The God of Half-Hearted Prayers - Ben Stuart

0:17 If you have a copy of your scriptures, we're in Acts chapter 12. Acts is the story of the birth of the Christian church. These are the roots of our family tree. And I want to read to us from Acts chapter 12, this moment in the life of the church, kind of loaded into our minds. We'll pray and then talk about it together. So Acts chapter 12, I'm going to start in verse 1. If you don't have a copy of your scripture, just listen carefully. Here we go. Verse 1 says this. about that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church he killed 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 when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains. And centuries before the door were guarding the prison, 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 the angel said to him, dress yourself, put on your sandals. And he did so.

1:50 And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. And when they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. And it opened for them of its own accord. And they went out and went along one street and immediately the angel left him. And when Peter came to himself, he said, now I'm 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. And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. And recognizing Peter's voice and 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're out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking. And when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. But motioning to them with his hand 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. Now, when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death.

3:10 Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre 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. And on an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took a 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. And 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 Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.

3:58 Well, Father, thank you for these few moments we have around your word. I do pray you would help us now understand what it means. So Lord, quicken our minds to grasp what's happening in this moment in the life of the church. But I pray we wouldn't just understand it, God. I pray we'd be affected by it. I pray it would touch our hearts and affect how we feel and affect how we live. I'm praying our lives would change today as a result of this text, God, and we need your grace for that. and I want to invite you church if you're willing to take a moment and pray and ask that if you're up for it say Lord please please teach me today and then if you would please pray for me that the lord would use me and i'd be helpful to you and last family I hope you don't mind it's heavy on my heart today this is the third time within a month that political violence has occurred in D.C.

5:10 someone opened fire at the White House struck a bystander was killed by Secret Service but I just wonder if you'd take a moment and pray for peace for DC and for our country God, we love you. Thank you for putting us in this place, in this country, this time. Thank you for this moment around your word. Help us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

5:42 Well, if you ever want to write a story about a hero, or you like reading stories about heroes or watching movies about them, you tend to pick up that there are certain beats you have to hit. There's critical moments along the journey that a protagonist must move through. There's the call to adventure and accepting the invitation. And then the training from the mentor and the trials and tests. And then there's always a big climactic moment in the third act. But there's always a moment before that. Different authors call different things. But it's a moment when suddenly all goes wrong. And all hope seems lost. Many call it the dark moment. It's the moment in the protagonist's story where everything goes wrong and they're beginning to lose hope. Lord of the Rings. Frodo's best friend Sam is gone. And he realizes he's been betrayed by Gollum.

6:35 And he is in the cave, alone, in a hostile land. And he's scared. Braveheart, William Wallace, has been betrayed by Robert the Bruce. His army's been decimated. And he falls on his knees on the battlefield in despair because he believes the dream is over. T'Challa is pitched off the waterfall. The best guy we know just descended to the depths and now chaos reigns. Han Solo's encased in carbonite.

7:06 C-3PO's been shredded. They cut Luke's lightsaber hand off, invaders his daddy. And they ended the movie at the dark moment. Bane breaks your back, Batman, throws you down a well. Will you ever rise again? Thanos snaps his fingers and you watch those you sort of protect turn to dust right Robert McGee wrote the famous book story about the classic architecture of a story and he calls this moment the crisis it's where the protagonist finds themselves at the end of the line this moment of dangerous opportunity is the point of greatest tension in the story as the protagonist and the audience sense that the question how will this turn out will be answered by the next action. This is the scene where the protagonist will be face to face with the most focused, powerful forces of antagonism in his existence and there's expectation mingled with uncertainty.

8:01 And what the protagonist chooses to do here will give us the most penetrating view of their character. This is the moment when we discern what you value. Now, why do our stories always have this moment? because our lives always have this moment. We hit moments where we realize everything seems to be going wrong. Everything is dark. And we wonder, did all hope just disappear? Your parents divorced and it's the end of the innocence.

8:33 Every school you were hoping to get into told you no. And so all your dreams for your future evaporated. That thing you went to for comfort, you're realizing is now a full-blown addiction and you can't control it and you're scared. You feel the unraveling. What do you do when all hope is gone? Now, why am I talking about this? Because at some level, I feel like we're at this interesting inflection point as a society. And it's hard when you study history to know in a moment what you're really living in. But there's some signs in our culture of concern. Gallup did a poll in February about pessimism. And it indicated that the percentage of Americans who are optimistic about their future has declined to 59%, the lowest level since measurement began two decades ago. That a massive percentage of Americans are not optimistic that good is coming in their future.

