Well, good morning church family, both here in the room as well as online. This morning's message is entitled when God knocks, when God knocks, do me a favor, turn to your neighbor and just simply say, knock, knock. And now you can say who's there? I don't know. You gotta finish the joke at this point. I know I will spare you from some pretty hilarious knock knock jokes. We'll save those for another time. No, our sermon today is entitled when God knocks, what I've come to realize as an adult as that Children and adults, we respond very differently when someone comes knocking to your door, don't we? That if you're a child and someone comes knocking to your door, right? Kids go, ah, who is that? Who could it be? Who has come to see me? Right. Maybe they brought presents, right? This is the mindset you have as a child, right? Let's be real as an adult. How do most people respond when they get an unexpected knock at the door? Right? Who could that be? Turn off the lights? We're in the quiet place, right? No one move. Make a noise if you don't have a ring camera, you army crawl up to the front and you peek through that little hole, right? And, uh, it's always slightly distorted. Right. So someone's face is really big. If I'm knocking on someone's door, I like to go like, real close just to freak me out a little bit. No. Uh, we respond differently with an unexpected knock comes to the door. Well, how do you respond when God comes knocking at your door? And we're gonna be taking a look today at Acts chapter 12. If you have a Bible, you can open up there. But as you open up there, let's catch up to where we are. We've been walking through the book of Acts. Um Today, it's gonna be our last one in the series for right now, we're gonna pause it and go into some holiday stuff uh here next week and beyond. And so we'll, we'll jump back into Acts in the future. But today will be the last one for now as we complete uh acts chapter 12. But uh last week, we were actually in acts chapter 10. And when Peter shared the gospel and really, the ministry expanded from Jewish people to gentiles, which gentile just means non Jewish. And so he shared with this Roman soldier, this Roman Centurion named Cornelius and people are getting saved and the movement of God is spreading. And so then in Acts chapter 11, the first chunk of that is actually just now, Peter telling the exact same story of what happened in Acts chapter 10 to the church in acts chapter 11. And so like, wow, it's amazing, God gave this vision and did all this stuff. It's pretty awesome. And then it moves to the story in Antioch where interestingly enough in Acts 1126 It's the first time followers of Jesus are called Christians. And what's also fascinating here is that the people leading the ministry in Antioch are Barnabas and Saul who again gets called Paul. It's just his Roman name for that. And so what we're gonna see here is that this is the today's passage is really the last Hurrah uh of Peter. It, as far as the focus goes, he gets a cameo in acts 15. Uh But after this, the book of acts really shifts to the Ministry of Saul Paul, same guy there. Um And, and on and, and we don't really hear much of Peter's life after this point except for the fact that later on, he writes a couple of letters that we have now in our Bibles as 1st and 2nd Peter. And so let me just tell you that uh it, it just acts 12 comes out of the gate hot like it's, it's heavy, it's difficult, it's challenging. And so there's three main movements in our story today and we're gonna spend time in each one. So you see the progression but overarching that connects all of these passages together is really this idea. And if you're taking notes, I encourage you to write this down that when we pray and obey, we join the movement of God, when we pray and obey, we join the movement of God, now God moves how God wants. God uses who he chooses and, and God's gonna do what God's gonna do. But when we pray continually earnestly to Him, and then we obey the commands that He places into our lives, we actually get to join the movement. If you think of like white water rafting, right, the river's gonna move. But it's a lot more fun when you get in the boat and go down that river with Jesus. And so we have three major movements in our story. And the first one I would summarize by titling this. It's that we're gonna talk about what does it mean when praying gets hard praying gets hard. Have you ever found yourself praying for something? And you just hear silence on the other side or maybe you pray and you pray and you pray and it, it actually goes even the opposite way that you're praying for. Um That's what happens to the early church. You see we're reading all these passages of more and more people are getting saved and people are getting healed and the gospel is spreading from town to town to town and then boom acts 12 comes and, and just comes up and, and smacks you comes and knocks you up on the side of the head, not like the Prize Fight of this weekend where it's really just kind of light sparring for and a lot of buffering uh for those who tried to watch it. Uh If you didn't watch it, you, you saved yourself some time. Um Anyway, uh we're gonna see here that in this case, this first movement, it's, it's life that comes knocking, right? Sometimes you feel like you wake up, you're feeling good, right? And you happen to life like, yeah, I'm, I'm feeling good. I'm ha there are other days when you wake up and it just seems like life is happening to you. You know what I'm talking about, right? Where life just comes in. OK? And it's, and it's gonna come in quick and, and, and very, and the challenges are very steep and extreme. Ok? He, here's what I mean. Let's just jump into it here about that time. Herod the king. This is Herod Agrippa. He's