Peter, Prison & Prayer

Then turn with me to Acts chapter 12 Acts chapter 12 Back in the book of Acts Chapter 12 is about this time

Even if you haven't been a Christian very long, you know that the disciples, there's always Peter named first in every list of the disciples. Peter is outspoken. He's brash. He was the spokesman for the disciples originally. Peter is a sensitive individual. He's easily offended. He often says things he wished he hadn't and would like to say things to have people, especially Jesus, appreciate him.

Peter's a lot like us.

Most of us in this culture, in this Western culture, have not yet experienced prison, have not yet experienced being incarcerated for our faith. Our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world have experienced that quite frequently and even dying for their faith as they are in the Sudan and in Burma, in Pakistan and all.

Any attack that would cause us to focus on ourselves, to become self-consumed and focus on our own problems and trials, forsaking, at the extent of forsaking the reality of the call around us to be light and salt, to share the love of Christ with those around us. That's the prison. That's the prison of our lives. And we'll equate that as we come through this text.

It's prayer that brings about a faith in our lives that God will protect us, that he will direct us, he'll direct our lives, and that he will intervene in the lives of others as we ask him in prayer to do so. Prayer will involve three main things. I know you've heard this before. It should involve confession, it should involve intercession, and it should involve supplication.

Oftentimes as Christians, we throw the first two out. We throw out confession and we throw out intercession and go right to supplication because usually that's when we pray because I'm in trouble. Help me now. I need your help quick. I've got this thing going on. Help me, Lord. And yet confession needs to be there to clear the way. You and I are sinners. We sin daily.

The blood of Christ covers us, but sin affects our communication with the Lord and needs to be removed like a blockade being removed so that we can have that straight-on fellowship with the Lord. So there needs to be a confession of sin. Then there needs to be intercession. Most of the prayer that you read in Scripture is intercession. As you read Paul's prayers, he's constantly interceding.

Even though he's in prison, he doesn't pray for himself. He prays for others. You're constantly, I constantly make mention of you in my prayers. And it's amazing how, especially when we're in a time of despair, if we begin to pray for others, the needs that God's made known to you,

God is sovereign, and you go, duh. Well, yeah, OK, we're going to talk about that today. God is sovereign, first of all, revealed in our times of going through our prison and prayer times. He's sovereign. Verses 6 through 10, we're going to see that God is actively intervening in our lives. Actively intervening in our lives. Do you realize that? Do you realize God is actively intervening in your life?

Well, I hadn't really thought about it. Well, I think so. I'll watch Touched by an Angel. Is he actively intervening in your life? Well, I don't think so. Well, you need to realize that he is actively, and we'll see that. And then thirdly, in verses 11 through 17, we're going to see that God is answering prayer. Always answering prayer. God loves to answer prayer.

Is God answering prayer in your life this morning? Well, I don't think so. I've been praying, and it just doesn't work. Well, God is answering, and you need to see that in this mix of your life with the trials and with prayer. God is answering. Let's start this morning, though, with the sovereignty of God, that God is all sovereign. Verse 1, It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.

And he had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. And when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. God's sovereign hand. He is all sovereign. What does that mean? What does it mean that God is all sovereign? It's part of our statement of faith. We have this out on the table out there if you wanted to know what Calvary's statement of faith is.

that God is the absolute and sole creator and sustainer of the universe. What does that mean? He's the absolute. He is sovereign. What does that mean? God is sovereign. Do you believe that this morning? Do you understand what that means? You see, how you look at that, how you understand that, will determine how you respond to the situations of your life. How you act when things get tough.

It's easy to say, God is sovereign. You know, things are going well at home and everything's working.

Where's God's sovereignty? Is God still sovereign then? What happens when you come back after two weeks off and you walk in for worship practice just a little bit before first service and you find ceiling tiles on the floor because the air conditioner thing leaked and it's all over the floor again and you're going, I don't have time for this. God's sovereign.

Is God sovereign in the midst of that? What is sovereignty? Webster defines sovereignty as, quote, supreme, paramount, supreme in position or power, independent of and unlimited by any other, absolute in authority, absolute in authority, unlimited by any other. God is sovereign. That means He's absolute in authority. That means He's in total control. Well, now, wait a minute.

