Peter Set Free

Good morning, Springhouse.

Has it been a good day in the house so far?

It's going to continue to be.

Would you look at your neighbor and say, "The message today is for you."

I'm beginning to wonder if supporting a sports team is kind of like politics.

You want to keep both out of the pulpit.

When I walk up here, it's kind of like, you know, I don't want people to be like, "I can't

receive anything from a Packers fan."

Hey, I will become more undignified than this, okay?

Don't make me take off my shirt.

That will scare everybody.

Welcome.

If you're joining us on live screen, we are not crazy.

I am, but we're not.

We're glad that you're joining us today.

We have a ladies' retreat this coming weekend, Bloom.

And so if you are participating, if you're one of the 77 going on that, would you come

and to the altar space?

We want to pray sanity.

I mean, we want to pray over you all.

Go ahead and I know that you're going to get close at the retreat.

Go ahead and get close now.

We can go and practice right now.

Okay.

Let's do this.

While they're coming, if you are a husband of one of these wives, would you stand?

If you're a husband of one of these wives, in the name of Jesus, I ask Lord that you

would bless these men.

I pray Lord that you would touch them.

I pray Lord, if they have kids that they are raising, Lord, that they would be alive and

well when these women get back in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let our houses not be destroyed.

Now ladies, turn and face me.

Hey, this is a time of refreshing.

This is a time of community.

This is a time to dive into the word deep.

And I know that we have the most incredible women in this church, incredible moms, incredible

wives, incredible spouses.

We have the cream of the crop and I am so grateful for the time that you can carve away

and get away and soak in the word and soak with each other.

My prayer is that you don't wait until Friday to start preparing your heart, that you would

prepare your heart now so you can receive everything.

And why is that?

I'm selfish because I know that the overflow, what you get affects us.

And so I'm excited about everything God has for you guys.

Are you ready to receive this weekend?

Well let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for the women who are assembled here.

God, I thank you Lord for this retreat that's coming up.

I'm asking that the tangible move of your Holy Spirit would show up and manifest itself

this weekend.

I pray, Lord, that there would be secret moments that are unlocked, Father, secret truths that

are unlocked, Father, as these women pursue you in thirst for righteousness, thirst for

you, everything you have for them.

I ask, Lord, that you would bless them.

I ask that you would keep them.

God, I ask, Lord, that they would come back abundantly filled in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, amen, amen.

Lord bless you guys on your journey to your retreat location.

I don't know exactly where that is.

Garner Creek, okay.

Some of the guys and I might come up and throw water balloons at you.

We'll see.

Come on.

Just kidding.

Are you guys in a laughing mood today?

Yeah.

Okay.

This is not a laughing message.

I just wondered.

I just wondered.

Next Sunday we're gonna do some baptisms.

If you've never been water baptized, I encourage you to do so.

It's our next step in obedience post-salvation.

And if you need to be baptized, come see one of the pastors or elders, and we would be

happy to get you signed up to be water baptized next week.

So we'd like you to avail yourself to that.

I wanna start this morning with an apology.

I wanna start this morning with an apology.

You know, it has always been my desire, and it will continue to be my heart, my desire,

that when you leave this church every Sunday, that you would be thinking about nothing more,

nothing less than Jesus Christ.

And the move of the Holy Spirit in your life.

And a couple of weeks ago, I delivered a message, and the crux of the message, this was when

Saul was, the conversion of Saul, and the crux of the message at the end is I wanted

us to walk away with the understanding that the Holy Spirit empowers us to do hard things.

He empowers us to do hard things.

And at the end of that message, I shared a little bit of a story with you guys.

I got vulnerable with you, something fresh that had happened to me.

If some of you were here, you remember that story that I shared.

It was difficult for me to get through because I was still working through those emotions

and things, but I do believe the Lord wanted me to share that story with you.

However, I was speaking to somebody who's real close to me this week, and the Lord really

kind of convicted my heart and said, you know, I needed to address this from the platform.

