Pray together
Key Passage: Acts 12:5
Date: March 23, 2025
All right, well, it is good to be here. I’ve been here many times. I’ve been here recently, visited, but maybe not for long. Maybe not for long. I’m going to go back to where Brother Paul was last week. If we’ll go back to Acts 2 and verse 42 for just a moment, then we’ll get to our text over in Acts 12.
I’ve heard most of my life that Wednesday evenings are sometimes called the midweek service or the Wednesday night meeting, but I always call it prayer meeting service. We’ve already taken up prayer requests, praise requests. As a matter of fact, just yesterday I had the opportunity to be with a man who was 89 years old who was doubting his salvation.
He actually got saved at 12 years old. Seventy-something years ago he got saved, but he was beginning to doubt his salvation. We had an opportunity to talk with him and assure him of his salvation. We went through the book, and he knew the book, and we went through the scriptures. He knew the scriptures. And he said he could remember that night when he got saved.
Over in Westview at the Westview Baptist Church, where Brother Woodrow Medlock was there. Brother Medlock lived to be 92 or 93 years old. I went in behind him one Saturday knocking on doors. I knew this young man; he was from Westview, and I was going to invite him to church, to our church. He said, “You’re a little too late.” I said, “Okay, why is that?” He said, “Well, Brother Woodrow has been by.” And Brother Woodrow challenged me.
I’ve got to give him six weeks. I said, “Well, what was the challenge?” He said, “Well, push-ups.” He said, “I did 35 of them.” He did his age, 90. He did 90 push-ups at 90 years old. He used to ride a bicycle around. Many people, many people got saved under that man’s preaching, and he was a lighthouse. That church was a lighthouse. I went there as a kid. But that’s where this young man got saved. I say young man because I’m close to his age. You can do that. When you’re 89, you can call an 89-year-old a young man, all right? And I can call me a young man if you want to; I won’t be offended at all. When I went to Preacher Boy School, I was 54, and everybody else was 21. But they said at Preacher Boy School, and I love that. I said, “I’m in Preacher Boy School. I’m a preacher boy.”
So again, we’re going to look at this because what I just said about prayer, it’s prayer meeting service. Prayer is a wonderful privilege. God has opened the door of His throne room and invited us, His children, in to enter into the presence. Think about this: the presence with an almighty and holy God. He’s asked us to enter into His presence with our petitions.
Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Prayer is important. He’s promised us to hear our prayers over in Jeremiah 33: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things,” if we’ll just pray. He’s also promised us to answer our prayers when we pray according to His will. Be confident that He will hear us and He will answer our prayers if we pray in God’s will. We must pray in God’s will. So what I want to do tonight is I want to just take a few minutes to talk about what happens. Things happen when God’s people pray.
Brother Paul left off last week, chapter 2 of Acts and verse 42. He said, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” I think they continued that all the way through the Book of Acts. They continued to be steadfast in the doctrine. They fellowshiped together. They broke bread together. But what we’re going to look at tonight: they prayed. They prayed together. If you’re over in Acts 12 and verse 5 with me, we’re going to look at that. We all know that there are many, many privileges and promises associated with prayer.
I will remind us from the passage that we’re fixing to read that prayer is very powerful. It’s a very powerful endeavor. We have all experienced private prayer. We’ve experienced times when we called on the Lord in a secret place and prayed, and He heard us and answered our prayers. I’ll never forget this long as I live. I went into the hospital to see one of my people one evening. The doctor was just leaving her and the family, and I could tell they were upset. I could tell they were crying and concerned about her. As the doctor walked out, I said, “I’m her pastor. Could you just tell me what’s going on?” He said, “Well, Ms. Nelda has probably—I’ll give her 48 hours. She may make 48.” So we went home, and we got on the one call line and called people who said, “We need to pray for Ms. Nelda. She needs your prayers. She’s got 48 hours. The family needs your prayers. She’s got 48 hours.” Guess what? God heard the prayer. She lived 15 more years. She lived 15 more years. See, God hears our prayers. That’s what we’re going to look at tonight in Acts 12 and verse 5.
