Real Life Community Church Richmond, KY

Acts | Part 19 | Persistent Prayer: How Chains Fall When Churches Intercede

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Message Us!

Prayer is not just a religious ritual but a transformative force that can break chains, open prison doors, and change seemingly impossible situations. This message dives deep into the power of intercessory prayer—the practice of fervently taking others' needs before God—as dramatically illustrated in Acts 12.

When Herod Agrippa I executed James and imprisoned Peter, the situation seemed hopeless. Peter was bound in chains between guards with execution looming. But verse 5 contains the pivotal turning point: "earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church." What followed was nothing short of miraculous—an angel appeared, chains fell off, and prison doors opened by themselves.

From this remarkable account, we discover five qualities of effective intercessory prayer that can revolutionize our approach to bringing others' needs before God. Effective prayer is earnest (passionate and fervent), specific (clear about what's being requested), corporate (unified with other believers), continual (persistent until breakthrough comes), and perhaps most encouragingly, imperfect (God honors our hearts even when our faith wavers).

The message tackles challenging questions about prayer's relationship to God's sovereignty. Why was Peter rescued while James was executed? If God is sovereign, why pray at all? Through exploring these questions, we gain deeper insight into how prayer doesn't change God's mind but rather activates His power as He has designed prayer to be one of the means through which He accomplishes His purposes.

Whether you're new to prayer or have been praying for decades, this message will reignite your passion for intercession by revealing how your earnest prayers for others can bring about supernatural intervention. Join us Wednesday nights at 7pm as we put these principles into practice together and watch God move in power.

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Speaker 1:

All right, stand to your feet, take your Bibles and go to Acts, chapter 12, if you would please, I'm going to actually try to cover the whole chapter, but I'm only going to start by reading the first five verses. If you're new here, I generally preach book by book through the Bible, and so we've been since the beginning of the year in the book of Acts. All right, if you have it, say amen, amen. Acts, chapter 12, verse 1.

Speaker 1:

About that time, herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also and this was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. It's the word of God for the people of God Amen, you may be seated.

Speaker 1:

Well, there are many different aspects to a faithful prayer life. We've got prayers of supplication, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of adoration, prayers of confession, but I want to talk about another facet, you could say, of prayer today, namely what we call intercessory prayer. So intercession, when we talk about that in the context of prayer, it is the Christian practice of intervening or interceding on behalf of another by simply fervently taking their requests, their needs before the Lord. And we can do this for people, we can do this for nations, we can do this for churches. You know, this is a powerful, powerful form of prayer that we see throughout the Old and New Testament. Jesus himself is, was and is an intercessor. You know, I believe Jesus is praying for us. The Bible says he's always making intercession for us, and there's many facets of what that means.

Speaker 1:

But you know, remember, right before Jesus' crucifixion, right before his arrest, remember, jesus is conversing with Peter and he says to Peter he says, peter, satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. I mean, think about that. How encouraging is it to know that Jesus has prayed for you. There's power in that. And listen, there is power when we pray one for anotherames 5, 13 confess your sins one to another that you may be healed. Pray for one another that you may be healed, that's intercede for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it is working, or if you learn that in the king james, you know this right the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man does what Availeth much. All right, you know, intercessory prayer is quite a privilege, isn't it? I mean, you know there's some situations the one that I just mentioned, you know, with Iran and Israel and you just feel kind of helpless, like what can I do? Well, you can pray, you can pray. And don't ever say, well, I can, I'll just pray. Oh, there's no just about it. Prayer is powerful and you know it's really encouraging when others pray for us and intercede for us.

Speaker 1:

Listen, this last Wednesday night in our prayer meeting, I just prayed for my son Connor. He's been very, very ill since he's been in the military. He's been out three years and it's horrible. He's down from 165 pounds of pure muscle to 115 pounds of no muscle. He's a skeleton and he can't gain weight and he can't eat and there's all kinds of things going on. Last week was a particularly difficult week and I came in the church despondent, a bit frustrated. Oh, I had it pretty well, but at the end of service, jan, one of our members raises her hand. She said, pastor Chris. I said yeah. She said I just feel like we need to all join together and pray for Connor and I'm telling you it just encouraged my heart.