And I wanted to apologize to you because there are some people in here that are closely connected

to me.

And when I share a story that's a little bit vague, and I say there's somebody close to

me that has done something to me, I understand that that might render some of you wondering,

who was it?

You know, who was that?

Who did that?

You know, and if you're close to me, you may be wondering, am I one of the ones who did

that, you know, that particular thing?

And I will tell you as a pastor, guys, I pray that this is always the case.

I will never bring some type of story like that with the person sitting here in the room.

That is not how we operate.

It's not how I operate.

But if you left that day thinking of anything else but this, I humbly apologize to you.

My heart is I want us to leave here thinking of Him, thinking of Jesus.

Is that good?

Okay.

So forgive me for that.

And with that, would you stand with me?

We're going to read Acts chapter 12 today.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

And the first service was wimpy.

Would you guys read like you're awake and have had a couple shots of espresso?

Holy Spirit espresso this morning, okay?

All right, here we go.

"It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending

to persecute them.

He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

When he saw that this was met with approval from among the Jews, he proceeded to seize

Peter also.

This happened during the festival of unleavened bread.

After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads

of four soldiers each.

Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him."

Let's read that last part.

"But the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers

bound with two chains, and centuries stood guard at the entrance.

Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell.

He struck Peter on the side and woke him up.

'Quick, get up,' he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrist.

Then the angel said to him, 'Put on your clothes and sandals,' and Peter did so.

'Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,' the angel told him.

Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing

was really happening.

He thought he was seeing a vision.

They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city.

It opened for them by itself, and they went through it.

When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

Then Peter came to himself and said, 'Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent

his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were

hoping would happen.'

When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called

Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.

Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door.

When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed, she ran back without opening

it and exclaimed, 'Peter is at the door!'

'You're out of your mind,' they told her.

When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, 'It must be his angel.'

But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.

Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought

him out of prison.

'Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,' he said, and then left for another

place.

In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of

Peter.

After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined

the guards and ordered that they be executed.

Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you that it brings life.

I thank you that it brings joy.

I thank you, Lord, that it is true and we can count on it.

We love you today.

Change our lives.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Well God is super faithful, and I'm glad that we don't have to contend with Herod, who's

executing people left and right for following the way and his guards.

And man, this Herod dude seems kind of aggressive, don't you think?

And we're looking at this story in Acts chapter 12, and as I disclosed a few weeks ago, we've

Acts 12 · chapter mention

kind of back-stepped.

So we were in 13 last week.

We're 12 today.

We're actually going to go back to 11 next week and meet a man named Barnabas, and then

we're going to jump back to where we were at 14.

And so it's going to be good.

So if you're keeping up with us, read chapter 11 for next week.

But in today's passage, we're looking at this little, this part of scripture where Peter

is being thrown into jail for basically sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, for sharing

the actual truth, the way they called it, of Jesus Christ.

Now the motivation for Herod, though, wasn't necessarily that he was sharing the gospel,

though that was the crux of what was going on.

Herod's motivation for throwing him into jail was that the crowd, the Jews, were favorable

toward the persecution that he was throwing on those who were proclaiming the way.

And so Herod said, "Hey, these people rallied around me really like the fact that I'm persecuting

these people.

I'm going to go after Peter as well, because Peter is well known in this, and we're going

to really seize him and persecute him."

Don't you know that you can succumb real easily to the crowd if you allow yourself to?

You can succumb real easily to what the crowd wants you to do, right, wrong, or in between,

when the voice tickles your ears and it really makes a difference in your fame and your popularity

and how you feel.

And Herod was succumbed to that, and he threw Peter in this jail.

Now I've not been to prison before.

Some of you have.

And I'm glad that those who were in prison that are here today are no longer in prison.

And I'm sure if you've been in prison before, you're glad that you're here this morning

as well.

Prison isn't fun.

Prison's not supposed to be fun, right?

Prison strips you of your liberties.

It strips you of your freedom.

And it's not a place that you want to be.

Today I want to talk about, using this passage, I want to talk about three things.

