SPEAKER_00: I know we've got some Tolkien fans in here because I talk about them every three weeks and sometimes get some nods of approval when I do that.
SPEAKER_00: There's a scene late in The Lord of the Rings, even if you didn't read the books, maybe you saw uh one or two of the films.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a scene late in the story where Frodo and Sam are worn down to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they've got nothing left.
SPEAKER_00: And the ring that they're carrying is heavier than it's ever been.
SPEAKER_00: The danger that they've been experiencing is as close as it's ever been.
SPEAKER_00: And for just a minute, they stop and they talk.
SPEAKER_00: And they begin talking about the old stories that they grew up on, the ones about the impossible odds and the heroes who didn't know that their story or how their story would end.
SPEAKER_00: And then Sam says something interesting out loud.
SPEAKER_00: He says, he says that the greatest stories never feel great while you're living in them.
SPEAKER_00: They they feel like this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting some sort of playback here, Corey.
SPEAKER_00: Can you hear that by any chance coming out of this speaker here?
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit of an echo.
SPEAKER_00: As long as you guys can't hear it, I think we're okay.
SPEAKER_00: Can anybody hear anything?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm just gonna.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's in my own mind, and it's quite possible, but I've been up late watching soccer, so you'll forgive me if I'm hearing things.
SPEAKER_00: What do the stories we're living in feel like?
SPEAKER_00: They feel like this.
SPEAKER_00: They feel tired and they feel afraid and not sure.
SPEAKER_00: And are they going to work out?
SPEAKER_00: And then Frodo asks him something like, Do you think we're in one of those stories right now?
SPEAKER_00: Now you gotta be able to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now they can hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Corey, we got some sort of like something coming through here, like it's me, but it's delayed, and I feel really weird as I'm hearing it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep going, and we're just gonna trust the Holy Spirit and Corey and the team to work it out.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: We're all living in a story.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us get done.
SPEAKER_00: We're all living in a story.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us makes sense of our life through some kind of story.
SPEAKER_00: It's how God has made us.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we've ever stopped and named the story we're actually living in, we all live in some sort of me, something that gives a framework that gives meaning to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we don't just live through events as they happen in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We explain those events to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We give them shape, a beginning, a middle, and a preferred end, something we hope for.
SPEAKER_00: And that shape is the story that we're all actually living inside.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just think about the potential story that you're living in.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a few potential stories today.
SPEAKER_00: There's the self-made man or self-made woman story that some of us are living in.
SPEAKER_00: That the one where you built the life that you have with your own two hands.
SPEAKER_00: And everything's going to be okay as long as you keep building and as long as you can protect that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are living in a self-made story.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are living in a scoreboard story.
SPEAKER_00: The story where, whether you realize it or not, your value, your worth is all tied up in and determined by your daily successes and your failures.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are living in a suffering story.
SPEAKER_00: That's the one where you've been hurt somewhere along the way, and nobody seems to understand.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody seems to care.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are living in a someday story, the one where your life you believe will start once you find the right person, or once you land the right job, or once you have the right money.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you one more.
SPEAKER_00: There's the star of the show story that some of us are living in today.
SPEAKER_00: The one where you're the protagonist and everybody else exists to support you, to help you shine, to make you happy.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not supported or shining or happy, it's everybody else's fault.
SPEAKER_00: That's the star of the show story.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us is living in a story.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of you, and I know some of you here this morning, for those of you who think you're not living in a story, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: That's just another story that people are living in.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what I need you to know this morning, and this is maybe, well, at least one of the most important things I think I might say today.
SPEAKER_00: It's that not all stories are true.
SPEAKER_00: Not all stories can be trusted, including the ones that we're living in.
SPEAKER_00: Stories are made up.
SPEAKER_00: And our stories maybe served us well when we were little, because we needed a world in which we could be safe.
