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I’m going to invite you to Acts chapter 12 as we’re going to be together today. Acts chapter 12. And I love how this chapter is poised well, with the with the end of the year, as we look towards a new year and what this means for us, because Acts chapter 12 is very much a chapter that should encourage the body of Christ no matter what you’re going through, but especially in seasons of struggle. And when we have to entrust ourselves to anything in this world. Depending on the level of the way we’re entrusting ourselves to the depth of how far we need to trust determines for us really how much we need to vet what we’re entrusting ourselves to. Meaning, if you were to go in for, let’s say, open heart surgery, the last thing you want to hear is your doctor graduated yesterday and you’re their first patient. Right? Because the significance of that type of operation, you want a little bit more credibility to the person you’re entrusting yourself to. But when you can find that individual that carries a certain set of skills. We shall say that when you know that they are faithful, they’re reliable, and those that entrust themselves to them find themselves pleased again and again. There’s this way in which you can kind of just let go and rest, right? But if if you doubt what you’re entrusting yourself to, there’s this need to constantly look over the work again and again, to look over your shoulder, to doubt, to question.
And when it comes to your your soul and the well-being of you as as a human being, your faith journey is a critical part of who you are. In fact, I would say it’s the most important part of who you are, and it really determines everything about you. And so that’s not something you just want to step into lightly, but you want to know that the one you entrust yourself to is faithful. Acts chapter 12 is one of those chapters that reminds us of this, especially in adversity. It’s easy to say you trust when things in life are going well. It’s it’s a different story when things in life are, are are getting complicated. And in Acts chapter 12, this is what we discover with the early church. They’ve already gone through some adversity, but the adversity continues to ramp up. And now learning from this early church helps us gather confidence or to be people with faith. That’s what the word confidence means and how we move forward, especially in the difficulties and complexities of life where we might discover ourselves. How do we know God’s faithful? You know when you’re checking on the credentials of someone else, finding how how maybe a trusted friend has worked with someone and found that particular individual working out for them instills in us a certain amount of confidence in using that person for our lives.
And I would say it’s the same in Acts chapter 12. In terms of a faith journey, like looking at the evidence of of who God is, and the faithfulness of him perpetuated throughout history becomes important for us. In Acts chapter 12 lays that foundation. How do we know that we can entrust ourselves to the Lord? How do we know that he’ll remain steadfast and faithful? And that’s what we’re going to look at today in Acts chapter 12, wisdom from Life’s Challenges. And I’m just going to read the opening part of this chapter. You’re going to see the first five verses, really everything that the church is going through, a perpetuation of, of some of the things they’ve experienced up to this point. But in verse one, about that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church, and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. So likely Herod’s killed multiple people. But one of the people they’ve noted here is James, the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. 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.
Now, looking at the story, you can certainly see the complexity and the hardship that’s facing God’s people. We know when we read the story approximately when this took place, this is about 44 A.D.. So we’re we’re more than a decade after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And the early church continues to find itself in this place of persecution that’s been perpetuated. Now, one of the things that’s a little bit confusing about this particular chapter, and when you read the New Testament, is sometimes they weren’t creative with names. And what I mean by that is when you read the New Testament, you find the name Herod used multiple times. In fact, when Jesus is born, there’s a Herod in Acts chapter 12. Here’s a Herod. These are not the same Herod’s. There’s a half dozen Herod’s in the New Testament. It’s it’s definitely a family name. They ruled in this general region. But there are multiple herods in the Bible. Same is true with James. There’s multiple James in the Bible. We’ll talk about a couple in just a second. And when you read this chapter, you’re going to find the name Mary. And you discover when you read the New Testament there are multiple Mary’s. So and when you want to get into the particulars of characters, learning who’s who’s being talked about as it relates to Mary, just to assume there’s only one Mary is to assume wrong, one herods to assume wrong, and one James is to assume wrong.
