Sunday Worship

remember where our health comes from [Music] all these children clean hands pure hearts good grace good god his name [Music] go up is the walls come down our creation everything with breath repeat the sound all these children clean as pure hearts good days [Music] creation [Music] his name is jesus come on [Music] come on [Music] [Music] [Music] jesus our redemption our salvation is in his blood jesus light of heaven a friend forever his kingdom come amen [Music] good morning church family i'm therese and this is hey i'm clay and it's great seeing you again yeah we want to welcome everyone tuning in live right now whether it's your first time or you've been watching with us we want to welcome you this morning and we're excited that you're here i just signed up uh via facebook but i know there's youtube and vimeo and so many other places to watch so good morning and we're going to try to jump on there i see rich smart and stacy and some other folks um that are just the the normal for me and so i'm sure that there's a lot more out there so give us a shout out and we'll try to say good morning to you this morning yeah we want to welcome everyone um and i'm seeing a lot of people saying good morning tell us where you're from um we have a lot of viewers from around the state so i absolutely love one of the things i love so much about coming and getting to host you know worship service it's kind of weird to say it that way right getting to host worship but we are just i would say we were navigators because we were going to help navigate this morning um al should be coming in in just a little while he's going to be preaching on acts 12 this morning that's right and so our theme today is unchained so it's the story of peter um so listen clay have you ever experienced like jail being arrested anything like that so i i don't know if you can see the chills can y'all see the chills we shouldn't really is this confession hour um so i can tell y'all this um i get to go to jail a lot but i'd never been arrested and so that's a weird weird way to say it but i do i work in a jail setting and so working in jail i can tell you a couple things first off when i read acts 12 i somewhat panic because like you don't want a jail breakout right like that's not what you want to do you have to call people when those things happen right um and yet i tell you what if you're in jail you want to be out of jail and i get that because it's not the place that you you didn't wake up in the morning and say hey i think i want to go to jail today and so i can i can relate to all parties involved in acts chapter 12. yeah so um that's where we're going to be today so get your bible out get ready um i'm going to jump over here and see who we've got to welcome this morning oh virginia california good morning everyone good morning some birthdays happy birthday who is a birthday person this morning mr renard mr bernard is that right awesome happy birthday yeah welcome everyone as you all are tuning in and if you didn't get a chance to tune in this morning to our bible class that was at nine you can go back and watch that it was so good really enjoyed that um also make sure you guys are joined on facebook to our live stream group yeah and it's a lot of fun because you can throw prayer requests out through the week and we get to pray for them and we get to see them and so i tell you this um the last time this weekend uh what is today sunday right and so i was in lafayette louisiana yesterday uh my son was playing baseball down there and i was driving around downtown because i used to live there and uh guys getting a little bit of feedback in here i'm not sure and so um as i'm driving around lafayette i make a wrong turn and i end up at the jail in lafayette and the last time i was in the jail in lafayette i know that's right how often do you say the last time i was in jail in lafayette but i was with randall greer and randall is a great friend of mine and um what randall did is he goes around and he talks and gives hope to folks who are in jail and he actually helped start this thing called celebrate recovery uh on the inside um have you ever heard of celebrate recovery i have i've heard of that yeah so celebrate recovery is a really neat kind of 12-step program and except for like aaa they kind of have this higher power celebrate recovery names the higher power and so it's an incredible opportunity um to just get plugged in and they do it in jails and prisons and what's incredible about that is when the guys get out and i don't know but in louisiana like 95 of our guys that are in jail right now are going to be getting out of jail so it's so important to invest in people who are in prison and so when they get out of jail they can get plugged into a cr group um somewhere in their their local community yeah that's awesome um let's see who else we've got jordan oh yeah so our bible study sermon on the mount make sure you guys tune into that i see some of you all have watched that good morning alabama i see misty bean see a lot of folks and guess who else i just saw i just saw um al come in here come on up here how you doing brother i'm great it's always good to join i mean we have the best host i mean the live stream hosts are they not awesome i mean these guys are so awesome i just want to stop in and say hello i'm super excited about this morning we have an awesome text we're going to study you'll love it's about prison breaks i know you've been talking about it a little bit i'm not sure that prison breaks are the great greatest thing to a guy that owns prisons is a prison break story really going to be there but that's what we're going to do today i want everybody out of jail okay i want you back home but let's not do it in the break fashion so i want to mention one other thing so we're going to be doing a uh tonight we're going to be screening a movie a wfr i think it's the first time ever it's called roe versus wade it's going to open up i think april 2nd maybe right before easter good friday and so be looking for it nationwide there may be a beardless brother type in the movie uh there may be a small role i made the trailer so i think i'm going to make the film we're going to find out together tonight i may not even be in the movie i mean i filmed some scenes but i don't know so we'll see you're plugging this movie and you're not even sure if we should be plugging it i don't know we're going to find out tonight it's going to be awesome here at wfr so love you guys the live stream thank you for being here every week i'm excited about you being here hey al quick question if if you're the beardless brother i mean that looks like a beard to me well it's now it's kind of like a stylish you know i mean i'm actually not working it so you know at least lisa likes a little bit but not too much so i had kind of the big thick beer which was covering up my triple chin but now we're just going the whole full thing so we'll go see oh i love it i i tell you what thank you for being here it's great to see you thank you um y'all if you can't tell just the atmosphere getting to work with al on a regular basis he is fun and the reason