Grace Community Church, Arlington, TX

If we are going to rightly understand how the church began, we must understand that the church began with prayer. Not only did it begin with prayer, but it continued with prayer.

Will the future of Grace Community Church be powerful? The answer is simple. If we are devoted to prayer, it will be powerful. If we aren’t, it won’t.

The two biggest reasons why most professing Christians do not pray much is
1. Unbelief. They really don’t believe they are doing anything when they pray.
2. They just don’t schedule it.

And what we see when we study the book of Acts is a cycle.

It starts with Prayer (Acts 1:14)
The result of that Prayer was Power. Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
And the result of that Holy Spirit Power was Ministry.
Peter preaches the gospel and three thousand get saved.

And we have a Spirit-filled church.

Prayer, Power, Ministry. But what happens next?

What happens next is opposition. What happens next in Acts 4 is the first persecution of the church. The Apostles are commanded to not preach about Jesus or else.

So, what do they do next? Do they get intimidated and quit speaking about Jesus?
No, what they do is go back to the prayer meeting.

Now there is more power. What will happen next? More ministry. What will happened next? More opposition. Prayer, power, ministry, opposition. What do you do when the opposition comes? Go, back to the prayer room.

What is the next strategy of opposition that the devil uses? If he cannot stop you from the outside, he tries to stop you from the inside. The next strategy is moral compromise.

What is what the devil does in Acts 5 with Ananias and Saphira.
The Apostle Peter saw through their actions the work of Satan. And he rebuked them, and then God brought immediate judgment on them.

Once a church begins to live in moral compromise, the power of the Holy Spirit is quenched, and the church is no longer a threat to the devil. It is more of a social club and the devil has nothing to lose from a social club.

The third strategy of opposition is division. The devil heard Jesus say that a house divided cannot stand. So, the devil, whose name means “one who separates”, tries to divide the church in order to defeat them.

We see this played out in Acts 6. Some of the Greek speaking Hebrew widows were being overlooked in the serving of food. This is the perfect set up for a division in the early church.
The Apostles see the problem and move quickly to fix it by appointing some godly men to fix the problem.

The devil heard Jesus pray in John 17.

The believability of the Gospel is tied to the unity of the church.
Remember that it is the Gospel that the devil is trying to stop from being preached and believed. One of the ways he can stop it from being believed is by division in the church and division between churches.

The next strategy that we see the devil try to use to stop the success of the church is distraction.
What the devil wanted to do was to get the Apostles to stop taking time to pray and preach the Word. He wanted them to give their time to the taking care of the overlooked widows. After all, it is a good thing to take care of widows.

But the Apostles saw what was going on and fixed the problem without being distracted from their primary calling.

Sometimes the devil gets us doing something else that is not the primary thing that God has gifted and called us to do. And that may even be a good thing, but not be the best thing.

Some of you started in prayer but have not continued. You cannot hold onto ground taken from the enemy without continuing in prayer. We are given a clear visual of this in the OT.

As Moses leads Israel out of bondage from Egypt and they begin their journey to the Promise Land. The first enemy that they encounter is the Amalekites. They attacked them as they moved ahead in obedience to God. All Israel was doing was what God had told them to do. But doing what God tells you to do puts you on a collision course with the enemy.

As we move forward as a church in obedience to God, doing what scriptures tell us to do, we are on a collision course with the enemy. Why? Because as we do what God tells us to do, we take ground from the enemy, and the enemy doesn’t like that!

Now, you may be thinking that you could avoid the enemy if you didn’t move forward in obedience. Maybe if I just slowed down and lagged behind a little, I wouldn’t have to engage the enemy. But that actually makes the situation worse.

If you lag behind in following the Lord, then you are actually even more vulnerable to the enemy.

Perhaps you’re not lagging behind, but you know someone who is. You need to go and try to get them back. They need to be retrieved before they get picked off all together by the enemy.

Spiritual warfare is unavoidable. Whether you move ahead in obedience to God or you lag behind. Either way the enemy is going to attack you. So, you better know how to fight spiritual warfare.

Moses’ outstretched arms with the staff of God raised up is a picture of intense intercessory prayer. As long as Moses was in the posture of intercession, Israel would prevail. When he stopped, Israel would begin to lose the battle.

And notice that Moses needed some help to keep his arms raised.

As long as you’re standing before God and continuing in prayer, nothing can stop your spiritual destiny. But if you can be moved from the place of prayer, then so much is at risk.

God wants to pour out His power. But it will be in accordance with our prayer and faith. If we want to see the level of the power rise in this place, then we must raise the level of prayer in this place!

We need all hands-on deck. We need every saint here at GCC to be a part of the GHOP. There is nothing that we do that is more important and more strategic and will produce more fruit than this.

The church begins with prayer in the book of Acts. That is clear. But it is also clear that the church continues with prayer.
We don’t just pray to take ground from the enemy. We must continue in prayer in order to hold that ground, and then take more ground.