What about man's free will? Where does man's free will come in? We need to have balance. Yes, we do. Now, unfortunately, when you talk about those kinds of things, we tend to think as human beings in finite or linear terms. In other words, when we talk about balance, we think one dimensionally. You think of balance as a fulcrum with a thing going across it,

a plank or whatever, and on one side of the plank is God's sovereignty and on the other side of the plank is man's will, man's free will to choose, and that you find balance there when you have God's sovereignty balanced with man's free will. You don't see that in Scripture. That's a finite, linear type of thinking

but I want you to see man's free will with God's sovereignty, the circle around it. God's sovereignty encompasses our free will. You and I are not robots. We still have the opportunity to choose, but in our choosing it's never outside of the sovereignty of God. If it would be, God's not sovereign. If there's anything that you and I could choose that God doesn't know about,

then He's not supreme, paramount, in position, independent of and unlimited by any other. If there's something you and I could choose that's outside of God's sovereignty, then He's not unlimited. He's limited because I made a choice over here, and you're limited. You don't know that one. You can't figure that one out. But God is sovereign in the midst of our choosing.

He knows how we'll choose. The Bible even tells... Well, we were on vacation. We went to Colorado, and many of you know I'm from Colorado, born and raised. I moved back here in 75. But like you kind of do when you're around something a lot, you take things for granted. And so we lived by the mountains, and my folks even had a cabin in the mountains. But we got to the point that we were so busy doing other things

that we seldom got into the mountains. I hear people that live by the beach, a lot of times that happens there too. And maybe, you know, you may live by a lake and seldom get out to fish on it or whatever. You tend to take things for granted. So since moving away from the mountains, when we get to go there, you really appreciate the mountains more when we're there.

And so we were in the mountains and going through all different parts from the southern end down by Durango all the way up to the northern part. And a couple of towns up there, Black Hawk and Central City, they've taken and made gambling towns, old mining-type towns at Central City. We used to go up there when I was in high school and go up and walk through the graveyards because there were all the old tombstones up there of people that died, you know, when they came out to mine and stuff, and the babies that died in the plagues and they're just a year old or so. And it's real interesting to read the tombstones because they would engrave the tombstones with, you know, died babies, something died in plague.

Walked through that, and it was just an old kind of mining town. But now they've gone through it, they've made it a gambling town, and Black Hawk that's not too far from there, they did that too, and we didn't go there. But we drove by, we drove by Black Hawk, and you could see all the construction and all the buses, you know, all the buses. The tour buses, bus after bus, people coming in to gamble all day and all night.

And there's a verse in Proverbs that says that the lot is cast into the lap, but the Lord determines the outcome. The dice are cast, but the Lord's the one that determines the outcome. There's nothing that takes Him by surprise. There's no chance with God. He knows the outcome, He knows the beginning, He knows the ending, He already knows it. And so there's not a balance on the fulcrum

of God's sovereignty, man's will, it's man's will in the midst of God's sovereignty because He is sovereign. And so nothing takes Him by surprise. He is supreme, He is over our choices, over our decisions. God doesn't need any... And the Word says God doesn't need any... Do I need anyone to counsel me? He talks to Job about that. He says, is anybody my counselor?

Who is it? Who is it that gives me advice? Who is it that I'm dependent upon? Tell me, if you will. And of course Job... No, Job's quiet during that one. God doesn't need anyone. He doesn't need anyone or anything to give Him advice, to aid Him in decision-making. He doesn't need anyone to help Him accomplish any task because He's sovereign. That's one of the things that bothers me.

I've read Freddie's books. I like them. Piercing the Darkness is Present Darkness. But in there he's got the angels of God that are hamstrung almost because the people aren't praying enough and they can't do battle against the angels of darkness because the people aren't praying. Not so according to how I see God in here. The angels of darkness have to present themselves to God

and give an account of where they're going and what they're going to do. They have to ask permission if they can go. They can't just go doing this or that. It's not dependent upon our prayers.

Is God sovereign in your life today? Do you understand that? God chooses and He moves independent of our choices. If our choices are something that we could choose, dependent upon us to make a certain choice right for His plans to be successful, and that's not sovereignty. That's a dependency. That's a co-regency. And we are not co-regents. We do not reign equally with God.

A blessing that we get to do is reign with Jesus when Jesus is here in His kingdom as His bride. We will not be sovereign like the Lord. God is sovereign. God reigns independently of us. And on the contrary, His choices most often alter our plans. What He chooses to do will most often change our plans, change our particular direction. I shared this first service.

It probably would be better saved for God intervening in our lives, but I'll share it now and maybe share it again or something similar if I can think of something that happened. But while we're on vacation, it doesn't make any difference. We were in Durango, and we stopped at this one restaurant, and I went in for dinner. And it was a nice little place, a little family restaurant.