the grandson of Herod, the great who that's the Herod in Jesus time Christmas story. OK? His grandson now leader trying to win favor with the Jewish people in that area. Ok? It says the king laid violent hands on some who belong to the church. He killed. Oh, there we go. I mean that's right out of the gate. Ok. Kill James the brother of John with the sword. Hm. Why is that big. It's big because James was one of the 12 disciples. This is the first martyr from the disciples. This is James, not just James but James like the inner circle, James like he wasn't just one of the 12. He was one of the three Jesus took three disciples with him to the mount of transfiguration. He had three that were in the inner circle. There was brothers James and John and there was Peter and James was in the know, right, James was leading people to Jesus. He was experiencing miracles and yet now he's gone. Hm, verse three, when Herod saw that it pleased the Jews. He proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now this was during the days of unleavened bread. So right around Passover time, now they had rules there where you couldn't legally follow through on some things until after the feast, right? This is why the whole thing of Jesus being arrested and killed same time frame different year. Ok. So now Peter's locked up and he's about to be killed just like James was killed. OK? And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over. Oh, this is a tough word too, by the way, because the whole festival of Passover and unleavened bread was to remember back in the Old Testament in the days of Moses when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and God delivered the Israelites out of the Egyptians. So this picture of during a festival of which God's people were being delivered from evil. Now we have Peter being delivered into the hands of evil. Over to four squads of soldiers. The squad was four. So you got about 16 soldiers that are surrounding him, guarding him, intending that after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So here we have a showdown version verse five. So Peter was kept in prison but earnest prayer for Him was made to God by the church. Now here's our cage match for today. We got Herod's prison first. The church's prayer. Ok? But let's be real. That's gotta be hard to pray in that moment, doesn't it? Because you think they prayed for James? I do. Do you think they pleaded for God to save James? And what happened? You ever prayed to God? And just, it seemingly went unanswered and yet they went back and were earnestly pleading with God in prayers. What that tells us is that when the going gets tough, the tough keep praying, they don't wait till it gets tough to start praying. Some of us do that, right? We ignore God. Ignore God, ignore that God. And then we get in trouble and we're like, how right. I've, I've had it where my, my daughter was um playing and I was like, hey, you wanna play with dad? And she's like, no, that's only loving Children can do. And so she's playing and they're playing games and stuff. And next thing I hear in from, uh, one of the kids' rooms is dad help. Like, oh, now you want my attention? And she had climbed up on the little overhang of the, uh, closet in her room and she couldn't get down. I was like, well, good luck. It's ok. No, I was a good father and like, two hours later I went and got her and just kidding. No. Right. We sometimes do that with God, don't we? Like we ignore him, ignore him, ignore him. We get in trouble and then we go, God gracious father. We pray. Here's the deal. When we pray. When the, when the going gets tough, the tough, keep praying, keep going, keep going. Now it's challenging though because put yourself in the place of those people. You're praying for James to get saved and he gets killed. So, what do you do? Well, the reality is is that when you don't see answers, keep seeking God, some of you have been praying for days, not seeing any response. Some of you been praying for months. Some of you been praying for years, even decades for something that God has not answered yet for you. What I wanna encourage you with today is that don't simply pray for situations, pray through them. So it won't be on the screens, but I wanna encourage you here. Um With three thoughts for those that are have, are battling, wrestling with some difficult stuff right now. 33 encouragements to keep knocking, to keep going to God with whatever you're going through. First encouragement to you is, is to be humble, to be humble. We have to acknowledge that God's ways are higher than our ways. Like I would love, I would love to know God's plan, but Jeremiah 2911 doesn't tell us for you. We'll know the plans I have for you is as I have plans for you to even Jesus in the garden, Jesus himself in the garden at one point actually prays God your will not mine. So we have to acknowledge that even if we don't understand it, we don't know why some people are healed and others are not right. We pray for a cancer to be healed and others not, we pray for financial restorations, but it doesn't always come. We pray for healed relationships and sometimes it doesn't come. So what do you do with that? Number one, we have to, we have to acknowledge here that, that God's ways and plans are bigger than ours. There's something bigger at play here that we just don't know. So why does God do it? I, I don't know. But also where are you going to turn? Because I have news too. Atheists have problems too. Right? I I've always been curious about that. Like, who do atheists get angry at when things don't go well? Right. Like are they, they turn like someone's sick, they get mad at nothing like, like, like even like here's the thing, we have to understand that God is big enough to handle your doubts, your