Acts 12 | Peter, Prison, and Prayer

Drake Daniels continues a series in the book of Acts. 

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Guys, welcome to King's Church. If we haven't met yet, my name is Drake. I get the privilege to be one of the pastors here. Excited you guys are joining us this morning for what I believe is week 19 of our study through the book of Acts. We love taking books of the Bible and just journeying through them. So week 19, here we go. If you guys have your Bibles, you want to be proactive, go ahead and open up to Acts chapter 12. Acts 12 is uh where we're gonna be in our time together this morning. Uh and I have the whole chapter, so I don't want to waste too much time, but I'll start with this. Um, often in the Daniel's household right now, we're trying to figure out what we're doing on our weekends, okay. Early on in marriage, it was just like Friday night, it was date night every single time. And so for me, I'm choosing chilies, okay? A little three-for-me action. That's what I wanted. Thank you for the dudes in the room. It's a bad first date, guys. Don't take the girls there for the first date, but I love it so much. Um, but now, you know, with two young kids, uh, Fridays have turned into family movie nights, okay. Just get a get a pizza and watch a movie, which, you know, I'm so thankful for streaming services these days and everything. But at the same time, I'm like team bring back blockbuster. You know, I just think that was like peak of America in the early 2000s. Uh, I don't think you can beat it. Um But when when we're choosing like the family movie that we're watching and everything, I my wife knows that I basically have one rule, uh, and that's this it's that a movie, especially action movies, uh, a movie is only as good as the villain. Okay, like I I don't care how good the hero is, if the villain doesn't convince me he is going to win, I'm just not gonna be uh engaged. Um but because here's the deal is every single great movie, every single great story has this moment where it looks like, man, the the villain is going to win. There's nothing that the hero, the protagonist, can do, and you're just left wondering, man, like how are they going to solve this? Okay, people who study movies, which I don't understand how you get that job uh in this economy, but people who study movies, uh, they call this moment in every single story the dark moment, okay? And every single great movie has it where the moments you're like, I just I don't see how the good guys can win, okay? I mean, you can think about it on the ground level, like for my Avengers fans in the room, okay, Infinity War, it's when Thanos snaps his finger, everything turns into dust. You're just like, what is gonna happen? Um maybe for you it's Harry Potter, okay? You can get emails from the homeschool people. I don't know. I love Harry Potter. Um for Harry Potter, the dark moment is when Harry is going into the Forbidden Forest. Voldemort, he who must not be named, kills him and then drags his body back to Hogwarts, right? It's a dark moment. Maybe you're not into action movie at all, okay? I got you. How to lose a guy in ten days. It's when Ben and Andy realize that they've been scheming against each other the entire time the relationship explodes, and you're left wondering, where do you go from here? See, it's going to be different stories, but the same moment. It is the dark moment. All great movies, all great stories have it where it looks like evil and opposition is going to win. Okay, and I start there because that's where we find ourselves in the book of Acts. Okay, last week Zach did an incredible job looking at this incredible church in Acts chapter 11 in Antioch, a place where Paul and Barnabas are going to be sent out from, a church planting hub to reach the nations. It's going to be awesome. The church is rolling in Antioch. But then Luke in Acts chapter 12, he switches back, not from the church in Antioch, but to the church in Jerusalem. And in it, we see a dark moment in the church of Jerusalem. And we're going to encounter this villain named Herod waiting for us. And with Herod, man, we're going to see opposition at an all-time high. Okay, not only uh will Herod have some religious persecution in it, but really we're also going to see some political persecution as well, some state-sponsored uh political persecution almost for the first time in church history. And what we're going to see is James is going to be beheaded, uh, Peter is going to be thrown in prison, and we're left wondering, okay, how will the gospel continue to go forth? Opposition is at an all-time high. Is this a Christianity thing? Is it going to survive? Where do we go from here? That's the scene that we kind of are going into. And so uh today, here's what we're going to see is how does God answer the prayerful, and how does God answer the prideful? That's kind of all-encompassing, and how does God answer the prideful? We're just going to tag that on at the very end, but really a lot of this is going to be centered around, man, the church, when facing opposition, the church goes to prayer. How does God answer the prayerful? And so let's look at it. Acts chapter 12, verse 