And I got the menus, and I saw in this one menu that— well, we only had one menu. I saw in the menu that one of the items offered was shrimp and pasta kind of thing. That sounds good. I love shrimp. I love pasta. And so I figured I had my decision made. Shrimp and pasta, that's what I'm going to have. I set my menu down, and the rest of my family was talking

among themselves what they're going to have. And the waiter came, took the order, and the girls ordered Cajun chicken. Ooh, Cajun chicken. Boy, that sounds good. And I don't remember for sure what Anne and Dad ordered, but I was thinking about the Cajun. And then when they gave the choice of, you know, you want French fries or baked potato or mashed potato or rice.

And that's rice. I love rice. I'm a rice eater. I can exist overseas because I love rice. Any kind of rice, I like rice. And I thought, oh, boy, I'd love rice. I'd still like to have the shrimp and pasta, though. That Cajun chicken sure sounds good. And I knew that we had something the night before, lasagna or something, and I kind of had indigestion, and I probably shouldn't eat Cajun chicken,

but that sounded good with the rice. And so he came around to me and asked me what I wanted, and I said, I want Santa Fe chicken. And what kind of potato? Well, I want rice. And that's fine. And you got the rice. And I walked off, and I said to him, what did I just order? And they said Santa Fe chicken. I said, was that on the menu? And they laughed and said, yeah.

And I said, I didn't even see it on the menu. I heard you guys ordering Cajun chicken. And I wanted it. That sounded good, but it sounded hot. The rice was great, and we decided, you know, God just sovereignly intervened. You can't eat that, stupid. You're going to have heartburn all night. They need to have the Santa Fe chicken? I wasn't even thinking Santa.

I didn't even see it on the recipe. Is that God? Absolutely. Absolutely. God does that all the time, and we don't see it. He's caring for us all the time, sovereignly intervening, even in what we eat, even stupid little things like that. And God's intervening and caring for us because God chooses, because God moves, because God allows things to happen. But he moves even in the midst of our choosing and often alters our plans.

Here we see God's choosing here in the first couple of verses. He has James arrested and put to death with a sword, and he has Peter then seized and jailed also. James is arrested, James the brother of John, and he is put to death with a sword, and now Peter's arrested and put in jail, and he's going to be released. One is killed and one released. One dies and one goes free.

Why? Why that way? Why that order? That's an eternal question that's come down through history. Why in Jonesboro and in Springfield and in the different cities around, why these two died and these didn't? Why did these get hit by the gunfire and these didn't? Why? Why, Lord, constantly crying out to God, why? Why this particular choice? Why this particular way?

Why did this happen? One lives, one dies. It's unanswerable apart from an understanding of the sovereignty of God, that God moves sovereignly in the midst of this. Well, that kind of stuff comes from the enemy. Darkness comes from the enemy. Death comes from the enemy. Are you saying then that the enemy's over here and God is over here and the enemy does these things apart from the sovereignty of God?

Then God's not sovereign. He must be a co-regent with Satan and the adversaries. And a lot of people think that. A lot of Christians think that. No. Satan is a created being. He is an angel, and he is in the midst of the sovereign will of God,

I can trust him in that, in any situation. Do you know that this morning? Do you know that sovereign hand of God upon you this morning? Do you understand the sovereignty of God this morning? As you read verse 1 in the NIV, it says, James was, well, in verse 2 it says, He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. I think it says the same thing in King James that he died by the sword.

But according to history, he was sawn in half lengthwise. They didn't have a black and decker table radio that came down, and it's all over. They had one of those two-man hand things, you know, that just kind of cuts you in half. Why? Why in the world? You remember that James and John had come with their mother at one particular time and asked Jesus if, actually their mother asked Jesus,

if when Jesus came into his kingdom, James and John could have the privilege and honor of sitting one on either side of Jesus as he sat on his throne. And Jesus asked them a question, Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink? And of course in the text, and there probably wasn't really any hesitation there, you can't tell except occasionally where there are hesitations made. But apparently there were no hesitations in the text, and they quickly said, sure, oh yeah, we can do that.