We’ve all experienced those times. What is really good is when we get into corporate prayer. This passage reminds us that there is a power in corporate prayer. There is a special dynamic that comes into play when God’s children come together, united in faith and purpose to seek the face of the Lord in prayer. I want to just look at this passage this evening and share a few truths—won’t be long—that present themselves to us as we think on this. This text here in verse 5 of chapter 12: Look at it with me. It says, “Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.” Did you get that? Peter was in prison. He was chained to these guards. He was locked up. But the church got together, just like we’re together tonight. I’ve already heard it mentioned, but this has been on my heart ever since I heard it, maybe Sunday. Brother Frank’s been on my heart. Sherry’s cousin passed away with pancreatic cancer. It’s a serious matter. But God can hear our prayers, and God can touch him, and God can heal him. Brother Allen is here tonight because we prayed. God touched him. God can do that if we’ll just pray.
But we want to pray according to some things I’m going to mention to you in just a moment. Because things happen when God’s people pray. Matter of fact, let’s open in prayer now. [Prayer omitted] …Help me again tonight. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, let’s just look at these points I’ve got here. I’ve got just a few. We’ll go home, okay?
In our text, it says, “Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.” First thing is, it was a time for prayer. Tonight’s a time for prayer. It’s time here tonight for us to pray, to get together corporately and pray. There is a tiny word in verse 5 that makes a big difference. It is just a little conjunction called “but,” B-U-T, right there. I call that an “erase word.” The situation looks desperate here, but. It looks as though Peter might be put to death, but. It looks as though the church might be destroyed before it ever even gets to carry the gospel to the world. But in the face of overwhelming problems, the church bowed their heads and called out to God. The church did not cower down in fear before those threats that were out there amongst them. The church lifted up its collective voices and rang the prayer bells of heaven. God heard their prayers and moved in a mighty, powerful way. He brought them their answer. Now, we’ll look at it in just a moment, but they were praying. God heard their prayers.
Let’s examine how they prayed. First thing I noticed: it was fervent prayer. We’re told that prayer was made without ceasing. I can assure you that they were fervently praying. I recall again back in the 70s; I was a member of Miracle Baptist Church. Many of you know where it is down the road here in LaVergne, Tennessee. A gentleman by the name—and I believe he was a barber, I can’t remember for sure what Joe did, but I think he was a barber—Joe Montgomery went to the doctor. They told Joe, “We’ve done an X-ray, and we found a spot in your abdominal area. You’re going to have to go home, and we want you to come back next week. We’re going to have to operate on you. We’ve got to get that out of there.” So Joe came, I think on a Wednesday night, and voiced that to the church. Brother Carl said, “We want to have a prayer session for Brother Joe Friday night. All you men who can come into the church and pray for Joe, we’ll gather here at 7 o’clock, and we’ll have it open all night long for people who may drop in after work, if they work a night shift or whatever.” And we did. I got to be a part of that: men all around the altar praying for Joe. Joe went Monday to the doctor. They said, “We’ll do one more X-ray to get a location of this thing and know exactly where we’re going.” They came in and said to Joe, “It must have been a blemish on the X-ray machine. Something went wrong. It’s not there now. It’s not there now.” Let me tell you what: God heard those prayers. God heard those prayers.
