I'm Going Out of My Mind

Obedience that creates freedom, freedom from what, freedom from needing

to know the outcome before you take the step. So

if he doesn't get up, the chain stay on. And

if you don't do what God has told you to

do right now, God can't do what he's going to

do that you don't know he's going to do. God

already intended to take his chains off. But if he

waits till the chains fall off to get up, he's

never gonna get up because the chains aren't gonna fall off.

When I get my financial situation in order, I'll tell

you I'm gonna put God first, because I've heard about that,

and raising the Lord and putting him first with the

first fruits of my womb and.

All the and all the things that the Bible says,

I'm gonna do it. No, you're not not if you

won't do it with a little. Because he who is

faithful in a little so is that first step is

getting up, Get up, and the chains will fall off.

Get up, and you say, God, take the chains.

Off, and I'll get up.

No, get up, and the change will fall up. And

I love this part because there is no indication in

this text that Peter had faith to be free from prison.

All he's doing is going through the motions, and sometimes

that's all you can do. Sometimes all you can do

is come to church and fake, I mean, faith it

until you feel it. Now, most of us wouldn't have

gotten a miracle if we were in Act chapter twelve,

if we were in here at a grip of the

first prison, we'd stay right there because we wouldn't. We

wouldn't follow instructions until we knew details. We'd be like,

get up, Why who are you? Let me see some identification? No, no, no,

is this God? Is this? No? No? He Just get up.

Get up, And when you're in a place of rest,

you're able to respond without overthinking it. Just get up.

Some of y'all think too hard when we're worshiping in here.

You know you're thinking too hard.

You're thinking too hard. I'm gonna see you a victim.

I can't sing that.

I don't know if I really am.

You need to start singing it so you can start

seeing it. Because faith is the substance of things hoped

for and the evidence of things not seeing.

So help me show him God.

The old Peter, Remember the old Peter who argued all

the time the old Peter would have been like, get

up for what?

God?

For what? I don't understand. I was getting some sleep

while I interrupt my sleep. I'm trying to get in

a good and I sleep. I got a big day tomorrow.

It's a really important day.

I need to be sharp so I can offend myself.

But he just did it in this place. In fact,

that's exactly what the Bible said. It's a quick get up.

And the chains fell off, ver safe. And then the

angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals.

He has still not told him his destination. But faith

is getting dressed even when you don't know where you're going.

And Peter did so he got dressed with no destination.

Is this God, I hope? So no details, just obedience,

not a Peter, get up, get dressed. You know how

God knocks just little things, and you know it's him,

You know it's him, Just little things. The littlest thing

can happen. Put on your cloak and sandals. To me,

this all, this whole, this whole thing seems like very small.

Like I don't mind getting out of here in my underwear.

If we're getting out of prison, why am I getting

dressed for it. But but that's that's us trying to

make sense of things. This is a different kind of freedom.

This is not a freedom that can be achieved in

your mind. The Angel said to him, put on your

clothes and sandals, and Peter did so. Just that simple,

wrap your cloak around you, and follow me, the angel

told him. And notice what Peter didn't ask, where are

we going? Just follow I'm just following Grace, I'm just

following Mercy. I'm just I'm just following cooperating with God.

I'm getting my heart in harmony with what he's doing

in this season. I'm coming into agreement and acceptance of

the situation that he's placed me in. Step by step.

You know the thing on your GPS where you know

if you put it on, at least on mind. I

use Google Maps looking for a sponsorship, where it just

tells you the next turn. But then if you click

on and you can see details, and that'll tell you

every turn. And for somebody like me that has no

sense of direction, I never put on the details because

it'll get me lost. I can't think seven turns ahead.

I just need to know the next one. We all,

like sheep, have gone astray, And so all Peter has

to do is the next thing. That's all you have

to do, the next thing. Anything else is too much

right now. You don't have to be Peter to be

in prison. You don't have to be some important apostle

to be in prison. Addiction is a prison, Depression is

a prison. You don't have to be Peter to be

in prison. Mindsets are a prison, Rumination is a prison.

