WHEN THE LORD REIGNS

Welcome, morning, would you help me welcome all of our brave campuses that are worshiping with us today? So good to have all of you. Thank you for being a praying church. Thanks for participating in our 21 days of prayer and fasting. I know one of the things we've been praying for was our student retreat this weekend. There's a few hundred of them up there in the mountains, and I was able to preach Friday night. Pastor John preached on Saturday morning. Dakota preached last night, and Luke's preaching this morning. God's doing an incredible thing up there. We've had kids come to Christ. We've had kids take their next steps of faith. So thank you, thank you, thank you for praying for that. We're just trusting the Lord to continue to build our students, amen. So with that, as far as kids go today, we are partnering today with Protect Kids Colorado for three initiatives to get on the ballot for this fall. You'll see them up on the screen, but really what that is is to protect kids from sex trafficking. That's number one. Number two is to protect them from sex changes, and number three is to keep men out of women's sports. So in the gym here in Inglewood and in Westminster, they'll direct you to the place. Immediately out here in the gym, we'll have people.

Our people are wearing Brave badges and Protect Kids Colorado badges. If there are people that meet you in the parking lot with their petitions, they're just not with us. Just so you know, we've vetted everybody here, and we had a great experience this morning. There's a ton of people there, so it goes really fast. If you would help do this, this is what helps us do is to get this on the ballot so we can vote for this, and basically this is a nonpartisan vote. This is protecting our kids in Colorado, amen? So I'd encourage all of you to sign that today. I know I'll be signing those as well, and then finally, as far as our kids go, we started a school a few years ago called Brave Academy. Enrollment is starting soon, and on January 27th, which is a Tuesday, Tuesday morning at 9.30, we're having an open house that morning. I'm gonna be there speaking. A number of, of course, all of our teachers and administrators will be there. If you're looking for a school, come check it out. If you have friends and family that are looking for a school, have them come check it out. Enrollment continues to increase. God's doing some incredible things, and then for those of you that are here, and we've had this in the past, that would love to donate for future scholarships, you can go to braveacademy.org backslash scholarships,

or just call the school, and donate so that we can get more kids in the school that couldn't afford to come to Brave Academy, okay? And if you can't do any of those things, just pray. Pray for our kids, they're growing in Christ, and God's doing an incredible thing. So with that, let's continue our worship this morning and get ready to hear God's living and active word among us. Will you pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we give you glory, we give you honor, we give you praise for who you are, and Lord, we invite you here in this moment to do what only you can do, and that is speak directly to our hearts through your word. Lord, we love your word because we believe that every time we read it, every time it's faithfully and accurately proclaimed, that it is you who are speaking, and so our prayer this morning is, speak, Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now, for all who have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you, and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen, amen. One of the games I loved to play as a kid was called King of the Hill. Did you ever play that game as a kid? I grew up in the plains of central Illinois,

and there are no hills in Illinois. It's about as flat as this platform is up here, and so oftentimes, what we would do is wait till the winter, until the snow came, and then it would pile up, and then we'd have a hill, and we'd play King of the Hill, and if you haven't played, the rules are really simple. There's only one king, and it's the one who's standing on top of the hill, and the goal is that it would be you standing on top of the hill, so you do whatever you can do to get to the top of the hill. That's the goal. The way we played, everything was fair. It didn't matter how you got there as long as you got there, right? And if you couldn't get there because you're in second grade, and there was a sixth grader or an eighth grader there, then you could team up. One person could take one leg, one person could take another, and somebody could come storm them. I mean, it was teamwork effort, but the whole goal was once you got somebody down, only one person could be on top, and then you know what their role was? As soon as they got on top, their goal was to keep everybody else down so that they could keep their position

as King of the Hill. I'm afraid in our culture, there's a lot of kings of the hill. I think we spend our lives trying to fight our way to the top only to get to the place that we think we need to be only to keep everybody else down so it appears like we're there, right? There's different thrones that we build. We build our throne upon the life of sports, or we build the throne of our life on money, or we build the throne of our life on relationships, or we build the throne of our life on influence, or we can build our throne on the life of Christ. And if you build your throne on the life of Christ, everything begins to change because good leadership is not keeping everybody else down. Good leadership is elevating all the people in your care. And today we're gonna take a look at a story in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 12, where we're gonna talk about what it looks like. when the Lord reigns. We're gonna talk about what it's like if the throne of your life has Jesus in the center. We're gonna talk about how you can live and what you can expect if Jesus Christ is really ruling and reigning in your heart. So I invite you to open up your Bible to Acts chapter 12. And as you're turning there, we're in part of this story. This is one of my favorite chapters

in the entire book of Acts. We're about two years after Peter's vision in Acts chapter 10, where he saw the sheet drop down and he went and shared with Cornelius. We're kind of fast forwarding a couple years. We just saw that Christians were called Christians for the first time in Antioch. That's the last time that we had gathered. And now you're gonna hear about what's going on around that time. So this is about 12 to 14 years-ish after Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That's where this story's taking place. So here are the word of the Lord, I'll set it up. It says, now about that time, Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. And he had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now it was during the days of unleavened bread. When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people. And this is how our story starts off. And you're already beginning to see what happens when the Lord reigns. And I wanna tell you something,