questions, your anger, and He wants you to come to him. A third of the psalms are lament. Psalms. People are crying out to God. So to keep coming back to keep praying. So to be humble. But here's the second thing I want you to recognize is to be encouraged. Why? Because we do, in fact, pray to a God who saves. Here's what I've come to realize that if you believe in the creation story, right, that God spoke the world into existence, that God commanded nothingness and nothingness obeyed him. And we went from nothing to everything. If you believe the creation story and you believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ that Jesus came down to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross by the hands of the very people that he came to save, was buried and rose again on the third day. If you believe in creation and the resurrection, then what can God not do if you don't see God moving in your present? Remind yourself of how God moved in the past? Because that is the same God we pray to today. Amen. Remind yourself of what God's going to do in the future where He's coming back to restore and renew all of creation, new heavens, new earth. That when we believe that God created everything out of nothing. That by the very power of His word created the world as we come to know it. That when you've got nothing left to give God understand that that is enough for God to work with. Does that make sense? Everything we have around us came from nothing? So you're telling me that God can't work where you are. Do I understand God's timing? No. Do I understand why he went into villages, even on this earth and healed people? But not everybody. Do. I understand how He moves? No, but his his ways are higher than mine. And we have to humble ourselves and say your will not my will. And then we are encouraged because we have story after story after story of God saving people, healing people, restoring people, reconciling relationships, restoring financial needs, giving a blessing to people, lame people, walking sick, people, getting healed and dead people coming alive. If we believe in creation, we believe in resurrection, then what can God not do? Amen? So be encouraged, God might not have moved yet, but we do have a God who moves. Be humble, be encouraged. But the third thing here when you're knocking on the door is to be persistent, be persistent. I love that phrase that the church was earnestly praying. Don't just pray for something, pray through it. It might take an hour a day, a month, it might take a lifetime. And on this side of eternity, you might not know, but you can keep going to the one who does know what other alternatives do you have? That is where our hope comes from. And because Jesus rose, we have what's called a living hope. And when you don't see God in your situation, you can pray to the God of the Bible because that's the same God to keep pleading, to keep knocking, to keep going to him. And just as the church said, God, James wasn't saved and we don't know why, but we trust you because you do save. And so we're pleading with you to save Peter God. This relationship is broken, but I'm gonna keep giving it to you. God, my child is sick, but I'm gonna keep giving to you. God. My financials are in ruin, but we're gonna keep praying for the God who provides. So whatever your situation is, God, we are praying for you to come in to fill the space to receive the glory and make it your testimony and your story and make it your will not mine. You know what happens when you do? That is peace. Jesus says in Matthew 633 to seek first the Kingdom of God. Colossians three verse one and two says to seek first the things that are above, to set your mind on things above. This means that you have the ability to take something that is heavy that is weighing, that is worrying. Instead of worry, you have worship. Instead you set it into the hands of the God who is strong enough to hold it to keep seeking God himself. Because Jesus essay in Matthew seven ask and will be given seek and you will find knock and you will answer. It's a good reminder to us actually spells the word ask. Ok, ask. It's a question, ask the question, right? Seek when you are playing hide and seek, it helps to look for specific people, right? You might scare someone if you go out in public and like found you. It's personal, right? Are you seeking God going after him and then knocking, you are knocking on the door. You're making a phone call in a church service. If it's God pick it up, I'm just saying, I'm not gonna step in the way of that. OK. Yes, Jesus, what do you have for us? Mhm When it's tough to pray, keep praying. Let's see what happens next. Movement in our story when God wakes you up, when God wakes you up verse six. Now, when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping. Wait, what Peter is sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and there were centuries before the door. They were guarding the prison. Now let's, let's pause here for a second. How in the world is Peter sleeping the night before his execution? Look, some of you all struggle to sleep with the blanket or not blanket warm, not warm. You know what I'm talking about fan or no fan? Like I don't think he had the phone next to him with the fan noise playing. I don't think they gave, I hooked him up with some prison Melatonin or something beforehand. He is in a prison cell on the floor chained between two guards and he's taking a nap. Where does that come from? How is that possible? This is a Saint Peter, by the way that when Jesus was arrested is up all night denying him three times of just being associated for Jesus. And now the night before he's gonna be killed for preaching Jesus, he's taking a nap because he's fine. How can he do that? Cos the peace that comes from not him? No. Look, I've just been transparent with you. I've never been a great sleeper. Like I've, I'm, I'm a night person, but then I got older. So now I'm like neither a night person nor a morning person. Anybody tracking with me, right? I used to stay up late and knock out papers and grad school and all that stuff. And now I just am groggy and like my body goes to sleep and my mind's like, good morning and like, wait, I'm exhausted and like my mind anyway. Ok. But yet Peter, when he's got every possible reason to be awake is fine. Reminds me of Psalm 23 right? Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, of fear, no evil. Why? Because you are with me and God's with him in the prison. The very next verse verse five says, will you prepare a table in the presence of my enemies? He's surrounded by the enemies in Psalm 23. Verse five. He says, now let's have, let's have a meal, let's have, let's have connection. Let's see what happens. He's sleeping, chained to two guards centuries before the door guarding the prison. Let's continue verse seven. And behold, the angel of the Lord stood next to him in a light shone in the cell. I love this and he struck Beater on the side like the light wasn't enough to wake him up like this is like teenage sleeping in the morning to get up and go to school type. You know what I'm talking about? Like people that sleep heavy or whatever. If you have someone in there like who like the like the age of the Lord comes in. Oh Peter, wake up, let me do it again. Uh Pe seriously Peter time to get up. He knocks up here wakes him up. Yeah, he woke him up and saying, get up quickly and the chains fell off his hands. Verse eight. And the angel said to him dress yourself, put on your sandals and he did so. And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me and we out and he followed him and he didn't know that what was being done by the angel was real. He thought it was being seen, seen a vision. And when they passed through the first and the second guard, they came to an iron gate leading into the city and it opened for them on 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, wow, now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod, from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Isn't it amazing that when God wants to move the chains can't hold you, the guards can't stop you and no gate will block you. Amen. But yet at the same time, Peter had to do a few things too along the way. Isn't that interesting? Angel flies in? Keeps the guards away, opens the gate. And yet what does Peter have to do? Get up, get dressed, put your shoes on, follow me. Why is that important? It's important because supernatural opportunities still require simple obedience still requires simple obedience. Like the angel didn't come in and, and place Peter in a little baby bjorn and just carry him out, little baby Peter just out in the street. Here we go and I'll be free. We've had a lot of babies being born here at Mission Grove and you see all the, the cute little babies being carried in their little swaddles, right? Like the angel could, like, if you're, if you're coming in and you're breaking chains and opening gates and releasing prisoners, you can just carry someone and pick them up and move them, couldn't you? Right? Like he doesn't like, ok, Peter hop in little baby run, I'll swallow you. I'll be like a mama kangaroo like h like this carry. no. Like he still gives him something to do. Why? Because even when God opens the door, we have to have the obedience to walk through it. Get up, get dressed, put your shoes on. Follow me. These are the words they describe the Christian walk, aren't they put off the old self, put on the new Jesus says, come follow me. Come walk with me. Jesus opened the prison but Peter still had to walk out. No, I, I understand this is a contextualized story of the miracle and working of God. And so I'm not saying this is just gonna happen to all of us every time. I do wonder though because the same God, I do wonder if there are people who God has opened the gate to the prison, opened the door to the prison says, come and follow me. I have given you the way out and some of us are sitting here going no. Mhm God, I'm praying for a miracle break. The chain chain is broken. Come follow me. I don't, I don't, there's a guard. Ok. Remove the guard. Come follow me. Yeah, but there's a gate. Ok. Gates open, come follow me. Ah, but I like it over here. How many people are in prison in a prison where the gates open? There's that movie like, oh, gosh, it feels weird to say that it's a few, like a many years ago. Uh this like Leo Dicaprio with Man in the Iron mask. Anyone seen that movie, right? Kind of a fun Renaissance type story there. You know, guy gets imprisoned, get set like free and he finds himself even in his freedom putting the mask back on. We do that as Christians all the time, don't we? God came down to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross rose again, offers the holy spirit to come dwelling inside of us. Say I have come to give you life and life abundantly and we are stuck in a mindset in a way in a place where God's already opened the door. Why? Because he says no, walk, walk, walk with me, follow me obey you don't have. Here's the thing Peter didn't understand what was happening when it was happening, did he? But you don't have to understand fully to obey immediately. You don't have to have the whole picture in your head and the whole plan and future mapped out to understand that when God says, go take a step, see when God works. We walk when God works, we walk. One of the most common descriptions of the Christian life is a walk with Jesus. And I love that picture. I love that picture because walking is a relational pace, right? Like, have you ever been