Wait, no problem. Because what they're thinking is raining on one end or the other. Wow, mom's asking. All we got to do is drink a cup, man. We can drink a cup. Give me the cup. Oftentimes as Christians, we think that's what the Christian walk's all about. Walk the aisle, pray a prayer, I'm in, I can do that, no problem at all. And we fail to realize we're not often warned that that's not the way it is in Christianity,

that that's not what the Christian walk is all about, that the cup that Jesus was talking about was the cup of suffering and agony that he would soon face being flogged and then nailed to a cross and die in humiliation, die in abandonment, everyone including his father turning their back on him while he died in agony alone with the sin of the world on his shoulders, on his heart literally that broke his heart. That's the cup. That's the cup that he offered to James and John, that they said readily, yes, we can drink it. James drank it.

And don't think that that was just offered to James and John. It's offered to you and I when we say yes to Christ. He hands us a cup. We get to share in his cup. It's the cup of suffering. Paul understood that in Romans chapter 8. He says it's been gifted unto you. It's been granted unto you. Literally the word is graced. You've been graced to suffer with him so that you may then reign with him.

Where have we suffered to that extent? We have not yet even suffered under blood, the writer of Hebrews says. James did. That's the cup. That's the cup that we take and drink. It's dependent upon the sovereignty of God, the sovereign hand of God in our lives, and we indeed will drink it. Do you understand the sovereignty of God? Do you understand what that means as far as the condition of your life right now,

as far as the things that are going on in your life right now that seem like such a weight and such a trial? Where's the sovereignty of God in the midst of that? Do you see that or do you see the trial only? Do you understand that these things have been weighed and measured and meted out to you according to the hand of God, not according to the whims of man or the designs of Satan?

They've been weighed out by the hand of God. It doesn't mean we don't plan. It'd be ludicrous not to plan. We don't just throw caution to the wind and say, you know, whatever will be.

And that's all. You're the one I hold on to. You're the strength of mine. That's it. I mean, we can sing about it, but it's not until you've got nothing else to hold on to that you experience that. The wonderful grace of God and the fact that he's sovereign in your life. And when he says, I'll never leave you or forsake you, it's not just some poetic line in the script.

It's true. Do you understand that this morning? Are you hanging on to that this morning? The text says that Herod saw what he did. Please the Jews. He saw this. Please the Jews, verse three. And he proceeded to seize Peter also. Now this is Herod, a grip of the first. Herod is simply a title. Like Caesar is a title. There was Julius Caesar. There was Caesar Augustus, the different Caesars.

Caesar wasn't their first name. That was their title. So, so also with the Herod's. This Herod is Herod Agrippa, the first. He is the grandson of Herod, the great, who is the one you remember when the wise men came to Herod to ask where the, the Christ has been born, the savior. And he had to call the scribes and the wise men in and they checked. And they said, well, he's supposed to be born in Bethlehem.

You remember that? And then Herod, the great ordered the execution of all the male children, two years old and younger in Bethlehem to try and eliminate this King because he was threatened. He felt threatened on his throne. This is his grandson that we're reading about here. This guy, Herod Agrippa is also the nephew of Herod Antipas. And Herod Antipas was the one who succeeded Herod, the great.

And Herod Antipas is the one who had John the Baptist beheaded. And then subsequently had Jesus brought before him. Jesus didn't say a word. So he sent him back to Pontius Pilate for the disposition of Jesus. This, this guy here in Acts chapter 12 is his nephew. So he comes from a real fine family line. They're all Herods. They're all jerks. This Herod Agrippa was half Jewish and half Idumean.

He was a half breed and he really wanted to participate in his Jewish ancestry, his Jewish heritage. But because he was a half breed, the Jews didn't accept him. Now the Jewish population hated him anyhow, but when you read here, like in verse three, this, this happened. First part of verse three, when he saw that this pleased the Jews, it's not the populace.

It's not the people. It's the ruling class. It's the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes. It's all the rich ruling class of the Jews. That's what he was trying to please. It didn't please the populace that he had the disciples arrested. They flocked to Jesus. They flocked to the apostles, to the disciples also. They wanted to hear what they were saying.

So it's not them that he pleased. It's, it's the ruling class of the Jews that were pleased because remember, they were threatened by Jesus and then by his disciples and they wanted him killed. They wanted him taken care of. And so when Herod had James arrested and, and sawn in half, he saw that pleased the people. He wanted to score some points with the Jews, not the people, with the Jews.

And so he imprisons Peter. Verse four, if you're reading King James, it says he, and he handed him over to be guarded by four quaternions of soldiers. Oh, what's a quaternion? Well, if you're reading the correct version, the NIV says that he handed him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. So it defines a quaternion, four squads of four soldiers.