whether you realize it or not, the Lord is reigning. Jesus Christ is king. There is nobody but him. He went to heaven. He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He's ruling and reigning the universe. And you will see it with your own two eyes when he returns to this planet and sets up his kingdom. That is a fact. And when the Lord reigns, here's four things that you are going to see and experience when Jesus Christ is reigning in your life. And the first is this. When the Lord reigns, pretenders abuse authority. When the Lord reigns, if the Lord is reigning in your life, you will see pretenders who think they're kings that will abuse authority. Notice this. It says in chapter 12, it was about that time that Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to do what? In order to mistreat them. This is King Herod Agrippa I. And what he wanted to do is he wanted to stop the church because the church was upsetting the political situation of the day because the church was saying, Caesar's not Lord, Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus is our authority, not Caesar. We'll obey Caesar to the extent that it doesn't cause us

to go against obeying Jesus. But if push comes to shove, we're gonna obey Jesus and we're not gonna obey Caesar. In any generation, at any time, we always obey Jesus. He is the Lord of our life and we obey him no matter what, right? And this is what's going on. So Herod, King Herod Agrippa I, starts laying hands on Christians to do what? To mistreat them. And what he does is he has James, the brother of John. Peter, James, and John were kind of in the inner circle of Jesus. He has James put to death with a sword. Presumably he had his head chopped off. We don't know. He was killed with the sword, right? And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, when the Jews were like, yes, finally, somebody's gonna let us restore our Jewish religion, enough of this Jesus Messiah talk, enough of these quote unquote Christians were done with them. When King Herod saw that the Jews were pleased with him, when he saw in his political kingdom that this could bring peace, what did he decide to do? Well, if you thought that was good, let me get Peter. He's the head of everything and I'll bring him in and I'll bring him before you because I want you to know,

I have more authority than James. I have more authority than Peter because I hold all authority. That's what he was saying. And you'll see pretenders like this all the time. You'll see them in our culture. They creep up in every sector of life. They certainly creep up in politics. They creep into the business world. They creep into families. Friends, they even creep into the pulpits where people think that because of the authority that's been given to them by God, that they have authority over people rather than using their authority to bless people. And this is what King Herod was all about. He was all about himself. And so he has Peter arrested and it said, it was during the days of the unleavened bread. This is a big deal. The feast of the unleavened bread was to commemorate during that week, the Exodus. It was to commemorate the fact that the God that we serve is the greatest deliverer in the world. That when things look awful, when things look like there's no hope, our God is the God that delivers. That's who he is. That's the season that they were celebrating at this time. So Herod brought Peter in and he's not waiting to execute him

so that he gets a fair trial. He's waiting because he knows that the Jews appreciate this festival. So he's gonna wait till the end of the festival until he can bring Peter back out. Because why? All he cares about is his leadership and that people are at peace with his leadership. That's all he cares about. Because when you fight to become king of the hill and you're on the, as king of the hill, then you gotta keep everybody else down so you can maintain your position. And that's how King Herod was living and he's gonna learn very fast that it's not gonna last that long for him. And notice this, when he took Peter, notice how he took him. It says in verse four, when they had seized him, he put him in prison, okay? Delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him before the people. So he not only brings him into prison, he puts him in maximum security lockdown. He has four squads of soldiers. So he's gonna have a guard on each side of him that are gonna be chained to him. He's also gonna have two prisoners at the door. And then you're gonna have four squads

that are gonna come and they're gonna, you know, every six hours or every certain amount of time, they're gonna come and change spots. So he got fresh soldiers guarding Peter. Now you wonder why would King Agrippa I wanna do that? Well, because he's probably heard the story that Peter was in prison before and he didn't last that long in prison. Because there was a jailbreak and they got out and everybody's preaching. And so certainly somebody's told him the story, you think you're more powerful than Peter, but the last time people locked him up, it didn't go so well. And you can almost feel Herod say, not under my watch, not under my rule, when I make a decision, it always goes my way. If I say he's not getting out, he's not getting out. Do you know why? Because I hold all authority. Friends, Jesus Christ says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Nobody holds all authority except Jesus. Jesus Christ always has the last word for everything that he wants to say and do. Did you know that? I mean, that's a great truth this morning, but pretenders will always try to abuse it. Herod, what does he do?

Here's the difference between good leadership and bad leadership. Herod kills James so that he can please people. What does Jesus do? Jesus said, I'll lay down my life so that you can live. Huge difference, right? You see it with David and you see it with Saul. Saul abuses his authority to protect his throne. David is always waiting on the Lord, waiting on the Lord's timing, waiting on what God wants. And we see it everywhere. And you say, well, that's just biblical. Don't you see it in society? Don't you see it with people that never had any authority in their life and they finally get authority? And they not only want you to know they have authority, they want you to know that you know that they have authority. I mean, just think for a second, like DMV or TSA. Now, majority of those people are good at what they do and they're helpful because they help you get your driver's license and they're helpful because they make sure that you can get through the lines without having any weapons or things on you. They protect you, they're doing their job. Maybe it's just the lines that I happen to get in sometimes. But inevitably, there's somebody who has authority that you can tell has never had it.

