Acts 12, beginning at the first verse, it says, About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. Verse 12, following the release of Peter. When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice, In her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, you are out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place. Amen. So brothers and sisters, when we pray, do we also believe? That's the question. When we make our requests known to God, do we have any confidence in His ability? And do we recognize His willingness to answer? Our prayers must be done in faith. That is, we must believe that God is able and willing to answer our prayers. But we're not dealing with an impersonal God. God is not like some manager of a charitable trust. you know, sort of distributing things to the most needy. God is a Father to us and His giving is done with love. Now His glory is served when He gives, that is true. But we should still understand that what lies behind all that He does for us is true love. Now you'll notice that we are in the same passage as we were last time, a couple of weeks ago, and you might remember we considered Peter's miraculous escape from prison, and how it mirrored the experience of all those who've been delivered from the prison of sin. So we've been here before, but I couldn't leave this passage behind without addressing something which struck me. And it's to do with the actions of the church while all this was going on. Now, it says the church was at prayer. The church was at prayer. They were praying for Peter. Our gracious God, loving as he does to answer our prayers, he used those prayers to bring deliverance to Peter. Well, as thrilling as that is to bring to mind again the reality of God responding to our prayers, it's not that. I mean, that's something we're well acquainted with, but that's not what struck me here. Instead, I was surprised at first, anyway, at the reaction of the people at the prayer meeting. Now, to put the reaction at its most basic, these believers asked God to help them and then couldn't believe it when he did. So, I thought I'd highlight this apparently strange behavior then show how normal it is and against that background then I want to encourage you to pray with faith whenever you approach God. So let's begin with this first point it's about their reaction their natural reaction their natural reaction verse 5 there says Peter is in prison. One of their number was in trouble. Not just any trouble, but actually in prison. And it wasn't just any brother. This was one of their most prominent leaders. Now, let's have a think about how they could react. They could get together and say how awful it was. They could, you know, get on the phone and tell everyone about this latest news. They could stay at home and maybe keep their mouth shut in case the same thing happened to them. But that's not their reaction. Their response to this latest crisis is prayer. We need to get together and pray. And so they did, and they took turns to pray to God on behalf of Peter. They organized a prayer meeting. And the reason that they had this reaction to the situation is that they developed a habit of prayer. Back in Acts 1 and verse 14, it tells us there that all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer. With the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers, they were devoting themselves to prayer. And we've seen elsewhere in Acts that this is normal. This was normal for the church. I wish I could say that's what I'm like. that my first reaction to anything which God does is to pray. That's often my response, but it's not always my response. Sometimes if something very good happens, I'm wrapped up in that good thing, you know, I'm enjoying it, I'm excited about it. Sometimes something bad will happen and then my mind is uneasy, it's anxious, my mind is dominated by the worry or the grief about what's happened. And so obviously later that day or perhaps the following morning I will go to God in prayer as is my habit and then I realized that I hadn't been to him with this issue. I hadn't thanked him for something or I haven't been to him to help me. I worried And then I'll start speaking to God and I'll say, Lord, I'm sorry that I didn't come to you with that sooner. I'm sorry that my first reaction wasn't to come to you. I allowed myself to be overwhelmed with the worry or with the excitement that I had no thought of you. Whatever I think of this early band of Christians, I wish in that respect I was more like them. Can you relate to that friend in any way or is it just me? Do you find sometimes that your mind is dominated by what's around you rather than him who is above you? Then let your desire be the same as mine. Let's develop together this habit of making the approach to God our number one priority in all situations. This facility which we have, this benefit of prayer, it came at a price, you know. It came at a price. This access that we have to God's throne, this is one of the great benefits that come with our salvation. Now the world might think that their godless acts of prayer are heard by God. Well, they're deceiving themselves. I mean, God sees all things and hears all things and He knows what they are saying. He just doesn't listen to them. You see, He's not listening to them the way He listens to us. He listens to us with a loving willingness to answer. He doesn't do that for them. He just refuses to listen to them. And that type of language is all over the scriptures. The truth is, the genuine process of prayer is enjoyed only by the people of God. But this gift of prayer did, as I've just said, come at a cost. Someone died so that you could pray. And this person was, of course, the Son of God. And so we see that our prayers have a direct connection with Calvary. We recall that Jesus of Nazareth was soon then revealed to be the Messiah. He was the Christ figure spoken of by the prophets. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and then died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He took ownership of his people's sins as if he committed them. And then whatever punishment God had decreed for each of us was carried out on Him, on the innocent Lamb of God, Christ. Having raised Himself from the dead and transported Himself back to the seat of power with the Father, He effectively cleared a path for us to the throne of God. It's a path that leads all the way from this sinful world that we are in, all the way up to the very doors of the throne room of heaven. And there is Christ and he throws those doors open for us and he invites us to come in. He invites us to go in accompanied by the Holy Spirit to the very throne of the Father to make our requests and thanksgiving known. Ephesians 2 and verse 18 says, through Him, through Christ, we have access in one spirit to the Father. Through Him, we have access. Jesus Christ did this. So when we're saved from sin, when we're given an ability to pray, when we're burdened with a desire to pray, and we've got this direct access to God, the assurance that he hears us, that he delights to answer, we have the full benefit of prayer. C.H. Spurgeon, I'll read this out. This is what he said about prayer. It's about bows and arrows. So maybe it needs updating, you know, to like, you know, AK-47 rifles or something. But C.H. Spurgeon, the Victorian said, faith is the bow, you know, and strong desire fits to the string, the arrow that is to be sent upward. No arrow may be shot towards heaven, but that which came down from heaven. Christians take their arrows from God's quiver. And when they shoot them, they shoot them with this on their lips. Do as you have said. Remember your word to your servant upon which you have caused me to hope. So the successful prayer is the desire of a holy heart sanctioned by the promise. True prayers are like those carrier pigeons that find their way so well. They cannot fail to go to heaven for it is from heaven that they came. They are only going home. So there's an interesting spin on on the process of prayer. In everything that we experience, whether it's good or bad, we should acknowledge God's hand in it. And as soon as practically possible, bring the matter to Him. It may be joyful thanks for some great blessing. It could be an act of just begging God to help us with some trial. Or it could be some, you know, really tearful repentance because of some sin which makes you sick, but you do it again. Whatever the case, our first port of call, it should always be God. And our natural reaction should always be prayer to anything. I want to look secondly at the attitude, a fervent attitude. A fervent attitude. We see that the prayers of the believers are said to be in earnest. You look at verse five. It said, earnest prayer for him was made. Earnest prayer for him was made to God. So what does it mean, the word earnest? I won't bore you with a dictionary definition and I suspect most of you will have an idea anyway of what it means to be earnest. But let me try to unpack this a bit more. An earnest prayer is one which is heartfelt. It comes from the heart. It's sincere. It's an expression of sincere and serious desire from within. Also, an earnest prayer is one which takes effort. You invest yourself emotionally in the prayer. You reach inside, you bring out your feelings and you hold them up to God. And friends, that exercise can be tiring. Now I know God hears all our prayers and even those lightweight ones, he hears them too. But the truth is, according to scripture, it's the prayers that take the most out of us that have the greatest power. So we give ourselves in prayer. If God simply wanted you to come with a list and just make your way through and read them off, Many would have said so, but the impression given to us in scripture is different. Prayer is not about getting through a list. Prayer is entering into a kind of struggle with God. Struggle. Now, some people won't like that image. Why? Well, because the idea of struggling with God, you know, it's like a fight. ruins that picture we have of God leaning towards us with a smiling face, waiting to hear what we have to say. The truth is, both of those images are valid. He is our loving Heavenly Father and He does love to listen to us and give us our heart's desires. But He wants you to address Him in a certain way. In terms of our requests to Him now, He wants to see that your requests mean something to you. And He wants you to make a case why He should answer those prayers. Many years before, He came into this world in the flesh. The Son of God appeared a number of times in a human form. It wasn't a ghost. And it wasn't a true man either, born of a woman. But it was still a physical manifestation of the Son. And on one of these occasions, He met Jacob and we're told that a struggle followed, a struggle. The two of them were struggling or wrestling with each other for hours. It's a truly remarkable event and strange to be honest. And there's so much I could say about this. But for what we're talking about today, I'll mention just one thing, just one thing from that story. The man asks Jacob to let him go. They've been struggling