9:31 The February before, Pew Research did a poll on prayer, and they reported that less than half of Americans 44% pray daily. That is a substantial decline from when they first started doing the religious landscape study in 2007, when 58% of Americans said they prayed at least once a day. Interestingly, this massive decline in prayer in our society happened most acutely between 2015 and 2021, which if you're following along, that's when we all got iPhones. that instead of having those quiet moments at the stoplight in our car or laying in bed where we would talk to the Almighty, now we've just replaced it with the headlines. And so we didn't just eliminate prayer, we've replaced it. And what have we replaced it with? We're just inundated with despair. I mean, I don't know what your feed feels like, but it's depression on repeat.

10:24 I mean, I just pulled up the headlines as I was preparing this message and wrote down the first ones that came to mind. rising cost of fertilizer and fuel pushes farmers to the brink. Gmail accounts are under attack. Internships are more crucial than ever and harder to find. Even without social media, phones have a subtle damaging effect on our mental health. There's an existential crisis in the crossword community. new report shows 44% of the U.S. population is exposed to harmful pollution U.S. gambling addiction is out of control and I didn't even get to rising violence in our city AI, debt, wars, etc. and so you look at us and we're bombarded by despair are the lights going out what do you do when you hit the dark moment now why are we talking about that because at some level, that's where we are in the book of Acts.

11:20 As I said earlier, the book of Acts is a book about the birth of the Christian church. And in the beginning of Acts, it really centers on Jerusalem, where the church was born, and Peter's kind of center stage as he establishes the church, and we get to see the DNA of what our movement's about. But the moment we're in now is in what's called an interchange moment. My wife Donna made a chart of it, that suddenly you hit this moment in the middle of Acts where you get a story where Peter's kind of the lead character, but then you're introduced to this guy named Saul who's persecuting the church, then gets converted. And then it kind of moves with each episode, somebody else is kind of the lead character. Stephen preaches the gospel and is killed, yet his death serves to propagate the gospel. And then Philip will go and take the gospel across the expected ethnic boundaries. And yet for most of this period in Acts, it's an interchange between Peter and Saul, Peter and Saul, Peter, and then Saul, whose name is changed to Paul, we kind of follow him the rest of the book as he takes the gospel to the nations. And so where we are right now is kind of the last look at the first church in Jerusalem. And the last time Peter is the central character. He'll make cameos in season two, but this is the last time he's center stage. But what we see in this moment is we see a Jerusalem in trouble. We're going to watch a church in crisis. And the question is, what will they do when the foundations are shaken? What do the righteous do. And in verse one, it says 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.

12:52 This about that time is like, meanwhile, back on the ranch. We had left Jerusalem. Now we're back and we see that what's happened is persecution has now become public policy. If you want a summary sentence for the first paragraph in this chapter, it's this, everything gets worse. Herod the king is the name Luke uses there. This is a different Herod from the Herod who tried to kill Jesus when Jesus was a baby. That was Herod the great. And he was so great that his name, Herod, became an honorific title like Caesar. But after he died, he didn't trust any of his direct successors. They kind of carved his kingdom up among others. But his little grandson, Herod Agrippa, was sent off to Rome to go to school, where some of his little school buddies later became emperors of Rome. And so when Emperor Caligula came into power, he gave Herod Agrippa more power than any before him had had since Herod the Great. And then when Claudius took over after that, Claudius gave him all the power back that had once been held by Herod the Great.

13:50 So we're in a moment where suddenly all this Herod energy is now back. Herod the Great, who was paranoid. Herod the Great, who heard there might be a Messiah to rival his crown, so he killed every child under two in the region. Herod the Great, who would murder his own family members if he felt they were a threat to his throne. And now we get another who's taken the title Herod. And what does he do with it? Lays violent hands on the church. That's what he does. And he kills James. Now, this is not Jesus's brother, James. We'll meet him later. But this is, if you've been following along, one of the top three guys. I mean, Jesus had 12 disciples and became apostles. But when he would go on these little side quest adventures, he would bring Peter, James, and John. And so here, Stephen had been martyred before, but he was at a lower level of leadership at the church. And it was kind of this fit of rage where a mob killed him with rocks.

