Acts 12
Intro – The Five Miracles of Marare
- Allan’s burn healing day of departure (hot bacon fat)
- Allan’s twisted knee, 2 days later on hike, no pain
- healing of older lady who couldn’t walk
- four people who gave their lives to Christ in service
- young Kenyan soldier who walked us to our bus at the border…
Probably more…(team got along without major conflict…) ** all because the church was praying…
…when I asked the Lord this week what He wanted me to preach on, this is what He gave me: He gave me the story of Peter’s miraculous release from prison in Acts 12 as a direct answer to corporate prayer…
…He wants us as a church to pray together for the seemingly impossible situations, to pray for miraculous answers to prayer… whether it be people’s lives or global issues…
-to stretch our prayer muscles and pray big prayers that are based on a big God who can do bigger things than we can possibly imagine…and that we even dare to ask…
Why should we do this? Because God wants to show His church the amazing power of corporate prayer…what happens when God’s people really step out in God-sized prayer…
-we started that last Sunday night at the HOP evenings…we’ll be continuing…
So let’s turn to the passage He wants us to focus on this morning… Acts 12:1-19…
Prayer…read…12:1-19…
Here’s what we learn about powerful corporate prayer from this story in Acts 12:
Powerful Corporate Prayer
1) driven by trouble, need, danger vv.1-4
-that is the situation the early church finds itself in…
James the brother of John, one of the leaders of the church, has just been executed… …King Herod is on a murderous rampage driven by gaining political brownie points…and the early Xns know that nothing human will stop this evil, depraved man…they know they have no place to go to find help other than God…
…there is no justice system, no police who will protect them, no government agency that will stand up for them…they have no hope of any help other than directly from the hand of God.
-they are facing a humanly impossible situation that needs nothing short of a miracle to be resolved…
-that is what many of you are facing these days……
And I’ll tell you, we’ve got to thank God for it…that He is being so good and gracious to provide us with these impossible situations…because without them we would remain weak in our faith…we would have no opportunity for our faith in God to grow…we would have no opportunity for God to show Himself powerful and strong…
-without impossible situations that are beyond any human help, we would do what we’ve become accustomed to doing as NA Xns: praying…but often as a last resort… …praying…but deep down knowing that there is some government agency or program or doctor or therapist who will probably be the answer to that need…and if God doesn’t come through then we’ve got other resources to fall back on…
-and given many options other than God to rely on, we often do take those other options first and add praying to God as a postcript to our need for help…
-God uses trouble, need, danger to wake us up out of our slumber and complacency…to pry our hands away from human help alone…to build our faith…and turn our focus back on God where it should have been all along…God uses trouble, need and danger to get our attention and invites us into a new level of prayer…
And you know that there is nothing wrong with government help and programs and doctors and therapists…God uses them as well…but there is a very real limit to what they can do to help solve impossible situations…
Ps 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
Powerful corporate prayer is driven by trouble, need, danger, all kinds of problems…And folks, we are living in those troubled and needy and dangerous times right now…can’t you see it? many of us cannot see it…don’t want to see it…
…if we did see it we’d be praying a whole lot differently than many of us are right now…our prayers would be filled with cries for help, desparation and need and longing…with faith and belief in the absolute power of God to accomplish miracles…
…some of us don’t want to face the reality that we’re living in these troubled times that need God desparately…too scary and difficult…so we create an illusion of everything being OK…no worries…and we settle for lame, safe Christian living that doesn’t expect much… and a safe, comfortable church gathering that isn’t too challenging…
…life is too short and the work of God’s kingdom is too important and this age is too evil and people are too broken and hopeless for us to settle for a notion of church gatherings as a kind of comfortable togetherness…a happy little club with lame meetings…
…that kind of church life has no transforming, empowering, explosive effect when we meet…and it looks nothing like the Xny of the early church in the book of Acts…
God is too powerful and able and willing to do great things for us to settle for low-level praying and expectation…
2) determined, earnest, intense, fervent, stretching, v.5
These folks weren't just remembering Peter at their bedtime prayers -- they were praying fervently for him! The Greek word for “earnestly praying” is a medical term describing the stretching of a muscle to its limits, to its full capacity…kind of like when you work out…and you really push it…and you feel it the next day…
It’s the same Greek word used for the way Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke writes, "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Lk. 22:44.
It can mean earnest. It can mean unceasing. It can mean intense. The same word is used for intense love in the New Testament, intense service, intense prayer. They were stretched out in anguish, intensity, earnestness, praying with a total effort for Peter.
You can easily see that the Christians weren't playing at prayer, they were really praying!
When was the last time you prayed in such a way about a situation? When was the last time you were stretched to the breaking point in your prayer life? When was the last time you passionately and with great commitment gave yourself to the labor of prayer? I am convinced that there are times when we must pray with such fervency.
I believe that we should follow the example of the early church who labored in prayer over Peter…that we labor in prayer with others in believing, expectant prayer…
This corporate prayer meeting for Peter went on all night, “all night” v.12…that’s how devoted to seeking God for an answer these people were…
-may God’s Spirit birth in us a passion and desire for prayer…that is bold, earnest, fervent, intense…that desires to meet with others and seek hard after God…
Peter Was Sleeping But the Church Wasn’t
-did you notice in v. 6 that while in prison, Peter was sleeping? that alone is a miracle given the situation he was facing…how could he be sleeping, esp. between two soldiers? he is bound with chains and there are guards stationed at the entrance? likely facing death the next day?