1. It says this about that time, so everything going on in Antioch, about that time, King Herod violently attacked some who belonged to the church, and he executed James, John's brother, with the sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter too during the festival of unleavened bread. And after the arrest he put him in prison and assigned four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. If you're familiar with the Bible, this name Herod sounds familiar to you, and that's because there's no less than six Herods mentioned in the New Testament. It's all very confusing. But the Herodian dynasty really was famous for persecuting the early church. The most well known of the Herods would have been Herod the Great because he shows up at the Christmas story, right? He's the one who kind of tries to trick the wise men and kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem, right? Like Merry Christmas, right? But it's Herod the Great, uh, and this is Herod Agrippa I, who is the grandson of that one. And this Herod Agrippa, what we see here in Acts 12, he's actually even more powerful. He has more popularity than Herod the Great. And what does he do with that power? Well, he's a people pleaser and he has power. It's not always a good combination. Okay, and what does he do with that power? It says he violently attacked some who belong to the church, okay, including James, the brother of John, who James would have been one of the inner three of disciples of Jesus. Like, James is a big deal. He's a leader in the early church. In fact, this is actually the only apostle whose death is recorded in the Bible. And when Herod, when he beheads James and he turns on the news that night, he sees that his popularity skyrocketed, that everyone was loving him, the Jews were loving him for this move. And so he's like, Man, you guys like what I did with James? Well, then I'm just going to go to the head honcho of this whole Christianity thing. We're going after Peter. And so he puts Peter in prison. But what I love what Luke does, not only does he fill us in on the persecution that was happening, he also gives us a brief glimpse of the calendar of this moment, which is significant for us because he said it was during the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. And Herod, who would have been this people pleaser, he would have known something that it would have been kind of taboo, kind of against the social norms of the day to execute somebody during these religious festivals and holidays. And he's a people pleaser, he wants to cater to the crowds, and so all he does is he puts Peter in prison. But I'm gonna guess that he's heard through the grapevine that this Peter guy has been an escape artist before. Okay, he's been in prison. We've seen this in our study through Acts, and he's escaped from prison, and Herod's not gonna have anything to do with that, right? And so he puts in four squads of four soldiers to guard Peter, right? He's gonna have four guards, two that Peter would be chained to, two guarding the door, and those guards are gonna rotate every six hours to make sure that this dude does not escape. Because the assumption is, man, once Passover gets through, once the religious festivals are through, I'm gonna behead Peter too.

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And this is a dark moment in the life of the church, and really just in the life of Peter. Like this seems like a pretty helpless and hopeless situation. Okay, and honestly, this is pretty par for the course of Christianity, right? Like God's people have always been put in situations where they feel like they are out of the control of what's going on and they don't know what to do. Okay, and I just have to imagine that there's maybe some of you walking into the room this morning feeling a little bit like that. A little bit of a helpless and hopeless situation, an out-of-control type of situation. Because maybe for you, maybe maybe you got the call that the cancer came back and it's growing. Maybe, maybe for you is that the relationship ended, whether it was a friend that you deeply trusted, or maybe it was a relationship that you put a lot of stock into, or maybe it's just that the relationship shows no signs of getting better, and you're just gonna be stuck in this type of marriage. Maybe for you, it's just that the job is never gonna come, or the job's struggling, maybe it's just finances in general, or maybe it's just that the prodigal in your own life hasn't come home yet, and it feels out of control, and you're left wondering, what do I do? I'll tell you what, moments like these in our lives, they have a way of revealing to us what we actually believe about who God is. See, you look you look at studies, and especially just on college campuses these days, but you look at just overall studies of why people uh deconstruct, that's kind of the buzzword, right? Deconstruct, leave the faith, walk away from Jesus. And so often it is because people they don't understand how they can follow Jesus, he's supposed to bring the good life, but then also that Jesus lets us go through these hard things. Like they they don't know how to reconcile that, they don't want to