for hours. The sun is coming up and Jacob says this, I won't let you go till you bless me. I won't let you go until you bless me. I'm going to hold on to you until you give me a blessing. Then I'll let you go." Man, that's cheeky, isn't it? Cheeky. Well, I won't go into detail, but what we take from that story is about prayer. When we pray, you can think of it as taking hold of God. And if we want something badly enough, we'll take hold of God and we'll keep taking hold of Him in prayer until He blesses us with an answer. And this is why we use the picture of struggle in prayer. It's like just holding on to God by the collar and looking Him in the eye and saying, please, I really want this. And I'm going to keep on at you until you bless me, until you answer me. So you can see that the idea of struggling with God in prayer is about perseverance. It is about perseverance. You show how earnest you are when you keep going, when you keep asking Him for the same thing over and over again, perhaps for years. Now some people might think that the language I use about prayer is irreverent. I want to promise you friends that It's drawn straight from the pages of the Scriptures. I know full well that God is holy. I know that. He is to be reverenced. But it's not the kind of reverence we'd have for maybe some king on the earth. Let's say you'd met King Henry VIII, perhaps. Well, with kings like that, we go in there fearing for our very lives. We say as little as possible and then we get out as quickly as possible. The king of kings, God in heaven, would prefer you to eat up all his time, to take up his entire day. In fact, the longer you spend in his throne room going on and on with your thanksgiving and your petitions, the happier he is. That's strange, isn't it? It shouldn't surprise you then that I said earlier that the act of prayer can be tiring. The more you speak to God and the more you argue with Him and the stronger the case you make to Him, the more you wrestle with Him in prayer, the more it will take out of you. And the next day, He'll give you the strength to do it all over again. These Christian prayers were earnest. Let your prayers, brothers and sisters, be earnest too. Lay hold on him and determine not to let him go until he blesses you with an answer. The final thing I wanted to speak about is the surprising answer that they got. The answer was a surprise to them, a surprising answer. So in our account, the Christians have come together probably, well not probably, in someone's house. They've begun to pray to God and they use their own words but they're asking for the same things that have one mind. And as noted, they prayed fervently and there are plenty of prayer meetings that go on that are not in earnest. There's no fervency. You'll find people praying the exact same prayer they've said for years. They sometimes create prayers which they think will impress the people in the room with them. And there's far too much of all that dead prayer in Christendom. And there's been far too much of that in my own life. Now according to the author of this book of Acts, this prayer meeting was marked by earnestness, enthusiasm, sincerity, seriousness and faith. They had confidence God would do something here. But look at what happens, we pick it up in verse 12 there. Peter's just been released. We've got this lady Mary. Now she's the mother of a lad called John Mark. And like a truly hospitable Christian, Mary has opened up her home to the church on this occasion for prayer. There's a knock at the door and a servant girl called Rhoda goes to answer the door. Presumably she's a believer as well, judging by her reaction. And she hears Peter on the other side of the door. And he identifies himself to her. She's so excited, she doesn't even let him in. She's so excited, she runs back in, leaves him standing in the street, while she goes to tell the others. How do they react? Do they leap for joy that their prayers have been answered beyond their expectations? Verse 15 answers that for us. Verse 15. You are out of your mind, lady. You are out of your mind. You're mad. They've been praying for Peter. They've no doubt been praying for his deliverance. as well. So picture this scene now. They prayed for Peter's deliverance. Rosa comes and tells them. Not Rosa, what's her name? Rhoda. Rhoda comes and tells them, Peter has been delivered. And their response is, don't be daft. Don't be daft. Rhoda won't shut up. She insists it's Peter. I think she persuaded them a bit because their response changes now. They're saying, okay, there is someone at the door. We believe you, but it can't be Peter. He's in jail. It must be an angel. It must be his angel. The early church had some strange views. You know, it would take centuries for the church to develop The doctrines that we have today, and despite what many will tell you, we haven't arrived. We will still be refining doctrine until Jesus comes, I believe. But it's more refined now than it was then. One of the common ideas they had at that time was that each person had an individual angel. An individual angel attached to them, assigned to them by God. And if this angel ever manifested itself so it could be seen, it would sound like you and look like you. It's a bit strange. So they believed now that There was someone at the door, but it was a kind of angelic clone of Peter, which is why it sounded like him. Peter, of course, is still standing in the street while all this is going on. I bet he didn't expect this. He's probably thinking that, you know, it was actually easier getting out of jail