Amazing Stories – Jail Break
Sycamore Creek Church
July 1, 2012
Tom Arthur
Acts 12:1-19 

Peace Friends! 

Ever felt like you’re down 1 point in overtime with 2.1 seconds left on the clock?  Impossible obstacles, right?  Maybe one of the best moments in sports happened in the 1992 NCAA East Regional game.  With 2.1 seconds remaining in overtime, Duke trailed 103-102. Grant Hill threw a pass on a wing and a prayer the length of the court to Christian Laettner, who dribbled once, turned, and hit a jumper as time expired to win 104-103 over Kansas.  Here’s the video so you can relive the glory:

Do you know what happened with the rest of that NCAA tournament?  Duke went on to win the tournament against…ahem…Michigan, 71-51, and to win back to back NCAA championships.

OK, that’s a fairly humorous way to introduce a topic that we all struggle with: When do we find ourselves up against impossible obstacles?  And what do we do when we find ourselves against impossible obstacles?  When we’re stuck in a prison or those we love are in spiritual, emotional, or physical bondage?

Often times we feel like we’re up against an impossible obstacle of sin in our lives.  Something that is deeply ingrained.  Sin is anything intentional or unintentional that is not what God would desire for us.  We try and we try and we try and we just can’t get rid of it.  We’re always at 2.1 seconds left in overtime, but we always seem to miss the shot.

One kind of particularly impossible sin is addiction.  We become addicted to drugs.  Addicted to alcohol.  Addicted to porn.  Addicted to gambling.  You’re addicted when you’re always looking for the next fix.

Some of us are up against the impossible obstacle of selfishness.  Or maybe I should say we’re all in that boat.  We think the world revolves around me.

Another impossible obstacle is bitterness.  We’ve been hurt, sometimes not just lightly but had grave injustice done to us, and we can’t seem to get out of the prison of our bitterness.  There’s no way we can even begin to imagine forgiving the person who did such evil to us.

Many of us are up against the obstacle of self deception.  Everyone around us knows that we’ve got a problem, but we’re clueless.  We aren’t humble enough to recognize that something is wrong even if you can’t see it yourself.  We are unable to truly see ourselves as we are.

As a church we’re up against some pretty big obstacles when it comes to our culture.  We live in a culture (especially the next generation) that is increasingly put off by Christians and sees us as hypocritical, uncaring, antihomosexual, sheltered, political, and judgmental; in a word, unChristian.  David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons wrote a book titled unchristian based on research they did with those who self described as not Christian.  What they found was this:

What are Christians known for? Outsiders think our moralizing, our condemnations, and our attempts to draw boundaries around everything. Even if these standards are accurate and biblical, they seem to be all we have to offer. And our lives are a poor advertisement for the standards. We have set the gameboard to register lifestyle points; then we are surprised to be trapped by our mistakes. The truth is we have invited the hypocrite image.

How in the world do we overcome these obstacles to reach out to new people in our community?

Thankfully, God is in the business of overcoming obstacles, of breaking the bonds that bind us, and of breaking his people out of jail.  Today I’d like to look at a story of a jail break.  It’s like an old country western movie right there in the Bible.  It’s at the beginning of the life of the church, and it is an amazing story.  What we’ll see in this story is that God uses the prayers of the church to overcome impossible obstacles.  Let’s walk through it a little at a time and see what we can learn.

Acts 12:1-19 NLT
About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword.

Herod is being very systematic here.  James, John, and Peter are the three inner-core leaders of the church.  Herod is systematically taking out the inner leadership of this fledgling Jesus movement.

When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish leaders, he arrested Peter during the Passover celebration and imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each.

Whoa!  Four squads of four soldiers.  That’s sixteen soldiers for one dude.  A guy who so far hasn’t caused any bloodshed.  Herod is serious about squelching the church.  No games here.  No chances.  The odds of Peter making it out of this situation are dwindling to almost nothing.

Herod’s intention was to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. 

Insert here the Hail Mary, literally.  The church is praying.  The Greek word that is translated “earnestly” literally means “in an extended way.”  The church was taking this prayer thing seriously.  They were setting up seriously long prayer meetings to pray for Peter.  The life of the church depended upon it.  But as if to symbolize the situation, this verse about prayer is “chained” between two verses about impossible obstacles.  Sixteen soldiers and then…

The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, chained between two soldiers, with others standing guard at the prison gate. 

The deck is stacked.  The dice are loaded.  Peter is chained between two soldiers.  The Greek literally says that he is bound with two chains.  Then there are more soldiers outside.  It’s no longer looking like 2.1 seconds left.  It’s looking like the clock has already hit 00:00:00.  But then…

Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel tapped him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists.  Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered.  So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was really happening. 

Here is the great spiritual leader of this new church, the “rock” upon whom Jesus would build his church, and he’s thinking it’s all just a vision.  Not really happening.  So much for the great faith of Peter.  Thankfully the jail break wasn’t dependent upon his faith!  But then whose?

They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate to the street, and this opened to them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him. Peter finally realized what had happened. “It’s really true!” he said to himself. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jews were hoping to do to me!”  After a little thought, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. 

