Acts 1:1 TNIV

Acts

Introduction:

Have you ever read a book and got to the end of it and really felt like there should be more to this story, maybe a sequel? Isn’t this how you feel at the end of the Gospel stories sometimes? You get to the end of Luke, for example and you want to say, tell me what happens next?

Most biographies do tell us about the man, who he was, how he lived, how he died, and then they just stop, but the gospels don’t that. We don’t stop with a dead hero. He dies, but it ends with Him being alive again, and leaving you with a little question of what happened next. The good news is, there is a sequel to the gospels and it’s just as exciting and uplifting as the gospels, and it’s called the Book of Acts.

Read Verses 1-2 and take note. “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.” Notice anything interesting about what Luke is saying here? This is not the first account, he wrote an account before this one. This is the sequel! The man who wrote is named Luke. Paul mentions him in 3 of his letters, Col. 4:14, where he identifies him as the beloved physician and then again in 2 Tim. 4:11 and Philemon 24. He was a co-worker with Paul highly spoken of in the church.

He’s a doctor and maybe most significantly, he’s a Gentile, the only Gentile writer in the New Testament. He’s not overly concerned you know allot about him. Here’s an interesting fact, he wrote more content than any other writer in the New Testament. Most would say Paul wrote more, but the truth is Paul wrote more parts, letters, but Luke wrote the most words, the most content. Luke and Acts comprise over 30% of the NT, all written by one man.

So why is this book so important to look at seriously? If we have spent all the time looking at the gospels of Jesus, we should be changed people by the gospels. We ought to be a transformed people after studying Jesus. In fact, that is what the book of Acts shows us. It shows us what happens to people who live with and learn of Jesus. Acts is what studying Jesus was meant to produce.

1. What Acts is not:

a. Acts is not the Acts of the Apostles. The title may say that, but remember we added the titles, they aren’t inspired scripture. That title didn’t show up until about 180 A.D. The book itself was written in 63 A.D. Originally people called it, “The history of Christian origins.” Obviously that title didn’t stick.

Only in chapter 1 are all the Apostles mentioned, but in the rest of the book only 4 are mentioned. James is mentioned in one verse and John is mentioned a couple times, but never says anything. Peter and Paul are the major figures in the book.

Paul calls himself one untimely born, not one of the original 12. As we look we’ll see the minor figures play a big part in the telling of this story. They aren’t Apostles, but folks like Steven, Philip, Barnabas, Timothy, Appolos, John-Mark, Pricilla, Aquilla, and Lydia. This is not a book about the Apostles.

b. The book of Acts is not a list of conversions. Allot of times people approach the book as though it were a textbook on how to become a Christian. Now, we certainly can learn something about conversion in this book, but Luke didn’t have that as his purpose. He didn’t say; the church needs a book on how to become a Christian.

There are only 8 conversions recorded and none are listed in the last 1/3 of the book. He’s not trying to show us how they became Christians; he’s showing us why they did.

c. This book is not a book about missionary journeys. Paul’s journeys take up 7 ½ chapters, but they are not the thrust of the message. In fact, after Paul is arrested, more time is spent on what happened to him, than during his travels.

d. Acts is not a book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit, which is a popular concept. The Holy Spirit is referred to 60 times, which does say something important, but 40 of those times are in the first 1/3 of the book. The Holy Spirit is active and essential in what is happening, especially in those break through times in the early church. Yet, after chapter 11 the Holy Spirit is implied more than He’s mentioned. It is not as necessary to mention Him in the later chapters as it is in the first ones.

We are going to discuss the Holy Spirit for sure, but Luke did not write this book to give us a book of theology on the Holy Spirit. All of the afore mentioned things are mentioned and have some importance, but there is a greater theme Luke has in mind.

2. What the book is:

What did Luke have in mind when he wrote Luke and the book of Acts? He wrote these books close to the same time period, so if you want to understand Acts, maybe Luke helps? Luke 1:1-4, “So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.”

Note Acts 1:1-3, “Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God.”

What do you see about these verses that tell you something very specific about why Luke wrote these books? Luke and Acts were written to one man!
The largest literary undertaking of the New Testament was written for one man to receive, one person in mind. What does that say to you? What about the value of one person?

Do you know how hard it was to write anything back then? The crude curved writing instruments they used, the parchment they wrote on, and he’s doing it all for just one man! How important is one man to those early Christ followers, as well as to God?

a. Who was this book written to? If you want to know more about any writing of the NT, you find out about who the thing was written to. It helps us when studying Galatians to find out something about who these people are. Same with every letter or book. So who do we have to find something out about when looking at Luke and Acts?

Who is Theophilus? His name means, Lover or friend of God. Luke says he is writing to him about what he has been taught. Is he a believer? If he’s not, then Luke and Acts are the only books written in the NT to non-believers. I lean toward him being a believer, a follower of Christ.

He was also an official in the roman government. “O most excellent Theophilus,” is a title. It was the same title Paul gave Festus and Felix in the later chapters; he was addressing government officials. So he’s an official.

b. Why was he writing to him? Notice what Luke says about this writing. Allot of people are writing things about Jesus, but I did careful research, to give you the exact truth of the story. So, what he’s trying to do? Luke is writing to commend Christianity to the Roman world!

Theophilus is a believer high up in the Roman government and he’s in a position to have allot of influence for the Christian faith in Roman circles. Luke is writing to this man so he will have the exact history of what this movement is all about.

This explains several things that come up in the book. One thing is to promote that Christianity is the true Judaism, or Jews religion. Why would that be important? Simply because; Judaism was a legal religion in Rome and Christianity wasn’t. You could kill Christians, but not Jews, because Rome recognized Judaism as a legal religion. Over and over Luke shows; the God of the Jews is the God of Christians.

Judaism was to have become Christian and God is now recognizing this fact. Christianity is the new Israel, so, since the old Judaism was legal, now Christianity ought to be legal. This explains why Christians look good in the eyes of Rome in this book.

Who were some of the first converts? Cornelius, the Philippian jailor, and these were both Romans. If you looked at this book before, who are the ones that give Rome a hard time in this book? It is the Jews.
Who are the ones always being good citizens to Rome? Christians! This book depicts who is always finding the Christians innocent. It is Rome who finds them innocent. The Jews are always persecuting Christians.

Luke is trying to show Theophilus that Christianity is the true Judaism and are not trying to overthrow Rome in any way. What Christians are concerned about is overthrowing sin and all the lies the Romans are hearing about them just aren’t true. So, Acts is a letter written to one man, a high official, showing that Christianity ought to be a legal religion, a friend of Rome.

3. Acts is about sharing the message of the son of man, read 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Here in is the Theme that runs throughout the book. What is the book about? It is about witnesses!

Witnesses are repeated many times over and everything fits under this emphasis. Yes, the apostles do witness, but they are not the only ones. Conversions are recorded, but even if there’s no converting, there is witnessing. It records Paul’s journeys, because they were part of the witnessing strategy. There were other methods used as well.

The Holy Spirit plays an irreplaceable part in helping the church get the witness to Jerusalem and then out past Judea, but the emphasis is on the witnesses themselves. It’s a story of some people, who took the story of one man and turned the world upside down, not to over throw any government, but to conquer sin wherever it was found.

a. When Jesus is preached, Acts is the result! Luke didn’t know God had anything like scripture in mind when he wrote these books, but God did. God is testifying that when you preach about His Son, you get Acts.
b. There is an outline given by God Himself in 1:8; “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." They way it unfolds is, witnesses went first to Jerusalem and then to all Judea, and then to Samaria, and then to all the ends of the earth.

Chapters 1-7 show the beginning of what we would call urban evangelism. How a few people took their city for Jesus Christ! I believe there’s a big lesson here, even for today. We need to learn first things first. Forget about foreign evangelism until the church starts caring about it’s own city. Before He tells them to go to the ends of the earth, He tells them to go into their own city and turn it upside down for Jesus.

The first 7 chapters are about folks like you and me, who went to the markets, places of business, work, and everyday places, and homes witnessing for Jesus Christ. They had a huge impact on that city. After they witnessed to their city they went to Judea and Samaria, which we see in chapters 8-12.

This was this beginning of home missions. They are now witnessing to people kind of like them, but a little different. Samaritans were half Jew, half Gentile.
Kind of like going from the south to the north in our country. They’re still Americans, but there are lots of differences in how we live and see things, and yet we have many things in common. This would probably apply to our neighbor, Canada as well, lots of similarities, but differences.

So we take the story to people who have different ways of doing things, yet we relate fairly well, not huge differences. So the people first won their town for Jesus and then they spread out through the country for Jesus to people who are a little different, but speak the same language, have the same nationality, or very similar. So, the church learns, God is bigger than one place, or one kind of people.

So, what’s next? Well, here’s where the Holy Spirit has to take a major role and help them take the step to go to the ends of the earth. Now, we’re dealing with more than just geography, but more with ethnicity. Acts 13:47, “For this is what the Lord has commanded us: "I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” He’s not naming places, but people, the gentiles, the nations. This is the beginning of world outreach, chapters 13-28.

So, what this book is about is the story of a people witnessing to people just like them, and then going to people a little like them in their own area of the world, and then going to people who were nothing like them. They are now witnessing to folks who don’t look like them, talk like them, have the same background, and that’s where the book ends.
Acts 28:28-31, “Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!" For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.”
People have wondered about how this book ends, thinking there must have been something wrong for Luke to just end it like this. Did he run out of space and time? Paul is traveling to many places, gets arrested, sent to Rome and then he’s waiting for his trial and we think it will start soon, but then it just ends. Come on Luke, end it for us, tell us about how the trial went. He doesn’t do it, why? Because the book is not about Paul!
The book is about how some people spoke to their city, their country, their world, and where does it all end? It is no coincidence it ends in Rome where Theophilus is. I want you to see how in 3 short decades some people reached the whole world, even Rome with the story of Jesus.
In Rome, Paul is being accepted by many, unhindered to preach and what we’re seeing is Christianity is the best thing that ever happened to the empire. Luke makes the case and then he stops. These are the basic facts of the book. These aren’t just interesting learning facts, but relevant facts that ask, what does all this say to me? What do all these facts say about my life and yours?

4. The challenge of Acts: The meaning for us.
We look intently at this book because Jesus hasn’t stopped working, even though He has ascended. This is a key point to the book.
In the past we have looked at the gospels being about Jesus and Acts is about the Apostles. It’s time to get the point that Acts too is about Jesus!
Did you notice the precise words of verse 1? Luke says the first book was about all Jesus Began to do and teach. In the first book I showed you what He started, now I want to show you what He is still doing. This is not the record of an organization, it’s the story of the emergence of a living organism; the Body of Christ, and it lives on today.
It is in the body of Christ that Jesus is alive, working, doing, teaching, in every age. Any time you find a Body of Christ, you find Acts! You can put whatever sign up on your door you want, organize your system anyway you want, but if it’s only the Body of Christ if you see Acts. Acts is a book about Jesus who is alive and is doing things in His churches, even now.
The gospel of Luke is about what he began, Acts is about what he still is doing. God didn’t stop writing just because Luke ended his account of the Gospel. There is a very real sense in which Acts is the only uncompleted book of the N.T. What we’re looking at in our Bibles is Acts volume 1. What God continues to write right now is Acts volume 21.
God continues to write about what the Body of Christ is doing in every age. The only thing for us to consider is; has the theme of Acts volume 1 and the theme of Acts volume 21 changed? Do we see the church moving in just a few short decades to witness to the whole world about Jesus? Do we see cities turned upside down for Jesus? Do we see the church being persecuted because they are so active in their testimony for Jesus?
What I have seen and been a part of for too long is; I see Acts volume 1 preaching to the world and in Acts volume 20 and 21 I see mostly the church preaching to the church. That’s a big difference! I do see signs of change, but will we fan those flames? Acts volume 1 preached Jesus to those who didn’t know Jesus and our history today is we talk to those who already have heard of Him.
We have spent too much time worrying about if we’ve got the system of doing church right and no where near enough time talking about God’s grace of salvation in Jesus and putting Jesus at the center of everything we say and do. God is still writing our history, but is it the history he wants to pass on to the next generation? I believe He still wants Acts volume 1 being lived today.
I think God wants to write a chapter right here and now, about the church and what they are doing to promote the kingdom of God. Acts can teach us to do what we need to do to be the body we need to be in any generation. We’re not just studying this book to look at history, but by God’s grace, we look at it so we will make some! This is what the body of Christ does; it makes History!

Witnessing the difference: Acts 1:3-11
“After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. "After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
While on the cross Jesus made the statement, “It is finished.” Yet, here in Acts 1 vs. one, Luke says he is writing to tell us what Jesus continued to do after the cross. At the cross, Jesus did everything to redeem you. You can do nothing on your own to procure redemption; Jesus paid it all! You can only accept that by faith and trust totally in him. He finished the work of Redemption.
Now the work of evangelism is still an ongoing ministry of Jesus. Making the author of redemption available to others is never ending. Jesus made redemption absolutely possible at the cross, He completed that work, but proclaiming that is continuously done.
Here well what we were called to be! No one was called to be a theologian. Vs. 8 makes it clear from the beginning we were called to be witnesses! The Greek word for witnesses is the word “martoose.” It’s a legal word for witnessing facts in a case. It also involved establishing facts by giving views and facts you have personally become convinced of by faith. Not necessarily that you were there, but giving convincing proofs that you by faith accept and proclaim.
It’s not that you have to try to convince people by producing evidence by sight, you don’t see God, but by faith you proclaim Him, you witness to His reality. To be called a witness meant to proclaim God. You couldn’t show Him physically to people, but you proclaim His reality. Steven is called a witness, yet we have no proof he ever saw Jesus. In Rev. 2:13 it says, “My faithful witness Antipas.” He was a Gentile in Asia Minor who never saw Jesus, but Jesus calls him His witness.
The word for witness came to mean something you believe in so much you would die before you denied it. “Martoose,” became the word for martyr. So to be a witness doesn’t mean you observed Him by sight, but you proclaim Him by faith. You have become convinced by all the truths that exist and you witness to those facts. We tell people about Jesus just like Steven and Antipas, even though we didn’t personally see Him. That’s our task, our call.
So the question then becomes not so much are we witnesses, but are we good ones? Have we been faithful to the task of being witnesses of what Jesus said and did? Does the church in Acts volume 21 witness for Jesus as the church in Acts volume 1 did? Are we turning the city, the country, and the world upside down in just a few short decades for Jesus? Are we making a difference by our witness?
Redemption is still being offered and witnessing is still the method to be used to proclaim it, the Body is still the instrument that is used to proclaim it, but are we making a difference? If not, why not? Many say, our times have changed, so it’s harder to reach the world. What say you? To be honest, I think we struggle with the notion we live in a modern world and an old time religion just doesn’t speak to people of the modern world. It may have worked great in the first century, but not so well now.
Well then, have man’s basic needs changed? Just look at the far out extremes people go to meet their needs today. We have some of the weirdest kinds of cults ever, even with all our knowledge about the dangers of drugs we are using more than ever, suicide is epidemic, and more and more folks want to force people to follow their specific idea of truth. If we go to such extremes to meet our basic needs, doesn’t it say our message is still very relevant?
People hide behind, “we live in troubled times.” Yet, history records that during troubled times the message of the Gospel flourishes and grows like no other. Maybe that says allot about us and the kind of people we are, always sinful at heart, but the times aren’t what makes the difference, it’s the witnesses.
Many would say we don’t have the means they had. They say if we could do miracles on the same scale they did we would impact the world more. What say you? A huge problem with that is, many, even most who saw the miracles didn’t become converted. Most all in Jesus’ day saw wonders you and I have never seen, yet did not believe. Same could be said of the early church, miracles witnessed to believers way more than they did to non-believers.
Also, we need to realize, most of the witnesses in the first century church didn’t do miracles, only a select few. The message was spread by the faith of the witnesses, not by miracles performed. If you look with an open mind you will see miracles weren’t a good tool to convince people to believe, they did help build faith in believers; testify to them God was working, but had little affect on non-believers.
The truth is, a good case can be made that we are more accountable today than the church back then, because we have vastly more resources and means to spread the witness than they ever had. They were dirt poor and we are affluent. It took days, even weeks to get one letter from one place to the other. Days and weeks, even months to get from one place to the other, etc. I’m not trying to lay guilt trips, just to get us thinking straighter. The only reason, or excuse we have for not making a bigger impact than they did is us!
The difference from their time to ours is the witnesses. We seem to have the same message on the surface as they did, but it doesn’t seem as convincing as they were. When these folks preached, people listened and believed and when we preach nobody seems to care. So, what do we do, shout louder, grit our teeth, get more intense, or what? Could it be we don’t believe the same things about our message they did about theirs?
Why they were different, verses 3-5:
“After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
They were seeing Jesus. He had to show Himself many times, so they really believed it was Him they ate with, etc. Jesus had to convince them He was telling the truth about the resurrection! He convinced them He was alive! What does that say to us today? What do we really believe? They believed first and foremost, Jesus was risen! This gave them their message.
You see this book is the story of witnesses who preached of the resurrected Christ. Sermon after sermon would state the major central message of all believers; the resurrection of Jesus. How does a message like, I’ll die for Christ, because He died for me go over? The only way that message goes anywhere, is if we first establish, He didn’t stay dead and that resurrection is also promised to all who believe. The zeal of these people is one of the greatest proofs of the resurrection of Jesus. You don’t go all over the world, being stoned, persecuted, and even killed for a dead man!
You may ask or think at least, Tony, are you saying we don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus? No, we believe it, we even talk about it, but there’s a difference. The church of today acts more like an organization that perpetuates the memory of Jesus. The resurrection is an ancient doctrine; we give lip service to, remind each other of it, but to them it was a present dynamic! He is alive, not He became alive! We come together to talk about what God did; they came together and talked about what God is doing right now, through the resurrected Christ.
We come together and it’s more like, wow, isn’t that great how God used to work. Remember when he walked on water; remember when He healed the lame guy and the blind man? How about when he came out of the tomb, wasn’t god something when He did stuff like that? Boy, that’s great history.
They didn’t talk about Jesus in the past tense, He was alive and he was with them, not just at a couple sightings of Him, but always! When they went to Samaria, Jesus went with them. When they went to the ends of the earth, Jesus went with them. They preached Jesus is here and with us. The resurrection wasn’t an event to be explained, it was a power to be experienced.
These people had real life! They knew it, because Jesus was with them giving it to them. They didn’t talk about history they talked about reality. What’s it like when Jesus is in your life? He is a risen living Lord. Is that how we talk about Jesus when we witness? Does our message sound like that? That is definitely a way they were different than most of us today.
Another difference revealed verses 6-8:
“So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Learn a valuable lesson here. Jesus did this often, by the way, but we often don’t seem to get it. He didn’t feel compelled to answer every question. The times are God’s business, not ours. Have things changed much since then? We still want to know when He’ll come back, when’s the end, etc., right? Basically he’s says, you let God take care of His things and you take care of what’s been entrusted to you. Figuring out when what is going to happen, has not been given to me to figure out.
You let God keep the time you do the task! I called you to be my witnesses, not my clock-watchers. A certain time was coming that you need to be concerned about and that time came on Pentecost day, when they would receive power from the Holy Spirit. The kingdom did come on that day in a much different way than they ever expected. It’s interesting that they quit talking about the kingdom in a national perspective from here on out and started talking about a spiritual kingdom, ruling over all men.
They now understand Jesus never came to set up a national kingdom. He came to set up a kingdom that lives in the hearts of men. What is the Kingdom of God? The kingdom is not a place of any kind it’s a relationship. The kingdom is when someone gives absolute sovereignty to the lord as his only king.
Jesus taught us to say, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Where do you find the kingdom? Anytime you find a heart that is doing the will of God, you’ve found the kingdom. Jesus taught us also, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God, but only the people who do the will of my father.” That’s what the kingdom is. They understood the kingdom wasn’t a place, but an attitude, it was surrendering to Jesus and the more they understood this they more imperative it became to tell others.
So, they believed that Jesus is ruling and that is what gave them a mission. They had to turn Jerusalem upside down, then they had to go to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, all to let people know Jesus is king.
He’s ruling right now, don’t wait for some time to come, he’s ruling now and he wants to be the Lord of your life. They had to go into the whole world; they wouldn’t rest until the whole world had heard. They went everywhere saying the kingdom is here! The kingdom is now! Jesus is king of Kings and Lord of Lords, let Him rule your life and see the change that comes. To us the kingdom is a teaching; to them it was a lifestyle! Do you see the difference?
Yet another difference Verses 9-11:
“These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, "You Galileans! —Why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think vs. 11 is one of the silliest questions going. If someone lifts up from the earth and goes into the sky in front of me and a couple guys come along and ask, what are you looking for, even if they are angels, I’m going to think them a bit silly. You might see this sort of thing allot, but I’ve never seen anything like this.
But, the angels came with a message. Listen up, this Jesus you just saw going into the sky is coming back! He’ll come the same way you saw him leave. He’s going to break back into history, just like He did before. They believed Jesus is returning and that gave them motive!
They didn’t know when, Jesus didn’t tell them, it wasn’t for them to know. He doesn’t tell us when, because he wants every generation to live like it could be the next moment. What was their motive? Jesus is going to come any moment now and will He find us faithful to our calling? Am I proclaiming the message, am I doing the mission, and do I keep the fires burning?
Now, you and I believe in the second coming, we’ve got all kinds of theories about it and we could get lost talking about them all. We even sing songs like Jesus is coming soon! But, let’s be honest we didn’t wake up this morning thinking and hoping this could be the day, now did we? They did! They believed at any moment it was going to happen. For us the second coming is a doctrine, to them it was a destiny! Every time the saw each other, every time the left each other they said, Maranatha! The Lord is coming!
They believed it and weren’t going to be found apathetic or lackadaisical, because they knew He was coming any second now. They didn’t just go through religious motions, playing church. There was no time to play, any moment now the lord’s coming back! So much did they believe Paul had to write to one church in Thessalonica about it. They were so sure He was coming soon, they sold all their houses, quit their jobs, and were just waiting, and they were going to be ready. Paul had to counsel them with wisdom.
Do we have a convincing message today that says Jesus is coming? If we do say it to the world, do you think they believe we believe it? In the first century when they preached he’s coming back, you might not believe it, but you sure believed they did. I really wonder some times if we do believe it? How do we know for sure? Look at our priorities and they will tell you if we believe or not. If we really believed he’s coming back now, would we be doing some of the things we are?
What difference does all this make? :
The truth is not received unless it’s believed. The fact is you can go to the courthouse and you can tell the absolute truth and still lose the case. It matters if people believe you believe it’s the truth. We can go to the world and tell them the absolute truth about Jesus as to what He did and is doing and you can lose the world.
The world is not very adept at recognizing the truth! If it was we wouldn’t see all these thousands of people spreading crazy lies and getting thousands of fanatical followers following after the dumb things they are telling people to believe. The world has never been good at knowing the truth when they hear it. So, if they hear it from someone who doesn’t act like they believe it, they won’t listen. They can recognize your face and your actions and they may not believe it, but they can tell if you do.
You want to know where the saying, sometimes your life speaks louder than all your words, here it is. Truth will not be received unless it’s believed. How are you living? If our lives don’t conform to a belief that believes Jesus is raised, ruling, and returning at any moment, they won’t believe you.
It won’t be believed unless it’s lived. God’s word must be applied before you can explain it. Don’t expect your neighbors to believe Jesus is coming soon, when your living like He’s not. Don’t expect people to believe Jesus is alive and with you, when you’re living like he’s a million miles away.
If we’re going to reach people in this world in our day and time, in this century, it won’t be because we have all the right doctrines. It will be because we have the right witnesses. People who really what they believe and what they teach. The most powerful argument you have as a witness is your life!
The issue is not whether you area witness or not, but are you a good one. They were in the first century church. God help us to be Acts again, to make a real difference. Conviction isn’t bad, guilt is useless, but conviction must motivate us, or no one will know what you believe. There’s great hope and power if we feel we have gone off course. The Messiah’s cross is still available for forgiveness and to empower us through the resurrection, our present hope of glory to remind us daily, he’s coming back. Let us be found faithful when he returns.

The Evolution of Revolution Acts 1:12-14
Intro. :
His name was Niche; he was a 19th century disciple of Carl Marx. He and his fellow believers determined to assassinate the Czar; Alexander the II and take over the government. They did assassinate the Czar, but they were arrested and sent to prison where they died.
Prior to His death Niche wrote about his beliefs and many are still influenced by his writings today. You might think facing death in prison would cause you to mellow a bit, or even change your mind about some things, but listen to what he said:
“The revolutionary man is a consecrated man. He has neither his own interests, nor concerns, nor feelings. No attachments, no property, not even a name. All for him is absorbed in the single exclusive interest, in the one thought and one passion; revolution!”
Acts is the account of a revolution! It’s a book about men of action, not reaction. Here’s another difference between the day we’re studying and ours. Acts is a record of a church in action and how the world reacted to them. The world was saying, “What are we going to do about the church? Today, the world is taking the initiative and we’re doing all the reacting saying, “what are we going to do about the world?”
It’s story of the most least likely revolutionaries the world has ever seen, 1:12-14: “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”
Give us the genius of revolution here. You don’t see flags burning, or big bonfires, fiery speeches, or all manner of protesting. What do we see? After they see Jesus, they go to a place and pray. If there was ever anything that began from small beginnings, the Christian revolution is it. Somewhere in this others showed up, about 120 of them in all, says vs. 15. Apparently, that’s how many true disciples there are in all of Judea.
We know from history that there were over 4 million people in Palestine at this time. That breaks down to 1 to every 30,000 people per disciple. If we were to look at it from just the numbers game, we would have to say; Jesus’ ministry was not much of a success. Less than 1 in 30,00 people in Palestine are gathered to even remember what He did and you call it a revolution?
There’s no halos in this group either, no fancy degrees, no eloquent speakers; just a bunch of common folks like you and me struggling at best, to do what Jesus asked. Note 2 things about the text:
1. There is a time for waiting.
Why did they return to Jerusalem, vs. 4? Now, we always launch quickly to the go part and talk allot about going into all the world, but before Jesus told us to go, he commanded us to do something else. Wait! A big part of our challenge in faith building is learning that God’s timing is never off schedule. Our timing almost never agrees with his, but His is always right. Do we believe this?
We need to learn a major lesson and that is to wait before we go! Why is that so important? You need the promise of the Father before you go well, vs.5. Jesus promised He would send the helper, the Holy Spirit and He will teach us all things we need to know and remember, all the things of Jesus. What’s the point? Before you can start a revolution, before you can do the work, you’ve got to have the tools!
It wouldn’t have worked without waiting for the power. Is it hard to wait? Man it can be one of the hardest things to wait until God equip us with what we need to go, but His timing is always on schedule. We must wait!
2. There is a time of transition:
They didn’t know what living with the Spirit meant in any way. They had heard of Him, even knew of Him in scripture and maybe in some isolated instances, but they didn’t know what walking in the Spirit was. He hadn’t come this way, yet.
They were to go pray for the promise of the Spirit. The promise hadn’t come yet, but the day is coming. It is called Pentecost day and this one would different than all the rest. After this day, the message was told that if you repent and are baptized you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, 2:38. In Acts 1 it had not yet come, this new age, where the Spirit would take on a greater role in the lives of the followers.
We don’t have to pray for the promise to come today, because when believers repent and are baptized they have received the Spirit as promised. We need to still wait for the Spirit’s timing in our lives however. Too many times we launch, before God has prepared us to go and we go with out Him. Scripture does go on to teach us about letting the Spirit fill our lives, lead us, and guide us. We are encouraged to pursue the things of the Spirit, to choose to let Him rule you and take you where He is leading.
We don’t have to pray for Him to come, because He is already living within us as promised long ago. But, there are times when going out into the world, requires we wait and allow the Spirit to do His work in us, before we go. We know what He was preparing them and even us to do, as vs. 8 points out clearly. He is going to enable us to witness. If we go before He has empowered us, equipped us, or reminded us of the things Jesus said and did, we will have trouble, because we go on our own steam and not His.
We have gone in too many wrong directions today concerning the Spirit. Just our language gives us away. There’s way too much talk about wanting the Spirit so we can get stuff for ourselves, our own needs. People want experiences that appeal to what they want, but most folks don’t want the Spirit to lead us to responsibilities! We want him to combat sin, heal us, and make us strong. And too many use Him as an ego thing that says, if you’ve got Him you’re his, if not, you don’t really belong to him.
The gift of the Holy Spirit was not given to us to go all selfish wanting our own personal experiences and to meet our own personal needs! The Holy Spirit was given to empower the church for a specific task. To take the witness of Jesus Christ out into all the world! Whatever ways that was done, He is working in us to accomplish what Jesus called us to do.
If you want the Spirit, but you don’t want to witness to the world about Jesus, you don’t know what was promised. They wanted His coming so they could start going and growing. There was a revolution to begin and there is one that is to continue even now. Standing on the brink of the coming of new age, a major historical change, that little band of revolutionaries was learning to wait for the spirit to do it’s work of sending us out. We need to have the same character of waiting and then going, as did they, for the revolution to continue today.
The Character of Revolution, 12-14
1. A demonstration of obedience, vs. 12:
“Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city.”
Now, on the surface this doesn’t look like much does it? It just doesn’t seem to express what a tremendous sign of submission and faithful obedience this is. Of all the places to go in the world, Jerusalem would have been the number 1 place not to go!
This is where their enemies live; they live in Galilee. This is the place their leader just got killed; they have been fleeing to get out of the way of those who killed Him. Because surely they would be arrested if found. They went there, not because it was safe, but because that’s where Jesus sent them. Jesus wanted them there.
What do we learn from this? It’s not where my witness is the most comfortable, but where is it most affective? Do we spend too much time thinking where can I go where I can still be comfortable at the same time? That was never the issue with Acts volume 1 people. They went where Jesus needed them to go. Where does Jesus need us to go, call us to go?
Part of the price of being a good witness is going where the enemies are. History tells us every one of these men who are going to Jerusalem to wait, in time, will be killed by their enemies except one of them. This is the price of revolution! Being willing to go where it’s dangerous, tough, where you’re not wanted, or no revolution will take place.
You remember Jesus tried to go to His own people first, they rejected him, so He went to the outcasts, the rejected, the hopeless, to all the unwanted of society, but He then went back to those who were His enemies. He went where it was dangerous, to the uncomfortable, and everywhere in between. He’s calling these folks here to go to the same places all over the world, to go into the very throne rooms of their enemies as well as all the uncomfortable places in society. Wait for help and Go!
2. A Devotion to Prayer, vs. 14:
“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”
Here we see the last mention of Mary in Scripture, she’s praying with them. She is joining this little band of revolutionaries for a 10-day prayer meeting. That’s how long they waited and when you’re waiting what do you do? When God asks you to wait for something, what do you do? Pray!
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed before, but can you tell me of a time in the scriptures when the disciples prayed when they were following Jesus around? Jesus actually asked them too once and what did they do? They fell asleep! Here we are seeing the beginning of a change; they are starting to act like Jesus. They are starting to spend entire days and nights praying.
Does that sound like the way to start a revolution to you? Is this how we start major works in our churches today? Today we spend long hours brain storming, planning, organizing, fund raising, and trying to motivate everyone to get moving. We don’t have time to waste praying all day and night. What are they doing here? They are writing their declaration of dependence!
It’s God’s revolution and it’s not going to happen unless we have His power, His wisdom, and His strength. Why don’t we have prayer gatherings today? Where are they? It matters not what denomination, where are people getting together to pray to God for anything, for any length of time?
The history of our movement began with prayer gatherings and they were common practice. People prayed all-night and even for days where the need was great. Nothing was done without serious prayer; no impacts on the world without prayer. What do you think has changed today from then?
I’ll mention one I think has changed us more than we like to admit; in fact I think it’s crippled us in some ways. This movement began with mostly poor people. We had very little money or property and so we had to rely on God to get anything done.
In our day and time things have changed drastically since World War II. We are mostly, a middle class to upper class church now. We have colleges and degrees, we have all kinds of facilities and materials and money. Today when we talk about doing something, we talk about how to get the money and materials and personnel to get the job done. We’ve largely taken the task out of God’s hands and put it in our hands.
They got a revolution started that changed the world then and is still changing it today by spending ten days saying, God You do it! Use us, empower us, but without You it won’t get done! Do it Lord!
3. The Desire for Unity, vs. 14:
“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”
Did you notice Jesus’ brothers are there? In the Gospels Jesus’ brothers didn’t think He was all together all together. One time they wanted to take Him home, because they thought He was nuts. They spent all the time of the Gospels not believing in Jesus.
For three and a half years they gave their brother a hard time. They didn’t do anything to try to stop the crucifixion of their brother. They probably thought that’s what happens to crazy people. But, now they are praying with their mother and the disciples, believing, asking their Big brother to do something Big. They are with the ones they used to give a hard time to.
In order for unity to happen, people needed to forgive each other for the past and accept each other, so they could go out as a unit with each other. If we expect to do anything in our time, we must know who our enemy is.
If we can’t forgive and accept each other, no matter what we once did to each other, or said to each other, then we’re only kidding ourselves and we have nothing.
In the 1750’s the British and French had a conflict over who’s going to develop this new world they found; Canada. The French had a colony in Quebec and the British came up against it. Admiral Phipps was the commander of the British fleet and he was told to anchor outside Quebec and wait for the army to arrive. Then they would support the army with cannon fire while the army took the city.
Admiral Phipps got there a bit early and the army wouldn’t come for a few days. As he was waiting out there looking at the city, he noticed this big cathedral in the city. It had statues of all the catholic saints on them. This symbolized all that made France and Britton different. He couldn’t take it any longer, so he ordered his people to shoot down the statues with the cannons.
We don’t know how many rounds were fired, or how many statues he hit, but we do know that when the army arrived Phipps had used up all his ammunition shooting at the saints. There’s got to be a major lesson in there somewhere?
Brethren, if we’re going to have a revolution, we can’t use all our ammunition shooting at the saints! If we’re going to have a revolution we need to get together and say, let’s have one enemy and let’s all attack him!
Our foe is not those who have different traditions or organizations, maybe different emphasis on certain doctrine over others, different ways of worshiping, or practice. God is no doubt unhappy by all our petty differences and our separations and divisions, how it has distracted us from our mission, even hindered folks from believing, but He would have us forgive and accept each other in Jesus and quit being tricked by our real foe.
Our foe is not the sinful people of the world either; people who have been captured by our foe and are held slave to his darkness. Our foe is the devil and not our brothers and sisters with differing opinions than us. We have got to learn who our enemy is and focus our attack on him.
Do you think the Holy Spirit could have filled these folks if they were stubborn faultfinders, picking at each other saying, you boys can’t come in because you gave us a hard time for all those years? James and John you guys demanded preeminence over everyone else, you’re out! Peter you denied him over and over, you’re out! Do you think the Spirit could have worked with folks like that?
Revolution is simple. All you need is people willing to demonstrate obedience by surrendering to Jesus’ will, a people devoted to prayer, and a people united in fellowship. God will fill such a people and they will change the world.
Conclusion:
His power is available, but often not wanted. Do we believe the Holy Spirit empowers the church today to be proclaimers of the gospel? Do we believe Gods’ power can reach the world today?
I know it hasn’t been very easy for us to believe this. We say we can do it, if we’ve got the money, got the planning, and allot of pumping up to get it done. Is our revolution powerless today? There’s got to be a declaration of dependence or we will never amount to much individually or collectively. The power of God is available, but often not wanted.
His people are wanted, but often not available. Is the power to change the world in money, buildings, computers, or even in angels? God has always and will always use as his number one indispensable tool to reach the world, common people with uncommon courage. He gives us tools to help us, but in the end it’s us He uses to change the world. Those things won’t get the job done, without us.
The problem is not the message; the problem is finding real revolutionaries. It’s not hard to find people want a revolution. It’s not hard to find people who will come together and sing about standing up for Jesus. It’s hard to find those who will be revolutionaries.
The fighting doesn’t go on here in the castle; it’s out there where the battle is waging. Here, we reinforce the troops, reequip them, strengthen them, heal them when they’ve been wounded, but we must be willing to go out from here. Are we willing to demonstrate our obedience and go where He sends us?
As we look toady at Acts, do we believe God can do that again today? Let’s pray long and hard the Father keeps the revolution alive!