But when you read about this story of James, one of the things I want you to recognize is this particular James is the first apostle who was martyred for his faith. This is not the first martyr. The first martyr we read about was Stephen in the book of Acts, chapter six and seven. But but the first apostle that’s martyred is James. What’s ironic is the last living apostle is John. So James and John are brothers, and this is what we’re talking about in this story. There’s James and there’s John. Both of them are followers of Jesus. Both of them were apostles. In fact, they are considered the inner circle in Jesus’s life. When you look at Jesus’s ministry, he had three of his disciples that were closest to him Peter, James, and John. James now in these moments is being martyred. John will go on to be the oldest living apostle, and he is the only apostle that was not martyred for his faith. In fact, he writes the last book of the New Testament, which is the Book of Revelation. Now, what makes this even more confusing is that when James is martyred, someone takes over leadership of the Church of Jerusalem, and his name is also James. But the James that takes over for leadership in Jerusalem happens to be the half brother of Jesus.
So as this church faces persecution, James is martyred. Another James steps in. And this James is a half brother of Jesus. Now, I don’t like sometimes I say things up here. People take things from me and they just run wild with them. Sometimes people assume things that I mean, that I don’t. I don’t really say or never intended to say. And sometimes people hear me say things. And I did intend them to say. And then this I intend to say. Jesus had siblings, half siblings because he came from an earthly mother. But a but he was born of a virgin. Right. So Joseph was was his I guess, stepfather in that sense. But but Mary had children after Jesus. I don’t know why that’s a trigger for so many people. I about once a year, I feel like I say that. And about once a year, some someone comes up to me in one of the services and they are, like, severely frustrated that I would say that I think people have in their mind that and Mary, because she gave birth to Jesus, she remained a virgin for the rest of her life, like a married woman, remains a virgin for the rest of her life. And just if you’re if you believe that, I just want you to know that is not true, okay? And let me just tell you it’s not true because I said it.
It’s true because the Bible says that over and over again, okay? Like, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just read the Bible. Every time someone comes to me mad about this, I think to myself, this person has never read the Bible, and here they are fighting with me, right? Because there are several places in the Bible that talk about Jesus having Jesus, having siblings. And if you just want a few of them there, here, Mark. Mark even says that his his siblings thought he was crazy. Like, as you can imagine, a brother claiming to be God. And if you don’t accept that, you’re going to think there’s something wrong with him. So Mark talks about his his family wanting to to get him because he’s out of his mind. John seven his brothers didn’t even believe him. In Matthew 13 lists for you not only that, he has brothers and sisters, but it actually names some of his brothers, one of which is James. So when you read the Gospels, what you find out is his family didn’t believe in what he who he claimed to be. And then when you read in, for example, first Corinthians chapter 15, verse seven, You find James embracing Jesus as the Messiah, and the reason he does this is because of one thing he encounters Jesus after the resurrection at the resurrection of Christ.
This is where the early followers of Jesus ran away. But all of a sudden, when they see this dead man now walking again, they realize Jesus and all he claimed to be. The resurrection changed everything, and so his his brothers then walk in in faith. And Jesus had had multiple brothers and and even Jude, who wrote the book of Jude, follows after Jesus, his half brother. And so here, here you find Jesus’s family leading and and James, who takes over the church in Jerusalem, gets get this. He writes the letter called James. In fact, when you read the New Testament, it’s important to remember that the New Testament wasn’t put together in chronological order. Meaning if you’re if you’re a new believer and you’re like, well, I want to read the Bible, I’m going to start from the beginning. If you just pick up from the very beginning of the New Testament and assume the Bible is put together in chronological order, you assume wrong. The first book that was actually written in the New Testament is the Book of James. And in fact, I would encourage you when you when you see how the New Testament unfolds, it’s important to understand the the to understand the beauty of Scripture. You’ve got to understand the backdrop as to what was happening when when books of the Bible were written. Because one of the things that we, we do as people that is mistaken and abusing the Bible is that we immediately jump to application of Scripture.