deal with it, and so they just walk away. And I think that Acts chapter 12 puts a great case study in front of us. Okay, because in this story we have two disciples, two apostles, like dudes in the early church, two leaders, and they are part of the same church. They have the same faith and they experience the same persecution, and with one of them in this story, we're gonna see God miraculously save him, and with the other one, we're gonna see him be beheaded. Right? And so, and so before we can even deal with this amazing thing that Peter escapes from prison, we have to deal with the fact that James was beheaded. And he doesn't, he gets like a verse, right? Like early on, the the first Christian martyr, he gets a whole chapter. James gets a verse, and we're left wondering, how in the world can this make sense? Right? Why save Peter and not James? Well, the text it doesn't even say, doesn't really let us fill in the gap here. But we know that it's not because Peter had more faith or because Peter didn't fail. We know Peter failed, certainly. And so how can we reconcile these two things? Well, the text it doesn't really say, and I think so often that's hard for us, because so often we just want from decisions from God that we can understand. All right, but but here's the reality for us, and you gotta hear this, is that God's sovereignty, it doesn't mean I'll understand everything that God does, but God's sovereignty does mean that nothing happens outside of God's reign and rule. Nothing in the world happens outside of God's reign and rule. And I'll tell you, man, if you want to, if you want to be following Jesus for the next five, ten, fifteen years, if you want to finish the race well, you're gonna need to be prepared for the hard moments in your life. Times where circumstances feel out of control, times where it feels like some helpless and hopeless situations, because otherwise, if you aren't prepared for those, man, when those tough moments come in, it's gonna shipwreck your faith. And so you gotta see that Christianity, it's not going to answer every single why, but what Christianity does is that even when we can't see and trace the hand of God and what he's doing in our life, we can look to the cross and trust the heart of God. That he works all things together for good for those who are called according to his purpose, that God is doing so many things in our life, and even when we can't see exactly what he's doing, we can trust his heart. He's already proven it on the cross, and so we can trust him in these moments. And I think here's the question is what happens to a person who actually believes that, who is resting in the assurance of God's sovereignty? Well, really quickly, I actually think we get a picture of this in Acts chapter 12. Look down at verse 5. It says this So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was praying fervently to God for him. Okay, take note of that. That's a big deal. We're gonna come back to that in a second. But verse six when Herod was a bring was about to bring him out for trial that very night, Peter, bound with two chains, not the wrapper, but uh was sleeping between two soldiers. While uh I'm sorry for that. Uh in front of the gar door guarded the prison. Uh suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. Striking Peter on the side, he woke him up and said, Quick, get up. And the chains fell off his wrist. Okay, so this is a little bit of a side note, but I just can't think. I I think we have to see like Peter and how he's reacting in this moment. This is the longest part of the narrative. Peter escaping from prison, and what do we see? Is that Peter in this moment, he's not biting his nails. He's not pacing around this prison cell. He's not trying to, you know, prison break this thing, come up with a drawing, a game plan, a blueprint for how he's gonna get out of here. No, Peter is sleeping in this moment. Okay, and an angel even shows up with a bright light and doesn't even wake him up, okay? He's like the heavy sleepers in the uh in this room, right? It says that the angel literally had to strike him. That's like a Greek word for punch him really hard, basically. You know, it's it's uh like the dudes in the room who snore and their wife like literally punches them uh so hard, that's me. Every single night I feel like um But that's what the angel does to Peter to wake him up. And I love what some commentators have said about this is that later on we're gonna see Paul is also going to be in prison for his faith. And Peter here is in prison, and Paul, when he's in prison, Paul's gonna sing, and Peter here, he sleeps. And yet, with both of those things, we can see that they are trusting in the absolute sovereignty of God in this moment, no matter what comes after them, and they have some unreal peace as a result of trusting in God's sovereignty. You see, what you have to realize is for so many people in the room, talking to so many people, most often their peace is gonna be held hostage until God starts to change their circumstances. Like, oh, I I can't experience peace until this gets better. But I think a mark of spiritual maturity is just realizing that peace isn't contingent upon God changing