The God Who Breaks Chains

Introduction

Over the last three weeks we have been recalibrating how we think about prayer. We learned that prayer is indeed something that God responds to according to His will

We have seen through the pages of Scripture that when God’s people pray together God gives wisdom. And we have seen that prayer rooted in God’s ordinary means produces awe.

Usually awe comes when we see God’s handprints in all that He has done. Awe is rarely noticed in the moment—it’s often recognized afterward.

We also learned that awe is not emotional spectacle but reverent clarity which is often accompanied by emotions but not in itself an emotional thing

And we have seen and awe reshapes the life of a church in lasting tangible ways.

Today we come to a passage that reminds us of what we must never forget: the God who works ordinarily is also free to work extraordinarily.

We must be careful not to swing from one error to another. On the one hand, some reduce prayer to emotional manipulation with the expectation of constant miracles.

On the other hand, some have become so cautious that they end up assuming that God would never intervene in a powerful, visible, miraculous way.

Acts 12 refuses both errors. We see a church earnestly praying but not knowing how God will answer. Yet they are trusting that God will.

This chapter shows us a God that will respond based on His sovereign purpose and timing and not based on human logic.

Here we find a man bound-up in chains, heavily guarded, sentenced to death, while his friend pray not entirely sure what deliverance will look like.

God breaks the chains, opens the prison doors for there is nothing that can restrain His power.

This is not a promise that God will always answer prayer with a miracle. But it is a reminder that God is never limited by circumstance, and prayer is never pointless.

The question here is not whether God can do miracles, we know he can. The question is whether we truly believe that the God we pray to is free, powerful, and present enough to act however He chooses:

Let us look at the God who breaks chains:

(vv. 1–4)

In the first 4 verses of our passage we see earthly power with all of its brutality on display. Herod gets his hands on some members of the church among which is the apostle James.

James, not to be confused with the writer of the epistle which is actually Jesus’s brother, this James is part of the original 12. The first of the apostles to lose his life for the sake of Christ.

Herod executes James, and as horrific as this sounds we must see this through the eyes of Scripture:

2 Corinthians 5:8 LSB

8 we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

The example here is that the church was on board with God’s plans even when they did not know what those plans were. James’s death although painful to those who loved him is not seen as some unfair response by God

Besides, James is very much so alive. In Revelation 6 we see the Lamb opening the fifth seal. And John describes that he saw,

“And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the witness which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying…” (Revelation 6:9-10)

Dead bodies don’t speak—yet these souls cry out. At any rate,

The church must learn to pray without denying reality.

Some will say, “Don’t speak that into existence.” But you are not God. You do not create reality with your words. God alone speaks things into being.

Prayer is not pretending; it is bringing what is real before the Lord who rules over it. And

The church must learned to pray without absolutizing reality.

We ask God for what we want, but we do not demand outcomes. We trust His will, and we are content—whether He rescues, or whether He glorifies Himself another way.

Think about the matter Paul was earnestly pleading with the Lord about which the Scripture does not tell us exactly what it was:

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 LSB

9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and hardships, for the sake of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

When your priorities are the kingdom of God rather than your own comforts or your own “happiness” you actually find comfort and find happiness because it becomes God-given.

Philippians 1:20–23 LSB

20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know what I will choose. 23 But I am hard-pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better,

Life or death does not carry the same earthly meaning it once did. So your prayer expectations are different. God will break the chains for this life, or he will break the chains for the next, but the chains will break.

Peter is also arrested and heavily guarded. Herod had assigned 4 squats of soldiers to watch him. Each squat contained 4 soldiers in rotation.

At all times he had two guards chained to him in his cell while the other 2 stood guard outside the cell. And Herod had the intensions of executing him as well, but God had different plans:

(vv. 5-6)

Acts 12:5–6 LSB

5 So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. 6 Now on the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.

Peter was in prison, and the church was in continuous earnest praying. The word our passage uses is fervent “ektenōs” which denotes intensity, zealously, continual prayer.