Time To Get ready for The Birth of The Church, Prepare for The Coming 15-26

Introduction:
It’s an interesting observance to witness women who are having babies. At first there’s a bit of excitement and anticipation, even wonder. But, then they start to get bigger and then bigger; frequent trips to the bathroom, and of course the birthing process itself is much more, shall I say uncomfortable than they thought; down right painful.
God in His wisdom gave a family 9 months to prepare for the coming of something that would change everybody’s life in the family. Now, by the time that 9th month comes around the mother just wants that baby out; she’s ready to be free of this baby in this way, enough is enough.
But, we need the time to prepare mentally and socially and even physically for this coming event that is going to change everyone’s life. The birth of the church was much the same way. God gave people time to adjust and prepare for something that would change all their lives.
Families need time to prepare socially, especially when other children are involved. The church needed time to prepare socially for the birth of the church. Sometimes we need a little time to repair some discord among brethren, like we saw last time with the brothers of Jesus and others. They needed a little time to work through some things before the birth happens.
Most families need to prepare for what a baby needs, a crib, car seat, certain cloths, allot of diapers, maybe special food, etc. The birth of the church needed one last thing before it was born. They were ready now, except for the selection of another Apostle. The church wasn’t ready until they took care of this.
1. Time to get ready for the birth of the church, vs. 15-17:
“In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus he was one of our number and shared in this ministry.”
Luke remember, is writing to Theophilus. If he wrote to Jews he wouldn’t need to say anything about Judas, they would know already, but Luke has to explain things to Theophilus.
“With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood. "For," said Peter, "it is written in the book of Psalms, " 'May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,'
and, " 'May another take his place of leadership.' Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us.
For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.”
If you want to know more about Matthias, I’m sorry; scripture doesn’t record a single thing about him. We do learn some pretty big lessons here though. How do you prepare for the birth of the church, how do we make decisions in the church and how do we decipher the will of God when you’re not sure what you should do?
Now, what about Judas? Peter says clearly, “He was one of us and shared in this ministry. Judas was never a second-class disciple. Jesus never gave him or anyone else the idea that Judas was not intended to be an Apostle. He shared in everything in the ministry of Jesus. I believe Judas accepted discipleship just like all the rest of them did.
He believed Jesus was the Messiah and was going to set up a national kingdom and he wanted to slide into power positions in that kingdom, just like all the others did. They all believed Jesus was going to restore power to Israel on a national worldwide scale and they all wanted to be on His right hand of power, as well as His left hand.
Somewhere along the way, I can’t be sure when, Judas realizes Jesus is not going to be the kind of King they wanted Him to be, before the rest of them did. It could have been after the incident when Jesus fed the 5,000 and then they tried to force Him to be King and Jesus would not accept, but stopped it and went away from them? After this time in John’s writing, Judas is not mentioned in a good light again.
If that’s right at all, then Judas realizes sometime after the first year of Jesus’ ministry that He is not going to be the kind of King they all believed and wanted Him to be. What that did to Judas was blind him to what the mission of Jesus really was. He still calls himself a disciple and he’s still treated like everyone else, but he never understands what Jesus is all about. Not that the others totally do, but they believe more than he does.
Now, this is the kind of man the devil can really use. The most powerful tools in Satan’s bag are not those who deny Jesus. They are the ones who call themselves disciples, but still have no idea what He’s all about. You follow Him for your own ambitions and benefits follow Him to get what you want and then you take what you can get when the time comes and get out. That’s what Judas did.
Judas became determined to get something from the Christ, at any cost and then he got out. This is the mid set of what we call the consumer Christian. They come for what they can get, they take and take, but in the end instead of giving something back, they get out. Don’t ask for commitment or service, I came to gain, not give.
The truth is if you accept it, we don’t follow Jesus so He can serve us, it’s so we can serve Him. We learned that from Jesus Himself, “I came not to be served, but to serve and give my life.” The real tragedy of Judas is not what happened to him, but what could have been. He was numbered among them.
Now, let’s try to tackle a verse that has troubled many folks, vs. 16.
“Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus—“
How can Judas be held accountable when his betrayal was predicted?
God doesn’t design treachery, but He can use it to make His plan work. God doesn’t make evil men, but He can and does use them to bring about His plans. How do we know Judas was acting in accordance to free will and not forced in anyway?
Who forced him to go the Pharisees at any time? When he goes to them afterwards with remorse for what he’d done, throwing the money back at them and crying out, “I’ve betrayed innocent blood, we see volition at work, free will. If you’re forced, you may feel bad in ways that you weren’t stronger, but you don’t show remorse for something unless you chose to do it yourself. You’ll be amazed, even angry if you’re forced, you want justice, but you have no need for remorse, if you are forced to do something against your will. In the car industry it’s buyers remorse. Judas can’t believe he made such a bad mistake as to trust these leaders like he did, he knows it was a bad choice.
God did not make Judas betray Jesus, but He did use the betrayal for His purposes. The real tragedy is Judas could have been great. I even believe Judas could have been forgiven! If not, we’re all in trouble! We’ve all betrayed Him at least once, haven’t we? All the disciples ran for their lives at one point and of course Peter even in a more public way. Judas forgot all about God’s forgiveness. When you close the book on God, you close the book on life!
As our text gives much more information on Judas’ death, we see Judas had some time to think about what he had done and even seek repentance, but he chose another bad decision. He ends very badly, but before we get too carried away there’s allot of evidence to show Judas had made many bad decisions throughout his time with Jesus; he really wasn’t a believer or an honorable guy. It’s right to feel a bit sad for him, because of his choosing to not believe in Jesus, even after all he’d seen and sinning on a number of occasions, but we all have this choice. It does bother me when folks don’t come to belief, but they do choose not to, no matter what the evidence says.
The text tells us the disciples didn’t think there was much hope for Judas, vs. 25. “Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." Death only crystallizes what you are in life. If your soul belongs to the devil in this life, it belongs to him when you die. Death doesn’t change what you are it shows what you are.
Now what? Jesus picked 12, one of them had apostatized and committed suicide, so what now? The promise is to be fulfilled, but we’re short one man, so they all thought.
Scripture does say that another would take Judas’ place, Psalm 109:8. Peter says they all knew this scripture in vs. 16. "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus” You may think it’s all gone bad, but God has known it all from the beginning, someone will take his place. So the disciples believe they must pick someone to take his place.
They know there needed to be 12 to convince the Jews; why? If Christianity is going to be the new Israel, there must be 12, because Jesus told them when He sits on His throne they, the 12 will judge the 12 tribes of Israel. The first Israel began with 12 princes and the new one will be established with 12 Apostles, the new rulers of Israel. This would make allot of sense to the Jews.
God is not saying everything fell apart so He had to start over totally new and different. Christianity was God’s plan for Israel; it grew out of the old and into the new. Now this way of thinking by the disciples changed after the promise came and the church got going. They no longer felt you had to replace the Apostles when one was lost. When James is killed in Acts 12, they didn’t seem to have the need to replace him. But, at this time, before they start going, they really felt you had to have 12 to go on, so they set out to choose the 12th.
The Choosing of Number 12:
First, what kind of qualifications must you have to be an Apostle? Peter gives 3:
He had to be a man, vs. 21
There were lots of women who followed Jesus, some seem to even be more loyal and committed, but none were even considered for Apostleship. Was this just some chauvinistic long held prejudice of the culture? We do see some women here in Acts take on some pretty big responsibilities in the church, but aren’t thought of here. Peter says, it had to be a man.
He had to be someone who had witnessed Jesus’ entire ministry, 21-22.
The task of the 12 was a unique task. There were no New Testaments to read, so as you went out telling the Gospel story, people would often say, “how do you know,” and they could reply, “lets go talk to the 12.”
They were with Him from the beginning, they saw it all and heard it all. That was their special task, their unique distinction. They were to be the Apostles of the New Israel, especially to the Jews first, which is another real reason it had to be a man. When the church is born the 12 were there.
He had to be a man chosen by God, vs24.
Apostleship was not a matter of recruitment; it was a matter of appointment, chosen by God. You don’t run or campaign in any way for Apostleship.
No one went out saying, would you like to be trained to be an Apostle. Jesus handpicked His Apostles. If He picked the 12 and He’s still alive, He’ll pick this one too. Men who had been with Jesus from the beginning would be among those chosen.
Second, what do you think about the process they used to pick the man?
They don’t seem to have any trouble figuring out what process to use to choose this man to replace Judas, as big a decision as it is. They first look to the scripture, which we saw; they said a choice has to be made, because scripture says so. But you don’t stop there, you then counsel together, vs. 23. From this they narrowed it down to 2 men for consideration. Who among us fits this description of qualifications and there were 2.
Then they prayed about it! They said, God you are the heart knower. They didn’t say, God show us who you want us to choose, they said, God show us who You have chosen. They believed God already had the answer. I like this allot! We need to learn to pray like this, God You know what we should do, help us to see what You’ve already decided. That’s how they prayed.
They still weren’t done. They decided on a course of action. They took 2 stones and on one they wrote Barsabbas and the other Matthias. They put the stones in a bowl and shook them and on the one that fell out was Matthias. That’s how they chose the 12th Apostle. What do you think of their methods?
Where did this method of making decisions come from? Did they make it up? No, this is very Old Testament, Prov. 16:33 for one. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” These men were working under the same practices that they were raised to practice. It’s Old Testament practice and therefore had God’s stamp of approval at that time anyway. They really believed God was in control of the rolling lot.
This is what they knew and believed. They had done all they could do, they picked the 2 best men they knew and they left it totally up to God to make the final decision. They believed God answered when they picked the stone up and it said Matthias. Barsabbas doesn’t protest in anyway. They all believed God wanted Matthias. You can’t go forward if you spend all your time looking back and they didn’t. They didn’t second-guess themselves and they believed they didn’t second-guess God.
What do you think about their decision making process and how they came to an answer? Is it spiritual, is it what we should do toady? Is this the way the church made decisions after the promise came in Chapter 2? How were decisions made then? The Holy Spirit decided and they followed.
So, what we’re looking at is a before and after picture from Chapter 1 to chapter 2. This is how spiritual God fearing folk acted before Pentecost, but things change after. Does the fact that Matthias is never mentioned again in scripture mean anything to us? What about the fact that Jesus’ command was to go and wait until the promise comes, mean anything?
Too, the truth is most of the other Apostles aren’t mentioned or heard of again either. They all seem to disappear except for a couple of them. What about the fact that this whole account is spoken of in a favorable light with no negatives at all from Luke anyway? You don’t hear anything about having to undo this as though it’s a mistake? Yet, we do see God does chose a man very clearly and distinctly, who is very unique and commissioned with a major role in the future of the church. Who’s that?
Whether or not God sees this as a mistake by the disciples, they weren’t asked to choose the 12th; He sees no need to object to this action in scripture. What are we to make of this? I think it makes sense to look at it simply from a before and after shot. These men were acting as they always had prior to Pentecost and we go to see something different after. All major decisions after Pentecost are relied heavily upon the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 6 is a good example, where men had to be chosen for an important task, the Spirit is depended upon to decide. In looking at Paul’s ministry, we see the Holy spirit making decisions for Paul, even though he had made others himself. The Spirit became the authority, not man.
So, why is it good for us to see these 2 ways of making decisions, the old and the new? After the new came as promised never again would we go back to the inferior way of following God, we now put ourselves in the Spirit’s guidance and presence and depend on Him to guide us. What it all teaches us is, what the book goes on to show, it’s not about us anymore, it’s all about God and He will provide everything we need to get the job done.
Things change drastically after this. God takes these weak and fallible folks and changes the world through them. The leaders knew how weak these guys are and that helps to show us all, them included, it’s not about us anymore, it’s all about a God who will build His church as He decides and put who He will in places of authority to grow the church.
The Holy Spirit takes on the authoritative role of God from here on, Acts 5:3-4 declares Him the role of God, so the trinity is established in even bigger terms in the churches beginning. The power to carry out the great commission would be by the Holy Spirit. While we can learn some good things from chapter one, never let it replace the better way of Chapter 2.

Conclusion:
1. Fulfilling God’s will demands preparation. Some folks think they don’t matter much, if God wants to do something, I don’t matter too much in it, and He’ll go ahead without me. That’s not a biblical viewpoint. These folks did have enough in them to know God expects for us to get ready for big things God wants to do. Waiting and praying were important to the task and they had to do it.
Hey, listen folks; if you think God wants you to be married, (listen up young folks) you start preparing to be a good husband and wife now. Don’t be thinking I’ll get married and then God will make me a wonderful person to be married to.
I’ve known way too many who want to be in ministry, but they didn’t want to prepare for it. You can’t pastor to folks if you haven’t prepared in anyway. You think you can preach consistently, that God will just give you 100 sermons to preach without you doing any work for them? Good intentions are not all God asks of us, he expects us to work, prepare, wait and pray. That’s what these folks did here, Jesus commanded them to and I don’t think it’s any different today. Don’t forget all the prep work they got in Jesus’ presence before He commissions them, it was allot of prep!
2. Finding God’s will demands submission. I think we act like God wants to hide His will from us too often. I know folks who spend all their lives trying to find God’s will and say they can’t find it. I believe the biggest reason we feel God hides His will from us, is we kind of hope we don’t find it. We believe His will is something we don’t want to do.
I’ve known scores of people who want God to guide every little step of life and what they end up doing is avoiding the responsibility of doing what God already wants them to do. One fellow was in school and didn’t think he had to study for his test, because he didn’t think God had told him to study, He’ll get me through the test. Well, the teacher said, God just gave you an F!
It all boils down to 2 crucial things if you want to know God’s will in your life:
You’ve got to want to do it! Jesus said a key thing about the will of God in John 7:17, “If anyone is willing to do God’s will, He will know if the teaching is of God or not and not from fleshly sources.” Many talk of wonderful things about God’s will, but in the end they don’t want to find it, because it challenges what they already determined for themselves.
When people come to me and say, I just know it was God’s will to do this, I really thought it was anyway; wasn’t it His will? I hear it often and somehow I have to show them that they really didn’t want God’s will, what they wanted was approval of their already predetermined notion that it was God’s will. You’ve got to want to do God’s will, not your own. Facing your mistakes, your sins is always tough, but if you want to know, you must start with confession, I messed up.
Then you’ve got to be in the center of His will where it is revealed.
The New Testament gives us allot of very specific instruction about what God wants for us to do. It clearly says He doesn’t want any of us to perish, that’s His will! Well, are we trying to reach the perishing in our search for His will?
God also says plainly His desire is for us to be sanctified, He wants us to be thankful for all things, and He wants us to be filled with His Spirit, etc., etc. Now, if you’re not in the center of things He has made absolutely clear He wants from you, why do we spend so much time looking for things that aren’t clear?
God doesn’t want us constantly looking for His will. Your endless searching does not honor God; He is honored by your obedience to His will. God has revealed so much that he specifically wants us to do, that if you do all you can do, He will not let anybody waste their lives trying to find His will. You will be blessed beyond measure if you put yourself in His center, you won’t have to wonder all your life what He wants from you.
Proverbs says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your path.” Do as did the disciples, seek out the scripture, seek godly counsel, pray, and then go on to follow the Spirit’s lead. The Spirit did go on to show them the way they should go. It’s that simple! Jesus said it simply enough, “If you want to know the will of God, do it!” There is a doing that teaches the way, God help us to do His will.

God Keeps His Promise Acts 2:1-4
In chapter one we saw a passion with no power to live it and now the promise comes.
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
In a very short paragraph, Luke describes what had to be one of the most incredible experiences that had ever happened to anyone in the history of this world.
Now, we have all heard things about this text and what it means and we need to look at what is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many have put forth the idea that this is what happens to folks after you become a believer, after salvation has come.
Lots of folks have described lots of experiences and made claims this is the Holy Spirit doing these things and will come to this text and say, see it happened then and that’s what’s happening now. I say be very careful not to interpret scripture to try to cover your experiences. What we should do is investigate our experiences to see if they fit the text.
1. The Spirit came unconditionally as God told Him to.
It didn’t matter what the spiritual condition of the person was, before He came. It came solely by God’s sovereignty, it was His promise and He gave it to whom He willed. Nowhere in scripture does it say anyone was asking for this to happen. The only condition God placed on these men was that they wait where God told them.
“On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (1:4-5)
Vs. 5 said, you will be, if you wait. All any of them had to do was wait and God would do the rest. Too many are interjecting you have to do all kinds of things to be baptized by the Spirit; the text doesn’t support that. They didn’t have to pray for it, want it, look for it, or anything else; all they had to do was wait.
2. The spirit’s coming was determined by God’s timing and nothing else. “When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.”
The Spirit would come on Pentecost day. A new age would begin, no matter what man did. Pentecost day came on a Sunday 50 days after Passover. God chose Sunday for the church to be born. The day of resurrection was the day. Pentecost was a celebration of the wheat harvest, all happening as prophesied.
On Pentecost, all the people renewed their annual covenant with Moses. They had declared this to be the day Moses got the Law from Mount Sinai, so they renewed yearly the covenant on this day.
So God chose this day to usher in a new covenant a new age shall begin. The Spirit coming had nothing to do with man’s desires, but was decided solely and totally by God.
So the calls for Spirit gatherings where we call for the Spirit to come, well it’s something man assumed, not the text. He came because of God’s predetermined plan!
3. The baptism of the Spirit doesn’t come selectively. “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”
He rested on each one of them, no distinctions, each of them are baptized. This was different than Old Testament practice where God usually worked with distinctive, set apart men; now each of them is baptized. This would be held up in Scripture very clearly as Paul said in Rom. 8:9, “if you do not have the Spirit you do not belong to Him.”
Also, 1 Cor. 12:13 is very important showing each individual follower receives the promise, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
To say, there are those who are really spiritual in the church and they have the Spirit and others don’t have the Spirit is foreign to New Testament teaching. All those who belong to Christ have the Spirit; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Oh, you don’t understand because you don’t have the Spirit. You can’t be a Christ follower without the Spirit. He doesn’t come selectively; He comes to all who come to Jesus.
4. The Spirit doesn’t come partially.
Many say the Spirit comes in measures. They go so far as to say, upon believing you get a partial measure, but then you pray and seek and then in the future you’ll receive a full measure.
I searched and can’t find anywhere in the text of scripture where it says we receive the Spirit in doses. What I do read in John 3:34 is, Jesus said, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.” Again what I have said before holds true, the Holy Spirit is not a fog, He’s not an influence, and brethren, He is not a ghost. He is a person. You either get the person, all of them, or not.
Jesus said He would send a counselor just like me. The Holy Spirit is just as much a person as is Jesus. People don’t come in doses, or measures. If I come to your house for dinner, you don’t say to me, I’m glad some of you showed up, wish all of you could have. I can either come to your house or not, but I can’t come in doses and neither does the Holy Spirit.
It’s not New Testament to say you become a Christian and now you want more of Him.
No, the only way to properly look at this is to say, now that He has come to me, He wants more of you. He has come as promised, but now you must invite Him in and yield to His influence and power in your life, He will not force you to get closer to Him and grow deeper in the relationship.
5. Holy Spirit baptism doesn’t come continually.
Again, I searched and found no place where scripture says, people experienced the baptism again and again. In fact, after you have become His child, there’s no place that speaks of seeking baptism of the Spirit, it happens as promised upon believing in Jesus.
Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:13, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” It was a one-time act that took place upon becoming a Christian and now your task is not to seek Him to come, but to keep Him and let Him fill us and not leave us. The Spirit is in every child of God, but are we letting Him have His way with us? We must yield ourselves to Him.
6. The Holy Spirit doesn’t come unpredictably.
Too many want to tell you how the Spirit came to them, but say little about why He came. What are you suppose to do now that He has come, now that you have been baptized by Him? The emphasis in the scripture is not how He comes, but why He comes to the church.
Acts 1:8 tells us why He comes, why? To be a witness of what? Are we supposed to go around telling folks about the gift of the Spirit, or the power of the Spirit? Is that our witness? Did they go around preaching about Holy Spirit baptism? No, they went all over proclaiming the good news of Jesus saves and Jesus lives!
Paul said simply in 1 Cor. 12:3, no one can say Jesus is Lord and mean it, except by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes to all of us upon believing to empower us to testify for Jesus Christ. Jesus said the Spirit will remind you of everything Jesus said, He’d take from me and disclose it to you. He doesn’t give new truth, or theology; He speaks the truth Jesus already gave.
The Spirits’ function is to highlight the teachings and life of Jesus. I say with confidence, if someone comes preaching “a new revelation,” and it is not the teaching of Jesus, then it didn’t come from the Spirit. Jesus did not task the Spirit to give new teaching, but His teaching. Any teaching that diminishes the importance of Jesus is not from the Holy Spirit. If we emphasize the Spirit over Jesus, it didn’t come from the Spirit.
You are most exposed to the ministry of the Spirit when Jesus is being preached! In fact, this is exactly what happens when the disciples are baptized in the Spirit.
They begin preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified and never stop, no matter what. It took no time for them to start the mission once the Spirit came, because the ministry of the Spirit is to glorify Jesus!
What then is Holy Spirit Baptism?
Unless we’re in a church that uses the phrase or a like phrase often, we don’t seem to talk about it much. Always remember the truth always sets you free, no need for fear here. Just because some may overdo some topic of scripture, doesn’t mean we should run from it.
Some have gone so far, because of paranoia on the subject to say, Yes it was a huge miraculous event and experience, but it only happened to them then and it doesn’t happen anymore, so we’re better off not talking about today. Listen, I understand how going to extremes can muddy the waters of any biblical subject, so it gets confusing, too many words and theories, but follow me and see it’s not that difficult to see.
1. Mark 1:4-8, “And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Who is John talking to in this passage? (All of Judea and Jerusalem.) Who gets Baptized by the Spirit, just the Apostles and Cornelius? Jesus’ coming will be distinctive from John the Baptists’ because Jesus will baptize everyone in the Holy Spirit. Water baptism was not distinctive about the early church, Holy Spirit baptism was.
2. Luke 24:48-49, “You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” What is the promise? Acts 1:4-5, “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” The promise is Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:32-33, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” He calls it the promise and it’s also called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit; the promise is the baptism of the Spirit. Notice clearly, the text says in each case who is baptizing in the Spirit, Who? Jesus is the one baptizing! Jesus is pouring forth the Spirit.
The Spirit is not the one doing the baptism it is Jesus baptizing you in the Spirit. Jesus received the promise from the Father and He is pouring forth the promise on to the disciples.
Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So look, we’ve got Baptism in the Spirit, the promise of the Spirit, and now the gift of the Spirit. Acts 2:39, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Acts 10:44-45, “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”
So, what is it, the baptism in the Spirit, the promise of the Spirit, or the gift of the Spirit? The answer is, Yes! Luke uses the terms interchangeably throughout here, Acts 11:15-17, “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”
What is Holy Spirit baptism? It is the promise of the Spirit. It is the coming of the Spirit. They are one in the same. Who receives the promise? Peter said it was for your children and those who are far off, 2:39. For whoever the Lord calls! 1 Cor. 12:13, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body”. Eph. 4:5, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” We’re not talking about multiple baptisms, but just one.
Even when we talk of literal water baptism, we are not talking about 2 different baptisms says Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” They are simultaneous, not separate. Jesus said it like this in John 3:3-5, “In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”
Water baptism on it’s own didn’t set apart anything in the early church, but the combination of water and Spirit changed everything. Acts 19:1-7, “Now, it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there. The first thing he said was, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?" "We've never even heard of that—a Holy Spirit? God within us?" "How were you baptized, then?" asked Paul. "In John's baptism." "That explains it," said Paul. "John preached a baptism of radical life-change so that people would be ready to receive the One coming after him, who turned out to be Jesus. If you've been baptized in John's baptism, you're ready now for the real thing, for Jesus." And they were. As soon as they heard of it, they were baptized in the name of the Master Jesus. Paul put his hands on their heads and the Holy Spirit entered them. From that moment on, they were praising God in tongues and talking about God's actions. Altogether there were about twelve people there that day.”

In every case where we see conversion in the book of Acts, we see the Apostles commanding the folks to be baptized in water.
Now, you can’t baptize yourself in the Holy Spirit, Christ does that when you are obedient to the command to repent and be baptized, like Peter commanded in 2:38 and Paul commands here in 19:1-7. You can repent and you can be baptized, but God is the one who baptizes you in the Spirit, or gives you the gift of His Spirit. It is very significant that God places our obedience to be baptized in the same place that he baptizes us in the Spirit. This is what made baptism unique in the early church. There was the added element of not just washing of sin, but also now the receiving of the gift of the Spirit.

Paul argued strongly in 1Cor. 12-14 that we were all baptized by one Spirit and therefore all united by that one Spirit. You can’t make the statement that you’re more spiritual than others because they can’t do certain tasks you have been gifted to do; we were all baptized by the one same Spirit and united by the same wherever God placed us in His body. The indwelling Spirit was given to each one of us, exactly the same way. 1 Cor. 12:13, “We were all baptized by one Spirit.”

Conclusion:

1. The promises of the Lord are not to be questioned.
There are not several brands of Christians in Christ’s body. No such thing as lower class Christ followers and higher class ones in the body. Your giftedness, no matter what it may be, does not make you a super disciple over all others.

Some have said things like, “Show me you have the Spirit, speak in tongues.” You don’t see any such language in the New Testament, and certainly no such requirements among God’s people. In fact, Paul argued against such thinking with words like, “Do you all have gifts of healing? Do you all have interpretations; do you all speak in tongues? They knew the answer was no, but he did say they had all been baptized in the one Spirit.

The truth is, nowhere in scripture does it say baptism in the Spirit must be evidenced by miracles being performed by everyone who receives it. Peter simply told them if they obeyed his command to repent of their sins and be baptized in water for remission of sins, they would receive the gift of the Spirit. Conviction in the heart that Jesus is Lord and Savior and obedience to the command to be baptized and you WILL receive the Spirit. No one can take that from you, it’s His promise to you.

2. The purposes of the Spirit are not to be quenched.
The text said, we were baptized into one body and that is your positional result of obedience and no one can take that away from you. However, the filling of the Spirit is more practical. Day by day we are to be filling ourselves with the Spirit. This something you must do, He will not force Himself into anyone’s life. Your responsibility is to yield yourself to the Holy Spirit so that you can be transformed into a vessel that will glorify Jesus Christ.

You invite Him to rule and reign, to lead and guide, you surrender to Him and follow Him. More of Him and less of you, each day. Constantly asking him to be your counselor, your comforter, your reminder, etc.

Paul says you can recognize the one who is Spirit filled and Spirit lead, Gal. 5:22ff. You can SEE the fruit in his life, it comes out of him; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, self control, etc. etc. Not gifts in the miraculous sense but gifts of the character of the Spirit in your life. It is witnessed by others.

The other thing Paul says we can see is the content of their testimony. Is he living and speaking the Lord Jesus Christ? I’m telling you today, that you have the power to live like Jesus because His Spirit lives in you. He promised you the Spirit within when you believed and He is living in you by that promise. He will empower you to live like Jesus and speak for Jesus; that is the mission of the Spirit that indwells you.

We must choose to let Him have His way with us; He can’t and won’t force you to yield your life to His will; you must be willing. I am thrilled to tell you I have been baptized in the Spirit, I’ve received God’s promise to all who call on His name. Now, I must be thrilled to let Him mold me and make me after His will.

