How are you doing? I mean, like, really doing. Let's get past this side's good. This side you must be tired. But if we were to get past the like pleasantries, and just if you wanted to like close your eyes and breathe in the musky basement air and let it fill your lungs, I mean, how are you really doing? So I would imagine maybe stressed out is one of the ways that you're feeling. We live in a world that feels increasingly unstable. Current events continue to remind us how quickly things don't just change but escalate. Boy, that escalated quickly. Used to be a joke from an old comedy. And now it's like every day in the news. It's not funny anymore. Lost its humor. And even when the things that you see on the news or in your news feed, it isn't happening to you directly. It doesn't just stay out there. It's not like when you log off Facebook or you turn off the news or whatever, that it's gone. These things seep directly into our daily conversations, for conversations with friends and family. I know whether you know you're politically left or right, whatever you are, that it seeps into your stress levels. And even, let's be honest, our sense of safety as human beings. This is a human issue. They shape what's going on around us, the questions we carry into rooms like this, even if we don't name it out loud, whether you're conscious of it or not, or perhaps you were conscious about it. And then the band started playing and you focused in and you began to kind of feel some peace and presence and settle down. And then I came up here and I opened my big mouth, and all of a sudden your anxiety is amplified once again. And I didn't do it to make this morning difficult. I want to assure you, I feel the anxiety you feel too. And I want to invite you this morning to be aware of it. That's why I am bringing it up. I want you to be aware of it as we go into Acts chapter 12. And as we open up our minds and our hearts and our spirits to what God might be telling us through this scripture, through these passages in the current climate that we live in. As Kyle mentioned, we're continuing our series in Acts, which is about the early church. And it's written and read by people living under real power and the real threat of people using that power against them and fundamental uncertainty. The author, Luke, is writing to people who are trying to follow Jesus, much like many of us are today, in a world that's volatile and unfair. What might surprise you though, depending on your church background or how long you've been following Jesus, what might surprise you is that Luke is not going to give you any quips or antidotes on how to just get through this and it'll all be okay. He doesn't promise it to them 2,000 years ago, and he doesn't promise it to us now, and it's not because Luke lacked faith. I assure you, that isn't it. While he doesn't rush us or his original audience past the pain and suffering that they're going through, he also doesn't let fear, outrage, or confusion become the lens in which God is understood. He doesn't let fear, outrage, or confusion become the lens in which God is understood. Now, up into this point of acts, the early church has been spreading, and I would say mostly quietly, but it definitely has been picking up steam. It kind of came to a point last week where now we're in Antioch, one of the largest cities in that region. The gospel is beginning to spread. And now it's honestly it's no longer on the fringes of society. There was that quick burst, the day of Pentecost, and thousands of people find Jesus, and the disciples pick some helpers, and Stephen is persecuted. And that kind of slowed things down from the center. They're all out there, but it picks up steam once again. And once the church has become visible, now it's not a matter of killing one person. It's not a matter of if you kill Stephen, they're all gonna run. What we've shown shown and seen is that you kill Stephen and it goes out and it just spreads even faster and more. Now it's in the lens of those in power. They're now focused in on it. They see the church and they see it as a threat. That this movement, because up until this point, if you kill the leader like Jesus, the movement dies. But this movement kept going. So let's kill a few of them. And this movement kept going. So the way that the Roman Empire has historically handled problems really well now no longer works. And when that happens, leadership in that sense begins to freak out. So we're reading from Acts 12, let's just what verse 1 here. About that time, King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He was just getting started. He had the apostle James, John's brother, killed with a sword. Now it's been a while, right? Stephen was the last one that was really like the big publicized killing of a Christian. This is the disciple James. This is the brother of John, not the brother of Jesus. So when we come together and we read that verse during our worship music set that James says we're supposed to get together and pray, that's the brother of Jesus. This is not the one we're reading about right now. This was James, not the brother of Jesus, who was one of the disciples of Jesus. And King Herod Agrippa captures him and kills him. No miracle, no rescue, and there's no explanation. You can go ahead and read if you want. Luke doesn't say this is happening because the church is losing or failing. They're not. Remember, Herod strikes now because the church has not become weak, but rather has become strong, and it's an issue. He initiates persecution on the church because they've reached a point where they can no longer avoid the attention of those in power. And Luke is setting a frame for us for the rest