I want to talk about prison, prayer, and presence.

Prison, prayer, and presence.

Peter was thrown into prison because of his overt explanation of the gospel, the way of

Jesus Christ.

Now I discern that a majority of you, if we're thrown into prison, it's not going to be because

we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's probably going to be because we were doing some things that probably were quite

opposite of following Jesus Christ, right?

But might I suggest that there are internal prisons that we put ourselves in that render

us incapable of delivering the gospel.

There are internal prisons that we lock ourselves up into all of the time as believers.

We lock ourselves into these internal prisons that render us incapable of delivering the

gospel.

This is a place called Alcatraz.

Has anybody heard of Alcatraz?

My buddy James and I, we were in the West Coast last year and we stopped by this island

and visited this place.

And it was not fun.

I mean, it was cool to look at, but it did not look like a place that I would want to

spend a substantial amount of time.

And if you know anything about Alcatraz, what I learned was it was considered one of the

toughest prisons in the world and housed some of the most dangerous criminals in America.

From what I understand, Alcatraz wasn't just a prison, but it was the prison of prisons

where prisoners were treated extremely harshly.

On the right, there is a sign there, which you can't probably read because of the glare,

but it says this, "Man was never intended to live as a caged animal."

Man was never intended to live as a caged animal.

Now I have to imagine if they're putting that type of sign up, it kind of gives you an inkling

to how the prisoners were treated at Alcatraz.

Now can you imagine living your life stripped of all of your freedoms in that way?

In other words, after church today, we're going to have some handcuffs and we're going

to walk you out to a car and from that point forward, you don't see your family anymore.

You don't get to say anything about your life and what you're going to do, where you're

going to go, what you're going to eat.

You're going to be told those things you're going to do and you're going to live in a

little cell like this and every part of your life is going to be regimented and controlled

for you.

That sounds like a nightmare.

It sounds like a nightmare.

We were not made for prison externally and we were not created to be in a prison internally

either.

Internally either.

Our internal prisons will always bind us far more than the external ones.

I want to say that again.

Our internal prisons will always bind us far more than our external ones.

So Peter is in prison and Herod is not joking about Peter being in this prison.

He's got two soldiers sleeping right next to him.

He's bound by two chains.

They got guards at the gate.

They got guards on the outer entrance.

They're going to make sure Peter stays right where he is.

Might I suggest to you that there might be people and voices in your life that are trying

to keep you captive to the internal prison that you've created for yourself.

They want to make sure that you are under lock and key and dare I even go a step further

to say one of those voices is probably your own and it is the loudest.

And it is the loudest.

The prisons that we take residence in are not prisons that we are supposed to succumb

to or not prisons we are supposed to live in.

We are not supposed to be slaves to our sins.

Salvation.

Jesus Christ came not to just save us so that we can live in eternity with him.

He came so that we could experience abundant life now and be liberated from the clutches

of the world.

He came so that we can live in absolute freedom and not have to worry about living in the

sin patterns that were in our in our former life.

Now you may never find yourself in an external prison but the residence of the internal prison

has rendered yourselves a lifelong sentence.

You have allowed yourself to say I am going to be a lifelong resident of the prison that

I've created in my internal being and God says no more.

I believe the Holy Spirit says it's time for you to come out of that cell.

It's time for you to come out of that prison and I want to tell you church today as I was

praying I believe that some of you are in that cell and you've been wanting to come

out.

You've been wanting to be liberated and I believe today is your day of liberation and

freedom.

Amen?

And so let's look at some of the types of prisons that we often find ourselves in.

Has anybody ever found themselves in a prison of fear?

Now I'm not talking about unbelievers I'm talking to the believers in the house.

The prison of fear the prison of fear says this fear says I do not make any decisions

based on my faith and hope in a loving caring God who breathes stars but I make my decisions

based on how it affects me in the moment because I'm scared of what's going to happen.

A fear-based cell taking up residence in the jail of a fear.

A fear-based lifestyle says I'm not going to trust what God has to say.