-this really shows us how strong Peter’s faith was, that he knew God was in control, was going to take care of things, to the point where he could rest in the certainty of God’s plan for him whether it was to live or die…
But the thing to notice, is that while Peter was asleep, the church wasn’t…the church was wide awake praying fervently…it’s often the other way around…the ones who are in trouble are awake, worried, anxious, troubled while the ones who are called to do something about it are fast asleep…
-this is God’s call for us to wake up and pray for those who are in trouble and to do so fervently and constantly and to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of those who need a miracle from God…
3) depends on God’s supernatural power/ability for an answer vv.6-11, (esp v.11)
-while all this is true, we also learn that it is not up to us to get our prayers answered…answers to prayer do not depend on our ability to pray right…to pray enough…even tho we are called to be earnest, fervent in our prayer, it is not our labor that brings about the answer…it is only God’s supernatural power and ability…
-so while we are called to pray intensely…our faith in prayer cannot be in our fervency, numbers, how much time we pray…on anything we do…it is only based on our powerful, loving God who is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” (Eph. 3:20)
v.11 “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me…”
eg prayer story…Bishop Kwashi of Nigeria…(sheet)
4) defies our small expectations vv 12-16…
-it’s actually funny how the gathered believers reacted when Peter came to the door…how when Peter arrived at the door of the house the believers were praying in, Rhoda left him standing at the door, told the group…
…and they wouldn’t believe her…thot she was out of her mind…
…it’s as if they couldn’t believe their prayers were actually being answered…I don’t think I would have reacted any differently…they’re not much different than you and I…
Actually it’s both comical and sad! The answer to their prayers, a freed Peter was standing at the door! But they were too busy praying to realize that their prayers had been answered. Or perhaps they didn’t really believe that their prayers could be answered…
But again, I’m not much different when it comes to answered prayer…
Do we really expect him to answer? Could it be that we have become so accustomed to not having our prayers answered in the way we hoped they would be, that we seldom expect God to do anything when we pray? We end up praying simply because we are told we should. We end up praying with only a faint hope that God will act on our behalf.
That’s a problem, and it’s called doubt. When we only go through the motions of prayer without really expecting an answer, we doubt that God can do something about it or that God cares, or both…
God does want to answer our prayers for the miraculous in order to build and grow our faith…
-you can be certain that if they didn’t believe in the power of prayer before this night, these early Christians certainly believed in the power of prayer afterwards…that their prayer lives and prayer meetings were permanently changed by this miraculous answer from God…
Eph 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…
There is one more thing powerful corporate prayer does: we find it at the end of the chapter which I didn’t read yet:
read …v.21-24…
5) defeats the power of evil vv.21-23
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Powerful, corporate prayer is one of the spiritual weapons God uses to bring defeat to the evil spiritual powers at work all around us…
God not only answered the prayer of the church by releasing Peter from prison, but He also served notice on the evil King Herod that you cannot oppose God and His plans and get away with it…
By miraculously releasing Peter from prison, God frustrated Herod’s evil plan to get more political power through the killing of Peter. He showed him that not even four squads of soldiers can imprison the one God decides to free.
He showed him that He is more powerful than Herod thot he was…
God brought judgment and defeat to Herod by striking him down with internal parasites that finished him off…
Powerful corporate prayer is a powerful spiritual weapon that God uses to accomplish His purposes in the invisible spiritual realm…
2 Cor. 10:3-4 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
Conclusion
-who do you know is in a spiritual, dark, prison…held captive by chains? sin or sickness? who needs our prayer…
HOP response:
1. pray for deliverance from small praying, from doubt, disbelief, anything that holds us back from calling out to the God of miracles…
-deliver us from “having a form of godliness but denying its power…” 2 Tim. 3:5
2. make impossible prayer need known…a step beyond last week when I invited you to restart praying for the prayer you’ve given up on…we’ll be doing that tonight again…
Ways to communicate prayer requests for corporate prayer: Tues nights, call office, prayer chain, website, Pastors, etc.
Bishop Benjamin Kwashi’s story of a miraculous answer to prayer as reported in Christianity Today.
The Anglican archbishop of Jos, Nigeria is Benjamin Kwashi. He is a bold and outspoken Christian who has done a great deal of work promoting the gospel in Nigeria along with many ministries that help and serve the poor and oppressed. He shared a story that was horrific and inspiring at the same time. Jos, Nigeria, has been rocked by sectarian violence for years now, primarily between Christians and Muslims.
There have been endless cycles of violence and vengeance and hundreds of people killed. In 2006, a gang of people broke into the bishop's house in order to kill him. He wasn't home, but his wife was. They did unspeakable things to her, and they beat her and left her for dead. She survived, but spent most of the following year in recovery.
One year later, the same gang came back. They broke into his home again, and this time Benjamin was at home. They dragged him out of his house, told him that if he gave them a certain amount of money they would spare his life. He told them that he did not have that amount of money so they took him into the backyard to kill him in front of his family. They had machetes and clubs. Benjamin asked for just a moment to pray before they began. So he knelt there on the dirt and began to pray.
A moment later he felt someone holding his hand. He looked up, and it was his wife. The courage of that woman was remarkable. She could have run, but instead she broke through this line of the same gang who had attacked her a year ago and knelt with her husband to pray with him, knowing that her life was over as well. And then a moment later, he felt someone holding his other hand. He looked, and it was his teenage son. Benjamin begged his son to leave so that he wouldn't be killed as well. And his son said, "Father, they've all left. They're all gone."
Benjamin was stunned that they were gone. And he’s certain they'll be back. But God did something miraculous when the bishop and his wife were kneeling in the dirt in prayer.
Through prayer, the power of God defeated the power of evil in that particular moment.