JUN 19 2016 | Acts 12:1-15

Sea Change Church · "Acts 12:1-15" · Adam Stadtmiller · June 19, 2016
Acts 12:1-15
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

It might be up there. If it's not up there, it is in your bulletins, and we're reading and meditating today on Acts 12, 1 through 15. Excellent. Excellent. All right. God's Word. It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

When he saw that this met the approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the festival of unleavened bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two guards bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him. Quick, get up, he said. And the chains fell off Peter's wrists. Then the angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals.

And Peter did so. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea what the angel was doing and what was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and the second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it.

When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything else the Jewish people were hoping would happen. When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.

Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and the servant named Rhoda came and answered the door. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed, she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, Peter, he's at the door. You're out of your mind, they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, it must be his angel. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Let's do that one more time. This is the word of the Lord. Excellent. So good at that, man. You know what? There's a Nathaniel, Jesus said, and that man, there's no guile. Let me just tell you something about Joe Brandy and that dude. And I just, to represent him, there is no guile in that guy. He is a great man of God and loves orphans and goes and spends time with them.

He's the most ADD dude I've ever met in my life. A little quirky, but a good man. We're so glad you're one of our missionaries and put a few hours in here. Let's give it up for Joe. We're blessed. I want you to get to know our team. I'm so proud of the team we're building here. This isn't for the sermons, guys, so don't put this part in the media team up there.

See me? Hey, hello? They're just talking amongst themselves. There you are. Yeah, don't put this part in the sermon online. Hey, our team is phenomenal. We have such a great, I mean, we are building a team. One of the best things about any organization is the team. And if you look around at our team, from our children's ministry to the junior high and high school, our office administration, our volunteers, I mean, it's just phenomenal.

It's great to see what God is doing. So we want you to get to know our team. And that's why we bring up different people here throughout the week. Let me just pray and then we'll get started. Lord Jesus, we thank you, God, for what you're doing today. It's beautiful today. It's beautiful. And, God, we want to delight. We have to practice delight, God.

It doesn't come natural. We want to practice delight in you. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. We'll mark the tape with this. Open your Bibles, if you would, to Acts chapter 12, 1 through 15. You can open your iPhone or cellular device to check out God's word. We're going to start in verse 1. But the first thing that hit me when Joe was reading, and I really appreciate the way he reads it because it really makes me think because it's very narrative.

I love where it says, and the angel rescued him from Herod's clutches. What a great word, the clutches. And I thought to myself, what are the things that are trying to clutch onto us right now? Do you ever feel like just something's got you and it's clutches? It's a thought. It's a fear. It's a situation that you're going in. And the whole purpose of God is to rescue from clutches.

He rescued us from the clutches of what? Of death. And that the enemy wants you to think that he always has you. But when God is with us, who can stand against us? And nothing is impossible with God. So if something has you today in its clutches, let me just assure you that God's desire is to release you from those clutches or to give you peace in the midst of those.

Perhaps you've been to the fair recently where they grease up a pig and try to catch it. This is probably a bad example because I don't want to say you're a bunch of greased pigs. But what I'm trying to say is we get awful slippery when the Holy Spirit is working with us when it comes to Satan trying to hold on to us. And that's what I want to be.

The Holy Spirit is good. Let's look at verse 1. Verse 1. It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death. I want to stop there. It's so easy to miss the humanness of the scriptures where these just become statues at a church somewhere in Europe, these people.

We hear about John. They become larger-than-life figures. We hear about Peter. And the scriptures oftentimes, we can, by just reading through them, we can lose the humanity that is in these scriptures. John's brother was murdered. I mean, John, the best friend of Jesus, who wrote the Gospel of John, who wrote Revelations, 1, 2, 3, John. We see him in these powerful figures.

He is in the midst of deep grief here. And I, you know, I just saw that this week and realized that we, people who, that the men and the people who wrote the scriptures were human beings and that they can relate to us. And so when John writes, verse 1, 2, and, you know, chapter, John 1, 2, and 3, or writes Revelations, or writes the book of John, as he's writing these things, it's coming from a perspective of a man whose life was radically changed by Jesus.

And then he saw his best friend murdered in a really horrific way. And then he sees his brother put to death. And all this for the Gospel, the call of the Gospel. He never gave up. You know, my wife was talking to somebody yesterday, and she said, I just got to applaud you for not giving up. And I said, you know, she's a single mom. And I said, you know, single moms do that.

