Scripture: Acts 12:1-19

Rev. John W. Fowler

I want to share with you from Acts, chapter 12 of a very surprising and miraculous answer to prayer:

Terry Teykl has written many books on prayer. He is a great United Methodist leader on prayer. One book is called How to Pray After You’ve Kicked the Dog. That’s not a prayer encouraging you to kick your dog, but essentially it’s a book of encouragement. When you’ve had a day that’s very frustrating and you feel like God’s not going to listen to me because I’ve kicked the dog or I’ve lost my temper and all this kind of thing. It’s a word of encouragement. It’s a great book. I like to share one story: He had a neighbor whom he couldn’t get to come to church; he would invite them to come to church; they wouldn’t come. One day he noticed that the neighbor was having trouble with the lawn mower and he went over to help. He had never felt led to do this before but he said, “Let’s pray for this lawn mower.” So they prayed for the lawn mower and then he cranked it and varoom — it just started up. Well, the neighbor was in church the next day.

He said, “No, I don’t share that just to say that God has led me into a ministry of starting lawn mowers, but a lot of times people want to know: Does God really hear our prayers on normal, everyday things.”

In that book he has some prayers at the end of the chapters I want to share with you. I thought they were pretty good. Here’s from Brian, age eight:

And here’s a prayer request: Dear Pastor, please say a prayer for our baseball team. We need God’s help for a new pitcher. That’s Alexander, age 10.

Here’s a little more serious prayer. It’s a prayer of a teacher: God, each morning when I walk into my classroom, I feel the weight of the awesome responsibility I have to shape the minds and characters of young people. As the Master Teacher, help me fulfill my role. Enable me to impart more than just facts.

Here’s a prayer of a hairdresser: Dear Father. I enjoy making other people look good. Thank you for making me look good by giving me Your robe of righteousness.

This last prayer I want to share with you I first saw it on a handout at a church I served in: Dear Lord, so far today I’ve done alright. I haven’t gossiped or lost my temper. I haven’t been greedy or grumpy, nasty or selfish or overindulgent and I’m very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help.

I just share that with you because when we come to prayer we have expectations. And sometimes those expectations are not very high. We forget that we are coming to the King of Kings and to the Lord of Lords; we’re coming to the One who created the Heavens and the Earth; we’re coming to the One who sent His Son into the world to die upon the cross for us, that we believe arose from the dead. We need to be reminded that great things can happen when we pray for other people.

First of all, in this passage you see the need for prayer. Everybody who came in today needs prayer. It’s not my brother; it’s not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

There are times you, and there are others, who are especially standing in the need of prayer. I mean we need earnest prayer for them. Peter is standing in the need of earnest prayer. Herod, Herod the Great’s grandson, has put James to death. Remember James wanting to have one of the top seats in the Kingdom and he was put to death and Herod saw that this made Jews happy, so: let’s go get Peter. And so, Peter has been put in prison. He doesn’t want any jail breaks this time so he has sixteen men assigned to keep Peter in prison. It just seems about as hopeless a situation as possible. Peter is asleep; he is in prison. Only because it is over the Passover do they have to actually wait for his execution but it is going to come. In verse 5 it says:

One of the things we learn from the Book of Acts is their dependence on prayer. When the Church was birthed in a prayer meeting they waited for ten days in prayer. Before, when they wanted new leadership — Who was going to be the new Apostle? — they would pray. They would pray for guidance and here especially, as persecution is beginning, they are praying and they are praying for Peter.

Bill Hybels, who is pastor of one of the largest churches in the world, the Willow Creek Church, said that it was an embarrassing revelation to him when he realized that on one of his study leaves years ago, that oftentimes, if the truth be known, that the reason he didn’t pray about, say, events you hear on the news or big problems that you see going on, was he realized that he just really wasn’t convinced that God was able to do anything about it. Oh, he knew that God could bring you home to Heaven; he knew that God could do a lot of things, but in the nitty gritty, he really began to wonder — Is God really able to do something about that? And it was embarrassing to him. But what he began to do is to discover the nature of God, an attribute of God that is so important throughout Genesis to Revelation and that is called omnipotence. That means that God has all power. He is not anemic. He is not changed. He is still, as it says in Hebrews, the same yesterday, today and forever. And God certainly has power. He began to look at passages like the creation and was reminded that God is Good and God is our Creator. All you have to do is just go out, especially at night, or when you are at the beach, like Roann was talking about, or see the mountains, you begin to realize He created you, you begin to sense of God’s awesome power.