So there were 16 soldiers. There were four squads of four. There would guard four, four men would guard Peter for four hours, stretches two were chained to him as we'll see. And two were at the gates. They guarded the gates and they changed. They rotated every four hours. So they had a fresh squad in every four hours. So these guys wouldn't get tired. So they were just a fresh group coming in all the time.

It's the same type of group. That was a guard was given to the Jews when they wanted to guard Jesus too. Remember that? Because there were the disciples that said there's a chance he'd come out and they didn't want the body stolen or anything. So a pilot says, take a guard. You have a guard. He had set up the same way for soldiers guarding and the other sets of four

would sleep literally in front of them in front of the tomb. So that if you were going to come up to steal the body of Jesus, you had to step over three sets of four sleeping guards and then have one set of guards standing there that could kill you instantly to get the body out. So it's how ludicrous it would have been to steal the body of Jesus. Well, same thing here.

They have all these guards that are, that are guarding Peter. Now, why did they do that? Well, you can hold your finger here. Go back with me to chapter five, quickly. Acts chapter five. It's been so long since we've been here. You probably forgotten this one, but, uh, Acts chapter five, look with me at verse 17. Then the high priest and all his associates,

But on arriving there at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported. We found the jail securely locked with the guards standing at the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside. And so they go and find them standing out in the temple court teaching. So they've been through this once already been there, done that, you know?

So they tell Herod, Hey, we've been there, done that. We put him in jail too, along with his friends. And lo and behold, next morning, they're out there teaching in the temple. So you better make sure it's secure. So he gives four quantities. We're going to make this secure. There's no way they're going to chain two of him. Two of them to him. They're going to put two at the gates.

They're going to rotate those every four hours. Herod thinks he's in control of the situation. How about you? You in control of the situation. We want to be in control. We want to be in control of every situation in our lives. We fight for that. Just watch the rest of today. You got things to do. You want to be in control. You got to be over this. Got to get these things done.

That's the rest of the week. I have a day timer and I have everything laid out on my day timer. Why do I do that? Again, because it's just not throw caution to the wind. You got things you got to do. And what do you do with that? Well, I get to the point where I got to get these done. And the phone calls interrupt me getting this thing done. And they send, you can get just tight with control.

We fight for, come over this. We get it done. Husbands a lot of times, you know, in marriage. We fight for control. We get that thing done. And we totally misunderstand. You read the thing this week about the Southern Baptists receiving all the flack because in their articles they've stressed again just the biblical concepts from the book of Ephesians that the wives should be subject to the husbands.

And even our president said, well, I don't go along with everything that they go along with. Well, Jerry can. His wife runs the whole show. It's a different story. But the Bible talks about a servant leadership. It's a servant. It's not a control over. It's a serving under. When we get upset with control, it's because we're trying to take control instead of yielding control to the sovereignty of God.

He's in control. If he wants to interrupt the schedule, let him. I'm a servant. I'm here to serve. My problem should be in finding out how many and how many ways I can serve, not how much I can have control. But I fight for control. Herod thinks he's in control. He's got the soldiers all set, going to have them the way that he wants them. Yet, as I mentioned before, Proverbs 21 says,

The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and he directs it like a water course wherever he pleases. He directs it like a river. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. Who in your particular situation is a conflict person with you? Maybe it's someone that you work with. Maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's an employer. Maybe it's someone in school. Maybe it's a teacher, and you're just in conflict with that person.

How do you deal with it? According to Scripture, their heart is in the hand of the king. It is in the hand of the Lord, the king's heart, the one who's in authority, the one you're having this conflict with, and he directs it like a water course. So let's commit that to prayer. Lord, I'm interceding for this person. Let him see. Whatever you need to do, Lord, let him see.

Move him in this direction or another direction, and we pray and we intercede for that. That's what God calls us to do. He calls us to understand that they're not in control. God's in control, and we ask him to direct. Proverbs 19.21, Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails. Just like the tossing of the dice. Many are the plans in a man's heart.

What have you got planned for the week? What's ahead in your schedule? We're scheduled months ahead on our planner in the office and on our day timers. What's the Lord's schedule? What's the Lord got planned? A man may devise his path, but the Lord directs his steps. Herod thinks he's in control. Maybe you think you are too this morning. Maybe God's just tapping you on the shoulder saying,

You're making choices, but I'm sovereign over these choices, and you need to realize that so you can rest in it. That's the point, so that you can rest in that. God loves you. You were created in his image for his good pleasure, Revelation 3 tells us. He is constantly seeking to guide and to direct your steps, seeking to bring you either to him in the first place or back to him,

and he wants you to trust him as he guides you along the way. Ann and I were talking on vacation about getting into bicycling. So far, we're just talking about it. We'll probably do something about it, but we were talking about bikes, and we were talking about tandems. If you've never ridden a tandem, it's kind of like on a motorcycle. You're on the back of the tandem.