Speaker 1:

My aim today is simply this it is to ignite, or perhaps reignite, our passion for intercessory prayer, or even prayer in general. That's my prayer today. I pray that Wednesday nights become packed out, standing room only. I really want that to happen because it's important and hear me, here's why this is important. If you and I will hear what the Word of God says today, if we will take this message to heart and we will begin to fervently practice intercessory prayer, listen to me miracles are going to happen. Individuals' lives are going to be changed. I believe we will see more healings. I believe we will see deliverance. Chains will fall off, people will be set free, prodigals will come home, amen. And people this is already happening, but, like Jerry said, we want this to continue People, masses of people getting saved. Oh, it can happen. I believe marriages will be restored, amen. And I believe our prayers in this church, I believe our prayers, can affect what's going on on the other side of the world right now. Prayer changes things. Oh that we would be more faithful to intercede on behalf of others. Well, that we see today in our text the power of intercessory prayer.

Speaker 1:

So here's a summary of what happened very quickly. Herod executes James, the church. He then arrests Peter. The church prays, god intervenes, peter's released. Herod is judged by the way in the end of the story I don't know if I'll get there today, but he's killed. James arrested Peter. James is vindicated, herod is judged because of his pride and he's eaten by worms. That's not the way you want to go. Don't mess with God or his people. That's the point. All right, somebody messes with you. Say I'm God. Don't mess with me, you might be eaten by worms. No, don't say that.

Speaker 1:

So who is this Herod that we are introduced to in verse one? Well, this is Herod Agrippa, I, the grandson of Herod the Great. Well, who is Herod the Great? Well, you might remember, in Matthew, chapter 2, it was Herod the Great. When he heard about the birth of this king of the Jews, jesus Christ, remember what he did. He was threatened and he decreed that every single child think about this every child, every male child two and under, be executed in Bethlehem and the surrounding regions. What a day of mourning, I mean. Think about that. Not a good family.

Speaker 1:

And so now this Herod, herod Agrippa. What's he do? He begins persecuting Christians because he feels threatened, his kingdom is disturbed and he doesn't like it. He feels threatened, his kingdom is disturbed and he doesn't like it that the Jews in his kingdom, the non-messianic Jews, the Jews who do not believe in Jesus, they don't like the Christians and it's causing turmoil. So he persecutes the church.

Speaker 1:

And then he ups the ante and he kills James. Who is James? This is not James, the half-brother of Jesus. This is James, the brother of John. He is an apostle. He was even in Jesus' inner circle. You know, you had the 12 and then you had Peter, James and John. He got to go up on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was in that inner circle and Herod kills him. He becomes the first apostle to be executed, martyred. So he sees, herod sees that when he kills James, the Jews are going man, we really like you. And he's thinking man, I might be reelected, right. So he gets really happy. He says I know, man, they like this, I'll kill another one. And so he arrests Peter, puts him in prison with plans to kill him. But something happens.

Speaker 1:

Look at verse five. This is the key verse. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer was made to God by the church, was made to God by the church, but I think by Luke using the word, but here it serves as a transition. He was in prison but he was getting ready to be executed. But what's the but? Somebody prayed, beloved. There is power in prayer. It's not trivial. Let's just think about Peter's predicament. Like you know, there is power in prayer. It's not trivial. Let's just think about Peter's predicament. Like you know, this is not. He wasn't in the kind of prison cell where you can have a poster up and every night chisel away behind the poster to dig out a tunnel. All right, it wasn't this. Look at verse 6.

Speaker 1:

When Herod was about to bring him out, peter, on that very night, peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and centuries other soldiers before the door were guarding the prison. I was thinking about this. I thought you know what I mean. Peter did cut off somebody's ear, but they probably don't even know that. Right, he's not portrayed to be a violent, big, strong warrior. You know he's not a soldier, but he's like an Alcatraz, right? I mean this is crazy.

Speaker 1:

Why would Herod do this? Is it excessive? Well, herod probably doesn't think so, because you might've heard of a story, just a little bit back in the gospel accounts, where this man whom Peter worships, called the Messiah, named Jesus. See the Romans I don't know if you've heard this, but the Romans killed him, put him on a cross, made sure he was dead, put him in the tomb. He was buried for three days. In front of the tomb was a heavy, massive stone and on the outside were guards. No escape, right? Well, with God, all things are possible, because I don't know if you heard, but on the third day, he didn't stay down, he didn't stay dead, he got up, the stone was thrown away and the tomb was empty. And so I think Herod is going.