And they're not only exercising their authority and the things they're asking you to do, I'm willing to do, but they're asking you in a way so that you know that they know that you know that they know that they have authority. I mean, I remember in 2020, I was flying on a plane. I was with my wife and everybody was wearing their mask. I didn't like to wear a mask, but I had one on and I pulled it down to take a drink and this lady came over and just started screaming at me. Are you gonna be a problem? I'm like, what did I do? I took a drink and I could just tell everything was being amped up and Kim was next to me telling me to calm down and it was good. So that's what I'm talking about. You see it. You know what I'm talking about? That's what happens when you don't have Christ on the inside of your life and you want other people to know how powerful you are. Because here's the truth. If you have Christ on the inside of your life, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You already have the greatest power in you. You don't need to use your power to do anything but build other people up. And you see this with insecure people. Insecure people in leadership. You see it with teachers.

You see it with business owners. You see it with professional athletes. You see it with pastors. You see it in every single sector of life. People that are insecure with who they are in Christ so they gotta let you know about the type of authority they have. God hates it when leaders feed on people instead of feeding people. God hates it when pastors feed on people instead of feeding people. Good leaders, what good leaders do is empower the people in their charge. Good parents, what they do is they empower people within their charge. It doesn't mean that leadership's bad. It doesn't mean that authority's wrong. It's just every bit of authority that you have is God-given. So if you're a parent, you have authority over your kids not to abuse them but to build them up in the way of Christ. And it doesn't mean, well, I'm a child but you don't have any authority over me. Only Jesus does. Well, Jesus gave you your parents so they do have authority over you until you move out of your house. But we're being given authority to use and steward the way the Lord wants us to do it, to build up God's people.

and we'll give an account for how well we stewarded that authority when we get to heaven. But here's what you'll know. When the Lord reigns in your life, you will see and experience pretenders who abuse authority, but don't worry, they don't have all authority, Jesus still does. Their authority is temporary. It's not permanent. You know what I'm saying? Jesus said when he was being arrested in John 19, he said, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above. What was he saying? Like the only reason that you have authority to bind my hands and take me to the, my dad gave you that authority. If I didn't want you to do that, I could dispatch legions of angels right now that would come and protect me. I'm giving myself into your hands. Like the only authority you have is because I'm the one that's giving you authority to have authority over me. I mean, that's what he was saying. And we see this in our culture. Proverbs 29, two says, when the righteous increase, the people rejoice. When you see righteousness in people, you're like, oh, that's great.

They're doing the right thing. But when a wicked man rules, people groan. I mean, I don't know how many times in my lifetime when people get elected, I'm like, ugh. Or I see the decisions they make, I'm like, ugh. Because when unrighteous decisions get made, we groan. We want righteous decisions. We want decisions that align biblically. We want decisions that align to glorify Christ. We want decisions that align that build up people and don't destroy them, amen? And we'll always see pretenders like that. But listen to me. When leaders treat people as resources instead of responsibilities, God always intervenes. He always intervenes. That leadership is temporary. And that's what we're gonna see with King Herod as well. Because notice what happens after he's, I mean, this is dire straits for him. James has already been killed. Peter's next, four soldiers, squads of them guarding him around the clock, maximum security lockdown. When the Lord reigns, pretenders abuse authority. But notice this, when the Lord reigns, God's people pray without panic. God's people always pray without panic. Because notice what happens in verse five. So Peter was kept in prison. We just established that, but notice this.

But prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. It wasn't just individuals praying, it was who? The church, the church gathered to do what? Pray, I am so grateful to pastor a praying church. Every good thing that's ever happened at Brave has been a result of God's people praying. And when things go wrong, or you see things in society that aren't going the right way, the best thing to do is what? Pray, pray, it's a great gift. So what is the church's knee-jerk reaction? James the Apostle's executed, Peter's arrested and gonna be executed. What's the church's knee-jerk reaction? We gotta pray, let's pray. They're not having a strategy session. They're not looking to storm the prison. They're not writing their congressman or senator. They're gonna pray first. And that's what they do, they get down and pray. And notice the result, on the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward. So the church is praying, and Luke wants us to know that on the very night that Herod was gonna bring him forward, on the very night that he was gonna be exiting the prison to come before the people to have the vote down that he was gonna be executed, notice what happens. When Herod was about to bring him forward, I love this part, look at these next three words,

Peter was sleeping. Now, if you're hours away from being executed and you know you're gonna be executed, and you're in a prison, and you're chained to two men, and it doesn't smell good, and there's two guys by the door, and there's no way for you to get out, and there's nothing you can do, what would you be thinking, knowing that you're dead in just a matter of hours? You know what Peter's doing, he's out. I mean, you would think like, hey, Pete, you're gonna be in heaven in about six hours, you might just wanna stay alive and enjoy the last six hours that you got. No, he's totally relaxed. When God's people pray without panic, you can even sleep. He had peace, he had total peace. Now, I think the reason Peter had this peace is because he watched his master and savior, Jesus, model that for him while he was alive. Because you remember in Mark chapter four, they were out on the Sea of Galilee, which they were on all the time, and this furious storm rose up in the night. And it was taking over the boat, and I don't know if you've ever been in the water, and been on a boat, or been around waves. It's kind of scary because we do good on the water as humans, but we don't do so good under the water for very long as humans.

And they're terrified. And in Mark chapter four, it says this, it says in verse 38, Jesus himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. So during the storm, the disciples are panicking, and Jesus is snoozing. And they woke him and said, "'Teacher, do you not care?' that we are perishing. Don't you care we're all gonna die? Like how can you be sleeping in a time like this? And he got up and he rebuked the sea. Hush, be still. And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And he said to them, why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith? I mean, the God of the universe is in your boat. I created each and every one of you. I know everything about you. I knew exactly when the storm was gonna come because I'm the one controlling the storm and I know exactly how to put it down. I'm sleeping because nothing's too hard for me. Why are you panicking and why don't you believe in me? And we say, oh, I believe God. I totally believe he can do all things. I believe he can, I just, I don't believe he can handle this thing in my life. I believe he can do all the big things, but just not the little thing that I'm praying about.

