Power

• Mission- Sent to Speak & Respond to God’s work of Redemption
  • Mission to the Neighborhood- Acts 3-7
  • Mission to the 805-  Acts 8-12
  • Mission to the End- Acts 13-28
• This week we end Mission to the 805, Chapter 13 is Mission to the end where church planting goes crazy and begins to spread…
  • Next week, Palm Sunday Celebration Service with baptisms!
    • 1. Want to be baptized?
    • 2. Need your testimonies!
• Let us now direct our attention to God’s word.
• Please turn to Acts 12, pg. 920 in the pew bibles, INVITE HALIE UP.

We are powerless, but God is powerful.

• Herod the King.
  • Raised as a rich playboy and part of a mafia type upbringing.
  • The grandson of Herod the Great,
    • Wise men visited and then killed all the children in the region to kill the King of Jews.
    • Edomite- Descendant of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob.
  • The Nephew of Herod Antipas,
    • John the baptist beheaded, w/ his brothers wife
  • His father, Aristobulus, was murdered by his grandfather, then sent to Rome to be educated where he mixed it up with imperial family.
  • He went to Palestine to escape creditors and upon going back to Rome, lipped off to the emperor, Tiberius who threw him in prison and when Tiberious died, his childhood friend from the time he spent getting his education in Rome, took him out of prison and gave him a necklace of pure gold weighing the same as his chains and shackles and put him in power. Like his grandfather, he wanted to stay in power and be in good graces with the Jews to keep his power. He hears about this Christian movement that those Jews in Power don’t like, and he captures and kills James.
• When we are motivated by power, it always betrays us. In this life or the next.
  • An article on leadership it said the latest studies show white collar execs are motivated by power.
  • Original sin, “You will be like God”
• The first apostle dies because a rich kid with issues wants to keep his kush life and retain his position of power.
• James was 1 of 3 close disciples of Jesus. James, John, and Peter.

 We are powerless, but God is powerful.

• Why did James die?
• As though this is what James would want you ask? What do you mean, “why?” I’m with Jesus!
• A biblical perspective.

 We are powerless, but God is powerful.

• Plus this is what I signed up for.

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” Matthew 20:20–23  

• By the way, this is what we signed up for. We signed up to die…

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Luke 9:23–24

“We want to reach the kingdom of God, but we don’t want to travel by way of death. And yet there stands Necessity saying: ‘This way, please.’ Do not hesitate, man, to go this way, when this is the way that God came to you.” St. Augustine

No reason to be afraid of death…

…which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 2 Timothy 1:10

He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, Isaiah 25:8a

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, John 11:25

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54–57

“When the time comes for you to die, you need not be afraid, because death cannot separate you from God’s love.” Charles H. Spurgeon

• Righteous abandonment!
• It’s in this “letting go” that we remember we are powerless anyway.

We are powerless, but God is powerful.

• BUT, just because they were powerless doesn’t mean they didn’t take action.
  • Throw your arms up, “whatever Christian”
  • No desire? Not what God has for us.

Our powerlessness throws us into the power of God! 

• vs. 5, (a) they were praying earnestly, 
  • “Earnest”: Fervent, “with agony” G. Campbell Morgan 
  • their prayers were centered specifically on Peter’s deliverance. 
  • Vs. 12 (b) many people were praying
• Prayer is not…
  • Believing in fairies “I do believe in fairies, I do”
  • Powering Santa’s slay
• Going before the thrown of God as one of his kids.
• Tell Story of Peter getting released. 
  • When you remember that…
    • Vs. 5, (a) they were praying earnestly, their prayers were centered specifically on Peter’s deliverance,
    • Vs. 12 (b) many people were praying

“The answer to their prayers is standing at the door, but they don’t have faith enough to open the door and let him in! God could get Peter out of a prison, but Peter can’t get himself into a prayer meeting!”  W. W.  Wiersbe

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  2 Corinthians 12:9

• vs. 20-25
• The end result when are motivated by our own power

We are powerless, but God is powerful.