, what they just did was acknowledge who god is and what his power is and what he's capable of. That's a very important preface. Now that they've covered that ground, now they make their request. In verse 29, and now lord, take note of their threats and grant that thy bond servants what? Might be healthy and safe, may speak thy word with all confidence that they might not be persecuted anymore while thou dost extend thy hand to heal and signs and wonders take place through the name of thy holy servant Jesus.

19:58 They didn't ask for safety. They had just gotten out of prison. They didn't ask... I don't wanna go through that again. Can we not do this anymore?

20:07 They didn't ask that. So they recognized who God was, what his power was, what he was capable of and they asked for what? More boldness to go do it again. And we see right after that, here's the answer. In verse 31, and when they had prayed, the place they had gathered together was shaken, a physical manifestation of a spiritual power and they were all filled with the holy spirit and began to speak the word of god with boldness.

20:34 Prayer and answer like that. They asked also in addition to this boldness, I would I would point out the healing aspect that they asked for. That the healing and the apostles ministry through miracles that served as a confirmation of their apostolic ministry and their apostolic authority. We see that throughout acts and even in in some other books. You know, apostolic authority is proven to us time and time again through various things namely miracles and and healing.

21:16 God granted the apostles that power to show themselves who they were. Something else we can take from this prayer is they asked for boldness but they were also willing to obey. So they asked for boldness, god granted them the boldness, and they obeyed. Walking in the light with complete submissiveness. Let's slip a couple pages to chapter six.

21:58 And this was mentioned earlier. I can go ahead and read a little bit of this for context. Now, at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. And the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect in order to serve tables. But select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit, and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.

22:40 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So, here we see the importance of prayer to the church leaders. Prayer was so important to them that they needed to set aside not only time in their personal daily lives but as the elders meet to pray together, we see the importance of that. That was so important to them that their efforts were better used in prayer and ministry than doing other than doing some other necessary tasks. So, this is not only the importance of prayer but it's also the importance of delegation.

23:26 And this is why we all have been given gifts and we all have gifts from the Holy Spirit to be used in various ways amongst the body of believers. And and and that's where we get into some of that. And I'm not gonna talk about that a lot. But the 12 wanted to devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry. And that was that was their big thing.

23:49 And due to the twofold response of this request, we see verses seven and eight. But I'll read chapters... I'll read verse six and these, they brought the men, the seven men, and these they brought before the apostles and after praying, they laid their hands on them. So, they picked seven men and then they prayed over them. That's important because it's not the Holy Spirit can lead to these men but then, for these men were given their responsibilities, they were prayed over.

24:29 And here's the response. In verse seven, the response to that prayer and the word of god kept on spreading and the number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. Verse seven may not have happened had these seven men not been chosen because if the delegation of certain tasks to certain men hadn't happened and the elders were not only trying to pray and devote themselves to ministry but they were also handling everything in the church. The church would not have functioned as well and if the church isn't functioning as well, it's going to be harder to keep converts, you think? That's my thought.

25:17 That's that's my thought on it. Is that, you know, if the church isn't functioning how it needs to, if the elders aren't able to do what is most important to their position and the rest of the believers aren't helping in a way that serves the body. If that doesn't happen, it makes it more difficult for the body to maintain itself and it's more difficult to maintain cohesion and you know, to a new convert, they come into the church, they're saved, this is all great, and then they come a part of this body and I don't like how they do things here because the widows are being overlooked and this happens and this happens and this happens. So, I think, you know, after we can see that they want to choose the seven and they pray about it and because they pray about it and these seven men are selected and they are committed, they are prayed over, and then delegated to do their own thing and now the elders have more time to pray together not only individually but the as the elders meet and they can devote themselves to ministry, that helps the general spread of the word and the increasing numbers that we see in in verse seven.

26:27 So, there's another prayer and response that we see right away. And and granted the increasing numbers didn't just happen the day afterwards. That was an ongoing thing. But you know as we see recorded that the numbers keep spreading and the Lord is adding to the church thousands every day, that's happening. Why?

27:15 If we take a definition of prayer as being dialogue with god, we can look at Saul and god's conversation and even and what happened post conversation. And we can we can take some things from that. Now, Notice verse one, I'm going to come back to this. Now, Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the lord went to the high priest. Remember that.

27:53 And we're going to we're going to skip right right to where the action happens in verse four and god says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Verse five, and he said, Saul, who art thou, lord? So, Paul's or Saul as he is known at this time. Saul's first act is acknowledgement of the lordship. This whole experience was initiated by god.

28:26 So, and and Saul's immediate response Paul immediately makes a response. He responds in prayer and acknowledging the lordship. Prayer was instinctive. Paul responded without hesitation and responded in submission. Who art thou lord?

28:51 And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and enter the city and it shall be told what you must do. Prayer should also be natural to the Christian experience. We don't have to have prayer lessons or a prayer book or prayer liturgy or something. We don't need that. Prayer should be a natural thing.