asked to go hiking with someone who hikes? It's like, that's not, that's not fun as for those non hikers who speaking to those who are hikers, it's not as cool as you think it is. I mean, it is if it's like walking, but people who really hike like go, right, you're like, let's have some fun. Let's go. Right. I'm so glad that Jesus doesn't operate at that level. Right? Come follow me, walk with me in Ephesians alone. For example, Ephesians 210 to walk in the good works that God's created you for Ephesians 41 to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called Ephesians 52 to walk in Love. Ephesians 58 to walk as Children of light. Ephesians 515 to walk as wise. Uh John three verse four says to walk in truth, Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that we can walk in freedom. We can walk on purpose and enjoy. In this particular case, we see the story where God opens the prison gates and Peter just to just walk out if God's opened the door in your life or something, are you willing to actually obey and walk and step where God's called you to when praying gets difficult. We gotta keep praying. Keep knocking when God opens that gate. Guess what? We gotta walk through it. The last thing here, last section, last movement. Actually, it's got some comical relief because it's been kind of heavy. So I'm just gonna title this section. Knock knock joke. That it really is a biblical knock knock joke. Just don't take my word for it. Let's read it. This is great. I love it. Right. This picture someone's killed Peter's about to be killed, miracle chains, broken guards blocked gates, open Peter's in the street. And where does he go? He says when he realized he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark. So he goes to Mark's house, the writer of the gospel of Mark. A side note, never underestimate the power of a praying mother. You see that? It's, it's the mom's house. Amen. That's pretty good. So he goes, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and praying. Where do I go? He goes to church. I love that out in the middle of nowhere, middle of the night. It's late. Where's he going? He's going to church. He's going to a prayer meeting. Ok. Continues on verse 13. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer and recognizing Peter's voice in her choice. He did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. I love this so much. But you think about it miracle prison put there by the king, surrounded by 16 guards chains, broken guards removed, iron gates removed. And now Peter's left in the cold because Rhoda won't open the door. I love it. Open the door. Rhoda, come on. Yeah. Another fun little anecdote with this story. OK, Je uh when Peter denied Jesus middle of the night denied him three times, a couple of times. Who did he deny them to actually denied him to a servant girl at a gate. So Peter denied Jesus to a servant girl at a gate. And now here Peter stands denied by the servant girl at a gate at a church meeting. It was harder for Peter to get into a church prayer meeting than it was to get out of prison. You tracking. She was so excited. She ran in, listen before we give Rhoda a hard time. The church ain't looking so great in this next verse either. OK. We're not looking great as a church people. Here's what I mean. OK. Continue on. And they said to her, are you out of your mind? So the church had enough faith to pray, but they didn't actually have enough faith to believe that it came true. This is great. She kept insisting. No, no really. He's there. And they kept saying, oh, it must be his angel. But Peter continued knocking. Could you picture that again? Middle of the night about to be killed. Put in prison by the king, 16 guards chains, broken guards aside iron gates removed Rona Roda. When they opened, they saw him and were amazed. Yeah, verse 17. But motioning to them with his hand that's probably tired from knocking. He described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, tell these things to James different James. This is James, the half brother of Jesus who would lead the church in Jerusalem and write the letter of James in the future. Tell James to the brothers and he departed and went to another place. It's a wild story. Here's the thing when God knocks open the door. If you got enough faith, if you got enough faith to pray for something, are you ready to actually receive it when it comes? Right? Ok. Ok. When it's tough to pray, keep going, keep knocking. Yeah. When God decides to actually open the door, do you have enough faith to then turn obey? And then a flip side when God comes knocking, when the answer to prayer comes knocking, are you actually gonna have enough faith to open the door? Jesus? Really? God speaks this in revelation 320 says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door. I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Now, I've heard this verse many times from great evangelists. Like the late great Billy Graham used to say this all the time and I think it's true. Right. If God knocks on the door of your life of your heart, are you willing to let him in? Are you tired of trying to live your life your ways and your work? Trying to grind and just hustle and, and work your way to another day? Trying to be good enough to earn God's love. It's not gonna happen. But if God comes knocking, the Holy Spirit moves and comes into your heart, are you willing to receive him into your life? But here's the thing about that verse, does it work for those who don't yet know Jesus? I think it does. But do you know that that verse was actually written to a church in Laodicea who's being chastised for being lukewarm? That makes me think that there's an application for believers too. Have you claimed Jesus in your life? But you left Jesus outside the