he's fun is because he has christ in his heart and he wants to share christ with others and so if that's you this morning uh go and click share on on wherever you are if you're on facebook or whatever opportunity you have send it out to your friends and via email and say hey join us with worship this morning yeah yeah awesome and um speaking of our sermon today i hear there's a video a story and i don't want to give any spoilers away but i'm really excited to see it um and it goes in with the lesson so you guys make sure to stay tuned yeah so randall actually i think is actually telling part of the story and again randall's a really really neat guy um so one of the unique things about randall and y'all probably don't know this but i like to fly and so i'm a pilot and one of the things i like to do not know that yeah it's a random random world but so if you're gonna tie things i believe that we should tithe um all aspects of who we are and so i try to fly like 10 of whenever i fly i try to do it for god and so when we were going to lafayette randall was like hey i need to go to lafayette but it's like a three and a half hour drive from here so i was like why don't we fly and he goes i can't pay to fly he's like i'll fly you and so randall and i actually flew down to lafayette and he shared his his testimony and i don't think that's what he's sharing today but his testimony is super powerful because randall was in jail um not doing ministry first he was in jail because he was had to be in jail right and so yeah he's a neat guy awesome awesome um look i'm seeing more and more people joining us this morning you guys are doing great welcoming everybody y'all always do richard massey nicole stacy again stacy's all out there this morning i love it um shauna deb um and look i don't know if miss hazel green's there yet but miss hazel i hope you're there i always love seeing you um i miss seeing you down front but hopefully we'll be able to do that soon um and i you know i there's more people coming and one of the people that's not here hey thanks shauna um you know if you were from louisiana and in this area yesterday we had an election and one of the reasons we had an election is because our congressman elect died of covid and um his wife julia decided to run in his stead and julie is a really neat person and she has a phd in grief and so throughout the process of mourning for her husband julia was elected yesterday to serve this district uh in congress and so that's i'm very humbled because you know i think when we pray these prayers lord your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven um one of the things that's going to happen is heaven's going to be made up full of of male and female right um and that's what it says says paul's like there's not male nor female there's not black nor white you know there's there's there's just free and so uh she's our first woman to be elected from this district uh in congress so that's a that's a pretty cool thing yeah and a husband and wife team although the husband's past but that's a really neat thing for our community yeah um so let's see um we also want to remind you guys that if you do have prayer requests to please send them at info wfrchurch.org you know in addition to the live stream group that's you know our own community but you can also email those requests there um so look i'm going to ask a husband wife question okay oh see did you see her go off script she's like tell me this husband so because you and i have hosted before but i don't think everybody will remember can you tell us who your husband is my husband is john perky he will be leading workshop this morning yeah so we'll be kicking it off to him pretty soon and your wife her name might be in kind of an accident yeah so so oh god throw me out there i was gonna talk about perky and so um yeah so acts 12 has a story of this person in there rhoda right yeah and rhoda is so wonderful but she does something she sees peter and she gets so excited she slams the door in his face she's like peter hey boom you know and he's like wait i'm here yeah so he's like knocking outside he's stuck out in the cold right yeah um and like i'm not making this up read the scripture it says like he's stuck outside yeah but so y'all i'm reading that this total confession time god throwing me out there i'm coming back to you in a second um so i'm reading this and i've um fallen in love with this person named rhonda and so as i'm reading it i'm reading it and you know you're reading too fast when you read your wife's name in the scripture and so it's like rhonda did this i'm like ronda you're in scripture and i was like wait a second that's rhoda yeah it's so close though just one letter off yeah it was the end but there was not an end there yeah thanks for calling me out well anyways so tell me um a quick question one of the reasons i love your husband leading worship is because and y'all online folks listen for this because this is something that y'all can listen to and y'all can see uh him doing it but you might be able to see him doing it but not hear him doing it okay so this is your challenge today listen and see if you can see john snapping his fingers because he he like he leads a it was he a band director tell me orchestra director yeah yeah he said where where is that in ouachita parish yeah okay so he teaches orchestra so he's very rhythmic he's a percussionist too so i did not know that so what i love about him is when he's leading worship he'll be snapping that finger and it just it like it helps me because i have no rhythm and so it helps me to stay in rhythm and just to sing for god so look this morning join us as we worship and listen for the snaps let's go ahead and be standing we got the thumbs up from the booth thanks clay therese theresa in the livestream booth today i like it sweet is the song today [Music] i glory glory christ is [Music] precious [Music] my [Music] is [Music] holy glory christ is my christ is [Music] a quick seat good morning to you guys and welcome to white's ferry road church this morning it is an honor and a pleasure to see all of you this morning you know al and i were just talking while ago and we said that through everything that we've been through the last couple of years i don't think we've ever been more excited or happier to have to hunt for a parking place when we got somewhere yeah i mean go ahead you can applaud that that's wonderful that says people getting back out and getting back to normal and jumping back into that thing that that we were so used to doing you know for so long and we're so glad to have you back all right two weeks guys we are two weeks out from a very special day we are two weeks out from easter not only a special day for us but probably the most important day that's ever happened in the history of this entire planet and we have a special services going on on easter so we we have two services going on they're going to run simultaneously at 10 a.m there will be no bible class that day right so we're all going to get here we're going to come early because that parking lot is going to be full and we'll have both services running at 10 and we