Friends, Jesus can do everything. He cares about every single thing in your life, amen? And that's what he wants you to see is how important prayer is. That's why in the book of Philippians, it tells us in chapter four, it says, be anxious for nothing, be anxious for nothing. Worry about nothing. Here's the only time you can worry, but in everything by prayer and petition, present your requests to God and the peace of God will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. So here's when you can worry, when you're praying, when you're praying, even 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you. That word casting is like taking a blanket or a load that you have and like throwing it on an animal, letting them carry the load. So you can be anxious as long as you're taking your anxiety and say, God, okay, you take that. You carry that. You know, I'm concerned about my daughter. I'm concerned about my son. You know, I'm concerned about my marriage. I'm concerned about, you know, my future. I'm concerned about what I don't, just throw that all on him and let him carry that. You don't keep owning it. You don't keep carrying it. Why?

Because when God's people pray, they pray without panic. Now I want you to notice this in the book of Acts. The church of God, when they were praying, they prayed to who? Church was praying to who? They prayed to God. There's nobody else to pray to. Did you know that? You don't pray to dead loved ones. They're not listening to you. You don't pray to former saints. They're not listening to you. You don't pray to Mary. She's not listening to you. You pray to God. There's one mediator between God and man, the man, Jesus Christ. You pray through Jesus to the father. That's it. And that's how the church was praying. And for those of you that say, well, I really don't know how to pray. I really don't know how to pray. I hear these people pray. I could never pray out loud like that. Quit trying to pray like other people. Quit trying to pray religious prayers and just pray your heart. Sometimes here's a great prayer. Help.

Can you say that? I mean, when you're authentic with Jesus, then he can meet you where you're at. Sometimes we try to get all flowerly rather than just telling him this is what's up because he already knows what's up, but he likes it when you tell him that you're aware of what's going on. Amen? So pray. Isaiah 26, verse three says, "'The steadfast of mind you will keep in perfect peace "'because he trusts in you.'" So here Peter is, hours away from being executed, and Peter was sleeping. Now notice how he's sleeping. Between two soldiers bound with two chains, not just one chain, but two, so probably hands and feet or against the wall, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison. So check this out. And behold, verse seven, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell. Now, I don't know what kind of sleeper you are, whether you're a deep sleeper or a light sleeper. I know me, if somebody just turned on the light, I would wake up. We're talking an angel that was just dispatched

from the throne of glory, shows up in the prison cell in all the reflected glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the whole prison would have been beaming with light. And here's what it says. And he struck Peter's side, presumably because Peter wasn't awake, and he woke him, saying, get up quickly. And when he said that, his chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, gird yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out, notice verse nine, and he went out and continued to follow. And this is beautiful. And he did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but he thought he was seeing a vision. He'd seen a vision before, he'd broken out of prison before. This is not a big new thing for Peter. He knew the Lord. And yet, as this stuff's happening, Peter's sound asleep. An angel comes into the cell, nudges him, says, Peter, gird yourself up. When he does, the chains fall off his hands. He says, get your garment to wrap it around you.

Get your sandals on. We're going for a walk. And he begins to walk him out of the prison. The whole time that this is going on, Peter's thinking, I must be having a pretty vivid dream, or I must be in a trance. Like this is like, I know it's happening, but it can't really be happening. That's what he was thinking. And verse 10 says, when they had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city. So now that they've gotten out of the prison bars and all those things, they come to the iron gate. This is the gate that nobody could trespass through. This is the gate nobody can come through. I mean, this is fortified. And notice this, which opened for them by itself. Now, check this out. So you have King Herod Agrippa saying, no way anybody escapes my leadership. And God says, I'll open the door myself. I can do whatever I want to do. I'm a deliverer. I can get anybody out of anything at any time, because that's what I do. I have a perfect resume of doing that, amen? And so the door opened and they went out and went along one street and immediately the angel departed from him.

I mean, incredible story. Now watch this. When Peter came to himself, he said, now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all the Jewish people, all that the Jewish people were expecting. When did he know? Once it was over. I mean, think about this for just a second. I mean, here's Peter, about hours away from execution. He's chained up in his hands and his feet. He's got prisoners on the side of him. You can imagine how it smelled in a prison where they didn't have running water and toilets like they do today. I mean, you can imagine how gross and disgusting this was. You can imagine what those four soldiers were like. You can imagine what it was like to be in this prison, knowing your execution was near. And here he is, sound asleep. An angel of the Lord appears in the room, but has to nudge him to wake him because he doesn't awake from the glory of the angel. Then the angel says, gird yourself up. Like, get up, put your sandals on, okay? Now put your cloak on. Okay, now walk with me. Now the gate's gonna open. Now we're gonna walk all the way through the prison.