your circumstances, but just trusting in God's sovereignty in the midst of it. Right? I think Peter in this moment, he's gonna look back on this moment when he writes in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 7, that we can cast all of our anxieties on to God. Why? Because he cares for us. I gotta imagine Peter's thinking about that in this moment. I can cast all my anxieties on, I can sleep like a baby tonight because I don't know the outcome of tomorrow, but I know that Jesus cares for me. I know that Jesus cares for me. And so a mark of spiritual maturity is just gonna be to become more Christ-like in these moments, to experience peace, even when the circumstances don't change, because you're trusting in the one who's sovereign. Okay, let's look at the what I believe the main crux of the story. Go back to verse 5. It says this So Peter was kept in prison, but but the church was praying fervently to God for him. Okay, I love Luke. What he's done in the first five verses is he has sort of set up this whole thing, and he's basically trying to get us to ask the question who's in control here? Who really is the king at this moment? See, the spotlight has been on Herod and all the things that Herod is doing. I mean, Herod's the one who's persecuting the church. Herod is the one who beheads James, Herod is the one who throws Peter into prison, Herod is the one who's going to have Peter uh be beheaded after the Passover. Like Herod is doing all of these things, and so we have Herod on this side, but then Luke is making this contrast, but but the people of God, the church, were praying fervently to God. And it's interesting, that word fervently, Luke, not only the author of Acts, but also the Gospel of Luke, he only uses that word fervently, this earnest prayer, one other time in both books, and it's when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before that he died. That Jesus was praying earnestly to God, and he's showing us that's how these people were praying to God in this moment. And I love it because we see uh this was after James. Like I imagine these people are praying fervently to God, probably with tears still coming down their face because of what happened to James, and yet they are expecting God to do something different in this moment with Peter. Alright, and as they are praying, that angel shows up to Peter, wakes him up, and then this happens, verse 8. It says, Get dressed, the angel told him, and put on your sandals, and he did. Wrap the cloak around you, he told him, and follow me. And so he went out and followed, and he did not know that what the angel did was really happening, but he thought he was seeing a vision. Classic Peter. After they passed the first and the second guards, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened to them by itself. They went outside and passed one street, and suddenly the angel left him. Okay, I imagine the long this is the longest part of the story, and I just imagine Peter being dazed and confused being woken up at this time. It's like a newborn waking you up, you have no idea what's happening. Right, Zach and Mallie? Love you guys. Um, but did you notice all the commands by the angel in this moment? Like Peter's so dazed and confused, the angel literally has to like help him, hold his hand just to get him out of here. I mean, he wakes him up. He says, Get your clothes on, put your shoes on. And man, I just feel like this is God's kindness to Peter in this moment. Where they're just like, hey, Peter, Acts chapter 12, uh, it's gonna go in the Bible, and uh people are gonna be studying this throughout history. It's gonna be an awesome moment. Uh, when this happens, you're gonna want some pants on. Okay, put some pants on, and we're gonna get out of here. Let's go. And we don't know how the angel did this. All we know is that Peter is able to get out of the chains, which again, he would have been connected to two guards, but he would have been able to get out of the chains past the two other guards who were uh watching the door, past the other 12 guards that would have been ready to go. And then it even says uh the door flung open, right? It's like the door swung open. It was the first automatic door in the history of the world. It's like going into Target these days, it just opens for you. That's what happened here with this iron gate. And again, iron, that wasn't a common, as common of a thing back then. Most gates would have been wooden, and so Herod's doing everything he can to keep this guy in, and we're almost left wondering, man, what is an angel going to do against 16 soldiers? Whatever he wants, right? Like that's kind of the attitude that we get in this moment. And then we see what happens is that when Peter he came to himself, this is verse 11, he said, Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's grasp and from all that the Jewish people expected. Okay, what does Peter realize? Peter realizes in this moment I didn't escape from prison. The Lord delivered me out of prison. Okay, this is basically just a parable of the Christian story. Right? Like we were all left in the prison cell of sin. We had nothing to do with it. We were hopeless, without hope, we couldn't