You have to trust fully in the driver, in the person who's on the front part of the tandem. When they say it's time to pedal, you pedal. You just put your head down and pedal. When it's time to turn, you lean into the turns, whichever way they're going to turn. When it's time to stop, if you have brakes on the back, you help them stop. When we're fighting for control, it's like we're on the back of the tandem,

and God's going coast, and we're going, No, we've got to pedal! And you're fighting because the guy in the front is holding the pedal down, and you're fighting to pedal, and you're trying to see where you're going. If you've ever done that on a bike or a motorcycle on the back, it just throws the thing off. We wonder why we're going through the different kinds of wavy circles, because we're trying to see.

So we just put our head down and follow the Lord. God wants us to be directed. He wants to guide. Ephesians 2.10,

He's prepared a path for us to walk. He wants you to walk that. He wants you to trust Him in walking that, seeking Him. Now you come down to verse 5, and it says,

See all three Ps there? Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. All three in one verse, woven together. All three of these happening. Now I want you to see something quick, and we'll close. Verse 6,

Now, let me ask you a question. If you were Peter, and you had just seen James arrested and sawn in half with a rusty saw, and you're arrested and chained between two guards, and now you go to Herod, the same guy that did that to him the next morning, what would you be doing? I know what I'd be doing. Fretting and worrying. Fretting and worrying? What's Peter doing?

He's asleep! Why? Because he trusted in the sovereign hand of God. See, there's one point after Jesus' resurrection that he met with Peter on the beach. Remember that? Walking along three times, you love me, Peter? You know that one. Restored him. And right after that, he said,

And John writes his commentary with that, and he says,

Peter already knew how he was going to die. He had, if you consider it a privilege, he had that privilege over you and I. He knew how he was going to die. Jesus already told him. So what's the threat? I mean, if I'm going to die that way, I'm going to die that way. If I don't, I don't. He's already told me. And he rested in that. Now, Jesus told you that he would never leave you nor forsake you.

Jesus told you that he loved you and that he began a good work in you, and he would continue it and perform it until the day that you stand perfected and completed before the throne. He told you you were going to have to suffer, but after suffering you would reign. All there is to do now is rest. And if you understand God's sovereign hand, you can do that. Father, help us this morning.

So much going on in the world, all the different things happening with the nuclear powers overseas, all the Y2K stuff, all the unrest between Israel and the United States. The economy is spinning like a wound down top, ready to topple at any moment. Places on strike, places laying off. We're in the lull before the storm. Totally unnerving, Lord, unless we can rest in the fact of your sovereignty.

You show us that daily. You show us you're in control, and yet we fight for that control. You want us to just yield it to you, Lord. Help us to do that. In the midst of our trials and our circumstances, our prison, God, we pray and we intercede now for those around us who are going through much worse than we are. We know that. Father, forgive us for our self-centeredness and pettiness at times.

Forgive us for being more concerned with ourselves than with others. Forgive us for arresting control instead of seeking to serve. Help us. We can only do that as we see that you're sovereign over our circumstances, that you're in total control. Father, if there are those this morning that have never entered that rest, that have never come into that point of realizing that you have done all that's necessary to save them,

Father, I pray that they would not hesitate this morning, but reach out. Confess that they're a sinner in need of a Savior, that you, Lord, have provided that way, and it's by the shed blood of Jesus

Let's stand. As we close, we're going to have the front open. If you need prayer for anything, if you want to be anointed for prayer, come on down front. I'd like to have the elders and deacons that are here come on down to help pray.

He who began a good work in you He who began a good work in you He who began a good work in you Will be faithful to complete it Will be faithful to complete it He who started the work Will be faithful to complete it in you Let's make this personal here. He who began a good work in me He who began a good work in me Will be faithful to complete it Will be faithful to complete it He who started the work Will be faithful to complete it in me

Will be faithful to complete it Will be faithful to complete it He who started the work Will be faithful to complete it in me He who started the work Will be faithful to complete it in me

He who started the work Will be faithful to complete it in me

Amen