Speaker 1:

Listen, I don't want to take any chances. These Christians, I mean there's something about them and I love this. Okay, so, peter, think of this. He's got two chains on him, in between two soldiers. Likely, he is chained to them. There's two guards on the outside. And what's Peter doing? He's not wringing his hands, he's not watering in anxiety. What's he doing? He's sleeping.

Speaker 1:

Now, I think this is Peter's spiritual gift is sleep, because you remember, in the garden of Gethsemane he slept on the mount of transfiguration. He fell asleep and we read other places where he's sleeping. This dude loves to sleep asleep. And we read other places where he's sleeping. This dude loves to sleep. That resonates with some of you. You know how many are going to take a Sunday afternoon nap today? Come on, I think that's a spiritual thing, right, bob? You conked out for about two hours every Sunday, but I love this Really. What I want to point out is that Peter is at complete peace. But I love this Really. What I want to point out is that Peter is at complete peace.

Speaker 1:

John 16, 33,. Jesus told the disciples you're going to deal with some stuff. He said in me. He tells his disciples in me you can have peace John 16, 33. But in the world you're going to have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. What's he saying?

Speaker 1:

Here's what that means Christian peace is not about the absence of something, it's about the presence of someone. In other words, christian peace is not about the absence of trouble, because we all go through trouble, but it's about the presence of the Lord, jesus Christ in our life, man that makes people mad when they're trying to hurt you and get you down, and you just have peace and you have joy. The devil hates it, man. He wants to rob you of your joy and your peace and all of these things, but they are steadfast in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. So that's Peter's predicament Bound in chains between two guards, two more guards out there.

Speaker 1:

It's Alcatraz. And yet something happens. Because the people prayed, god intervenes. Look at verse 7 with me and behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in the cell. So think of this. This is not like a little nightlight. This is the glory of an angel, and watch this. I love this.

Speaker 1:

He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. The angelic light didn't wake Peter up. I mean, this dude is in a deep sleep. And he says to him get up quickly. And the chain fell off his hands and the angel said to him dress 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 and he followed him. He did not know that what Peter didn't know, that what was happening to him was real, but he thought he was seeing a vision. Have you ever kind of woken up in the middle of the night and you're just a little bit delirious? That's what's happening to Peter.

Speaker 1:

And when they had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. Listen to this. It opened for them of its own accord. This angel invented automatic gates. He needs credit. It opened for him of its own accord and they went out along the street and immediately the angel left and ghosted him right and it's. Then Peter came to himself and said oh, this was the Lord. He sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.

Speaker 1:

Peter had no hope, humanly speaking, of escape, but beloved prayer changes things, I'm telling you. You may be going through something right now. You may have received a diagnosis this week. Your job may be on the line this week. You could have found something about your kids this week that just breaks your heart. Inhumanly speaking, there may be no way. Fine. But with God, if we will pray and call upon the name of the Lord, there is nothing that our God can't do. We sang it today. He has done great things and I know he'll do it again. Amen, but this comes, this miracle comes.

Speaker 1:

Luke wants us to see, because he mentions the praying church twice. It comes because of intercessory prayer, and so I want to point out quickly five qualities of this church's intercessory prayer here in our text. So number one the church's prayer is earnest. Look at verse five. Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. The word earnest means with intent, care and conviction. It's to pray with fervency, with passion.

Speaker 1:

If you have ever had a really bad prognosis from the doctor, or one of your children were really, really hurting in some way, or you lost your job and it looked like you know you were going to lose everything, I can almost guarantee you that you were on your face before the Lord, crying out oh God, help me. And you would pray and you would pray and you would pray and you would seek the Lord and you would muster up every bit of faith that you have in you and you would pray with conviction, and you would pray with conviction and you would pray with passion. I want to ask you a question how do you pray for other people when they're going through those things. You know we're probably all guilty of this, but somebody asks you to pray for them and you get off the phone and you're in the middle of something else. Lord, I just pray for so-and-so. Touch him in Jesus' name and you're up and it's like I just wanted to check off the box.