I'm going to evaluate my circumstances and my decisions based on what's happening in

real time.

But we know that the word says without faith it is impossible to please God.

But some of us have been living with fear in a prison of fear.

Some of us live in a prison of doubt.

Doubt says I know what the word of God says.

I know the truth but I don't believe that it's actually going to happen.

Doubt says I don't care what it looks like or sounds like or feels like I can't get my

mind around that I can actually make steps and takes actions and do things in keeping

with what I know to be true because I doubt the reality of its existence.

I doubt the reality of its truth.

Some of us are living in a prison of doubt.

Some of us live in a prison of insecurity.

I've lived in this prison and sometimes I like to dawn the door of this prison.

Insecurity says you're not worth it.

You're not worth it.

That person who continues to tell you that they love you because they actually do don't

believe it because they really don't.

This God who says incredible things about you don't believe him because you don't know

what you've done.

You know where you've been.

And so you operate from a place of insecurity.

You're not secure in who you are, more importantly whose you are.

And so you live in this jail cell of insecurity.

Some of us live in a jail prison of pride.

Pride says I don't need your help.

I don't need anybody to help me.

And what pride also says is I'm never wrong.

At least that's what I want everybody to think.

Have you ever been in an argument with someone and perpetually they are never wrong?

I've got some people in my life that I can barely count on one hand that I've ever really

heard them say I was wrong about that.

That's pride.

Some of us live here in this place not allowing anybody to come in because it might show some

type of weakness.

Prison of pride.

Some of us are living in a prison of lust.

This doesn't have to be sexual.

Lust is anything that permeates your mind and thoughts and your actions and says I'm

gonna do whatever it takes to get what I desire in my flesh.

Whatever it is that I desire I'm gonna manipulate the situation to get it.

I want it so much more than anything else that I'm thinking about.

It's constantly on my mind.

I am lusting toward it.

Some of us are in prisons of lust and I believe that the Lord wants to liberate you from that

today.

Proprietate you from a prison of lust.

Some of us are contending with a prison of self-worth.

You say to yourself I don't know how in the world they would see me in that type of position

or how I could serve in that capacity because I'm not worth it.

I can't do it.

I'm not good enough.

And you continually perpetually lie to yourself while everybody around you is speaking, trying

truth into your life.

You combat it with this lie.

I'm not worth it.

I'm not worth enough.

And you've lived in this prison for a long time.

Some of you struggle and are in prison of image.

Everywhere I go I'm going to make sure to control what everybody sees and hears about

me.

I'm gonna make sure that the way I present myself is the way I want it to be presented

and let my spouse or my kids say something contrary, I'm gonna be after them privately.

We will knock everybody out of the way to make sure that this stays exactly where it

needs to be because if this is out of sorts, then again I might seem weak or I might seem

the way that I don't want people to see me.

A prison of image.

Some of us have been contending and living in a prison of shame.

It says I have made a mistake.

Shame says I am the mistake.

And some of you have lived and contended for time after time, year after year, believing

that you are a mistake and that is not true.

But you allow yourself to be confined in these prison walls and you operate from a life of

I am a mistake so therefore I could never be used.

I could never be free.

When you're in this prison of shame, some of you are in a prison of loneliness.

You have made up in your mind that nobody wants to be with you, around you, for you.

Nobody wants to hang out with you.

Nobody wants to be in community with you.

You are the exception to the rule.

You cannot dive into community because you would be ostracized.

You're not like everybody else.

You are in a cell of loneliness and you allow yourself to sit there all alone and isolated

and you grab a bunch of vices to soothe the pain and the hurt.

Can I tell you, you were not created to be alone.

You were not created to be alone.

And just in case you're up there saying, "Well, phew, I got away with it.

He didn't put mine up there."

Some of you are in a jail of sin.

Sin is anything that separates, sin separates us from God but sin is anything that's against

God's will.

It's those vices that you go after.

It's those things, it's walking out of disobedience to the one who created you.