Now the iron gate's gonna open. Now I'm gonna walk you down the street. Now I'm gonna disappear. And now Peter's like, I think this was real. And I'm thinking, that's like many of us. We see God do something and then he has to do something again and do something again and do something again and do something again and do something again. And all of a sudden we're like, I think God's in my life now. That's what was going on with Peter. Like, I mean, you would think, like, I mean, we read this story. I read this story. I'm like, I think if I were in prison and that happened to me, I would know it was God right away. Peter's like, I didn't know until I saw it was done, right? And when God's people pray, they pray without panic. We see it in our culture all the time. You see when, you know, a fire started in a building and everybody's panicking and running yet firemen show up and what do they do? Because of their training, they enter right in and they do what's necessary to put the fire out. Or you see it in a waiting room at the hospital when next door in the operating room, there's some pretty significant surgery that's taking place and there's a lot of emotion and panic there, but the waiting room turns into a prayer room and people are praying for the doctors

and for God's hand to move and for healing power and for all those things, right? Friends, we live in a culture that is very, very anxious. We live in an anxious culture. When I grew up, I didn't know what the word trigger meant. I can't even picture me telling my parents, you triggered me. I mean, I just can't, I can't picture that. But you know, we live in a culture where people like to say that. I mean, I've had people tell me that, hey, Pastor, what you said today triggered me. I'm like, okay, I don't know what that means, but I'm sorry. I mean, we live in a society where we expect everybody to understand our emotions and who we are and what we do and make us feel really good about how we're feeling at all times. I mean, God's not like that. And so what God says is, when I'm reigning in your life, just keep praying without panic. Keep praying without panic. God is, you know, people like to make this statement, God will never give you more than you can bear. It's a false statement, it's nowhere in the Bible. God always gives you more than you can bear. He always does, why? Because it forces you to pray. It forces you to seek his face. If you could handle everything and you didn't need Jesus,

you would be like, Jesus, thanks for saving me, but I got it from here. God engineers circumstances so that we need him and so we depend upon him. So when those situations come up, it's God's invitation to you, come seek me. Come talk to me, I got this, I'm in control. And we see two different things in the story. I mean, we see Peter being delivered and we see James being killed. Both of them were apostles. Now, I believe the truth. God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. God loves Stephen and had a wonderful plan for his life. He got to preach once and get killed. God loved James. James was executed here. Peter survived and was delivered. Like, how's that fair? Well, nothing's fair in this world and nothing's fair from our perspective, but God is always glorious and sovereign and loving. everything that he does, and he doesn't make mistakes because the death of James authenticated the message of Christ, because James was willing to die because Christianity is not a political party, it's a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It authenticated the message and strengthened the church, and then Peter gets released, and his deliverance manifested God's power.

Every way, God is saying, I'm in control and I'm in charge, and that's who I am, and that's what God wants. And so what we see here is when the Lord is reigning, pretenders will abuse authority, but God's people will pray without panic. But let me give you a second part of that, and that is this, when the Lord reigns, prayer stretches your faith, prayer stretches your faith. Prayer will always stretch your faith. Because notice what happens after Peter comes to, in verse 12, it says, and when he realized this, he realized he was out, he realized this wasn't a dream, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. This is a loaded verse, so check this out. Peter knows where to go, he goes to Mary's house, why? Because Mary was hosting the prayer meeting for the church. He knew that, presumably he prayed with Mary and their whole congregation before. And John Mark is her son, John Mark's the one that's gonna go on missionary journeys with Paul and Silas and Barnabas. John Mark is the one that's gonna pin the book of Mark in the New Testament. How do we know anything about him? We don't know anything about him until right here, and what do we know? He had a Christian mom that invested in him. Mothers, listen to me, if you have children,

your greatest investment is what you can invest in your children spiritually, right? Not just making them happy, not making them great athletes, not making them super learned people, but spiritually in Christ who they are. It's a huge role. We see it all throughout the New Testament. Many of the people that the apostle Paul took with him always mentions their mother and their grandmother because they invested so much in their kids. Kids are not a burden, they're a what? They're a blessing, amen? And so what we see here is Peter knows to go to Mary's house because she's praying. Another word to the men. Okay, a lot of times in church, people think of prayer warriors as older women. And there are a lot of older women that are prayer warriors, and the reason they are is because they've dealt with a lot of stuff in their life and realized prayer is the only solution, so I'm gonna keep praying. But it doesn't excuse the men because men and women and boys and girls should be seeking the face of God regularly, right? Because prayer will stretch your faith. If you're not praying, if you're not praying, and that's a rhetorical question between you and the Lord, if you're not praying, it's truly your declaration of independence from God.

That's what a lack of prayer is. Because the reality is God wants you to take steps of faith. If you take steps of faith, you will pray more. If people ask you, hey, what should I be praying for, and you don't know what to tell them, it's because you're not trusting him for anything. Do you ever notice that when you take a step of faith and prayer gets really, really big? I'm gonna move somewhere, I'm gonna take a different job, or I'm gonna get married, we're gonna have a child, I'm starting to tithe, I'm doing, when you take a step of faith, your prayer life increases all the time. One of the ways you know that you're taking steps of faith is that your prayer life is coupled with it. The more you're praying, the more you're trusting, the more you know you're continuing to take steps of faith. And we see all these verses in the Bible, like in James 5, 16, the prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. I mean, it didn't rain for three and a half years, and Elijah got down and said, I need it to rain, and it rained, right? I mean, God listens to our prayers, we believe that. We believe Ephesians 3, 20, not a him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think according to his glorious power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever, amen.