So if this jail wasn’t based on Peter’s faith then whose faith was is based upon?  Ah…the church.  Right?  Here they were gathering for prayer.  Praying at great length.  Earnestly.  Fervently.  Surely Peter is going to find a group of people who through prayer are expecting their prayers to be answered.  So…

He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it.  When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!”  “You’re out of your mind,” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” 

Umm?  The church doesn’t seem to be expecting their prayers to be answered at all.  They tell Rhoda that she’s crazy.  It’s the same thing that the Apostle Paul is told when he’s preaching to the unbelieving King Agrippa, “Paul, you’ve lost your marbles.  You’re out of your mind!”  Breaking free from prison doesn’t seem to be based on the great faith of the church either!  This whole group is filled with a bunch of spiritual losers.  They’re praying on the outside but on the inside not expecting their prayers to be answered.

Here’s the whole point of this message, you’re one take away if you take away nothing else: When the church prays, God breaks people free.  God works through the prayers of the church to break people free from the prisons they are in.  This isn’t because of the great faith of those praying, but because of God’s faithfulness to hear those prayers and answer them.

The story continues…

Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally went out and opened the door, they were amazed.  He motioned for them to quiet down and told them what had happened and how the Lord had led him out of jail. “Tell James and the other brothers what happened,” he said. And then he went to another place.  At dawn, there was a great commotion among the soldiers about what had happened to Peter.  Herod Agrippa ordered a thorough search for him. When he couldn’t be found, Herod interrogated the guards and sentenced them to death.

Yikes!  Do you think they were motivated before to make sure Peter didn’t escape?  It’s as if we’re being reminded that, yes, there were huge obstacles.  And yes, God did overcome them.  But let’s get back to that main point:

When the church prays, God breaks people free.  Free from addiction (drug, alcohol, porn).  Free from selfishness, judgmentalism, bitterness, hypocrisy.  Free from sin.  Free to love (God and others)!

Invitation to Pray
Today I want to ask you to pray very earnestly—in an extended way, eagerly, fervently, earnestly—for the mission of our church amidst big obstacles.  I’d like to tell you the story of where SCC has been and where it is going.  And I want to remind you that your prayers are essential for God using SCC to break people free.

In November, 2000 a rebel grandma had a vision for a new community that reached out to the unchurched, a different kind ofUnitedMethodistChurch.  Thus, SCC was born as a church plant fromHoltUnitedMethodistChurch.  Inherent in this vision was a desire to give birth to more churches in the way that Holt UMC gave birth to SCC.

In July, 2009 Barb retired and I was appointed. (By the way, today is my three-year anniversary of being at SCC!)  I began that summer and fall doing a listening tour.  I set up 40 days of prayer with the pastor.  Sarah and I had over 150 people over for desserts at the parsonage.  In November we had a congregation-wide consultation day with John Savage, a church consultant.  Out of that time of listening I was listening for where God was leading SCC.

The next spring in March, 2010 I attended a Church Planters Tune-up conference over a weekend.  While sitting in that conference, I had a moment of vision for the future of SCC that included 5 Points

1. Values: Strengthen the execution of our current core values
2. Missions: Love and serve the poor and poor in spirit in our church and community
3. Growth: Rework membership & double the navigating members
4. Ownership: Buy/build a building
5. Plant: Plant a church

Whenever I have a moment like this I’m always somewhat skeptical of whether this is my own vision or whether it’s God’s vision.  So I brought this vision back to the leadership of the church and cast it before them.  Together in prayer we sensed that this was where God was leading us.  So in April, 2010 we held a vision meeting and presented this vision to you.  Overall, there was a positive reception to this vision and that confirmed again beyond even the leadership of the church that this was God’s vision for SCC.

While the first four points above were pretty clear, the last point, Plant, was still pretty fuzzy.  But God began to work on making that more clear.  In October, 2010, I attended the Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection (the largest UMC church in theUnited States) inKansas Cityto explore their urban church plant: Rez Downtown.  I began to glimpse what a church plant looks like in a different way and this vision began to work in the background of my imagination while we worked toward accomplishing the first four vision points.

Fast forward a year to September, 2011.  I began inviting some friends of mine who were students at MSU to attend SCC.  One of those friends sent me a message on Facebook asking if we had a service on another day than Sunday.  She was particularly interested in some kind of weekday service.  I filed that request in the back of my imagination.

In November, 2011 I attended a Church Panting 101 weekend and met John Ball, the associate pastor at Brighton UMC who is planting a church called Sanctus in a pub/café inBrighton.  The pub/café allowed them to meet there for free because it was a win-win situation for everyone.  I was really impressed with this model for planting a church because it didn’t require a huge investment of money and because it put the church out in the community.  It was what some writers call “missional” (go to) rather than “attractional” (come see).

So later that month I began talking to the owner of the Biggby that I regularly worked in.  He was very open to the idea and we began talking about what a church meeting might look like in one of his stores.

