Let’s pray. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us today. Anoint us and saturate us with the kind of anointing that enables us to teach the Word with power and with clarity. Give me nimbleness of thought, Lord, that I might flow in the realm of the Holy Spirit and be able to bless your people. I thank you, oh, God. I thank you, oh, God. I may not be where I’m going to be, but I thank you I’m not where I used to be. Thank you, Lord. I may not have possessed all the land, but I have sure left the desert. I have come out of the wilderness, and my feet are wet having crossed the Jordan. He that hath began a good work in us shall sure perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. I thank you because we are fearfully and marvelously made, and I thank you that you are working on our behalf. And before we know it, before we know it, before we even have an understanding of it, the glory of the Lord is going to break forth in our life. And we believe you for it and we thank you for it in Jesus’ name. Give him the best praise you got, the very best, the very best, the very best, the very best.
Peter’s sleep was a monument to the magnitude of his faith. Peter who normally freaks out in a storm and goes around screaming at Jesus is now in the storm of his life. What does he know that makes him rest and others faint? What does he know that makes him calm when others are in crisis? What does he know that makes him now able to bear a storm that he couldn’t stand a few pages ago? Look at how he’s grown to rest in Jesus. Passive faith is still radical faith. Passive faith is still radical faith.
The calm faith that anesthetize your pain, tranquilizes your fear, and brings you into a state of solidarity is just as magnificent as the faith that makes you take the jawbone of an ass and kill 10.000 Philistines, and both of them are working simultaneously in this text. And while Peter was sleeping, an angel appears. When passive faith clutched hands with aggressive faith, an angel appears. It’s not like the angel knocks at the door of the prison and, “Excuse me. This is FedEx from heaven. We have a delivery for you”. God never has to have anybody else’s permission to step into your situation. He doesn’t knock. He just appears.
When God says, “I’m bringing you out right now”, don’t wait on your pocket book. Don’t call your girlfriend. Don’t ask your sister what she thinks about it. Make haste. Look at somebody and say, “Make haste”. You better come out while you can. You better stop trying to be cute. You better come out right now. When you get the grace to come out, you better come out. If you get the grace to get healed, you better come out right now. You better take up your bed and walk. You better stop sitting there talking to yourself, reasoning to yourself, making excuses for your own dysfunction. When the anointing comes to get you out… Look at somebody and say, “Make haste”. Either you’re going to get over it or you’re not, either you’re going to forgive him or you’re not, either you’re going to walk in it or you’re not.
Stop laying around in the mess talking about, “I’m gradually going to get out”. The devil is a liar. When God’s glory shows up in your life… Slap somebody and say, “I’m coming out right now”. I’m coming out right now. It won’t be 6 months. It won’t be 6 years. It won’t be after the holidays. I’m coming out right now. I see the grace to get out. I’m coming out right now. I see the grace, I’m coming out right now. I refuse to be slow when God is working fast, when… oh! He said, “As you see the light, walk therein. The day you hear my voice, harden not your heart”. He says, “When I send my angel, don’t make him have to drag you out. Make haste”.
I don’t know who I’m preaching to today, but you’re in a make-haste moment. Make haste. Get out now. Sit down. I’m almost finished. My God, coming out now. Coming out right now. “I’m going to do it right now. I got the grace to do it, I’m going to do it right now. I got the grace to forgive, I’m dropping it right now. I got the grace to build, I’m building it right now. I got the grace to go back to school, I’m going right now”. When God puts a grace on your life, it has a time dimension to it. You can’t do it when, “I’m fitting to. I’m getting ready to. I’ve been thinking about it. Eventually the devil is a liar”.
You don’t have to wait for everybody else to feel what you feel when you feel what you feel. You got to operate between you and God. And when God says, “Make haste”, I don’t care who you’re connected to. You got to break loose and come on out of that. Slap somebody and tell them, “I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. You can sleep in this mess if you want to, but I got to go. You can stay in this den if you want to, but I got to go. You can keep on feeling sorry for yourself, but I got to go. Whatever it takes, I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. I got to go”.