Speaker 1:

Some people let me tell you, let me give you a warning here Like it's wrong to lie Amen, it's really wrong to lie about praying for somebody. So I see you know these social media posts with you know, and people you know they're asking somebody's sharing something that's wrong in their life. And what's everybody writing? Prayers, prayers, prayers. And I can't help but think are these people really praying? You better not say that if you're not praying. But beyond that, if you're not going to pray with conviction, maybe you don't write anything, because we're to share one another's burdens. So when you hurt, it ought to be like I'm hurt, amen. When your child is sick, it ought to be like my child is sick.

Speaker 1:

Their prayer is earnest. Number two their prayer is specific, verse five. Earnest prayer was made for him, peter, and I presume that they were praying for his you know his escape, right? I presume that they were praying for his escape, right? I think it is really helpful when we go in prayer to know what we're praying for and to be specific to God. Well, does God know everything? Yeah, but doesn't James say you receive not because you ask not.

Speaker 1:

This is the way Paul teaches us to preach. When he prays for others, he tells them specific things that he's prayed for, and when he asks for prayer, he asks for specific things. So let me just give you an example of this 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 and 2. Finally, brothers, paul writing pray for us. So he's telling he's asking the church to pray for them. Here's who you pray for. And then he tells them what to pray for, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored and that we may be delivered from wicked men. So he doesn't just say, hey, pray for us in general. God knows the problem. God knows the problem, but he wants the church asking for what he needs. And there's power in that.

Speaker 1:

And I'm not trying to, you know, make fun of anybody here. I've probably done this before and it's not necessarily wrong. But something that I just don't get is unspoken request. I just now. I know that there are probably times that you're not able to divulge all the information, but I have people say, well, I can't tell you who and I can't tell you what, but just pray For what? Right, I don't get it. And a lot of times the reason that we don't speak the request is because we're maybe embarrassed about something going on in our family or whatever it is, and sometimes it's pride, not always. Sometimes it's for somebody else and we're not at liberty to share. But I'm just telling you, anytime you're able to share details, I just think it's much more powerful. That's the pattern we see in the Bible. I don't know and you guys can correct me, I don't know if there's anywhere in the Bible where somebody said you know what, I just haven't unspoken. So prayer, I think, should be specific.

Speaker 1:

Number three intercessory prayer. Their prayer is not only earnest, it's not only specific, but it's corporate. It's corporate, verse 12. So when Peter realizes that this is a real experience and not a dream, it says he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were doing what. They were gathered together to pray.

Speaker 1:

Private prayer is important, jesus tells us. Go into your prayer closet, essentially in secret, and I hope that you're praying daily and intentionally. I hope you pray throughout the day, pray without ceizing, as Paul says. But that does not. Private prayer does not replace the need for corporate prayer. They're not the same. There is as powerful as individual prayer is. There is something. There is something that happens when the people of God come together and join hands and lock arms and are unified and they say God, we call upon you as a body. Oh, that kind of prayer changes things. People say, well, I can pray at home, you know they don't come to Wednesday night. I can pray at home, you can, and I'm grateful that you pray at home, but we're called. I mean the pattern we see throughout Acts. They're constantly joining together, praying. Both are important.

Speaker 1:

Pastor jim cimbala. He's the pastor of brooklyn tab, great, wonderful pastor. He has a daughter who at one time had been running from the lord. Chrissy had rebelled against her family. She left home as a teenager and was living as far from God as she possibly could. She was a prodigal, but one night this teenager, chrissy, awoke with a distinct feeling that somebody was praying for her. I love this. Someone was praying for her. By the way, the entire congregation of the church her father pastored was talking to God about her During their weekly prayer meeting, which is massive, by the way. One lady spoke up and said I believe we all need to pray together for Chrissy, jim Cimbala's daughter. Do you know? Two days later she came home after running for a long time Involved in all kinds of crazy things. Listen to this. The first question she had for her startled dad when she walked in the door was this who was praying for me? And do you know? That night she begged forgiveness and recommitted her life to the Lord Jesus Christ Beloved.

Speaker 1:

There is power when we pray. I know it's not something you want the whole world to know. When you got a kid not serving the Lord running and a prodigal, listen when my child was doing it one of my kids. I'm a pastor and I didn't care. I want everybody to know why. Because I want everybody praying. Prayer is corporate. Number four their prayer is continual.

Speaker 1:

In verse five, the church is praying when Peter goes into prison and when he's released. We don't know how long, you know how much time went by, but enough for him to go to sleep, which may not have taken that long for Peter. But there was some time and he took the chains off, got dressed. What were they doing? When he came to the house? He was still praying. They were still praying. Prayer is continual.