cannot wait to see you guys there and just really celebrate the greatest gift that was ever given to humanity and you know it's just that cleansing blood al is going to talk to you a little bit later about freeing from bondage and that is what that day absolutely represents thank you for being here we hope you have a wonderful day and welcome home thanks tommy let's be standing again bless the lord [Music] your holy days the sun comes up it's a good day dawning it's time to sing your song again whatever may pass and whatever lies before me let me be singing when the evening comes bless the lord o my [Music] worship his holy name see my never before oh [Music] [Music] your name is great and your heart is time for all your goodness i will keep on singing 10 000 reasons [Music] his holy [Music] worship your holy name [Music] still my soul will seek your praise on handing ten thousand years and then forever my soul oh my soul worship his holy day [Music] bless the lord o my soul my soul worship his holy name seem like never before o my soul your holy name i'll worship your holy name [Music] hope to feel your presence i could just say i can just stay right where i am and hope to feel you hope to feel something again [Music] hope to feel your presence i can trust [Music] again i can hold on to who i am and never let you change me from the inside i could be safe i could be safe here in your arms never leave home never let these walls down you have hold me [Music] higher you will hold me higher [Music] i [Music] you [Music] deeper and i'll go you have called me higher you have called me deeper and i'll go you have called me higher i will be yours lord i will be yours for all my life so let your mercy light the path before me i will be yours lord i will be yours for all my life so let your mercy light the path before me you have called me [Music] deeper and i'll [Music] deeper and i'll go [Music] deeper and i'll go where you will lead me lord you lead me [Music] i [Music] you're the one that guides my heart lord i need you oh [Music] oh [Music] your grace is born where grace is where [Music] lord i need you [Music] oh you so teach my song to rise to you when temptation comes [Music] lord i need you [Music] you my one defense my righteousness lord i need you [Music] you by one oh god defense my righteousness [Music] nothing i've done that your grace won't cover it's not over until you say so you are faithful god you're faithful the cross is all the confidence i need your love won't give up on me you'll never make a promise you don't keep your love won't give up on me [Music] it's not over till you say so you are faithful god your love won't give up on me you never make a promise you don't keep your love won't give up on me your love won't give up on me [Music] you won't let me go no matter how far i run i'll run into your love and when i'm falling apart you won't let me go no [Music] no matter [Music] the cross is all the confidence [Music] is [Music] you don't need give up on me here i am oh god i bring this sacrifice [Music] me again [Music] strength me now let your love fall down on me i know your love dispels all my fears [Music] sacrifice [Music] me again [Music] in your strength let your love fall down on me i know your love is all my fears storm i will hold on [Music] you [Music] me again so [Music] in your strength now let your love fall down on me [Music] oh [Music] and i will be completed [Music] [Applause] well good morning um do you have hope this morning good if you're here and you're kind of uh don't understand that question or or you make a weird face at it do you have hope this morning let me read you this from first peter chapter one uh of first peter verse three praise be to god and the father of our lord jesus christ in his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade this inheritance is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by god's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time in all this you greatly rejoice though now for a little while you've had to suffer grief and all kinds these have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes even through refined even though refined by fire may result in praise glory and honor when jesus christ is revealed though you have not seen him you love him even though you do not see him now you believe in him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the end result of your faith the salvation of your souls that's hope that's hope this morning because god the one who created you is a man on earth in the form uh as jesus in the form of a man he walked among us that's how much he loves us he gave us hope through the death of jesus he gave us hope through the resurrection of jesus he gave us he gave us hope because we have that same resurrection power within us amen yes today is a good day to have hope in jesus and so we're going to take communion be somebody next to you just commune however you want but today reflect on the hope that is in jesus name let's pray father god you are so great you created all of us every person here lord i just praise you for that as as an author and creator and architect of the world that we can't understand by science fully god you've made it so complex you are so good lord i praise you i praise you for jesus i praise you for hope god it is a hopeless world today apart from you but with you god with you jesus we have hope thank you so much jesus i pray this in your name because you have power that you have given us as disciples of you we have hope in your name jesus and so i just pray we we we can take communion with hope this morning and uh jesus it's in your name and i pray amen [Music] of righteousness [Music] your grace that reaches foreign [Music] has called my heart to enter in the joy of your salvation thy grace i am [Music] walk into the arms of christ my lord by grace [Music] christ my lord and i freely walk into the arms of christ [Music] good morning church family my name is jamie pacheco i live in somerset massachusetts and i'm a greeter in our online live stream community and i'm here with your announcements for the week tonight at 5 00 pm in the fellowship center you can catch a pre-screening of the film roe vs wade and i hear that a vested preacher makes an appearance in the film attention teens now through march 28th you can sign up for the d-412 discipleship program the program runs through the months of april and may call the church office or your youth leader for more information our youth is not the church of tomorrow but the church of today april 4th is resurrection sunday there's going to be two services at one time 10 a.m the acapella service will be in the worship center and the instrumental service will be in the fellowship center there will be services for children of all ages in the castle however there will be no 9 am bible class whether you're sitting in a pew at wfr or you're watching a thousand miles away welcome home good morning church i love that i love that our live streaming online um family is now such a vital part of what we do every sunday what a blessing that which the evil one attempts to push and pull us apart god brings us