We’ll read the Bible, and we’ll just want to immediately ask the question, what does this mean to me in the here and now? That is an important question to ask, but it’s more important to begin with what did it mean to them there and then, because books of the Bible were always written first to a particular group of people in a particular place, going through a particular circumstance. And the more you can understand about that circumstance which led to that book being written, the better you can make the application to your own life. The Bible was always written to the there and then before we can make it apply to the here and now. Now, one of the beautiful things about the Bible is that it’s true and truth is timeless. So we can always apply it to our lives. But when you understand the backdrop of, say, the book of James, when it’s written, which is about this time period Acts chapter 12, it then begins to help you understand what the early church was going through and what led James to write this book of the Bible. And in fact, when you get to the very beginning of the book of James, you find James starting off this way. He’s writing to the scattering of God’s people around the world because of the persecution. And he says, like this.
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you face various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect work. And he goes on to explain how God does an incredible work in your life in the midst of adversity and how to live that life regardless of what other people do. I mean, when you understand the context, the book of James is Acts chapter 12. It brings to life the beauty of Scripture, and then it helps you begin to understand and think in terms of your own life, how you apply it. So so here you have the the martyrdom of James, but not not just not just James the Apostle. But then we also read about the life of Peter, that when Herod sees that the death of James pleases the crowd, that’s the Jewish people that have turned against these Christians. He then wants to make a, you know, a political statement that gains his popularity in this region by now, throwing Peter in prison and knowing the fate of James, and how many soldiers Herod put in charge of of of Peter, which was 16. The reality of what Peter is facing is crystal clear. This is an ominous moment for the church, a very difficult moment for them to face, one in which any normal human being would look at this circumstance and begin to question God. Can you really do a great work here? Is it even possible, God, for your church to move forward, knowing that the persecution we are facing continues to to grow? God, what can you possibly do through a group of people like us in the midst of of a circumstance like this, where the people are against us, the rulers are against us.
A very challenging moment. And it tells you at the at the end of verse five, that the church begins to pray earnestly. Because this is a significant moment for us to think about. The church and realizing things are beyond them, begin to pray. But can I tell you to see a move of God in this world? It’s always beyond us because it takes the Spirit of God to do it. And so therefore, no matter if the situation looks easy or difficult, it’s always a move of the spirit to work in the lives of people. And so we as God’s people, should always be a people who seek the Lord in prayer. Hudson Taylor used to say it like this dream, a dream so big. Unless God shows up, it will fail. And this is one of the beautiful things that we’re seeing the early church really teach us is that when you look at the impossibility and you begin to to dream, the only way that that’s really going to happen is by the hands of the Lord. But God has this way of continuing to move in impossible circumstances.
And so the early church prays, and I think in terms of our own life, thinking about the significance of prayer is critical. I mean, you think about what Hebrews chapter four verse 14 tells us that in any moment of need, you can come straight to God in prayer and you have access to his throne. Like if you really believed what those verses say. How would it change your prayer life that at any moment you can come straight before the presence of God? I mean, what if it was determined like this that really the only things you accomplish in your life, spiritually speaking, was always driven by prayer? That the only thing you’re going to receive in this world, truly, by by the Lord, was always first determined by prayer. And that would demand us as people to to seek his face. And and first John chapter five, verse 14 and 15, the Bible tells it like this, that when we should, when we seek God in prayer, we should pray according to his will. And then we know we have the confidence he will hear us. So praying according to God’s will, we have the confidence that God hears us. So this not only encourages us in the thought of prayer, but also to consider the way in which we pray. And this becomes important in how we’re seeking God’s face, because. Oftentimes when people pray, the motivation behind their prayers is really not about seeking after the Lord.