of chapter 12. This is what happens when the gospel moves out of the shadows. This is what happens when we move out from the margins of society. And then almost immediately, Luke tells us about the other disciple or another disciple, Peter. When Herod saw how much this, capturing and killing James, pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. Boy, if I picked off one of the ones that nobody really knows about, and look how happy they all are. Imagine what happens if I take the big dog out. This is Peter. Let's get him. This took place during the Passover celebration. He imprisoned them, placing them under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, and it would have been kind of a sham of a trial. Okay, they would have gone through the motions, but Peter was definitely getting the death penalty. There's no doubt about it. So when Peter's fast asleep, in his mind, probably the last time he's going to go to sleep, fastened with chains between two soldiers. You can imagine he's he's fastened like this, and there's two soldiers sitting side by side him, and he's locked, and then on the other side of that lock gate are two more soldiers. There's four of them. Peter's not supposed to go anywhere. There's a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. Peter's chains fall off. There's an opening. Peter walks out. Peter, it's described as he thinks he's dreaming. He thinks that God has met him in a dream and he's supposed to come and have a conversation with God. Probably the last conversation he's going to have on this side of eternity. But it turns out it's not a dream that this really happened. And within the first few verses of chapter 12, we see it's the same church that have the same faith in Jesus, offering up the same prayers of deliverance with very different outcomes. If you've been following this series along, we know that Luke isn't just a theologian, he's a historian and a very intentional one at that as he investigates and asks questions and looks for citations. He places James and Peter right next to each other to illustrate something for us theologically. And that is that God's faithfulness does not guarantee uniform outcomes. And our faithfulness is not a strategy for predictable results. Luke does not tell us why Peter lives and James dies. And this is not a problem for me to solve this morning or for you to try to solve. And actually, as I was reading and studying this week, all the scholars pretty much agree that this is one of the points of the passage. This is what Luke wants you to sit and wrestle with. They're not the same. Luke doesn't condemn James for having a lack of faith. He doesn't praise Peter for having enough faith to get out of jail. There's no sense that one prayed better. There's no sense that one believed harder. And there's no sense that one lived more faithfully. As a matter of fact, I'd make the argument as you read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, these biographies of Jesus, you're gonna see Peter screw up a lot more than you're gonna see James. If following Jesus and doing it well, whatever that means, led to good health and lots of wealth, this would have been the passage for Luke to highlight that. Well, you know, James just didn't pray enough. Well, you know, Peter was super faithful, and that's why they had different outcomes. That's not written. Read it in any translation you want, original language included. That's not what is said. Instead, Luke places two faithful followers of Jesus being prayed by the same church with the same faith in Jesus, and he just lets the differences stand. They're just out there. And it's not to confuse you, but it's to free you of this burden that's still 2,000 years later, I see it still, and I know you see it still, and you probably have family members talk about it. But Luke writes this to free you of the burden of believing that suffering means failure. If you're going through pain and suffering right now, it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something wrong. Just like blessing doesn't always mean you're doing something right. We have to hold space for both. Just because you're being blessed and life is going good, that doesn't necessarily mean you're doing all of the things pleasing to God. We're gonna see that in a moment. And just because you're following Jesus well doesn't mean bad things aren't gonna happen to you. And this is a tension that we have today in the room. I know multiple people who are praying for the same thing: healing. One of them sees healing, the other one walks through loss and unanswered prayers. Why does that why is our question, right? Two families both trying to raise their kids faithfully. One story looks real smooth, real perfect pictures on Instagram, and the other is marked by struggle. Two people living with integrity at work, one is promoted, the other is overlooked. And in moments of like these, faith is tested not whether or not God is real, but whether or not we will trust God when the outcomes don't line up the way we think that they should. The temptation is to assume that something has gone wrong, either with us or with God. But Luke reminds us that uneven outcomes, these uneven, these different outcomes, are not evidence of God being absence, but rather maybe and perhaps for us, these uneven outcomes are the context in which our own faithfulness is formed. Perhaps that's why some of these things happen. Now, Luke turns our attention entirely to Herod, King Herod Agrippa. A note about this Herod, this is not the same one we read about at the beginning of Luke. This is more likely a family member, a close family member, probably a half-brother. But you can see