together amen and that's what's happened during the pandemic we probably never you know we just before just set a camera up and basically just tried to you know someone is not able to be here this sunday and now thousands thousands of people were able to be a part of what we're doing here at white space road today during our worship time i was not able to sing thank you pine pollen right i mean i've told you before we live in a place not fit for human habitation everything here hurts us right so we're either incredibly dumb or incredibly tough or both uh and yet here we are so i i wasn't able to sing but the worship was fantastic i love listening to you sing this morning and i just kept being flooded by memories of spending most of 46 years of my 56 here at wfr what a blessing i saw bill and yvonne smith here today welcome home uh yeah give him a round of applause and had a chance to say hello but i know it's been a year last sunday rudy and beth burns uh rudy came up and introduced himself to me because i hadn't seen him in so long and he told me that last sunday they celebrated 63 years of marriage that deserves a round of applause right welcome fellowship center glad you guys are here 63 years together what a blessing and i mean they must have gotten married at birth because beth doesn't look a day over 63 right it's incredible man it's so good to see you guys again that haven't been able to be here uh got those vaccinations going caleb told me this morning he's getting his vaccination today so uh that's uh that's good that those of you are able to do that and and be here with us is a great blessing um so our scripture reader today come on up golden it's colton tomlinson and i wanted to share with you so i get a a text every week from cynthia johnson who our scripture reader is going to be and so they usually give me a little intel so i can introduce you know some of our youth uh to the church and so this week she said uh colton tomlinson he's 13 he's about to turn 14. i love when you're young it's always what you're about to be right when you get our age you're trying to hope that you know hold off as long as possible he goes to claiborne christian and then she said and he liked to make make music that's what it says i said is he a rapper and she said l-o-l which side that means laugh out loud uh i think you should ask that on stage so colin are you a rapper okay he's not a rapper i was gonna get him to wrap something so instead we'll get him to wrap our verse how about that ii timothy 2 verses 8 through 10. remember jesus christ raised from the dead descended from david this is my gospel for which i am suffering even to the point of being chant like a criminal but god's word is not chained therefore i endure everything for the sake of elect that they too may obtain the salvation that is jesus christ with eternal glory all right good job bro thank you we hope you go and make make some music did you catch that phrase in the middle i am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal but god's word is not chained i love that and that's really the theme of what we're going to be talking about this morning and we're going to be in acts chapter 12 if you want to follow along in your bible or your phone or whatever it is you find the word of god on these days acts chapter 12 unchained and i and i could have called it prison break because there is a prison break but i love the idea that you cannot chain the word of god even if you're in chains the word of god is unshamed let's read the story acts chapter 12 verse 1 it was about this time that king herod arrested some who belong to the church intending to persecute them now before we go forward this is the first time we see the name king herod pop up since since jesus was murdered a different herod but all part of the same family and i just want to to remind you of sort of the power structure of what's going on as we've been studying this book of acts you know the romans are occupiers so pontius pilate of course is the governor he's the one that's put there by rome to just basically don't don't have any trouble no uprisings just try to keep basically keep the people under control which is what a lot of politicians do amen i mean they just try to just keep the people under control we don't need uprisings we don't need problems now under that of course we have the israel monarchy which is part of the herod structure you remember herod the great he was the one that tried to kill baby jesus so i don't know why he was so great he sounds like a jerk to me right killed all these children trying to kill jesus so they're all part of his lineage after he died basically the kingdom of israel was split up into four parts and so his sons were tetrarchs or basically they were over certain parts of israel and so this herod which his name is agrippa he's not even really he's a nephew of one of the original hairs so he's sort of an appointee and the reason why is because he's a really good puppet for rome caligula who is a very infamous emperor of rome he's the one that gave him all of herod's land so he's a puppet so now we know that the jewish leadership who's trying to basically stamp out christianity and they've been trying to do things but they're so afraid that they're going to do the wrong thing that they've just kind of been spinning their wheels finally one of their ranks rise up saul who takes the bull by the horns and he starts persecuting and he even kills one of the young leaders stephen and finally we got some traction we're going to put this movement down but of course what satan intends for his will god expands and they didn't know what they were up against this saul this henchman this terrorist is now converted to the cause what are they going to do now nothing they realize they have no power so i i figure i don't know this because the scripture doesn't tell us this but i figure someone whispered into herod's ear you know maybe it's time for the monarchy to step in and stamp this out i mean he just appears right he's decided he's going to get involved in this christian movement and so that's what he starts doing he's persecuted look at verse two he had james the brother of john one of the sons of thunder put to death with the sword which you know when i was studying this this week it just made me sad to think about that it took me back to the verse in matthew 20 22 you remember when the sons of thunder had their mom come to jesus and say you know i think james should be on one side and john should be on the other when you're going to be ruling israel here on the earth that's what's her thought and their thought and they're just over there waiting to hear what jesus had to say you remember what jesus said in matthew 20 22 you don't know what you're asking jesus said to them can you drink the cup i'm going to drink we can they said jesus said oh you will indeed and now we're at that moment right james is the first of the original group to be martyred for the cause and you wonder about that why is that i wonder the son of thunder is no more and yet we're still talking about him all these years later verse three when he saw that this met with