Speaker 1:

Now Jack got on me a couple of weeks ago in a Wednesday night. He said you know what, god? We were praying. He said we got to stay in prayer longer. He said we're so worried with time and sometimes we just need to stay in prayer. And I started thinking about that. I thought you know he's right, and because back in the day you had a burden Anybody remember that you had a burden to pray.

Speaker 1:

I just have a burden, I feel, and when you would pray there's another phrase we would use you had to pray through. You remember that? Oh, I just got to pray through, and here's what that means. I think that's a really good concept. When you pray, I mean, we know God's not impressed by our many words, correct so? Or our big words, our spiritual vocabulary, theological vocabulary.

Speaker 1:

But there are times that we just need to press in and keep praying and keep crying out, and so, for particularly critical needs, when somebody shares with you that man, I need you to go to battle in prayer. The Lord will burn that in your heart, or maybe he'll wake you up in the middle of the night I'm sure this has happened to many of you, it's happened to me several times and you'll just have somebody on your heart and you know you've got to pray. For here's what you do you pray until you feel that release from God. I'm not saying necessarily that you pray, because it could take a long time for the miracle to come to pass, but you pray until you feel your prayer has reached heaven. You'll just know it. I don't know any. Can I get a witness? Anybody been there? Okay, so we've got to learn to pray through. It's continual.

Speaker 1:

The final point I want to make about their prayer is the most encouraging to me, and it was kind of shocking because I've never seen this before. Their prayer was imperfect. Look at verses 13 through 16. This is hilarious.

Speaker 1:

So when Peter knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. In recognizing Peter's voice in her joy, she didn't open the gate. She's so excited she forgets to open the gate for Peter. But she ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. Who's she telling this to the people who are praying for this. Now watch this. They said to her you are out of your mind. But she kept insisting it's him. And they kept saying, oh, it's just his angel. But Peter continued knocking Come on, guys, let me in, herod's after me, right? And when they opened it, they saw it and they were amazed. Have you ever been shocked that God actually answered the prayer you were praying? That's what's going on here. Here's what this tells me in all seriousness. Here's what it tells me. Their prayer was not perfect and yet God heard their heart and God answered.

Speaker 1:

Now, this was tough for me this week. I had to wrestle with it, because the Bible talks a lot about the importance of faith when we pray, yes. Wrestle with it Because the Bible talks a lot about the importance of faith when we pray yes. And there's one particular text that I really had to try and reconcile with this James, chapter 1. For time's sake, let me just read it to you. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all, without reproach, and it will be given. Now listen to this. But let him ask in faith, with no what? With no? Doubting For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind, for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He and this is key he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let me just ask you doesn't it appear in Acts, chapter 12, that they're vacillating a little bit between, like they're shocked when God actually does what they say? You know what they're praying for Now. Think about that. So how do we reconcile this? Well, it's not a contradiction.

Speaker 1:

The phrase double-minded in James is used again in chapter 4, which brings clarity to chapter 1. You adulterous people this is verse 4, chapter 4, verse 4, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Then you go down to verse 8, draw near to God, he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. So what do we do with that? Well, the people to whom James is writing, it seems to me, are double-minded, in the sense that they are vacillating between trusting God and trusting their own abilities or the world. They're in and out.

Speaker 1:

One commentator put it like this. He said for James, being double-minded or a doubter isn't so much about having intellectual uncertainty. Rather it has to do with divided allegiance. The key issue in James' view is this, he writes are you putting all your trust in God, or does your true loyalty lie with the world and with your own resources, which he's echoing Jesus' words, you cannot love God and mammon or money. So you think about that in the context of prayer and it's like how many this impossible situation is before us and we go to God, but then we try to fix it ourself or we turn to some other method. Right, and I'm not saying that when we pray, obviously you're sick, you go to the doctor. Right, and I'm not saying that when we pray, obviously you're sick, you go to the doctor. That's not what I'm talking about. But I'm saying that we give that prayer to God, but then we don't really trust him with it.