She goes, my wife said, not every single mom does that, Adam. She says, some people give up. And there is a quality of steadfastness. There is a quality of perseverance. And I want to say that we've said this many times. Psalm 23 says, what do we do in the valley of the shadow of death? We travel, we traverse through it, but we don't lay down. And so what I want to say is in the humanity of the scriptures, we're looking at somebody, John here and Peter, who witnessed some very difficult things.

But John went on. He was such a powerful character. And so hopefully that'll be a word of encouragement to you. That one, that God wants to release you from any clutches that the Satan wants to get upon us. And second of all, in your humanity, in the losses that we suffer, that we are following a God who understands, who became like us in all ways, it says.

And so there in chapter one, verse one, that wasn't in the notes, but something that really hit me this morning as I went back over this. Verse three, let's go to verse three. We're looking at a political figure, Herod here, who is leading through the consensus of the people. Actually, that's not leadership. Let me just say that. Leadership is not taking a group consensus.

Now, it doesn't mean that leaders don't understand what's happening and the conditions of their flock and what people think. But he is leading through what people want, rather than perhaps what needs to be done. Do you see the difference there? I believe that, especially if you look at politics today, and you know how the system works, politicians will rarely say anything until they take a poll.

Does that make sense? Do you know that that's happening? That leadership is, we're having consensus leadership. I want to say that true leadership is able to know what is happening on the ground, but can make difficult decisions in opposition to that, no matter what the cost. That is true leadership. Think of people like Abraham Lincoln. There was a consensus.

People didn't want war or whatever it is, but to free slavery was able to make difficult decisions. I want to say it's very hard to find true leadership in that it's leadership that is happening by consensus. Oftentimes, we have to realize that Herod had personal reasons for wanting to lead in this way, for persecuting the church. He wanted to persecute the church to make alliances with other governments, to make friends with the Jews, to keep things peaceful, because he had people, Caesar himself, who was over him, and if he could figure out how to keep things quiet enough, not lead, but to keep things quiet enough so that he wouldn't have any problems in his life.

This is not leadership. That's leadership for selfish gain. And so we see that that is happening. The church is being persecuted here because of that. And I say, in a nation today, one of the things we want to see is people who can lead, separate of what everyone else thinks, who knows the call of God, who is called to lead forward, and to lead to a place that is beyond people's consensus.

Does that make sense? Because as you see oftentimes in the Scripture, just because there's consensus doesn't mean they do the right thing. Read the end of the book of Judges, and you'll see that. Let's go to verse 3. 3. When he saw that this met with approval from the Jews, so once again, he's looking there. When he saw this met with approval from the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.

Oh, this worked. They liked it. And because they liked it, I'm going to take the next step of leadership. That's not leadership. It says, And he proceeded to seize Peter also, and this happened during the festival of unleavened bread. So there's a timing issue here. He's making all this happen when all the Jews, because all the Jews in Judea, they come to Jerusalem for these festivals.

There is a great, it is timing. It is so political. And so there's a political thing that is happening. And the church is being persecuted, but God uses all persecution for his glory. And he continues to use it, as we see, for his glory. And so all the Jews are there. And it says, After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers.

How many soldiers is that? Right, there we go. Some mathematicians here. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. Now, we've seen this happen before, right? Where have we seen this happen before? Right, with Jesus. Now, who watched that happen with Jesus? Peter. Do you think Peter thinks he's going to die? Absolutely. You know, he doesn't know the end of the story at this point.

He doesn't know he's actually going to make it to Rome and be crucified upside down. He doesn't know that that's going to happen. And Jesus has already told them that you are going to be led where you don't want to go. He says that to him in John chapter 21. And so we see this scripture coming. And so Peter, once again, look at the humanity. Because the scripture is supposed to speak of true humanity, and it's supposed to touch you in the depths of your humanity.

It is a personal book. And it is written by a very personal God who wants to use the scripture as a tool to reach deeply into your heart and to change you. He wants to change you to the depths of your being. And so once again, let's look at the humanity. If I was Peter, I'd be terrified. Or perhaps Peter is thinking, yes, this is my shot. This is my shot.