Sober Sunday 2:5-21
“On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.”
After what happened here in these first verses, I’m sure you would have felt like at any moment something huge is about to happen. They knew God told them to wait for the promise and that He told them they were going to be witnesses for Jesus.
A big question had to be there? How is this little band of uneducated folks going to cross all cultural barriers and language barriers to witness to everyone all over the world? Well, on one Sunday morning it all started, the Spirit came as promised and He manifested Himself in 3 ways:
1. There was a sound. It was like a wind. It was not a wind, but like a wind and it filled the whole room.
2. Then there was a symbol that appeared. A fire looking thing shaped like a tongue. Not fire, but like it. Shaped like a tongue most likely to represent the witness they would now be giving after receiving the Spirit.
3. There was a sign. They began to speak in other tongues, or languages. That’s how they’re going to be able to take the message to all the world. To add to this, on this particular Sunday God was way ahead of them; He brought the world to them! The sound, like a mighty wind, called the city to them.
Acts 2:5-13
“At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”
The miracle is clearly that these men are speaking in languages they had no way of knowing. They heard them in they’re own native language. These were not unintelligible languages, but real languages and everyone is awed and amazed, because of who is speaking.
What happened here? To appreciate the gift, you need to know its purpose!
Now, there was a certain history with tongues in the culture that tells us something about the reaction.
There were pagan religious groups in that day who used what the folks would call tongues to describe the sound that these folks would work themselves up to in their ceremonies. These were ecstatic utterances stirred up by emotional frenzy; non-intelligible language, more like sounds and the people would call them tongues.
But, of course the most common way this word is used is in describing common everyday language. The language of any nation was called the tongue of that nation. This is how it is referred to here and in vs. 9-10 they are actually listed. These were not mysterious babblings; they were heard and understood by those there. You didn’t need interpreters. How can this be, was the reply, we hear them in our own language?
Examine as you will and you will not see anywhere in scripture where this gift is mentioned and it doesn’t show it is the ability to speak in languages. Allot of folks want to quote 1 Cor. 14:2 where the old King James speaks of unknown mysterious language. “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.” “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.”
The King James did a disservice here, by inserting the word “unknown.” In none of the manuscripts that we have is the word unknown in there. I have no idea why they added the word, but it has caused some to make a theory out of it. A certain belief and even denominations have been formed around this very bad translation.
Listen folks, to the folks who lived back in the first century, there would be nothing supernatural about doing what all the pagan cults around them were doing. There would be no power being described in Acts 2, if they were doing what so many others were doing. The thing that caught everyone off guard and astonished them was real language that you’ve never been taught. That is the gift of tongues.
What was this gifts’ purpose?
There is a general purpose for all the gifts, which is to confirm the word these men were about to speak, that it was from God. There were many miracles and one of them is tongues. Heb. 2:1-4,“So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak? And God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose.”
There is a more specific purpose within that however. The ability to speak in tongues would declare a new age of universality in Jesus Christ. A sign to the Jews especially! Gods’ new faith would be universal. This was a sign to unbelieving Israel especially. The first century folks needed this sign in a big way.
1 Cor. 14:20-22, “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written: "Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord. Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers.”
Paul is talking to the church at Corinth, telling them how the gift of tongues should be used, because they were having problems with how they were using this gift. He goes back to Isa. 28 to show them a proper understanding. Who is Isaiah saying God is speaking to in strange tongues in Isaiah’s day? It was unbelieving Jews in Isaiah’s day.
The story of Isaiah is, the people of Israel had gone into all manner of sin and wouldn’t repent, so God sent His prophets to Israel to try to reach the people. God spoke Hebrew to the Israelites and they wouldn’t listen; no repentance came. God then says to His prophets if they won’t listen to Me in their own language I’ll make them listen to a foreign language. Assyria comes in and conquers them and gets everybody’s attention!
Now, Isaiah was talking about an actual language and says God is speaking to them through a foreign language, because they won’t listen to Me in their own language. The application is easy for Paul. The purpose of the strange language that you are hearing is for what? What did Isaiah say it was for? To get the attention of unbelievers! The purpose of tongues in the church was to signal to unbelieving Jews, God had a new plan a new society.
The gift of tongues is saying to Israel, things are changing. God has a new Israel and a new plan and you had better heed the warning or God will judge the old Israel. You had better start listening to God’s new prophets or trouble is coming. So Paul goes on to argue that unless there is an interpreter present in the church, don’t speak in tongues, because if folks come in who don’t understand the language, they will think your all nuts. Maybe even your own members don’t understand the language, so what good is that, it doesn’t edify anyone.
If God gifts you to speak a language to someone so they can hear the message in their own language, then you are edifying and reaching them, but if not, don’t do it. He then goes on to say, but if you prophesy everyone will be edified, it helps every one. The message is clear to Paul, don’t go against the purposes of your gift because it destroys and not builds.
This is my personal conviction after studying this and you can do with it what you will, many don’t share my view, but I will present it to you anyway. I think Paul raises an important question for us today. Is God still warning Israel today? If God saw fit to warn Israel in the first century of their unbelief by using tongues to speak to them, is He still doing it today through the gift of tongues?
The main problem I have with this idea is that I don’t see God warning Israel today. He warned them in the first century that they better listen to His new prophets, or He would judge the nation for their unbelief. Remember, He used tongues to warn Israel of their stubborn refusal to repent and accept the message of the Gospel. Many, if not most of Israel did not listen to Jesus, and now they didn’t listen to His new prophets who spoke to them in tongues and so he warns them of Judgment, just as He did in Isaiah’s day.
God used Assyria to get Israel’s attention in Isaiah’s day. The nation would not repent and follow the prophets of old, so what happened to the nation? They went into Assyrian captivity after they destroyed the cities, etc. The same thing is repeating itself in the first century. Israel as a nation would not listen to God who was preaching a universality of the Gospel of Jesus; God spoke in tongues to them to get their attention, but in their stubbornness they did not follow God’s prophets.
So, what would God do to Israel in the first century, for refusing to listen to Him and repent? In A.D. 70 the armies of Rome ascended on Israel and completely destroyed Jerusalem and in reality crushed the identity of the Israel of old, just as he warned them He would do. The Israel God specifically warned then, no longer exists, therefore the purpose of tongues no longer exists.
In fact, in later Epistles of our bibles, letters written after A.D. 70, we do see gifts of the Spirit mentioned, but nowhere do we read about tongues. I think that says something. In fact, it would not be for many hundreds of years that tongues are brought up again in any serious way in churches. So, what does it mean that in the later part of the first century and even in the first few centuries following there is no mention of tongues in the early church?
What does that mean? To me it says, the warning sign tongues was in the early church had ceased to be necessary, because God had judged those He was warning. He no longer has to judge the Israel of old, because they didn’t listen to Jesus or His Apostles, He did that in A.D. 70 and now He moves on with His new plan and His new people.
Put it together: The ability to speak in tongues is the ability to speak the Gospel in known languages. I’ve known many missionaries in my life; they have all had to take language classes to speak the tongue of those they were working with.
The gift of tongues was a special sign to the Jews that judgment is coming so, you’d better listen to the prophets God is sending out to you. He was trying to show through this sign that this was a universal message, with a universal language; it was the language of Jesus Christ for all.
The gift of tongues therefore, is no longer needed. The Jews were warned and they were judged for their disbelief.
What kind of reaction did this gift receive? Basically 2 different reactions:
“Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?” (Vs. 7) Can you see the prejudice in that vs.? This doesn’t make sense, everyone knows Galileans are hicks, uneducated, backwards, they speak with funny accents; there’s no way you teach these guys other languages. Plus, everyone knows prophets don’t come from Galilee. How could God possibly use Galileans as prophets?
So, vs. 13, “Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine!
There must be another explanation! Oh, I know, they must be drunk! That has just got to be one of the most brilliant statements ever, right? How does drunkenness make someone a linguist? Learn Latin in 5 easy bottles. Rosetta stone has nothing on Jack Daniels, I tell ya! As silly a statement as it is, that’s all Peter needs to react and respond big time and it all begins.
Peter’s explanation of what’s happening, 14-21, “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: " 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions; your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Peter is declaring that what you are all seeing and hearing here in Jerusalem is the inauguration of the Messianic Age. The Jews believed after the last prophet wrote and Malachi closed the book that there were no more prophets or prophecy. No more messengers from God. For several hundreds of years all they had was the rabbi’s telling the people what they thought God was doing and saying.
They did believe however, when the Messiah came to set up His kingdom the Spirit of prophecy would return and there would be prophets again in Israel. Peter is saying, what you all see happening is exactly what God said would happen and you have all been waiting for it.
Peter says what Joel prophesied that men would speak for God once again; prophecy in the land and Peter says that is what speaking in these languages is, then these tongues and what Joel prophesied is the same thing. The beginning of the new kingdom would come with prophecy’s of the Messiah in languages all would understand. New prophecy’s, new prophets had come, just as he foretold would happen and you had better listen to the prophets of God. They speak in tongues to warn you to listen and to prophecy of things to come.
What was the message?
First, these are the last days of God’s redemptive program. If you are waiting for something else, or something different, you are waiting too long. This is it! Jesus Christ is Lord, these are the last days, and there will be no new message.
The old message is making way for the new, we are in the last days of that old message, God is bringing His new message to the world and you better choose it, because there is no new message after this one. Jesus Christ and His church is the new message.
Second, it is a universal message, it includes everybody, every nation, every class, your young, sons and daughters, your old, your slaves, no economic prerequisites, both men and women, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!
Open up the doors and let all people of every tongue, class, and gender in! The church has only one message no matter who you are; if you want to be one with each other, it is done in Jesus Christ and His kingdom.
Joel prophesied it was going to be this way so definitely, he even spoke of judgment upon those who would not listen to all the happenings in the time period of the last days. The last days of the old making way for the new. In symbolic language Joel says there will be judgment to follow the event of the new prophets coming. The prophets would warn them and if they did not heed, Joel says it would come to pass. But, if you turn, repent, and believe you shall be saved!
Conclusion:
1. God isn’t looking for the most famous, but the most devout. I’m glad the first people in the church weren’t the most educated people in the world, but they were the most consecrated. No one could believe these Galileans, who weren’t educated, didn’t talk right, these backward hicks, would be used by God to start His new kingdom. You can’t start a church with preachers like this! God says, you just watch Me!
God is not looking for eloquence; He’s looking for obedience. Don’t say He can’t use you; He can use anybody. God can use your tongue if He has your heart. He tells us simply, if you are obedient and willing, I’ve got a message for you.
2. God doesn’t demand the incredible, but the responsible. You don’t have to be able to do miraculous things to be used by God. Not all could speak in tongues, but all were to speak the same message. Preach Jesus in the language you know. Jesus never asked us to do something we can’t do, He doesn’t ask us to say something we don’t know. He didn’t ask us to become something we’re not. He simply says, you have a tongue, you have your own language, and you’ve got a message, now speak it.
I can’t be Peter or Paul. I can’t be Craig, or preacher so in so we think is so powerful. Maybe you just love some speaker you grew up with; you can’t be him. I can’t be the preacher you think is the greatest that ever spoke and neither can you.
Truth is, I don’t speak like anybody else, I don’t teach like anybody else, I don’t reach folks in my life the way you or others do. I’m me and you are you and that is what God wants. If you’re willing, He can take you as you are and speak His message through you.
My talents and abilities may not be what someone else’s is, but as far as God is concerned, are you being responsible with what you have? If we ever start believing God’s power is here, in each of us and He can use us all, we’ll have days like A.D. 33 again!
The First Sermon 2:22-36
“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him: 'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence. "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
What sermon would you preach at the birth of the church? I’ve been asked to preach some in my day and I even asked, what do you want me to preach about? I’ve actually had folks say, just preach your best sermon. The problem with that is, I have no idea what that is.
My problem is I never know what’s good when I do it. I have gotten up to speak on a number of occasions and felt, I did a pretty good job, maybe my best work yet, yet I got very little reaction from anybody and never heard another word about it. But, then I’ve gotten up and walked off feeling like that was really bad, not good at all, and I’ve gotten my biggest reaction from people, saying stuff like that’s just what I needed. What do you think that means?
One thing for sure, I have no idea how to determine what the best sermon of mine or anyone else’s is. All I know to do is, keep working at it, as I have the opportunity and most importantly ask God to do what I can’t on my own. He can get through even your words, your cleverness, and your abilities and reach hearts and change their lives, no matter how well you do.
I’m glad you never heard my first sermon, I can tell you it wasn’t too encouraging, lots of fumbling and stumbling. That’s probably the experience of most preachers. One thing I can tell you for fairly certain, I bet not many preachers would consider their first sermon to be their best, except for maybe Peter. Hey, listen, somebody had to preach the first sermon at the birth of the new church, and it has to one of the best sermons ever preached. Let me set it up a bit.
To preach you don’t need a pulpit, you don’t need a microphone, and you don’t even need a church building. Peter didn’t have any of those things. To preach you need 2 things: You need to know what your message is and who your audience is.
If you don’t know what you’re going to say or who you’re going to say it to, most likely it won’t come across too good.
Peter knew both of these very well. He knew where his people were, so to speak, he knew his audience, and he came from where they are. He knows, as vs. 12 points out that they all thought he was a hick Galilean and can’t speak or prophecy, let alone speak in these languages they’re all hearing and they are all taken aback by it. They are asking, what does this all mean? This all Peter needed.
He started where they were; he set out to answer their question. He starts, as we saw last time, by telling them about the prophesied Spirits’ coming, just as Joel had foretold would happen at the beginning of the Messianic age. So, he started by telling them what they wanted to know and then he proceeds by telling them what they needed to know.
His starting place was their question and his destination was Jesus Christ and that’s preaching! Start by answering their question, what is this, he says, Joel talked about this, you all remember Joel? He then sets out to explain the Messiah. The perfect intro. and the perfect message.
Acts 2:22-36
“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. 23 But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. 24 But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip. 25 King David said this about him: ‘I see that the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’ “Dear brothers, think about this! You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne. David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave. “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today. For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.” “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
I’m concerned today that too many folks in the church are questioning the value of preaching and teaching. Too many are challenging the necessity of it. It’s probably a bigger question than you know. Listen, what I mean is not necessarily that someone has to make their living by preaching, but I believe someone needs to preach or it will determine whether the church grows or not.
The very first thing the church did when it was born, was preach. We’re not a movement that advances with swords made of steel; we advance with the sword of the Spirit.
We don’t win people or keep them with weapons, but words. I hear far too often, nobody wants to be preached at and you’re supposed to be real enlightened to say things like that. We will win the world with our lifestyle, is the big phrase that follows usually. Listen, lets, be clear, we will win the world with our lifestyle if preaching Jesus is part of our lifestyle.
Hey, we all know very well, we had better practice what we preach. If we don’t live like Jesus, we don’t expect people to listen to us much. That is the truth, but we’ve carried this way too far. You can live the best possible Christ life and think someone is going to come to you, maybe even beg for you to convert them, because of what they see, but unless you speak the words of truth, nothing happens.
When was the last time it happened in your life? That someone came up to you and said, I’ve been watching you and want to become a Christian because of what I see in you? Do you know anybody personally that has ever happened to? Someone came to you and said, I’m so impressed by how you live, I want to become a Christian, how do I do it? What’s the gospel?
It’s kind of like riding in a plane and asking, which is more important the right wing or left? If you’re on the plane, you want both don’t you? What is the most important, your life, or your witness? You need both!
What did Paul say in Rom. 10:17? “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Faith comes to a person by hearing the word, not by watching. People will not become believing until they have something to believe in. They don’t watch there way into church, they listen their way. Your life can and does help this process, but they must hear truth.
A common word in scripture for preaching is the word Karuso, which is herald. Herald is the guy that spoke for the king whenever the king did something he wanted the people to know about. This is the history the king wants people to know and the herald told the story. He didn’t talk about philosophy, or doctrine, or law, the herald talked about something in the kings history the people needed to know.
What is preaching? Preaching is declaring events in history that people need to know about, because the king wants them to know about them. The key message of preaching is about what God has done in history. Our faith is salvation history! Our faith is built on actual events in history, how God intervened in the affairs of man, and you can’t live that faith until you learn about those events. Faith comes by hearing how God affected our history.
It’s not blind faith, that’s why Acts is so exciting; it’s about history through and through. You don’t have to be able to argue doctrinal issues, or explain certain books of the bible; what you need to do is tell the history of how God came into humanity and changed the world. Herald the history of the king. That’s what the New Testament calls preaching!
It wouldn’t bother me so much to hear people say we don’t need preaching in the church, if the people saying it were preaching to those who really need to hear it. Preaching at people is not what I’m talking about and maybe isn’t the best approach, but until we tell people about the history of what our Lord has done and said, no faith will come.
What are the basic facts of history the king wants us to tell others that will tell people what they need to know? Well, if you know Peter’s sermon here you know enough to teach someone how to become a Christian, a true Christ follower.
He preaches the life, the death, the resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
Verse 22 tells us 2 things about Jesus’ life: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.”
1. He is a man; the center of our faith is a person. This takes us to the incarnation; He is God in the flesh. He grew up in a regular town, had a regular home, a normal flesh-in-blood mother, even an earthly father, but His primary Father was God. We do need to tell folks about Jesus’ incarnation and all that means.
2. His authentication, vs. 22b; the source of this man’s power is God. The early church did not hesitate to proclaim the reality of Jesus’ claims by using the miraculous work to prove He was telling the truth. Our faith is built on a man accredited by God. That’s His life!
Verse 23 tells us about His death: “This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”
1. God planned his death. This man was handed over to these men with God’s set purpose and foreknowledge. Well, if He was accredited by God, then how come He got killed? This doesn’t sound like the Messiah we heard about. In fact, the Jews called Jesus, “the hanged one.” How can He be the Messiah if He got hanged on a tree? Peter is saying you didn’t understand the prophets; it was God’s plan for the Messiah to be hanged on a tree!
Jesus was not a victim of history says 3:18, as well as here. “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.” Even today, too many speak of Jesus’ death as though it was plan B. He really came to set up His kingdom, but the people weren’t ready so God started the church instead, but some day he’ll come back and set up His kingdom and do what he couldn’t do the first time. From the beginning the death of Jesus was plan A!
The prophets foretold of the suffering at the hands of men and death of the Messiah, just as the Father planned.
2. God planned it, but men killed him. Peter proclaims, you with help of wicked men put Him to death by nailing him to the cross.
He was accredited to all the people and yet you killed him anyway. This is why Jesus was killed. It wasn’t because of ignorance it was because of wickedness!
You didn’t put him to death because you weren’t sure who He was, you put Him to death because you didn’t want Him to be who He said He was and then have Him tell you what you should be doing. That’s what we learn from the gospel account of John 11:47-48, “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
They knew He could do things only God could do and the folks were catching on to it. John was clear in recording Jesus’ words in 15:24, “If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.” God knew they would hate His Son and want to kill Him out of hatred and jealousy and God uses their wickedness to bring about His plans for saving all mankind.
You hated Him and killed Him in your wickedness! It was all according to God’s plan that it would happen this way, but who is responsible for making this choice? Peter preaches to the Jews and says; you did it with the help of godless men! God knew man would react this way to Jesus and used it to give man the only chance there is.
God does not excuse us from our sins because He knows we’re going to commit them before we do, but He can use our sinfulness to bring about His will. Yet, we are still held responsible for our wickedness. I am responsible to obey Him and follow him; I’m responsible for my sins, He never forces me to choose sin. I may not understand how His plans work, but it doesn’t excuse me from the sins I commit.
Yes, He had a plan to redeem us from our sins, but we sinned and you murdered His Son, you’re responsible for that says Peter. He would include himself in that. God’s plan is, you can be forgiven, but you’re responsible!
The heart of the sermon, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, verse 24: “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”
This is the major point; He put and end to the agony of death! Literally, labor pains of death. A temporary pain that issues into something glorious; the resurrection! Peter doesn’t spend that much time with this audience talking about Jesus’ life or death, because they knew Him. They knew He lived, they’d seen Him. They knew He was dead, because they killed Him. But the resurrection needs more explanation.
Three reasons you ought to believe Jesus was raised:
1. The testimony of the tomb. Notice where the first teaching of the resurrection came from. It came from Jerusalem, where He was killed and buried. Everyone knew Him and saw Him die. Yet, the tomb is empty.
All you have to do is produce the body and it all would have ended right there. It’s that simple. If you don’t like Jesus and don’t want folks to follow Him, just produce the body.
They were in the same town it all happened and everybody saw it, so why can’t this whole thing stop from spreading and growing? What’s all this talk of a resurrected Messiah and king, just produce the body and be done with it. The reason they couldn’t produce the body is because a higher court had reversed the sentence of death!
2. It was also the testimony of the scriptures. Peter’s text was from the Psalmist David. The Spirit would not allow the body to be left in the grave, the unseen world, says the prophet. There would be a resurrection of the Holy one from the dead and Peter makes it clear he wasn’t talking about David.
If David was talking about himself, his tomb would not still be with us. If he isn’t talking about himself who is he talking about? He’s talking about the Messiah. If you has studied the scriptures well, you would know the Messiah was supposed be raised from the grave.
If you’re looking for a Messiah you need to look for someone who has been killed and then raised from the dead. Jesus Christ fulfilled your own prophecy and you missed it. You looked in all the wrong places.
3. The testimony of the witnesses, vs. 33, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” Yeah maybe we are hicks from Galilee, but we’re speaking to you in your own languages and you know this could only be if God was working in us. We saw Him raised from the dead, so you had better listen to God’s prophets.
Could these men do this if their master was still dead? You see, one of the greatest evidences of the life of Christ, He’s alive now and still among us, is the power of the church then, and it still is today.
You can’t explain the impact of the church on the world then and even up until now, if the Master is dead. You knew His life, you knew His death, because you killed Him, but know His resurrection as I am telling you today. Go to the tomb, it’s empty! Go to the scriptures, they say it would happen! Look at God’s new prophets and we’re telling you, we saw Him!
The ascension, vs. 33, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” Full circle! He started by answering their question, what does all this mean? He said it was the pouring out of the Spirit. Why is He poured out? Because the Messiah went back to heaven, sits on the throne ruling and reigning.
1. The gift of the Spirit is proof Jesus went back to heaven and sits in supreme power. You gave him a cross and now He’s wearing a crown! You rejected His rule over you and now God has put the whole universe at His feet.
2. The conclusion is given in vs. 36, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Peter makes the claim, he declares, I’ve given you all the evidence you need that Jesus is the Messiah. He then charges them!
You waited for the Messiah all your lives, sang songs about the Messiah, you prayed for him to come, you wanted Him and God sent Him! I’ve proved to you Jesus is the messiah and you killed Him! Now, what will you endorse, His crucifixion or His Lordship? This basically is all preaching is. Examine your hearts and minds about Jesus.
Peter is putting it to them; do you think the crucifixion was the right thing to do? Do you think He should have been crucified, or do you think He should have been worshipped? What do you think?
That’s the first sermon the church heard. The church will never outgrow this message! Does Jesus have the right to be called Lord? Our task, the task of the church is to get folks to answer that question.
Conclusion:
1. I believe the scriptures should be explained! We need to do what Peter did. Show people from scripture what the truth is. If you can’t explain in such a way that folks understand then you aren’t preaching. Scripture is as relevant today as it was when it was written.
Lofty ideas, complicated ideas don’t give people what they need to live for the Messiah. Explaining Jesus clearly such as Peter did, gives people what they need. Explain the gospel clearly.
2. I believe the Savior should be exalted! The heart of any Gospel sermon must be Jesus Christ. Too often the reason people don’t want hear preaching today is because what they hear from our pulpits is more about religion than Jesus!
People know religion and hear it often, but the gospel is often seldom heard. Just take a poll on the street and I’ll bet you can ask the folks, what is the gospel and not more than 1 in 50 will tell you the simple gospel story.
You’ll hear all kinds of religion and religious subjects, but about the simple message of the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, you won’t hear it often. The folks hear it so seldom, if ever, they can’t repeat it.
The gospel isn’t talking about the Holy Spirit; Peter didn’t preach on the Spirit other than to say what He was doing right then. The gospel is not about social issues, what does the church think about abortion, homosexuality, or any number of other issues we face.
It’s not about politics, or what differing churches say or think about any number of things. It’s not about stating rules and regulations you must do to please God. It’s not about communion, or baptism, or a host of other issues that we can speak about. Maybe even good things, but they are not the gospel!
Peter preached Jesus Christ! Our priority is to get Jesus to the people, or none of these other things matter anyway. Jesus is our Message! Until anyone decides about Jesus, any other decisions don’t matter at all. I’m not interested in what anybody tells me about any of the issues I’ve mentioned and a whole host of others, until I hear what they think about Jesus the Christ!
We were commissioned, called to put before people Jesus Christ and get them to respond to what they think about His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Until they are convicted about Jesus, all other issues are smoke screens and will never produce faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ, says scripture.
When you are teaching your neighbors do you teach religion or do you teach Jesus? Telling them what is sin or not, or you should believe this about that, or you should like this or that, will not produce faith. You can convert some folks to religion; some folks want it, but it’s not faith in Jesus.
3. Sinners should be exhorted! Our task is neither to condemn sin nor condone it. It’s God’s job to condemn sin and it’s not our job to tell people what’s okay or not; God will take care of that. I don’t have to get distracted by explaining why a certain thing is sin or not, God will do that if He gets their heart.
Our task is to confront sin, just like Peter does. To confront it, you bring the good news that God has met the need of all man. Man doesn’t have to stay in His sin if he obeys God!
We don’t have to condemn man in their sin. God has spoken on sin and I’m glad He has. I would not have spoken as strongly about sin as God has, because I have sin in my life. So I don’t condemn them or make them feel comfortable in their sin. I simply confront them and say you have a great need and God has met that need in Jesus Christ! That’s preaching the gospel and we need to do it too. It’s man’s only hope.

The Church Arrives 2:37-41
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”
The Claim of Peter as to who Jesus is and the charge he put before them shook his audience to their knees. To be clear, he stated clearly Jesus was the Messiah and the charge was, you killed Him! That claim and charge changed thousands of lives that day.
This is a short paragraph, but what I don’t want us to do with it is, what so many have. Too many people want to reduce the gospel message to bullet points of a certain number and say, all you got to do to be saved is, 1, 2, 3, or however many points your brand of denomination may have liked. I know too many churches where if I taught the life, burial, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, without mentioning there 5 step plan at the end, would tell me I haven’t preached the gospel.
We need to start looking at scripture from a wider angle and discipline ourselves to not bring our preconceived ideas about anything into it and say it must say what I was brought up having it say, or what we want it to say. So, maybe, you need to see this text for the very first time?
1. Notice first what they do, vs. 37. “When the people heard this” They first heard the right facts, the right historical events that brought them to heart conviction. It is essential, crucial, and indispensable to know that Peter’s sermon was solely about Jesus, the actual facts of the history of Jesus.
His sermon was not about baptism, nor was it about the Holy Spirit. It was not about repentance, nor was it about escaping the present corrupt generation they found themselves in. His sermon was about proving to someone that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Messiah.
After these facts are presented and believed, then you can place before someone the commands of Jesus in which you further respond to Him with your life. You don’t become a Christian because you learned the correct way to repent, or be baptized, or receive the Spirit, and then ran from corruption! You weren’t saved because you converted to a particular denomination a part from all the rest.
A person becomes a Christian when they properly respond by faith to Jesus of Nazareth. He’s the Gospel! If you don’t present Him to folks and they respond to Him, but instead you present some 5-step plan, then your message is not a gospel message. These people not only heard the right facts they reached the right conclusions about those facts!
They believed He was Lord and Christ and it didn’t matter what they believed about any other points of scripture, until you believe that Jesus is both Lord and Christ, you will not be saved. Don’t rush to present a proper response as though it was the center of their faith, Jesus saves and if that doesn’t happen they aren’t ready to hear what God would have them do from there.
One of our problems today is, we don’t appreciate today what that word means; Messiah! Historically speaking it’s just not as important to us today as it was then. To add to it, we are Gentiles, so it loses allot of its impact. But, if you had grown up all your life looking for the Messiah, you believe He was the answer, He is God’s hope and Israel’s glory and then you find out you killed Him! Your heart would burst!
Cut to your heart; do you know how it feels to murder somebody? Even if you did, some may; this is the Messiah you had longed for all your life. They are overwhelmed with the news they had killed their Messiah and that’s the important center of focus that’s happening here. You’re not ready to hear what to do about it, until you’re convicted, you believe Jesus is the crucified carpenter and He was who He claimed to be.
When that happened they then expressed their great need! “They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?” It essential people see what their sin has done and respond with their great need, what do I do about my sin? Peter doesn’t try to argue them into the kingdom, he let’s them ask the questions. This is the way you preach the gospel, you present the facts of the gospel and you let people reach their own conclusions and ask the questions.
It is their faith that must respond, not yours. If they believe He is the crucified, resurrected Lord they will ask what they should do about that. Becoming a Christian is not learning a doctrine, or academic thesis, with all the points lined up just right. Becoming a Christian is realizing the old life is hopeless and you need a new one!
Only sinners need a Savior! We try to convert too many folks without convicting them of what their sin has done. We don’t want to talk about sin. We try to convert people to preachers, churches, buildings, a certain tradition of doing things, but we’re afraid to talk about sin. Only sinners need a savior!
You can’t become a Christian until you say in your heart I need something for my sin. What in the world am I going to do about my sin? I’ve been asked over and over about young kids, can they obey the gospel. And listen, I’ve met some pretty bright kids, some could quote scripture, they have been taught some stuff. Been when I get specific about their sin, have you ever sinned, often time the answer is no.
Have you ever broken God’s law? Do you believe your life pleases God; most times they say yes to that one. I always respond by saying I think you’re right. Do you see what my difficulty with the answers to the questions is?
I have had to say to parents, your child is as saved now, as he ever will be; why? Because he’s not a sinner, he doesn’t have a concept of what sin is yet, let alone that he needs forgiveness for them. You don’t need a Savior until you know you need help with your sin.
In this text, we see thousands of people who recognize their sin, but they don’t know what to do about it. They didn’t know some things they needed to know. They knew who Jesus was and now they believe He is the Messiah. They also know, they killed Him, but don’t know what to do about it.
When you get folks to this point then, you can tell them what to do about it, 2:38.
1. Repent! What’s that?
It doesn’t mean regret it literally means to turn. They had already expressed remorse for what they had done, they were sorry for it, what they needed to decide was, will I change the direction of my life?
The challenge of repenting is not to try to rectify the sin you have committed, the challenge is to alter your perspective of every step you take from now on. You may try to rectify your sin, but some sins you can’t make restitution for. Repentance is the commitment to walk in a different direction with my life starting right now.
Repentance is to say from now on Jesus is going to be my soul source of nourishment in life; He is Lord of my life. Just sprinkling a little Jesus on your life here and there, is not repentance. I’m not going to take a step unless it’s under Jesus’ authority.
2. Baptism!
Now, he doesn’t have to explain what it is to them, because they know what it means and represents. There is no idea of someone being an Acts Christian without them being baptized. In every case, there’s no debate over do I have to, or need to, it’s commanded and they do it. I find it curious that somehow baptism has become controversial among denominations, but repentance never has.
There was no debate over how do we baptize folks, they knew. The word itself says how, but they had been doing it for a long time. Baptism is a curious word in that it really isn’t a translation of a word, by a transliteration. We English never translated this word from Greek to English we just brought it over. I’m not sure why.
It’s not really a religious word, it literally means to immerse, and they didn’t argue it all, because they’d done it for centuries. Proselytes to Judaism were immersed. History tells us that it wasn’t until 1311 we even started speaking of sprinkling. A century later, it was practiced among some churches. But, here, when Peter said you be baptized, they didn’t ask how, they knew.
Someone asks, when should I be baptized?
I just ask these questions, what do you believe about Jesus. The person first must have heard of Him and what He has done for them. Do you understand who He is and what the gospel means to you? Do you know you need a Savior? And to be clear, baptism without first having repented is of no use. If you haven’t reached the conclusion you are a sinner in need of saving and have committed to turn your life toward Jesus as Lord, you aren’t ready to be baptized.
The stickiest question of all on this subject, that gets folks running all over the place is; why should I be baptized?
I choose to handle this question by keeping right here in the text, in the first century. I seriously doubt if you were not familiar with years of denominational debating on this subject and you worked your way in the text to this place, Acts 2:38 you would have a hard time answering this question.
What does the text say is the reason you are baptized?
What about those who say we’re saved by grace, not by being baptized? Are our sins forgiven by baptism? Of course not! We haven’t taught and Peter certainly doesn’t teach baptism forgives sin. Jesus is the only one who makes forgiveness of sins possible. Baptism is a formal looking forward to forgiveness of sins, an asking for God to forgive.
It is all by the grace of God that you even have a chance; certainly by Gods’ grace these people who had murdered His Son could be forgiven. Here’s the question we too often trip over, not just with baptism but many commands of God. When we obey a command of God does that make God ungracious?
We are saved by His grace; let no man boast in anything he has done, including baptism. We are saved because God forgives us of our sins and only He can do that. Water can’t take away sins; the only thing that takes away sin is the blood of Jesus. How do we contact that blood, get the benefit of it? We obey God as these folks did and are baptized, which is identifying in the death of Jesus.
Romans 6:3-7, “Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
Baptism is the only place in scripture where you can see, where you can put your body in contact with the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. It’s the only place that tells us how to literally obey the Gospel, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
His blood was shed when He died on the cross and was buried and you come into contact with his death when you symbolically die and are buried with Him in baptism. Baptism affirms the power of the blood of Christ to forgive sins and to raise you to a new life!
Peter is calling these folks to a great step of faith when he demands they put their minds and bodies into Christ; that takes an incredible step of faith For me to say to anybody, as did Peter; your guilt is removed, when you repent and are baptized, takes an incredible amount of faith for you to believe God is forgiving you by your obedience to those commands.
Baptism is a work of faith and God does all the work and you do all the believing. You are believing what’s happening is happening, just as He said it would. This was not controversial to any of these folks Peter was talking to; it was Good News!
This was the best thing they had ever heard! We can be forgiven for killing the Messiah and all other sins. There is Hope!
Not only does God want to forgive, but he wants to give us the promised Spirit as well! Wow! The gift of the Spirit Himself coming into our lives! This promise is for everyone He calls, vs. 39. We need the Spirit to help keep us alive in Christ, that’s His primary function in you. Vs. 43 points out that even after repentance and Baptism, not all believers could do miracles, yet all received the promise.
The Spirit is not a feeling anymore than forgiveness is. You didn’t literally feel your sins removed, or see your sins washed away; they didn’t float to the top of the water. The question really is, do you believe what God said would happen happened? The Spirit is a promise and you can only receive a promise by faith. God said so do you believe it? Of course you’re feeling things, it’s an emotional experience to believe this is all happening, but it’s not the emotion that is causing it to happen, it’s your faith!
That’s all these people needed to know. They responded by the thousands and people can still respond today. Do you want forgiveness? Do you want the Spirit in your life? Believe that Jesus is who claimed to be, be aware you contributed to His death by your sin and obey God, show Him He is Lord by turning your life over to Him and prove it by dying to your sin and burying it forever and believe God is forgiving and coming to you as he promised He would.
Conclusion:
1. To convict a dead heart you must exalt the person of Christ.
People aren’t saved by responding to a command, people are saved by responding to a man. The only way to prick the hearts of men today is to preach Jesus.
If a man only knows Jesus, he knows enough to respond to Him and follow Him. He may not know much about a host of other biblical subjects, the church, or about the Holy Spirit, or the Apostles and a score of doctrinal issues, but he knows what these folks knew on Pentecost day. He knows Jesus is the Messiah and he contributed to His death and he can be forgiven in Jesus, so he knows enough. From there all He needs is faith to follow Him in all areas.
2. To convert dead lives extend a personal challenge!
I fear we teach too much today like the Gospel is just an intellectual instruction. It is a challenge brethren! It’s a call to leave the world that will be judged and become a part of a religious minority!
The challenge is made clear in vs. 40. People save yourselves from this corrupt generation! He is begging people to accept the offer of grace that God is extending. Save yourselves, escape this perverse generation!
There were those in that audience who trusted in something their daddy or mommy did, or said in days gone by. There were those who needed to become personally convicted of their own sin against the Master and individually they obeyed God and by faith they submitted to Gods’ commands and repented and were baptized.
Your grandfather can’t do it for you. It makes no difference if you were raised in it and can trace it back generations; maybe you have pastors and evangelists in your family. You, everyone of us must turn away from this corrupt generation ourselves and commit ourselves to our Lord and Savior and place our lives in His hands. May we all have a heart for the Savior!

The Way We Were Acts 2:42-47

“They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Margaret Meade, a famous anthropologist who died not that long ago once said, “The church is the boringest old thing around.” In far too many cases, I fear I would have to agree with her.

Dr. Richard Halverson who was once the chaplain for the US senate once said, “In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ, then the church moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe where it became a culture and finally it moved to America where it became an enterprise.”

What he was reminding us was that it doesn’t take long for a good thing to go bad. It’s not surprising to me at all to hear our young saying throughout our country that they want something with meaning in their lives and they believe it’s Jesus, they just aren’t sure at all they want the church. The problem we face though is, if you say in any way you want Jesus but don’t want the church, the Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion.

There’s no idea in scripture where you can practice your worship to God by yourself, with yourself, and of yourself. Yes, it teaches you to build a personal relationship that fuels your faith, but He always brings you back to practice that faith with others, with the church first and then the world. The problem is not the church; it’s what we have done to the church, to Gods’ idea.

This little section of scripture will change our idea of church, how to do church, if we will listen. Look at your Bibles and see the way we were, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”

The church did begin with folk’s fellowshipping and centering their lives on Christ.

Fellowship

We use the word allot, even call some of our churches this, but do we know what it means?

Let’s first say what it’s not: Fellowship is not church dinners. Sharing food together is a result of fellowship, but not the cause of it. They didn’t have to elect a committee of some kind to organize our meal together, they naturally moved into it, as fellowship was being experienced and building.

Fellowship is not church communism! Acts 2 is not a proof text for Christian socialism and too many are coming to this conclusion. The folks here are motivated by need, not by want. The activity here is meant to supplement responsibility not replace it. You were taught to care for your families and if a need arose the church would help meet that need.

What is it: Koinonia had 2 meanings. To simply share with someone or share in something with someone. It wasn’t a religious word in particular; every body used it to describe sharing in something. The New Testament writers used this word to talk about a sharing in the Spirit we all shared in common through Christ.

When you obeyed the gospel as those here had done, turned their lives toward Christ and started your new life in Him, you and I have something in common, a sharing of the Spirit that the world knows nothing about.

At Pentecost humanity came alive! Notice, it was the Lord’s prerogative to add to His own community. You don’t add people to the church, the leaders don’t add folks to the church, and God added to their number the people who were being saved. It then becomes our duty as the church to receive those God is adding.

It’s not my task to decide if I will accept you, nor anyone else’s! If you believe in Jesus as Peter spoke of here and received His forgiveness, it’s not my place or anyone else’s to ask if you’re good enough to be in the church. I don’t ask, how much do you know, or not know, I just accept you because God added you to the church.

Fellowship then is not an option, because this new society is not my creation, it is Gods’. I have no task of deciding who gets my fellowship. Fellowship isn’t an option it’s a requirement. I must not set up barriers to some, as to who I would fellowship. I am to receive you, if you have been recreated in Christ, I accept you as my brother or sister and I share with you.

Now you tell me if this kind of acceptance is common in the church or not? Let me get specific. In our church, do the young even try to get to know the older, or the older try to get to know the young? Does this church take the initiative to get to know the new folks who come in, the ones God has added to our number?
Do we go to them and accept them and welcome them, share with them, or do they have to seek it out themselves? Someone once said, “To dwell above with saints we love, O that will be glory, but to dwell below with saints we know, now that’s another story.”

Someone else described the church of today too often as porcupines. “They want to get close because they need the warmth, but they are afraid if they get too close they will prick each other.” Do we share our lives, our spirit’s with each other, or do we just say hi how’s it going and hurry out to our dinners, etc.? Do we connect with each other, or do we have acquaintance fellowship?

Some churches have known each other for years, but do they share the Spirit of God within us with each other? Maybe we know each others kids, know each others work, shop at the same stores, and maybe we even helped each other on an occasion, but is Jesus the center of our relationship, or are we just being neighborly?

These questions are designed more for us to examine what fellowship really is more than get us thinking poorly about our churches. We need to think deeper about what God built and designed us to be as His church.

Let’s see how the church fellowshipped at first and compare it with how we do it today and see if we can learn and grow:

1. Fellowship demanded consecration, vs. 42; “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.” Devoted means steadfast single-minded loyalty to a certain course of action.
I will consecrate myself, I will set myself apart to some specific things since God has added me to this number, and I will pursue those things with all that’s in me.

Fellowship is not just between you and God but we share in some things together that God has put before us. So our fellowship is with Him and each other. These things are what brings us together and makes us close. If we don’t share these things, we won’t get close. They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching together.

But, the truth is we’re funny people today. We all say we need fellowship, but we don’t love the Word of God as something that brings us together. We don’t want to share it together for very long, or dig very deep. Then, there are those who want to study the scriptures all the time, but aren’t very interested in fellowship with others.

In the church at the beginning, you didn’t have one without the other and they were connected by this action. We need to remember the “cradle” is still rocking here in Acts. There are 3,000 accidents waiting to happen. Brand new baby Christians, but they were teachable because they believed in Jesus and wanted to know what Jesus wanted them to be like. They devoted themselves to the Apostles so they could learn how Jesus wanted them to live.

I am completely convicted in the statement I’m about to make. Fellowship without teaching is not fellowship! Listen, I’m not against chatting about the weather, or sports, or many other interests we share in common. It is good to just shoot the breeze together, it does build our relationship, but if we want biblical fellowship, we must want, desire, and pursue the teaching of God with each other.

Listen again; I’m not talking here about just hearing our differing opinions on religious subjects, especially someone telling us how they think we should live. We have all heard allot of religion in our day and it has soured us to real Bible searching in the name of Bible teaching. I’m talking about opening the word up and letting God speak to us, what does He have to say to us?

This will bring us together in ways just being acquainted and sharing chat will never come close to, because that is not fellowship. We may call that friendship; I’ve known so and so for years and they’d do anything for me. We are good neighbors, but we aren’t devoted to the teaching of God with each other and therefore we don’t have fellowship of the kind we see in scripture.

Church association is not fellowship. I go to that church, I give to that church, and the truth is we too often go a handful of times, giving is sporadic, and no working together serving and yet, we supposedly have fellowship. This is not fellowship as the Bible describes it and we think so, God will get sick of us.

What was the teaching of the Apostles? They were the ones who lived with Jesus for 3 ½ years and they talked about how to live like Jesus. Fellowship is committing ourselves to learning to live like Jesus! If we don’t we won’t get the closeness that is spoken of in scripture.

2. We must be devoted to the breaking of bread.
Specifically I’m speaking here of the Lord’s Supper! How can we look at this whole thing so casually as we do today? The Lord’s Supper was not a philosophy, we’re not remembering some nice little ethic, and it’s a symbol of an actual historical event that is real and changed all our lives!

It meant a great deal to these folks, because allot of them literally saw His body on the cross. They weren’t remembering some nice idea, or cute song; they were remembering the man they killed! It wasn’t until our time relatively speaking that we changed this event into some silent solemn individual affair. This was a body sharing, fellowshipping in remembrance of Jesus. I can see tears as people are once again convicted of their crime; we killed Him, our sin killed Him!

I can see them saying to each other, He was who He said He was, He’s my Messiah, my Savior, my Lord, Is He yours? I can see them being joyous as they remember what He accomplished for them.
That’s not to say there were no reflective individual moments, self-examination, but as they realized what He accomplished for them, joy would spring up all over.
They were devoted to this time together; they wouldn’t miss it for anything, because it brought them closer. A part of this was actually taking meals together as well. There was something very bonding in sharing in meals together in each other’s homes. And in this case as we’ll see in a minute it was very necessary as well. It had everything to do with providing for the needs of others.

3. They were devoted to prayer.
The idea is to come together as a body of people and pray. The text said they continually did this. Today we form a committee to organize such an event where we all come together and pray and often time it never happens. Why can’t we get significant numbers of us to come together for prayer?

You tell me if you think I’m wrong? The news hits that Garth Brooks has had a major conversion moment and he’s coming here to tell us how it happened and what it means. I’m telling you we wouldn’t be able to handle the people, even if we just had the people from right here in our area that would come. But, if the word goes out that our church is in vital need and we have called folks out to pray about it, it won’t take 20/20 vision to see the empty seats.