that this family is very influential in the area. They've got lots of kings and people in power. This is Herod's defining moment. And it's not his persecution of James or of Peter, but it's applause. Go down to uh verse 21, where it says, On the appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them, the crowds, the people. And the people gave him a great ovation, shouting, It's the voice of God, not of a man. And instantly an angel of the Lord struck Herod down because he did not give glory to God. He was consumed with worms and died. By far the most confusing part of this passage. Luke here, let's point out a couple things that are easy to explain. First off, Luke doesn't say Herod dies because he persecuted the church. This was not like a retaliation for James. It wasn't a retaliation for Peter. Okay, that's not in there. That's not it. He dies, Herod dies according to Luke, because he was receiving glory that did not belong to him. He's I am a God, I'm gonna receive this, I'm not gonna correct you. Give it to me here. Now, you might read this and say that this seems like super unreal, symbolic, metaphorical. Why didn't this happen to everyone in that time who was receiving glory? They didn't all fall down dead. I don't have specific answers for that. That's that's something that we're just gonna hold. However, I do want to bring up that this did actually happen. The Jewish historian Josephus, who I has no inclination, desire, interest whatsoever to promote Christianity. Okay, he's on the side that cheers when James is killed. Okay, but he's a historian and he's writing history. He writes about this Herod's death. He describes Herod as appearing in a in dazzling royal clothing, almost like what Josephus writes is that's all silver, very bright. Think disco ball. So he is out there in the middle of the day, in the middle of the sun, and he's shining, which is supposed to give him like this effect of being divine. Yes, it's clothing, but it's like, wow, he's bright, he's shiny, it's very godlike, it's very divine. He's basking in public praise, Josephus says, when all of a sudden, in that moment, when he's receiving public praise, he grabs himself. He's struck with severe internal pain, and over the next few days, Herod slowly dies. Contrast the image here of someone who's all bright and shiny on the outside, but rotting with worms on the inside. That is what Luke means to highlight. Josephus gives us the historical details while Luke gives us some theological meaning, but together they verify the same story. That power did not corrupt Herod in this moment. It just revealed who he already was. He disregarded that authority here on earth is simply borrowed. That he mistook that influence was divinity. It's not. He accepted glory that was never his to take, and Luke is placing Herod in a much larger biblical pattern. Think of the likes like Pharaoh or Caesar, rulers who mistook power for permanence, status for identity, and success for divinity. And when we put Herod next to Jesus, the contrast couldn't be any different. Jesus repeatedly refused power. He rejected applause when it demanded him worship or idolize something else over here. Jesus chose faithfulness when it cost him visibility. Luke wants us to see this clearly. Faith is tested not only in suffering, but also success. As I was alluding to. Things can be going really good. We need to be aware our faith may still be getting tested throughout that. I want to point out that Herod didn't lack competence. He comes from a family of rulers. This is the family business. He grew up knowing and being taught how to rule, how to command a crowd. What failed him in this moment wasn't his talent or experience. It was his character. It was his character that failed him. One leadership thinker puts it this way: competency gets you in the room, but character keeps you in it. Competency, it gets you in that room that you want to be in. The promotion, the school, the house, whatever it might be, competency gets you there, but character is what keeps it there. And we see this pattern all the time in modern life. People rise to the position of influence, making promises, right? Political leaders, not just political leaders, business leaders, CEOs, VPs, public figures, celebrities, cultural voices. And at first, the promise is always the same. Responsibility. We're gonna change things, it's gonna be better. But oftentimes, and too often, especially in the United States of America, too often it shifts over time. And we've almost got this pattern down to a science where we all recognize it. Success stops being about stewardship. It once was about stewarding these resources and managing them, and now success is my identity, and I am successful. Criticism used to be valuable feedback, and now it's betrayal. How dare you call me out on my stuff? Applause was once humbling, and now it's what I deserve. Why don't you why aren't you cheering for me? Don't you know how successful I am? And slowly power stops being something that they hold, something that they steward or manage, and it becomes some becomes something that they are. The moment anything threatens success, it's a loss or a scandal, a downturn, changing a public mood or opinion. The collapse feels personal and absolute. Not because power failed, but because it was asked to carry more weight than it ever could. And in those moments, in those moments, we we stand out there like Herod, perhaps rotting on the inside, and all shiny and divine looking on the outside. I I believe God, through Luke's writings here, is showing us that when success becomes the ultimate goal for me, for you, for any person, it Doesn't just distort our judgment, it exposes