do anything. We needed somebody else to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. We needed somebody like Jesus to come in, rip off the chains, and lead us out of our prison cell and into freedom. Peter's realizing this, and as soon as he realizes this, verse 12, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who was called Mark, where many had assembled and were praying. He knocked at the door of the outer gate, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer. She recognized Peter's voice, and because of her joy, I love this, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the outer gate. How do the people respond? You're out of your mind, they told her. But she kept insisting that it was true, and they said, It's his angel. Peter, however, kept knocking. It's probably like five minutes, ten minutes. How long do you think he was knocking, you know? And when they opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. And motioning to him with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. Tell these things to James and the brothers, he said, different James, and he left and went to another place. Okay. Wild, humorous story. And here's what's easy to miss, okay? The feast of unleavened bread, it would have been about seven days in length. And so these people, uh, the text doesn't say, but most likely that these people were gathered together at Mary's house, and they had been praying consistently for the past seven days. And this right here is the last hour. It's gonna say that the that the next hour, Peter was about to be put on trial, most likely to be beheaded. But Peter gets out. We see this moment, the church doesn't know it, right? The church is still praying, they're at Mary's house, just praying. And Peter, knowing where everyone probably is, he's stumbling through the streets of Jerusalem, looking for Mary's house. And I can almost imagine if you put yourself in the scene, I mean it's dark out, he's walking through these streets, and all of a sudden, he starts hearing the cries and the prayers of God's people at Mary's house. And he's walking up to the door, and he gets to the door, and he just hears all of these people crying out to God for him. And you gotta think that Peter in this moment is like, this is the reason. This is this is the reason that I'm here right now. That in the midst of earnest prayer, God was answering their prayer, that the answer to their prayer was literally knocking at the door. Okay, and sweet Rhoda, sweet, sweet Rhoda, the servant girl, I can't imagine. In her excitement, just leaves him outside, right? Which again isn't ideal. He's a wanted man, leaves him outside and goes and tells everyone, and in her excitement, she's just like, guys, Peter is here. And how do they respond? We knew he would. Our God is greater, he's stronger, he's higher than any other. Of course he did. No, they didn't do that at all. He they said, Poor Rhoda, like, I mean, bless her heart. They literally call her insane. They're like, Rhoda, quit lying. Okay, we know that you're joking with us. You're kind of seen, are you kind of insane again? Okay, just go back to sleep. We've been praying for a long time. And Rhoda's like, No, guys, I'm serious. And they're like, Rhoda, again, we've been through this. You're kind of the cuckoo one among the disciples. Just like go sleep it off, you know. And she's like, Guys, I'm serious. Peter is at the door. And so I don't know how they convince them, but somehow uh all these people they come to the door and they actually see Peter there. And they go nuts. They start screaming. They're going crazy for good reason, right? And yet, Peter is just like, guys, I guess I'm still a wanted man. Let me inside, okay? Let me talk to you. I'll comfort Rhoda first. She's probably crying in the corner. But let me come talk to you about how God delivered me from prison. Let me tell you everything that just happened. Okay, I love it. It's an amazing story. But guys, here's the reality of what we see in the early church is here's people at Mary's house. They're praying earnestly, and they're praying, but they're not totally sure if God's going to come through on their prayers yet or not. They're praying like crazy, but they're not totally sure. I mean, like verse 5, they are praying earnestly for Peter to get out. They're begging God, probably again for these seven days. They're begging God, God, do something in the life of Peter. I don't know what exactly they're praying for, but Lord, would you get him out? And what do we see? Peter gets out, he shows up at the door, and what do they say? Doubt it. Like, that's that can't be Peter, right? There's no way that that's Peter. Which, I mean, I think that it's funny, but here's where I'm encouraged is that God apparently wasn't sitting in heaven looking at Mary's house and being like, I'm not moving until they're all convinced. Like the Father, Son, Spirit, they weren't all up in heaven just talking like, man, Tyler always knew he was a bum. He doesn't fully believe. He doesn't believe that we can do this. And so we're not moving until Tyler believes, right? Like, no, like God, what he is doing in this moment, what we see is that he isn't expecting