Or when we look at Exodus, chapter 14 where the Children of Israel are so frightened. They are just coming out of slavery; Pharaoh's army is after them; they feel like this is the end. They pray to God. The sea parts and they go over miraculously and then the waters come back and take care of their enemies. Or I think of the Children of Israel, going into the Promised Land, and they come to the Jordan River. Again, a great obstacle and the Lord says, “Well, just get your feet wet and those waters will part.” And they cross over the River Jordan.

God not only has power over nature but He has power over circumstances and one of the things you will see throughout the Bible is that God can change the situation. In Acts, chapter 12, sixteen men are guarding Peter. Earnest prayer is being made and Peter is set free.

Do you know someone who is standing especially in the need of prayer? Have you gotten to where you wonder: Well, God can you really do something about it? Begin to rediscover that God is the Lord God Omnipotent. He reigns.

Then there is the answer to prayer in this passage. It is a remarkable answer to prayer. It says:

He strikes Peter and says, “Come on Peter. Get up and get dressed. Let’s get going.”

Peter doesn’t know whether he is in the body or out of the body but he just follows and just miracle after miracle occurs. One, the guards don’t wake up. Two, the chains fall off and then the big door is opened and he is out. And then the angel leaves and Peter realizes: Oh, I’ve been set free. This is wild.

And like anyone who has an answer to prayer, he is eager to share it. Oh, he realizes he is a fugitive; he doesn’t want to call a lot of attention to himself but, still, he wants to go and thank the people, especially, who have been praying for him. So he goes to the house of John Mark and wants to share with them, “You know, your prayers have been answered.”

One of the best faith boosters I have found in Terry Teykl in his book on prayer (I’ve never heard it articulated) but one of the great faith boosters is to pray Bible stories. Now, how do you do that? Well, when you consider the situation that you are facing, just simply go to the story that is in the Bible and you apply it to your own life. For example, when you are praying about God providing for you and being faithful, go to Genesis 22 and read about Abraham offering Isaac up on the mountain and praying and God providing the ram to come instead, as Abraham was trying to trust God and his faithfulness.

Or if there are times where you just wish the circumstances would change and anything you can do to get them to change, you read about Joseph and his brothers. And especially read about in Genesis 37 through 45 all that happened to Joseph, but still God worked it for the good and God still used Joseph in building his character and led him to lead the people during the time of famine.

When you are struggling, especially as a young adult, you are struggling with God’s call in your life, be assured, when you read about Moses and the burning bush in Exodus, chapter 3, that God clearly has a call upon your life and He will make it clear to you.

When we are lacking faith and we feel like we need faith that would move mountains, read from Joshua chapter 6, Joshua and the fall of Jericho, as the Lord gave Joshua the confidence to lead the Children of Israel.

When we feel like we are facing a problem that is just gigantic, read I Samuel:17 and we read about a teen-aged boy named David, going up against Goliath. Intimidating, mean, hateful, but that giant goes down because God equips David to deal with him.

When we are lacking wisdom and we wonder — Lord, we just don’t know what to do — pray Solomon’s prayer in I Kings:3. We pray for wisdom.

But especially, we look at the New Testament as well, for it is one thing to study Jesus and someone who lived a long time ago, but I believe that as we read the stories of Jesus, we want Jesus to become alive and reminded that He lives today and wants to enter into our lives.

When we are tempted and we want not to yield to temptation, but it is hard, we go to the fourth chapter of Matthew and we are reminded that Jesus was tempted as well, and He didn’t argue with the Devil. He just simply quoted the scripture and the truth, and that’s still the greatest weapon in our arsenal — God’s truth to help us to resist temptation. And it helps us when we are facing temptation.

Sometimes when we get afraid and we remember the story in Mark, chapter 4 where there is a great (tape change)

… you meditate and you think about it and you pray it. Or you think about when, again, God has asked us to step out in faith in a way that makes us real nervous and uncomfortable, then we read Matthew 14 where Peter said, “Lord, if it’s You, have me come,” so Peter gets out and he walks on water.

But especially those times where we are afraid of dying and death is looming, we read the Resurrection accounts, any one of them. Luke, chapter 24 is one of my favorites and we read that the tomb is empty; Jesus is alive and that He is the Resurrection and the Life.

But as we pray these, it boosts our faith and it gives us confidence in the Lord whom we are praying to.

Well, then there was a response to this answer to prayer. It’s great when your prayers are answered to share them with other people. That’s why it’s so important to meet together in Bible studies and Sunday School, Circle meetings, small groups. It’s important to be able to share how God has answered your prayer. To me, it’s a faith booster.

