God's Unexpected Grace

Acts 12

Today we are going to spend some time with the apostle Peter. We last saw Peter witness the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit in the same way that the apostles received the Spirit in chapter two. After seeing such an amazing and unbelievable miracle, he returned to Jerusalem to tell the other Jewish believers that God not only saves and gifts the Holy Spirit to His chosen people, but His grace is available to all people, including Gentiles!

That was a huge moment for the early days of God’s Church, who are now known as Christians. In chapter twelve, Peter is going to be a part of another powerful story. Reading this chapter is like reading the summary of a thrilling movie. We have arrests, executions, a prison escape, and then the story ends with Justice being served on the cold plate of death! It’s an exciting story with some strong connections to Jesus and the Old Testament, so let’s ask God to guide us through it…

Pray

One of the key aspects of the Book of Acts that we have been talking about is the progression of focus. At first Luke’s writing closely follows the apostles, but he ends the book with Paul’s mission of taking the Good News to the Gentiles. Here in the middle of the book he bounces back and forth between the Jewish believers and the Gentiles. It is an interesting way of writing, and on the surface it almost gives the impression that God’s mission is coming to a close in the Jewish world as it moves to the Gentile world.

However, chapter twelve shows us that this is NOT true. As Luke’s portrayal of the Christian movement gradually shifts to the Gentile world, he mixes in stories like the ones in this chapter to show that God is NOT finished with the Jewish world or Jerusalem Christianity. The focus of Luke’s writing may shift, but God’s focus doesn’t. In other words, he is showing that even though Christianity in the Jewish world and the Gentile world differ in many ways, they share a common focus and have many similarities. They should be seen as complementary, not contradictory.

Chapter twelve can be broken into four segments. In the first segment we are told about the persecution of the church by King Herod. If you really want to dig into the weeds here, this is King Herod Agrippa I. He was the grandson of Herod the Great, who tried to kill Jesus as a baby. King Herod Agrippa I was an interesting man. He was known as someone who liked to have a good time. If he was alive today he would fit right in with our politicians because of the way he acted around people. For example, you’ve probably heard the criticism of Hillary Clinton’s changing accent. When she is in Chicago, she has a northern accent, when she is in Alabama she has a Southern accent, and so on.

This king had a similar trick. When he was in Rome, he was a cosmopolitan Roman, but when in Jerusalem he acted the part of an observant Jew. He wanted people to like him, and as we will see by the end of the chapter, he possibly wanted people to think he was something more than a mere mortal human being. So, King Herod began arresting and persecuting Christians. As we read through this passage, think about Jesus’ arrest before His crucifixion. Peter’s experience here has many connections to Jesus’ arrest. Let’s start in verse one…

Acts 12:1–3 NIV

1 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

Pause for just a second. Here are some connections we already have at this point. First, we have the political leaders. Jesus was brought before Roman leadership, just as Peter was imprisoned by the Roman leadership. Second, we have similar motivations for the two arrests. Jesus was arrested to satisfy the Jewish religious leaders, and Peter was arrested because it “pleased the Jews.” The third similarity is the timing. Jesus was arrested during Passover, Peter was arrested during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was celebrated in conjunction with Passover, and, as we are about to see, he was intended to face trial after the Passover…

Acts 12:4–5 NIV

4 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. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Here are a few more connections. Jesus was guarded by the Temple guards and then Roman soldiers, Peter was heavily guarded by four squads of four soldiers. Both stories also have significant outcomes which define broader significance. Jesus was crucified, leading to the atonement of sin. Peter, as we are about to read, was miraculously freed, emphasizing God’s power to preserve His church and frustrate evil plans.

How was Peter set free? He was under heavy guard. He was actually chained to two soldiers, one on each side of him, and there were two more guards standing at the entrance to his cell. So how on earth was Peter going to get out of this? You’ll never believe what Peter plans to do. Peter’s master plan to escape prison and execution was… take a nap! He was asleep!

Acts 12:6 NIV

6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.

To me, that is crazy to think about. A couple of years ago I took my NFI test to be certified in wood and gas burning stoves, and the night before I laid in bed wide awake! It was all I could think about and my anxiety would not let me go to sleep. Here Peter is, less than 24 hours from being executed, and he’s sleeping like a baby. He was going to be on trial the next day, but instead of worrying about it he was sound asleep!