14:47 And yet here, James, it says, is killed by the sword. Now, why that detail? Because only the state had the power of the sword. And here now you see that the state is murdering the leadership of the church. Everything gets worse. persecution is now public policy and James is dead. 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, tending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. Now it's important to note here when it says the Jews in a disparaging way here, he's not talking about all ethnic Jews. James who was killed was Jewish. So was Peter. So was most of the church in Jerusalem. This is a shorthand way of talking about the religious leadership in Jerusalem that was Jewish. In the same way we say the Russians attacked, we don't mean all of them.

15:40 We mean the leadership of that country made a decision. And so here the religious leadership in Jerusalem did not like this movement that was saying Jesus is the Messiah. And Herod sees, hey, they have all the religious and social power. If I can get them on my side, that helps me. And so when he saw that they liked that he killed one of their enemies, he arrests another one, Peter. And yet it says it's during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so he doesn't kill Peter right away because for historical context, it was considered not cool to murder someone during a religious festival. So he decides to wait. And we get this moment of Peter in prison. But he makes a show of it. And Peter is guarded by four squads. Did you see that? Squad has four soldiers in it. So four times four, 16 guys. Way more guys than you need to guard one person. He's making a statement.

16:32 Either he thinks Peter's people are gonna foment an insurrection or he just wants to make a statement to the culture. I got tight coverage and you can't stop me. But either way, suddenly the leader of the church is imprisoned. One of them is dead in the streets. Persecution's public policy. And the question that comes to mind as Jerusalem's put under pressure is what do the people of Jesus do when the dark moment comes? Everything just got worse. What are your options? Well, politically, assassination or insurrection. And I'm not just making those up. Those were the popular options in the day. In Rome, if you didn't like what the emperor was doing, you would try to assassinate him. Claudius will become emperor because Caligula was assassinated. Nero will become emperor because Claudius was assassinated. If you didn't like what the emperor was doing, someone poisoned his soup. That's kind of how Rome did it. And so everyone felt the instability, always scared.

17:26 for the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. If they didn't like what Rome was doing, they would just riot in the streets, burn things, tax soldiers, go crazy, looting and riots, right? What does the Christian do when we don't like what's happening in the culture or what's happening to us? We get the Christian answer in verse five. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. earnest prayer how lame thoughts and prayers this is Herod the king with the sword thoughts and prayers now when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains now that's two chains the first centuries before the one you know Atlanta, but they're in there together. And it says in centuries before the door, we're guarding the prison and behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shown in his cell. So we're at the very last moment, the night before Peter's going to be brought out and executed and God dispatches an angel, one singular angel, four squads, not one squad, four, one, two, three, four, 16 guys. You send one messenger angel. What's one angel going to do against four squads? Answer, anything he wants. And he struck Peter on the side and woke him saying, get up quickly. Chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, dress yourself, put on your sandals.

19:09 And he did so. He said to him, wrap your cloak around you, follow me. He went out and he followed him. He did not know what was being done by the angel was real. He thought he was seeing a vision. and when they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city and it opened of its own accord and they went out and went along one street and immediately the angel left him. And when Peter came to himself, he says, now I'm sure the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Notice Peter's not expecting to be rescued. How do you know that? Because he's asleep, stripped down with his sandals off. He's not packed up and waiting by the door. In fact, the angel has to strike him. Did you notice that? That's what the word means. It means literally hit hard. The angel's got to wake him up like I wake up the kids, not Donna. I don't hit my kids.

20:03 But when Donna wakes up the kids, she kind of rubs their back and sings a little song. Wake up, wake up. When that doesn't work, it's Dan's turn. And I bang on the door, boom, get on, right? But do you notice Peter here, it says, behold, he's not expecting this angel. And did you notice the repetition of commands? There's an economy of words in these stories. And yet here the angel says, hey man, get up, put your clothes on, wear your shoes, put your jacket on, it's cold outside, we're leaving. He has to keep telling Peter, this is on, this is happening.