That word ceasing means to stretch forth. It’s a medical term that refers to a stretched ligament or maybe a pulled muscle. It has the idea of going beyond the boundaries. When applied to prayer, it is a picture of fervency. It is fervent prayer. It is a picture of people pouring out their hearts in prayer before the Lord and seeking His face for the need of their loved one or their brother or sister, praying, praying, praying fervently. That kind of prayer is the kind that we need to undertake. The promise of God is that “the effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much” over in James 5:16. That word effectual fervent means energized, passionate prayer. You get serious about praying. It is not prayer that is sluggish, lifeless, casual, or half-hearted. It is prayer that pours out from a burdened heart, a concerned heart, a loving heart. That kind of prayer reaches heaven and moves the hand of God. These folks were serious about praying for Peter. This is about the church and about Peter. They are praying for the church. They are praying for Peter. We will find out in just a little bit what those prayers accomplished.
But it was fervent. It was faithful prayer. By faithful prayer, I mean these folks were praying with faith. They were praying with faith. How many times have you prayed? I’ve done this, and I know you have too. I prayed for Ms. Nelda. I prayed earnestly for Ms. Nelda. I thought the world of her. Ms. Nelda was one of my church family, and she was a dear, dear person, a dear sweet lady. I prayed for her. Allie knows her. Allie knows who I’m talking about. I prayed for her. But when I heard—listen to me—when I heard she had been healed, she was okay, she was going home, I went, “What? Do what? She’s supposed to die in 48 hours.” I prayed. Oh, I forgot, Lord, I prayed. I prayed for her healing. See, these folks prayed with faith. They had faith. They prayed faithfully. Their prayers were made to whom? To God. They prayed to God. This seems obvious, but there are times when it seems like our prayers are designed to be heard by other people or even maybe ourselves.
I never would forget one time when Sherry’s father turned his life over to Jesus; he lived as hard for Jesus as he lived for the devil. The pastor called on him early in his salvation and said, “Brother Walt, would you pray?” He either didn’t hear him or didn’t know what to say. So his wife, Miss Minnie, turned to a prayer in the back of a psalm book that was there, and he started reading it. He hadn’t been schooled in that, you might say. This congregation joined their voices and reached out to the One who could get Peter out of prison, who could save the church from destruction. They reached out to Him in faith. When we pray, we must pray in faith. Faith is the essential ingredient that marks the difference between answered prayer and unanswered prayer. The prayer for Ms. Nelda was answered because many had faith. I was laying in the hospital and being life-flighted to Vanderbilt on New Year’s Eve of December 2014, with a heart this big; it was ready to explode. But there were people praying for me in Japan. There were people praying for me in the Philippines. There were people praying for me all over the United States of America, and definitely in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and probably right here at Rutherford County Baptist Church.
The Bible makes this statement about the role that faith has in prayer. Let me read from Hebrews 11:6: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” How about Matthew 21:22? “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” And again, in 1 John 5:14-15: “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” Do it with confidence. Do it with faith behind it. Ask knowing God is listening. Ask knowing God is going to answer your prayer.
And we must also always do this: be accepted of His will, whatever that may be. He doesn’t always answer it the way we want to. He doesn’t give us the answer we want every time. In Ms. Nelda’s case, Joe Montgomery’s case, yes, He did. But I have prayed before for that sick one on that sick bed, and they passed away. But that was God. He took them out of their sickness; He took them on to glory. That was the answer. That was my answer. It was God’s will. What did God pray in the Garden of Gassimini? He prayed for God’s will, not his will. He wanted God’s will. I remind you that when we pray, we are talking to our Father in heaven. Don’t lose sight of that. We are not talking to the congregation out here, nor are we talking to ourselves in our prayer room at home. We are talking to Him. Sometimes we get that all confused. We sometimes want our prayers to all be so great and wonderfully spoken. God hears you, and He sometimes has to clean them up anyway. Sometimes He has to make them clean up for us. We don’t know what we are uttering sometimes. He delights in hearing and answering our prayers. Luke 12:32: “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It is a great pleasure for Him to answer you.
What about this? There was a focused prayer. Prayer was made for whom? For Peter. Peter. In other words, Peter was the whole focus, pretty much the whole focus of this prayer meeting. I would ask you, when you get home tonight—do it here too—I would ask you when you get home tonight to make Brother Frank and Miss Wanda the focus, the very focus of your prayer before you pillow your head.