It’s more about seeking after what they want and just using God as a tool to achieve that. But the Bible says, look, if you want confidence in the way you pray, here’s what you need to do. You need to pray according to God’s will. Which begs the question, well, how do I pray according to God’s will? Will you pray according to God’s will by learning who God is, you learn about the heart of God and the way you learn about God’s will. The way you learn about the heart of God is through the Word of God. And as you learn about who God is, your heart starts to align with his heart so that when you’re praying, you’re praying in a way that’s aligned with God’s will. And so here’s the early church. They’re praying. They’re they’re seeking after the Lord in a difficult moment. So let me give you point number one in your notes is this God works in weakness, so seek him in prayer. God works in weakness, so seek him in prayer. And this typical situation. This is a moment where people might just throw their hands up and say, what am I even doing this for? What’s it worth? The people around us hate us. The political leaders hate us. I mean, if we continue down this path, it could lead to our death.
What’s what’s this worth? And and again, the early church is teaching us. It’s in those moments of desperation God does some of his most incredible work. God works in weakness. God does big things in our weakness. So don’t lose hope. In fact, this is one of the one of the reasons that Luke is identifying for us this this Feast of Unleavened Bread and this, this feast of Passover. These two feasts run into one another. But if you remember the story of of why these celebrations began in Israel. It’s because of the slavery they were experiencing in Egypt. And in the midst of that slavery, God brought them freedom. And when Jesus was crucified, Jesus, they they thought they were putting an end to him, but he was crucified on. Get this, the Passover mankind thought they had the the power to stop what God desired to do. And so they stepped in. Under the rule of Pilate. They executed Christ, they crucified him. But what became what they what what we thought was the darkest day in history becomes the anthem of our celebration as God’s people. And so by identifying these particular moments, it’s it’s to remind us exactly who this God is that we follow. How do I know that I can entrust myself to him? How do I know he’s going to care for me? And again and again, the idea of Passover and unleavened bread throughout history has has demonstrated the the faithfulness of God towards his people.
That no matter the circumstance that we find ourselves in. For you, it’s always going to work out. If you’re in, Jesus may not work out immediately the way that you want, but in Christ, inevitably it will work itself out. And so, as God’s people, we always have this tremendous hope. So we don’t have to look over our shoulder. We don’t have to. We don’t have to question, but but rather we we get to entrust ourselves to him. It’s one of the things in ministry and serving the Lord that I started off with this, this frustration towards. But then I learned to love that the greatest work that God does is not what God does through me, but rather what God does in me. When it comes to the idea of doing ministry. Everything about ministry I found as a young kid when I came to Christ, it was it was intimidating and honestly, still can be right where you realize where God’s leading you and you kind of question about taking that leap. And you think to yourself, you try to you try to ask the questions like, how do I know this is going to work out right? How do I know this is going to go in the direction that it should? And you start growing all these these concerns and worries. But then but then you begin to discover again and again as you take those steps that God is, is faithful.
And now in ministry, it’s one of the things I look forward to that moment of uncertainty, because I recognize that in those moments, that’s where God does this beautiful work of growing my own relationship with him. God does incredible work in weakness. And so seek him in prayer. Number two is this don’t complicate Jesus’s invitation. Don’t complicate Jesus’s invitation. We all have the tendency to do this by playing that what if game. But here’s what happens for Peter that night that he’s in prison now. When Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and sentries before the the door were guarding the prison. So this Peter, you can imagine, he’s got two guards on either side of him he’s chained to and two guards out front. And there’s 16 guards total that’s watching over him. And so they’re on this, this rotation. And verse seven, and behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands, and he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but that he was seeing a vision. When Peter came to himself, he said, now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod, and from all that the Jewish people were expecting him.
Or excuse me, we’re expecting so so here’s, here’s the interesting thing is, Peter is really not completely cognizant of everything that’s happening. But the one thing he knows in this moment is, is God has asked him to do something. And so he just immediately follows that, and he follows this angel, wherever this angel is going to, to lead him. And so as he begins to follow. It’s not until he’s free that he’s able to look back and to see all this. This really was God and directed me for a moment. He thought he was in a dream. But. But now that he’s gone on this journey, he’s seen how God’s hand has directed him. Now, for Peter, this happened in just the midst of of a moment, right? But but for us, this very much encapsulates what this faith journey and the Lord is all about. That to follow Jesus. I mean, the call of Scripture is very simplistic. Follow me. Jesus says, follow me in Matthew chapter four. We we tend to be people that like to complicate it beyond that. And and some of the reasons we like to complicate it is because we like to throw out all these challenges of possibilities that haven’t even come to fruition yet.