It's ignoring the fact that you're in active sin and acting like it's not there and hoping

that nobody else sees it.

You're in this jail and you're allowing it to run your life.

You're allowing it to affect your life.

Now this is a jail and it's pretty horrible, all of these things.

It's not laughable.

It's horrible.

And if I am really authentic and real with you, I could say I'm contending with some

of these things up here and I would hope that you would be honest enough to say you are

as well.

Would you raise your hand please if you believe that you have sinned in the last seven days?

Could you look around the church please?

Me too.

Let me just say in the last hour, I probably would put my hand up as well.

Because we are broken, the word tells us this.

The word says for the one who says he never sins, he is a liar.

He is a liar.

We need the Holy Spirit to help us not to gravitate towards sin but I'm not just talking

about gravitating towards sin, touching it and running away.

I'm talking about living in a prison cell of this sin.

Living in a prison cell where your life, how do we know?

We talk often about the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

How do we know that others are living in these ways?

Because these also yield fruit.

These also yield fruit.

So sometimes I can look right in your life and know you're dealing with insecurity.

You're in a prison of self-worth.

You're in a prison of image.

You're in a prison of all of these things.

And it's so interesting to me church.

It's so interesting to me that the things that are on here that we don't contend with,

that we see in other people, how often we treat those people so poorly like they've

done something so wrong because we don't understand and we can't empathize where they are.

Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to use us to speak truth into their lives.

Instead of listening, I want to actually say that I believe that the Lord will bring people

in your path who are struggling with things on this list that you don't struggle with.

Because if you empathize with them and you come from your experience, then you come from

your flesh and you give them recommendations and advice based on you and your flesh, not

the Holy Spirit.

But let somebody come to you contending with one of these things that you're not necessarily

contending with.

Guess who you have to hear from to give counsel, the Holy Spirit.

And listen, if Hannah's dealing with something, she doesn't need to hear something from Kevin.

She needs to hear a word from the Lord.

If Katie's dealing with something, she needs to hear a word from the God who can liberate

her from the cage.

She doesn't need to hear your opinion, your advice, your experience.

She doesn't need to hear what Oprah says.

And so, and so we get in here and not only do we touch the sin, we decide to get into

the jail and not just get into the jail, because with just getting in, there's a door that

opens.

We get into this thing.

We get into this thing and we put a lock on it.

And we make sure that it is locked up and now I'm stuck.

And now I'm stuck.

And here I am and when you see me, you see this.

But on the inside is all of this.

Now how is it we can have a church this size with all of us putting our hands in the air

saying I've contended with some of this stuff.

I'm contending with some of this stuff.

I'm in the middle of all of this stuff.

And not be ready and willing and prepared to pray for those who are in the church.

The word says, and I don't have my clicker because I'm in jail, but you could probably

click it for me up there maybe.

Is that up there?

So Peter, the next slide now.

So it says this.

Yes, so Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Now here's my issue.

Here's my big issue.

The word says also, go and click the next slide, the prayer of a righteous person is

powerful and effective.

Do we believe that?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Okay.

So if that is true, click the next slide, we must pray with expectation.

See here's what happened.

Peter gets set free from jail and he goes to the house and Rhoda goes to the door and

she's so shocked that he's there.

She forgets to open the door.

She runs back and she says, Peter's at the door.

It says that he goes to the house where they were praying for him.

He gets to the house and they say to Rhoda, you have lost your mind.

Guys, don't pray for me unless you expect this sovereign God to move on my behalf.

If you're going to pray for me, pray as if I'm in this jail and you understand what it's

like to be locked up and chained up.

I need to be set free.

You need to be set free.

Oh, I pray for you, dear Jesus.

I pray to you.

Touch them and just let them just, oh, just rest Lord.

Let just rest your, amen.

No, fervent prayer.

This is a matter of life and death.

Do you love me?

Are you praying?

Do you know if you know that I'm struck, do you love me?

I'm in jail.

I'm in prison right now.

God has so much for my life right now.

Yeah, I'm in jail and you're just, bless you.