SPEAKER_00: We all needed a place where we could make mistakes and still be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: We all needed a place where we could be looked after and nurtured and loved, but that wasn't true for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: So we had to create it for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's the problem that we're confronted with by the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that continuing to live in our stories, the ones we've made up to keep us safe and loved, continuing to live in our stories is keeping us from living in the one true story.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one story that makes room for both our suffering and our joy.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one true story that makes sense of both the curse and the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Only one true story that makes sense of death and life where we can hold those things in tension and still live the story that God has made us to live.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story, the story that's being written by Jesus, the author of life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give that story a name this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let's call it an Exodus story.
SPEAKER_00: That's the story we're all living in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we're not going to turn to Exodus this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to actually turn to Acts.
SPEAKER_00: So let's turn to Acts chapter 12 as we continue a teaching series through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: That we're calling what now?
SPEAKER_00: What are we to know and understand, and how are we to live now in light of the resurrection of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: This is how the early believers post-resurrection began to experience resurrection life and sort out how to live in the true story that God was writing.
SPEAKER_00: So, Acts chapter 12, we're going to start in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just read the first three verses here together.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it out loud.
SPEAKER_00: You can follow along.
SPEAKER_00: It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just pause for a second.
SPEAKER_00: So far in the story, it's it's primarily Rome in cahoots with sort of the religious leaders of the day that are persecuting the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now we see this coming from the very top, King Herod, King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now he's persecuting those who belong to the way, members of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And then we continue here.
SPEAKER_00: It says, He had James, the brother of John.
SPEAKER_00: Remember him from the Gospels?
SPEAKER_00: James, the brother of John, he had him put to death with the sword.
SPEAKER_00: And when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.
SPEAKER_00: And this happened during the festival of unleavened bread.
SPEAKER_00: I find it shocking that in one sentence, James is just gone.
SPEAKER_00: He's out of the story, out of the picture.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, James was a main character in the story of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just one of the 12 disciples, he was one of the three disciples closest to Jesus Peter, James, and John.
SPEAKER_00: There's no trial.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know James's last words, no miracle swooping in to save James.
SPEAKER_00: He's just put to death by the sword.
SPEAKER_00: And the story goes on.
SPEAKER_00: And there are people in this room who know what that kind of sudden interruption, that sudden loss feels like.
SPEAKER_00: A bad diagnosis that has come back unexpectedly.
SPEAKER_00: A phone call with bad news in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: Life usually doesn't give you a warning before it gets hard.
SPEAKER_00: It just suddenly gets hard.
SPEAKER_00: I find it interesting that this happens during the festival of the unleavened bread.
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
SPEAKER_00: The festival of the unleavened bread is Passover.
SPEAKER_00: It was the night that every year Israel remembers God breaking an empire's grip and walking his people out of slavery into or toward the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: And now here's Herod, the king of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He picks this exact week to play Pharaoh, killing one of the apostles and locking up another one.
SPEAKER_00: Every generation has its own Herod or Herod's plural.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for some of you, it's an employer, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: You're feeling this more on a sort of an acute level.
SPEAKER_00: It's an employer who treats you like you're replaceable.
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, like I mentioned, maybe it's a diagnosis, or it could be a debt, or maybe an addiction, or a family situation that has you in chains.
SPEAKER_00: Herod isn't unique to the story, to this story.
SPEAKER_00: There is a Herod in the story that Jesus is telling and shows up in all kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_00: This is Herod in this story, is just the latest version of power that's been bullying people since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each.
SPEAKER_00: Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover, and so Peter was kept in prison.
SPEAKER_00: But the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you might find this a little bit over the top until you really think about sixteers guarding one little tiny fisherman.
SPEAKER_00: Sixteen soldiers for this one little guy, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've been reading the book of Acts, you understand why.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's raised the dead.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit through Peter has done all sorts of miracles.
SPEAKER_00: He's set prisoners free, set captives free, seen demon-possessed people set free, he's seen people healed.
SPEAKER_00: All kinds of things have happened through this Peter who keeps proclaiming the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, who, by the way, Herod was around for and thought he had defeated.
SPEAKER_00: But now there are these bizarre stories, and there's no body, and there's an empty tomb, and Herod isn't taking any chances with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: This is how you squash a rebellion, you kill the leader, and then you go after his lieutenants, and that's exactly what's happened.