We just start projecting on what the future could be, and we forget who’s going to walk with us in it. And we start to throw out all of these what ifs, and it convolutes the simplicity of what it means to just simply follow Jesus. You know, I know in our faith journey we recognize there might be some challenges in front of us. But that’s why, as a church, I constantly try to remind us that man, the foundation for us as God’s people. If we can just get a couple things clear, we can let the rest of it work itself out. And we we talk about two things as a church. One is Jesus said, sanctify them through truth. Your word is truth. So. So if the Bible can be entrusted, if the Bible can be believed, it provides for us a foundation. The other is Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Right. It’s Jesus himself, and more specifically, the resurrection of Christ, right? If the resurrection of Christ is true. If that can be believed, then Christianity can be followed. And all of the details related to the what ifs and the projections you can put on your future, you can walk with God through that to figure those things out, because he’s faithful to be with you. That’s what the story of this early church in Acts chapter 12 is reminding us of.
I can even think about my own faith journey. When I first became a Christian I can tell you I came to this place in life where I thought, man, if there is a God and he wants to be known, he’s got to. He’s got to be a part of an ancient religion like nothing new. But if he really wanted to be known, he had to. Had to be part of an ancient religion that has has been proclaimed through history. So I started to investigate the ancient religions. And I want you to know the one one religion that I wanted to avoid more than any other was Christianity. And the reason I wanted to avoid it is because I had met some Christians and I didn’t like them, and so I didn’t want to belong to that. But I started to investigate Christianity and I realized, man well, let me just say, I started to investigate other religions. I started to realize how easy it was to discredit them. Then I got to Christianity and I realized, really, in every belief system, people can sometimes be a a bad representation of it. But then looking at Jesus, I began to recognize I could not deny the truthfulness of who he was. And then it became a question of integrity, what I was going to follow. And as I was wrestling with that, I started to project those what ifs. What if, what if this happened? Or what if that took place, and you start to look back at what you’re going to leave behind in order to follow Jesus and you play all these games.
But it really comes down to this, am I going to trust what’s true? Am I going to believe him in what he’s done? And am I going to accept that he’s enough? And for the early church in these moments. This is what Peter is doing. He’s he’s taking that step. He he doesn’t know exactly where the angel’s taking him. He he’s not even sure everything is really taking place in this moment. He’s just simply obeying what God says. Because can I tell you for the for the early church, this was the wisdom they imparted to us. This is what God desires for us to know. Don’t complicate Jesus’s invitation to pursue him. And number three in your notes is this rejoicing is fuel for moving forward. Rejoicing is fuel for moving forward. We see that once Peter escapes, this is what he discovers in verse 12. When he realized this, he went out. He went to the house of Mary, the mother of John. So not not Mary Jesus’s mother, but Mary the mother of John, whose other name was Mark. Where, where many were gathered together and were praying. So, John, Mark, we’re going to read about later in Scripture, by the way, this particular location you can still Google and find today.
They think that the home that exists there was actually built on the remnant of the previous home that Mary lived in, but you can still find the location. Verse 13. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda, which is translated, Rose came to answer, recognizing Peter’s voice in her joy. She did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate, and they said to her, you are out of your mind. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened they saw him and were amazed, but motioning to them with his hands to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place. It is an interesting moment that Rhoda is so excited about what’s happening that she just forgets to let the best guest in. Right? She just she’s excited. She runs and tells. It’s such an unbelievable moment that no one else is even accepting what she’s saying, until they all see Peter physically present in front of them. And you could imagine just the rejoicing of this moment. And in the midst of that joy, I want you to know that the early church just doesn’t hang their hat there like Peter’s safe. Now, let’s just play it safe.