I just thank you Lord Jesus for Kevin.

I hope he has a good day.

Fluff his pillow in that jail cell.

Hope macaroni's not cold.

Well, I mean, I need some people who love me enough that wanna see my life one, freed

in Christ Jesus.

The church fervently was praying for Peter, but they did not expect for Peter to be set

free.

Guys, are you praying for one another, asking the Lord, do everybody raise their hand?

And so Lord, I just, I'm asking Lord right now, in the name of Jesus, that I would be

set free from this jail.

I'm asking in the name of Jesus that somebody would be bold enough to come and set me free

from this.

Lord I'm asking that somebody would just have the confidence to come up on this stage.

And set me free from this cage.

I'm just praying that you would give this man the discernment to find the key on the

table.

Lord I'm asking that I be set free from this cage, that the gates of hell will not prevail

over my life.

That I can dance over the grave that I once was in.

That I could be liberated because somebody loved me enough to hear the cry, to hear the

Lord and actually get up and do something about it.

Some of you have, the Lord has been putting people on your radar.

He said, you're praying, you're like, man, this person keeps coming up on my radar.

He's on my radar.

She's on my radar.

And then, oh, I just happened to run into them.

I happened to run into them.

And you keep praying.

And the Lord said, shut up.

Go talk to them.

Stop talking to me.

He's put you, he's put them on your mind because here's the thing.

Guys, some of us need to do this right here.

I know you're not ready to come out of this jail cell.

I can't force you out, but I'm going to sit here until you do.

I'm going to labor with you.

I'm going to pray for you.

I'm going to provide encouragement to you.

You know, some of the greatest testimonies I've seen in my life are people who sat with

folks in the muck and mire knowing that Jesus could rescue them, sat with them.

And when they hit rock bottom, guess who they reached out to?

The person who was sitting right next to them.

The person who didn't ostracize them or push them away.

We have to have people in our lives who are willing to pray fervently for us and sit with

us in the middle of our cell, in the middle of our prison.

Notice I didn't get in the prison with the person, but I sat beside them.

Why?

Because I too have been in prison and I know what it's like and they'll know I don't want

you to experience that anymore.

And I've got the truth.

I've got the keys.

If you'll just give it to Jesus, if you'll just give it to the Lord, he will move in

your life.

We are a praying church.

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice in the morning.

I lay my request before you and I wait expectantly.

This is my puppy, both of them.

I actually have three, but these are two.

Yesterday I left the house at nine o'clock.

I had left both of them outside in the front yard.

I forgot about it.

I came back three hours later and they were gone.

Emmett, the one on the right, he's not yet trained.

He has no idea where we live.

All this, that's Max, he kind of knows what he's doing, you know?

And I got home and I thought to myself, Lord, if my girls find out that I've lost their

puppies, I'm going to prison.

I'm going to jail.

And I started to pray.

I started to pray.

And I texted my friend and I said, hey, listen, I lost the puppies.

Would you please pray?

And you know what his response was?

I'm praying right now, text.

And the next one was, they will be back.

I'm praying with expectation.

I'm not just sending you the little prayer emoji as a little courtesy.

I got your text.

I'm not saying to you I'm praying for you, but I don't ever talk to the Lord.

Do you know when you say to somebody I'm praying for you and you don't pray for him, you might

as well just look at God and say, I'm lying to you, God.

I'm just lying to you.

Because prayer is a conduit to Jesus Christ, a conduit to the Lord.

So when I say I'm praying for you, I think the Lord's going, well, what's up?

What's up?

And guess what?

God knows how to read emojis.

You send those praying hands.

I think they're actually like high five hands, but we use them as praying hands.

Is that right?

I don't know.

But you know what you're meaning when you send it, right?

The dogs came back after the girls prayed.

They prayed with expectation and the dogs came back.

Do you believe God can do what you're asking him to do?

Do you believe that God can do what you are asking him to do?

The word says this, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and

forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Guys, can I tell you, I need mercy in my life.

I need mercy in my life.