SPEAKER_00: James has been put to death, and there are two more, Peter and John.
SPEAKER_00: And he's got Peter behind chains, behind behind bars and chains.
SPEAKER_00: The word that Luke, the author of Acts here, uses for how the church prayed means something like stretched out or pulled tight, taught, like a like a like a line that's under heavy weight.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants us to know that the church isn't just praying a quick prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, should we pray for the meal?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God, thank you for this food.
SPEAKER_00: Set Peter free in Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't the prayer they were praying.
SPEAKER_00: They were, it was the kind of praying you do when you've been waiting on test results, the kind of praying you do when you're waiting to hear if the job came through, or the the or waiting for your kid to call and tell you that they're okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not eloquent praying.
SPEAKER_00: It's raw and it's weighty, and the church was praying.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6: the night before Herod was to bring them to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and light shone in the cell.
SPEAKER_00: He struck Peter on the side and woke him up.
SPEAKER_00: Get up, he said.
SPEAKER_00: Quick.
SPEAKER_00: And the chains fell off of Peter's wrists.
SPEAKER_00: Now you see, Herod wasn't concerned about nothing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's Peter at the church is praying, and an angel shows up.
SPEAKER_00: I find it interesting that Peter, what's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: What's Peter doing?
SPEAKER_00: Sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: He's sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the story of the disciples on the boat when the storm comes up?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter was there and they're all sort of freaking out.
SPEAKER_00: And uh they look for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And where do they find Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: In the bottom of the boat, and what's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: He's sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: Peter goes from freaking to sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: He's seen some stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And here he is.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's sleeping, he's calm.
SPEAKER_00: Not because his circumstances have gotten any better, or there's any promise of his circumstances getting better, but he's calm because I think he's given up trying to control the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: There is a certain kind of freedom where you say, What will be, will be.
SPEAKER_00: I trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Peter's at.
SPEAKER_00: And we should take a lesson here.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him.
SPEAKER_00: I think because some of us have a chain like that right now.
SPEAKER_00: It maybe it's it's a habit, possibly, that that you can't outdiscipline your way through.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get free from it, even though you've tried all sorts of methods.
SPEAKER_00: You just keep coming back to this habit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a relationship that just won't heal.
SPEAKER_00: It won't get better no matter how many times you've tried to fix it yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to point out is I think this part of the story isn't telling us to try harder this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I think this part of the story is telling us that chains don't come off because of our effort.
SPEAKER_00: There's very little we can do within our control to actually cause the chains to come off, but our chains come off because someone stronger than our chain does something on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Peter has no way of escaping, but an angel of the Lord suddenly appears.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the significance of the angel being kind of rough with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: He hits him in the side, and then there's an exclamation.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you can quite how do you quietly yell, get up?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the angel does here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a miracle of some kind.
SPEAKER_00: He quietly yells, get up.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 8, look, the angel said to him, Put on your clothes and sandals.
SPEAKER_00: Put something on.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter did so.
SPEAKER_00: Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the angel told him.
SPEAKER_00: And so Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening.
SPEAKER_00: He thought he was seeing a vision, he thought he's dreaming.
SPEAKER_00: And they passed the first and second guards, and they came to an the iron gate leading to the city, and it opened for them by itself.
SPEAKER_00: And they went through it.
SPEAKER_00: An iron gate opens on its own.
SPEAKER_00: A red sea that just parts.
SPEAKER_00: A stone in front of a tomb is rolled away.
SPEAKER_00: You see the story we're living in?
SPEAKER_00: It's an Exodus story.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is what Jesus does with locked things, beginning with sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: He opens them.
SPEAKER_00: The Exodus was always pointing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: On the cross, he let the same powers that stand behind every Pharaoh and every Herod.
SPEAKER_00: He allowed them to throw everything they had at him, sin and death included.