20:37 Is it possible to know God intimately and be clueless when God is working. Yeah. The whole time it's happening, Peter thinks it's a dream. Is it possible to be in the midst of an answered prayer and not realize it? Yeah. The chains have fallen off. You just don't know it. You pass one guard, you pass two guards, the gates open, you're in the streets. and it's not even till then that Peter suddenly gives us a commentary.

21:13 I think the Lord is protecting me. Yeah, man. Because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Now look, we love to make fun of Peter in these moments, silly Peter, but it keeps going. Look in verse 12. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark. He drops that name like you know him. We'll find out in a minute. But it says that many were gathered together and were praying. So Luke is gonna stay on the subject of prayer we've been on in this series. He says many were gathered, earnestly praying. And you realize this is at night. And so this is not a normal church Sunday morning gathering. This is an evening, late night, earnest prayer meeting for the deliverance of the apostle Peter. And while they're in the midst of this praying, God answers them. And yet in verse 13, it says, when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.

22:08 And 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. So sweet Rhoda leaves him outside. Not optimal. He's still a wanted man, but she's excited. And so she runs to tell the crew, hey, Peter's here. Prayers are answered. And they said, as we expected, Rhoda, for our God is greater. Our God is higher. Our God is greater than any other. Right? No, what do they say?

22:39 You're out of your mind. Did you see that? That's in the text. That's Koine Greek from centuries ago. You're out of your mind. And then did you notice the rest of the verbs are in the imperfect tense, meaning they keep going. Luke writes this scene almost comedically. He says, she kept insisting it was so. And they kept saying, it's his angel. But Peter continued knocking. And when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. Right? But did you notice they think it's more plausible that she saw a ghost than that Peter's actually outside. Peter's like, no, he's out there. It's a ghost, Rhoda. Stop it. They think that's more real than Peter's here. Which then begs the question, what were they praying for?

23:27 I mean, what have you been doing at this prayer meeting? Praying that I'll have courage when he dies? Maybe. or at some level they're probably playing God move, God intervene, God save, God get him. But then when God does and Rhoda says God answers prayers, they go, no, you're crazy. Stop it, Rhoda. is it possible to pray earnestly and fail to realize when your prayers are being answered is it possible to be in a prayer meeting and just think he won't really do it that's what's happening here that's what's broken my heart as i was thinking about this text and decided to preach it here because i think this is the reason why a lot of you don't pray as much as you used to because you just don't think it's going to change anything.

24:21 What are we going to do, man? AI is going to take all our jobs. Debt's going to ravage things. Our generation can't buy a home. Money is going to be gone. The robots will kill us. So let's just loot and plunder and not care about anybody. Give up all hope because the light's gone out.

24:43 Who talks like that? Not God. God's not scared of Herod. He's not scared of chains. He's not scared of squads. Yet we pray like he is. But God, it's Herod. God, it's chains. And I think God shows us Jerusalem here to show you. I mean, look at who these people are. They believe Jesus rose from the dead. They were there. Earlier in Acts, they prayed so hard the room shook. And so these are people of faith, real faith. But you get to this right combination of very personal experiences and they just start to doubt that God will show up. And I just think some of us are like that. I just think you trust God boldly in some areas in our life. I think there's some songs when you pray, you mean it, you really believe it about him. But when we get to the subject of that family member and their addiction, I don't know.

25:38 I just hope they die peacefully. Or that addiction in your life, you just pray God would you just manage the implications that it won't negatively impact my career like that's the height we're gonna scale I think if we're honest we pray half-hearted prayers that's what's happening here God saved Peter and then when he does they don't even believe it you know what's crazy about that though these are half-hearted prayers they don't really think Peter's gonna be there But guess what? Peter starts knocking so what does that tell you about God it tells you he's the God of half-hearted prayers that he'll answer him even when you're not real sure you believe he'll do it isn't that wild so I want us to pray with more faith that's the point of this talk what I think I was supposed to bring but even if your prayer is kind of lame he'll take it he'll take honest I want to show you a clip of Theo Vaughn.

26:44 If you don't know who he is, he's a comedian that has very publicly had some significant challenges with addiction. You can see it. He's hurt himself with addiction. And he's got a podcast that's done very well. I'm not necessarily recommending it. He says some wild things. So kids, skip it, parents.