door. Is there an area in your life? They're saying, OK, Jesus take this, take this half my Sundays, but this week is mine. Have my, have my attendance, but my mindset is, is mine, how I speak, how I treat others. That's me, my heart, this issue, this sin, this addiction, this battle. That's mine. Stay out. Ok. We're not called as Christians. They, I surrender most. That's how we live though, isn't it? The country songs? Not Jesus take most of the wheel. You don't want two people fighting over like that's how we live, don't we? But what, what if we had the humility? But what if we came to the end of our rope? But we got nothing left. And you realize that God created everything out of nothing. And you realize that the resurrection is true. And you realize that in your heartbreak, in your exhaustion, in your tiredness, that God has been present with you the whole time and it's been right there waiting and willing to come in. We just got to open the door into our lives. When God comes, when God speaks, when the answer that you've been praying for is there, are you willing to let Him into your life, into your relationships into your finances, into the decision making process? Are you still holding out saying? Nope, this is mine. I'm begging you pleading with you to open the door. Because when God knocks, when God comes into your life, he brings with him a life. You see when we pray like the church prayed, even when it was difficult, even when it was hard, even when they lost a brother in James, even when they didn't see things right. They kept praying, they kept pleading when we pray like the church prayed. And when we obey, like Peter obeyed, it was simple. It was straightforward. You might not know the future, but you can read the Bible. You can share your faith. You can give through the church to the blessing of others. You can serve simple actions of loving, giving, serving, worshiping, helping we complicate life so much when God just wants to walk with you. But when we do that, when we open the door to what God has for us in our life, we join the movement of God and it can change everything. So here's what we're going to do to end today. I just wanna have three reflective questions to you. Three reflective questions to you. You know, teachers say eyes on your own paper, hear eyes on your own heart here. OK? I don't want you to hear this message for someone else for just a moment, but we do that, don't we? Let's be honest, right? That oh that they should hear this. You should hear this eyes on your own heart for a minute. OK. Number one. What area in your life do you need to take to God? Or what area in your life do you need to pick back up and take to him again? Because you gave up is in an area that you need to earnestly pray not just four, but through think of that second question here is what door has God opened? That you need to walk through? What is the opportunity that God's placed before you? What is a step that He has called you to take? What is the question that He's given you to answer where you're called to get up to put your shoes on and follow where God's leading you? Because if God opens that door, are we willing to obey and follow where he calls us? And the last question then is, is God knocking on the door of your life right now? Would you let him in? If you don't trust Him as Lord and Savior? I want to ask you, are you ready to receive Him to allow God to come in and change your story? And you'd be like, you know what? I can't make it. I'm like, oh, I've tried this, I'm exhausted. It's not working. Would you put your faith and trust Him as Lord and Savior to receive him into your life? The Holy Spirit in your life if you let him into your life and if you call him as, as Lawrence, he already, is there an area where you've, you've tried to like ho hold him awake, right? You've let him into your house but not quite into your room. You know what I'm saying? Is there an area that you needed to let God into? Will you do that? Because when we pray and obey, we join the movement of God? Look, we don't have time in the passage, but the very next thing and guess what Harro gets, what's coming to him. The chapter starts with Herod on the throne and Peter in prison and it ends with Peter freed. And we're reminded that Jesus is still on the throne and that's who reigns and rules. If we're willing to allow him to reign and rule in our hearts. Can we do that as a church? Let's pray dear God. Thank you for who you are and what you've done. God for those who don't know you. I pray that we invite you into our lives. Today, we admit that we have sinned and that we can't go to heaven on our own. We believe that you're j that you are Lord in the earth's savior that when you died on the cross, you paid for our sins. And when you rose again, you offer forgiveness and eternal life. We commit our lives to you Jesus. And if we've let you into our house, God, I ask that you would come into our rooms or whatever area we're holding back if it's a difficult situation, when we pick it back up and earnestly pray to you, if it's an opportunity, God may, we just have the courage to step and walk in obedience towards you. And if it's an area that we've been holding back, God may we let you in and let you transform our lives through the power of your spirit. We love you. God. Thank you for stories. Like Peter and the rescue that really symbolizes and shows us that you are a God who heals you are a God who saves you are a God who breaks chains, who comes into the darkness and brings light, who comes into Brokenness and brings blessing, who comes into a world filled with spiritually dead, broken sinners and brings us alive together through the power of your spirit and the name of your son Jesus. And so it's in that power and in that name, we pray. Amen.