approval among the jews and after all he is a politician right we got to get check the polls and see how we're doing approval of the jews he proceeded to seize peter also and let's face it everybody in this young movement knows that peter basically is the voice of the movement he's the one that stood up in acts 2 preached that first gospel sermon he and john were the ones that were there in the temple and healed the crippled man and everybody everybody's running around saying this is amazing so herod says you know we're going to go for the cut the head off the snake philosophy i'm emboldened now the political winds are at my back and so he seizes peter 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 16 men to guard little old peter making sure he didn't go anywhere right herod intended to bring him out for a public trial after the passover so we got another trial around the passover has this happened before about 10 years earlier kangaroo court remember you think peter was going to get a fair shake i think some good due process was coming his way i don't think so so peter was kept in prison and there's a couple of words that when they appear in the scripture you should always pay attention but the other one is if when you see butt and if in the scriptures you are to perk up because that means something's about to happen but the church was earnestly praying to god all this political power all these powerful people decisions being made people put in jail but there's the church praying earnestly to god father your will be done i'm sure they prayed when they heard about james but it was his time right god knows what he's doing but our prayer is effective and powerful and can change circumstances and can remind god that we're here i love what paul said in ephesians 6 you know it's that great description of all this armor that we have all these great things that he's given us and then he closes that section of verse 18 of ephesians 6 with this and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests not just for healing but sometimes that someone can be unchained all occasions with this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all of the lord's people watchful thinking people say how do i how do you have an effective prayer life you just talk to god he's everywhere he's always listening it's a conversation that really never ends pray also for me paul said that whenever i speak words may be given to me so that i will fearlessly make known the gospel the mystery of the gospel for which i am an ambassador in chains you know it's ironic paul as a young man spent his life becoming a great pharisee thinking he understand exactly what god wanted him to do then he acted on that in full belief that he was doing the right thing by persecuting this movement of these christians and he spent the last half of his life in chains for the cause you see that's the first thing we learned about today you could be locked up but you can't lock god out of any place you can't lock him out you can't bottle him up you can't explain him away you can't turn to salt water and say you know what that's where we came from is we flopped out on the bank and then became what we are today he is who he is and the prayer of righteous people is powerful and effective james said in james chapter 5. let's look back at the text verse 6. the night before herod was to bring him to trial peter was sleeping between two soldiers so imagine the scenes when we got 16 guys assigned to him i'm sure some are you know working the other shift but we got two literally on either side they are very afraid of peter and they should be bound with not one chain but two double chained with two guys sitting on either side and century stood guard at the entrance there's a few more outside nobody's gonna break him out until they do verse 7 suddenly an angel of the lord appeared oh what are we going to do about that centuries and guards on either side and double chain a light shines in the cell he struck peter on the side and woke him up i love it that peter's just like you know another day he's just sleeping in double chains with guards on both sides waiting to be executed because that was what was going to happen right i mean this trial was not going to be in with him saying okay we decided to let you go i mean he's sleeping on the night before his death and he seems to be sleeping pretty well because the angel has to strike him to wake him up that's the way i want to be when i'm facing doom that i trust god that much i'm just getting me some good z's i love it quick he said get up and the chains fell off his wrist you cannot chain the people of god the angel said then put on your clothes and your sandals peter did so i love it it's like it's like waking up your kids to go to school right you have to give them every instruction because he's a bit startled i'm sure wrap your cloak around you and follow me the angel told him peter's like what who what in fact we know he says he follows him out of the prison but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening because he thought it was just a vision now in peter's defense he's been getting a lot of visions lately right we had him up on the roof and the thing's coming down from heaven and i'm not sure what am i doing and so i i i feel bad for peter in a way because god keeps speaking to him in these videos is this happening is it not happening i feel like it's real i don't know they passed the first and second guards they came to the iron gate leading to the city and in my mind because you know i like like avengers and x-men we talked about this before it's like you know like on the movie when like time stands down everybody's just like you know it's frozen and you're people are just walking past was it like that because they didn't see what was going on they were there i mean but they didn't see it it's like a movie except it's real the gate opens by itself and they went through it when they walked the length of one street suddenly the angel left again we've seen this happen all over the book of acts someone's there then they're gone teleportation dimensional control i mean people are there then they're not there it almost doesn't seem real and yet we know that it is real it's the power of what the almighty can do it's incredible then it said in verse 11 peter came to himself i don't even know what that means but all of a sudden he was like you know what this is real i'm on the street i was in jail just a few minutes ago somehow i'm here now i know peter said 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 what a moment i mean peter's experienced a lot in these eight or ten years since this whole thing started but this is pretty amazing and in that moment he realized that god had more for him to do he was ready to die for the cause in fact he's known that right didn't jesus tell him someone's going to lead you where you don't want to go you're going to be martyred so he thought you know this is it i'm ready and we say well you know this is this is a life-and-death situation it's all a life-and-death situation we live we die the point is what do we do in the middle are we chained