In December, 2011 anyone who wanted to attend was invited to a field trip to Sanctus.  About ten of us went, leaders of SCC and others.  Some of what we saw we liked and there were others things we could do without.  But the basic idea of meeting in a café/pub continued to grab our imaginations.

In January, 2012 the Team Leaders met and sought the LORD on this vision.  What we got was an even bigger vision than we had thus dreamed: 7 Satellites in 7 venues on 7 days of the week!  Whoa God!  Slow down.  We can’t keep up with you.  But that was the vision we got.  We think that’s where God is leading us because more and more Sundays are taken by travel, sports, and work.  We also as a church have aged a decade in a decade.  If we don’t reach out to new young people, we will continue to grow more and more lopsided over the years.

In February, 2012 we held another vision meeting to share with the church this vision of 7 satellites in 7 venues on 7 days of the week.  It was a breathtaking vision.  It was hard to see how we could come close to accomplishing it.   The obstacles seemed insurmountable.  But they began coming down one by one.

In March, 2012 I somehow ended up on a conference call with 10 other churches doing similar worship venues like this around the nation (pubs, parks, old churches, nursing homes, etc.).  I was amazed to find that God was doing this same thing all around the nation.

Later that month we began to build a launch team that was made up of new Christians, non-Christians, SCC fringe, those new to SCC, and SCC regulars.  We were amazed at how many people caught hold of this vision.

In April, 2012 we held our first Launch Team meeting to begin preparing for the launch of our first venue in Biggby.  Later that month we found out that the franchise wouldn’t allow us to do live music.  So we were stuck.  And yet, in May, 2012 we received a grant from the West Michigan Conference for $22,510.  The conference thought what we were doing was worth investing in.  But we didn’t have a really viable venue anymore.

Then came an experience I will never forget.  After about four or five hours of driving around on a Saturday with one of my team members looking for possible venues, we came across Grumpy’s Diner, where several reCRASH events for our men have taken place, at about 8PM.  It was closed.  We looked at the hours posted on the door and saw that they closed at 7PM.  That seemed great.  All I had to do was go in and meet the owner and talk him into staying open two more hours after they closed and giving us that space for free.  Impossible obstacle.  But that’s what I did.  I sat down for the first time with Bill, the owner of Grumpy’s, and he immediately caught the vision.  Stay open later?  No problem.  Free?  All I want to do is cover my expenses.  Why the good will?  Because, as I came to find out, Bill is a Christian.  He not only buys into the idea as a businessman, but he buys into the idea of Christians on a common mission to reach out to new people.  Thus, the venue was set.  Monday nights at Grumpy’s Diner.  Thank you, God!  2.1 seconds left, the pass, dribble, turn, shoot…

So here’s how this launch is going to work.  We’re going to hold three preview services each on the last Monday of the month in July, August, and September.  On October 8^th we’ll launch weekly services.  Ten percent of our motivation is convenience for people who already attend SCC.  Ninety percent of our motivation is reaching out to new people.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do.  Pray.  Pray fervently.  Pray constantly.  Pray extendedly.  Pray.  In fact, we’re going to be organizing some prayer meetings around each preview and the launch.  Most will take place at my house on Sunday evenings.  Here’s the schedule:

Sunday, July 29 @ 7PM (for the July 30 – Preview)
Sunday, August 26 @ 7PM (for the August 27 – Preview)
Sunday, September 23 @ 7PM (for the September 24 – Preview)
Saturday, October 6 – 24 Hour Prayer Vigil (for the October 8 – Launch)
Sunday, October 7 @ 7PM (for the October 8 – Launch)

We’ll also need about 20-30 people to help create a critical mass of people for these previews.  You’ll hear more about all this as we get closer to those dates.

In the meantime, I’d like to invite you to pray for our church and for this venue.  The ushers are going to pass out a prayer card titled, “Life-Giving Prayers for Your Church.”  Would you put this card somewhere where you regularly sit and let it remind you to pray for our church and for this new satellite?  (If you weren’t in worship, you can contact the office to pick one up.)

We can put all the planning that we want into this satellite, but it will be through prayer that God will break people free.  Imagine the teenager without a dad finds community in the diner in his neighborhood.  Imagine the lonely individual sitting in his local diner longing for community.  He sees a sign that says a church meets in this same diner on Monday nights.  He comes and finds a curious, creative, and compassionate community that he hasn’t experienced before.  Imagine a married couple whose marriage is on the rocks.  They’ve decided to try a date night.  They go to their local diner.  While having another argument over the same thing they always argue about, they see that a church is meeting in that diner on Monday nights.  A church in a diner?  That’s just not what they expected.  They come and experience healing in their marriage.  Imagine the addict who is nursing a Monday morning hangover over a cup of coffee in his favorite diner.  He swears he won’t touch the stuff again.  But he’s made that promise before.  He’s even made that promise before God.  He got all religious at one point in his life.  But he’s since fallen off the wagon too many times to count.  But then he sees that church is meeting in this diner that very night.  A church in a diner?  That’s so unexpected that he thinks he just might show up…

Church, will you pray for these people?  Will you pray for the launch team?  Will you pray for me?  Will you pray that God will break people free?