Well, Peter goes and he is trying to share with them the answer to prayer. Rhoda comes out, answers the door. She recognized Peter’s voice. She was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it, exclaimed, “Peter’s at the door.”

“Peter, it couldn’t be Peter. Peter’s in prison and Peter’s going to be executed just like James.”

So that kind of lets you know that they really aren’t expecting Peter to get out. They are praying for it, but sometimes that’s what God will do. He will answer — sometimes when I pray I will give God three or four, I think, good options — and He doesn’t take any one of them and sometimes there is one that is a whole lot better, and, sure, sometimes He’ll say, “No” or He’ll say “Wait.” But that’s the good thing about when we are praying that we spend time listening to God, asking Him to guide us in how exactly to pray, but especially as we wait too, I think our confidence in God grows. When we pray with faith and we get to the point where we say, “Well, Lord, I don’t know how this is going to turn out but I know You are in charge; You are omnipotent; You are all powerful, so I just want to trust, I want to be ready when that answer comes.”

They are surprised and finally, as he keeps knocking, not wanting to draw a whole lot of attention to the scene because, again, he is escaped, they come out and he has to calm them down and he says, “Well, here I am; I’m your answer to prayer, knocking on the door.”

And he wants to share it, and he does. And throughout the Book of Acts you will see that these are a people who begin to believe that God is mighty and He will answer prayer.

How would you like for God to answer prayer today? Sometimes one of the things that God can do is restore relationships that are just miraculous, that you think that nothing would ever happen this side of Heaven. Yogi Berra was a great baseball player for the Yankees. He is known for his Yogisms. You see that on the AFLAC commercial when he talks about ‘cash being as good as money’. He is filled with those kinds of sayings.

But back in 1985 he had something happen to him that, well, he held a grudge, really, for fourteen years. Yogi had managed before, back to 1964 when he was managing the Yankees, and he did lose in the seventh game of the World Series. He was called into the office and thought he was going to get a contract extension and he was given a leave of his contract. He had been let go before, so he understood that in professional sports that happens. But in 1985 he was let go only sixteen games into the season. He said that what really bothered him was that George Steinbrenner sent somebody else, and he didn’t tell him himself, the owner of the team.

So he said, “As long as George is owner of that team I’m not going to set foot in Yankee Stadium,” and he didn’t. And he wouldn’t have his family or his grandchildren, anyone set foot in Yankee Stadium. Former teammates, friends — you know he had been in the organization for thirty years — tried to get him to come back. He wouldn’t do it. Finally one of the broadcasters talked to George Steinbrenner and then she talked to his son Dale and said, “George says that he will be willing to meet with Yogi and apologize.” That was December of 1998.

Yogi said still, “No, I’m not about to meet with him; I don’t care if he is going to apologize; I don’t trust him and I’m not going to do it.”

Then his son Dale came to him and talked to him heart to heart. He said, “You know, you have nine grandchildren and, out of respect for you, they have never seen Yankee Stadium. It sure would be nice if they could go with their grandfather to Yankee Stadium.”

Yogi began to think of the way he had been brought up in the Catholic Church — quite an emphasis on the forgiveness of sins — and he felt that now the time was right. George Steinbrenner came up from Florida, met with him. They had a long talk.

He apologized, told Yogi, “That’s one of the biggest mistakes I ever made,” which, if you can imagine, that’s a big deal for George Steinbrenner to admit that he had done something wrong.

They shook hands. That was it. Then the first game he came back to Yankee Stadium, David Cone pitched a perfect game, which, if you are a Yankee fan, that’s good.

But that’s what can happen when you begin to believe that God can do things. Lives are changed.

Verse 5 says:

When we pray to our great and mighty God, oftentimes dreams can come true. Today they are having an Open House at the Hensley Home. What an answer to prayer. For about eight years in this district it was a dream to have a home for developmentally delayed young adults. There has been a lot of prayer. I had the opportunity to be involved with them for about three years. I can remember — it’s hard to believe now, three years ago — going up and seeing a tract of land that someone had given, and we prayed, and just had a sense that God was moving and this was something He wanted to be done. There were times when we got very discouraged, one, about funding, and then someone decided to give three hundred thousand dollars — a congregation said, “We’re going to give this out of our endowment. We’re going to build this house.”

When I think back now about how God placed leadership in place, but I think, most of all, there were some parents who were especially praying. And it is an answer to prayer: Lord, what will become of my children when I come home to Heaven? And it’s an answer to prayer. That’s what happens when we really believe that God hears our prayers and will answer them. Let us pray.