Because he cursed himself three times and denied Jesus. And was probably thinking to himself, yeah, who knows where Peter is? But we'll get a little thought of where he is when we see his position between these 16 soldiers. And so we see in verse three that we had the political benefit. And in verse five, it says, Peter was kept in prison, but. And I love that.

You're always looking for the conjunction, but, in scripture. Because you will see in scripture, when that word is used, it shows a juxtaposition between how something is happening and how something contrary is happening because of it. So, one of the things it could say is, Peter was put in prison and the church was terrified. It doesn't say that.

It says, Peter was put in prison, which should mean what? It should mean this circumstance happened, so an avalanche of fear should have come upon the church. An avalanche of scattering should have come upon the church, or whatever. It should have been, the direct results of the opposition should have been this. Let me ask in your life. When an opposition comes, do we immediately give in to the opposition?

Do we immediately, as opposed to having a conjunction of but in our lives, where we do something contrary, which brings the kingdom in, do we just say, this happened and I was terrified, and we give in to it. I realize I give in way too much to the enemy's thinking. And even recently, this week, as I went away for a few days up in the mountains, the enemy wants to come in and sow thoughts of your future.

We've talked about that. We're really good at writing really negative stories for our life. And I remember these thoughts started coming in, and then they can start avalanching, and I said, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't have to put up with this. But it's going to take some spiritual work. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the amount of spiritual work it's going to take to live a godly life.

Does that make sense to you? It's just easier to accept the thoughts and to deal with all of it, and then try to, how am I going to figure this out? And as the opposition comes, or maybe I'll do this, and you're writing your exit plan from whatever situation you have. And we just go into it. What I have found out is the work of having to deal with all the emotions and negativity that comes with that is always greater than the amount of work it takes to stand up to it in the name of God, and perhaps go into prayer, and to wait on the Lord until God's presence comes.

I found that. And so perhaps it takes some time. And so we see that there is a conjunction here. What do you do when opposition happens? Does it immediately just slide into the expected conclusions? Because we see that Peter said that what should have happened, remember we read through this text earlier, it said that Herod and the Jews were hoping for this.

That it's just going to go straight to that conclusion. But something else happened. What was that thing? The church was doing what? Praying earnestly. They said, wait a second. Stop. Full stop. We're going to insert the kingdom of God right here. There will be a crossroads. We're going to draw a line in the sand right now with this issue and this problem in our life.

Do you see that? What I want to say and what I'm learning in my own personal life is far too long as I have let the oppositions of my life beat me up, and then I just try to survive. And it's like I'm buried under a, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm buried in a pit, and all I have is a little straw, and I'm just getting a little bit of breath out of a straw.

Do you ever feel that way? Because something happens, you're just, how am I going to survive? And then we go to God. We get just enough God to survive. I just feel like the Lord said this weekend when I was away, I'm like, don't just use me to survive. Delight in my presence. What would it look like if you made an encampment of God's presence in your life?

There's a place called Holcomb Valley in Big Bear, and I was up there for three days on a silent retreat, pretty silent. I talked to the coffee person when I went up there and got some coffee, but pretty much alone. And I would go four to five hours every day and go sit in Holcomb Valley with the horses, and I only see like one truck would go by during the day.

And I would just sit there with the Word of God and some water, and I just felt like God said, I began to feel God's presence in a much broader way. And I really felt like the Lord said, you know, this is available to you if you want it. If you want to just keep using the emergency, you know, like, you know, if you had a drought and there's like emergency water, like, you know, just to wet your lips, you can do that.

But if you really want to make some space for me and have a place where you can build an encampment of God's presence, if you want to step out from your life and quit using me as a life-saving device and start delighting in your presence, you can do that. I had, you know, I had a few times where I had one or two hours where I felt God's divine presence.

It's almost like the margins in the Bible says, and one of the prayers I've been praying through Scripture is that the boundary lines would fall in pleasant places for me and my family. And to extend the territory, like the prayer of Jabez in 2 Chronicles 4, 10, says that the boundary lines of territory would be expanded. And I experienced that for one or two hours.

It's interesting. Within five minutes of beginning to experience God's presence, I think to myself, that's good enough. Let's move on. Now I can go do something I want. Do you ever get like that? Does anybody have that? You just want enough just to say, okay, I got this. Let's go. I can check it off my list. But what does it look like to dwell in the presence of the Lord and to wait?