Acts 12:7–9 NIV

7 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 wrists. 8 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. 9 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.

He was so out of it that the whole time that he was escaping he thought he was dreaming! This story makes me think of people who talk in their sleep. Have you ever carried on a conversation with someone who was asleep? Amy used to do this. One night I accidentally bumped her and it almost woke her up and she said, “What was that? Did you just tag me on Facebook?”

I have to share one more, because it is my favorite. One night she apparently heard a noise while she was asleep and she said, “Did you just spill college juice? Why did I say ‘college juice,’ it sounded like you moved a wall booger. What are you doing?” I was trying so hard to hold back my laughter. Maybe that’s why she thought she should be whispering because next she quietly said, “did you just say my name?” At this point I couldn’t hold back the laughter any more, so she responded to her own question, “I guess not.”

That’s the humorous image I see in this story with Peter. He’s sleeping so good that he’s out of it. It makes me wonder if he was talking in his sleep, but too embarrassed to tell Luke what he said. Maybe he didn’t want it written down. So here Peter is, essentially sleep walking…

Acts 12:10–11 NIV

10 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. 11 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.”

I have never been a sleep walker, but it has happened to me a couple of times. One night I woke up doing laps around our coffee table, and if I remember right, I think my brother was sitting on the couch watching me. I don’t know for sure, I just remember waking up very confused. I imagine Peter must have felt confused like that for at least a few seconds. His statement says it all… “There’s no doubt that God saved me from this. I was dead asleep when I escaped and my shoes aren’t even on backwards!”

Luke must have been giddy with excitement when he wrote this because he immediately goes into another funny story. After Peter finally wakes up, he goes to Mary’s house. This was Mark’s mother Mary. A bunch of people were there praying when he knocked on the door. A young servant girl went to answer the door, but, in her excitement, when she saw who it was she completely forgot to open it!

Acts 12:13–16 NLT

13 He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. 14 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!” 15 “You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” 16 Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed.

I want to come back to this part of the story in a moment, but first let’s see where the story goes from here. The king is persecuting Christians, executing them, and he plans to execute Peter, but God miraculously breaks Peter out of jail. As you can imagine, the next morning there was quite a commotion back at the jail. The guards responsible for allowing a prisoner to escape would be subject to the same punishment as the prisoner who escaped, according to Roman law.

With what we know about the king and how he wants to be liked by the Jews, he might have been embarrassed about the prison break as well. Now is a good time for him to go take care of other business. So he goes to Caesarea to meet with the people of Tyre and Sidon…

Acts 12:21–23 NLT

21 and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them. 22 The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!” 23 Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died.

King Herod Agrippa I makes a brief appearance here in chapter twelve and by the end of the chapter he dies. There is some irony in his life and death. He is like a brief flash of light that quickly burns out. That also happens to be why he dies! When he addressed the people in this passage he was wearing his royal robes that are described as being made with silver or having silver plates which glistened brilliantly in the rays of the sun.

It appears that he wanted to appear to be like a “shining being” or a god. When the people hailed him as a god, he neither affirmed nor denied their acclamation. The Holman Concise Bible Commentary says that, “He died for his blasphemous arrogance.”

There are several connections to Jesus and the Old Testament in this chapter. We’ve talked about some connections to Jesus, but there is one particular Old Testament connection to Agrippa’s death that I want to draw your attention to. Many years before King Herod Agrippa’s time, the prophet Ezekiel spoke against a particular ruler who thought that he was a god. Guess where that ruler was from. TYRE! In this story Agrippa was speaking to the people of Tyre, and in the prophecy Ezekiel was speaking to the Prince of Tyre! Here is what Ezekiel says…

Ezekiel 28:2 NLT

2 “Son of man, give the prince of Tyre this message from the Sovereign Lord: “In your great pride you claim, ‘I am a god! I sit on a divine throne in the heart of the sea.’ But you are only a man and not a god, though you boast that you are a god.

Then in verse 10…

Ezekiel 28:10 NLT

10 You will die like an outcast at the hands of foreigners. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”

This is what happens to Agrippa in Acts 12. If you keep reading in chapter twenty-eight of Ezekiel, the divine rebellion in Eden is used as a backdrop for the actions of the Prince of Tyre. Luke appears to be pointing us to these connections with Agrippa as well. It would be interesting to trace some of these connections and identify additional lessons buried in this story. That’s your homework for the week. I am gonna need a five hundred or more word essay describing the connections between King Herod Agrippa from Acts 12 and the Prince of Tyre from Ezekiel 28.