Trauma can be a prison. Prison. Isolation can be a prison.

Never really engaging in real relationships can be a prison.

Hiding and concealing it can be a prison. But if

you've been in prison lately, all you need to do

is the next thing. You can't predict the path of

your freedom. You can only respond to the light that

you have that's shone in yourself. And so when Peter

got up, this is a very profound moment in Peter's life,

and he doesn't know it yet. For all he knows,

he's just dreaming. He doesn't even know yet. Read it

in the passage with Me. 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. You know, most of the time you

don't even know that it was God until after the fact.

While you're in it, it feels so confusing and so

uns and you're like, I don't even know, I don't

know what this is right now. It is only after

you have been through it that Romans eight twenty eight

makes sense and then you can say all things work

together for the good. But it's hard to say that

in the process of it. And Peter's just going through

the motions. He's just worshiping, he's just moving, he's just obeying,

he's just doing the next practical thing. And then he

then he kind of has this moment when he passes

verse ten, the first and second Guards and came to

the iron gate leading to the city. And WA's what

happened to the gate? It opened for them by itself.

You know, God will do for you what you can't

do for you. Now your uncle clap for this one,

but he won't do for you what you can do

for you. So God opened the gate for Peter. But

watch what Peter did when they had walked through it.

They walked through it. Angel didn't carry Peter through the

gate piggyback style, Peter's too big to be carried through

the gate.

Now you got to go through it.

Do me a real truth favor. Look at your neighbor

with eye contacts, say you got to go through it.

You know how many people that are listening to me

preach right now are standing and knocking at a door

that's already opened. The gate was open. You can stand

there and knock all you want, but you got to

go through it. And every second we spend not going

through it, every second that we spend wishing that it

wasn't there, every second we spend waiting for something miraculous

to happen, It already happened. It already happened. The worst

thing that could happen already happened on the cross. It

was already transformed into resurrection power in your spirit. So

it already happened, is already open, But you've got to

go through it. And when you go through it, that

is the proof that you trust God even while you're

in it, that you stay in the fire, that you

stay in the furnace, and you still survive. And he

walked through the gate. Now the power of God did

not prevent the attack, but it protected Peter within it,

and it enabled him to go through it. God is

going to get me through this. I don't know how,

I don't know when, but God is going to get

me through this. The gate is open, the way is made.

Faith has already provided for me the grace that I need.

And when they hid walked the length tenby of one street,

suddenly the angel left him and now he's got to

figure out where to go, and suddenly wakes up and

he comes to this moment that I believe we come

to sometimes when when God knocks on our situation, or

when the when the enemy knocks to come get us,

but God won't let him. He comes to this realization.

He's like, I gotta go, and I wonder what door

he's gonna knock on. See, it's really important that you

know where to knock when you're in trouble. That's how

some of us got our hearts broken and our minds

messed up because we knocked on the wrong door. And

you know what was really weird about it. Sometimes we

run back to the same door that disappointed us last time,

knocking on it as if there's anything inside that's crazy.

And Christians will do this, they'll pray the devil away

and knock when and he knocks on the door, leave

it wide open for him to come in, and put

out a fruit basket and welcome him as a guest.

With the monogram towel.

Just leaving yourself wide open to everything. But when you

run around knocking on the wrong doors and the wrong

people and the wrong patterns, and you keep going back

to that place, it's very important that you know where

to knock. And thank God that Peter knew where to knock.

See, he knew.

About John Mark's mother's house. Apparently this was the same

place that they had been praying for James, and he

knew that if he would knock on that door there

would be some praying people. I want to say something

to everybody who came to church today. Okay, I don't

know what your life is like right now, and I

don't know what you need God to do, but you

knocked on the right door today, because everything you need

is in the presence of God. Come on, look at

somebody say, you knocked on the right door today. God

has God what you need. The fridge is full, the

bet is me. There's a prayer meeting going on, there's

a fire in the kitchen. So watch this. I gotta

show you something. Somebody say, knock, knock. Peter said, Now

I know without a doubt it was the Lord coming

into my prison cell. It wasn't Herod's intention that brought

me here. It was God's purpose. The Lord sent his

angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything

the Jewish people were anticipating. You know what he was saying.