We are a praying church.

I was saying before, we pray on Wednesday mornings and the Lord had told me, he said,

if you gather the staff of the pastors will gather together and pray, then I will render

peace to the ministries with which they lead.

So the pastors get together and we pray for you and hear the words this past Wednesday

that the pastors and the leaders came up with to pray over this church.

The Allen said holy consecration for our body.

Carol said freedom.

Will said a pursuit of righteousness, peace and joy.

Jody said a synchronizing of what's happening in each other's lives.

Dana said a deeper relationship with one another.

Doug said reverence for the Lord Almighty and worship.

Sherri said families, that they would cast their burdens on him.

Jonathan said that we would be a church that prepares for his presence.

Barbie said the foundations are coming and they're gonna be strengthened in the roots.

These are words that we are praying and expecting God to move upon for you all and for us.

We have access to a sovereign God.

We have access to talk to a sovereign God.

We have an access to the liberator.

Why in the world are we not talking to him?

I want to be one who talks more to God than talks about him.

We want to be people who are in his presence hearing his voice.

We wanna be in his presence hearing his voice.

So we talked about the prison, we talked about prayer.

We need to be a praying church.

We need to be people who are praying for one another.

And the third thing is presence.

I'm not talking about the presence of the Lord,

though there's no better goal than to be in the presence of the Lord.

The presence I'm talking about here is presence in each other's lives.

Because God gives us a pathway of freedom from our sin.

And you know what it is?

It's confession.

It's confession and repentance.

That is the pathway.

Well, who are we confessing to?

Well, let's see what the scripture says.

First, if we confess our sins, he, who is he?

Jesus.

Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So therefore, first of all, we're cleansed from unrighteousness.

But who in the world are we confessing our sin to?

Confess your sins to?

Each other.

Say it again.

Each other.

Say it again.

Each other.

Look at each other and say each other.

Each other.

Confess your sins to each other and what?

Pray for each other.

So this is what it, it doesn't say confess your sin to each other

and then go blast them on Facebook for what they told you.

Confess your sin to one another

and then text your friend, gossip, like,

they told me they did.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other

so that why?

So that you may be healed.

Who needs to be healed?

Raise your hand.

Everybody in this church needs to be healed from something.

I wanna be healed.

Now, get those arms working.

Raise your hand again if you've sinned

in the last seven days.

Keep 'em up.

Now keep your hand up if you confess that sin to somebody.

Okay.

Now answer this question.

Raise your hand if you wanna be set free.

I've just given you the pathway.

Confess your sin to one another.

Pray so that you might be healed.

Now, you don't necessarily like I did,

you don't have to be, I mean, you could

and the Lord might bless it.

Guys, I'm serving with the sin of fear.

Pray for me right now, okay?

I've got a friend in my life that I made a commitment

to him and the Lord and I said, any question he asks me,

there's no question off the table,

I'm gonna be completely honest and shoot straight for it.

Why?

'Cause I need somebody in my life

that I can be bare all and be completely transparent

no matter how hard it is because I want to walk

in complete freedom and healing

and I want the mercy of God in my life.

Do you have someone in your life

that you can be transparent with?

Guys, we don't need to be fake.

Everyone in this church raised their hand

on all of these things.

So for us to act as if we don't have stuff to take care of,

stuff to walk out together, stuff to encourage one another

about, stuff to pray with one another, that is bogus.

That is baloney because we all raised our hand.

And I don't want you living in destruction.

God has liberation and freedom for your life.

And how much glory does it bring God when we bare all,

when we're vulnerable enough to say,

I'm wrong, I'm missing it here, I need his presence here.

Guess who gets honored and glorified in that?

The Lord Jesus Christ 'cause he's the only one

who can fix it.

Never negate the power of showing up.

If you believe somebody needs you in that moment,

this is my favorite thing.

Have you ever been to a restaurant and the waitress,

y'all can come back out here and start playing music.