I do have a memory of when practiced this will change your life. I was in a Bible school, a complete novice; I’d only been a follower of Christ for about 6 months before going to this school, so I didn’t know much about anything, especially how to grow in Christ. I look back and of couple things stick out and one in particular, in some cases even more than all the studies I had to do.

I had a close friend I grew up with who went on this journey with me to this school and the whole trying to figure out where God wanted us in life, and we practiced something that became big to us. We started it with 3 others at first, but it didn’t take long and it was down to just the 2 of us and we continued doing it for almost a year. We set aside a time to pray together every night and we prayed about everything, our struggles, what God wanted for us, and most of the time we didn’t know what we needed, but we prayed anyway.

We didn’t know what we were doing, but soon we looked forward to this time of prayer together; in many cases it was the highlight of our day. We learned something that never really left us; we became closer than ever before at that time. We shared stuff with each other we didn’t dare share with any others. We strengthened each other just by being together. You see prayer together, not scripted, mechanical, or repetitive prayers, but prayer of need and sharing bring people closer together.

It’s not something I can just tell someone about and they get it, it is one of those things you must do in order to see the truth of it. There are so many things that want to keep us from doing this and unfortunately too often, those things get in our way. This is fellowship; devoting yourselves to some things and if you do you are brought together in a bond that is hard to break.
We can call what our relationship to each other is whatever we want, but if we aren’t devoted to teaching, to the Lord’s Supper, and to prayer, we aren’t fellowshipping. Fellowship demands consecration!

4. Fellowship Demands Contribution, 44-45:

New relationships in Christ transcend material concerns. Get the picture of what’s happening here before you jump to conclusions:

These are new Christians and they are from all over the world. They came here to celebrate the Passover. They only brought enough food for the trip; they didn’t plan on staying here this long. But, they hear the gospel and respond to it, now what? They’re not ready to go home, because they don’t know how to live like Christ yet.

They have to stay longer than they prepared to. Their resources will run out soon. The local church sees this situation and since they live there, they get together and assure them they will be taken care of. They tell them you can’t leave yet, because you’re not ready, you won’t make it as a new Christ follower if you don’t learn more from the Apostles before you go back home.

The great commission as we call it is not to just convert folks; the command is to make disciples! How do I know when I’ve got a disciple? When you can reproduce yourself, you are a disciple. They had no idea how to take Jesus to the world, to their homes and start churches, so the Jerusalem church had to step up and help them. They did whatever it took, sold houses, land, possessions, clothes, etc., whatever it takes so you can stay and learn what you need to know.

What do you think this did for their fellowship? This brother or sister knows, the only reason he’s getting to hear Peter teach is because this brother over here sold a field to make it happen. Fellowship is about making any sacrifice you can to see to it your brother grows!

You can’t disciple anyone and not sacrifice. If you don’t sacrifice you can’t have fellowship. It demands contribution, a pouring out of your life into someone else.

5. Fellowship demands celebration, vs. 46-47:

Every day they met together with glad and sincere hearts in the temple and in their homes. They ate together and they praised God together every day. They weren’t just enduring each other they were enjoying each other.

I’m not sure how it all got started that church became this solemn almost gloomy assembly, the old, and “tip toe through Gods’ house” thing? But, this is a time for celebrating our lives together. We enjoy being with each other and remembering each other. I’ll leave it to you to decide if Margaret Meade was right or not about the church today, but the way we were was anything but boring!
Conclusion:

1. If real fellowship is happening, affective discipline is possible. Why do we have such difficulty in our churches to get people to live like Christ? Not talking about rules, regulations, traditions, but live like Christ; you can see the fruit being born in their lives. I believe it’s because we’re not sharing our lives with each other.

We’re not praying with each other, asking each other how our walk with Jesus is doing. We’re not sacrificing for each other. Fellowship takes time; will we sacrifice our time for our brethren? If we do we will have great incentive for holiness.

Now, it’s not incentive to live holy if we scold each other and preach at each other; threaten each other to straighten out our lives or we’ll withdraw fellowship, when we haven’t even experienced each others fellowship yet. How can we take something away from each other we haven’t even given in the first place?

We have too many willing to point fingers and back us in a corner judging us and rebuking us, but they have never shared their lives with us. If we want the kind of fellowship that means something, so we can loving affect each others walk and motivate someone to focus more on walking in Jesus, we must start with genuine fellowship, or all we’ll get is discord and dissension.

2. If fellowship is divided, affective testimony is impossible. Did you notice how the town received the church in Jerusalem? Did the town get the idea these were narrow-minded folks that didn’t like people who weren’t a part of their group?

The nature of the church had a converting influence on the town, vs. 47. “All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.” People were being saved because of the influence of the fellowship of that church. Is that happening in your church, today?

The church would face severe persecution in days to come, but it was because of their dedication, not because of division. Their testimony never lost its power. Today the church is spoken of so negatively by so many and it’s not because of our dedication, but I believe primarily because of our division. We have allowed our fellowship to be divided.

Jesus told the facts the way they are, it’s absolute even today, “and all men will know that you are my disciples, when they see you truly love one another.” That’s what was happening at Jerusalem. We won’t grow any church anywhere significantly if the world sees us fussing and bickering. Can we change the way we are, to the way we were? If we do what they did, we can.

The Miracle Acts 3:1-10

Up until now from the birth of the church, everything is going well and very successfully. They even had public opinion on their side; everyone found favor with the church in the beginning. Of course, this doesn’t last long.

The first opposition to the church was because of a specific miracle. Verse 43 says all kinds of miracles were being done, but Luke tells us about one here in chapter 3 that actually started a movement of opposition against the church.

The miracle and the people involved, 3:1-10 “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.”

It was one of the 3 set times of prayer in the Jewish day, 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Lets meet the people:

1. Peter and John, who are Galilean’s, as you know. Now, they are told by Jesus to go to Jerusalem and wait for the promise to come and it came; now you might think they can go back home and start the church in Galilee. Instead, they stay with the church there in Jerusalem and as far as we know they never go back to Galilee to live.
Jerusalem is their home now and it will be the center of the Christian faith. Just as the Old Covenant center is in Jerusalem, so the New centers in Jerusalem. In fact, these early disciples did not immediately nor totally break from Judaism, there were some immediate changes, but a complete break would take some time and was gradual.

They kept many of the laws and customs they had always kept. They would stop activity 3 times a day as they had always, to pray. They didn’t go around saying, “Hey we’re Christians now and it would be legalistic for me to say I have to pray 3 times a day.”

The law instructed them to tithe and they didn’t go around saying that would be legalistic for me to do now. In fact, the overwhelming evidence shows they gave way more than 10%. They didn’t go around saying as we often say and hear today, “Hey, we’re Christians and we live under grace, so don’t tell me about rules and regulations to govern my life.”

Instead, we see the early disciples kept the law like they never were able to before. Verse 46 of chapter 2 said they met in the temple daily. In their eyes Christianity actually gave meaning to Judaism, because they know the Messiah.

They weren’t ready to start preaching to Gentiles yet and they definitely weren’t ready to just abandon the law, which they had kept all their lives, the best they could. So, at the beginning of the church the people kept doing all the things Judaism had taught them to do all their lives. There were exceptions, but here they were going to the temple for one of the preset times of prayer.

2. The see a beggar. Now, beggars were common to see in this culture. You would see beggars at the gates of rich people, at major intersections going in and out of the city, and at the gates of the temple.
This was a good spot for beggars, because lots of rich pious folks went there and they would have feelings like, “God is watching me and giving to beggars is something God notices so this will find me favor.” Beggars had learned this is the best place to be if you could get there.

Now, let’s just say, it’s hard for you and I to even begin to relate to this guys existence. He was lame from birth, which I know I can’t relate too personally. He never experienced what I take for granted every day.

We have babies all the time and we talk of their progress by saying, he’s crawling, sitting up, standing, walking, etc. What if your baby never did those things? Of course, back then you had no options, no doctors that could do anything and one day maybe he will walk; no if he was born lame then he died lame then.

They had no handicap ramps, electric wheelchairs, special desks, computers, or any other gadgets that help with their condition. If you couldn’t walk, you couldn’t work; you were useless. The only option for you was to beg. When that little baby was born, everyone looked at it and said he’ll be a beggar! If you try to imagine what life like that would be you’d come up short.

What kind of expectations do you think that beggar had about tomorrow? You know, I’m a pretty optimistic guy, even if today didn’t go too well I usually think tomorrow will be better, but what if tomorrow never did get better. Tomorrow you’ll be just as lame as you are today.

You’ll be begging tomorrow and you’ll be like that for the rest of your life; would you look forward to tomorrow? There’s no work for you, you have no purpose, no reason for living except you can’t break Gods’ law and kill yourself, and so you’ll be begging for the rest of your life.

So he’s at the gate, he’s not even holding his head up anymore. He’s memorized his lines, “alms for the poor,” He doesn’t look up because nobody looks back; he just holds out his hand. All he wants is some change and change was definitely coming!
Notice: Before they told him to walk, they gave him some personhood, vs. 4-6, “Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” He had his head down to the ground begging and Peter says no, look at me!
He wasn’t used to looking at folks, because they didn’t like looking back. Isn’t that right? Do you like looking at beggars, not to mention talking to them? It gets to us to look very long at those starving babies in Africa and other places in the world doesn’t it? They have nothing! If they are going to eat to today they either have to steal it, find it, borrow it, or somebody has to give it to them.
Yet, we rarely see these folks on TV; you know why? We’ve let it be known we don’t like looking at them. So we created government agencies to take care of the starving, etc., but don’t make us look at them. We even have loitering laws that say you can’t stay on the street and ask for money, why? We don’t want to see it.
If we go to other countries, it’s not hard to see beggars, but even there, there are those who have become so accustomed to them, they just ignore them and they kind of blend into the scenery. We’re good at this by the way. Have you ever treated a waitress like a piece of furniture, or an old person sitting on a bench maybe cold, or whatever, but we just go by never responding. We’re good at tuning things out we don’t want to see.
Do you get a glimpse of an idea why this man is shocked when these 2 guys say, look at me! Well, he looks thinking he’s going to get something and the first words out of their mouths is, we don’t have any money. Now, if you’ve been begging for 40 years, you usually don’t want to talk to anybody unless they have money to give you. You sure don’t want a sermon about how you can make the most out of a bad situation. No, you want money, any money just to get by for today.
You have trained yourself to believe that is the only thing that will help you. We are all this way! We have our ears close to Wall Street, our economy; our whole financial system and we say, in essence, no gold, no silver, no future. We need money, that’s what America is saying and everybody else in the world too. Money is all we need to straighten this country out, or take care of our personal lives.
Our politicians would have us believe if we have money, a strong economy, we’ll be able to solve all our problems. We’re not that different in mindset than this man. He was convinced all he needed was money. He thought he was going to get some, but he got something totally different.
“"Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." What do you think he thought when he very first heard this? Do you think he thought they were nuts? Jesus, you mean that criminal they crucified, I heard about that. He may have thought that, and just for an instant, you’re mocking me, you’re making fun of me. I say that because the text says, he just sat there and then Peter moves to action.
“Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.” He had to reach down grab hold of him and pull him up. “He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.”
This man had no faith; in fact he just wanted money. Peter grabs him and when he got up, he felt a sensation he never felt before in his life. He’s got ankles that work; he’d never felt it before. The text literally says, his bones in his feet and ankles socketed. He didn’t have sockets before and now he knows what it feels like. Not only this, but did you notice he didn’t need to learn to walk, he just took off walking and leaping. It’s a miracle in deed!
You had to teach your kids to walk, when they got strong enough to do it. People have gotten hurt, disease, etc. and after long healing, had to be trained to walk again when they got strong enough. Therapy was necessary! So, it’s really 2 miracles in one. He’s got ankles, he takes a step and then he leaps, runs a little; how did it happen?
Peter makes it crystal clear how it happened; it is by the power of the name of the Nazarene! Who is the main character in Acts 3? Luke will go on from here to tell us the reason the leaders of the Jews now come after Peter is because they still have to contend with the One they thought they had eliminated. They thought they had killed Jesus, but now in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, crippled people are walking.
Now, dignity really isn’t an issue if you’ve never walked before. You’re going into the temple, everybody’s quiet, cause you’re going to pray, and this guy is jumping and praising God, because he’s never walked before, let alone walk into the temple. He’s going nuts with joy and amazement and a whole lot of other emotions and so he’s shouting for joy and praise!
Apparently he didn’t know you couldn’t celebrate in church! He never heard the tiptoe in Gods’ house song before. He didn’t know you were supposed to be quiet in church. Everybody’s looking at him and he’s causing a commotion.
Do you remember Erma Bombeck? She tells a story of when she went to church one time. There was this mother with her 2 year old boy. They stood to pray and he didn’t cause any commotion or make any noise, he was just smiling from ear to ear. All of a sudden his mother looked at him smiling and reached over and spanked him a good one and they sat there and he was crying tears, and she leans over and says that’s better.
Now, what kind of excitement do you think that child will have thinking about church as he grows up? Brethren, I want to tell you God deals in Joy!!! The reason we have too many churches today that aren’t celebrating is because we can’t find many people who have changed! They don’t know the change Jesus brings.
Maybe the reason we’re trying so desperately in our churches to find joy is because we’re too concerned about the wrong kind of change, like this man before he really changed and knew he changed big time?
Conclusion:
I believe the church is in the business of making change. Maybe the reason it’s not happening as much as we might like is because of 2 things:
1. Making change demands we be poor in Spirit. We learned here in Acts that when one responds as these folks did to the gospel; we receive the Holy Spirit as a gift. This gift is to be shared with everyone. The church was born to be a blessing!
The Apostles no longer see people as question marks. There was a time when they did, but no more. They walked with Jesus and came upon a blind man and they didn’t respond by seeing the need to be met; they saw a question mark.
“How come this man was born blind, did his parents sin, or did he?” I mean what a great time to talk theology, in front of a man who’s hurting; have you ever done it? They now see a man in need and want to help. They have changed and they want to change others, no matter what condition they find them in.
I wonder how many people we see everyday that need what you have and we just walk on by? We were made to be followers of Christ and receive the gift of the Spirit so we could be a gift to people in need and change them.
In far too many of our churches we are lost, totally distracted by church finances, programs, traditions, statistics and looking at the bottom line. You know the thing about the kingdom of God is, the primary thing is people. Maybe we’ll be shocked when we see heaven to see people; all the other stuff we spent the bulk of our time and energy on isn’t there.
Yes we need to give consideration to being good stewards of our monies and examining why we aren’t reaching more folks and keeping them on an institutional level, but if we put people first, if God is showing us the most important thing is people, then it will change our focus and we’ll start seeing the ones right in front of us. In the midst of all the chaos and confusion, Jesus stopped to meet the need of the one in front of Him!
He didn’t let all the machinery of the system distract Him from the most important thing, your need. He wasn’t distracted by stats and crowds who came to see Him. He didn’t seek more and more numbers for numbers sake, He would leave the numbers to go find someone who needed what He had to give that hadn’t heard yet. Was consideration given to stewardship of money and what we do with it? Yes, but it wasn’t the most important concern He had and it shouldn’t be ours.
The problems of our country, our communities, our world, our churches, and our own lives are not money; they are people problems! We need the kind of change that only God can give or all the money there is won’t solve any of our problems. Every problem we see today can be solved, if we can change the hearts of the people, who need the change so desperately.
2. Making change demands that you be rich in faith. Listen carefully, because I believe we have a big problem in our churches today. I believe we believe more in giving change than making it!
Do we really believe the church of Jesus Christ can actually change human lives? Not just give lip service as a response to hearing something, but also do we believe we can change someone’s life? Do we believe we can change the lives our governments will never fix and our agencies can’t help? Do you believe that you and I can truly change these people?
I’ve heard us say way too many times, in one fashion or another, “these people are hopeless, there’s no way we can change them, once they reach a certain age you can’t change them.” Maybe, we don’t say it as church policy, but we say among ourselves, “I’ve tried and there’s no use.” We’ve convinced ourselves there are some folks we can never help no matter what we do.
What would we say today, if we saw this man in Acts 3, who is over 40? Would we immediately say we can help him? You know what we have done? We see someone like this toady and we say, we know we should help, or at least try, so we take up a collection and try to throw a little change in those people’s way and that’s how we try to solve human problems today.
If all we can do is throw money at people problems, we are bankrupt spiritually and will not affect change in our day, or any day. There are people out there without mothers and fathers, single parents trying to raise kids, people out there who have lost everything and don’t know where they are going to live, or how they can feed their kids, let alone themselves. What most of us do is form committees and throw money at them, and the problem seems to grow instead of resolve.
We don’t really believe we can change their life situation. Now, maybe the reason we don’t believe they can change is because we haven’t that much. I have fairly recently met some folks who believe they can change some folks lives and let me tell you how they’re doing it. It should inspire us, not intimidate us.
A group of young very successful families about 6 in all, young kids and all, believed God was calling them to help change the lives of the homeless here in OKC. They didn’t even live here they lived in Calif. God brought them here through a set of circumstances and then planted this vision they were to come and change lives. It just so happened that across the street from the local City rescue Mission was this run down old warehouse/apt. Building and it was for sale.
These young folks had never done work with the homeless before, they just believed God called them here to change this piece of ground, the local area of this town, which was totally rundown, unlivable by most of our standards due to total neglect and hopelessness. The building they bought was condemned to live by the city officials, so they had allot of work to do.
They started getting the word out to local churches about what they were doing and needed and the work began. They had to bring the building up to code for city inspectors, which took way longer and more money than they ever thought it would. They brought their families, kids and all into this condemned building and had only a certain amount of time to bring it up to code, or the city wouldn’t allow them to stay there. It seemed many times it wasn’t going to happen in time, before they shut it down.
They accepted donations from anybody and everybody, work from church volunteers, anything to get it done. They told stories as the months went buy of how they believed they weren’t going to hold out, that they couldn’t see how God was going to see them through. All the while they are trying to get this building livable, they were mixing it up with the homeless in this area, which was staggering.
They preached the gospel to these folks and asked the churches to help out in many different ways to reach these folks, who in some cases did seem like they were so entrenched in this lifestyle there was no way out. But, all the while these people are living among the homeless in this area, and the homeless are seeing these folks live! Live the life of Christ right in front of them, while preaching the word to them.
They learned many things about living among the homeless and you know the homeless did too. Many of them became so entrenched in living the life of receiving handouts and relying on the system to keep them alive, they weren’t thinking anymore about getting out of it; it became their way of life. How do you change folks like this? Many have dependency problems of all kinds, but others lost everything due to tragedies of many kinds and they feel lost to do anything, but remain where they are.
How do you change them? These young folks believed God lead them to live with them and show them something they had never seen, or had forgotten maybe. You can choose to make better decisions and rise above what life often times throws at you. But, now they are also, seeing God changes people’s lives, even in the worst of circumstances. How, are they seeing it? Through people who were brave enough to follow God where He called them and learn to depend on Him no matter what.
Many lives are being changed and you can go there and witness it. One of the major things these young folks learned is, throwing money or handouts doesn’t help these folks at all. They learned to take handouts for granted and because they don’t have to work for it, they expect it and they never deal with their real problem of what got them there.
Now, the homeless are seeing folks who are willing to live among them and show them a better way. What’s the end of this story? It hasn’t ended, it’s only about 2 years in the making and the mission has just begun. Many changes have happened in the community already, the streets are cleaned, and buildings have been painted, landscaping has been done, the town is being owned by those who live in Jesus’ name!
They have claimed the city for Jesus and now a place where the cops had given up on, and everybody else in town too, is being transformed, not by throwing money at it, but by people living for Jesus and bringing in all those willing to help by working with them, not just giving handouts. If you want to help with this work, you roll up your sleeves and go there and get to work. Work side by side with the homeless who will often time join you in the work. They see you and you are affecting a change!
Why did I tell you that story? What I am saying to you is, the church needs faith more than we need money! Faith to answer the call of God to get into the lives of people who need change, but they will only change when they see that we have changed. We are real and we really believe what we’re saying, that God changes people’s lives. If you are in their lives for the long haul, even when it gets ugly, and they see Jesus in you, then you will have an audience that will listen to the words that will change their lives, as well.
Faith is what enabled the church in the beginning to withstand all opposition and even if they were forced from their homes they brought the Spirit with them and it changed the world. Living for Jesus takes faith no matter what. So, even if you lose it all, you can still live and change lives as you speak the words of life to those around you and they will listen, because they know you have changed.
The story is told of Thomas Aquinas going to visit the pope in Rome. He got there and the pope is counting silver and gold in the church treasury and said, “You see brother Thomas, no longer can the church say we have no silver or gold. Thomas answered, “and no longer is the church able to say, in the name of Jesus the Nazarene, arise and walk!”
I believe it would be better for the church to have less money and a little more faith! I believe people can change, because the source of real change is still alive, Jesus the Nazarene! But, He can’t be bought and He can’t be sold, He can only be shared.

Peter’s Second Sermon Acts 3:11-26

“While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he said to them: "Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. "Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.' "Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed. 'When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

Let me tell you what I really like about a textual investigation of the scriptures. There are no hidden agenda’s! I didn’t try to say to myself, what does this group need to hear, or the church need to hear and then try to figure out how to say it. All I have to do is say what the text says as we work our way through it. It takes us where we will go.

Now, I’m pretty sure there are those of you here today that will not believe everything I say about Peter’s sermon here. But, all I can say is it’s Peter’s sermon, not mine and if I’m going to stay true to the text, I can only say what it says to me. If you see something in the text, not in your head now, or not from your past experiences, but from the text, that I don’t, which is entirely possible, I want to hear it.

I don’t claim to know all the truth about anything. God has directed me to some truth and I believe He has given me some truth as to what He’s saying through Peter here. If I say something you have already drawn conclusions about in the past, all I ask is that you discipline yourselves to listen now and look at the text now and maybe later. I’m not God, I don’t claim to have perfect knowledge about anything, I do try to have reasonable knowledge about things, but not perfect.

I say that simply because I will say something here I know some folks will want to react to, may strongly want to interrupt, or holler down, so-to-speak. I know that, I get it, but I just ask that you give me a chance to set before you the convictions God has placed in me. These are not matters of salvation, so we ought to be able to present our thoughts to each other without feeling “we” must be the ones “right” and everyone else is just wrong. So I call on the Spirit within us all to just focus on the text for right now.

As we saw last time this sermon is set up by a miracle of the man who was lame from birth, 1-10. He’s over 40 and asking for change, but not the kind of change he really needs. Peter gives him a greater gift than money could ever buy. He heals the man in the name of Jesus the Nazarene!

Now, I have seen that people will do anything to be healed today. They will pay huge sums of money, suffer through all kinds of punishing procedures, travel long distances, and endure many hardships in hopes that someone or something will heal them. Many of us say today, wouldn’t it be great if we could still cause the lame to walk like we see here? Please don’t misunderstand me, I believe in prayer and I believe God can and does heal people of sicknesses today. I have witnessed it myself. What I don’t believe is He’s doing it with the frequency and at the command of “some” that many today claim.

I don’t believe that God has chosen certain individuals to heal folks as we see happening here in this text with Peter and John. I do believe He has honored the prayers of just ordinary believers, who prayed during a hard time, and he answered with a yes, and healing came. However, He has answered far more times, no “My grace is sufficient for you,” than we most often want to admit to ourselves. We don’t often talk very long about those times when God’s answer was, not this time. But, in my experience he answer this way far more often than the other.

To put it as clear as I can, I don’t believe “The church” can heal people today, the way we see in this text; I just don’t see it happening, even among those who use terms like, it happens all the time at this church, through this man or woman. After looking at it for a time, I don’t see happening, even in those places, what’s happening here in Acts 3. If I’m right at all about this, the next question is, why can’t we do what these here are doing?

I believe the answer is in the “why” such healing was done in the first place. Everywhere you look in scripture, you see the reason these signs were done was a sign to unbelievers that Jesus is the Messiah. This man was an unbeliever and of course there are still many unbelievers looking on that Peter and John are going to have to deal with. Is there message from God? Is Jesus the Messiah and more, is He the Messiah they have all been looking for all their lives?

In every case where a person is made well or some other miracle takes place, immediately the message comes that the cause of this is not the ones used to bring the miracle, but the attention is shifted to the real miracle worker and that is Jesus the Nazarene! The Apostles never call the believers together so they can hold healing seminars to teach people how to heal, or invite people to come bring their sick to some big healing gathering. As the disciples went out to preach the gospel, God worked according to His will showing signs so unbelievers would hear the truth.

Healing, as well as the other signs was for unbelievers, a wake up call for unbelievers to believe in Jesus of Nazareth. They were to open up unbelievers to hear the preaching of the gospel. These signs were done to bring about the possibility of spiritual healing.

Did you notice verse 11? “While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade.” Here is the purpose of the sign. It was a vehicle to reach the hearts of unbelievers. This is a totally different thing than what we see happening by many today and calling it healing.

What happens after this is totally out of character to what we see today, because the greatest temptation of the church is right in front of them, but the church turns from it. Do you see the temptation? Peter and John have the ability to easily catapult the church into super stardom! They could have called all people to flock to them for miracles, especially healing and they would have been overwhelmed with followers, lifted to positions of authority, money would follow, etc., etc.

However, I am convinced their ministries would have stopped dead in their tracks had they done this, because the source of the power would have gone. They are not the source of the power they are the servants of the one who has the power; by themselves they could do nothing.

You don’t see the church then, do what many do today, which is hold healing workshops and call people from everywhere to come to them to learn how to heal, or be healed. By now you can see I have a problem with that sort of thing. Jesus never did that sort of thing and neither did this church.

What they did do was remember what Jesus’ charge to them was, which was, you be my witnesses! They didn’t go on and on preaching about the lame man they had just healed, they preached about the one who really healed the lame man. Now look at what they preached!

“The man threw his arms around Peter and John, ecstatic. All the people ran up to where they were at Solomon's Porch to see it for themselves. When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people: "Oh, Israelites, why does this take you by such complete surprise, and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus. The very One that Pilate called innocent, you repudiated. You repudiated the Holy One, the Just One, and asked for a murderer in his place. You no sooner killed the Author of Life than God raised him from the dead—and we're the witnesses. Faith in Jesus' name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet—yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes. "And now, friends, I know you had no idea what you were doing when you killed Jesus, and neither did your leaders. But God, who through the preaching of all the prophets had said all along that his Messiah would be killed, knew exactly what you were doing and used it to fulfill his plans. "Now it's time to change your ways! Turn to face God so he can wipe away your sins, pour out showers of blessing to refresh you, and send you the Messiah he prepared for you, namely, Jesus. For the time being he must remain out of sight in heaven until everything is restored to order again just the way God, through the preaching of his holy prophets of old, said it would be. Moses, for instance, said, 'Your God will raise up for you a prophet just like me from your family. Listen to every word he speaks to you. Every last living soul who refuses to listen to that prophet will be wiped out from the people.' "All the prophets from Samuel on down said the same thing, said most emphatically that these days would come. These prophets, along with the covenant God made with your ancestors, are your family tree. God's covenant-word to Abraham provides the text: 'By your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.' But you are first in line: God, having raised up his Son, sent him to bless you as you turn, one by one, from your evil ways.”
Now, isn’t that the best sermon you ever did hear? Truth it’s been a while since most of us even read it, it’s not high on our list of all time outstanding sermons. Now, theirs a big reason why it hasn’t hit us like that. We’re Gentiles! We miss the significance, because it was written in a Jewish context.
Peter is a Jew, preaching in a Jewish temple, to Jewish people, from Jewish scriptures. It hasn’t even occurred to Peter or any one else yet, that the gospel is for Gentiles too. God will have to show Peter and everyone else very strongly, that the Gentiles are included, but it’s going to take a dramatic event for God to get that message across to everyone.
Right now, Peter believes Christianity is of the Jews, by the Jews, and for the Jews. He preaches a sermon that would have leveled a Jewish audience, they would respond in many ways, from anger to this is the greatest sermon I have ever heard! But, we Gentiles aren’t moved too much by it, and the only way we will is to try to think like a Jew. This is good news for the Jews!
He focuses in on what they had done, their deed and why they did it. He uses 3 names for the Messiah that we haven’t come across yet. He first says, “You delivered up God’s Servant, vs. 13. Notice he ties it to their Jewish heritage. “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go.”
The word Servant is a special word meaning a special servant, it’s not the common word used for servant. Most translations qualify it by saying, His servant Jesus. Peter uses the word Isaiah uses to describe a special servant to come, foretelling of the day. It’s a Messianic reference and if you’re a Jew you knew immediately, Peter is talking about the Messiah.
This is an incredible charge! You delivered up your own deliverer! If you’re a Jew that’s the most sobering way to start a sermon you’ve ever heard.
Second: He says you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, vs. 14. “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.” This too, is a Messianic reference. Righteous meant, “one against who no charge can be brought!” He is unindictable! Peter says, “Even Pilate, a pagan ruler saw He was innocent and wanted Him to go free. But, you convicted the One who even a pagan declared innocent.
You chose to release a murderer so you could murder an innocent man; you denied the Holy and Righteous One! If you’re Jew you are shaking in your boots at the thought of this, even if you don’t believe it!
Third, you destroyed the Author of Life, vs.15. “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” This of course is the ultimate futility, to try to kill the Author of Life!
You killed Him, but God raised Him up and that’s how come this miracle happened here, right now. If Jesus were dead, I wouldn’t be able to heal this lame man right before you. You tried to kill the Author of Life, but that’s impossible, you can’t kill the One in whom life originates!
Verse 16 makes it clear who the Servant, the Holy and righteous One, and the Author of Life is! “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.” That carpenter from Nazareth is whom we are talking about.
This speaks allot to our day and time, of those who too often call upon healing to be done. According to Peter it is his faith in the name of Jesus that heals, not the faith of the one being healed. It’s a terrible thing to say to someone who comes hoping to be healed and when it doesn’t happen to say to them they didn’t have enough faith to get it done! They actually take away the one thing they did have, enough faith to come, but then when it doesn’t work, they say you didn’t have it.
This lame man had no faith when Peter reached out and raised him up. According to scripture, healing rests on the faith of the one who is doing the healing. This man hadn’t even heard the gospel he had no faith! Peter says walk, the man doesn’t move, he doesn’t believe it, so Peter’s faith reaches down and pulls the man up; Peter believed!
Now, if you’re a Jew and you agree with Peter here, you’re devastated. I’ve never, nor has anyone I’ve ever heard, or read, ever preached a sermon so powerful as the one Peter is preaching in the temple on this day.
If you’re a Jew, all your life you looked for the Messiah, all your life you searched the scriptures to learn about the Messiah, there’s only one question on your mind; when is He going to send His servant to restore the kingdom to Israel? Peter says He came and you killed Him! How could we have done such a thing? Let’s explain how. Two reasons, how you could do it:
1. You did it in ignorance, vs. 17. “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.” He doesn’t say they were innocent, but he does give them hope. Jesus said the same thing, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” He is saying, maybe there is hope for you.
2. In was done in accordance to God’s will, vs. 18. “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.” The Jew would have felt, if I’m so stupid to not recognize God’s Messiah, there’s no way God would have let His Messiah be killed! They would believe there was no way He would die.
Especially on a Cross! He would be cursed said the scriptures, if He died on a cross. No way Peter, He died on a tree, He can’t be the Messiah. So, Peter must address the main stumbling block of the Jew, even to this day, which is the Cross.
Peter addresses this in vs. 18. This is how God prophesied it would be. In other words, Peter is saying you didn’t read the prophets well at all. The prophets all foretold of His sufferings and His wounds and if you had read the prophets you would have known He was suppose to suffer for us all. You came to the scriptures with this preconceived notion and you missed the truth altogether! Sound familiar?
You should have let the Bible tell you what the Messiah would be like and not passed down traditions of men, who made it up in their own minds, so you couldn’t see what God had been saying all along. Yes, He was cursed! He put the curse that was due to all of us on Him, so we wouldn’t have to bear it ourselves. God used your ignorance for His purposes and that’s why it happened.
There’s allot of pressure put on preachers of the gospel today, not to produce guilt among people. Peter wanted to produce some guilt, have them be convicted to their core, overwhelmed by it, sit in it for a while.
There is a difference in producing guilt within, to bring conviction towards repentance and laying guilt trips on people. A guilt trip is someone trying to make you feel bad about doing something he believes is wrong, but may not necessarily be wrong, it’s just that he believes it is. It may not be absolute truth, but he wants you to fit his idea of what’s right and wrong and this kind of thing doesn’t do anyone any good.
But when we preach the gospel to folks, we’re not giving an opinion, or an idea we think is right, but has no absolute truth to back it up. We need to let people know that they are responsible for their sin, your sin made it necessary for Jesus to have to die for you, or you would forever be lost; you are guilty! You must take action to do something about it, you must repent and turn your life toward Him and follow all He leads you to if you would be forgiven of your sin. You must have faith that Jesus can meet your need.
People must be made aware they are sick and there is a way to be healed, which is the biggest healing of all. The lame man could be healed physically and still be lost eternally, He needs more healing from Jesus than physical healing, which is all of our need. We do run the risk of people not wanting to face their condition when we tell them of their guilt, but we must tell them anyway. He’s told them what they did; now he must tell them what they need.
He calls them to repentance, vs. 19. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” Now, get the picture. Here comes the lame man jumping and praising and you’re there praying and of course you want to see what’s happened. So, you look, run see if you have to and you see a miracle has been done and then you hear the explanation and you find yourself being challenged to your very core.
Peter says ignorance is not an excuse anymore you need to repent! What’s that? It’s not sitting in your pews at the building or standing in line at church feeling bad about your sins. We’re good at that, by the way. I’ve heard countless people come and say something like, boy I feel bad about my sin, but nothing more comes of it, we continue to live as we always have, and nothing changes.
It’s kind of like a club of confessors, we feel good if we confess we’re sinners, but we really don’t do much to change our lives. It’s good therapy to get it out and get kudos from other sinners, but we keep dragging around our sins, even talking about them, trying to get others to sympathize and relate to our predicament. It’s a big part of our culture today, but it doesn’t do much to change our lives.
Repentance is when you alter your lifestyle in view of the revelation you just received about Jesus. Peter does not say I want to hear how bad you feel about all this. Peter is saying you must change your life, because you know who Jesus is now.
He says, if you repent there will be 3 blessings:
1. Your sins will be forgiven, wiped out. Isn’t that good news? If you’re a Jew and you killed your own Messiah, that’s good news! Wipe out means, erase. God erases that whole page of your life that has sins recorded on it. It’s not there anymore, it doesn’t exist, and it’s gone. The blood of Jesus washes it all away. Turning your life over to Jesus as Lord, immediately wipes out all of your sin.
2. Times of refreshing come from the Lord. One thing this means is the coming of the Spirit into your life. What Jesus said in John 7:37-39 comes to mind, where He said the Spirit acts as a stream of water welling up constantly in the believer. It should really bother us to hear anybody speak of Christianity in terms that make it oppressive on your life. Christianity is the most rejuvenating life of all! It’s not a burden! No when you turn your life over to Jesus you get times of refreshing, continued rejuvenation, because the Holy Spirit lives in you.
3. Now, we come to the future blessing. The return of Jesus. Now we have to listen to this as a Jew or we will miss it! Verses 20-21 say, to make sure you understand what he means he will quote Moses, Samuel, and all the prophets, all the way back to Abraham. You can’t get better credentials than this. “And that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. 21He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”
The prophets all the way back to Abraham saw the days of Christ! Peter tells them, Jesus must remain in heaven until all the time comes where God will restore everything He talked about through the prophets. What is the restoration that was foretold would happen when Christ returns?
If you’re a Jew, Peter is asking, don’t you want to be a part of the restoration when Christ returns? Think like a Jew for a minute, or you’ll miss it. The Jews in the temple knew exactly what Peter was talking about. If I’m a Jew, I ask myself, what did the prophets say would be restored? Well, what were Jews constantly asking Jesus if He was going to restore? The Kingdom!
Every Jew grew up wondering and asking, when is the Messiah going to return and restore the kingdom to Israel? Even after Jesus is raised from the tomb and before he ascends to heaven, what’s the last question the disciples ask Him, Acts 1:6? “6So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” That’s what they were looking for! The difficulty of the text is answering the question, when is God going to restore everything the prophets spoke of?
The time has caused even us today to debate and even divide in heated disagreement. After 34+ years of looking at this now, I can only tell you what I believe. I reserve the right to be wrong, even change my mind if God shows me otherwise, but this is all I’ve got for now.
The key is quoting Moses and Abraham specifically. “For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.' "In deed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed. 'When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”
The key to me is, the period of restoration is when all people listen to the One Moses spoke of. The Kingdom is made up of those who heed everything the Messiah says. If you do not listen to Him, you will not be in the kingdom.
The kingdom is made up of those who are truly of the seed of Abraham. Scripture tells us in many places that those who are of faith are the seed of Abraham. Both Jews and Gentiles who live by faith in Jesus shall be in the kingdom. So, my question to you is, when in history was it made clear that the only One you can listen to and have your sins wiped out and receive refreshing from the Spirit, plus the building of a spiritual kingdom far greater than any earthly one ever known, take place?
You can’t rely on your connection to Moses anymore, or to Abraham, you must look totally and solely to Jesus to be in the restored kingdom, which He preached was coming and He would be the king of. The only event in history that marks the end of the ability to look anywhere else for hope of all this restoration is when the end of the Jewish system under Moses was ended.
When was this? The event that was prophesied of old and by Jesus Himself, is when He said He would come in judgment upon Israel for rejecting Him, Matt. 16: 27-28, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
10:22-23, “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” 26:63-66, “But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" "He is worthy of death," they answered.”
They knew He was saying he would judge them and they knew only God could judge in this way. Jesus said this nation would come to an end because of their refusal to accept Him.
Jesus destroyed Judaism as set up under Moses in A.D. 70, when the Romans came and conquered all and destroyed the temple and the city. The only thing left was, those who had faith in the Messiah. There now is truly no other way unto the Father, but through Jesus.
The prophets foretold of a time when the covenant made originally with Abraham was the only covenant that would save. That covenant was based on faith in Jesus and no one or nothing else. These were the last days of any hope for salvation in any other than Jesus.
What I believe he is saying is, if you want to be in on the restoration of God’s kingdom in all it’s glory, which transcends this world, repent and turn to Jesus. He’s your only hope!
That’s what Peter is telling these Jews. If you want to be in on the restoration of all things repent and turn to Jesus. They repeated this message for the next 20 or so years until Jesus came in Judgment as promised upon Jerusalem and He restored His kingdom unto the true Israel, which is those of faith in Jesus.
Conclusion:
1. When you preach the gospel, consider your audience.
Peter preaches to the question on their hearts, rather than just bad mouth Judaism. He affirms Christianity is the true Judaism and if you want in on “the golden age” it will be only in Christ.
Did you ever notice that Paul never really spoke much of the restoration of all things in his epistles? Why not? Because, that’s not where Gentiles are at, they could care less, and we’re not that concerned either. Paul’s audience was gentiles. We aren’t personally wrapped up in the restoration of Israel. We’re Gentiles and that’s why Paul doesn’t talk about it much to his audience, but if you’re a Jew, you tell them how they can be a part of the promised kingdom.
2. Consider your attitude! Peter is not arrogant or boastful. He calls the ones who murdered the Master, brothers! He was not condescending or patronizing. Don’t talk down to people.
The main problem of so many today in the world and even the church, is the same as Peter’s day, ignorance! The reason there are so many wicked in the world today is because they do not know what they are doing. The last thing they need is to be talked down to; they need to be taught.
They do not know there is an absolute moral law in the universe and His name is Jesus of Nazareth! Many in the church waver here and need to come to absolute faith and trust in Jesus. Jesus did not teach that He was a gray area open for many interpretations, He’s the only way, truth, and life and no one comes to Father, but through Him.
Our message is to let the world know “Our God has raised His Christ up and sent Him to us to bless everyone of us by turning us from our wicked ways.” We must teach those who do not know Jesus of Nazareth.