I've got to say, he doesn't always show up immediately. You get that. He doesn't just show up immediately. But just to take some time and to go into your house and say, I'm going to dwell and wait on the presence of the Lord. And so we see that they put a line in the sand that when this is happening in my life, I'm going to stand up to it no matter what it takes, and I'm going to have an opposition, whether it be prayer or worship or joy or generosity, whatever those things are.

Perhaps there's a financial issue, but you want to attack that with generosity. Maybe your next door neighbor, and even though you're having an issue, you go and you provide to your next door, whatever it is. So it says, but they played, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. They prayed earnestly. And here's what's so interesting about that word earnestly.

I wonder why it said earnestly. Why doesn't it just say they prayed? Prayer is prayer. Why earnestly? What's the difference? Prayer is prayer. It's not. It's not. I think God knows when you're serious. And I think it matters to him. It's not that he won't answer prayers, but I think God knows when you honestly get to the point where you're like, I really want to see this happen, God.

I really want to meet with you. I really want to know to you. Where there's an earnest quality to your prayer. And I got to say, one of the things the Lord was challenging me with is, you know, you know, I pray and I try to pray every day and do my prayer list and things. But what would you be willing, what are you willing to sacrifice perhaps to see that prayer happen, to lean into that prayer?

What does it look like to pray earnestly? And what I'm not saying is this, is that I go and I try to concentrate harder. I'm going to pray, oh, okay, God, I really mean it. I yell. I mean it. I really mean it. I think it's a quality of the heart. I think it's a quality of the heart. And just to say, God, I want more earnestness. And so I began to ask this weekend, God, give me more earnesty in my prayers.

One of the things I began to pray for, I called home and I had prayed for probably, you know, five or ten minutes on this one thing. And I just tried to be really vulnerable and earnest before God and say, I want to take this seriously. You know, you can have a conversation with your spouse or somebody you know. And you know when you're really listening, you still had a conversation.

But what about when somebody intently looks at you? And you can feel that they care about you. You can feel that connection of heart. That's what I think God is talking about. And they were praying earnestly that this would happen. I want to say earnest prayer moves heaven. I'm not saying that if you don't feel that you pray earnestly or you should even put it on, there's no scale of like, I guess I'm doing it now.

I think what you just want to say to God is, God, this really matters to me. And I want to take the time to say I'm earnest about it and to give this to you. And I noticed that as soon as I started doing that, I started to see some answers that I've been waiting for for a while begin to happen. And then I saw the opposition. And then, you know, that's the interesting thing.

You get a breakthrough and then what? The opposition. The enemy knows. The enemy does not want the kingdom to expand. The whole purpose of the gospel on earth is the expansion of the kingdom. We've talked about that a few weeks ago. Is the kingdom of God expanding in your marriage? Is the kingdom of God expanding in your devotional life? Is it expanding in your mental, emotional life?

Do you feel that even though you're not over all the things that you struggle with, do you have more tools to deal with? Are you sensing God's presence more often than you did before? Has there been some progress? Because God wants to move on. He wants to take you to that next place. And so it says they prayed earnestly. There seems to be an earnest quality that we can add to our prayers.

What does it mean to pray earnestly? And perhaps God's waiting for your earnestness. It's not a law. It's not a legalistic thing. He's just saying, do you really want to get serious about this? And some of you might be saying, well, I've been really serious about this. And God hasn't answered yet. I want to say in the midst of that, that's where faith has to come in.

And it says when we don't have faith, how do we get faith? There's only one place you can harvest faith from. From heaven. You can only harvest. Faith comes from hearing. But it comes from God. Faith is an eternal quality. You can't make faith. I'm just going to believe a little harder. It doesn't work that way. God has to give you faith. And so go like the father whose boy was being attacked by the demon.

And he says to Jesus, Lord, give me what? Faith. Faith of a mustard seed. It is something that we harvest from God. God says we have to have it to have our prayers answered. But the only place we can get it is where? From him. And so go to God. Ask him for faith. James says ask for wisdom. Do you need wisdom in a situation? Ask for wisdom. Begin to draw a line in the sand.

Say when this is happening in my life, but this. But Adam did this. Or but Kai did this. You know. Or but Carol did this. There is a differentiation. When the times come, what do you do? I want to say there's an entire kingdom of God's blessing. That if you want to take the time to insert it into your life, will begin to make kingdom expansion in your life.