27:08 But I want to play this clip. It's after he's had some difficult moments and he has this moment where he suddenly just breaks open into a moment of honesty and he kind of apologizes for it a couple of times because I just don't even think as he's processing, he realizes he's saying like the realest thing on the internet the last couple of weeks. So I just want you to see this clip and we'll talk about it. I'll try to share, you know, I've been struggling, man. I've, the past like couple of years I've had, you know, it's been a struggle in certain ways with certain behaviors that I'm just not proud of, right? Or really just behaviors that I didn't want to do anymore. And I couldn't change it. I couldn't change the cycle. And even as I say this, I'm afraid that I'll fall back into those behaviors, but I'll tell you what for me has been helpful recently. And I'm sorry if I sound a little animated. I just, uh, I've been like going through this in my own life recently and it's on the tip of my thoughts and feelings. Um, you know, sometimes I realized for myself, I would pray to God to help me get away from certain behaviors in my life.

28:21 Uh, but at the same time that I was praying, there would be a part of me that knew I was probably going to do those things again, you know, that I was probably going to do those things again. Like a big God, please help me. And I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to have this behavior, but there'll be a little part of me that was like, I know, even as I ask, ask for God's help that I'm going to do it again. I would know, I would know that. So I started praying like this. I started praying like God. please help me with this. You know, this is a broken part of me that I bring to you. I need help with it. And then I would add to my prayer, I would say, and even God, even as I pray to you right now, there's a part of me that knows I'm probably lying to you.

29:15 There's a part of me that knows I'm gonna do that behavior again. So can you come into that part of me and help me there? help me in the part of me that knows as I pray that I am that I'm lying help me in the part of me that knows that as I pray, I'm lying. I think God loves that prayer. I think that's why he gave us Acts 12, honestly, because before you just see Jerusalem winning, winning, winning, they can't stop winning. And then they just hit a moment where they're just not sure God's going to show up this time. And yet God does. And that doesn't mean he gives you everything you want. James is still dead. Others will die. There's still a struggle, yet God has purposes and he's accomplishing them and he's blessing people and he's good and he's real and he'll condescend to answer half-hearted prayers. I think that's why we have this text.

30:12 Even if you don't really believe it, Peter's at the door. Go get him. Rota's right. C.S. Lewis is the Oxford Don that was an atheist, proudly so, but he wrote in his book, surprised by joy, as he reflected on his own journey, he said, a young atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Danger waits for him on every side. And what he meant by that is when he finally started to think about virtue, he realized it had to come from somewhere. And when he took an honest self-inventory, it started to make him question life. He wrote, I examined myself with a serious practical purpose and what I found there appalled me. A zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, and a harem of fondled hatreds. My name is Legion. And he describes this moment in the book where he just couldn't fake fine anymore. He's like, I have to deal honestly with the God I did not want to meet. And so he writes, you must picture me alone in that room in Magdalene, night after night feeling whatever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady unrelenting approach of him whom I earnestly desired not to meet, that which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in. I admitted that God was God, and I knelt and I prayed, perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing, the divine humility which would accept a convert even on such terms.

31:44 the prodigal son at least walked home on his own two feet but who can duly adore the love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking struggling resentful and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape the words compel them to come in have been so abused by the wicked men that we shudder at them but properly understood they plumb the depths of divine mercy the hardness of god is kinder than the softness of men his compulsion our liberation. He says, behold the kindness of God. I prayed a half-hearted prayer and God condescended to answer and to save me. And he was surprised by joy.

32:24 In the mid 1700s in New England, the Puritan dream was dying in the colonies. The Puritans had left Europe and come over hoping to establish a pure church of worship to God. And then they had kids who became teenagers and they realized sin is in our midst and historians said a spirit of prayer greatly diminished. Regular services on Sunday became dull, void of spiritual zeal. Daily life began to get affected. Jonathan Edwards, who was a pastor at the time, said it seemed to me a time of extraordinary dullness in religion. Licentiousness for some years prevailed among the youth in our town. They became addicted to night walking where they would frequent taverns, conduct lewd practices, and by their example, corrupt others. He said, we were watching the young people congregate in our streets, get drunk, do violent and dangerous things.