OPOSITION Acts 4:1-12

Paul told young Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:12 something that disturbs all Christians today. We definitely don’t want it to happen to us, but Paul says it so clearly and emphatically, we need to address it. “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” I wonder if we really believe that? The church in the beginning did believe it.

Jesus said it this way, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also,” John 15:19-20. Did they persecute Jesus? Then what about you? He went on to tell them even more specifically why they would do it, “They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me,” vs. 21.

Christians are not persecuted because we are Christians; they are persecuted because of Jesus, or more specifically, because of the name of Jesus. Well, it doesn’t take long for this early church to learn this lesson. If you preach the name of Jesus, you will be hated, because the world does not like the name of Jesus.

Just remember the context: Peter and John go to the temple and heal a lame man who for 40 years suffered from congenital paralysis. They did the healing as a sign to unbelievers and they all flocked to see and then Peter starts preaching, Jesus the Nazarene has made this man well and all of you should repent and believe in Jesus of Nazareth.

Acts 4:1-12; “The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand. The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

The battle line is clearly thrown down, no mistake about it, no gray areas here, emphatic, bold, and come what may answer. Well, who are the Sadducees? We’re going to see these guys quite a bit in Acts, so we need to find out who they are.

Now, we’ve heard of the Pharisees, especially dealing with Jesus, but it may surprise you to notice in the book of Acts, the Pharisees are actually sympathetic to Christians. In the gospel accounts they’re the main enemies of Jesus, but in Acts, the Sadducees are the main enemies of the cause of Christ.
In chapter 5 we’ll see Gamaliel a Pharisee actually intervene for the disciples and saves their lives from the Sadducees. In Acts 15 we will see many Pharisees became Christians, but nowhere in the New Testament does it say Sadducees become Christians. Of course the most famous Pharisee of all become a Christian and we talk allot about him in Acts and that’s of course Paul.

Sadducees; this aristocratic little group can be characterized in 3 ways:

1. They were rationalists. They rejected revelation and the supernatural and made human reasoning the sole source of religious truth. They were the theological liberals of their day. You may actually be surprised at how many who claim to be Christians today would scoff at you if you claim to believe in the supernatural. If you claim the Word of God is actually Gods’ word, revelation given to man, the virgin birth, and the literal blood of Jesus saves (meaning the Cross), the resurrection, etc.
I am constantly amazed at how many so-called theologians write questioning and even denying that there is a spiritual world, heaven, hell, angels, demons, or anything supernatural. Yet, they still call themselves Christians, in some cases Jews.
Let me give an good example of these guys, Acts 23:6-9 “Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead." When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.) There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. "We find nothing wrong with this man," they said. "What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”
Paul has been arrested and dragged before this council and he is very shrewd in dealing with them, he knows them well. He knows what Pharisees believe and what Sadducees believe and he uses it. He knew the fireworks would ignite as soon as he put this out there. He knew Sadducees thought only dumb people believed in such things as the resurrection, etc.
Jesus had many encounters with both of these groups as well and it is telling of what kind of folks they are. The Pharisees would try to trick Jesus, but the Sadducees thought they were the true intellectuals and even challenged the Pharisees on a number of occasions. They asked a particular question on numerous occasions and they never got a good answer from them, so they thought it would get Jesus too.
“That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” Matt. 22:23-28
They had been asking that question to the Pharisees for years and they could never answer it, so now they think they can stump Jesus with it.
“Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.” Matt. 22:29-33
He answers powerfully what no one else could answer; now, they are in the minority, because most Jews believed in angels, the resurrection, heaven, etc. But, these guys controlled the Sanhedrin, which controlled the priesthood and so they controlled Judaism. So, these guys are rationalists.
2. They were materialists. This of course makes sense! If you don’t believe in the world to come, in the hereafter, then you grab as much of the piece of pie as you can. If you don’t believe in spiritual things, you will spend all your time on material things. The Sadducees got rich by ripping people off at the temple. They cheated people when it came to sacrifices and they pocketed the money.
They controlled the temple and the priesthood so, if there were any kind of giving done there without their consent, this would upset their source of revenue. They didn’t like Jesus because He cleaned out the temple one day and reminded folks that’s not how it was supposed to be in Gods’ house.
They are upset at Peter and John, for much the same reason. All these folks are rushing to them and upsetting their profit margin; total materialists.
3. They are collaborationists. They would compromise with anyone in power to stay in power themselves. They would make a deal with any government, Persians, Greeks, or Romans; it doesn’t matter as long as they stay in power.
That’s why the Jews grew to hate the Sadducees, because they sold out to the Romans. To the Sadducees the Messiah was more of an ideal than a person. They didn’t look for a literal Messiah and taught against it. Why do suppose they did that? The last thing these guys wanted was someone coming and taking power from them in any way. A literal Messiah would mess up their lifestyle.
John 11:47-48 makes it clear where their hearts are, “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
There is little wonder why the church and the Sadducees clash. Why were they so disturbed by the church? 3 reasons:
1. They were teaching. The Sadducees were theological snobs, they were scornful of anyone teaching the common people, but especially if it were common people teaching common people. The religious “elite” of any day have always said, “You can’t trust the Bible to anyone but the hierarchy.”
This is what elites have always done. If they are the only ones allowed to teach, you have no option but to obey them and they have power over all things. This went on to evolve even in church history to the point where the “organized church” actually killed people for translating the Bible in the language of the common people. Why? Because they just don’t want the grassroots folks knowing what the Bible says.
The Sadducees got very nervous when anybody but them taught, because that threatened their power.
2. So, they are very upset that these men are teaching about Jesus the Nazarene. The Sadducees really did believe that the crucifixion would have put an end to the Galilean’s little sect. Yet, here they are and what are they saying? You men, this council, which is run by the Sadducees, murdered Jesus. They are not happy.
3. They taught about the resurrected Lord. This is the clincher! Their hatred burned at the end of Peter’s sermon, when he said, this man is healed by Jesus and how could He do that if He’s still dead? He has to be raised from the dead.
This terrifies the Sadducees, because they believed and taught there is no resurrection and if the folks believe there is, they will eventually conclude, you have no business teaching us, so their power is threatened. They didn’t arrest them for a miracle, but for what they said was proven by the miracle.
Hear it well my brothers and sisters, the church will never be opposed because we help lame people, or hungry people, or widows and orphans; doing good deeds does not bring opposition! The church will always be opposed when it preaches Jesus Christ! If we do not lift up the name of Jesus of Nazareth and draw all men to Him, we can do all kinds of good works and not be opposed.
But, if we preach in the name of Jesus, that He is alive and He is reigning, that He is the cause of the good we do, then this world will oppose us! The world doesn’t like the name of Jesus. We live in a day where, if you lift up Jesus as the only hope for the world anywhere in our society, in our lives, the world will come after you to silence you. This world will try to destroy you in every way it can, if you start reaching the common folk with the message Jesus is the only answer.
Notice again verses 5-12, “The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
Well, how do you think these guys liked that explanation? All the heavy weights are here; Annas, Ciaphas, John, Alexander and all those of priestly descent. This tells us how serious they think this is.
They don’t charge them with a crime, but simply ask a question, which makes this another illegal trial. You’re supposed to charge people, but they are hoping to create a crime here, by tripping them up. Verse 7 is the trip question.
The original language shows an attitude. We would say something like, how in the world did people like you do something like this? Very condescending, how could you hicks do anything like this? Where did you guys get the power to do these magic tricks and where did you get the right to do them?
They would like to imply it somehow came from sorcery or witchcraft, which would give them their crime to get them. They did the same thing to Jesus, but they ask the wrong question, yet again and they will repeat their answer.
Remember now, this is the very same court that condemned Jesus just a few months back. So, when these guys threaten, they’ve shown they can back it up. Peter and John are standing in front of the very folks they ran from a few short months ago.
Luke 21:12-15 tells us how Peter and John changed in a short period of time. They remembered, “But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.”
They’re in jail all night waiting to face these men in the morning; do you think they worried themselves sick thinking about how they will present their case to these guys? They knew Jesus would be with them and He would speak to these men again. Instead of defending themselves, Peter puts them on trial! He says 3 things that just blows them away:
1. If you want to know why this man is healed, it is because of the name of Jesus the Nazarene, whom you crucified and God raised up. Now, Peter could have said it was by the name of the Messiah that healed this man and they probably would have said amen to that and many might still today. But, when he makes it clear it is Jesus who is the Messiah, thems’ fightin’ words!
The name that is opposed is not Christ it is Jesus! We will not be persecuted for preaching Christ today, but when we say that Galilean carpenter was the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, we will be opposed.
Someday, every knee will bow at the name of Jesus. It’s the most precious name ever named. It was the power of the name of Jesus that made this man well.
2. He uses scripture on them. He said the Psalmist was talking about the builders rejecting Him, but God would make Him the corner stone of it all. Now, how do you think they liked that, A Galilean fisherman using scripture against the Sanhedrin? You rejected Jesus, but God has made Him the guide, the direction for all His people.
3. If they aren’t already mad enough, Peter throws in the kicker; there is no other name under heaven that brings salvation, no other name, but the name of Jesus. Do you think they liked that?
You know something, I tell you; people still don’t like it today. You can be the doingist good deed church of all and you won’t hear a single protest, but if you preach there is no other name by which man can be saved, other than the name of Jesus, you can’t find a place in this world where someone won’t hate you for it.
The paradox of Christianity is this, it is open to everybody, but it is the most narrow religion in the entire world. Truth is always narrow! Truth is not open-minded! If you teach someone math and you ask what is 2+2 and he says 5, what are you going to say?
Do you say, I don’t want to be a mathematical bigot here, so it’s okay if you think it’s 5? I hope you don’t, if you care about the person at all. You see there are millions of wrong answers to that question and only one right one. Truth is always narrow. Jesus was both the most tolerant and most intolerant person who ever lived.
He sat with and befriended sinners, prostitutes, tax gatherers, and riff raff and yet, He said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes unto the Father, but through me! He has the authority to say that because He made the world and He sets the standards for it.
Listen, you must come to terms with this brothers and sisters, this is our Gospel message and it will never be popular. If you want to be popular, you need to preach there are 1,000’s of ways to get to God and as long as you’re good, you’ll be okay. As long as you hold to whatever you think is truth that will work for you.
It wasn’t popular to say in Jesus’ day there is only one door and it’s Jesus and all other doors lead to hell, and it still isn’t today, but it is the truth. That’s the Gospel and as long as we preach it, there will be those who oppose it and you.
Conclusion:
1. There is opportunity in opposition. The Apostles were arrested for proclaiming the name of Jesus, but they submitted to it. They never fight over being arrested. They don’t kick and scream, having to be dragged to jail. You know why?

The early church believed persecution was, ordained by God. Don’t fight it, God sends it and uses it to promote the Gospel message to the world. They believed Jesus when He said; it will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So, when they were arrested they were so tuned into Jesus, they thought, Jesus has a plan for us to preach somewhere, so lets see where He takes us!
Think about it; how would they ever get a chance to preach to the Sanhedrin unless they do get arrested? The only way to preach Jesus to these kinds of folks is to be on trial before them, so they believed God set it up! Hey, in verse 4 it said 5,000 men believed because of Peter’s preaching. Who are these men? These are the men listening when Peter is arrested.
It’s more than just interesting, but most of the major growth of the church happened after some event we might think would hurt the church; like the preachers being arrested. Persecution didn’t hurt church growth and it won’t today either. Every time the world tried to strike against the church, Luke says, let me tell you how the church grew from this.
I’ll present you opportunity to testify of Jesus and people will believe. You can put the messenger in jail, but you can’t put the message in jail! The dumbest thing the devil can do is put Christians in jail, because immediately the world asks, why are you in here? For preaching the name of Jesus the Nazarene, Him crucified and raised, and ruling over us all.
2. Opposition gives the church opportunity to be purified! There’s just nothing like fire to get rid of dead wood. If this were a Sunday morning in Jerusalem A.D. 60, we would know who truly loves Jesus and who’s just going through the motions of religion.
There are many places in our world today that aggressively oppose Christianity and it could happen here too, don’t get too comfortable we can’t see that that is real.
When you’re being persecuted, you don’t go to church because it’s a nice thing to do, or it feels good. Jesus was clear, as was Paul, they persecuted Jesus, they will persecute you, and all who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. If you personally have not been opposed, or your church, then why do you think that is?
Does the world really know who you are? Do you live for Jesus? If you do, persecution will find you and that’s not a bad thing, because it’s God giving an opportunity for you to testify to the name of Jesus and maybe speak to those you never would have the chance to otherwise.
You join the ranks of those who declared the name of Jesus before you, and even in the same company of the one we follow, who was persecuted before us all. We lift up His name for Him, but also for the lost who need Him; never stop lifting up His name!
Recognizing Real Religion Acts 4:13-22
Most people of the world probably think Bible teachers and pastors like the word “religion”. I say, if it were used correctly, or biblically I would like, but what the world and to a large degree the church calls religion today, I am very opposed to.
Karl Marx most favorite quote was, “religion is the opiate of the people.” The truth is, religion as he saw it and unfortunately is practiced in most places of the world is an opiate. It has a dulling affect, a numbing affect on people. Too many churches even very large institutions have you leaving church less sensitive, less alive than when you came.
One fellow used Jesus’ words and changed them to describe what he felt by saying, “many are cold, but few are frozen.” We do need to realize that religion has been one of the favorite tools of the devil. Too often we just accept the notion that religion is of God and non-religion is of the devil.
The very first thing the devil did after man was kicked out of the garden was to start a false religion. We see how one man will worship and how another worships, with Cain and Abel. One was real; the other was of the devil. He has always tried to use religion to get between God and us.
Of course, he is a liar, so any religion he uses is counterfeit. Real religion will always clash with the devils’, but most people don’t see much of a difference between the two. So this text shows us a real clash between real religion and the devils’.
Remember the context; Peter and John had healed the lame man, who was that way for 40 years and they got arrested for it. They got arrested for saying it was because of the resurrected Lord the man was healed and that really bothered “organized religion.” It was religion that arrested the Apostles.
Acts 4:13-22 “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. "What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name." Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.”
For the first time in history, preaching in the name of Jesus is going to be forbidden. It is being forbidden by religion! Three trade marks of counterfeit religion:

1. It values reason over revelation. Counterfeit religion never takes seriously the claims of scripture. False religion always puts up man’s logic over scripture. It is amazing to me and scary as well, how much the Bible is disrespected as authority in many churches today.
There’s a sort of joke/story told of a liberal preacher talking to a more conservative member of his church, where she says strongly that she believes the Word of God is Gods’ Word.
“You mean you believe all these things happened, said the preacher? Yes! You believe Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived to talk about it? Yes I do! How can that be, says the preacher, when a whales belly is no bigger than a man’s head? The woman replies, I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to ask when I get to heaven. Oh, you believe in heaven too? Yes I do! Well, what if Jonah isn’t in heaven, he asks? Then I guess you’ll have to ask him, she said.”
Peter has made 2 powerful arguments for the resurrection. The first was the healing of the lame man and saying, how can this be possible without a power greater than man to do it, who is alive? The second was from scripture where he quotes, Jesus is the stone the builders rejected, but God made Him the cornerstone. You rejected Him when you killed Him and God made Him the cornerstone when He raised Him!
The point is, counterfeit religion doesn’t believe in the supernatural. They had no desire to even entertain Peter’s explanation, did you notice? Counterfeit religion always believes in what has been handed down to them, over all else. “This isn’t how we believe, we haven’t ever looked at things that way, and we don’t have time to think about new ways of looking at things right now.” Don’t give us new ideas, or interpretations that don’t fit our long held system! This is how they think.
They are not going to sit down to study scripture and see if maybe they might have missed the resurrection, they don’t even try to support their own beliefs from scripture more. They want to stand on what’s been handed down, rather than take another look, that maybe they missed something.
I’m not sure this is just an old problem; I fear we still have allot of this today. I’ve even had preachers tell me, “this is what I believe, but I can’t say it because if I do the church will fire me!” All because of long held beliefs of the system that has been handed down and the system doesn’t want to take another look at their position to see if it holds up under truth. Counterfeit religion will always value reason over revelation.
2. Counterfeit religion will always value elitism over evangelism. They say when they saw they were unschooled ordinary men they were astonished. Who was the one that said education is what makes one bold?

They couldn’t understand how these men could be so courageous when they hadn’t been to some school, not even there’s. Now, do you think there’s something wrong with that logic? Do you have to have a P.H.D. to be courageous? What they are really saying and it gets under their skin big time is, “How dare these guys interpret scripture for us, when they don’t even have degrees like we do!”
The only thing they have got to answer this is, they took note that they had been with Jesus. Jesus acted the same way as these guys are and they are acting the same way toward them. You guys haven’t been to school; this frustrates them to no end. How can they teach it so well with no formal education? They wondered that about Jesus and now the Apostles. Elitism can’t stand the ordinary folks daring to teach them.
3. Counterfeit religion always gets nervous about grass roots teaching. When the Bible is taught by the people for the people, those in position get nervous. It bothers professional religionists to see common people, like us, without higher education actually have an affect, gain a following and then do works that succeed and what they do doesn’t attract or succeed. Under them, no growth happens, but then these guys come and it takes off!
Note verse 17, “But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.” When the common people preach and it gets results, those in charge must put a stop to this. If you reserve teaching for only the educated, or elite, the church doesn’t grow. When the church relies solely on the preachers for church grow, the church stops growing!
The elite says, we can’t have this, don’t speak anymore in that name! If only certain ones can speak, then your outreach is severely limited. This is absolutely right, but liberal religion doesn’t care. It doesn’t care if it grows, it cares only who is teaching and therefore, who’s in control!
The only hope of the church is still, after all these years, a bold community of witnesses. If we’re going to be what we read here in our Bibles, we can’t say you can only teach if you get a degree. Nor, can we say, you can teach, but we’re going to be watching your every word to make sure you say it all just right. The hope of the church is that everybody in the church is a witness and qualified to share the message of the gospel to anyone.
1 Peter 2:6-9, “For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. "Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone," and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
He says everyone is a priest not just a select few. Why do you think God called us all to be priests? So we could all tell people about Him!
If you rely on only the “professionals’ to teach, you won’t grow, simply because that is not how God designed for His church to work. It is not real religion! Counterfeit religion always values elitism over evangelism.
4. Counterfeit religion always values the institution over the individual. Any movement must look outward to survive. Too often what happens is; you began by looking outward and grew because of it, but somewhere along the way, we switched and are now looking almost entirely inward.
The goal of the church then ceases to be growth and becomes maintenance. You began by looking outward and bringing more in and now you are an institution designed only to maintain what you have. This, by the way is Judaism. This is the Sanhedrin. They were not concerned about reaching more people.
If these guys wanted to grow, they would have taken hold of Peter and John for a different reason. Brothers, show us how to be people changers like you are. Show us how to have this affect on lame people, you have, etc. But, they aren’t interested in individuals; they are only interested in keeping the institution running so they can keep their jobs. That is more important than any individuals.
They had lived in cells so long that they had built for themselves; they were afraid of liberation! They were terrified of anything that would change the status quo. (Read Paul Hiebert’s quote on church growth).
Does that sound familiar to you, or make sense? Back in the 15th century the cry went out, “Let’s just go back to the Bible!” It is our source of authority, our only guide and not the elites. Let’s call everyone to be priests, care about all individuals, and be
Christians Only.” A movement began and people left the big institutions and creeds and started churches that everybody studied the Bible and ordinary folks preached, they baptized folks and prayed with them and were just Christians only.
A couple generations later and folks were growing up in those movements and now nobody seems to even know what it was to begin with. Do they remember what price was paid and what they sought freedom from? Nobody has the dream anymore. If you want to know how long a dream will last, ask your children. Ask them what it means to be a “Christian Only.” What is often heard now is, I don’t know, but I go to this Christian church, or that one.
There have been attempts to bring this original movement back fresh in our day and time, but they too have gone through the same problem of keeping the vision alive and passing it on to the next generation. You see the kids were raised to do what the institution told them to do, but they lost all sight of what it means to just be a Christian. It was a vision of their grandfathers. Most kids would tell you they don’t know what’s so different between this and any other institution their friends may go to.

This will happen every time we start caring more about keeping our doors open and our people here happy and attending, rather than remember how we got here in the first place. It has happened to every church you can study about and it will happen to ours, if we don’t keep alive the truth we are all priests called of God to be His witnesses first and foremost.
All leadership is involved in keeping the vision of the church alive, that every member has a message to share with anyone out there. They don’t need those in church positions to share the message, or preach, or teach, they are all called to be witnesses too. The message doesn’t have more truth or power because a “professional” says it. You have been given authority by Him who has ALL authority, to testify of Him to everyone who will listen.
You know, this church we are reading about will not die; Jesus said Hades couldn’t defeat it. But, our movement can die, if we just maintain the institution. Counterfeit religion always values the institution over the individual!
Let’s take a look at characteristics of Real religion, from the point of view of this text:
1. In real religion we have the confirmation of the Bible. Real religion submits to the authority of scripture. This is the only way to have a courageous church. Peter and John believed Gods’ Word was the absolute authority. If Gods’ Word says, this is truth they said, come what may this is what we’re doing, even if it costs us our life!
Their boldness came from knowing the Word of God is what they stood on. They said, the scriptures teach that Jesus was the Messiah and the builders would reject Him and they weren’t afraid to tell them so. They didn’t worry about hurting feelings, or political correctness; no gray areas, they had the truth.
Brethren, we will not move forward with our subjective opinions! We must have authority. You must have Gods’ revelation and your faith must rest on it, or you have no message to grow on.
This doesn’t mean we don’t challenge past interpretations churches have made, or individuals have written about in commentaries, or journals of different kinds, etc. If our main concern is to uphold a tradition, than it is to know Gods’ Word and challenge each generation to study and think, then we aren’t the body of Christ anymore, we’re an institution. We can’t depend on the next generation to rely on our faith, they must be moved to know the Faith for themselves and pass it on to their kids.
I do not hold in high regard those who say, I’ve never had a new thought, or changed my mind on anything.
Ignorance is not a sin, it should actually be expected. No one of us knows everything about anything! Ignorance is something we can all do something about, but the illusion that we know it all is a great obstacle to growth. I can study with someone, and teach them if they can admit they don’t know it all, but if they close down and say they already know all, how can you teach someone like that?
I find scripture, even after 30+ years of digging pretty hard, I find it to be very challenging and if it doesn’t challenge in each and every generation, then something is wrong! Real religion will look for things that we may have missed, so we can always grow, but counterfeit religion will always look to keep the status quo and do it like we always have and just stay in the tradition. Real religion knows God has some more to say to us in His Word than we have right now.
2. Real religion always proclaims the Gospel. What this text shows is for the first time preaching Jesus’ name is forbidden. They told them to stop preaching Jesus. You can meet, you can have your little suppers together on Sunday, you can have your buildings, do anything you want, but you can’t preach Jesus anymore. Now, they didn’t say all that, but that’s the attitude that’s presented.
Now again, Calvary taught this church that when the Sanhedrin made a threat it was real. The last time these guys told someone to stop and He didn’t they crucified Him.
Now, if I had been in their situation what would I have done? Would I just have said to myself, I won’t do what they say, but I’ll just keep my mouth shut and they’ll let me out of here? Peter and John felt to keep silent meant ascent.
They said, you judge for yourselves who man ought to obey, but we’re going to keep speaking about all we’ve seen and heard. We have no intention of stooping no matter what the structure, or institution tells us to do. This is the first time the church tells the Jewish religion, you can’t tell us what to do. We’re obeying God, not Judaism.
Real religion has a message it must communicate! If you go to any church and ask what is the gospel and they can’t tell you, you are looking at a false religion. What was the message of the real church in the first century? What we have seen and heard was their answer. That’s the gospel, we preach Jesus!
The church has spent way too much time on trying to understand those stuck in the institution mindset that won’t look at anything new and we’ve spent too much time trying understand liberal theologians of our day and we’re stuck in a quagmire of stuff we don’t know how to explain well or confidently. I’ve tried reading some books from guys; if you had 4 degrees you still wouldn’t understand them. Oh, you need to read this, why? It’s too complicated!
The gospel is not complicated; what did they see and what did they hear?
They heard Him speak in parables and teachings in stories and a few sermons, they saw Him help people, they saw him go to the cross, and the saw Him out of the tomb and that is what they told people.
Some say, yeah but people don’t accept that today, it often times offends them. It offended them then, this didn’t stop the preaching. You don’t accommodate the gospel by deleting what offends folks. The word boldness means, to tell it all! Tell people everything Jesus did and does and if that offends folk, that’s sad for them, but you speak His name, because it’s the only answer there is.
The early church had to be commanded to be quiet. Today, we have to be commanded to speak and often time even then we remain silent. Every one of us speaks up, not just a select few. Real religion proclaims the gospel of Jesus!
3. In real religion you always see the transformation of the people. What is the best argument for Christianity? It’s simple, we are, Christians, Christ followers. We are the best argument that we are real religion.
The one undeniable piece of evidence that Christianity is real is abundant life.
You can argue religious arguments all you want, but when you see someone totally changed, like these folks are, then you know you’ve got something that is real. They couldn’t explain away the lame man; they couldn’t deny the miracle, but they sure could see the affect it had on the man. It’s the same way with real religion every time.
Have you ever told someone of yourself or someone else, I don’t know how it happened, but I do know that person has changed; they are different ever since they turned their life to Jesus. If you see no difference, then nothing real has happened! There is a world of difference in joining the local church community club and being changed by the power of Jesus Christ in your life. False religion and real religion can be seen.
Look at Peter and John. These are the same guys who ran and hid when the Sanhedrin showed up for Jesus, but now they’re saying we will die before we stop speaking Jesus. Where did they get that courage? Simple answer; Jesus transformed their lives!
All the Sanhedrin could do was try to kill people, but they could never kill the message, because real religion makes a difference in people’s lives. No change means no real religion. There ought to be something about you that people knows is different, even if they can’t explain it. Real religion transforms.

Conclusion:
1. Any movement can become a monument. Any real religion can become a counterfeit religion.
2. The world doesn’t need a structure it needs a Savior! If we’re trying to take an institution to people, you deserve to be rejected. They need to hear of Jesus the Christ, the only way, the only truth, and the only life that’s real and offered to all!

What to do when your most precious right is removed, Acts 4:23-31:
What right or privilege as a citizen of your country would you hate to lose the most? We probably don’t spend much time thinking about all the rights we have maybe, compared to other countries.
Last voting day you may have thought, I have the right to choose my leaders and yet, millions, even billions of people in our world don’t have that right. We most often take our rights for granted.
What if you wanted to move to another state in our country, would your first thought be, I have to ask my government if it was all right to do so? Lots of places in our world, you can’t go where you want to without permission. In some you can’t even go from place to place on vacation unless the government says it’s okay.
In the US, we never even think about it, we have a right to live where we want and go where we want in this country. When you start a family, do you think I have to call the government to see if it’s okay to start a family? There are places where you are given permission to have only one child and if you infringe on that you will pay strict penalties. Do you ever think or anyone you know think about that before starting a family?
What right that you have would you most hate to lose?
This was an easy question to answer for the early Christians. Here, in Acts 4 we see them in danger of losing the most precious right they had, the right to preach Jesus’ name. For now, we live in a country where we still have the right to preach the name of Jesus, we’re one of the fortunate ones.
This country was founded because our fathers fled here so they could preach the name of Jesus and the scriptures unhindered from the government. Now, I see signs everywhere where that right is being threatened today and if we the people don’t stand up just like our founding fathers did, we could lose what we have always taken for granted. You may feel differently about this than I do and you have a right to, but here in Acts 4 the threat was staring them right in the face.
Peter and John enter the temple, they see a man lame from birth, 40 years old and he was begging and Peter said, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth stand up and walk” and he did. He runs inside the temple leaping for joy and praising God and this attracts a big crowd. Of course this is the whole purpose of miracles, to attract unbelievers so that they can hear the gospel.
By the way, we have no biblical examples of the church healing the church; the healing we see in scripture is to make opportunity for preaching Jesus! And people are believing Peter and that upsets the authorities and Peter and John are arrested. In fact, the authorities didn’t know what to do about it because the whole town believes a miracle has taken place.
The part that really upset them wasn’t the miracle anyway; they arrested Peter and John because they preached in Jesus’ name! In verse 18 we saw their most precious right was taken away from them. “Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” It is now illegal to preach Jesus. Calvary proved that when these guys threaten, they could back it up. They can get you put on a cross, if you don’t listen to them.
Now, what do you do about that? Is there a solution to persecution? Do you write to your congressman? Do you canvass your neighborhood with petitions to get the law changed? Do you picket the Sanhedrin? What do you do when your government tells you, you can’t preach Jesus? Governments all over our world have done that. What did the first church do?
Acts 4:23-31, “On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: " 'why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

You know what the early church did when their government told them not to speak anymore in Jesus’ name? The church prayed to God for the strength to break the law! Why did they pray? Verse 23 said Peter and John came back and gave them a report about what the lawmakers told them to do. What did they report?

The authorities didn’t say you couldn’t meet on Sundays anymore. They didn’t say you couldn’t baptize anyone any more. They didn’t say quit doing mighty miracles. They said, you can’t preach any more in Jesus’ name.

The world will never be opposed to nice quiet little churches, who go about doing good deeds in the community that will be fine with the authorities. Just don’t talk about Jesus, make a big deal about Jesus, and say we must follow Him as our king, our Lord. They won’t get upset until you say, you must follow Him, He is Messiah, He is king, and He is the only hope for the world.

It is only when we tell the truth that you are lost without Jesus and if you don’t repent and turn to Jesus you’ll stay lost, that the world will get upset. That was the most precious right of the Christian and now what are you going to do when the world takes away your most precious right? Do we get depressed, angry, or frustrated? The early church prayed!

They raised their voices together in prayer to God! 2 things about their prayer:

1. It began spontaneously! They didn’t have to organize it, form committees to decide how and when to do it. They saw what they faced, they saw the need; the law commanded them to stop and almost without thinking about it they started praying; it’s just what folks do.
They claimed Gods’ sovereignty! They began by saying He made everything, He is sovereign Lord! The word used for Lord here is the word we get our English word despot from. A despot according to Webster is a king with unlimited power. They start by saying you Lord are in charge of everything.

It was a foundational conviction of the early church that He really does have the whole world in his hands. Too many times people have thought when things go bad, when governments oppose Gods’ people and even try to kill them out of existence, that God must have lost control. When these early Christians saw all this, they thought that was proof that God was still in control!

How can you look at evil and say God is still in control? Well, it’s not that tough for those who have looked long and hard at the cross. We begin to understand it when we come to the cross. They had seen the cross and their Master hanging on it. It was the most evil thing known to man, but they saw God doing the greatest work ever right there. The greatest good out of the greatest evil, right there at the cross.

So, they knew when they saw evil it didn’t mean God was out of control. They say, Lord this is all according to Your plan; You purposed it and we’re just glad to be a part of it.

They affirm some impressive things in this prayer. They show their faith in God by quoting scripture in the prayer. Verse 25 says they were convicted of the futility of rebelling against the sovereign Lord. Then in vs. 26 they quote a Psalm of David that speaks of when he was anointed to be king over Israel and all the nations around them were opposed to the strengthening of the nation and they rose against David and Israel.

“You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: " 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.”

“How can the nations rage against You Lord and Your anointed one; how futile it is to oppose what God wants to do. The early church thought of this scripture and said it applies to our time as well as David’s, even though it was written 100’s of years before. You see if you don’t understand His purposes you can’t interpret life! We need to study the word and see His purposes and apply them to our time to know how God will respond to our day.

They saw Gods’ sovereign plan working in their lives, that He hadn’t abandoned them. They raised up against your anointed one David and now they’re doing it again by raising up against your anointed one Jesus!
Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and Israel are opposing Jesus, but we know You are in control, so we have a couple requests Lord:

1. Consider the threats upon us. Verse 29 is incredible folks. They are about to ask God for something and before they do they want to tell Him why they want it. He knows that they’ve been threatened, but they want Him to know why they are making these requests. “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.”
Almost always we ask God for things and we never tell Him why we need those things to do His will. With a view of our situation Lord, consider their threats.