like the strength and the faith of these people. Prayer isn't dependent upon the strength of these people. What prayer is dependent upon is the strength of their God. And God has always used imperfect people praying imperfect prayers to move the needle of history. Right? And so here's my question for us. In this early moment of the church, they're praying, not totally sure if God is going to come through. This is a big prayer for them. And so here's my question for us Is there anything in your life right now that you're praying for that if God said yes to, you wouldn't even believe it? You'd be like, God, no way. Are you serious? No way would you do that? Because here's what I want, man. I want to be a type of person who prays prayers like that. I want to be the type of person who prays prayers that if God said yes to, I'd be like, Are you serious? No way. Like, I want to be the type of guy in my connection group. I'm a little bit nervous to tell my connection group about what I'm praying for because they think I'm crazy. Like, Drake, you're praying for that. I want to be the type of person, to say it another way, I want to pray prayers that if they answered, the only logical conclusion is God showed up. Only God could have done that. You see, in this happened in the mid-1700s, the Puritan dream of like the pure church and the colonies was slowly coming to an end. And there was a pastor in the 1700s in Massachusetts named Jonathan Edwards who wrote this about what it was like in February of 1728. He said, It seemed to be a time of extraordinary dullness in religion. Okay, the youth in the town, they would frequent the taverns, they had lewd practices, and they corrupted others. He said, Meanwhile, the parents, they weren't raising their kids. The leadership of the day was too divided to even help each other out, and nobody cared about the next generation. And Jonathan Edwards said, we were watching ourselves unravel. Okay, seems like not much has changed sometimes in 300 years. But what Jonathan Edwards said, he said, What do we do in this moment? Do we despair? Do we give up? No, he mentions two things that actually happened in 1738. He said, people actually got scared enough to start praying. That they were looking around at the culture and the landscape of the culture, and they realized we have no other hope. We're too scared. We don't know what else to do. We're going to start praying. And so people started to attend prayer meetings. Dads actually stepped up and started praying for their families. People came in and they started praying for their towns. And so people began to pray. But the second thing that Jonathan Edwards said started happening in those mid-1700s is that people began to publicly confess sin as a result of all of this prayer gathering. That people began to say, you know what, I'm done with this sin. I don't want to do this anymore. And he explicitly mentioned how dads began to step up and how dads came forward and said, you know what, we've just been playing a bunch of religious games. We haven't actually been following Jesus. We've just been going through the motions and we don't want to play games anymore. I actually want to follow Jesus like he is the Lord of my life, not just a fire insurance policy. Right? And Jonathan Edwards mentions this and he said, Man, you combine those two things. You combine the fact that people began to pray like crazy because they didn't know what else to do, and people began to publicly confess sin and the dudes in uh the city and the town, they stood up. You combined those two things, and it led to what the theologians call the first great awakening in America that has set up and shaped so much of American culture today. I mean, there was just this deep heart-level confession of sin and this deep heart-level prayer that's like, God, you have to move. You have to move. If anything of value is going to happen, you're gonna have to move. And I just, man, I can't help but think of what God may be doing in today's landscape. I mean, I I I joined the salt company uh back in college, and we were just amazed that one church plant would have happened. I was just like, no way. I mean, there were like some three little towns in Iowa, and we were pretty content with being in Iowa, it has more pigs than people. And we were just like, this is great. And then all of a sudden, this network started, and they were like, you know what, we need to actually reach the campuses. We need to reach the youth of America. And so they started planting churches all across America, and from a few little salt companies in the Midwest to now over 46 that launched this past fall, and I'm just like, God, would you do it again? I'm just thinking about C.S. Lewis's Al Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe when Lucy and the other kids were around Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and they just heard this great rumor that Aslan the King was on the move. I'm just like, it's not a rumor. Like, it's it's happening right before us, and I'm seeing it, and all of it started. You can ask uh the founder of it, all of it started because people began to pray Luke 10 2. And they're like, we we just don't know what