29:22 It's communication with god. And thanks to the work done at Calvary. Now, that the veil of the temple has been torn away and we have access to the holy of holies. We have access to god directly and it should be a natural thing. It doesn't have to be a formal thing.

29:42 We don't need training in this. It should come come naturally. And we we see in these first couple verses that it's it's dialogue. God speaks twice and Paul answers once. A little later, we see Ananias also in prayer with god.

30:01 God speaks twice and and god speaks three times with Ananias and he answers twice. It's just it's dialogue. And something we can take from that and the importance of that is that it's it's the importance of silence and meditation in prayer. Our what we do in our in our secret lives, what we do in our own in our bedrooms when we're in communion with god. It's it's the importance of the silence and meditation because without that, you can't have dialogue.

30:36 You can be praying or you ever do that thing where you're reading a book and you're actually thinking about something else and you get through that whole page and you're like, I don't know what I just read. Anybody ever do that? All my music history textbooks were like that. You know, so you can be praying and if if you're not, if your mind's not quiet enough, if you're not attentive enough, you're not going to get anything. You're not going to get the dialogue.

31:03 You're not going to get the response. Where did we're picking up in verse seven and the men who traveled with him stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one And Saul got up from the ground and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing and leading him by the hand, they brought him to Damascus. And he was three days without sight and neither ate or drank. So after this prayer and this this dialogue between god and Saul, we see obedience. Paul is obedient.

31:39 He goes to Damascus. Prayer is obedience in a certain sense and prayer requires obedience. So if we're being silent and we're quieting our minds and in our meditation, we are in prayer and we get this dialogue with god. Great. Okay.

31:57 So, there's one but that prayer and that dialogue is going to mean nothing without accompanying obedience. We have to have obedience because the holy spirit will respond and the holy spirit will reveal things to us in prayer but without that obedience and that willingness to go do whatever it was, it's not effective. Paul went to Damascus. We see a little bit later, he was baptized. That's obedience.

32:25 In verse nine, we see and he was three days without sight and neither ate or drank. So again, that's showing that in his case, the answer to prayer involved waiting, isolation, and lack of sight. And fasting. Gotta keep up with my notes here. And and we see the effectiveness of prayer that's done in secret.

32:55 Paul was three days without sight losing sight of the world, losing sight of the world's interests, losing sight of his interests both physically and mentally and figuratively and and literally. We look in verse 10 and we see how through this little bit with Ananias that prayer Where are we? There we are. Prayer is how we know god's will. How did Ananias know god's will?

33:27 Ananias was a disciple who was in communion with god, who was in prayer with god. He was regularly praying with god. There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias and the lord said to him in a vision, Ananias and he said, here's here's dialogue here. Ananias and he said, behold, here I am lord And the lord said unto him, arise and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he may receive his sight.

34:06 God made his will known to Ananias through prayer. And I gonna wanna get ahead of myself. I'm gonna keep reading here. Verse 13, but Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man and how much harm he did to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all those who call upon thy name.

34:31 But the Lord said unto him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and the kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. Prayer, it could seem at times is... Has a slight contradiction with divine will, sovereignty, and election. We say, why should we pray for unbelievers because god's already predetermined who's going to accept and who's not.

35:10 And I don't need to go into that either. It's another very interesting and fun thing to talk about is predestination. But prayer is not a contradiction of that. And all I wanna... What I wanna point out about that is that something I mentioned earlier that prayer is a means for god to accomplish his purposes.

35:30 He can do anything he wants without us praying. Paul was chosen by god but Ananias still went. Ananias didn't have to go. God didn't need Ananias to go. After three days of praying, god could've allowed Saul to see again But why why did he do it the way he did?

35:55 Because he wanted Saul to pray and he wanted Ananias to pray and he wanted Ananias to obey. We are given the privilege to be instruments that can be used by god to accomplish his purposes. We could sit back and take a seat on the couch and let god do his thing and he's perfectly perfectly capable of doing all that. God could have fulfilled a great commission by himself. He doesn't need us.

36:24 But we are chosen. We're given the opportunity to be involved and being involved starts with being in prayer. Further on, in verse 17 and Ananias departed and entered the house and after laying his hands on him said, brother Saul, the lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, Ananias just believed god's word for it by the way because god told them that Saul saw Ananias in a vision and so, Ananias is talking to Paul. You saw a vision. He's believing god on that one.

37:03 Brother Saul, the lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy spirit and immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales and he regained his sight and he arose and was baptized and he took food and was strengthened. Prayer results in being filled with the holy spirit. I touched on this a little earlier. How we as a church cry out for the holy spirit's presence and we desire to feel the holy spirit in us and a really good way to do that is to start in prayer and not just any prayer as I pointed out, it's the type of prayer. It's the being steadfastly attentive onto prayer to give an unremitting care to prayer, to persevere, and to not faint in prayer, to show oneself courageous for prayer, to be in constant readiness for prayer.