2. A continuation of the ministry through them. Verse 29 says in view of the threats, give us boldness to speak. Think about that! They weren’t asking for God to repeal the ban on preaching, they asked for power to preach in spite of such a ban. The didn’t ask God to change the law, they asked for boldness to preach even if it meant even worse trouble than being arrested by these guys.
They were much more concerned about a city and a nation without Jesus than they were about suffering. They didn’t ask for deliverance they asked for boldness! They didn’t ask for courage to move somewhere where preaching Jesus wasn’t against the law, they asked for courage to stay where they were, where it was against the law and preach Jesus.

We too often think the enemy of courage is cowardice. Not so, the enemy of courage is comfort! The way to make a church apathetic, lazy, and uncommitted is to make it comfortable. When there’s no commitment and no cost, you won’t be able to do what you have to do.

If you give people the idea there’s no urgency, just get to it whenever you can get to it, it’ll be okay. Take your time committing to the life Jesus calls us to. That is how a church loses its courage to do much of anything in the world. They didn’t pray for comfort, that’s the last thing they wanted; they prayed for the courage to go where it wasn’t comfortable!

Lord, we need to be enabled to speak your word, to break the law! In verse 30 they are asking for more of what started this whole trouble in the first place. “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” They could have said, Lord the last time you did a miracle we got into a whole lot of hot water, maybe we should try something else. No, instead they say, Lord do more of what ended us up in jail and on trial in the first place!

They don’t just ask Him to heal; healing is not what was against the law. They said, Lord do it again in the name of Your Holy Servant Jesus, that’s where they broke the law. Lord they tell us not to do it in His name and Lord help us to do it in His name.

So, if you bring healing to folks, or help the poor, or do all the goods deeds He calls you to do for folks and the folks ask, why are you doing this? Tell them we do it in the name of Jesus the Nazarene!
Father give us the strength to tell them Jesus is doing it. These people had no intention or idea of being a nice quiet little church that bothered nobody or caused any flack, or got nobody’s attention.

Allot of interesting discussions have taken place in many churches throughout the years after looking at these verses. Many pastors and teachers have wondered and debated these for years. When can your leaders ask you to break the law?

If the law says, and folks it’s real in allot of places in our world right now, deny His name or you will lose your job for the sake of the state. Now, let’s be clear, you don’t say go burn the capitol building or something stupid like that to break the law; that’s not the discussion here, that deserves punishment to the fullest extent.

If the law says, don’t sell food or gas, or other goods to Christians, could we say, break the law now? No! Persecution is not a call to break the laws of the land! If the law says, you can’t preach any more in the name of Jesus, I would tell you to break the law with a clear conscience. We can lose allot of rights with meekness, but we can’t compromise our Lord. That is what they prayed and how they handled this persecution.

Well, what happened? Verse 31 tells us God’s response to this prayer. “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Kind of God’s way of saying, Amen!!! God was saying I like that prayer! God moved among them and they let themselves be filled with His Spirit and they spoke boldly.

Persecution had it’s affect, but it wasn’t the one Satan had intended. Satan had intended to shut the church up, but what he got was a church more on fire than ever to declare the name of Jesus!

Conclusion:

Is there any relevance to us, to a church that lives in a country that lets us pretty much do whatever we want? Some have concluded that, well that’s a good understanding of this text and the history, but I don’t see how it applies to us. What about you?

This story does say something to me about the importance of our assembling together regularly as Christ followers. Did you notice that even the Apostles needed the church? When you’re in the heat of battle you draw strength from the company of the committed. Spiritual warfare is dangerous business and can hurt us vitally! We need to encourage each other during those times to be bold, stand up for Jesus no matter what, or how difficult it gets. The church is the place to go to get the courage.

Now, I know allot of churches where assembling together isn’t a high priority in life. Even if, meeting on Sundays is a little more important, you know gotta go to church, it’s my duty and many do go through that motion.
But, going because there’s a great battle going on and therefore a great need for us to be together often, more than just on Sundays to put in our requirement. I need it to be able to stand with boldness against the next attack that’s coming.

Too many churches foster the idea, come if you feel like it and not if you don’t. It’s just not a high priority on top of the list in life. Nobody really cares too much because you really don’t need much encouragement to live the kind of life you’re living anyway. My Christianity doesn’t cost me much, or demand too much, so you don’t need to look for more encouragement anyway. We live in a country where we haven’t experienced much persecution, so why do we need so much encouragement?

I believe, even in this country, if we live the godly life we will be opposed, sooner or later, and so we need encouragement. In fact, I believe we need it desperately! If history teaches us anything, it teaches us when the people take their freedoms and rights for granted, when they get complacent about where their blessings came from and at what cost and they get comfortable, danger is close by. If you are one who says you don’t need brothers and sisters, that’s nothing to be proud of and one day it can cost you dearly. Being together is not just nice it’s absolutely necessary!

How relevant do we see the importance of asking together? Again, I am reminded how the church simply doesn’t get together to pray about anything today, to speak of. What we see here in Acts 4 is a group of Christians who didn’t believe they could do anything to complete their task in their own strength.

There’s a new law that says if you preach in Jesus’ name you go to jail, at the least. You preach and you’ll be beaten; if you keep on preaching in His name, you’ll be killed! They didn’t even have to think about it and try to promote it through bulletins or speeches, in videos or writings all over the church building. As soon as they heard what had happened, because they knew they couldn’t live under this kind of law by their own strength; they must have Gods’ help!

I’m afraid often time in America, because we haven’t had much opposition to speak of, we really believe we don’t need Gods’ help much. Is it really all that hard to be a Christian here? You see if we allow ourselves to believe it’s not hard to live here and be a Christ follower, prayer will become a ritual and not a response from the heart for great need.

We have to plan it big time, instead of just doing it. I think this story has many things to say us to us today that are very relevant. The only way the church can handle persecution when it comes is to really know who’s in control no matter what! Because trials and troubles come, doesn’t mean God has left us, it means He’s up to something and we’re glad to be a part of it.

You and I need more courage than we have, because we haven’t prepared ourselves well in our day in time for the day when trouble comes.
We start whining and trying to get sympathy from others way before real evil is bearing down on us to deny His name. Persecution is not the time to ask God for relief, but courage to speak up for Him in the midst of it, even stronger than before. It is a matter of what we believe.

Credibility Acts 4:32-37

I want to talk about the importance of the credibility of the church where we live. How concerned are you about the reputation of your church here in this community? What do people think about this church?

What do they really know about us? We built a new building, or buildings, or some other eye catcher, but does that really impress anybody? I would say, probably not. They know our parking lot gets used more on Sundays than other days, but does this mean they think more highly of us? Again, I would say, probably not.

Credibility is important and the early church had it. We saw it first in 2:47, “praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Now, the way many people think to really impress folks we need moving, dynamic, and even loud cheering kind of assemblies. This may attract some, but in the end we impress ourselves more than those who need us.

The truth is, allot of churches don’t get people inside their buildings because of the way they act outside their buildings. Allot of churches don’t even treat their own people very well, lots of complaining and bickering about someone or something and this impresses no one positively, In fact, it keeps people away.

The early church had something and people in the town knew about it. In Acts 4 we see they had a very exciting prayer meeting; I mean, the place shook. But there were only Christians there when that happened. What this church knew was how to take what God gave them out into the streets. Luke tells allot about how to take Christianity out into the streets.

What happens? Acts 4:32-37, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. 36Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), 37sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet.”

What did they do?

1. The preached what they believed! In spite of what the law had said to them, they were witnesses! They were called to be witnesses and that’s what they were going to be, no matter what. For them to be quiet about Jesus would be the darkest of all possible treasons.
They had a message; Jesus has been raised, He’s out of the tomb, Jesus is alive, and that was the message for the street, which was not the message for the church building. They took it to the streets. They had no concept that you preach in churches so no one is offended.
They had the idea that if you didn’t live for Jesus that would be offensive to God. It offends God if His people don’t know Jesus. So, they went out and met people everywhere and told them Jesus is alive and you need to make Him your Lord. They preached what they believed.

What do you think people in your town think your church believes? We say, if we can just get them to come to church then they will know. This is really not how it works! They will know what we believe when we tell them out there where they live. They preached what they believed!

2. They practiced what they preached. They didn’t just preach the message they became the message. They lived out what the resurrection of Jesus meant in practical terms right where they lived. They weren’t just having quality of fellowship with fellow Christians, but it spilled out into the townsfolk and it didn’t contradict what they preached.
Now, I believe in preaching more than I know how to tell you, but I’m telling you it takes more than preaching to be this church here. In our culture today, you can build a big church with just good preaching, but you can’t build this church with just preaching. There has got to be some fruit to go with it.

For example, you must have unity, vs. 32, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” All the believers were of one heart and mind. Have you ever seen that? Well, there was a time when it was true, so it tells me it’s not impossible, but we must believe what they believed or it probably is impossible.

As you know, Jesus prayed for this kind of unity and even said, the world would witness it and that’s how they would come to know Him! This is what this church did and why all the people were receiving grace, because everybody in town was witnessing it. We can preach every moment of every day, but if our church is busy gossiping and backstabbing, there’s fightin” and splitin’ going on, we have no credibility and it won’t matter who is preaching, or how good they are.

You won’t have grace in a town where the believers aren’t of one heart and mind!

3. They knew what real liberality is and they did it. Don’t talk about fellowship show me fellowship. We can sing all the songs we’ve got that say, bless be the tie that binds and that will not impress anybody out there, but they will come when they see us sacrifice for others.
This church sacrificed. They saw to it no one was needy, not even one. Not one of them claimed their possessions were their own, so they wouldn’t give them up to further the message if that’s what was called for.

If there was a need, they all would do what they had to, sell houses, lands, or whatever else they may have had to meet the need. The whole concept of the word, “mine” was taken out of their vocabulary some how and that’s just incredible to me.
One of the very first words we learn as babies is, “mine.” When these folks were born again, one of the very first words they forgot was mine. Now, this impressed the town! You didn’t have to go to their church to learn about the church in Jerusalem. They told you what they believed and they showed you what they believed. Man, I’m telling you, it’s so much easier to preach than it is to practice.

Our credibility problem in our churches, with maybe a few exceptions, is not our preaching. Our credibility problem is we’re not living what we preach. People don’t know what we believe because we keep the message in a building. They don’t believe what they hear because too often the church is fighting, complaining, and cutting one another.

How do we develop this kind of church? If we want what they had, we need to look at what they had that we don’t and change that.

1. They had a consciousness of a new humanity. They really did feel they were a part of something new. A new family, a new race of people and that was so important to them that if that meant giving up a field, or house, there was no contest and they would do it without any doubt.
Again, I want to remind you of what I believe strongly is an error that some have taught, this is not communism church style. The idea we go and sell all we have and the church as a whole decides who gets what. It’s not some kind of law that you become a Christian and now you give up all you own and hand it over to others to decide what to do with it. No, No a thousand times No!

There were those who owned that didn’t sell, we’ll see, it wasn’t a criteria to be a Christian. The motivation was not want or desire, it was “Need!” If a real need arose among them that someone was destitute and in need of help, the word got out through the Apostles and the need was made known and someone was compelled to say I can help, I can sell this or that and that persons need is met. That’s what they did.

There is a special situation going on in Jerusalem and has since the first sermon on Pentecost day. You have allot of poor people becoming Christians. This is common, because the gospel appeals to the poor, more than to the rich. As we have already seen, allot of foreigners are in town that have been converted, their funds have run out and they’ve been living with fellow Christians. Many folks had lost their livelihood when they became Christians.

There were no doubt those who made bad decisions about some things and were suffering due to them, etc. This is a church with allot of needs and it took dramatic solutions to take care of these needs and this church did it! They may have needed to speak strongly to some, who were irresponsible or lazy, but they didn’t pass it on to someone else, they did what it took. Maybe, you were a businessman and could employ some folks, or could start a business that would provide a need, etc.

So, it’s not teaching that you have to sell your house to be a Christian, but it is saying you do whatever you have to, to keep the fellowship alive and growing. That’s what the church in the beginning did. They really did believe this was a new people, a new race, a new nation, a new humanity, a new family, and it was the most beautiful thing they had ever experienced and they would give up anything to keep it and cause it to grow.

2. They had a consciousness of a new humility. The Bible teaches it is more blessed to give than to receive. But how do we convince our church today that is true? Now, you’ve heard allot about giving, but let me come at from the idea of receiving and it might help.
Notice, not only is allot of giving going on, but theirs allot of receiving too. You have folks who are humble enough to say, I need help I need you. But, you know that is not a strong suite we have in our culture. We’re not very good at accepting. We don’t want to owe anybody anything, we say.

I’ve got to stand on my own two feet, be a man, and make it on my own! That is a virtue in our culture. I don’t want to feel obligated, or indebted, these are bad words in our culture. I don’t need anybody and if I do, I don’t want to tell you.

I think this is a reason we have a credibility problem today. We don’t give well, because we don’t know how to receive. Good example: I know people who just can’t take a compliment, even little ones. “Wow, I love the way you encourage others the way you do; oh, it’s not that big a deal. I think you’re good for the church here, oh, I don’t think they’d even notice if I was gone.”

Too many of us feel uncomfortable receiving. They just don’t know how to take it. You have to start getting after them to agree with you over the simplest of comments like, I like that shirt, oh, this old thing? We just can’t accept well. We get a little embarrassed and then our minds start playing tricks. If they compliment me, do I have to compliment them? We just don’t know how to say thanks. Thanks for giving me the simplest thing.

So, when it comes to bigger things like gifts or ministries, we don’t want to accept those either. I’ve actually been told by sick people I came to sit with and visit, oh, don’t put yourself out for me. I’ve known those who had real financial need that the church could help, where they said no we don’t want charity. The only reason we do those things is because our twisted pride doesn’t want us to admit we need help. They won’t make it unless it’s on their own, even if it destroys their family and it has.

Do you think maybe the reason we struggle with receiving Gods’ grace is because we feel uncomfortable anytime anyone gives us something totally free of charge or obligation? We would rather work for it God! We’ve been taught if we don’t earn it we shouldn’t have it. How, can we accept Gods’ grace if we won’t accept it from each other?

You remember the time Jesus was dining in a persons house and a lady came in and she wasn’t one of your outstanding ladies, if you know what I mean; she was looked down upon by everyone, but she wanted to give. She had only one thing in her life that was precious. She had a bottle of perfume that was worth allot of money and she wanted to give it to Jesus. She wanted to turn her life around by giving it to Jesus.

She broke it open and you know what the disciples said? They said that’s a terrible thing to do. You should have given it to us so we could have given it to the poor; you ought to be ashamed of wasting that. Jesus said you guys have no idea what you’re talking about. She’s giving from her heart to show me how much she loves me and you all want to stop her from doing it. Think about what you’re saying!

Jesus said and amazing thing after that. Let me tell you about this; until I come back again, everyone is going to talk about what this lady has done everywhere. Jesus knew how to receive, how to accept a gift of love. He let her come to His heart and we’re not very good at that. We close up the book and say there’s no room for your signature on my heart; I don’t need anything from you.

In Phil. 4:14-18 we see Paul talk to this. We’ve spent allot of time talking about verses 11-13 where Paul talks about being content in any circumstance, not speaking from want, I know what it is to need and to be filled, because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, but there’s so much more here.

“Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. 15Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; 16for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. 17Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. 18I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.”

He says, when you give to me I do receive it joyfully, but I want you to know more; you’re giving to God at the same time! It’s an offering that pleases God. It pleases Him so much He can smell it! So, if your gift is encouraging people and people say, I don’t need it, I’m okay, I’m keeping you from giving to God as well as me. I’m keeping you from being the servant; the minister God calls you to be.

Maybe your gift is teaching, but you say, I don’t need anymore teaching thanks; I’m keeping you from offering your sacrifice to God as well as blessing you and there’s something very wrong with that. Maybe your gift is to be generous; God has blessed you to make money and you hear of a need I have and you want to help, but my pride says no, then I keep you from offering to God.

What’s it going to take to have real credibility in our towns? Buildings aren’t bad, they don’t hurt, but they don’t give credibility. They’re pretty much irrelevant to the real impact. What it takes is when our religion leaves the church buildings and goes out on the streets.

What do we need to have this kind of religion? We’re going to have to overcome all our sense of human greed. The devil and his world, teaches us constantly to grab, accumulate and say the world is mine and it does it countless times a day everyday. It all teaches us about me first and I want to be honest, we are all infected with this.

There are 2 kinds of people in the world, there’s the fellow whose money has his heart and then there’s the fellow whose heart has his money. Every church needs a Barnabas! You know why? Because generosity isn’t inherited, you learn to be generous; to be a giver and it isn’t passed on through the genes. You learn this by example!

A Barnabas gives up things the world tells us is important and gives so they can share with the ones in need and that’s how we learn. You can teach your kids, they can hear countless sermons on giving cheerfully until they graduate college, but if they don’t see mom and dad giving cheerfully they will be greedy and won’t let go. The only way to teach someone to let go of material things and hold up the spiritual things above them is to do what you teach them.

You have to be an example! It’s true of everything really. If you teach your kids it’s important to grow up loving the church and staying with it, so you send them to lifekids, or whatever you call it, but you stay home; you by example are teaching them what’s important. If you want to teach them purity, but you watch the movies with nudity etc. and wear or buy them those revealing cloths because they’re what’s hot and you don’t want your kids to be nerds. Music with worldly trashy lyrics and on and on are all the examples.

If this town heard of a church that thought so much of its people that it would do everything it could, sell anything to help each other be what God has called us to be; we will have credibility, just like they did in the beginning. We must overcome human greed.

We also, must overcome human pride. Pride keeps us from fellowship. It keeps us from being able to minister to each other with the gifts God has given us. We’re too proud to admit we need each other; we need what God has given to each of us.

Pride will disguise itself as concern. You can’t afford to do that, that’s too much trouble for you. It sounds good to us sometimes, but the problem is we try so hard to be humble we won’t let people help us. So, truly we aren’t good at being humble with other people at all.

It doesn’t come natural and our ego’s get in our way of receiving the greatest gifts of all, each other. The reason the Jews killed Jesus is because they were just too proud to accept Him! If you are saved today, it is because you accepted salvation in Jesus as a free gift of God and that is the only way it comes. We’re doing great at building big buildings, but are we building great people?

Christianity in the beginning was something you could see in classrooms, factories, fields, and markets and in homes, where people humbled themselves before anyone, so they could be a blessing to all.

Jesus was and is such a blessing to people; people would do extraordinary things for Him. It was because, not only was He a gift to us in saving us, but also He was a blessing to us in letting us give to Him and He accepts our gifts. He really is the great example!

Sin and Impurity in the Church Acts 5:1-11

This tends not to be one of our more unenjoyable kinds of lessons, but our God thought it important enough for us to see it up close and be warned. Talking about our sin never is comfortable, but that’s the subject of this text. I think we need to talk about it, because we don’t much; the scriptures do, so we should too.

These first 4 chapters have been mostly good, good, and good, for the church. It’s beginning was amazing for sure. Reminds me of Genesis almost, how it all began so good, God looking after man and the fellowship that was enjoyed; it was glorious and then comes sin and everything changes.

In Acts we have seen God working in the world, Jesus is building a mighty church, God is recreating people in the image of Jesus and everything is going well, it’s growing and launching out in faith. Things start to change in chapter 5; we can almost here the hiss of the Serpent at work in the church.

In a real way, this is good for us, because we need to see there is no such thing as a perfect church. People criticize the church from outside telling us we’ve got problems with sin, hypocrisy, etc., and we know that better than they do. This church is made up of very committed people, as well as half-committed people, and then again, people who aren’t committed at all. It’s always been that way, and still is in any church out there, none are perfect.

The church is made up of wheat and tares and always has been. God has been and is busy separating the two. If you’re one who sees so much hypocrisy in the church and that keeps you from committing fully yourself, all I can say is, we have room for one more. If you should ever find a perfect church, don’t go there, because the day you do it will cease to be a perfect church.

Acts chapter 5 is a realistic account that the church isn’t perfect. I will have nothing to do with trying to excuse our impurity, what I want us to do is admit it, face it, and deal with it.

“1Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. 3Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." 5When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" "Yes," she said, "that is the price." 9Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look!” The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." 10At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Look again at verses 1-2 and see what the church was facing they must deal with and severely as we can see. “1Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.”

Note that both of them were fully aware of what they did. They sold some property, kept some money, and gave the rest to the church. What did they do wrong? Vs. 4 said it wasn’t wrong to have property; it’s yours, and there’s nothing wrong with owning stuff. Did they give it all? No, and you could give it all or none of it; it’s totally up to you. You don’t have to give all of it or any of your money from any transaction you make. You could do whatever you wanted with your money. So, what did they do wrong?

They lied! They were trying to deceive the Apostles and the rest of the church in regards to how generous they were. Peter gives the wife a chance to tell the truth, is this really what you got for the land? She lies too! We’re giving it all, she says, and she drops dead at that moment. Lying to leaders and the rest of the church about generosity seems like God thinks it’s a big deal. What do you think about the severity of this sin?

Two things to notice clearly about the scheme:

1. This is totally premeditated! We’re not talking about a math mistake, or accounting checkbook error. How can you 2 agree together to test the Holy Spirit of God, Peter asks? You planned it together, conspired it together, and then did it together. This is not a stumble into sin; they planned it together ahead of time. Premeditated sin!
2. The sin is Pretension! In other words they conspired to be hypocrites! They wanted to appear as something they were not.

If we go back to chapter 4 we can see the background of what lead to this. The church was helping those in need and then we read in vs. 36-37 what happened. “36Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), 37sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet.”

Barnabas brought the whole profit from his sale to the Apostles. They were so inspired by what he had done that they changed his name to Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, because that is what he is.

So Ananias and Sapphira, sees this and say to themselves, look at what the whole church thinks of Barnabas, we got to get us some of that kind of recognition. He’s going to go down in church history as a great man. Well, they go down in church history sure enough, but not like they thought. They planned a plan to be seen just like Barnabas by the church. They tried to externally match someone else’s commitment. Trying to look like someone else.

They wanted what they saw as prestige and privilege, without paying the price. Trying to appear righteous, when they were not, that’s hypocrisy.

It’s been one of the devil’s devices from the beginning. That’s why Jesus warned us, “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you’ll not receive a reward from your Father in heaven. So, if you give to the needy, don’t announce it with trumpets like the hypocrites in the synagogues do to be honored by men.”

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogue and on street corners, to be seen by men. When you fast, don’t look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure themselves so men will know they are fasting.” It’s all pretension, and Jesus warns, don’t be a hypocrite when you do good things.

Literally, hypocrite is an interesting word. It really wasn’t religious word when it was first used. It came from the Greeks who put on plays and they didn’t change costumes like we do today from one scene to the other. They wore masks instead. You’ve seen the happy looking face and sad looking face in theaters before; well, they have a history in Greek drama.

If your scene called for a tragic situation you got the sad face and put it on and came out and did the scene. If it was a happy scene, or humorous; you put on the smiley face and go out and say your lines. They were called hypocrites! A person who wears a mask. He looks like one thing from the front, but underneath he is entirely different. That’s a hypocrite.

That’s what Ananias and Sapphira were. Well, what do you think, do we still have a problem with this sin today? Are you ready for this? Put on your seat belts; we are tempted to be pretentious every time we come together. Every time we pray with people and we think, how will this sound? Will folks be impressed, or will they think less of me? I want to look spiritual and righteous and really Christian today.

Every time we sing together, do we pretend we mean it? “I surrender all!” Do we really, or do we just say the words hoping others will think so about us? If we’re saying one thing yet doing another, what’s the difference between these two here and us? What if you say I’ll pray for so and so who is sick and yet you don’t; you were just trying to say the right thing, give the right impression? It sounds good for me to say that. Are we trying to appear as something we aren’t?

Any time anyone or I gets up to preach a sermon, or teach a class, I am tempted to be pretentious. To act like I am better than I really am, so people will be impressed with me instead of who I am preaching. Instead of what do I need to say to glorify Jesus’ name, I think what are you going to think of me. I have thought about this and wondered what would happen if God dealt with pretension in the church today like He did here in this text?

I have actually thought if He did, then every time we met on Sunday or whenever, we would see people die. We would probably build morgues in our basements, maybe have morticians on staff, burial ministries would be started up, if God dealt with this sin as He did here.

It’s still happening all the time today. The church is still full of folks who are committed and those who are not. God didn’t want these two to get away with this sin, this time. The message was given in a loud clear way; you can’t hide you’re lying eyes before God! So, God exposed them and showed us all what we deserve for it.

Peter confronts Ananias and says, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” Peter is telling us all, that it is possible to be under 2 influences, the devil’s and the Spirit’s. You’re supposed to be under the Spirit’s influence, but instead you’re under Satan’s. How can you let that happen? Note it clearly it is our decision who’s influence we are under! Neither is forced; you choose whom you will listen to.

How come people don’t accuse Peter of being way too harsh here? Peter Jesus gave you slack, He gave you second chances and third, how can you be so callous? Why has Peter not been so accused? Who is doing the judging here? Who strikes these folks down? It’s not Peter’s judgment it’s Gods’! The reason it’s Gods’ is because they weren’t lying to Peter, they were lying to God. Peter wouldn’t have known if God hadn’t revealed it. He’d probably been lied to many times and didn’t know.

Folks it’s hard for us sometimes, but God knows how to run His church better than we do. He knows how to run it better than we criticize it and we do that pretty good, don’t we?

God strikes him down and then no one warns Sapphira and she follows the lie, if she had been warned then she might have said something else, but she lies too and her end is the same as his. This is the consequence of pretension in the case.

Here’s the question; why doesn’t God still do that today? This is a major teaching moment in scripture and whenever that happens in scripture, the first people involved are the ones who show us how God views the sin and what punishment it deserves. He never changes His mind about the sin, but thank God, he doesn’t give us what we deserve.

Those moments forever represent Gods’ heart on the matter concerning sin forever more. We see this same sin when God told the people upon going into Canaan not to take any gold or silver. One man does and we see the same sin that is happening here. Akin pretended he gave everything to the Lord, but he didn’t. He looked good, but he wasn’t. They went out to battle and lost big time, because there was sin in the camp.

Joshua asks God what the problem is and God says, there’s a liar in your midst and He holds the whole nation responsible for it.
When the people find out it’s Akin they take him, his family, his cattle, his goats, they take everything that belonged to him, and they stone him and burn everything! Now, do they do that to every liar in Israel from then on? No, but they needed to learn a big lesson when they go into the Promised Land as a blessing; you can’t deceive me. I can’t be tricked! You may trick men, but you cannot lie to God and get away with it.

Here we have a new church, a new Israel, it’s all new, now; what would happen if people found out you could trick the Holy Spirit? You can pretend to be a fully devoted follower of Christ and not be really committed and you can get away with it. God doesn’t even know the difference. What would have happened if that were true? The church would have died!

God has paid too much for His church to let it become a tool for the devil, so He strikes them down to teach the church then and now. Don’t think He doesn’t notice when we pretend to be what we’re not. You can’t hide your lying eyes.

Great fear came on the whole church, it says. Is that a bad thing? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” There was some genuine self-examination going on that day. Maybe, we thought a minute before we started to say something we really didn’t mean? To fear the Lord is to think first, do I mean what I say or do?

Did you know this is the first time the word church appears in Acts? In the context of sin and impurity, God calls the called out people, the church. The idea is, don’t drift back into what you were called out of and pretend you haven’t.

Conclusion:

1. The church must stand for authenticity! Notice the affect of this event on the city. Note verses 13-14, “13No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.” They were highly regarded, but they didn’t dare to join them and then it says nevertheless more believers were being added. Is this a contradiction?
I think Luke is saying that anyone who is like Ananias and Sapphira wouldn’t come. The lines were clearly drawn and the message went out not to become a Christian unless you’re serious about it.

Don’t become a Christian because it makes you look good in the community. Maybe, your family is bugging you, so you come. You’d better stay away if you’re not going to be committed. When the church gets pure the world gets convicted! They now know this is serious, so don’t think about coming unless you’re serious. We can’t be perfect, but we must be genuine! We must be authentic!

2. The leadership of the church must stand for accountability! Is that a popular word today? We want to say, we answer only to God and this has intimidated allot of leadership today. Most of church leadership today will not confront anybody about any sin, let alone the seriousness of hypocrisy.

The quickest way to kill a church is to get the leadership to cower before the members, afraid to confront them about anything. The members then know they can trick the leadership in pretending they are Christians when they’re not really. When the word gets out that you don’t have to truly be committed to be a Christian to go to church here, you kill the church.

Peter went to the people and asked clearly, are you serious about this commitment? Why aren’t you doing what you say you’re going to do, tell the truth about who you really are? If leaders aren’t willing to do this, they pretend to be something they aren’t; they betray their calling.

3. The Lord will not stand for duplicity! It is true Jesus often treated us tenderly, as well as all sinners. He took an adulteress and made her feel like she was someone worthy of life. He took a women married 5 times and presently shacking up with a man and He went on to show her she was fit for the kingdom of God, more than those who condemned her.
He was often tender and gentle and loving to open sinners and He knew they were sinners. But, if you want to see harsh, there is no group more clearly and openly condemned by Jesus than the religious hypocrites of His day. Read Matt. 23 and see Jesus’ clear rebuke and condemnation on hypocrisy.

Jesus said to the people, do what they say, not what they do, because they don’t do what they say. They love to sit in places of honor, love it when you give them titles, because it all looks good before men. Jesus said, they go everywhere looking for a proselyte and when he does, he’s closer to hell than before they found them.

They take care you see them clean their cups, but they are full of filth, they remind me of white washed tombs. On the outside they appear pure and holy, but inside there is wickedness and hypocrisy. They are blind guides, snakes, and a brood of vipers, how will they escape being condemned to hell? I didn’t make any of that up, Jesus said it all.

That’s what Jesus says about pretension. He will not stand for duplicity! If you do what you do for men it won’t merit you anything. There’s no act anywhere in scripture that profits you anything if you do it with the wrong motives. You can go visit in hospitals, pray many prayers, get baptized, take communion, you can have all knowledge, give all your money to the poor, if you don’t do it with pure motives it all amounts to nothing!

God is gracious not to deal with pretension as He once did, but gives us many chances. Do we really think God cares less about hypocrisy today as He once did? He sees all and one day you will have to give an account of the hope that’s in you. If you’re not serious but pretending to be what you’re not, you won’t like the end result. It’s not a pleasant thing to say, but it is the truth as is it written.

Church Growth Acts 5:12-16

I’m fairly sure this text is not used very often to try to promote church growth, but maybe we can see something that shows us we should.

Every church, if it’s healthy at all should examine itself to see if we really are committed to growth. If our church is just a place to come on the weekend and try to set us straight from all the rest of the week, I wonder about such churches. Is the town you live in, just a town, or do we really think about the lost where we are? How committed are you to seeing the church grow?

These are questions we need to ask ourselves, because if we don’t we become stale and lifeless and often trickle down to little affect on even ourselves. At what number does the church become satisfied with itself? Do we say, I like this size, I prefer this size, and it makes me feel better? Churches that aren’t growing often tell themselves, there’s more to being a healthy church than adding numbers. Now, there is some truth to that statement, but it’s also true if we aren’t growing we aren’t healthy either.

The Holy Spirit of God in the book of Acts does not apologize for talking about church growth and even talks about numbers. First we see He counts 3,000, then He mentions 5,000, and finally Luke stops counting individual numbers because that’s getting hard to do, so He uses words like multitudes of men and women.

Let’s be open about this, not guarded, or defensive, lets just see it. We have a problem with this type of language today in our churches. Those who keep stats, tell us the church as a whole has pretty much plataued, for some time now, decades. There are individual churches that have shown more growth than others, but the church as a whole hasn’t grown much. Even among churches that have shown numbers get bigger, how much of that is new converts as opposed to folks just leaving one church to go to another they like better?

Many denominations are showing numbers decrease over the years. Have we gotten so used to not growing it seems normal to us? Many churches don’t become concerned if they can just hold their own, because that has become the normal church pattern for most churches. The truth is and Acts shows us this, any church that doesn’t grow in number is not the church we see here in the New Testament. We aren’t like the one we read about here; we’re not following the example set for us.

Now, we have talked allot about what it takes to grow. I’ve heard things from we have to expand our parking lots so visitors find it easier to come and that will help us grow; to, we can’t talk very hard on sin from the pulpit or we just won’t grow. We have to make sure our worship is upbeat, very few slow songs, mostly moving and celebratory atmosphere, or we won’t grow.

I’ve been told when a church building gets to 80% full, we have to build on, or build again, or we won’t grow.
Reminds me of the Peanuts cartoon I saw once, where Lucy and Schroeder are together at that familiar spot. Schroeder playing piano and Lucy leaning on it and she says, “Do you know what love is?” He says, “love, a noun, a strong affection, or attachment to a person, or persons.” She sighs and says, “On paper he’s great!”

This is how we are when we talk about church growth allot of the time. We are so good on paper! If paperwork grew churches we would never have to talk about church growth ever again. We’d be reaching the lost at breakneck speed. The problem as we know is, paper doesn’t grow churches, people do.

Growth is kind of like love. You can’t manufacture love by reading books about it. Love comes from deep within. Love is a fruit of the Spirit and so is growth. Growth is a kind of fruit and it happens when you are that kind of person inside. Jesus said, “apart from being attached to the vine, you will bear no fruit, but if you are attached to Him, you will bear much fruit.” It happens within and comes out.

The church we’re reading about here couldn’t give us a formula for growth; they didn’t have it all mapped out. They just knew what it meant to be a genuine disciple and growth came out of that. That’s what I see here, even if at first glance you might have missed it. Lets read what kind of people they were.

“12The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. 13No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.”

We’re going to talk about the inner character that produces growth, but first let’s start with the miracles our founding fathers of the church did. Many, would say, miracles played a big part in the early churches growth, so immediately many say, we’ll never get that kind of growth back until we can do miracles the way they did. What say you? Do you think it’s true?

The only way to get this straight is to ask the question, what was the purpose of miracles in the early church?

1. To identify an Apostle! 2 Corinthians 12:11-12 Paul defends his credentials as an Apostle and says, “11I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing. 12The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance.”
Paul tells them how much he hates bragging about this, makes him feel like a fool, but I’m no less an Apostle than those in Jerusalem you folks are always talking about. I did the things that mark an Apostle, that identify an Apostle above all others; only the things they can do.

So, miracles identified Gods’ appointed messengers. They have a new message and the people need to know it is from God, not just someone starting yet another new movement. God pointed out the leaders of this movement and the folks were then being told by God to listen and follow these men. It was necessary for the church in the beginning, that the people knew God was leading these men and them.

2. To confirm divine revelation! Hebrews 2:1-4, “1We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”
He says the gospel was preached by Jesus and then spread by those who heard it from Him and God was attesting to that fact by doing miracles, signs, and wonders through these men. God authenticated His message and His messengers in this way.

The main purpose for being able to do any miracles was to give opportunity for people to hear the gospel. We don’t read about specific “healing services,” nor do we read about these miracles actually being done on believers at all. They healed unbelievers to prepare hearts for the preaching of the gospel. The miracles didn’t produce believers they simply gave opportunity for the gospel to be preached.

Now, I’ve heard and probably so have you, that some leaders have said, God wants all people to be healthy. He literally wants to heal everyone with any sickness. Is such a statement verified in the scriptures?

What I do read is examples like Epaphroditus in Philippians 2:25ff, where Paul said he was so sick he almost died. How can that be, Paul is right there, why didn’t he just heal him? Paul was an Apostle; he had healed many before, why not now? The only answer is, that was not the purpose of the gift of miracles.