else to do. And so we're just gonna pray, Luke 10 2, that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. We need to pray for the Lord to send out laborers into this harvest. And I'm just like, yes and amen. Like, let's go. And so here's what I'm seeing is absolutely like in this moment, the the like culture and the chaos that was around this moment, the Herod looked like he was in control. It could have been easy for the disciples to have been like, I don't know what else to do. We're just gonna start game planning over here, but maybe this movement is done. And I think it's possible that a lot of us in the room, we can just like turn on the news or be scrolling through Facebook and we can see, man, I don't know, like AI is taking over, and like no, like people are not going to church as much, and the the youth of the day are just kind of chaotic. They don't, they their attention span is like even shorter than goldfish. Like, is there any hope for them, you know? And all these types of things, you can turn on the news and you can start to believe some of those things that the news is trying to press down you, or you can pray. Or we can be a people who's who's nervous enough just about what is happening in the world and actually just stepping up and saying, God, but you're bigger. Herod wasn't in control in this moment. God, you were in control. And so people just began to pray. And I wonder what happened if we just began to pray. Or we just look around at the darkness of the world and we're like, man, no, we serve the God who actually controls everything, and we just want to pray. We're gonna pray for God to do something crazy. And so maybe, maybe this is my challenge to you is I want I want us to be a church and I want us to be a people who praise prayers that scare us a little bit. You know, pray for your prodigal that you've almost given up on. Pray for your unbelieving roommate who who shows no interest and even antagonistic towards you for going to salt company. Pray for God to save students on your campuses. Pray for marriages, like the worst marriages that you know that seem like there's no hope in them. Pray for those marriages to be restored. Pray for the addiction to be completely undone. Pray for King's Church to plant churches all over Texas, not for our sake, but for the sake of reaching more and more students for the sake of the gospel. Pray for God to bring revival to our city. Pray that there would be some high school students that are going to come to UNT and T Dub and NCTC in the next coming years who's actually gonna see a global vision for God's mission and gonna be long-term missionaries in the coming years. Right? Pray for things that if God actually answered, for you guys individually and for us as a church, that if God answered yes, we'd be blown away by. And people even in Denton would be like, man, they ain't good enough for that. Like King's Church isn't good enough. Only God could have done that. That's the type of prayers that I want to pray. You see, in this moment, I think what I would see is like it'd be easy to think, yeah, but those are, that's like the early church. Like those guys were incredible. Of course, God's gonna answer their prayer. Guys, Luke went out of his way just to show us how unimpressive these people are. Okay, Peter is literally in prison, chained. He like he's sleeping. He's not doing a single thing. Right? Rhoda literally forgets Peter at the door in her excitement. She's not a great like bouncer in this moment, you know? And the disciples, they didn't even believe Rhoda when when they said, Hey, God has answered our prayers, and yet God moved anyways. And we see God, he does this so often that just imperfect people praying imperfect prayers, but just begging and asking God to move, and God shows up. And I wonder if we did that. And so we see God, he moves not just for the prayers of his saints, but we also see at the very end God move against the pride of Herod. He moves for the prayers of his saints, but he also moves against the pride of Herod. Look down at verse 20. It said Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. Together they presented themselves before him. After winning over Blastus, who that's a name, baby name for all of you, pregnant people, um, who was in charge of the king's bedroom, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food from the king's country. On an appointed day, dressed in royal robes and seated on the throne, Herod delivered a speech to them. The assembled the assembled people began to shout, It's the voice of a God and not of man. And at once the angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. Okay, notice. Notice, at the beginning of our story, I mean, Herod is in complete control. He looks like he's king, he's sovereign, he's doing all of these things. He's the one who's active. He kills, he's imprisoned, he thinks he is the big dog. He thinks he's in control, and by the end of it, by the end of his story, Herod gets eaten by worms and dies. All right, people, they are praising Herod as God, and in a moment an angel strikes. Just like an angel struck Peter awake, but this time an angel strikes Herod to death because he did not give glory