Speaker 1:

So here's what I think that in Acts, chapter 12, the church believed that whether or not, however, god does this, or whether or not he does it for Peter, we trust the will of the Lord. We trust the will of the Lord, and I do believe, as they prayed otherwise they wouldn't have wasted their time that they did believe God would and could. But how many know that we struggle with that sometimes, don't we? And I don't want to undermine the importance of faith. Please don't think I'm doing that. It matters, but what is important in faith, you know what it is. The important part of faith is the object of our faith, not what we're asking for. It's the object of our faith. So they may be vacillating on how's God going to do this Is he going to? But they trust God. So they may be vacillating on how's God going to do this, but they trust God. Their faith is solid in the Lord. So I gave it my best shot. But I do think that's important because I want you to know some of you go.

Speaker 1:

I don't really know how to pray Just pray, just pray. God will see your heart. As long as you're not praying with selfish motives, god will see your heart. What long as you're not praying with selfish motives, god will see your heart. What a gracious God we serve, amen. There's a question I want to address, two questions I want to address before I close. One is this why does God deliver Peter and not James. Don't we struggle with this Like why did God heal this believer and not this one? That's something we have to grapple with and it's a fair question.

Speaker 1:

There's this phrase that's used in the Bible to describe God. It's used twice, at least twice in the New Testament. This says God is no respecter of persons. That's King James right. Esv says God shows no partiality. Same thing, yes. So I've heard through the years so many people you know. They come up to somebody who's sick and they say listen, well, god healed this person and he's no respecter of persons. So he's going to heal you, beloved. I'm sorry, that is a gross misinterpretation of Scripture If you read the context in any of those areas. Let me just give you one example. In the book of Acts you just go back a couple of chapters. You're going to see that's not what it means.

Speaker 1:

In Acts 10, 34 and 35, you might remember from a few weeks ago, peter's at Cornelius's house. A Gentile Peter's never stood foot in a house like this before to preach the gospel. God had to give him a vision. The Holy Spirit had to tell him to go, and he gets. Remember, he gets to Cornelius' house. He's like he essentially says you know, I would generally never come into your house, you're unclean. But then he says this in verse 34.

Speaker 1:

Peter opened his mouth and said truly, I understand that God shows no partiality. Peter's preaching the gospel. In other words, he's no respecter of person. But in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. In other words, it's not just a Jewish gospel, it's not just a Gentile gospel, it's not a black gospel, a white gospel, an Indian gospel, an Asian gospel. It is not just a Gentile gospel. It's not a black gospel, a white gospel, an Indian gospel, an Asian gospel. It is the gospel for all who would believe. Amen. That's the point. He's no respecter of persons. He doesn't like one race over another, he just man. He welcomes us all. Jesus died for the world, for God's love, not one nation, not one skin color. God's love loved what the world that he gave his only begotten son, thank God. He's no respecter of persons, but that doesn't mean that he's going to like. You know he gives Jerry a new motorcycle, that he's going to give Hunter a new motorcycle, all right.

Speaker 1:

Doesn't mean that how many of you had like, if you had multiple kids, like when they were little, like you tried to spend like the exact dollar amount on both of them for Christmas. Because you want to be fair, right? Why Get them something they need and don't worry about it? Right? But we want to be fair. My grandmother would show up sometimes and just with a random gift and I say what's this for? Well, I bought your cousin something. Okay, you know, I mean, that worked out well for me, but God's not like this. You don't want fair. By the way, if it was fair, we'd all be judged, right.

Speaker 1:

But God blesses us how he he sees fit, and just because he does something for you doesn't mean he's required to do it for me, or vice versa. Are you with me? So? So that's something I know we got we have to wrestle with, but this begs one. So so why does god? Well, let me say this why does god heal james or peter and not james? Or what would you say? Rescue Peter. Let me say this again why does Peter Nope, y'all pray for me, intercede right now, church. Why does God rescue Peter and not James? All right, come on, here's why. Okay, lean in, lean in, because he's sovereign and God does what God does. Which leads me to my final question If God is sovereign, why pray?

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You're amening me right now, aren't you? If God is sovereign, why pray? Well, tongue-in-cheek answer is because the Bible says to that's enough. But number two we do know this from James that again, you receive not because you ask not. So there are things in this life, apparently, that we will not get unless we pray.

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But thirdly this is a very important concept for you to understand God is sovereign and he's going to bring his will to pass, but he uses prayer as a means to do it. Does that make sense? Just like God does the saving right, he saves somebody. Yes, can God alone save? But how does he do it? What's the process?