Listen, have you ever been to a restaurant

and it's clear, okay, there's four or five

or six of you at the table, all the drinks are empty,

and the server comes up and says,

would you all like refills?

Has that ever happened to anybody?

My flesh wants to go, well duh.

That's my flesh, I don't say that.

I tip her really well, you know, or him really well.

But I'm just like, it's an obvious question, okay?

It's an obvious question.

Guys, if you see a need that somebody has,

you see the fruit of this stuff happening,

why don't you just show up?

What does it look like for you to just show up?

Like literally just arrive on the scene.

I know this is awkward, but I'm here

because I feel like the Holy Spirit's told me to come.

Man, anytime you put that sentence in there,

let me tell you, the Holy Spirit's gonna boom, illuminate.

Right?

And it's not to come in like this,

I'm here because the Holy Spirit told me.

No, it's, I'm here because the Holy Spirit told me to come.

I wanna help you.

He sent me your way.

You don't have to be lonely anymore.

You don't have to be insecure.

I'm gonna tell you I love you 5,000 times

until you get it in your brain.

You are worth it, not because you're all that,

it's because he's all that and he lives inside you.

That vice you're contending with,

it's only leading to death, don't you see?

Your health is declining, your bills are expanding,

you're ruining stuff all around you,

people are like, did you not see it?

I'm not going anywhere.

Or you can lay on your couch and text them

while you're watching football, whatever.

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

If the Son sets you free, you'll be free.

In other words, when Jesus Christ opens this door,

there's no more locking it.

There's no more locking, he has opened the door.

So for me to go in here, I'm choosing to be here

because I've been given the freedom to not live here.

But I'm attracted to the decorations

I put up when I lived here.

The bed felt great that I slept in when I was in here.

And so I'm wooed back into this place

and I need some friends to jump on the stage

and pull me out and say, you don't belong there, Kevin,

get it together.

Come on.

He loves you and he wants you to be free.

And he did this so that we could be free.

So the message today is for you, for your internal prison,

but it's also because there are people around you

who need you, who need you to listen to the Holy Spirit.

Can you imagine finding out?

Can you imagine, I mean, I don't know if it works this way,

but just go with me for a second.

Can you imagine finding out the Lord saying,

hey, I wanted to free that person for three years

and you had the keys the whole time

and I just don't understand

why you didn't go unlock the gate.

The hell that they had to experience

because you were just walking around with the keys.

When I was up there praying in the prison saying,

Lord, would somebody be confident enough, bold enough

to come and free me from this?

Everybody heard the same message.

Everybody had the same opportunity.

Very few moved.

Let us not be a church where very few move.

We wanna be a church where we move

and we obey the Holy Spirit,

where Jesus can be exemplified in our life,

where he can be acknowledged in our life,

he could be the Lord of our life.

And remember, just like the Ananias and Sapphira story,

when he purifies his church,

numbers are added to the kingdom.

And I wanna see numbers added to the kingdom.

And I want us to get out of the way.

Would you guys stand this morning?

We're gonna worship.

Would the prayer warriors please come forward.

Now,

I don't mean any sense of the word of manipulation in this,

but I just wanna tell you,

I saw every hand in this place go up.

And so for us to walk out of here,

acting as if we didn't need to have an encounter

or a touch or something from the Lord,

again, in my mind, is bogus.

I need to be in this.

Guys, prepping for this message is horrible

'cause I get to face everything that I'm going through.

I have to come down here.

I need to pray with some people.

I gotta be set free from some things.

I need some liberation in my life.

And chances are, I believe you do too.

And so you can choose to leave out of here,

stay in the jail cell,

or you can kick the door down down here.

That's one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is,

some of you have been convicted this morning

because the Lord placed the name in your life

of somebody you know you should have been ministering to,

you should have been in their life,

you should have been in their business, all this stuff,

and you haven't done a thing.

Well, guess what?

You can come down here and believe for them as well.

But I think a lot of us have some business to do,

and we've got time to take care of business

so we can walk out into that world

lighter and freer than we've ever been.

Let's worship.

(gentle music)