or are we unchained it's all life and death we have a decision we serve the almighty god oh no it's so bad our government just who's the president now it's what is going to happen to us we live and we die and we serve the greatest being there is in the universe that's who we are that's what we do we make the most of every opportunity all the years all the great people i was just flooded with them this morning thought about myers and we were singing complete i thought about charlie and cindy last week because of something tara told me all these great people i've had the privilege of knowing walking with on the earth another one is doyle jennings those who have been here while you remember doyle big boy his dad called him when doyle he had brain cancer and i went and saw him in the hospital and you know the cancer was affecting his emotions and so he'd be laughing one minute crying the next but he told me something i've never forgotten and i want to mention that in this context today he looked at me and said how you know i figured something out we all have a certain number of days what do we do with them i don't know how many years ago that was but that struck me because here was a man who knew he was nearing the end of his life and yet he had had an impact on me and he's telling me don't waste it son god needs to use you a certain number of days you look at james you know why did the son of thunder have to die because he had a certain number of days and he spent them giving glory to god he was part of the inner circle peter james and john and yet peter had a little bit more to do but he would end too and so will all of us look back at verse 12 when this had dawned on him peter he went to the house of mary the mother of john also called mark first time we see about mark but he's going to have a huge impact in the future where many people had gathered and were praying i wonder what they were praying about maybe they were praying that god would break peter out of jail as crazy as that seems maybe they were just praying that father we trust you that we really would like peter to get out peter knocked at the outer entrance and a servant girl named rhoda came to answer the door when she recognized peter's voice she was so overjoyed that she ran back without opening it if a miracle shows up at your door open the door poor rhoda she gets one mention in the bible and it's for leaving peter outside she goes back to the others peter's out the door now i love the response and this is so us you're out of your mind girl what is wrong with you we're praying about getting him out of jail let's get back to praying no he said he's there i just left him i didn't let him in when she kept insisting they said it must be his angel i love it it can't be him because prayer doesn't work that's the other thing if a miracle shows up your door open the door but also don't make it so hard to be convinced that god answers prayer when it's standing at the door man we just miss it right sometimes so peter keeps on knocking and then they opened the door and they saw him they were astonished and apparently they started yelling and screaming because peter motions with his hand you know get me arrested again calm down people and he described how the lord had brought him out of prison tell james the brother jesus who was kind of the leader of the jerusalem church and the other brothers and sisters about this and then he left and went to another place i'm getting away from these crazy people back in hiding for a while realizing that god had more for him to do you know the story basically ends with what happens in the aftermath look back at verse 18. in the morning there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become a peter yeah you think after herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him he cross-examined the guards personally in order that they'd be executed sixteen men lost their life over this little episode you know what that tells me we need to leave room for god to do what he does when it comes to revenge when it comes to being hurt being wounded god will take care of business you don't have to do that these six that's why you have another mic right there at the handy look at there what satan intends for evil is good right so i'm one of the handheld so there's a cross-examination 16 men are executed you know why because they were on the wrong side you don't want to be on the eve one side you don't want to be on the political wind side you want to be on god's side and what of herod look down at verse 21 on the appointed day herod wearing his royal robes set on his throne and delivered public address to the people so he's just going forward we've killed the 16 guys we still haven't done anything about the movement but you know what i'm still king i'm still running this show so he gives his address and the people shouted this is the voice of a god not a man oh he's so good look at herod in his finery running and running this country and then immediately god says you know what hold my yahweh yeti and watch this immediately because herod did not give praise to god an angel of the lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died and we found out from history the worms were on the inside not pretty you don't want to be on the wrong side you want to be on the side that can take the chains and they fall to the ground they can make the evil one and his enemies not even see you're there that's the power of the almighty god and his redemptive plan cannot be chained by humanity ever unchained that's the power paul wrote in romans 6 verse 8 if we died with christ we believe that we also live with him that's in this life and the one to come that's living unchained now when we read these stories they seem so fantastical that it's almost like they're not real but they are and you begin to think you know could things like this happen in our time and the answer is yes today we have a story an amazing story video testimony that i want to share with you guys can you roll that good morning church family my name is randall i have the privilege and honor of representing you and being the state rep for celebrate recovery inside jails and prisons my story begins when i was incarcerated back in 2000 august of 2006 and i shared my testimony short testimony with a fellow from juarez mexico his name is ben and we were in a holding facility in oklahoma city oklahoma a federal holding facility and i shared jesus with him he was reading his bible and i was reading my bible also and he was reading the old testament he said god's a mean god and i said yes he's a mean god but he's a god of wrath because he's a jealous god but he's also a god of love mercy and forgiveness and i shared jesus with him and what jesus had done in my life and shared some scripture with him old and new testament scripture and we walked off then the next morning i shared jesus with him again and he said that he hadn't slipped any last night could he or asked me how he could make or ask jesus into his life and make him a new man so we got down on our knees in front of a lot of other inmates and his homies of course literally did i know who he was