than getting into this prayer meeting. There's something wrong there. So it's like, um, It's like me going to Len Tye's house on Thursday and knocking at the door. I can see through the glass. Someone's coming to the door. Good. So I'm about to be let in and I go, Tony, mate, Paul. And then that person doesn't open the door. But they disappear. I'm thinking, what's going on? And I can hear this faint conversation. There's an argument going on. And I'm thinking, are they actually deciding whether to let me in or not? So, poor Peter, he's stuck outside. But Peter's not the type, you know, to take offense easily. He's quite broad-shouldered. So he keeps knocking, he just keeps going. And eventually they go to the door themselves and open it, and there's Peter himself, large as life. It says there that they were amazed and in fact it says in verse 17, Peter was having to use hand gestures to quieten them down. They were making such a racket. He had to hold his hand up, make them be quiet just so he could be heard. So he could then tell them about what had happened to him. We need faith when we pray and we shouldn't be surprised when God answers prayer. If we pray for something but don't really believe God can do it or will do it, we may as well forget about God hearing us. He just won't hear us. James 1 and verse 6 and 7 says this about prayer. Let him or her, the one who is praying, let them ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." Did you get that? Even Christians can come to God with such a lack of faith that when they pray, they're mostly wasting their time. The Lord will just, on that occasion, take no notice of them. That's quite serious. So we need faith. I remember a story that was somewhere in the West Indies, and it was about a prayer meeting. Right? And it had been very dry in that region. And so there was a water shortage. So soon there'd be not enough water for people to drink, let alone wash it. And then the crops, the crops might die unless it rains soon. So the church got together and thought, we'll have a prayer meeting. That's great. We'll have a prayer meeting and we'll ask God, send the rain, just like Elijah did. Work for him, maybe it'll work for us too. And so they all, you know, they came together and they prayed for rain. And they were full of enthusiasm, I am sure. I am sure their prayers were earnest. But out of all those people, it's interesting that only one person brought an umbrella with them. Right? There's this girl, young girl, and she brings an umbrella. She's immature. but she has this faith which says, well, we're going to church to pray for rain, maybe God will do it straight away, so I better take an umbrella. Everyone else thought, well, we'll pray, but maybe it's a waste of time. So maybe there was a lack of faith there. There are several conditions to our prayer, things that we must have for them to be accepted, and one of them is faith. I've said this about these believers and I don't want you to think badly about these believers as if they were faithless. I'm sure they had a degree of faith, probably more than us. But their faith was that God would answer in certain ways, ways that they imagined. I'm guessing they were praying something like this. They were saying, Lord, we bring our brother Peter to you now. He's languishing in jail. We pray you'd be near him, be a comfort to him. If this is going to be his end, we pray you would give him the grace to be charitable to his enemies. Or perhaps Lord, when it goes to court, you'd be able to get him off. Whatever happens, we know you will do what is right. Our loving Heavenly Father, Amen. I imagine. I imagine they prayed something like that. That would be a good prayer. That's what I pray. I'm sure those requests were good. So if there's a problem here, what is it? What is the problem here? Well, when we pray for a situation, we firstly take guesses about how God might answer. and therefore we limit the things that we ask for. And there's usually a good reason that we do that. We consider the experiences of believers in the past, and we look at how God has dealt with us in our own lives, and so we base our requests to God on those observations. We try to fit in what we ask with God's will, with how we know He works. So let me give you an example that might make this a bit clearer. So let's say a believer in another church that we know had some accident, say a car crash, and he ended up having to take both of his legs off the lads in a wheelchair. Now look, anyone who knows the power of God will accept what I'm going to say now. God has the power to restore that man's limbs and get him up on his feet in 10 seconds flat. Now you ought to believe that, but that's not what we're speaking about. We consider how we've seen God work. That's what we consider now. Have we seen God performing that sort of thing? Do we see it today? No. And I'm well aware, friends, that there are... I can go on YouTube and there'll be stories about people having their limbs restored, people turning into snakes, people being raised from the dead after weeks and so on. I have no time for any of that. I know for one thing that for some believers, their faith relies on such miracles. And believe it or not, it's not a sign of great faith, it's a sign of weak faith. Because when they have doubts, What they fall back on is not so much their union with Christ, but rather they keep reminding themselves, well, it must be true because there's a story of that man in the African village. He'd been dead two weeks and he was raised from the dead. They might tell