33:23 And yet we saw their parents weren't caring for them and political leadership was just too busy fighting each other. He said, we were watching the unraveling of our culture. He said, in the midst of that despair, in their crisis moment, a few people, not many at first, got scared enough to pray. God, will you intervene? God, will you stop the slide? Will you save? And suddenly in different little gatherings popping off, not real coordinated, people began to come forward and confess sin. People who've been going to church for years confessed, you know, I've been sitting in here, but I've just been playing a game and I don't want to play the game anymore. And they put their faith in Jesus and prayer meetings began to grow, conversions began to grow and something broke off in America that changed the culture of our country that historians call the Great Awakening.

34:17 That then swept back into the banks of Europe and began to change Europe that was a wash and drink and spiraling in alcoholism and began to birth movements of renovation, of care for those who were infirmed or had mental health issues and ultimately leading men like William Wilberforce and others to end the scourge of slavery in England without a shot fired. That massive cultural renovation started because people began to hit their knees and pray and ask God, are we not too far gone? Will you move? And I look at our culture today and there's popping off in random places, gatherings of young people and colleges that are saying we've gotten all the internet has to offer us and it's offered us anxiety and despair. And so they're showing up at churches saying, maybe you have an answer. And we see young people searching, is there a God?

35:09 Is he on the move? Is he real? And my hope is when they walk through their doors, they'll see us on our knees talking to a God like that. Even if your prayers are half-hearted, just beginning to breathe a little bit, he can overcome Herod's, he can break chains, he can open gates, he can change countries, he can change cities, he can change societies. We're not too far gone. He tells Herods to sit down. We don't have time to go through that whole part of the story, but you caught it at the end. Herod accepts the worship of a God. Look, you can't control it if people think you're a God. It happens sometimes. It'll happen to Paul later. But you can help if you think you are. And other historians, Josephus tells us as he sat on his throne of silver that suddenly he got an excruciating stomach ailment that killed him over the course of five days in devastating pain. Luke just says he was eaten by worms, then died.

36:03 And the point of that is to show you this passage began with Peter in chains and Herod in power. It ends with Peter free and Herod dead. Does the church get everything at once? No. But Peter will take the gospel to Rome. James will ascend and lead the church. And little John Mark, who we will see later is kind of a mess, watched his mom and their friends hit their knees in prayer and he watched God move. And Mark will write the gospel of Mark, our first account of the story of Jesus. Because a young generation saw a people that hit their knees, even if their prayers were half-hearted. And I'm just hoping our nation will see the same.

36:42 So it's interesting, and I'll close with this, as I was studying this passage. I was studying it on my back porch, screened in porch. As I was working through how to explain it, bees started coming in and an assortment of God's winged wonders. and as I'm sitting there studying I just see them trying to get back into the wild blue yonder just trying to to enter the freedom their wings were made for and yet they were running into a barrier they just did not understand they could not overcome uh glass so the whole time I wrote this sermon. It was just to the soundtrack of for hours. Limited. You can't do it. And over the course of days, it just got desperate. I mean, by the end of the week, these guys are hitting it. Strewn about them are the dead bodies of their bee friends who lost hope.

37:42 It was very grim. And the craziest thing about it for me was I left the screen door open. Like at any time they could leave, it's right there. And yet what they couldn't get through their little bee minds was, I'm trying to get there and I can't do it. But the way to the freedom I'm made for is not to try to go high, but go low. That the way up is down. That that's where the open door is. That's where the freedom is. That I can't accomplish this, but maybe somebody has made a way for me to enter into the freedom I was made for. And I was thinking about this message in this series. I was just hoping we would get that. For some of us, you've been trying to solve some problems in your own life, and you're just not gonna be able to polish or control your way out of this.

38:37 And you think of our society, politics has a role and it's good. God ordained the government, but we're not gonna government our way out of a lot of our society's problems. How are we gonna do it? The way up is down. It's surrender. God, would you move? You've changed families before. You've changed countries before. You've changed societies before. God, will you move and just begin to believe the God who took the darkest day in history, the murder of Jesus Christ. As his disciples watched it in Jerusalem, it just felt crazy. They're like, that's our king. He's on a cross. Their whole world went crazy.

39:13 And then he beat death. That's our God. and his death was for me to remove my sin, to open me up to be places I could never get on my own. And so the way to be who I'm meant to be is to surrender to a king like that. The way high is low. The way up is down. I'm not trying to fix me. I'm trying to get on my knees before the one who can fix anything. He's not scared of Herod and chains aren't a problem for him.