I've just gotten too good at living with suffering. And just sipping enough of God to get by. But do you want to build an encampment in your life of praise? Do you want to build an encampment of faith? It takes work. You know. I expect sometimes just to show up and have God just to dump it on me. Like just give me. Oh okay. I showed up God. I should have eternal peace and happiness.

I have found that it doesn't work that way for me. There's times where God has done that. Where he's just come. But other times he's all. Hey do you want to sit with me? Do you want to take some time with me? Do you want to say no to something else so you can say yes to me? Ask you. Where do you need to draw a line in the sand? Is it a broken relationship?

With your kids? Is it? Who knows? You know your stuff. I mean there's a thousand stories for every person in here. Where you need to say I need to draw a line in the sand. And I've been taking this far too long. And I need to draw a line in the sand. And I need to figure out what heaven has to offer here. And I'm going to start with praise. And I might even do some fasting.

Or I might ask people to pray for me in a team. But I am not willing to survive this way anymore. I want kingdom expansion. And that's something I want in my life. Is kingdom expansion. Something I want in this church. Look at Peter's position here. I love this. Because Peter is between 16 guards. He's probably dying in the morning. What are you doing in that situation?

I mean come on. What are you. I'm trying to bribe a guard. I'm you know. Can I slip out of these? I'm doing Houdini. I'm freaking out. I mean seriously. I mean once again look at the humanity. Not long before he had seen this happen to Jesus. And if Jesus got killed. You know they're taking Peter out. I mean come on. Doesn't that make sense? You're taking out Peter.

And he's kind of the head of the church now. You want to take out this leader. What does it say Peter? But Peter was sleeping between two soldiers. Bound with two chains. And sentries stood guard at entrance. Even though he was bound. He was able to sleep. I think that's so interesting. You know Jesus. He had seen this once before right. In the middle of a storm.

All this raging storm. In the midst of chaos. What's Jesus doing? Napping it out. Just napping it out. Sometimes the chains don't need to come off. To have peace. That is the hard bit. I want peace without chains. But God doesn't always in the moment. In his timing. Remove the chains. He allows us to have peace. In the midst of the storm. And God. Is enough.

And that's the question. Is Jesus and chains enough for you? That's a tough question. Question. It's a mature question. Is Jesus and chains enough? You know for Paul. Jesus and chains was enough. I don't want chains. But in the midst of that. The church was still praying that these chains. So don't give up praying that the chains come off. Because we see in this situation what happens.

The chains are broken. The chains are. The chains come undone. And so we see Peter sleeping. I want to say that first of all. That God is the master of impossible situations. Don't forget that. That is a great thing to meditate on. In David's class. We have one more class on Tuesday night. I encourage you to come. He's been talking about meditation. And I've been meditating on the 23rd Psalm.

I've been meditating. Spending long periods of time meditating on. Be still. And know that I am God. But also other things. That God is the master of the impossible. Are you in an impossible situation? Bound with chains. 16 guards. Barred doors. The entire political system out to kill you. The entire religious system out to get you. And in the midst of that God's like.

Is there a problem? Like there's no problem here. I want to say that God is never stressed. By this. Look at what Peter was in. I want to say when God wants to release you. He will release you. And you know what the enemy wants to tell you? You're never going to be released. You're never going to be never. And sometimes. You just get the clutches. I'm never.

I'm never going to have this happen in my life. I'm never. Oh I should just. As opposed to living into this expectation. I want to say. The expectation of blessing. Is a spiritual quality that you can develop. Let me say that again. The expectation of blessing. Is a spiritual quality. That you can develop. In the same way that we perhaps have developed.

The expectation of dread. If you can have an expectation of dread. Trust me. Why can't you have an expectation of blessing? Why not? I mean. Is the mind only built? No. The mind of Christ. Is built for positive expectation. To speak blessing. When we pray. It says come with prayers. And what? Thanks. Giving. Scripture tells us how to do this. You can. And as David's showing.

And I've read some other books as well recently. That we can rewire. The way our heart. What our hearts believe. And what our mind thinks. With scripture and the word of God. But it has to get beyond being a bumper sticker. Does that make sense? It has to get beyond. God's going to save you. So everything's going to be okay. That's the last thing the world needs Christians to tell them.