themselves, well, God must be real because look at the story of George Muller or the Lewis revival. And they will rely on those things to give them the faith instead of going to God and asking for it. Friends, our faith should not rely on stories from around the world or in other times, things that we can't personally verify. Faith is something that you should have anyway. So based on what we know, based on our experience of God, we start to pray for our wheelchair-bound brother and our requests extend to what we think God is likely to do. What have I seen God do with people in wheelchairs? I've seen Him make them into Christians that are fine examples. Setting an example of faith that they could not have done had they not been in an accident or whatever. If it were me, I'd say something like this about our poor brother. I'd say, Lord, be kind to our brother after his accident. We pray you would just help all those who have the care for him, including the medical professionals. We pray you would make his pain manageable, maybe make him pain free. We ask that you'll help him to understand how he's going to serve you now in this new phase of his life. Let him be an example to the church, an example of great faith. Amen. That's the type of thing I would say. And I think some of you here would be happy to say amen to that prayer. I'm guessing you'd agree that they were good things to ask. Do I believe God could restore his limbs? Yes. Do I believe that God will restore his limbs? No. And I don't ask for it. I limit my prayers. I don't ask for God to save the entire population of planet Earth. Why? Because I'm faithless? No. I don't ask for that because it's clearly not the will of God. Well... I limit my prayers then. I limit my prayers as these people did. However, I need to glorify God by sharing with you that really my experience of prayer is that God often exceeds what I've asked. He often exceeds what I've asked." So, today I've had a bit of a joke at the expense of these early believers. You know, they prayed for help and then were surprised when it came. But I've also explained, haven't I, that their behavior was quite normal, really. So, it's not an easy subject, a prayer, it's a big subject. But I'd like to just finish then with a word of encouragement for you and for me. So the first thing is that we need to pray according to the will of God. So it's no use praying for faith for something, with all the faith you can muster, for something that's clearly not going to happen. Imagine if I summoned all the faith in the world and prayed to God, Lord, I know what you've said, but I'm praying right now, all those people who've died in the sins, who will be resurrected to a terrible judgment, I want you to let them off at the judgment in Jesus' name. Now, the faith might be there, but what use is the faith when we're clearly praying something that is not God's will? It's useless. So our confidence in prayer has something to do with how sure we are that what we're going to pray for is in God's will. Now your question now is, so what's God's will? Give us a list of things to pray for. No, but there are things revealed to us in the Bible that we're told to pray for. So there's a start. A few weeks ago, I gave you the example of praying for more Holy Spirit influence in your life. That you'd be filled with the Holy Spirit. That request is entirely in the will of God. So you go ahead and you pray in faith for that. God will do it. God will do it. The Bible also reveals that we should pray for wisdom and expect to get that as well. If we think we need more wisdom, Go to God with the confidence that that prayer is also in line with God's will. So there's two things. We looked at, a few weeks ago, we looked at this prayer in the Bible often called the Lord's Prayer. And I argued, didn't I, that this wasn't a model prayer for all generations of Christians throughout all ages, not at all. But we can see elements within that prayer which are clearly good for the church to pray in any age. For example, Let your kingdom come, thy kingdom come. That is, we ask that we would see more of heaven's influence in our world. Jesus would have us regularly pray for forgiveness. And you can ask that with 100% confidence that it's acceptable to God. So there you are, you belong to God, you're walking in fellowship with Him, you know what you should be praying for, and then you go to Him in faith. And remember that Jesus said, even with a very small faith, your prayers can be very powerful. It says our prayers are powerful, that's interesting. I would have said, no, our prayers don't have power. It's God who has the power. That's what the scriptures describe it as. James 5 and verse 16 says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it is working. The prayer of a righteous person has great power. Here's something to leave you with. We're told to pray for faith itself. We're told that we can actually pray for faith. So in response to that request, the Lord increases our faith a little. Then we go to Him in prayer, we go back to Him in prayer with our petitions with this additional faith. And we're able to pray more boldly, with more faith. More of our prayers are answered. And we're often surprised at the answers. This encourages us, we like it. So we go to God and we ask for more faith. And so it starts again and the cycle continues. And that, friends, should be the pattern in our Christian lives. And I pray to God, hopefully in faith, that this would be your experience in your Christian walk. So may God help you in all those things, brethren. Amen.