SPEAKER_00: And he walked out of the tomb the way that Peter walked out of the cell, the way that Moses and the people walked through the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God does.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you've spent years assuming that your particular lock is too old, it's too complicated, it's too specific to you and your story for God to bother with, I think that's worth reconsidering this morning.
SPEAKER_00: God's opened more difficult locks before than yours.
SPEAKER_00: He's opened heavier gates than the one that stands between you and the life that He's made you for.
SPEAKER_00: The story that we're living in today is still an Exodus story.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the middle of the story.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful to know where we're at in the story.
SPEAKER_00: You know, while we were singing, I had to just write down these lyrics this morning as we were singing because I found them to be so poignant.
SPEAKER_00: If I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail, if I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered, then why does James get a sword and Peter get an out?
SPEAKER_00: If God always shows up, why does this happen?
SPEAKER_00: Why, why some of you you've prayed just as hard as that church prayed and you're still waiting.
SPEAKER_00: Someone in this room or some ones in this room have been praying for a marriage for years with no movement.
SPEAKER_00: Someone in here has buried a spouse or a child.
SPEAKER_00: Someone has prayed over the same addiction through multiple relapses, and you keep praying and you keep praying and you keep wondering if God's so faithful, why am I still in this?
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean then that your prayer has failed?
SPEAKER_00: No easy answers here.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean then that God can't be trusted?
SPEAKER_00: We see Peter walking out, oh, that's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not forget about James and what happened to him.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: See, most of us don't have a story capable of holding these things in tension.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, the stories we got in church aren't very helpful either.
SPEAKER_00: That God always comes through, that things are always going to be okay, that that person is always going to be healed if you just have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you, that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful people die.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful people get sick.
SPEAKER_00: We need a story that's true enough to hold real life in tension, the way real life is.
SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: Does our is our prayers are our prayers failing?
SPEAKER_00: Is God failing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what I think it means.
SPEAKER_00: I think it means that you and I are living in the same time, the same in-between time that the church that we're reading about today lived in.
SPEAKER_00: A time where the kingdom has already appeared, but it's not yet complete.
SPEAKER_00: That means that there's some cells opening up this year, but there are going to be some cells that are going to stay locked a little while longer.
SPEAKER_00: Unanswered prayer doesn't mean that God has stopped listening.
SPEAKER_00: It means that our story isn't over yet.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: These aren't easy answers.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: When it finally dawns on Peter that this isn't a dream, Peter went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people gathered and were praying.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door.
SPEAKER_00: And when she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it.
SPEAKER_00: She just left Peter at the door, exclaiming, Peter is at the door.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, everyone thanked Rhoda because she's so respected and they loved her and they trusted her and they rushed to the door and let Peter in.
SPEAKER_00: That's not at all what happened.
SPEAKER_00: You're out of your mind, they told her.
SPEAKER_00: And when she kept insisting that it was so, they said, It must be his angel.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's his spirit, maybe it's an angel.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
SPEAKER_00: I guess they would be.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Rhoda.
SPEAKER_00: Who is she?
SPEAKER_00: Rhoda's a servant.
SPEAKER_00: She's the person with the least amount of standing in the house.
SPEAKER_00: And here she is the only one who believes what her eyes see.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about who plays Rhoda in your workplace or your family.
SPEAKER_00: There are all kinds of people in our story, living out their story, that we don't really factor in very much.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's their position or whatever it is about them, we just overlook them, people who are easy to overlook.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the story says, pay attention to that person.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying, we're praying.
SPEAKER_00: Here are the people.
SPEAKER_00: They're praying, the church, they're praying, praying, praying.
SPEAKER_00: This really exhaustive and maybe exhausting prayer.
SPEAKER_00: God, save our brother Peter, save our brother Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And then they overlook the person who tells them that God has answered their prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that this is a parallel to any of our stories in particular right now, but it could be.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying and we think, God, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Are we listening?
SPEAKER_00: Are we looking?
SPEAKER_00: Are we open to God actually showing up in our story as we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet, and he described how the Lord had brought him out of prison.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so like piped down.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you everything that happened here.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Tell James.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is obviously a different James.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps James, the brother of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because he says, Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this.