What they need to see is people who have actually taken that knowledge. And let it seep into their heart. It's funny. I was meditating on this verse this week. Like you know. God can save us from. Save me from this. And I realized I didn't really believe it. I just thought. You know. I don't know if I believe that. And it was a neat realization. It was kind of a difficult realization.

But I thought. God. What's it going to take to let me know that I can believe. I just. You know what I did? I asked him for it. God. Will you give me the faith that I can believe this? And over a day I felt that switched. All of a sudden I thought. Yeah. Of course. God is so good. You're going to see here in a moment. That the. That the. The believers themselves didn't believe it.

When God answered their prayer. I mean think about that. We'll get to that in a moment. Turn your notes over if you would. Let's go to verse 7. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared. And the light shone in the cell. Don't you love the light of God? God. When God shows up. You know it. The light of God. Don't you? And I would ask for that. Ask God. God. Give me your presence.

I want to experience your presence. God. Show up. Invite God to show up. Invite God into your life. And it says. The angel of the Lord appeared. And the light shone. We know that truth. Is a word that is. That is with light. And often times. The truth. Will bring that light. The truth. Will bring that freedom. The enemy constantly is lying to you. About your worth.

About your belovedness. About your future. And what God wants to insert. Is the truth of God. Because the truth of God. In the scripture. Is seen as light. And then I love this. He strikes Peter on the side. And woke him up. Peter was napping it out. I mean. He was in a deep sleep. That this angel. Had to strike him on the side. To wake him up. I think it's interesting.

That we see. An urgency. With the angel. Like what does an angel. Need to have any urgency about. Really. Like. Hurry up Peter. We gotta go. You're an angel dude. Like you wiped out. A hundred thousand people. One time. Like I've read the scripture. Like. There's sixteen guards. This is nothing for you. What's. What are you up to. You know. I think that God. Honors the systems.

That he has put in place. Often. And sometimes there's timing. And. There are times where God is saying. And perhaps you have experienced this. In a relationship. But I remember when I was in dating relationships. And. I would know sometimes. After like. Two weeks. The Lord would be like. Anybody else. You don't have to raise your hand. But it's like. Yeah.

This isn't the. This isn't the right relationship. We'd break up in nine months. You know what I mean. It's like. Ah. You know. Like. What. Ah. Like. I just would know. I just knew. Now. The Lord's like. Now. Are there something going on in my life? And the Lord's like. Now. I want you to. To start doing that now. It's not always stop something. I want you to do this.

I want you to step into this area in your life. Now. We got to go now. Because I do believe. That windows of opportunity can close. There is one thing true to all opportunities. They pass. At some time. Opportunities pass. The window closes. And God says. Okay. Well we can work it out another way. He can still work out his plan. But can we miss blessing?

Absolutely. Can we miss times with God? Absolutely. Can we choose to take a negative route. Instead of a positive route? Absolutely. Or else you'd be a robot. God doesn't want you to be a robot. And so God is showing here. That there is a timing. He's about the work of something. And I love that Peter is obedient to that timing. One of the keys to Christian maturity.

Is understanding God's timing in your life. Says the sheep know his what? His voice. That God's intention is to. That you would walk with the way maker. And you would walk with him enough. That you can hear his voice. Whether to go left or right. And so we see that there is an angel that struck him on the side. And he said quick. Get up. Put on your clothes and your sandals.

Not only did he tell him he had to do it immediately. He told him what he needed to do. Why did he need sandals? Was he going to stub his toe? Couldn't the angel carry him? I don't know. But for some reason he says do it now. And do it this way. I got to say in my leadership. What I have found is that often times when I take difficult situations. Because difficult situations are part of the nature of human relationships.

And knowing how to move through a difficult situation takes a lot of prayer. And often times what God will say to me. Do say this. The verse that comes to my mind so often is. A kind. A gentle word turns away what? Wrath. I live by that. You know why? I didn't used to live by it. I used to love conflict. I don't have the margin or the energy to clean up conflict anymore.

What I want. And look I'm not a yes man by any stretch. You'll know that if you work with me long enough. But what I do love is peace and unity. And I don't have to be right. And when I got to that place in my life. Leadership got a lot easier. I got to tell you what. Marriage gets a lot easier too. A lot easier. And so we see there's a certain way to do this.