Everyone pack up. Let’s move. Right. We got Peter back. That’s not what they do at all, right? Out of the rejoicing of the situation, Peter in that moment looks at the circumstances and says, I’ve got to go. Right. We can’t just hang our hat here. We there’s more work to be done. God is on the move, and we want to be a part of this. And so rejoicing becomes this beautiful place of the church. Being able to see the hand of God move again and again. In the midst of that rejoicing, it becomes fuel for them to move forward. And that’s why it says at the very end that Peter departed and he went to another place. He’s saying, we can’t sit on this, but rather God desires to share this because it’s the same for us as a church. Like it’s a wonderful thing to look back at what God’s done. In fact, I think it’s a biblical thing to do that to rejoice over the faithful hand of God in our lives. Even when I think about ABC. Like to see the number of people who’ve come to know Christ that have followed after him and being baptized that are growing in him, a part of our community, serving him. It’s wonderful. We love to take time to rejoice in that. What you celebrate, you replicate, right? Like, that’s what we want to be a part of our lives.
And and so rejoicing becomes a critical part of the life of the believer. Not so that we just hang our hat there and say, look at that work. Wasn’t that great? We just talk about the glory years, but rather we use that for the for fuel to be able to look forward and to say, and God wants to continue to move. We’ve seen him do it. He’s been faithful to do it, and God desires to continue to do it. And this is exactly why Peter continues to move on. Rejoicing is a critical part of our lives to remind us of the good hand of God. If we’re bad at rejoicing, it’s important to look at this as seeing as a healthy part of the life of the believer. In fact, can I just tell you, if you find rejoicing as a challenging thing in your life one of the greatest joy stealers or rejoicing stealers in the life of any person is is the comparison game. Meaning oftentimes we start looking at other people and what they have, and we compare ourselves to what they have. And all of a sudden, rather than be a person that’s thankful, rejoicing, we become a person that’s jealous, full of envy, and we start wondering why we don’t have what they have. And in comparing ourselves, comparison is the greatest way to rob your joy to be a person that doesn’t rejoice. Even this morning, you might be asking yourself, well, what reason do I have to rejoice? You know, I might have some difficult circumstances in our life.
But here’s the early church going through difficult circumstances, and yet they’re finding reason to rejoice. So, so for you, maybe maybe you’ve had some challenging times. You might ask yourself, what reason do you have to rejoice? What can I just tell you? If you compare yourself to someone else, you’re not going to find reasons to rejoice, at least in an earthly sense, because you’re going to you’re going to eventually find someone that has something that you desire or crave in a worldly sense. But but the Bible is very clear in telling you that you have ample reason to rejoice if you want to. If you want a Bible verse that I think is critical for, for those of us that might struggle and rejoicing, and in some ways should be all of us in some capacity, Ephesians chapter one verse three says it like this blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, every spiritual blessing you have in Jesus right now. Now we could ask the question, well, what are those? Right, because I want to rejoice. And I will tell you, that’s the reason I didn’t give you the next verses. Go look it up.
Right. You want to find reason to rejoice, is it? Sit down and understand. What does it mean to have every spiritual blessing in Christ? This is what God has given me. I have reason to rejoice because of who I am in Jesus. Regardless of the things of this world. God is faithful to me. God walks with me. I have a relationship with the Lord which he didn’t owe me. And so rejoicing becomes this. This fuel for being able to move forward. And not only that, in Acts chapter 12 verse 18, there’s something interesting that they dialog in over here. It’s kind of like this caveat point for a moment, but it gives us more fuel for rejoicing when when it was found out in verse 18. Now when the day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. Verse 19. And after Herod searched for him, and did not find him. He examined the centuries and ordered that they should be put to death. Now, this was a common law practice in Rome that when someone’s in charge of a prisoner, if that prisoner escaped, the fate of that prisoner was put on the person that was in charge of that prisoner. And so it became important that if you were responsible for a prisoner, that you guarded that prisoner. And Peter being guarded by 16 people speaks to how important he was as a prisoner.