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The means, as Paul says in Romans 10, is the preaching of the gospel. That's the means of preparing the heart. Then God does the work. When God is able to keep us from falling, like the Bible says, what's he used to do? That? Real means Hearing the exposition of God's word. We call these means of grace.

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Communion In communion, we sit at the Lord's table. Communion In communion, we sit at the Lord's table. We fellowship with Him, prayer. These are all community. That's why we come to church together. One of the reasons, because those are called means of grace. So the Lord, he's doing the work, but he uses real means, practical means, to do it.

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Okay, so there it is Pray, because I mean, listen this. To go back to verse five, it's no accident that it says peter was put in prison, but the church prayed. I just think, though god is sovereign, this would not have happened if the church didn't pray. But God also ordained the prayer. I believe you know he ordained that the church would pray. So it's the means that God uses. And how cool is that, when you pray, if God means to heal somebody, do you know your prayers can help bring that to pass? What a great joy. It's amazing. In closing, I want to remind you, by the way, james is vindicated when God kills Herod, right?

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But in closing, I want to encourage you with a couple of things. One, I want to encourage you to be more committed to intercessory prayer. Well, how do you do that? You've got to grow in love. There's only one of two reasons that you would not be committed to this kind of prayer on behalf of others. One is a lack of belief. So you don't believe it does any good. I hope I've convinced you otherwise today.

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But if you do believe there's power in prayer and you don't pray for others, it's simply a lack of love. It can't be anything else. If I don't pray for your kid like I would pray for mine, I just don't love you like the Bible calls me to love you. Da Carson said if you want to grow, he said if you grow in love, you will grow in intercession. It'll just happen. You won't have to try. Listen, if you love me like you love your family, if I love you like I love my family when you have a need, I won't be able to work. I won't be able to concentrate until I get on my face before the Lord on your behalf. Let's grow in love.

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I want to leave you with a really easy to do this week. I just want to challenge you to come to our prayer meeting Wednesday night at 7. Again, it's not trivial. What we do, it's not just prayer service, it's a powerhouse and it's making a difference. These salvations that are happening, the atmosphere that has shifted here over the last year. It's happened because we've re-established prayer meeting. It's not cool today. It's not in a lot of churches, but our elders decided if it's just us that show up. We're going to pray.

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Finally, I want to ask you to let us know how we can pray for you, and there's two ways you can do that. If you have your note sheet on the back, at the bottom is just a little form you can put a prayer request on. You can tear that off and drop it in the offering box on the way out and we will commit this Wednesday to pray for you. We'll distribute this to our elders and we'll pray for you several times, but I want to know how to pray for you. You can also, by the way, do this on our. If you pull up the Church Center app, there's a place for prayer requests there and you can click on that and do it digitally. But why is this so important to me? Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why this is so important to me, because I would not be here today I'm convinced of this if it were not for intercessory prayer.

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Some of you have heard my story, but not all of you, so I'm going to share a quick version of it. I was born six weeks early. I was born six weeks early, premature, which comes with its own complications. Finally, I got to go home from the hospital, my parents thought everything was okay until I started crying and they could not console me. And this went on and on and on. They called my grandmother you know I was their first child. Are we doing something wrong? Nobody could help me. I would not stop crying. So they took me back to the hospital and they knew immediately that I had some infection. But they didn't know what it was, and so they were just, you know, kind of guessing on how to treat me. My situation was quite precarious. My life to some measure hung in the balance.

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But I got praying parents, thank the Lord, who were connected to a great church, and so they called my pastor at Central Baptist Church in Winchester, and at that time they had Wednesday night prayer meetings and they were serious man. They would pass out prayer cards, they would distribute them across the church and attached to the prayer card was a note card it's so awesome and the church members would write notes of encouragement saying I prayed for you. And so while my parents were in the hospital worrying about their little baby, they'd get these cards of encouragement, constantly being reminded somebody's praying for me Two of my uncles are pastors On that one particular Wednesday night they decided their churches are all going to pray, along with Central Baptist Church and my grandmother's Methodist Church, and they all begin to pray. And I want you to know that was a Wednesday night.

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Thursday morning everything changed for me because prayer works. You wouldn't be hearing me preach right now, I believe, if they would not have prayed. I wouldn't have two wonderful children, a beautiful wife and a wonderful there's not a word to describe her my little grandbaby Ivy. She wouldn't be with me. Prayer matters.