Who am I preaching to? Maybe it’s somebody on the Internet. I got to go. Touch five people and tell them, “I got to go. I got to go. I got to go”. For the next 30 seconds, I want every escapee in here to give God some kind of praise right now! You got 10 seconds. You got 5 seconds to open your mouth. Touch everybody who was praising God, say, “Bring your stuff with you when you come”. Glory to God. You’re coming out. You’re coming out. You’re going to get back everything you lost, everything the devil stole, everything the enemy took. Everything that went down in the situation, God said you’re going to get it back.
Lord, I feel like preaching. Get it back. Tell your neighbor, “Get it back”. The angel said, “Put your clothes on. Wrap your garments around yourself. Grab your coat because when you come out, I’m going to bring everything that’s yours out with you”. Tell your neighbor, “I’m going to get my stuff back. Give me my coat. Give me my clothes. Give me my name. Give me my reputation. Give me my joy. Give me my daughter. Give me my son. Give me my house. Everything that’s mine, when I come out, I’m bringing it all out with me. I’m bringing it all out”.
See, the last time I saw “he came to himself”, it was about the prodigal son. You remember that? And the Bible says, “He came to himself”. The prodigal son came to himself, having been intoxicated off of his own sins and excesses. He came to himself to recognize who he was and thereby he was liberated, but Peter was liberated before he knew it. The prodigal son knew it and therefore he was liberated, but Peter was liberated before he knew it. And I came to realize that most of the time that God does the most amazing things in your life, they’re done before you knew it. That you have walked it out before you know it, that you have gotten over it before you know it, that you are free from it before you know it, that you are whole before you know it, that you’re not afraid anymore before you know it, and you can’t even tell anybody what really happened because God did it so smooth.
Peter could not differentiate between what he was dreaming and what he was living. He went from dreaming about it to walking in it. There are some people in this room that if you give it a moment and think about it, you are walking in things that you used to dream about. Never could have imagined. Now you got to go back before you started taking your blessings for granted. Go back to the old you who was praying to be the you, you have become today. And I bet you, you cannot tell me exactly when it happened. One day it was a dream, and the next day I was walking in it. And it says, watch this, “He came to himself”. And he said, “Now I know. See, then I believed it, but now I know it”. And when he knew it, the angel disappear. And if the angel disappeared, then class is dismissed.
“Class is dismissed, Bishop”? Yeah, the whole thing was a class taught by the master instructor in a controlled environment so that Peter could preach the rest of his life without fear of the jailhouse. He exposed you to it to take the power from it. Let me stop. Let me stop. I got to stop. So that it wouldn’t threaten you, so that it wouldn’t intimidate you, so that it wouldn’t have power over you. One final thing and I’ll be through. When the angel disappeared, the angel didn’t tell him where to go, what to preach, or what to do. He instinctively went to the house that they were praying in. How did he know which house?
So he comes to the house and knocks on the door. Rhoda comes to the door and hears Peter’s voice, and they’re still in there praying, and beating the floor, and talking in tongues, and rebuking the devil, and pleading the blood, and Peter was out before they knew it. Rhoda goes to the door and says, “That’s Peter”. And they said, “No, it’s not. It’s a ghost. It’s an angel. It’s something else, not Peter”. What they were praying for had been answered before they knew it. Peter was out before he knew it. Their prayers were answered before they knew it. Rhoda tried to tell them. They wouldn’t hear it. They opened up the door. Peter is standing there. They’re aghast.
He said, “Shut up. Let me tell you what happened. While you were praying, the angel was invading my crisis, and he said something and the chains fell. I was trying to get my clothes on and he told me to get my coat. We were walking, but they didn’t see me. And we walked right through them and they never”. “Well, did they try to kill you”? “No. We didn’t have to fight because I was out before they knew it. And I was headed to the house before you knew it, and the gate had opened before I knew it. And nobody knew it. Nobody knew it, but God”. I’m trying to tell you that everything in your life is being orchestrated without you. That the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and you’re walking in them and you don’t even know it, and you’re about to come into the full stature of who you were created to be.