38:32 Both prayer, your own praying at home, but for a body of believers, a local church to be filled with the Holy Spirit and have the Holy Spirit alive and working in the body, a lot of we can feel a lot more of the Holy Spirit and we can be blessed with a lot more of the Holy Spirit if we are actively praying together corporately and in earnest prayer corporately. It's the importance of the prayer meeting. We have prayer meetings on Wednesday nights. There are a lot of contemporary churches that have disbanded with the prayer meeting thing and they meet on Wednesday nights for band practice. Prayer meeting is important because it's it's incredibly important for the health of the body.

39:20 It's it's important to meet corporately so that we can understand the will of god and that we can be filled with the holy spirit individually and corporately. We see a little further in the story of Saul that prayer is a means to induce change. So, in verse 21, No, I'll read 20 and immediately, he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue saying, he is the son of god and all those hearing him continued to be amazed and were saying, is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who call on his name and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests? Look back at verse one. Now Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the lord went to the high priest.

40:20 So prayers were a means to induce change. And because prayer is not... It's not always something we like to do naturally. I said a little earlier that prayer comes naturally to a Christian dialogue with god should be a natural thing. We don't need lessons or a prayer book to help us but that doesn't mean that we do it naturally.

40:49 That doesn't mean we do it all the time that we should when we should because why don't we try to sort it out for ourselves first? I do that. So, prayer in itself can be a change that's supposed to induce change. Prayer is a change that induces change and it can produce change. Prayer produces that growth and effectiveness.

41:13 How? Because you receive we can be filled with the Holy Spirit through this prayer and through filling of the Holy Spirit, we can achieve we can acquire this growth and effectiveness in our spiritual lives both individually and corporately. Growth in the local body. Because it gives exposure to the source of life. Through praying and through the right types of prayer, we can look into the heart of god.

41:46 We can receive from the holy spirit. And be receiving this exposure to the source of life in that way. Prayer and filling of the Holy Spirit produces results. As we pray, he might have the answer along the way. Sometimes it's immediate.

42:34 And I'm about out of time. I wanna wrap up. I had a lot more notes here. I tend to over prepare, but I guess that's better than the other thing. But Like I said at the beginning, one of the most important things that you can get from looking at prayer in the book of Acts is how important prayer is and you can find example after example after example after example and even look at Old Testament, look at New Testament.

43:08 See the importance of prayer. The types of prayer that were made, how they were made, the answers to those prayers. Because it wouldn't have done us much good if we had had examples of a whole bunch of men praying and then nothing happened. Or that part just wasn't recorded. So, we see all these examples and it's for our benefit and what we can take away is how important it is to not only pray but to pray with the right heart and the right mind and that's another study you can get into and that's you can get into part of it by studying the prayers of Paul.

43:45 But prayer has more emphasis than anything else in the New Testament. And prayer was in the atmosphere of the New Testament church. It was all over and we only got through nine chapters and there's nineteen nineteen more chapters in Acts and I have a lot more references for all of those and I could go on for another hour, I think. But I won't because everybody's hungry. But prayer prayer was in this in the atmosphere of the church.

44:29 And when the Christians prayed, god worked. This prayer expressed a complete dependence on god for a number of things. As I pointed out, for comfort, the united prayer was the comfort for the disconsolate church. We see that prayer express complete dependence on the lord for guidance, for for for preservation. You have the story of Peter's imprisonment.

45:02 We talked about in chapter four, Peter and John's imprisonment. So prayer as as preservation. Prayer expressing a a dependence on god for service. We see the commission of Paul and Silas in a in a little bit, and I'm not gonna get to cover that. But prayer expressed a real dependence on god for sustenance in every sense of the word, both individually and corporately.

45:37 A lot of what we see in acts is about the church. It's about whether it's the apostles or the elders or it's the body together. There's always there's always people. It's a it's a lot of a lot of what we see is corporate. And and so it's stressing the importance of that corporate prayer.

45:57 And the challenge I would have for any of us is to think about, not that we pray because I know we all do, but how are we praying and what's the attitude with which we are praying? Are we being steadfastly attentive? Are we giving an unremitting care? Are we persevering and not fainting in prayer? Do we show ourselves courageous for to be in constant readiness for prayer?

46:35 To wait on prayer constantly? Do we do that? Maybe some of us do. I don't know. But it's it's a challenge to me to look at context in how prayer is used and seeing how they're using prayer and the six times that this Greek word is used in reference to prayer as giving us an example of how they prayed.

47:02 Might we all do the same? Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for this time that we had had to open your word and to see examples of prayer and how it was used. We ask that you would use what you have spoken to us, that we might be able to apply it in our own lives, that you would give us the grace and the strength to eagerly seek you and to obey you in prayer. We ask that you bless us as we go and as we turn to our homes.

47:38 In his name, amen. Thank you.