This is a serious time for them. This is a crucial time for them, and they need to know that the church, their family—and I know they know this—but their family is behind them all the way through it. I just can’t get over Miss Stacy. That is a miracle. She is out there in record time, I think two days before they were even supposed to be. Everything has gone well. She is still having a few issues, but I still have a few issues from 11 years ago, having a heart attack. But I had issues before that. We won’t go there.
He was the whole focus of this. They came together to pray for a specific purpose. That is so important. This was not a generalized prayer that sought just a blanket prayer for everything and everyone—you know, “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat”—those kinds of prayers. This was a focused prayer. This was pointed prayer that sought God’s power for a specific need. They didn’t want Peter to be killed like James had just been killed. They wanted Peter out of that prison. They had no clue what God was going to do, but they went with faith knowing God could do it and would do it if they prayed in His will. If we do not pray specifically, specific prayers, how will we ever know when God has answered?
Again, we have specific prayers from Ms. Stacey, and God answered. When we ask Him for specific needs and God answers, it glorifies Him. It doesn’t glorify us; it glorifies Him. Let your light so shine so you can glorify your Father, which is in heaven. It assures us of our relationship to Him, and it definitely increases our faith.
We prayed earnestly for Katie. She had been taken to Vanderbilt to get this IVC filter out of her that was already defective when they put it in. We prayed down there at Vanderbilt. Six hours later they came out and said, “We can’t get it. We just can’t get it. We’ve had her under too long. We’ve got to take her out. We cannot get that.” Sherry, God led Sherry to find a doctor at Stanford in California, and he said, “Yeah, bring her out here.” We went out there with faith because Katie wouldn’t fly; we had to drive. We drove for three days to get her out there. We went out there, not even sure insurance was going to pay it. They had not okayed it when we went into the hospital. We prayed. They okayed it. We got it done. But that doctor had her under for one hour and 15 minutes by the time he prepped her and put her in recovery. He had it out in 15 minutes. He made a little incision right here and went down in there, folded it up like an umbrella, and pulled it right out. But he came out and said there were three pieces missing. He found two of them in her lungs in a safe place, but one was in her heart. He was concerned; he didn’t know what to do. But something moved through the operating room. We know what that something was. I told him so. He said, being Japanese or Chinese or whatever, “Oh, it was a miracle.” I said, “Yeah, it was a miracle.”
Pray specifically. All I’m suggesting is that we need to get specific in our prayers. God already knows it, but He wants to hear from you, and He wants to hear from me. He wants us to not just pray for ourselves all the time. I’ve had a tendency to do that for years; it’s all about my family or me or whatever. No, it’s really not. It’s all about others. This is a family right here. I miss my family at Fairhaven, but I’ve got a new family. I know how you feel about me, and I know already you love me. I’m just kidding. Maybe Josh doesn’t, but I know you do. Again, we need to be specific in our prayer life.
Now, I know you’re going to like this. Lastly, it was family prayer because you are family. The church was family. The church gathered together to pray for one of their own. They came together as a family to seek God’s help for a brother in great, great need. They loved Peter. He probably wasn’t easy to love. You all know Peter. You know how he was a ruffian, a fisherman. He’d like to smack somebody in the mouth before they could say anything. He was that kind; he was always getting in trouble probably. But they came because they loved him. They came together and prayed for Peter. The church touched heaven for Peter. Their prayers had power because they were united in their walk with God. They joined their hearts and their hands, and then they lifted up their voices to God, and the Lord heard them and moved in power.