and we got out on our knees and he asked jesus to become his lord and savior and a fellow that i was incarcerated with come up to me after he was over with and asked me what we were doing and i told him and he said man do you know who that fellow was and i says no i don't really care and he said what were y'all doing and i told him and he said man that guy was the leader of one of the most notorious vicious gangs i'm from juarez mexico i said well he's not anymore he's a new man because jesus just made him a new man because he asked him to come into his life and he says his charge is conspiracy to orchestrate and or participate in the murder of two border guards and he has a double life sentence and where he's going he'll never see the light of day again his destination was colorado springs colorado super max underground they stay locked down for 23 hours a day and as i come home from my prison time i kept in touch with him by letters that were provided to me by my probation officer dear mr greer i sure hope you remember me i just wanted you to know that i'm well and doing just fine i stay locked down for 23 hours a day but as you know we can have one hour of wreck time so we have bible study i have been honored to tell and lead over 50 guys to our jesus christ and even two of the guys are the guards that guard me one of them even helps me in the bible study can you believe that what an awesome god we have mr greer i thank jesus every day for you sharing with me that morning in oklahoma city about the bible in jesus i pray for you every day i'll continue to try to write you so please try and write me back i hope this finds you well you know that i am serving two life sentences but because of jesus i've never felt more free in all my life keep praying keep believing and keep loving like you loved me your friend and brother forever been and he told me that he had started a bible study led 50 men to jesus and then he got online and became a minister and a pastor online from college of trinity bible college and he started a church which with over 500 members he even led three of his guards to jesus this little man was on fire for jesus and he also wrote his appeal to the united states supreme court and won and he was coming home and in that he is now the the person with the most time cut in the over the 150 year history of the federal bureau of prisons and he came home he came home to juarez and as always preaching the gospel sharing jesus and he led his family about 25 or 30 people to jesus and started a local church right there in juarez and his church started off small as they always do at first and then it just became 100 200 300 and of course they don't have the fire marshals down there so now it's standing room only but little did he know that somebody was watching him and it was the cartel that he used to work for and they kidnapped him and they tortured [Music] him and by a phone call that i had about three months three weeks ago from his sister to my probation officer as they kidnapped him they brought him in front of his church and his sister [Music] and the reason being they thought that he had he had told on them that's why he come home and they asked him to stop preaching the gospel and come back to the gang and sell drugs for the cartel and run drugs for the cartel or he wouldn't do it and he was on his knees telling his brothers and sisters of his church that he loved them and as he looked at his sister the words he said sent my heart to the to the core he said would you please get a message to mr randall and thank him for sharing jesus with me and as he said that he began to sing jesus loves me this i know and he executed they executed him and as that happened the members of his church and his family continue singing jesus loves me this i know family you never really realized who you share with when you share so never pass up the opportunity to share your hope that you have jesus loves you so do i unchained that's what that means peter james john ben randall sharing the undeniable unshakable truth that we can live forever that just happened a few weeks ago you read these stories they seem fantastical and you think could it happen it is happening two people taking a stand for the almighty a question to you this morning whether you're online whether you're in the fellowship center whether you're here is what's binding you what chains are holding you back acts 12 closed this story with the word of god continue to spread and flourish you can't keep god out sometimes we try to keep him out the evil one gets in there gets to working on us i mentioned about my 46 years here four of them i gave to the evil one started here and then i just left i was chained until i finally came to my senses in a pig pen and said i don't want to be chained anymore i want to serve you for the rest of my life that's why i'm here today verse 25 said barnabas and saul finished their mission they returned to jerusalem and they took john mark with them you see every time someone falls every time someone dies every time someone finishes the mission that they had god's always raising up the next generation the older i get the more i appreciate that that's what god is doing here that's why we need everyone on board for the mission this generation the next generation we've got a lot of work to do folks but we can't do that if we're bound ourselves in chains whether it's sin whether it's some illness or there's something that you just not have been able to say you know what god i trust you no matter what i will sleep soundly at night and be ready to go when it's time to go that's how we want to be before the almighty if something is holding you back today we want to give you an opportunity to give that to the one who can do something about it the breaker of chains if you have a knee why don't you come while we stand while we sing welcome this morning we're so honored that you spent your time with us this morning and we hope you've been encouraged and blessed by what you've heard today before i pray i want to share a word with you to hopefully it will encourage you and inspire you this is from second corinthians 5 the very end in the first few verses of second corinthians 6. therefore if anyone is in christ the new creation has come the old has gone the new is here all this is from god who reconciled us to himself through christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that god was reconciling the world to himself in christ not counting anyone's sin against him he has committed to us the message of reconciliation we are therefore christ's ambassadors as though god were making his appeal through us we implore you in christ's behalf be reconciled to god god made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of god as god's co-workers we urge you not to receive god's grace in vain i tell you now is the time of god's favor now is the day of salvation two things reconciliation you heard that that means being restored and friendly relationship with god because of christ in his death bear on the resurrection and also consider the fact that the creator of the universe has called you to be his ambassador his