SPEAKER_00: And then he left for another place.
SPEAKER_00: And in the morning there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't in our teaching text this morning, but in the following verse, what we find is Herod is so enraged by what's happened that he puts the soldiers to death.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Peter doesn't stop to explain how it happened.
SPEAKER_00: He just tells them what the Lord did, and then he moves on to whatever it is that's next.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod's chapter in the story doesn't really get resolved yet.
SPEAKER_00: He's still on the throne, he's still confused, he's still convinced that he's in charge.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to speak to those of you this morning who might be living inside of a chapter like this right now, where the threat hasn't been dealt with yet.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't get to see how it ends quite yet.
SPEAKER_00: You're still living in this place.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: I just want to give you just very quickly two ways that we might respond to the true story that God is telling and that we're living in this week.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do when we find ourselves living in this kind of story?
SPEAKER_00: A James and Peter story.
SPEAKER_00: One, we keep praying with the same stubbornness that the church had.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop praying.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop praying for the thing that you've been praying for, maybe even for years, with very little or nothing to show for it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: Straining prayer isn't wasted just because the answer hasn't come.
SPEAKER_00: What am I wasting my breath for?
SPEAKER_00: No, we keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: You're not outside the story.
SPEAKER_00: You're not in some way disconnected.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the story goes.
SPEAKER_00: You're in the hardest chapter of the story.
SPEAKER_00: And the same God who let that chapter happen is still writing the promise or toward the promise that God has not broken and God will not break.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, if you're struggling through this chapter of your life, keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: And two, let me just encourage you with this when something does open up for you, a door or a job, or a diagnosis that comes back clean, or a relationship that finally starts to heal, I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, don't manage it quietly by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Tell somebody the way that Peter told the church, the way that Rhoda ran to tell all of the people in the room that day, tell somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Because your specific story about what God is doing is useful to someone else who's still locked up and needs a reason to keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: What we read in Acts chapter 12 is bigger than Peter's story, and it's bigger than any of our individual stories.
SPEAKER_00: It's the biblical story, it's the Jesus' story, it's the story of how the true king finally showed up in the world and did what every Pharaoh and every Caesar and every Herod could not do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't just deliver one nation from one empire for one lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went into the deepest depths of slavery there is, into sin and to death themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And on the cross, he let those powers throw everything that they had at them.
SPEAKER_00: And it killed them.
SPEAKER_00: But on the third day, we know that Jesus walked out of the tomb, the way that Peter walked out of the cell, the way that the people walked through the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus walks out of the tomb, not escaping the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't set us free to escape the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus walks out of the tomb to break back into the world to serve as the world's rightful king.
SPEAKER_00: That's what resurrection is.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a rescue out of creation, it's not a rescue out of our lives, but it's the beginning of creation being set right.
SPEAKER_00: The first sign of the whole world is being liberated from the powers that have held it captive since Eden.
SPEAKER_00: That was Jesus walking out of the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: We're living in this Exodus story, and Jesus is the one who's already crossed the sea, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: So the chains that Jesus broke when he did that, they weren't only Peter's.
SPEAKER_00: They were sin's grip on us.
SPEAKER_00: They were death's claim on us.
SPEAKER_00: And every Herod's illusion that he or someone else is really in charge, Jesus has dealt with that.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're living in a time where the empire hasn't fully fallen yet, right?
SPEAKER_00: We still live in this already not yet sort of space in between, still praying in cells that haven't opened and still waiting on gates that haven't swung open wide for us yet.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest about that.
SPEAKER_00: But King Jesus has already won the deciding victory.
SPEAKER_00: And every small deliverance since Peter's and ours is a sign of the new creation that's breaking into our world, even as we speak today.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the key today You can't live in the true story that Jesus is writing and still live in the story that you've been living in.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take on Jesus' story and hold on to your story as well.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is a prayer that I want to pray over you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us all the courage to leave the world we've created in order to be safe and loved, so that we might actually be saved and receive your love through Jesus, our deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand together.