We believe all that. But think about faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And Hebrews 11, six goes on to say, and without faith, it's impossible to please him, because anyone that comes to him must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. That's why the disciples were always saying, Lord, increase our faith, increase our faith. Now, for most of us, we believe God in the big things, and we believe God for other people. I know God can do it, that's who my God is. If I ask you this morning, how many believe in prayer? We all believe in prayer. You know, we believe that God could create the world in six literal days and rest on the seventh. We don't have a problem believing that. We believe that God loved us so much, he sent his only begotten son, who was eternity from eternity past, and was born of a virgin Mary, and came to this earth as God in flesh, and fulfilled the law, and lived the life he needed, and died on the cross for all our sins, and rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and is coming back. We believe all that. We believe that he gave us the power of the Holy Spirit to live inside of us,

so that he goes with us everywhere we go. And every story we read in the Bible, oh, it's totally true, that's totally true, that's totally true. And then we go to church, and we hear stories about God's power, and his healing, and his miraculous work, and we're like, totally believe all that, but I don't know if he can find me a mate. But I don't know if I'm gonna get into. Good college. But I don't know if I can pay the bills at the end of the month. But I don't know that we're ever gonna reconcile. But I don't know. I mean, we believe it big for everybody else, but when it comes to the thing we're praying about right now, we doubt it. It's like the guy that had a son that brought him to Jesus and said, "'Can you do anything with my son?' I brought him to your disciples. They couldn't do a thing. But if you can,' and Jesus looks at him like, "'Hmm, if I can?' All things are possible for him who believes." In other words, I could heal your son on the spot right now if you just believe. And here's what he says. It's a beautiful prayer.

"'Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.'" Know what he's saying? Lord, I totally believe you're God. I totally believe you can heal my son, but I'm having a real hard time in the moment right now believing you're gonna do that. Help my unbelief. And so prayer stretches our faith. Prayer stretches us to believe that God can actually do what we're praying for. Many of us have been taught falsely that God is not the same yesterday, today, and forever, that somehow God miraculously stopped doing things like this after this book was complete. There's no evidence of that anywhere in church history, or more importantly, there's no biblical evidence that he ever stopped it. So this is what God wants to do. He wants to continually draw us closer. So notice what happens. So Peter goes to Mary's house where many were gathered together praying, and this is where the story gets really cool. It's my favorite part. When he knocked on the door of the gate, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. So Peter's going, Rhoda comes to the door. When she recognized Peter's voice, so inevitably Peter's like, hey, it's Peter,

I'm here for the prayer meeting. When she recognized Peter's voice, because of her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. So knock, knock on the door. They've been praying. The church has been praying for Peter. They've been praying for his release. They've been presumably praying that God would get him out of prison the same way God got him out of prison last time. There's a knock on the door. Rhoda goes over. Who is it? It's Peter. She gets so excited, she forgets to open the gate. She runs back and she tells the church, Peter's here. And what do you think the church would say? The church would say, praise God, he answered our prayers. This is what we've been praying for. No, that's not what they say. They said to her, you are out of your mind. The faithful church that was praying for God to do exactly what they were praying for, when he did it, told the person that saw the evidence of it, you're crazy. Isn't that amazing? But she kept insisting that it was so. And so they kept saying, it's his angel.

What were they saying? We've been praying for Peter's release, but we know he's not released, because God doesn't do those kinds of things anymore. This has only been 12 to 14 years as Jesus was standing there, and they're already starting to doubt that God can do what he's always done. Let alone 2000 years later, where we think the same way. I know he can, but he probably won't. So here's Peter right at the door. And she's like, he's here. They're like, you're out of your mind. She's like, no, I'm telling you he's here. Well, then that must be his angel, because God's not gonna deliver people like that. We know he's gonna get killed today. Faithful church. I always tell you, pray bold, faithful prayers. God can answer more than what you can pray. Did you know that? But Peter continued knocking. So while all this is going on, Peter's at the front door doing this. I mean, they're having their little, God doesn't work that way anymore meeting, and they're having all their theology classes while Peter's standing outside saying, I'm just here, I wanna come in. And he kept on knocking, and when they had opened the door,

they saw him and were amazed. They were blown away, like, oh my goodness, it really is you. God really did answer the prayer. Rhoda's not out of her mind. We were about ready to check her into a mental institution. But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had let him out of the prison. So he's like, hey, just let me tell you the story. And he said, report these things to James and the brethren. Report these things to James and the brethren. Now this James is not the James that was executed, obviously, that was the brother of John. This is James, the half brother of Jesus that led the church in Jerusalem that wrote the book of James. He goes, go tell James, the leader of the church, everything you just heard, go tell the brothers everything that you heard. They need to know what happened. And then what? Then he left and went to another place. So Peter came to their house just to say, hey, I'm out, but I'm not sticking around. It's not a good place for me to be right now. The angel got me out. Let me tell you exactly what happened. Go tell James, go tell the head of the church, go tell everybody, tell the brothers what's going on.