1 Timothy 5:23, “23Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” Paul why didn’t you just heal him? He had frequent health problems, why didn’t Paul do something about it? That wasn’t the purpose of the gift; that would have been a misuse of the gift.
Again in 2 Timothy 4:20 Paul tells Timothy, “20Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus.” Paul, why did you leave him sick? Why not just heal him and get on with the mission? It isn’t the purpose of the gift of healing to heal believers. Nowhere in scripture does it say Christians ought not to be sick, it’s just against Gods’ will somehow, so we should seek out folks with the gift of healing and be healed by them. We do read where we should call on leaders to pray for the healing of the sick and such prayers of faith can be very effectual.
If you look at the whole, you will see the gift of healing was limited to just a few in number and for a specific reason, to promote the gospel message to unbelievers. I believe this gift was temporary for these 2 reasons I’ve mentioned here.
We don’t need Apostles to be identified among us any longer and we don’t need more revelation from God to be confirmed by God. The Apostles purpose was fulfilled and they are no longer with us and we have Gods’ new revelation complete and intact. We don’t need miracles to verify truth today, because we have Gods’ word in full.
By the way this is how God operated even at the end of the Old Testament. There was a period of time of 450 years between Malachi and Jesus and during that time there were no miracles performed in the land. Why not? The word was complete and didn’t need more conformation from God that it was His word. All you needed to do was read His word. God confirmed His word through the prophets by miracles and He stopped when the word was complete. The people kept saying there are no prophets or miracles in the land anymore.
Over 400 years, does that mean God had no more power? Am I saying God has no power today because the gift of miracles has ceased? Absolutely not! I’m also, absolutely not saying God doesn’t heal people today. Our effectual prayers can accomplish much, even more than we most of the times think. God can and does heal anybody he wants to today. I’m simply saying He is not doing it as He did in this text to authenticate His messengers, or new revelation.
I believe God can and does answer our prayers all the time and yet, I know sometimes His answer is, not this time. I may never know why not this time in this lifetime, but I do know it’s all according to His will. God has all power and will do whatever He wills, but He no longer needs to affirm His messengers, or His word; He has already done it.
God is still working today, but remember these 2 things: 1. Our standard today for knowing who is telling the truth must always be the word of God, not what anyone says he can or cannot do. Jesus warned us imposters would be among us; don’t believe every spirit, test them. We are guided by our faithfulness to the word of God.
2. The miraculous was not what made the church grow. It was and has always been the witnesses who spread the word and brought people to belief. We don’t need miracles to be witnesses in all the world. We can grow just like those in the first century, by preaching the gospel. Miracles only gave the opportunity for those to hear, brought them in crowds, but in the end, if they would be saved, they had to believe the testimony about Jesus.
Proof had to be given in the beginning of this new movement that God was with them, listen to these people, but the choice was still theirs to believe what they were testifying to or not. Believing in miracles is not what saves; believing in Jesus is the only way.
Elements for growth: If we will grow:
1. There must be an influence of bravery! Where is the bravery, you say? Verse 12, “12The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade.”
Peter and John have already been arrested once and told directly to stop this activity and here they are again in the most public of places, back in the temple. If you want to find these guys, go there, because that’s where they are. They kept right on doing miracles and preaching Jesus’ name, even though they know they’ll probably get in trouble for doing it.
This courage attracts people; it also emboldens the church to meet regularly in the temple knowing they could get arrested. There was an attraction to that kind of conviction. People placed priority above precaution. A church will not grow if it’s worried about playing it safe, unwilling to take risks. The church must be bold and people are attracted to boldness. Boldness is more important than a parking lot, or even a church building.
You take the church with the great facilities and location and I’ll take the church with leaders and members so bold they will preach Jesus anywhere and which one do you think will grow faster? You must have courage, conviction, and bravery in a church if it’s going to grow.
2. There must be an insistence on purity! Verses 13-14, “13No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.” As we saw last time this is no contradiction. After everyone saw what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, nobody was going to join in these gatherings without being serious about it.
The lines were clearly drawn. You don’t come to church unless you’re serious about it; you can’t pretend like Ananias and Sapphira, pretending to be convicted, but really aren’t, or it will have periless consequences. So, the word is out, if you’re looking for an easy church to pretend you’re something you’re not, don’t join that one; that’s dangerous business. That church stayed pure! The uncommitted, undiscipled stayed away from that church and they grew because of it.
Today, the uncommitted and even unbelievers infiltrate the church, because there is no fear in the church today. No fear that you will be confronted about any sin and told you’ll have to leave if you don’t repent and commit. Here, in this church, you didn’t come if you were like Ananias and Sapphira. You not only don’t pretend, you get involved in this church and of course this should still be the case today.
You got involved just by showing up here. You were putting yourself at risk by showing up. So there are 2 sources of fear in the church, the fear of God against impurity and the fear of those who would persecute you for showing up. The boldness of God living in their hearts caused the church to grow in great numbers.
People today join churches like they join any club. They move to town, find a health spa, join a club, join a church, and we see about the same kind of commitment to all 3. There’s no fear, you don’t worry about any of it.

I really do think the church needs to learn how to receive folks who aren’t committed to Jesus. An interesting thing about Jesus is He drove away more followers than He kept. I’ve never seen a church do that. Jesus challenged people all the time to the point of seeing them walk away from Him; He didn’t water it down, or make it easy to stay, and He let them walk.
You remember the classic case where the young man who came asking what he needed to do to have eternal life and Jesus, without hesitation told him to go sell all his possessions and then come follow Him. The man chose to walk away and Jesus said, you can’t be my disciple, you’ll have to go somewhere else.
He had a huge crowd following Him one time and the numbers were big statistically and He turned to them all and said why are you following me? If you don’t love me more than your spouse, your parents, your children, or your own life, you can’t be my disciple. If you don’t carry a cross daily and crucify yourself daily, you can’t be my disciple. If you don’t give up all you have, you can’t be my disciple and the crowd thinned in a hurry.
When He died, He only had a handful of folks willing to follow Him, about 120 in all, after having huge crowds of thousands following Him many times. He literally sent tens of thousands away during His ministry. Yet, those few 120 who stayed ended up changing the world! How were they able to do it? They were totally committed.
Do we accept anybody and everybody as members, no matter how serious they are? I don’t mean do we try to accept anybody into our assemblies for purposes of making a connection, I mean do we make them members of the body, followers of Christ, when there is no real commitment? Big churches struggle with this all the time. What do churches do with folks who easily and quickly become members, but aren’t committed?
Years go by and they don’t join in anything, even attendance is sporadic at best, but when you talk to them, they just want a place to call their church home. What do we do about that? Are we afraid if we confronted them and pressed them toward genuine faith; to become fully devoted followers of Christ, they would just move on to the next church that wouldn’t challenge them? Would that be such a bad thing?
We have this weak tendency to think we shouldn’t, or can’t demand anything from anybody in the church. This church here; the early church demanded commitment from those who claimed to be followers of Christ. Luke actually says, this impressed all people and even caused many to be added to their number.
Do we believe there are people who want to truly follow Christ in an uncompromising way and stand for something? The church says, we can’t accept uncommitted people; our task is too big to compromise it with people who aren’t convicted.
3. There must be an involvement in ministry! Verses 15-16, “15As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.” This church went out into the streets where the people were. They were ministering and helping people, not just Peter, but also all of them.
Probably because Peter was the main spokesperson he got put on a pedestal, which often happens, but this church went out together into the streets to minister to the folks. It’s true they came with sickness and they were healed, but in the end they got a healing they didn’t know about. They needed the healing that only belief in Jesus can bring to them.
Because of the reaction this brings from the officials, as the text goes on to say they put them in jail yet again, we know they continued to preach Jesus to those they healed and people were coming to believe. This caused these officials to fear what it all meant to their positions and they once again will try to stop it from happening. Healings okay, but gaining a following to Jesus is not okay.
Do people know they can come to us for help if they hurt, if they are sick, if they are in need? Can they even find us? Do we make excuses why we can’t help too many people? Do people out there know we even exist that we are willing to get involved in their lives and bring them real help?
Oh, they see out steeples and crosses, they know where the building is, but are we known as those who will minister to the needs of the people? The truth is, we will never grow inside our buildings. When we go out there where the hurt is and practice what we preach, people will find us, when they hear we’re there to help.
Conclusion: To all the leaders of the church, do we hear the message?
1. When we insist on nothing from our members, we influence no one! If we just accept everybody and never demand anything from anyone, nobody gets changed! Our respect level is directly proportionate to our expect level. If we don’t stand for anything we fall. We must plant our feet and say, no more compromise; we all must be willing to give it all.
2. When we set an example, we start a revival! The leaders didn’t just preach about commitment, they went out there where the people live. Churches won’t grow until what looks great on paper looks great in person. Churches grow when we all go out and meet people where they are.
Jesus, once again, the great example; He never operated in a fixed location; He was always going to where the people were. The Apostles operated the same way. This is an example that must go on; the church won’t grow when its leaders aren’t examples. The church is emboldened by its leaders to go, especially when there is great risk.

It’s the Real Thing Acts 5:17-32
For quite some time now, we have been promoting what people are asking for and that is, give me what’s real. People are saying they want to be real; they want real food, away with the artificial stuff. We want real relationships, not fly by night type stuff, but folks who never leave, no matter what. We’re tired of hypocrisy and artificiality, superficiality and we say we want the genuine article.
We don’t want imitations and we have been demanding it for some time, it’s been an emphasis of ours for a while in our day. I think people have always longed for this in every age and Christianity is no different; there have always been those among us through the years that want the real thing.
We have even tried using terms to attract folks to the idea, from “genuine disciples” to fully devoted followers of Christ and many others. We’ve tried cautioning ourselves about calling ourselves Christians, because the definition has changed through the years and we don’t want to be just church goers, those who just go through the motions, but aren’t the real article.
We have tried using special clothing to make us stand out as real. Some have chosen ecclesiastical garb, others 3 piece suits, still others have chosen plain looking cloths, and we try new things from time to time depending on the group. Some groups have demanded we take special vows, maybe abstinence from sexual activity, or vows of poverty; all to show the world we mean business, we’re the real deal.
People have worn special jewelry; I mean you wouldn’t wear that unless you were real. Some have tried special haircuts, facial hair, head adornments and the idea is if you don’t wear them and do these things, regardless of the fashion of the day, you’re just not real. Some group’s push you to carry a Bible in public, a big black one, a certain translation, and it’s all to prove you are real.
The main problem with all these approaches to get the people to be real is they all emphasize the externals. Cloths, hair, jewelry, etc., have nothing to do with authenticity. You can be a pagan and dress exactly like any of the things we mentioned. If you really want to see who is genuine or not, you have to look somewhere else to see it.
Let me suggest a couple places to look for the real thing:
1. The devotion of the disciple
2. The reaction of the religious

One of the dead give always of noticing a real disciple is to see how the religious people treat someone. Religious folks have never felt comfortable around the real genuine follower of Christ!
The story we read today is a story about how religious people handle disciples. You remember the context, how the Apostles and the church are preaching in the temple and it spills out into the street and many are coming to Christ and then the Apostles are arrested once again and they are ordered yet again not to speak or teach Jesus.
Acts 5:17-32, “17Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20"Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life." 21At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people. When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. 22But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, 23"We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside." 24On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this. 25Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people." 26At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them. 27Having brought the apostles; they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28"We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood." 29Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men! 30The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

What we have here is a battle between the real deal, genuine disciples, devoted followers and the religious. Let’s note 3 things that help us determine who disciples are based on the reaction of the religious:

1. The first reaction of the religious is Panic! Genuine discipleship, fully devoted followers of Christ, irritates institutions. Entrenched, long held traditional religion like things done in the entrenched way. Whenever someone outside the institutional structure is successful and starts reaching many people and growing, the institution panics, they think it makes them look bad and therefore, something must be wrong with it.
Why would people being healed bother the Sanhedrin? What’s so bad about causing the blind to see, the crippled to walk, etc.? Verse 17 says, “17Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.” They were filled with jealousy! I’m telling you it was a problem then and it still is today. It is hard for a church to say amen to somebody else’s revival.

If another church in your town is reaching people, baptizing them, and gathering allot of attention by preaching the Gospel, what do all the other churches in town say? Do we say, there has to something wrong with what they are doing? Maybe they’re just giving a liberal message that is attractive to many?
Everybody knows that if you water down the message you can reach allot more people, right? But, not us, we won’t water it down. Will we defend the fact that we haven’t grown in 20 years by saying that we are being more faithful to God and His word? In fact, as we have seen before, we haven’t just, not grown; most have decreased. Religious folks, don’t like it when real disciple’s come around, they panic, get jealous and immediately attack, because there must be something wrong with them.

So, if you’re not going to rejoice when someone is having a successful time preaching the Gospel, you only have 2 options: You can try to have your own successful ministry, or you can try to stop their ministry. They can take their message to the folks, right along side the Apostles and see if folks would accept them as well, or do what established religion chooses in this text, which is to try to stop it.
Verse 18 says, “18They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.” Why were they arrested? Because these guys were jealous! What specifically are they jealous of? = Of how many folks are following them. They were probably a little jealous of the conviction, the courage they saw too.
Have we ever felt a little like this, honestly? You run into someone who it seems like everything they think about is directly related to Jesus, that’s their priority in life and there’s no way they hide it; how does it make you feel? Were we uncomfortable? Maybe, a little jealous, they got attention and you didn’t? Maybe, you even got a little jealous of the conviction and the temptation comes to find someone you can say something negative about, so you don’t look so bad? They must have something wrong with them!
2. The second reaction from religious people to genuine disciples is they are puzzled. They are in jail, but vs. 19 says, “19But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.” Why do you think God uses an angel to do this task? He could have done it differently, He does it in chapter 16 with an earthquake, but here He uses an angel, why?
What do the Sadducees think about angels? God is rebuking them, for their unbelief. God says I’ll use what you guys don’t believe to get these guys out of jail. It really is kind of an in your face type rebuke. Now, we don’t exactly know how it was all done, were they invisible, did they pass through walls, blind the guards eyes; we don’t know. But, what we do know is when they found out they were gone, they were very puzzled, or perplexed, vs. 24, “24On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.”
They are puzzled, really? What do you think about these guys being puzzled? I think they’re dense! They saw these guys heal sick people, other signs and wonders were being done, and now they get out of prison totally unnoticed by anyone and your reaction is to be puzzled? They should be humbled, but if you don’t have power, you don’t understand those who do. So, we get puzzled instead, because we can’t figure out how they do this, or why they do it; we just don’t understand, so we are puzzled.
And yet, today we still say things like, if we could just do miracles people would believe! No they wouldn’t; the religious wouldn’t believe even though they couldn’t explain what the disciples were doing. Unbelief is that thick sculled and hard hearted. True disciples can’t be understood by the uncommitted. I’ve experienced and witnessed this myself.
Some folks, who really get it, step up in their service in the church and immediately there’s pressure and discord in the church. Those who want to step outside the religion and shake things up to reach folks with the gospel, challenge the leadership to get people out of their comfort zones and get committed to living the life of Jesus, and it is not received well by religion.
This should not surprise us or worry us, never let the reaction stop you, because the religious uncommitted have never understood discipleship and they never will. Religion will always come up with excuses why we can’t live like a true follower of Christ. Churches will even start the conversation among them and look to their leadership and say, look at them, look how they are living those crazy disciples and they actually want their leaders to say there is something wrong with living that kind of devotion to God.
If you don’t have devotion, you can’t understand how others can have it. You must put it down somehow, or you are threatened. If true devotion to Christ is what Christian’s are supposed to be, then many among us get very uncomfortable and are compelled to stop it.
3. The third reaction from religious people to discipleship is pressure. The institution will always try to stop disciples. Even after getting out of jail the first time as they did, in a way no one could explain, isn’t it hard to believe, they actually have the audacity to arrest them again, can you believe these guys?
Note how hard hearted they are! They bring them back into this council and they don’t even ask them how they got out of jail. Why wouldn’t you ask what nobody knew? Simple answer; they don’t want to know. They don’t want to hear about angels, or miracles, or supernatural anything! Don’t confuse folks with the facts!
So, they bring them in again and in verse 28 say, “28"We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.” We gave you orders not to speak in this man’s name anymore, didn’t we? What do you do? You fill Jerusalem with this teaching! Not only that, but you are determined to make us responsible for this man’s blood! Note a couple things:
1. They can’t even say the man’s name themselves. They call Him, this man.
2. How quickly they forget! Maybe, more sinister than forgetting they want to rewrite history and have even convinced themselves of this new history.
Not that long ago, Pilate was talking to these guys, and said, who do you want me to release, Jesus or Barrabas? They chose Barabas and Pilate says, what should I do with Jesus? They said, kill Him! These very same men said that. Pilate asks, why, what’s he done wrong, and they said just kill Him.
Then Pilate says, I wash my hands of the whole affair and do you remember what these men said to that? Let His blood be upon us and our people for generations to come! Now, a short time later they are saying, you are trying to put His blood on us. Well, that is exactly what you asked for at the time and now you want people to remember it differently; true politicians aren’t they?
Did you notice the horrible crime these disciples are charged with? Saturation evangelism, they filled the whole city with the teaching of Jesus! I wonder if a church will ever be charged with such a crime again? I can only hope so.
But, you mark it down, one mark of true discipleship is organized religion will do all it can to stop it. Organized religion panics, gets puzzled and perplexed, and tries to stop devoted followers of Christ, because religion doesn’t like conviction. Religion doesn’t want any comparisons with real discipleship, they want to define what Christians are supposed to look like and behave, and they want comfort.
Did you ever notice the majority of Gods’ prophets never make it to old age, with a few exceptions, but most never get there? They are stoned, or killed in other ways, not by the world, but by believers, religious believers in God.
I’ve known quite a few good men who have preached in churches and ended up quitting. I’ve known teachers in schools who taught very well, but ended up quitting teaching the Bible as an occupation. When I would ask why and I could relate this personally, they would say, I got tired of all the stones. I was told over and over, I don’t care if you think it’s what God put on your heart, or if you believe it’s the truth, we don’t want to hear it here.
We have always stoned our prophets! We don’t want our consciences convicted, we don’t want our comfortable religion confronted, we don’t want our apathy confronted, and so, we pressure our genuine disciples to either get out, or shut up! The next time you see folks getting a hard time in the church, don’t be so quick to join in giving them a hard time; you may need to join them.
Three positive ways to note discipleship:
1. Obedience to Gods’ Word! Verse 20 says, “20"Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life.” What would your first impulse be after just getting out of jail? Maybe to lay low for a while? The angel says, go back into the temple where you just got arrested and do the very thing that got you arrested.
Verse 21, “21At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.” They could hardly wait for the sun to come up. As soon as it was light they went and did what they were told. That’s a disciple! He obeys Gods’ Word! He doesn’t stop because he will get into trouble; he’s not worrying about flack that will come from the status quo.
He doesn’t focus on what some preacher thousands of miles away writes about in magazines, newspapers, or on the Internet. He isn’t going to stop, because some church in another country may say something negative and demeaning and ugly. The disciple says, is this what God wants me to do and he goes and does it. He obeys Gods’ word come what may. That’s a disciple. It’s a prerequisite to being a disciple, obeying Gods’ word!
2. His acceptance of Gods’ will! Did you notice that the ones getting arrested were calm? The ones arresting were the anxious and nervous ones. They are not upset, nervous, or worried. They don’t even try to get away, or shout for justice, etc. They could have stirred things up the second time, because it says, they didn’t use force to arrest them because they were afraid the people might stone them.
Perfect opportunity for the disciples to make some noise and stir folks up, but they didn’t. It’s a delicate situation, the chief of police walks up to Peter, I have orders to arrest you, but if you resist this could get ugly. Peter, says fine, arrest me, I’ve got some more things I want to say to those guys anyway. He puts up no fight of any kind. No resistance, or retaliation, he follows Jesus’ example and goes, not starting any kind of riot.
Now, don’t look at this like they had some martyr complex, or belief that you’re somehow more spiritual if you get arrested. All it means to these men is, God wants us to preach some more to the Sanhedrin. They look at all of it as Gods’ will; He wants this.
God works outside of jail and inside of jail, so it makes no difference if I’m in or out, I’ll just go where He wants and do what He wants. Did you know God often doesn’t think jail is a bad thing? God has done some of His best preaching from jail cells. Jesus told them this would happen. You will be arrested and put in jail and that will result in you being witnesses to your jailors.
Jesus says, it’s okay for you to go to jail for preaching, just witness some more to those who put you in jail; that is why you are there. A disciple doesn’t go off kicking and screaming, complaining, and whining about how tough his life is and things never go his way. Whatever lot God sends him, he lives with it and stays true to his faith and his calling to be a witnessing any and every circumstance. He accepts Gods’ will!
Wherever he finds an opportunity to preach the name of Jesus, not just on Sundays where everybody’s wearing nice clothes and expecting it, he goes there. Disciples will witness from a hospital bed, if that’s where God puts him, or at a gravesite if it’s their loved ones in the grave. Places you wouldn’t expect them to speak the name of Jesus, they do freely, because they have accepted Gods’ will. That’s a disciple!
3. You recognize a disciple because they have persistence in Gods’ task. We’ve all had experiences where we’ve heard the word preached and it moved us to step up and it lasted an hour, a day, or a week and it leaves us.
The way to notice a disciple is he’s steady and consistent. He never stops doing what God would have them do. The Sanhedrin says, you stop preaching the name of Jesus and they shot right back saying, we must obey God rather than man.
Peter gets stronger not weaker here. He doesn’t say, the Romans did it, or Pilate did it, he doesn’t cushion it in any way. Verse 30, “30The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” You killed Him! But God raised Him up! God is also going to save His people and we have no intention of being quiet about it.
Fill the city, you say, is that all that you’re worried about? We’re going to fill the country with this teaching. We must obey God, rather than men. How do you spot the disciple? Not by what he wears, or where he went to college, you spot them by whether they have a divine MUST in their lives! Some share Him when they have to, or when they want to, but disciples MUST share Him; they Must!
In early church history it is recorded that the church was persecuted severely and it was described how that went. People were beaten, put in jail, starved, jobs were taken away, businesses were shut down and the people of the church went to the leaders, especially this one elder named Tertelian and said, all we have to do is say we believe Caesar is Lord. We don’t have to believe we just have to say it! Tertelian, we must Live, was the cry! Let’s just say it, because we must live! It’s recorded that this elder said in reply, MUST we live?
Show me in scripture anywhere where it says my disciples must live! The early church did not demand, we must live. They did demand, we must obey God rather than men. Living is not the must in a disciples life, loyalty is. We must speak the name of Jesus. We simply must! Religious folks will never talk like this.
Conclusion: Let this text challenge the church:
1. The first challenge is to preach the kind of life that men can’t define. Verse 20, ““20"Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life.” What was the command? Tell them the full message of life.
There are 2 words for life in Greek. One is bious, which means life that makes you a living thing; it makes you different from a rock. We get our word biology from this word, the study of living things.
The second word is Zoe, which means the essence of life. The kind of life some didn’t have even though they were alive literally. This is the life the angel commanded they share. Go tell people how to really live.
People try to convince themselves life is about obtaining things, or power, or by pleasure of various kinds; this is living, they say. You define life by how many people you can have sex with, man, look at the girls after him, or her, and that’s living. Of course we see in the end life is not in those things, but only emptiness and pain.
The sad thing is too few believe Christianity has anything to do with life. It’s a religion, is what most say. But, it is all about life, how to live it, how to love it, how to have purpose and meaning, and how to make life count. That’s what being a follower of Christ is all about.
The angel said, tell them about life! That is a challenge to us today; to preach a kind of life men can’t define. Whoever finds God finds life, is not just a cliché. Jesus said you find life that is life in deed!
2. To live the kind of life men can’t deny! I don’t want anybody who knows me, not to be able to tell I’m a disciple. I want to live the kind of life people can’t deny. I’m not saying they will understand it, or want it; I just don’t want them to deny I’ve got it.
The Sadducees didn’t understand the disciples, but they knew they had something. They couldn’t explain them, or understand them, but they made them nervous. They were scared of these men. I want people to see something in me. They can misunderstand, but I want them to notice.
I would rather if this course led me to jail, than to not have a course at all, like most people. I’m not worried about my life coming to an end, I’m more worried about so many who never have a beginning; they never learn to live! They may not understand me, but I want them to say, he lives for the one he preaches about, he’s a disciple of Jesus.
We live in a very sin sick world, trouble every where, misery in every household of some kind, murder too common, thieves abound, perversions of all kinds rampant; we live in a miserable sin filled world. That is real, but it is not all there is! Not going to sugar coat, but there’s more and we must tell the world where life really is.
I want to be a part of a people who live in such a world, but have a joy the sinful world will never know and a hope that transcends all the misery and a faith that knows what life is all about. Even if the world tries to stop me from showing and telling what real life is, I will live it anyway, because I am a disciple!