This is not casual, not private, nor ritual prayer. This is dependent prayer from a helpless people who do not know how God will answer. All they know is that God will respond: John says,

“If we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” (1 John 5:14)

This does not promise that every request will be granted, only that God hears and responds wisely according to His will.

(vv. 7-11)

Peter is asleep between two guards and two more outside his cell on the night of his execution. God allows the situation to reach maximum human impossibility. He is about to act and leave His fingerprints all over the scene.

Acts 12:7 LSB

7 And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying, “Rise up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.

This is the second time that God sends an angel to break Peter out of prison (5:17-20). But Peter is still not use to this. Chains fall, doors swing open, guards remain unaware. In fact Peter himself is half sleep

He is not doing anything heroic here. He is barely conscious thinking I must be dreaming. He was probably sure he would be dead by morning, after all that is what happened to James.

How many of us could sleep the night before our execution. But this is the power of God, this is what a life that is completely dependent on God looks like.

Peter does nothing, God does everything. This matters deeply, because miracles are not the reward of strong faith, they are expressions of divine freedom.

God is free to perform or not perform a miracle. Yet out posture should be the same. Remember the three Hebrew boys that were commanded to worship the Babylonian image under penalty of death?

Daniel 3:17–18 LSB

17 “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will save us out of your hand, O king. 18 “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up.”

But just like then, here God wanted to teach His young church a lesson:

No chain is too strong

No prison too secure

No authority too final

There is no god like our God. There is no one more powerful or more faithful. God’s deliverance often outpaces our puny expectations.

Peter made it outside the prison as the angel lead him and then left him. When the night air hits him, brother Peter wakes up completely and is able to look back and see the evidence of God’s presence

Often the best view you have of God is through the rearview mirror. You may not feel Him at the moment, you may not see Him ahead. Oh but when you look back you see that there is not an inch

of your life where He has not done His work. Glory be to God!

(vv. 12-16)

Peter now free makes his way to Mark’s house. This would be the same Mark who authored the gospel that bears his name.

There the church is still praying for the freedom of a man that is knocking at the door. But Scripture tells us that this is not unusual for God:

Isaiah 65:24 LSB

24 “And it will be that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

I can only imaging these people praying kingdom come, yet the brother was already outside:

Acts 12:13–15 LSB

13 And when he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 And when she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate. But she ran in and reported that Peter was standing in front of the gate. 15 And they said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, “It is his angel.”

The girl was so excited she forgot to open the door. There is a sense of humor even in Scripture. I can only imagine in the days that followed how joyously the church would remember this

and lovingly tease Rhoda concerning leaving Peter outside in the cold. And the church did not have their theology completely mapped out either.

This idea that who was at the door was Peter’s angel was a common Second Temple Jewish belief that since God assigns angels to individuals (Mat 18:10), that angel may appear or sound like the person.

But God is not limited by the maturity of our expectations not by the depth of our theology. At any rate the assumption was that God had decided to make Peter a martyr like He did James,

Acts 12:16 LSB

16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door, they saw him and were astounded.

When they saw him they we astonished that God would answer so soon and in such an unpredictable way. Imagine the commotion, the hugs, the tears, the laughter, the hollers.

But Peter does not capitalize on the moment. He does not build a movement, nor does he glorify himself, he seeks order in order to explain and move on:

(vv. 17)

Acts 12:17 LSB

17 But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he recounted to them how the Lord had led him out of the prison. And he said, “Report these things to James and the brothers.” Then he left and went to another place.

This James would be the brother of Jesus, who would have come to faith most likely after the resurrection. He is the leader of the church in Jerusalem. And then Peter moves on to his next assignment.

Conclusion:

This text does not promise that every prayer gets a miracle or that every prison opens or every James is spared. James dies and Peter lives.

It is the same church, the same prayers, the same God different outcomes. The lesson is not predictability. The lesson is trust.

Acts 12 reminds us that the God who works through ordinary means is the same God who can chatter chains when He wills.

We do not pray demanding miracles. We do not pray assuming miracles. But we also must never pray excluding miracles.

The ultimate question is not “Will God do a miracle?” the ultimate question is do you believe that God can. And a second question is “will you still trust when He does not?”