I'm leaving. Now this next verse, if you grew up watching Super Friends cartoons, this is how the verse would read. Meanwhile, back at the hall of justice. It says this in verse 18. Now, when the next day came, there was no small disturbance among the soldiers as to what could have happened to Peter. Like, they wake up the next day, Peter's not there. Sandals are gone, chains are off, cloak is gone, there's no Peter, doors are now closed. They're like, we have no idea, but we're accountable to keeping him here for our lives. They're freaking out is what's going on. Because they know they're gonna be executed if they can't turn Peter, they can't show Herod Peter and they don't know where Peter is. And the reason they don't know is because God delivered him. The reason they don't know is because they'll never see him again. And so notice what happens. When Herod had searched for him and had not found him, he examined the guards and ordered that they be led away to execution. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea, which is out by the sea, and he was spending time there. So notice this authority for just a minute. Hours earlier, Peter is chained to four guards

in maximum security, who have probably been taunting him saying, you're gonna die, you're never getting out of here, we're the ones that are gonna execute you, all this stuff. Oh, how the tables have turned. Peter's the one that was most free, even though he was the one that was in chains. They thought they were free, but they were the ones who were gonna face execution in a short amount of time. Why? Because our God is a deliverer. And during the Feast of the Passover, the reason this is so beautiful is the Jews were celebrating the fact that God delivered Israel from Egypt, from the hand of Pharaoh, the one who also thought he was king of the hill. And God's like, I will not share my glory with another or give my praise to idols. If you try to take my throne, I will show the world I'm more powerful than you. Herod, you tried to take my throne, I'll show the world I'm more powerful than you. You can't keep my church down. You can't keep my saints down. You just can't do it. I mean, it's an awesome, awesome story. I mean, I love this. And when you see prayer stretch your faith, you'll also get to see this if you live long enough.

And that's the fourth thing. When the Lord reigns, not only do pretenders abuse authority and God's people pray without panic and prayer stretches your faith, but there's a fifth one that impostors fall and God's word advances. Impostors always fall and God's word advances. Let me just share this with you. I mean, when it comes to your prayer, when it comes to you stretching your faith, just trust God. I always say that the hardest step of faith you'll ever take is what? It's the next one. Why? Because God wants you to continue taking steps of faith. I remember when God was calling me into ministry, I didn't know a lot of pastors. I didn't have people that could coach me or tell me what to do. I just knew what I was sensing on the inside. It took every risk in my life to start going a different direction than I saw all my friends going. I remember when I went to seminary, when I graduated college, I'm like, that's the last class I'm ever gonna take. And now I have to go back to school. And I remember telling the Lord, Lord,

when I went into ministry, I told him if I run out of money, I'm done. I'm gonna tithe, I'm gonna do all these things, but you gotta take care of me. He always took care of me. He's always taken care of me. For 35 years, he's taken care of me, right? When I went to school, I told the Lord, I'll go to school, but I don't have all the resources to pay for it. I'm not going in debt to go to school. So if you want me to go to school, you gotta figure out a way to pay for it. And he did, I graduated debt-free. And when we started our ministry and started traveling around, I told the Lord, as soon as we run out of money, I'll stop preaching. We never ran out of money. When we started the church, I told the Lord the same thing. He's always been faithful. But I can tell you this, every time I've taken a step of faith and confidence, I always take the step of faith and confidence, and then guess what happens? Doubt, immediate doubt. I remember preaching my socks off before we bought the building next door, the first building we ever had, and how we needed $1.7 million in six days, and we could do it.

Come on, we can do it. We had about 400 people listening to me. We can get there. And I believed it with my whole heart. That's why I preached it. But driving home that Sunday, I was like, that was the dumbest message you've ever preached in your life. You are gonna lose and lose huge. And then when God showed up and helped us raise $1.93 million in a week, I was like, I knew that all along. That's what my God does. That's who he is. Do you understand how faith works? Faith doesn't work as if I believe it and I always feel it. It works because I believe it and I keep walking into it until I see it. And too many of us, we don't believe long enough. It's what Jesus was rebuking Peter for when he walked on the water. I mean, Peter got out of the boat, said, Lord, if it's you, tell me to come and we'll go. And Jesus was like, come. And Peter gets out, and there's two men walking on the water. But what does Peter do? He begins to, what am I doing on the water? He sees the winds and the waves and he goes down. He starts to drown.

And then he yells out, Lord, save me. And the Lord picks him up, walks him back to the boat as they're both walking on the water again, or Jesus is carrying him presumably. And what does he say? You have little faith, why did you doubt? And that used to trouble me for years because I'm like, if he had little faith, what about the guys in the boat? Like they had no faith. But what was Jesus saying? He wasn't rebuking his getting out of the boat. He was rebuking the duration of his faith. Like you have little faith. You could have kept on faithing. We could have like barefoot water skied all the way to the other side. Like, why did you stop believing when you started to believe? That's our problem as humans. We stop too soon and we don't continue on long enough. And if we continue on long enough, we will see imposters fall. You'll see God's word advance. Now notice this, verse 20 gives us a little context about Herod. It says, now he was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus, great name, the king's chamberlain, they were asking for peace

because their country was fed by the king's country. What you see here, without going into great detail, is the fact that King Herod controlled their food supply of Tyre and Sidon. King Herod believed, the only reason you eat is because of me. Like, I have that kind of power. I have power over everything. It's reflecting his heart of a leader that's insecure, right? And so this is what happens. On an appointed day, Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. And the people kept crying out, the voice of a God and not a man. So as he was out there in all his glory, the crowd is chanting, he's a God, he's not just a man. And notice what happened next. It says, and immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory and he was eaten by worms and died. The end. Now, understand this, Luke was a doctor. So he's not making up some funny story. And it's really interesting, because if you go back and read first century history, there's a historian by the name of Josephus, he writes about this day. He talks about what Herod was wearing