Now that we have skimmed through chapter twelve, let’s zoom in on a lesson that we can focus on for the week. This chocked full of lessons. It’s the Heinz 57 of takeaways. We could talk about Christian persecution. We could talk about trust and faith in God. We could talk about prayer, patience, or persistence. We could even focus on Herod to find warnings about blasphemy, arrogance, or defiance.

There are many things we could talk about, but there is an element in this chapter that stood out to me. It happens to be very closely related to something Lowell talked about at our men’s breakfast yesterday, as well as something that was pointed out by Nate Sala in his study notes. Let’s go back to the verse where Peter knocked on Mary’s door, after God freed him from jail…

Acts 12:13–16 NIV

13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” 15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” 16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.

Rhoda was a young servant girl. She would have likely belonged to a lower social class, and was possibly a young teenager. Think about the picture that this one detail draws. A young lower class servant girl telling the Christians who were praying for Peter that he was at the door. We’ve already talked about the connections between Peter’s arrest here and Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. This detail serves to deepen the connection a little further.

After Jesus was risen, who announced His return?

Luke 24:10–11 NIV

10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Very similar words. “You’re crazy! That’s nonsense! You are out of your mind.” When the servant girl announced Peter’s return they didn’t believe her. Even though they were there praying for Peter, they couldn’t believe it when he knocked at the door! Even to the point of believing he must have been executed and it was his angel at the door! Look at it again…

Acts 12:15 NIV

15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

How crazy is this! They are praying for Peter, and they have so much faith in God that they think he is more likely to have been killed and his angel came knocking! Thankfully, God wasn’t relying on their faith to answer this prayer because Peter wasn’t dead and haunting them. I guess this is yet another lesson we could focus on, faith.

God just did something totally unexpected. At least, something that these believers weren’t expecting! They should have remembered Jesus’ attitude towards the young and marginalized. They should have remembered how He called uneducated teenagers who had no rabbinic potential and turned them into His disciples. They should have remembered Mary and the other women’s eyewitness testimonies to the unbelievable resurrection of Jesus! Even more recently, they could have remembered how God transformed the heart of Paul, who was on a mission of murder. Now he is preaching the Good News of Jesus. Yet more recently, God is now sharing the promises He gave to Israel with the Gentiles! And He is even using Paul to do much of it!

For our notes we could say it this way…

God uses the unexpected to do the unexpected.

When the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples at Pentecost, the crowds of people were shocked when they heard them speaking in other languages. Amazed, the people asked, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?” Galileans were considered to be unsophisticated, blue-collar types who had thick, recognizable accents, and intermingled culturally with Gentiles. Nazareth was in Galilee and that’s why, in John 1:46, Nathanael said, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” A stereotypical Galilean would be similar to our over-the-top depiction of a deep south hillbilly!

Scribes accused Jesus of being possessed. His own family accused Him of being out of his mind! (Mark 3:21-22)

We should always be ready for God to act, especially in the unlikeliest of places. Not only should we be aware of God’s propensity to operate in a way we least expect, but we should also be ready to be that unlikely source of action. At the men’s breakfast, Lowell encouraged everyone to follow God’s lead without worrying about what other people think. If God calls you to do or say something good, go for it.

Paul wrote to a young man named Timothy for the exact same purpose of encouragement. He once told him not to let anyone look down on him because of his age, but let his actions be an example for believers. At the men’s breakfast, Mike shared from Second Timothy chapter two. To me these verses are a beautiful encouragement to not allow people and circumstances to drag you down and keep you from the good work that God has created you to do…

2 Timothy 2:20–21 NLT

20 In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use. 21 If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.

To me it is beautiful because I am common. I am wood and clay. But because God thought I was so much more He sent Jesus to transform me into something special. He paid the expensive price of His life to purchase me. He has made me into something I am not, so my only reasonable reaction is to keep myself pure as the special utensil.

God uses the unexpected to do the unexpected! And we know what happens when we allow God to use us in unexpected ways. Luke said it best when he closed out this story, so we will close with this last verse and then pray.

Acts 12:24 NLT

24 Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread, and there were many new believers.

Pray