Herod came knocking, He came to get me. It came

to kill me, but it couldn't have me. That's how

I know God was with me because it came for me,

but it couldn't kill me. It came for me, but

it couldn't take me out. It came for me, but

it couldn't have me. And now I know that God

was with me. And when this had dawned on in

verse twelve, he went to the house of Mary, the

mother of John also called Mark, where many people had

gathered and were praying. Ended amazing that they were still praying,

still asking, still seeking, still knocking, because like, really, I

don't know if I would have if I prayed for

James and they cut his head off. I don't know

if I would have faith to pray for Peter. I

think a lot of us pray for things, or hope

for things, or secretly wish for things that we really

don't believe could even happen. We sing things that we

no longer believe really happened. We sing a freedom, but

we learned a long time ago to stop dreaming about it.

And Peter is out of prison, but they don't know

it yet, but they're still praying. Ah. That takes faith, man,

It takes faith to pray for Peter when you just

lost James. It takes faith to believe in this situation,

because you know, when you've seen him move the mountain

and you believe he can do it again, it's one thing.

But when that.

Mountain is still there and you got to pray about

that one, this is a difficult moment.

And yet it.

Didn't stop their prayer, It didn't stop their persistence.

It didn't stop.

So Peter shows up and they're still praying. And when

he got there verse thirteen, the Bible says, Peter.

My knuckle is so sore, I'm gonna have to ice

it before the eleven thirty Peter, Well, come on, this

is Peter you know, Peter's loud.

Peter. Peter's not knocking like Abby. Peter's banging on the

door because they're still looking for him. He just broke

out of prison. You knock different when you're desperate. You

pray different when you know you need God. Peter knocked

at the outer entrance and a servant girl named Rhoda

came to answer the door while they were praying for Peter.

And he's at the door. Their prayer request is standing

in the form of an answer on the other side

of the door. And when looking forwardeen, when she recognized

Peter's voice, I think she recognized as not and nobody

knocking as loud as Peter. Nobody knocks like Peter. Nobody

is persistent like Peter. Nobody makes it through denying them

three times and comes back to preach on Pentecost. My

failures taught me persistence. Nobody knocks like Peter. Nobody knocks

like the one who knows that even through my mistakes,

God is working the miracles in this moment.

Nobody knocks like Peter.

And when she recognized his voice, Hey, she was so

overjoyed that she ran back without opening it and told

the people Peter is at the door. It's Peter, y'all.

Hey guys, it's Peter. Hey guys, Peter wrote as a

fourteen year old white girl in my mind, Hey guys,

just Peter, and watch what they say. You're out of

your mind. Well that's a compliment because my mind has

been my prison all along. That's that's what I've been

trying to get, is out of my mind.

That's what's making.

Me miserable, being in my mind and my thoughts, for

his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and his ways

are higher than my ways.

Out of my mind.

Rhoda said no, no, She kept insisting that it was so,

and they said, watch how much faith they had must

be his angel. It was easier for them to believe

that Peter died and his angel came to the door

than it was actually him. Sometimes it is easier for

you to believe that you are worthless. It is easier

for you to believe that it's over, than it is

for you to believe that dry bones can live again

at the word of the Lord. But Peter kept on knocking,

and I hear God saying to somebody today, don't stop knocking.

You're at the right door.

Don't stop knocking just because Rhoda ran back and the

people didn't believe. God can use even the imperfect faith

of a hurting church to break Peter out of prison.

And if you keep knocking, if.

You keep knocking, keep asking.

Yeah, I know you don't have the answers yet, but

now you're learning the questions. If you keep seeking, if

you keep knocking, I'm declared in the name of Jesus,

Peter is at the door. Hey, thank you for watching.

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