And now Herod is putting all of those individuals to death. I mean, this this really speaks to the importance of the resurrection of Jesus. Like, that’s a situation that those soldiers that are guarding outside the tomb are not going to lie about because their life is on the line regarding this. And in Matthew chapter 28, you find in verse 11 to 15 how the Jewish leaders work with these soldiers to concoct a story because they understand the significance of Jesus’s resurrection. So if you want another reason to just rejoice as an individual over the resurrection of Jesus, because he lives, you can live too. And so that no matter what happens to you, you always have hope. Like all of us in this world will expire. But. But if your life is in Christ, you endure forever. So there’s always the brightest days in front of you because of Jesus. So we all have reason to to rejoice. Let me give you this last point here. Last is this wisdom from the early church. God works in weakness. Don’t complicate it. Rejoice last. Be intentional about whose glory and voice you seek. Be intentional about whose glory and voice you seek. Now here we see the great power of Herod on display. But what we discover is the chains of man can never thwart the plans of God. Herod becomes the extent of this message. But in verse 20. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tire and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord.
And having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. On an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, the voice of a god, and not of a man. Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory. And he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. But the word of God increased and multiplied. And when you read this particular chapter, you find all sorts of of irony in the story that the soldiers that Herod puts in place couldn’t stop what an angel desired to do. Couldn’t stop the hand of God. Peter’s captors end up with Peter’s sentence. Peter is struck by struck by an angel and lives. Herod struck by an angel and dies. Herod, who’s supposed to give food to the people in this passage, ends up becoming a meal to the worms. All sorts of irony in this moment. But the most important thing that I think we see in really this whole chapter is verse 24, and the Word of God increased and multiplied. You could not stop what God desired to do in a situation to a naked eye. James killed Peter, about to be martyred.
The church being heavily persecuted there, cowered together and just praying. As Peter is going through this difficult situation. This looks like a dire moment for God’s people. But that moment of weakness became an incredibly powerful moment for God’s glory to be made known and the gospel multiplied. Because when you think about the challenges that we face today, looking at the example of the early church, it becomes this place for us as people in their wisdom to say, and God can surely continue to do a great work. In fact, it’s the anthem of who we are as God’s people. When you think about the root of our redemption story in Jesus, it’s a story of God’s glory in the midst of weakness. I mean, if we were just to tell the story, we would say, it works like this God ransomed the world. He changed the world. And if someone asks, well, how did he do that? Well, he’d say it like this. Well, it actually began with a very young lady who was pregnant who was from an obscure town who really didn’t have much of anything, who had a baby in a barn. And then someone would hear that story and think, and God’s going to change the world that way. Are you kidding me? Surely the story gets better after that. Like, that’s a that’s the most humblest beginning you would ever expect for someone that’s going to change the world.
And you could say, not really. I mean, when you think about it, Jesus performed some miracles, but but he only he only did his ministry for three years. And and when he died, he didn’t even own a house. And they gambled for the only clothing he possessed and the only followers that he had, which were but a few. They all abandoned him at his greatest hour of need, and he was actually executed on a cross. What we thought, though, was the darkest day of history, became the anthem of God’s people to celebrate. Our whole story as God’s people, as rooted in the humblest of beginnings, to see how God does an incredible work because it’s not about us, but rather it’s about him. When I think about the coming of this year, whatever last year was. Maybe it’s a place where we can think of spots to rejoice. Or maybe it’s things we can’t wait to put behind us. But. But as God’s people, we know God can do incredible things. And the reason we know that is because he’s done it again and again. And the reason Acts chapter 12, we find in Scripture, is to encourage God’s people in thinking about all the ways God can work in your life because he’s been faithful. Wisdom from Life’s challenges God works in weakness, so seek him prayerfully. Don’t complicate his invitation. Rejoice in the fuel that that it is to help you move forward and be intentional about whose glory and voice you seek.