and what he was wearing, everything in it was made of silver and it was a sunny day. And that day, the sun struck the silver and it was blinding and awe-inspiring. So he's wearing this silver garment. That's what historians say. Luke doesn't tell us about that. Luke tells us what happened and totally what happened. But Josephus, the historian of the first century, corroborates the story and said, this is what happened. He was there, this did happen to him. And he's wearing this fully silver garment in the sun and it was like blazing and brilliant. The people were chanting, it's a God, it's not a man. And then Josephus says he was struck with violent abdominal pain and five days later he died in agony. Those worms were parasitic worms. Those worms were something in his gut and intestines that killed him five days later, just like the Bible said that it did. I mean, isn't that interesting? I mean, you got this guy that's wearing this garment, because we think our leadership's always external. And he's wearing this garment, he's saying his words, everybody's like, what a God, he's awesome. And he's like, yes, I'll receive that worship. Boom, abdominal pain, five days later, dead. You don't have authority over God. You don't ever have authority over God.

Only God has the authority over you. And really this is what we see in this story. I mean, and notice this in verse 24. So Herod's dead. This one that says, I can kill James, I can kill Peter, I can control your food source, I can do whatever you want. And God says, you can only do what you do because I gave you the authority. And when I'm done with you, I'm done with you. And it will end right when I want it to. So the world will know that I'm God and that you're not. But notice what happens next, verse 24 and 25. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark. So John Mark goes with them as well. So what happens? I wanna tell you this, you cannot stop the word of God. You can't. The more pressure that you have against the word of God, the more it spreads. Church history would show persecution always leads to multiplication. I mean, it's just what happens. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away. Isaiah 55 says, so will be my word, it will not return empty.

I mean, we see this all over the place in scripture that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. You see it in Proverbs 34, you see it in James four. But we live in a world where we look at people and we're like, man, they're not living under the authority of Christ and they're not exercising and wielding the authority they have the way that the Lord would want. And we start to panic, but you don't need to panic, you just pray. Because if you read Psalm chapter two, you see all the kings of the world come against God and what's the Lord in heaven doing? He's laughing. The Lord laughs at people to think that they have more authority and power than him. And see, here's the big question that I have. I mean, is the Lord reigning in your life? Is Jesus Christ truly the Lord? Because you can only build two thrones in your life. You can only build two thrones. One throne, you can build yourself and then spend the rest of your life trying to defend and protect it. The other throne is that Jesus Christ is on the throne of your life and you're surrendering to him. Those are the only two thrones that you can have. Which throne is in your life? Because the devil and God wanna take you to the high places.

God just wants to lead you there by himself so that all you're hanging on to is Jesus. The devil will build your life on anything you want. If you wanna build it on pride or sports or money or fame or influence, you can kinda build your whole life but then you gotta keep doing stuff to stay. King of the hill, or you can let Jesus Christ be Lord. So the question is not, do you believe facts about Jesus? The question is, have you ever surrendered your life to Jesus? There's a huge difference. One is, yeah, I believe Jesus is God. Yeah, I believe Jesus died. Yeah, I believe he rose. And I would say, as the scripture would say, good, even the demons believe that and shudder. Have you surrendered to him as the Lord of your life, that he's in control of everything, that he can speak into any way or room in your life? He can talk to you about your marriage, your singleness. He can talk to you about your money. He can talk to you about your friendships. He can talk to you about where you live. He's the Lord of your life. That's surrender. Surrender is different than trust, right? If I gave you the keys to my truck, I'm trusting you. I've given the keys to my truck to some people. I trust them.

They can drive it. But if I give you my truck, I'm surrendering it. I'm saying you have it. I'm not willing to surrender my truck today. But some of us feel that way about Jesus. I believe you, but I'm not surrendering to you. I just want to know that you're there, but I don't want to go all in. That's not salvation. Salvation is when Jesus takes the throne of your life and there's only room for one on your throne. It's either what you build or it's putting Jesus there. If you've never trusted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, today's your day. Put him there. If you've trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, like I know he's my Lord, I want him there, but I've been kind of nudging him off a little bit with these other things, and I want to recenter my life on Christ. Today's your day to do that too, because Jesus wants to reign in and through your life, and then use your life with the authority that he gives you to be a blessing to all the people that you know. Amen? So would you stand with me today as we close in prayer? Our Father in heaven, we do give you all the glory, honor, and praise for who you are. And Lord, we ask in this moment right now

that you would touch us, Lord. There's some here today that have never truly given their heart and their life over to you, that have built their whole life on their own throne, and today, here's what their prayer is, and here's how you can pray. Lord, sit on the throne of my life. Lord, I surrender my life to you. I know I'm a sinner. I repent of my sin. You take my sin. I want to receive your forgiveness and grace. Come into my life and be the Lord over all. And then there's some of us here today, Lord, that have been giving you lip service, that kind of put you on the throne, kind of, as long as you help us with what we want on our throne. And there's some of you here today that are saying, I'm done with trying to figure my thing out. I just want Jesus to sit central. And if that's you, here's how you can pray. Lord, again, I just confess my sin, take over my life, be the authority in my life, help me walk the way you want me to walk, and let me build my life upon you. Lord, I give you all the honor, all the praise, and all the glory because you and you alone have all authority in my life, and it's in Jesus' name we pray today. Amen and amen.

Can we give God?