We pray a lot, but I fear again that we fail to pray for one another sometimes. Sherry is accumulating a prayer list for us, and every night in bed, we join hands before we go to sleep and pray. Pray for others. Most of you know she has liver cancer; she’s had it for almost 13 years now. That is a miracle in itself. That is God. But we have a special needs child also, and Katie is in depression after her sister died and after her niece died within eight months of each other. She won’t go anywhere or do anything. So I asked the church specifically to pray that we could get Katie some help. We’ve been trying to get Katie help for about a year and a half now, and can’t even get any. They will help special needs children, but when they become adults, it all changes. Katie is 43 years old, so it’s kind of like, well, she’s an adult, and we don’t have many programs for them. She needs help, but we have One who can help.
We need to pray for the needs and the burdens of others. There are people in here who have needs, have burdens. We must pray for them. Spend time praying for others. The church family—there are people in the church family who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses. Brother Frank, this is a serious matter, and I know you know that. But God is a miracle man. He is a great Physician. He can do anything He wills to do. We need to pray and lift Brother Frank and Ms. Wanda up. We need to continue to pray for Miss Stacy, Brother Paul, Adam, and Patrick traveling. I don’t know if you saw it, but those storms were going through Texas or somewhere, and about 50 cars had a wreck on the interstate. I don’t know, eight or nine people, three or four people, got killed in it. Traveling, you need to pray for traveling mercies for your pastor and for these men with him. We should touch heaven for these folks who are in a life-threatening position. There are people who are lost, who are backslidden; we need to touch heaven for them. There are others who are struggling with needs, financial needs, children, a wayward child, whatever it might be—burdens, problems, insurmountable things. We should touch heaven for them.
If you take just a minute to think, the names and the faces of those brothers and sisters in Christ will come to your remembrance. God will bring them up to you. Often I will be in prayer, and Ms. Sherry has given me a list. I am praying, and she is praying. I will think, “What did she say about Ms. April? Miss April’s having surgery, but what’s that about?” And all of a sudden the Lord says, “All right, boom.” And it’s there. Specifics. Specifics. I can pray. We need to touch heaven for others.
Many things can hinder our prayers. The devil wants to do that. The phone will ring, someone will knock on the door, the baby will cry—whatever. Many things will try to hinder your prayer life; don’t let it happen. Just don’t answer the phone. We do our devotion every morning. As we do that devotion, I read something they called a principle—and that is a good thing. The principle is this: “Don’t make prayer a last resort. Run to Jesus at the first sign of trouble.” Whenever someone asks you to pray for them, won’t you just stop right there and pray for them? Often I will tell them, “Let’s pray right now,” because you will get hindered, something will happen, and you will forget. We were traveling down the road, and I called Brother Adam because I wanted to check on him so we could pray specifically for him. Others in here—I don’t know everybody yet, but I want to. I want to know everybody and know a little something about them so that when I lift them up in prayer, the Lord will know that I am trying to be specific in their need. They may have an unspoken situation. God knows it, but I can mention that and say, “Brother so-and-so, Sister so-and-so, they had an unspoken request. I want to lift that up to you.”
Okay. Well, that’s all I’ve got on prayer tonight. But I just say, Lord, to pray. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Brother Paul has been ending these things well, and I’ve liked it very much. He’s been ending them, and Brother Chip is coming down. But we need to pray. We need to pray. So what I’m asking you to do is take on the challenge and pray. I look around tonight and I see folks who probably need prayer. Maybe they weren’t mentioned. Maybe their name wasn’t on one of those cards. But these altars are open. Brother Paul has been asking, even if you want to gather together, get someone with your prayer partner and pray; I open that up to you tonight as well. I’m not your pastor, but I like the way he handles things. You are blessed to have Brother Paul and Miss Tammy. They have been a blessing to me for years. I’ve known him and her. They have been a blessing to me. But I love this church, and I love the way that you do pray. So continue to do just that. Let us pray all the time. Let’s be in prayer. Let us pray continuously. The Bible says to pray for others more so than ourselves.
Original File: Brother Steve Goforth ＂Pray together＂- Wednesday PM 03⧸19⧸2025 [YWeqlHtEFOg]