what we were trusting all along. It exposes what we were trusting all along. Now, after the drama of Acts 12, Luke gives us here at the end a sentence, he says, But the word of God continued to increase and spread. James is dead, Peter's free, Herod drops dead. And the very thing that started the chapter is continuing at the end of the chapter. Herod fills this chapter with spectacle, fear, power, applause, only to disappear from the story altogether. And I want to point out to you a critical detail, I think, and that is that Luke does not mourn him. Luke does not mourn him. Herod's dead. The gospel still went going forward. God does not advance his mission through dominance or control. He advances it through endurance. It's not about power and control, it's about endurance. It's about keep going through steady faithfulness that it'll outlast rulers, regimes, and even moments of crisis. And this is why the New Testament continuously and constantly connects maturity with stability. Maturity with stability. Paul says it this way: We will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every new wind of teaching. And I'll be honest, it's challenging for me personally because by my temperament, I'm a driven person. I value productivity. I want to make things work better. I want it to be more efficient. I'm wired just personally to fix, improve, and to push things and sometimes people forward. And most of the time, that looks like good leadership in the United States of America. I mean, that's kind of what you want in like your senior leader, right? But passages like Acts 12, passages like the one we just read from Paul, it reminds me that biblical maturity is not tantamount or the same as good modern leadership. The two are different. Often biblical maturity looks like being steady, not reacting to every new moment, not being pulled forward by urgency or backward by fear, not by being tossed and blown around by whatever feels most pressing right now. And that's confronting to me because it means that the kind of maturity that I'm after in my personal life isn't always about doing more or moving faster, despite all the leadership books and podcasts I listen to that would say otherwise. What I see from Luke and his traveling companion Paul is that spiritual maturity is about becoming rooted and having deep roots. Mature faith isn't loud and it's not reactive. Mature faith isn't dependent on momentum or visibility. Mature faith is a faith that lasts. God's work doesn't depend who's in power, it depends on God's faithfulness. His faithfulness, not yours, his faithfulness, and our quiet obedience over time. This is what Luke wants us to see, and it's where the series titled The Long Way Forward comes into focus. The long way forward, faithfulness isn't dramatic, is not efficient, it's not the guaranteed way, it's the long way. God's work, again, does not depend on whose power, who is in power. It depends on God's faithfulness and the quiet obedience of his people over time. I've brought this up a few times over the last few months, but Eugene Peterson describes faithfulness as a long obedience in the same direction. And we often assume that clarity should come before obedience. I'll move when I know what the plan is or I know parts of the plan, but Luke is showing us that the early Christians practiced obedience first. God wants us to go this way. We're going to go that way and we'll see what happens next. We often assume today, probably because we're taught by Instagram influencers with cameras and microphones who claim to be talking in Jesus' name that faithfulness will be rewarded with momentum and affirmation and protection and likes and follows. But Luke shows us that faithfulness is more like finishing the assignment and going home. Will we trust God when outcomes differ from when our prayers are answered in ways we didn't expect or not at all? Will we remain faithful when success is delayed or invisible or unimpressive? Will we obey when the story doesn't resolve cleanly, when there's no certainty? You don't get the applause. You don't get guarantees. For many of us in the room, or if you're watching, listening online, faithfulness will look like, here's what it'll look like. It'll look like staying present in a relationship when conflict doesn't resolve quickly. That's what faithfulness will look like. Faithfulness will look like continuing to pray when it doesn't feel like God's listening, when it doesn't feel like the answers are happening, when it seems like it's going the wrong direction. So why pray at all? That's faithfulness. Faithfulness is showing up when no one notices, when no one pats you on the back, when no one gives you a high five, when no one says, great job. Faithfulness is showing up because God has called me here. It's about completing the work God has already placed in front of me instead of waiting for something more precise or something better. Well, this is good, but God, don't you have something a little bit more impressive for me? That's not faithfulness. Faithfulness is doing the job we've been called to today. Acts 12 doesn't give us answers to every question that we carry, but it provides us with a way to live with God when those answers do not come. It shows us a church that keeps praying even when some apostles are killed and others are freed. It teaches us to keep trusting even when the story doesn't resolve cleanly, and it continues walking down a road in which the outcomes aren't guaranteed and the plan to us isn't clear. And that's the kind of faith that we all ought to pursue. A faith that isn't loud, a faith that isn't flashy, but a faith that's steady, a faith that's rooted, a faith that's faithful.