co-worker to share your life and what you've learned from him to those around you let's pray father as we leave today we pray father that we will leave here leave our homes enter our work our friendships as your ambassador is your co-worker knowing that we're in friendly relationship with you because of your son jesus we pray father that not only that we'll enter the world with that knowledge but with your spirit the power that leads us that gives us wisdom mercy and grace and i pray father that we will treat everyone we come in contact with you the way that you love us in christ and we pray amen amen thank you so much and thank you all again for being with us this morning thank you jamie for doing the announcements we love seeing our live stream community um out there doing the announcements so thank you so much yeah wasn't it fun seeing jamie i mean it's like one of our own right yeah and so it was a lot of fun seeing him up there and you did a great job jamie uh and so did randy and um i love having our elders come at the end and being able to pray with us and so one of the things that we need to do and we need to get these elders and learn more about them and their families because uh i happened to be at a baseball game this week over in ruston louisiana at louisiana tech and they were playing ole miss and i'm walking down the aisle and i hear this hey and i look over and it was randy and uh his son our son-in-law grant taylor and uh grant taylor's from huntsville texas and so anyway just would it's fun to get to know people uh and i thought again when i saw jamie online i thought that's a great thing to do is to get to know um i saw hazel green did sign in so hello hazel and lots more people i see we had a new person rex asking some questions and and um just lots of different folks online um so we're glad that you came to worship i even saw a question about hey is there instruments are we going to be able to have that easter service you know what shoot that info at wfrchurch.org and um that's a question that would be great for jeremy to and jp to kind of negotiate because i'm not sure of the answer to that yeah and thank you all again so much for being with us don't forget peak of the week wednesday and um stay in touch with our live live stream group and so behind us right now there's there's a time of where they are actually getting to um people are coming down and they're confessing and they're they're saying hey here's a joy here's a sorrow so what we're kind of doing is we're we're waiting and talking because we want to see if anybody has a baptism because man if somebody is saying i want to be baptized i would love for you guys to get to be a part of that right and there were several last week which was awesome so i love it and so did y'all see it did anybody out there see it you know what i'm talking about right did anybody see the snap oh good um this snap yes there was one yeah and so no i just i kid you not so i when when perky starts leading worship and you can i can you're his wife here's a better question forget me can you tell whenever he just instead of being lead mode where he's actually just worshiping god oh yeah tell me about that tell me how you can pick it out i mean eyes closed hands up i mean it's kind of similar to me so yeah okay well i i can see it because to me it's the same moments and songs that it's just i let my hair down it's like okay god here i am and i don't even realize there's anybody else in the room right surrounded by 700 people and i feel like i'm the only one there yet i can hear the community of believers singing with me and every now and then it's like a pavlov dog thing for me okay because i hear the snap and it's whenever i'm in the deepest moments of worship and so now whenever i hear a snap i'm like oh i think about worshiping god and so it's really it's really cool for me that's why i pointed out not in the sense of negative sense of it's absolutely amazing for me thank you for sharing that yeah we we hope you all have a blessed week i'm just trying to make sure we've said hi to everyone i don't envy so here's what's fun about teresa and what she gets to do over there and what i get to do over here i just have to talk to you guys that's that my role is to talk and to to relax and be able to to help navigate worship she's trying to figure out who's saying what and in trying to do it and there's no way i can but i know this it's a lot of fun this morning i pulled my phone up on facebook before we got up here and so to start seeing people say hello it's just a lot of fun i really enjoy it yeah such an awesome community um and uh what did you all think of al sermon curious on that i thought he did a great job i did too yeah it was i love that story and there's a lot of great takeaways i think so yeah and randall man i tell you what uh i just remember i remember randall coming through some tough times because randall randall helped carry me through some tough times and then he he's gone through some tough ones as well and i've been able to walk with him right i appreciated him sharing that story that was very moving just just awesome to get to watch so let me check in back i see david wrapping up so with david rapping that means we're probably going to rap i'm assuming that we don't have any baptisms this morning that doesn't mean that that you might not want to be baptized and so i saw one or two people that are coming here for easter sunday i saw it in the comments if you're going to be traveling and you're traveling through we would love to see you we'd love for you to jump in on a wednesday night or a sunday morning and you never know if we if we get talking enough maybe we can do a meal together and so we are really glad that you were joining with us this morning in worship and so today i would just encourage you to whatever doors you're at whether it's your house or if you're worshiping with another community kind of i know we have that in some other places feel free to walk out those doors and share the good news of jesus christ with others because as randall said you never know who who's going to accept that and then the powerful change that that will happen in their lives so in number six it says uh may the lord bless and keep you may the lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace go in christ we all have a blessed week thank you amen [Music] when all i see is the battle when all i see is the mountain you see a mountain [Music] your love surrounds me there's nothing to fear now for i am safe [Music] so when i fight i fight [Music] i'll sing through the night oh god the battle belongs to you and if you are for me you can be against me for jesus there's nothing impossible for you thank you god [Music] belongs to [Music] belongs to you [Music] nothing can stand against the power of our god you [Music] [Music] nothing can stand against the power of our gods [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh belongs to you

Channel: Whites Ferry Road Church

Views: 2,010

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: AEFo_UtSU7M

Length: 93min 45sec (5625 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021