And so do you seek the Lord and say in this relationship God. Sometimes you'll get a sense. I want to go say this to this person. But you'll just get this sense. No. You know that sense you get. And then you know when you don't do it the way that you thought you should have done it. And you're like I knew I shouldn't have done that. Maybe that's the Lord.

Ask the Lord. God when's the timing. And then we just do the best to go through it. But we see that. That there's a way God wanted it done. Suddenly quick get up. Put your clothes on. And Peter did and he wrapped your clothes. Let's finish right here. We're coming in for a landing. Verse 14 and 15. Rhoda recognized Peter's voice. I love that the servant just recognized the miracle.

What was her response? Overjoyed. One of the things a friend of mine is really good at is when I tell him, Hey, we prayed for this and this happened. He goes, Let's stop. Let's celebrate that. Let's take a moment to celebrate God's goodness. I gotta say, celebrating God's good. It's so easy when a prayer comes through to be happy about it, but not celebrate it.

To celebrate God and to delight in God. You know, delight is a spiritual discipline and a quality that we are not built. We were built for, but doesn't come naturally to us anymore after the fall. To practice delight. You know, when I was out in the woods this week, I was smelling the air and I was like, God, I just want to delight in this. I want to delight in you.

You see, there's a difference between licentious pleasure and delighting in what is good with the Lord. Oftentimes you want to run to licentious, but just have pleasure. But God says, Can you delight? All things are good if you can delight with me in the midst of that. And so she was overjoyed and delighted and ran back without even opening it.

She was so delighted, so overjoyed. I want to say, when was the last time you were overjoyed? Where you had so much joy, there was an outpouring where you were overjoyed. But I want to say, I am experiencing that that is something you have to develop. Because we live in a joyless world. I mean, I had two people this week that are like, Oh, the world, I'm just, what's happening in the world?

I had this book, it said The Emotionally Healthy Leader. And I put it on the counter. And I was up at Big Bear at the Starbucks. And I put it down. I just wanted to get my coffee and go. And she goes, Nobody has emotional health. That can't happen. And I was like, the first thing I heard in the morning. Like the very first words that were spoken to me.

I hadn't spoken to anybody for 24 hours. I come out, no one can have emotion like that. And I'm like, Oh. I said, Well, I'm not. I said, Well, you might be right. I said, I'm not sure about that for me. She goes, Well, the world is where the world's happening. And you see all the things that are happening. I hadn't watched the news for a week and a half.

And so I'm not seeing. I mean, I know what's happened. But I'm not. I don't need to know every detail of what's happened. And because it just doesn't help my mental health. And she says to me, Yeah, with all the things in the world, no one can ever have that. And I said, You know, I said, Oftentimes our truth is our reality. And the guy behind me goes, What are you, a philosopher?

Back to the canyon. Back out to the valley. I was like, Dude, wow. The world does not give joy. It wants to give you pleasure. But it can't give you joy. And joy comes from delighting in the Lord. I want to say practice joy. You have to practice. And if it feels inauthentic, that's okay. Because you have to practice it. And slowly it'll start to come true.

You know, when you start swinging a baseball bat, it feels inauthentic. You know, what am I doing? I'm just, I'm making this up. I shouldn't even be here. Pretty soon, you got it figured out. Final thing. It says this. It says, Here we see the importance of God's timing back at the bottom. God answered their prayers beyond their ability to believe.

What did they say? Now, what did the earnest prayers say? Now, they were praying earnestly. Matter of fact, they prayed so well that they got a miracle. Like, there was no lack of earnest prayer. What was their response? Let me just read it to you, just slowly. Can we read it all together at the beginning of verse 15? Let's read it together. You are out of your mind.

Wow. God moves and you're out of your mind. No way. Shut up. Really? Wow. Wow. You know what? We're just going to give God credit and believe that he can actually do it. That he can do it. What's our response? I love Rhoda, a servant girl. You know, she's mentioned for a reason in this. We had all the believers, John Mark and Barnabas. They were all there.

Everybody was praying earnestly. But the servant girl was overjoyed when she heard the voice of Peter. You know what? I just want, I was just going to say I want to be a servant girl. But I actually don't want to be a servant girl. Yeah, I have a lot of things I could say. I'm not going to be a servant girl. But I want to have the ability to receive joy like her.

It was a good stuff. God answered their prayers beyond their ability to believe. And I think that God wants to do the same for you. Let's have the worship team come forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.