to God. And I'll tell you what, God does not share his glory. God will not share his glory. All glory belongs to God, and if we begin to take credit for what God is doing, that's called spiritual plagiarism, and God's not having any part of it. Alright, so for most of this this morning, I've been talking to the Peters in the room, maybe people who are desperate for God to move and begging us to cry out to God. But for this last little section, I just want to speak to the Herods in the room. Okay, and I don't mean people who are intentionally opposed to Christianity and trying to stop it and evil. No, what I mean is for people who think they are in control of their own life. The people who think that they are in control of their own life, because I'll tell you this, the gospel, it doesn't just comfort desperate people, the gospel also confronts self-sufficient and prideful people as well. Where you feel like you are the decider of your life, that you control all the situations and that you can manipulate life to bend to you. And I tell you, the danger that we see in this story and the danger for you is this is that you're in danger of not needing God because you think you are God. And you wouldn't say it like that, but you're operating in so many ways like that. And the warning here is that nobody's in control. Nobody's in control of your life. It doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter how many people will report to you on the org chart, it doesn't matter how many people like you, it doesn't matter if you work out three times a day, only eat organic food and hit your protein goals, okay? It doesn't matter anything like that. The point is you are not sovereign. You are not in control of your own life. You don't control tomorrow, you don't control your next breath, you don't control if your body is going to function how it should. Right? Like Herod in this moment, he had more power than anybody. He had more control than anybody. And in a moment, I mean, people were literally praising him and saying, that is the voice of a God and not man. Right? He had so much control, but Herod believed his own press in this moment. He believed what people were saying, and in a moment, God reminds Herod, you're not God, only I am. You see, that's the warning of Acts chapter 12 is you can spend your life building your little kingdom, trying to manipulate your life, to bend people, to submit to you and all these things. And all I'll say is you aren't in control. And the warning of Acts chapter 12 is don't try to be. Right? And so to the prideful in the room, this is this is what I'd say, the self-sufficient people who are operating like that is you can't control tomorrow, but you can give your life to the one who does control tomorrow. I'll tell you this is that is bending your knee to Jesus will actually bring you the freedom that you're hoping the self-sufficiency and prideful would actually get you. Jesus is the only one who can offer life. Jesus is the only one who can offer true freedom. And Herod found that out.

unknown 35:24

Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Because the ending of the story, it isn't Herod in control, advancing his kingdom, it's Jesus, the true king, advancing his kingdom. You see it in verse 24, the last thing that we'll see. But the word of God spread and multiplied. After they had completed their relief mission, Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem, taking along John, who was called Mark. But verse 24, I love it. But the word of God spread and multiplied. The beginning of the story was all about Herod being in control. Herod looks like he's the king. Herod looks like he's sovereign. Herod's setting up his little kingdom. How do we end? The word of God increased and multiplied. Because only the true kingdom of this world will. The kings and kingdoms of this world are going to fall away. Only the true kingdom of the gospel and Jesus reigning and ruling is going to make it to the end. And to that we can celebrate. Let me pray for us. Lord, I'm so thankful for Acts chapter 12. And in this moment, I'm especially thinking about how you answer to your people who call out to you and who beg you to move, even when we're have some type of faint faith. Lord, you move when your people cry out to you. And so, Lord, in this moment, I just want to give people an opportunity to say a quick prayer. What would be a prayer that you might have where if God answered yes, you knew it could only come from Him? Maybe it is a prodigal coming home. Maybe it's for God to save your roommate, to save a family member. Maybe it's for God to heal the sin that's in your life. Maybe it's for Him just to strengthen you and encourage you in some of these anxious moments of your life to give you a peace that surpasses all understanding. You answer the cries of your people. Would King's Church be filled with people who are praying people who pray these bold prayers? Who aren't shy to come to you and beg you to move in some pretty significant ways in your life? And Father, I'm thankful that you don't answer because of how great we are, but because of how great you are. So Lord, help us lift you in this moment. In Jesus' name. Amen.