God Conquers Through Affliction Acts 5:33-42
If you were going to conquer the world, what kind of animal would you choose for your symbol of victory? (Horse, lion, wolf, bull, or some other strong fierce animal) I think it’s fair to say it wouldn’t occur to us to choose a sheep to symbolize conquest.
Sheep are not militant, or aggressive, ferocious, and nobody’s afraid of sheep; they just don’t have a reputation to strike fear in any opponent. When God decided to conquer the world He chose a sheep to symbolize it. Now, the only thing sheep are good for in a fight is getting slaughtered. This is exactly how God intends to conquer the world.
Paul quoted Ps. 44 in Rom. 8 and he applies it to himself and the rest of the disciples saying, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Yet, later on he affirms that through all of this we become more than conquerors through the one who loves us. Gods’ plan for world conquest includes slaughter!
We don’t particularly like hearing this kind of thing. It really shouldn’t surprise us, because we know that’s how Christianity started. Our faith began with the slaughter of a lamb that was slain; sacrificed on a cross. It involved pain, suffering, and blood. That is what made our beginning possible as Christians.
The truth is the sheep of the Good Shepherd who was slaughtered for all us sheep, must be just as willing to be a sacrifice as He was, if we are going to go to conquer the world. We must face this and talk about it because for the first time we are seeing in the book of Acts, specific bodily suffering by the disciples, and it’s all because they are followers of Christ and continue to speak His name to the world.
Physical bodily persecution is what it cost them to continue to speak His name. We’ve seem them arrested before and each time they are ordered to stop preaching that name and each time they say, we must obey God rather than men and have no intention of stopping. So, now we read of what the cost of such a stand is.
Acts 5:33-42, “33When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35Then he addressed them: "Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God." 40His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”
Let’s talk about reasons why the people of God suffer:
1. Oppression of Satan. Job is the classic example of someone who was afflicted by the devil with Gods’ permission. Paul said of himself that because of the many revelations he received that he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan; to keep him from boasting. It’s not easy for us to look at, or understand entirely, but scripture does teach us Satan can and does afflict us when God permits it.
2. We do suffer because of our own sins! When we break the law, we will pay for it. If we break Gods’ law we will be held accountable many times, as well. Paul even uses the words concerning certain sins that they bear there own penalty. Rom. 1:27 speaks of homosexuals receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their sin. God has designed certain sins to afflict us just by our practice of them.
If you are a glutton, there is obvious penalty for doing so. People who indulge in certain activity can even pay the ultimate price, if they do not repent; it could kill them. Even after being warned over and over, they keep on and pay the price. God has set into being certain laws that can’t be reversed and we will reap what we sow. Certain lifestyles that people choose will afflict you cause you to suffer; sins do have consequences now, as well as later.
3. We are part of a mortal race! When you were born, your body carried with it a penalty, all because of the sin of another passed down to you; the sin of Adam, and no one has escaped the consequences of this sin. Paul says clearly in Rom. 5:12, “Sin entered into the world and death entered with it, and all men die because all men have sinned.”
In 2 Cor. 4:16 Paul goes on to say, “Outwardly we are decaying away.” Now, we may not like that, but there is nothing we can do to change it. You can diet, exercise, take every medical precaution, meds, but you have an outer shell that’s decaying and you can’t stop it! It is under a penalty; the penalty of sin. That is part of being a human being and that why some folks are suffering and you will one day.
4. Self-sacrifice! A soldier lays his life down for his country and may suffer because he was willing to put his life on the line for others, or pay the ultimate price. A person may give an organ to someone in need and even suffer for doing so. A mother goes through pain to have children. People will self-sacrifice and suffer for it.
5. The final one I’d like to mention is different from all the rest. You don’t have to be a Christian to self-sacrifice for others, or suffer just because your human, or you’ve committed sin, or to be tormented by the devil. But, you have to be a Christian to suffer for the sake of Jesus!
This is the kind of suffering Jesus spoke of often. In Matt. 5:11 He said, “Blessed are you when men insult you and persecute and say all manner of evil things against you on account of Me.”
He goes on to say in verse 12, “Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great.” We’re talking about the kind of suffering only the sheep of the Good Shepherd know about and it is all within the will of God. This is the part that’s hard for us to accept. We have had those among us tell us it isn’t so, can’t happen, and won’t happen if we’re faithful. We want to think it happens, but God doesn’t approve of it, but He just can’t do anything about it.
I’m telling you, yes He can do something about it, but He doesn’t because this kind of suffering is according to His will. In Acts 9 when Paul is waiting to be told what he must do for God, Jesus says, “I must tell this man how much he will suffer for my names sake.” I have chosen this man to suffer for Me! How would like to hear that from Jesus; how would like to be Paul?
Paul told some folks some of what happened to him, scourged 5 times, beaten with rods 3 times, once stoned and I looked so bad they all thought for sure I was dead. Nobody could look like that and live. One of the most stirring things he ever wrote is seen in Gal. 6:17, “Don’t anyone question my devotion to Jesus, for I bear in my body the marks of Jesus.”
If you asked Paul if he loved Jesus, he didn’t have to speak, he could just take off his shirt and show his devotion to the Christ. You knew he loved Him.
What would you think if God chose you to suffer? What would be your attitude? How would you feel? How did Paul feel? Was he bitter, resentful, thinking God is making me do this so I must, but I don’t have to like it? Col. 1:24 records Paul’s view of it all, “24Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” Paul says when he suffers for the church, He rejoices about it.
What does it mean to fill up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions? Is he saying Jesus didn’t suffer enough? Is he saying everyone must suffer or they can’t be saved? Jesus said while on the cross, “It is finished!” The atonement for sins is complete! You can’t do anything to pay the price for atonement; redemption has been obtained in Jesus. Suffering is not a condition to be saved!
You can’t earn salvation by suffering, but the mission of reaching people with the message of Christ has always and will always involve suffering done by those who dedicate themselves to be the bearers of Good News! Jesus still has people He wants to reach and there will be a price to be paid to go and get it done and Jesus wants to suffer for people more to get it done. He is willing to suffer even more for folks, so they can have the chance you and I have and He does that through you and me; He suffers through us. How do you feel about that?
Paul understood it was all part of Gods’ plan to bring Jesus to the whole world, to conquer the world, and it’s not over yet. These disciples knew that to get the Gospel into all the world wasn’t a job; it was a war! It was a fight! The devil fights back.
You can’t just walk into any town or city, or country and start spreading the news without a fight. You will have to spill some blood! You will pay a price, and take some pain, because it is a war. This church knew this. It’s not a job; it’s a battle! We have for too long looked at it as a task, or job and most of the time we don’t even like it, so we do it poorly. These folks understood going in, there some suffering to do for Jesus if we will be His followers. This later section of Acts 5 sets the pace for the rest of the New Testaments attitude about affliction.
The man who stands up in the scene is Gamaliel. He’s like the dean of the dept. of religion here. He’s the most respected Bible professor/scholar in the country.
Everyone wants to kill the disciples and this guy says, wait a minute, let’s be careful what we say and do. What if these men are doing something for God? If they are, there will be nothing we can do to stop them, but if this is of man, it will end on it’s own like so many before them. Let’s not get blood on our hands hastily!
He is being wise and there is good in what he is saying. Basically he says, “might does not make right!” Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. By the way Gamaliel has a student named Saul who for now doesn’t agree with him. Saul not only believed you could kill them, but you should kill them.
I do desire that men of our day would have some of Gamaliel’s wisdom, just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. It is a strong moral stand that would help us in making decisions today. But, although I like some of what he says, there are 2 glaring weaknesses in his speech. Do you see any?
1. His first principal isn’t true. All things of man don’t end just because they come from men. Ultimately they will at the end of all things, but historically there are things that go on for very long periods of time. I can name one for sure; I dare to say it. Look at the Muslim religion; a totally man-made religion, designed by men. It has a following numbering into the billions worldwide and has been in existence longer than Christianity. That is just one of the many manmade religions of the world. You can’t always tell if something is of God or not just by using a numbers game.
2. His biggest problem is his wait and see attitude! How much more does he need to see? He brings up examples of guys who had a few hundred followers and didn’t make it. Listen, we have grown way past small. Even if we’re conservative, we can number at least 15,000 and growing everyday in numbers that scare these guys.
We’re not talking about getting some political attention and taking on the government by force, with a handful of men. These people are healing thousands and signs and wonders follow them, doing all kinds of unexplainable things and you guys can’t figure out whether there from God or not? These folks are explaining why the tomb was empty and you all haven’t got a clue!
The frustrating thing about Gamaliel is, he seems to have some wisdom, but he won’t weigh the evidence that exits right in front of him. If he had just a little more wisdom, he would say, lets look a little closer and see why this is happening. He represents most of the people I talk to about the Lord today. Too many want to straddle the fence; I may make a decision, but I’m just not ready yet, maybe in a little more time.
That’s not courageous and neither is Gamaliel. When you decide not to decide, you are not being courageous. When people put you on the spot and say where do you stand with Jesus and you’re answer is to take the comfortable walk on the line of trying to please all men, that’s not courageous.
He does persuade them not to kill them, but verse 40 says they were flogged. What does that mean? You have a rod with leather cords on it and you tie pieces of metal, bone, and glass on the ends of the cords. You take a disciple and make them get on his knees, tie his wrist to a post so he doesn’t move away too far, shirt off and you wail 39 times across the back. That’s a typical flogging.
And in most cases you’re not alone, so you get to stand in line and watch them hit Peter 39 times and then John and then James, and all the rest of you have to do to get out of it is say you’ll stop saying His name, but you don’t. The Greek word for flog literally meant to skin. It was used to talk of skinning an animal. You could translate this accurately by saying they took the disciples and skinned them alive. When they were done, their backs didn’t look like backs. That’s what a flogging means.
Hey, we were too easy on them before, we put them in jail a couple times and gave them orders and we thought it would be enough, but it wasn’t, so this time we’re going to get them to stop for sure. We’ll get after their bodies a little and cause them some real pain and then they’ll stop proclaiming this name.
I deliberately don’t want us to run away from this quickly because; this is one of the most important hours of the church. The whole history of the church depends on what the disciples do after this. If it gets out that the way to stop Christians is to beat them, then you stop the church. So, what are they going to do?
Verse 41 says what they do, “41The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” Can you believe that? In my good moments, I’d like to think I could suffer for Jesus if I had to, but do I think I would rejoice about it? One translation records it this way, “They were dignified by the indignity.” They are rejoicing that they have been whipped for the name of Jesus.
Verse 42 says, “42Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”
They go right back to doing it and from here on they never attempt to arrest them again. They don’t know what to do them; even when we flog them they don’t stop.
The church just keeps growing day by day and do you know why? People are drawn to a Christ who creates people like these. People want to know about a Lord that builds men like that.
I want you to know what we mostly forget if we even know it, that in over half the world today Christians know what we’re talking about here better than I do or you do.
Everyday people are being put in jail for being a Christian. Everyday they are losing jobs, ration cards for food, their right to assemble publicly, and it’s all because they are Christians. Everyday there are fathers who wonder how they will feed their children, because he can’t get work or food. His government has marked him as a Christian. Everyday Christ followers are beaten, whipped, tortured, all because they love the name of Jesus.
WE are so far removed from all that we don’t just forget it, we can’t believe it’s happening. There are countries in our world where the Gospel is not preached unless blood is shed to do it. We don’t live there, so we can’t imagine it. We don’t hear it on our news and I have wondered why? We hear about corrupt governments that abuse people because they want democracy, but not because they want religious freedom.
Our media as well as our government don’t report religious persecution and says they are being hurt just because they are Christians. The government suppresses freedom of religion in those countries by inflicting serious pain and even killing them because they believe on the name of Jesus. I’ll leave it to you to answer why we don’t report this in our country, but I do think we need to know it happens everyday in our world.
Conclusion: I wonder how relevant this message is to us here in this place of the world? The truth is, there is a good chance we may never experience physical bodily persecution as a Christian in this country. This isn’t to say we won’t face any persecution if we stand up for Jesus, there are signs we may pay some price?
1. Let’s just say God says your Christian life is worth $1,000. God calls you to be a Martyr and says I want you to lay $1,000 on the block for Jesus and that would be glorious. We think it would be great and it would be. But, most often that is not what God asks of us. Instead of laying it all down at once, He most of the time asks us to lay down a quarter of it at a time.
You’re on the job tomorrow and the folks are getting after a fellow just because he’s a different color. God says, lay a quarter on the line right now. You tell those folks that all men are created equal, in the image of our God and you will not stand to see him treated poorly just because of his skin color. You will suffer some hostility for doing it, but you lay it down right there and spend it on whatever they give.
Maybe, you over hear some folks in church telling perverted jokes about girls or guys and everybody’s laughing and so the pressure’s on and God says, lay it down right here.
You tell them ought to be ashamed for such talk, for having these things fill your minds, we’re Christians and this kind of filth ought not to be a part of us anymore. They may scoff at you, even shun you, but God says, lay it down.
We can suffer today even here if we obey the call of God to lay our lives down. There are places we can go today, the roughest crime ridden areas, and most bigoted areas, most God hating areas and if you go there, you most often walk alone. These folks need to hear about Jesus and you know if they ever will, you often time stand-alone.
In order for us to obey that call, it will take folks who are not afraid to lose some blood. There are ways, even here where we can spend our lives, every last quarter of it for Christ.
2. There’s a principal we need no matter where you live in this world. “Don’t let the message suffer when you do.” 1 Peter 4:12-16 speaks of this, “12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
Peter is not writing from theology, but experience. He went through this and then he wrote about it. He didn’t feel shamed even though he suffered shame for the name of Jesus. He rejoiced and compels us to do the same. Don’t let the message suffer when you do.
We can let the message suffer in 2 ways:
1. By striking back! If you strike back when you are struck, the message loses its power. Again Peter writes 1 Peter 2:19-23, “19For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. 20But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." 23When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”
Following the example of Jesus and the Apostles is the way set before us. Threatened, then utter no threats, beaten, don’t strike back, but rather trust God. If not, they will not listen to what you are saying. It will just mean, you’re no different from anyone else who gets hit.
Many have forgotten, but when Martin Luther King was going to walk from Selma to Montgomery Alabama with all his disciples following him; they were going to appeal to the government for equal rights; we saw what happened. They came to the bridge just before the town and Sheriff Clark was waiting.
He was waiting with guns, helmets, dogs, and he even brought a tank. He was not going to let those black folks march into Montgomery, his town.
When they got to the bridge, the sheriff ordered them to go home and King said, “Sheriff we have come to far to turn back now.” Martin got down on his knees and so did all his disciples and would not go. Then the sheriff and his police took their clubs and on national TV we watched, as men were beaten, just because they believed they should be treated equal.
You can talk about the laws that were passed shortly after this, but the civil rights movement was won on that day. When the nation watched men and women who were beaten and they didn’t strike back, they won on that day. Gandhi used this same principal and freed India from slavery to England. Jesus’ example has won many victories, the biggest of which is how the Gospel conquered the world.
2. Another way to hurt the message is to not speak up when you are suffering for His namesake. 1 Peter 3:13-15 instructs us here, “13Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14But even if you should suffer for what is right; you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." 15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
If they harm you, insult you, and then ask how could you believe that, tell them, gently and respectfully. You need to be ready to tell folks why you have hope in Jesus, especially when they harm you. Don’t let affliction silence you, so you won’t share your faith. This is the example we see of this church, they got skinned alive and went right back to it shortly after.
You don’t stop the movement by stopping the messengers; you stop it by stopping the message. They could try killing every Christians on earth and that wouldn’t stop it, the message would get out. The only people in the world who can stop Christianity are Christians. When we shut up, or strike back, or if we are unwilling to be slaughtered, the message suffers.
Twelve men conquered the world, by setting an example all those who followed practiced themselves. They were willing to be slaughtered and they were. History tells us, James was beheaded in Jerusalem, Peter was crucified in Rome, Thomas was run through with a lance, Mathew a sword, Bartholomew was scourged to death, Andrew was crucified, Matthias was stoned then beheaded, James the less was thrown off a pinnacle and beaten to death with clubs, and John was boiled in oil and sent off to a deserted island to live with his scars for the rest of his life. Paul was beheaded after he had been tortured. That’s how these men conquered the world!
They were all willing to die for something they knew was going to win! They were unwilling to live for a cause they knew would lose. I wonder about you and me. What are we living and dying for?
Church Organization Acts 6:1-7
We have seen the devil very concerned about this growing thing called the church. He’s tried to slow it down, by opposing it through the leaders, and we saw how at the birth of the church, he was throwing missiles using poverty to cause it to fizzle out. But, we saw the church pool it’s resources together and it met needs among all those who had needs.
Well, he didn’t stop it or even slow it down, in fact it grew even faster. Then he tried using pretension in chapter 5, where he thought he could get some hypocrites into the church and destroy the churches purity and kill it that way. It didn’t work as we saw the church exposed the impurity and strong discipline was done by God and many more believed on account of the event.
His third try was to persecute the church physically. I know how to stop them, I’ll skin them alive and he did just that. He thought it would stop them, but it didn’t, so he’s 0 for 3! Not only has he not stopped the church, everything he does causes it to grow even faster.
Well, the devil has another card up his sleeve and this one is so hideous, one could argue it has hurt the church more than the other 3 combined. He is going to promote division in the church. This is what this event in Acts 6 is about.
Verse 1, “1In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.” Did you know that even in the early church, unity didn’t mean uniformity? We still don’t understand this very well today.
We think unity means everybody is just like me; we’re all the same. It never was that and even in this church we see many differences existed. There were differences in language, they didn’t all meet together in the same place, but by now we are dealing with 20-30,000 Christians meeting all over the city in homes, etc. There are some meetings in the countrysides, as well. Some houses spoke one language and others entirely different.
Here specifically we see Aramaic-speaking Jews. What’s the history here? This would be people who were deported into Babylon during the Babylonian take over of Israel and they kept their heritage and traditions pure and didn’t mix with the Babylonian’s. When they came back under Ezra and Nehemiah, they were proud they kept their religion, language, heritage and traditions pure. They remained Jewish to the core.
Now, there were also Greek speaking Jews who had become Christians. Where did they pick it up? The answer is everywhere.
Some had left Israel in days gone by because of famine, some because of war, some because of persecution, some because of business, and it happened because there were many hard times, so folks moved to other cities where they could make a living, etc. This sort of thing is true even today. If you’re a Jew, you want to go to Israel someday. You even hope you could live there if possible, so you save for years, so you can at least go to one of the big feasts to celebrate in Jerusalem.
This is exactly why at Pentecost there were so many Jews from different countries there and they spoke many different languages. If you lived in a foreign country and wanted to retire you wanted to move back to Jerusalem, so you could receive the highest honor any Jew could have, to be buried in the Holy City. So people moved away and came back and when they did, they brought the language with them.
This also explains why there are so many widows in Jerusalem. This is where people wanted to go to die. Now, we know the church cared about the material needs of their people, as we’ve seen, and they do care about these widows. But, when we started we had 3,000, but now we’re upwards toward 30,000, now that’s allot of people.
Some people are being left out of having their needs met. It’s easy to figure out; you came here from a foreign country where you lived for years and you have no family in Jerusalem any more, they’re all back where you came from, you don’t speak Aramaic, you speak Greek, so it’s almost natural that if anyone would fall through the cracks, you would.
So the word goes out from the Greek speaking Christians that their widows are needy and being overlooked. I don’t think its prejudice, because the apostles didn’t mention a word about it. The problem is, we’re so big we aren’t running it well now. Now, there are many who think it’s wrong to ever complain in the church, but as we can see, when real needs exist that aren’t being met, it is good to speak up.
This is especially true if you do it the right way! They didn’t go to the Apostles with ultimatums in hand saying, if you don’t help we’ll leave and start our own church. We’ve already had a meeting, bought a piece of land to build on, and we just aren’t going to give to this church anymore if you don’t take care of us. If you don’t take care of us, we will undermine you as leaders and turn folks against you, now, that’s how some have complained in years gone by.
These people don’t do anything like that. They had a problem and they went to the Apostles. Why the Apostles? Well, in chapter 4 we saw that those in charge of the money were the Apostles. Now, that worked when there were only 3,000, but now things are very much bigger and there’s no way they can keep up and still do Apostle stuff.
They just said our widows are being overlooked, they didn’t accuse them of purposeful neglect or anything like it, they just said, they need help.
The Apostles didn’t accuse them of whining or complaining; they saw it as a problem that needed to be fixed. Rapid growth is not an excuse for real unmet needs. You can be a big church and still take care of your people spiritually and materially says this early church.
Now, the apostles know if something isn’t done serious repercussions would result. People would suspect prejudice and division would spring up and the apostles weren’t going to let it happen. So they acted to solve the problem. A big lesson of strong leadership is seen here. Strong leadership doesn’t let a little problem become a big one. Every church split I’ve ever looked at ended with a big problem, but if you investigated it, you find it started with a little problem that no one did anything about.
Look at what they decided to do:
1. Verses 2-4, “2So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” The solution is an administrative one. The Apostles say the church needs better administration.
Now, this raises an interesting discussion concerning the organization of the church. As the New Testament develops we know the church isn’t depicted as an organization it is a living organism. Scripture doesn’t say we are like the body of Christ, or we resemble the body of Christ, it says we are the body of Christ. The church is a living organism.
One of the number one things we hear today that turns folks off about the church is the organization and that has killed the church in many people’s minds. Most folks today, when we say the word church, they don’t think people. They think structures, hierarchies, power structures, who’s in charge and how do things get done. Organization, they say, takes the life right out of the church.
There are people all over the world who say, if it’s organized I want nothing to do with it, because it’s organization that has killed the church. Now, many have tried to do away with organization in the church for this reason. Many churches have tried meeting solely in homes and there’s nothing wrong with that. So, many have done away with physical structures and this has appealed to allot of people.
But, as we soon find out, if we start growing, who’s house are you going to meet in now? We quickly realize that if the church grows, we need some kind of organization to meet the needs of the church. Somehow we have to learn that organization doesn’t have to be unconcerned or lifeless. Is it organization that is the problem?
My body is one of the most organized things our Lord has ever made. Yet, my body very efficiently delegates functions to the proper parts.
I don’t walk on my hands, I don’t try to eat with my feet, my body even figured out what works better for me, my left hand or my right? Now, that doesn’t mean my body doesn’t like my left hand, it just means my body delegated assignments, and it was all to keep the whole organism healthy. The apostles simply say we’ve got to get better organized so we can keep growing.
To keep growing, we can’t neglect our ministry of the Word to the church, so we can try to get food to all these folks. So, we will appoint specific servants to get this job done. Why? Did they say their job was more important than this job? No, that’s not what they said. James would go on to write in his epistle that, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, is to visit orphans and widows,” James 1:27. You don’t get a more spiritual ministry than helping these folks.
If you want to do something really spiritual this week, cook something for our widows and go share it with them, spend some time with them and see what we can do for them. Lets go visit an orphanage and get to know some of those kids, be a big brother, a mentor, or whatever they need. That’s high spiritual work!
Scripture over and over tells us there are many gifts in the church, some have to do with ministering the word and others have to do with serving in many areas of need. Which gifts are more important? Scripture is clear and consistent that all gifts are equally important for the proper working of the body; none is elevated above another. It’s not about importance; it’s about responsibility.
All the needs of the church are to be met. But, all the people will not be doing all the same things to meet them. Right now, you are sharing in the ministry of the Word, which is vital for church growth, individual members, as well as the whole. My function was to prepare for the spiritual feast, so I could serve the Word to you. In scripture the same word is used to describe what the Apostles were doing that these men would be doing. Serving the Word, or serving the tables, it’s all ministry.
The Apostles focused on the job of serving the spiritual and the servants, took care of the bodily needs of the church. If you come to a physical building of Lifechurch.TV, you will see folks got here early to prepare the building for people, make sure you will be as comfortable as possible, get printed materials that might help you, there will be folks to help seat you, maybe you need help coming in and going out and folks are there to help with that. Physical needs are being met when we meet to assemble for our worship experiences. There are servants everywhere doing these things. Who’s job is more important, theirs or Craig’s?
The only correct answer is neither is more important, they are all needed. It’s only our corrupted point of view that would tell us otherwise. Maybe our culture and how the world works has twisted out thinking that there are the elite among us and those who aren’t so important. It’s not biblical. There is no concept that you do the less important stuff, so others can do the more important.
In Gods’ kingdom, if you want to be great, there’s no better place to be that than when you commit to being a servant! That’s New Testament, that’s biblical and to think otherwise is wrong, it’s believing a lie, that doesn’t help the church; it hurts it.
2. The Apostles say, we need 7 men to organize the distribution of food to widows. They made the proposal, but then they did something amazing. They let the church make the decisions. They gave some guidelines and then they trusted the church to choose wisely. This is wise and strong leadership. No micro-management, but you trust Gods’ wisdom of this is how church works best.
Well, what kind of men do you look for church? You have a special need, a special ministry, very important and vital to the churches growth. 3 qualities are stated:
1. Integrity! Men of good reputation. Why would this be important? Things happen, maybe, widow so and so went hungry the other day and is a little disturbed by it all and someone needs to apologize for the mess up and assure her it won’t happen again. People need some one they know they can trust when it comes to money and food, etc. No Judas’ would work well in this position.
2. A man full of wisdom! What does that mean? Someone with a P.H.D., is that what he’s saying? No, but we do need someone who can run a complicated program and do it well. This is a big program, to tend to the physical needs of 30,000 and growing! Now, we can all care, and even have lots of passion, but not all of us are gifted to do such a ministry well. We need someone who can maybe use your passion to help, but we need a man of wisdom in this particular ministry.
3. Most important, we need men who are spiritual! Find men among you who are full of the Holy Spirit. Why is this important? Because you’re not just administering a task, it’s not just a job; you are modeling a lifestyle!
In Timothy Paul gives qualifications for elders and deacons and what he’s talking about is characteristics of a lifestyle. Qualifications are a description of what a Christian is. You look at someone and say, if you want to know what a Christian looks like, just look at this man. Imitate this man; he’s worthy of imitating. If you can’t say that sort of thing about him, then you don’t want them in charge of such a program.
It doesn’t matter how smart they are, educated, or professional in their careers, is he a good example of what it is to be a Christian? It shouldn’t matter how big or small we think the task is to be done, if it’s done in Jesus’ name in the church, we should be able to point to them and say, there goes a man of God. He represents us, he represents God and you can copy his life.
4. Verse 5a, “5This proposal pleased the whole group.” Here’s a miracle in the church we never talk about. I’ve never known a church in our time that was in total agreement on anything!

“They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. 7So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”
All 7 men chosen had Greek names! You know what that means? It means that all the Aramaic Christians got together and said, you know we didn’t mean to, but we did overlook these brethren, so to make sure this never happens again, lets let them run the ministry. This is so cool!!! This church does have a servant heart! This is wisdom and spirit working together among the whole church. No one looking to jockey for position, or anything of the sort, the growth of the church is all-important.
No one is saying, if I can’t be in charge of this ministry, I’m going somewhere else where I can be. Here we are looking at a church where the most important thing is your brother! No wonder this church grows like it does. They all got together, the whole church and Apostles and lay hands on these men. Why do they do that? They are endorsing these men and giving them authority to do this ministry.
The Apostles are saying to the church; we endorse these men and give them our authority to do this ministry, will you endorse them? They all say, yes! Too many times in our day, we give titles to people in the church, but we don’t endorse them to go out and do it. We call them such and such a title, but allot of times, they wonder what they are suppose to do, what do we have authority to do really? We appoint and put them on tight leashes, with no clear idea what they really are supposed to do.
We should do as we read here, spell out the task specifically, everyone agrees to it, and then all leaders of the church and members agree they have the authority to do it. You do this function, so we all can do ours. It doesn’t matter what the position is, you have authority to do it and all agree, or don’t create the illusion in the first place. No fear on the part of those doing the ministry, that they can’t make decisions, spend money, do the job without having to hear many opinions before doing it. Don’t create the job if you aren’t willing to let the one chosen do it, do it without having full endorsement of all to do it.
This only works when we do it Gods’ way! It brings outsiders back and the church will grow, even the priests were becoming Christians! The devil loses again, because Gods’ way works and the devil’s plans only cause the church to grow more. If we can follow this example the church will grow.
Conclusion: Principles to follow, or growth will not come!
1. Strong leadership doesn’t guarantee an absence of problems. Too many times today, I hear, don’t talk about problems in the church; everyone will get upset. We don’t even want to admit we have problems. Still others want to immediately blame the leaders if a problem arises. Some want to suggest if we had better leaders we wouldn’t have any problems.

Listen, you don’t get better leaders than the apostles! So, what do we do when we have problems? Do what they do! The first thing they did was admit it! They told the church they have a problem; they didn’t try to hide it. Why do we believe the devils’ lie that says if we have problems we aren’t good leaders? If I confess sin it means I’m not a good Christian. It’s a lie, don’t believe it, admit it and move on!
2. Complaints should either be solved or silenced! Don’t let little problems become big ones! If there is a legitimate complaint, address it. If it’s silly, ridiculous, or illegitimate, quench it. We need to confront them and say, brother or sister, this isn’t a real need and you need to quit causing dissension over it.
Too often we don’t address the small stuff, confront it and tell them to stop fussing. Instead, we ignore it and hope it goes away and then the next thing you know we’ve got division on our hands. If a complaint comes, solve it or silence it, but don’t let it lie for months ignored.
3. Ministry is not an office; it’s a service! These men weren’t appointed to rule anything, they were appointed to serve. That’s the way it is with any appointment in the church. People aren’t appointed to boss others around, giving special titles and the like; they are called to serve the people.
To be very candid, we haven’t been very good at practicing what we preach here. When we tell some of our denominational friends they shouldn’t have a clergy laity system, because scripture says, everybody in the church is a minister, and then we make sure they know who’s in charge here.
We speak in terms of office holders in the church when communicating to certain people. The Bible says, ministry is a lifestyle, but we say it’s a job I hold. It’s sad that we keep this idea alive by the way we communicate with others, but mostly it’s sad because it doesn’t work. If a church wants to stay small, hire 1, or 2 people and have them be in charge of everything, run everything through them for there endorsement.
If the church is to grow increasingly, it will compel everyone in the church to become ministers, or growth will be choked, because needs will not be met by only a few. If we require a few to do allot of different things, then they can’t dedicate themselves to doing any one thing really well. They will not be able to focus on one important ministry, so something will have to suffer. If it’s the Pastor who is supposed to visit with the sick, or go to this function and represent and that one, then don’t expect him to minister the Word well and more than likely many will be complaining that he’s not doing enough.
If we deem it necessary to hire someone to do a ministry, we must support them in doing what we asked them to do, or they won’t do it well.
We all have the same problems don’t we? We all try to balance taking care of the home, with our jobs, and then fit church in there somewhere, right? We must choose what we can and cannot do? Spouses need to decide what each can or cannot do, if not, then someone’s going to complain that you should be doing more.
The only way for us to grow is if we are all doing what we can, committing to what God has given us to do, and each of us are involved, or realistically we are putting on blindfolds. If growth happens, then the more needs arise and the more servants you need, because that’s the way it works, or the few will soon be overloaded and work will not get done. The answer is not to hire more folks, but to empower everyone to ministry and growth continues.
If the church doesn’t produce servants, the church stays where it is growth wise, or even decreases, because needs aren’t met. Many churches know this problem and instead of producing servants, they hire more people until we have huge staffs to do everything, but that is not biblical and it won’t grow the church. Everyone a minister is Gods’ way, no other way to be what God has designed, or to have His results.
4. The purpose of organization is to better serve people, to meet needs! If we begin a ministry and it works well for a time and then 5-10 years down the road we forget why we even have this program, but we keep meeting anyway, because that’s what we’ve always done, we have a problem.
We’ve got organization, but it just protects the status Quo and keeps certain people in power, preserves what has become the norm and maybe stifles dissent, but there’s no real help being given to anybody. The purpose of the ministry is to meet needs, not just give someone a position, or power, or to just maintain the program. If there is no real need being fulfilled then do something about it, or problems will come.
Every ministry should be looked at periodically. The over arching question that addresses it is, is anybody being helped here? If you can’t name people who are being helped, then it needs to be stopped, or find a new way to give it life. If we don’t do this, we will have organization in the church, but it isn’t doing anybody any good and will drag a church down and even kill it.
The thing that prompted organization in the church was real need and people being truly helped, no other reason. If we just have organization that isn’t touching people, we have what so many don’t like about the church, no life, no fruit, nothing to cheer about.
We need to get back to the pattern we see here in this text. When Gods’ people do things Gods’ way, Gods’ will is unstoppable! Even the devil can’t slow the church down!

A Brave and Brilliant Brother Acts 6:8-15
Most of you have seen some Olympic events and I suppose the gold medal means more to an athlete than any other award they could win. You also probably know our Olympic games came from the ancient games in Greece.
There is a coin to mark the award and it is minted with the athlete on one side and on his head is an olive wreath. Way back then they didn’t give coins; they gave an olive wreath crown. That crown was called the stephanos. There were 2 words for crown in Greek; the other word was diadema, which meant the crown of the king, or monarch.
Jesus will be wearing such a crown when He comes to receive us as his own, says John in both the gospel of John and Revelation. This other crown was the crown of great achievement. You gave an olive wreath crown to someone because they had done something spectacular. This crown is called the stephanos.
Here in Acts, in the early church we are introduced to a brother named Stephanos. It’s a good name and it fits because, he was a brother of great achievement. Stephen is kind of like a meteor flashing across the sky. He wasn’t on the scene long, but he was so brilliant while he was here you never forget him.
In looking closely at this man you might come to see, as I have, that we may not be here if it were not for Stephen, or at the least our history would be radically changed. It’s strange because, we don’t talk about him much in the church in our day. But, then again, as we have seen in our look at Acts, there are lots of things we don’t talk about that we should.
Acts 6:8-15, “8Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. 9Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia. These men began to argue with Stephen, 10but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke. 11Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God." 12So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. 13They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us." 15All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

I want us to see first how Luke uses Stephen in this important role in his record. Remember now, Luke is writing all of these things to one man, a Roman official named Theophilus. He’s trying to show Theophilus that Christianity ought to be a legal religion. Judaism was legal, but Rome didn’t want any new religions. So, Luke is trying to show Theophilus that Christianity is the true Judaism.

He’s trying to show him the church is the new Israel, and so, Christianity ought to be legal in the Roman world. So, he’s now showing the church moving from a provincial movement into a worldwide movement.
He does this first by bringing in Paul and second by showing Christianity is for Gentiles and not just Jews. Stephen is the bridge that helps Luke show this to Theophilus. So far, our main characters have been mostly the Apostles and now Stephen is going to introduce us to a young Jew named Saul, and he will go on to be the main character from here on.

The biggest value of Stephen in this record to Luke is; He is how to get from the story of Christianity to the Jews, to the story of Christianity to the Gentiles. He has covered many years of church history now, so it’s not new anymore, it’s been around for several years in Jerusalem. But, it’s still in Jerusalem. It’s still a Jewish sect, as far as Rome is concerned.

When you became a Christian, you didn’t see any need to disown Judaism to become one. You still circumcised your sons and probably even felt, any good Christian would. You still honored the Sabbath; you surely didn’t preach sermons against the Sabbath keeping in the early church. You still keep the Law and feel every good Christian would. You still go to temple, mostly because that’s where the Apostles did most of their teaching.

You’re still a Jew, even though you are a Christian. At this point in time all Christianity is to the world is a sect of Judaism in Jerusalem. This is not what Jesus wanted for His church, at least not for long. He did tell them in chapter one to start in Jerusalem. “You will be my witnesses 1st in Jerusalem, then Judea, then to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.” The church hasn’t done this yet!

They had preached it, but they hadn’t grasped it yet and certainly haven’t practiced it yet. After the very first sermon in Acts 2 Peter said, “and this promise is for you and for all who are far off.” This was a Jewish expression for Gentiles and they knew it, but they hadn’t practiced yet. The promise was for Jews and Gentiles and Peter had preached it some, but he hasn’t preached it to any Gentiles yet. He kept it in Jerusalem.

In his second sermon he did say Jesus would be a blessing and a light to all the peoples of the earth, but he didn’t do anything about it. By the way, there is a big lesson here about preachers and this doesn’t demean them in anyway, it’s just the reality of the role. Here’s one of the best preachers of Gods’ word ever and he’s preaching higher than he is living. Peter is preaching a worldwide religion, but he hasn’t been outside the city once. He hasn’t even talked to a Gentile, let alone preaches to one.

It’s something important to remember about preachers who minister the Word of God. They are important and needed, we need them to grow the church, but preachers struggle to do what they preach as much as anybody in the church. Sometimes we and them, lose sight of the fact that it is Gods’ Word, not ours, if someone is moved to change, it’s Gods’ Word and not us that’s doing it. Knowing the truth and shifting focus to now I must do the hard work of living this myself is as challenging to preachers as anyone.

We need to be very careful not to put preachers, or elders, or any church leaders on pedestals, because those pedestals do fall, they always do sooner or later.
They are people and they make mistakes, they sin like we all do. The real problem is; if we lift people up too high and they fall, which they will, we feel somehow Christianity has fallen, or the church has fallen, we’re being destroyed. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we put too much on our leaders to be squeaky clean and perfect, never make mistakes, when we find out they aren’t perfect it too often cripples a church. It’s not a healthy church that does this; it’s just not reality.

Remember what we saw last time in looking at roles in the church, that I have been given a service to render in the church and so has everyone in the church. My service is not more important than yours, we all are needed if the church is going to grow as God intended. I will struggle to serve with what God has given me and so do you and so does everyone of us. If God can help Peter see his sins and yet gives him grace to carry on in spite of his sin, He can do it for all of us, so away with the pedestals!

If Christianity doesn’t get out of Jerusalem, it will die before it even is given a name. God had to prompt His church to see the mission is to the world. His prompter is Stephen! His great achievement was helping the church go to the world.

Stephen came along and preached what the people didn’t want to hear. He challenged what they didn’t want challenged! Any time you stand up and speak this way, it will cost you. Today, it can cost you your job, your reputation in the church and community, friends and family, maybe even possessions, back then it cost you your life! We need to appreciate Stephen immensely because; we Gentiles owe Stephen for taking the message out of Jerusalem on it’s way to us.

Well, he was preaching in a synagogue when it all started. We saw in verse 5 he was a man known with a good reputation, wisdom, and the Spirit. Verse 8 tells us, he was a man full of Gods’ grace and power. Note how the power manifested itself; it was in his preaching! If there ever was a man with the right stuff, it was Stephen!

Now, if you’re full of grace it means you’re a very forgiving person. His mindset of grace is, you can’t hurt me, because I’ve given it all to God. It’s all according to His will and plan from here on, so it all works to advance His cause, no matter what. He, of course demonstrates this completely when they stone him. He truly is a man full of Gods’ grace.

If you’re someone who hurts easily and you want revenge, or you get bitter and hold grudges, Gods’ grace is not at work in your life. If we turn our lives completely over to God to do with them what He wills, our faith will forgive anyone, no matter what. Of course, if we don’t surrender our lives to God, His Spirit can’t work in us anyway, so our lives won’t have any power in them to live as He calls us to.

I say that, because we need to be like Stephen when he preached Gods’ word, he was both gracious and powerful. He knew how to present Gods’ forgiveness and yet not hold back when you need to be reproved by God, grace and strength working together.

Stephen knew how to speak to Gentiles and Jews and that’s why he was able to go into different synagogues and preach. One of these synagogues was called the synagogue of the Freedmen, vs. 9. These people went there because this was their people, their background, and their language.

Cilicia is a province in the Roman world and its capital city is Tarsus. Do you know anybody from Tarsus? Who, would that be? Now, if you’re from Cilicia and you go to Jerusalem, what synagogue do you suppose you would go to, to worship? You go where the Cicilian’s are. I actually think the Sanhedrin has already called for Saul to come to Jerusalem and help stamp out the church. They have heard about him and how zealous he is and think if anybody can do it Saul can.

So, he goes to the synagogue where Stephen is preaching, which is normal and these two men meet for the first time. One man is on a mission to stop the church; the other is on a mission to spread the church into all the world. An argument starts and that’s how it all gets going; they all start arguing with Stephen.

You and I don’t like the word argue in the church today, we’re mostly afraid of this sort of thing and it’s mostly because of the way some argue. Some argue simply to hurt people, but some argue because they want to find the truth. We don’t like the word dogmatic in the church today either. He’s too dogmatic, he should lighten up, and it offends. If you look at the word rightly, you will see we Christians really can’t speak any other way but to be dogmatic.

Truth is dogmatic; it is absolute! Our faith is not built on speculations, or opinions and assumptions of men. Our faith is built on the word of God, on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, as the song goes; He’s our solid rock. To say built on nothing else means we’re dogmatic. To say Jesus is The way, The truth, and The life; you can’t get more dogmatic than that. Now, this does not mean we are abrasive, or unkind, or ungracious, but we are called to defend what we believe.

This is exactly what Stephen does and they get upset with him, why? Up until now the only ones who have been upset are the Sadducees, but the common folks haven’t been that upset. What is Stephen saying now that has the common man upset and now we have Saul stirring up the common man too? Verse 11 says Stephen is now talking about Moses. He’s making people nervous by talking about Moses.

He’s not just talking about the resurrection of Jesus anymore, which the Sadducees hated, but the common man didn’t, they believed in resurrection, so that didn’t bother them. Now, he is taking the Christian message and showing how it relates to the Law, the land, the temple, and Moses. In chapter 7 he even gets more clear about it and we know how that ends. Stephen is the first preacher to preach the Jewish system for seeking God and having favor with Him is over.

He’s the first one to preach openly the temple is not where God is anymore. He’s the first one to say publicly, Israel is not holier than any other land in the world; all land is holy if people live there. Now, they have never heard anyone in Christianity say these kinds of things before. This made them very nervous. Remember their minds were they wanted to come back to Jerusalem, they wanted to worship in the temple more than anything and the last thing they expected to hear was, this place isn’t important anymore.

Verse 10 says, “10but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke.” Have you ever had such an experience before? I have. I heard something I wasn’t ready to believe, but it made so mush sense, I couldn’t say anything in return. The more you and others challenge them, the more sense they make and it kind of makes you mad, but you have no idea how to argue back and make more sense. So, what do you do? You either accept it, or you work to get rid of that person. They decided the second option.

They stirred up the people, verse 12, “12So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin.” Make a note, this is historic; this is the first time the people are against the church. Before this it was just the Sadducees and they didn’t have allot of influence on the people as a whole. But, the issue has changed, it’s no longer the resurrection, it’s now Judaism itself; the way we seek God and be in relationship with Him.

Verses 13-14, “13They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.” What does false witnesses mean? People who say, he said this, which we will see is not what he said.

What Stephen did say was, when Jesus came God was going to use the church to reach Jews and reach out to Gentiles as well and Judaism will no longer be the tool God uses to speak His message to the world. That’s what he preaches. Now, Luke is showing Theophilus that the church is supposed to be a universal religion, here he’s showing him that the Jews are against that, but they can’t stop it, because this is what God wants.

Of course Stephen knows these folks are lying about what he really said, but he also knows Satan has always been very good at getting people to believe lies. He knows this court has only one purpose and that’s to condemn him, so what’s he going to do? He could take it all back and say I didn’t mean it; you don’t understand, let me explain. The other option is to stick to the truth and suffer the consequences. I give up what I believe, or I give up my life; that’s what’s in front of him.

What would you do? Your on trial and this is going to end one way or the other; give up your belief, or you give up your life? We know how this one ends and we’ll look at it clearly in chapter 7.

Verse 15 is interesting, “15All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” What do you mean the face of an angel counsel? You don’t believe in angels, how do you know what they look like?

What they saw was not what they expected from someone in his shoes. They always expect fear, intimidation, and nervousness, but what they saw was spiritual power! God was working and they saw in his face the glory of God. Think about it, the only other place in scripture where God shines his glory in the face of a man was with Moses. The very man they say Stephen opposes is now showing the same glory on his face, as did Moses.

When Moses came down from the mountain and his face shown that marked the beginning of the covenant and the message was, how can you not listen to him who has talked with God? They made the accusation that Stephen is throwing out the Old Covenant and God is saying, if you people would just look at his face you’d see I have a New Covenant.

Once again we see their hard heartedness. You guys say you don’t believe in angels, but you say he looks like one. You say he’s throwing out the Old Covenant and you’re right, just look at his face. In spite of the evidence God is showing them their hearts remain hard. The Old is passing and the New has come and you refuse to listen, they refuse to see God.

I’ve actually wondered; how did Luke know about Stephen’s face? There were no Christians here to tell him the story. I can’t know for sure, but I suspect Paul told him, they did mission together as you know. I don’t think Paul ever forgot that look. Don’t you praise God for Stephen, that he loved God and this world enough to put it all on the line for you and me?

Conclusion: If we are going to reach a lost world, there are 2 things from the life of Stephen we must do.

1. We can’t give into professionalism! We will not reach the world if we give into professionalism. The attitude that, if you’re not paid by the church you can’t do a good job witnessing about Jesus. We have this wrong idea certain ones are gifted to speak for God and I’m not one of them, so I can’t talk about Jesus.

Let me quickly just say, I have known too many people who have been paid to speak, who were not gifted to speak. I believe there are too many pastors out there who shouldn’t be preaching. I’ll just let that stand and you do what you will with it, it’s my conviction.

I also notice in scripture guys like Timothy whose number 1 ministry was taking care of widows, he wasn’t a professional preacher. Paul said he was knowledgeable and not to let folks write you off because you are young. He even encouraged him to get better at preaching and be ready all the time. But, his main ministry is caring for widows and of course in so doing he would speak about Jesus.

The truth is, those of us who mostly listen to preachers, will go places and meet people our preachers never will.
There was no way Peter would be invited to this synagogue to speak. He wasn’t a Greek-speaking guy from another country. Stephen could do it and that is true all over the place in the church. You work in classrooms, garages, shops, warehouses, office buildings, and if you rely on your pastor to reach those people, there will no church growth. For one thing if you take him there and introduce him as your pastor, woof!!! The wall goes up and that’s it. There is no way he can get into their lives like you can.

Now there are places he can go you can’t go. But, you have places in your life, he’ll never get to, so you must talk and share Jesus there. If we wait for the professionals to take the word into our communities or the world, the message will never get out. It is going to take some Stephen’s, who may have a role in the church, but when he’s out in the world he has a responsibility to talk about Jesus, as do we all.

2. We will not reach the world if we give to pressure! People don’t like their customs challenged; they want to believe what they always have and do what they always have.
We live in a throw away world. We build things today knowing we will throw them away in a while. It has crept into the church, where we throw out what we don’t like so that we can get along with everyone.

There are things in Gods’ Word worth fighting for! Worth defending with all we have. It may be against customs, traditions, not popular, but we won’t win the world if we feel a little pressure and don’t say what they need to hear. We need to be a people who will give up our lives before we would give up what we believe. The teachings of Jesus the Christ must stand, no matter what.

Are we there today church? We have trouble getting people to see the need to come to church, they don’t have even an hour to give once a week, too many of us. We complain if we take longer than an hour to do worship together, or do Bible study together, or pray together. Why do I bring that up? Because if we can’t sacrifice an hour of our time, how do we expect our brethren to speak up for Jesus, especially if the pressure is on?

If we’re unwilling to sacrifice, we won’t reach the world. We simply must decide what’s important and commit to it. If it’s important to meet even now, then commit to it. If it’s important to speak up for Jesus, then commit to it. There are some things worth dying for! Thank God we had one brother willing to die for us.

A Sermon That Goes Down In History! Acts 7:1-53

I am well into my fifties now and looking at my sixties fast approaching. I remember when I thought this was old and thinking whatever I was going to do in my life will have been done by now, or it probably wouldn’t ever happen.

When I was young, I had no idea I wasn’t going to be able to do everything I wanted to before my life was over. Looking at my life I can see it was totally unpredictable and most of the time chaotic. Yet, when I brought the Lord into my life, it got exciting and I found real meaning to my life, in fact to everything I have done. I may not have done everything I wanted to, but God has given meaning to it all.

I can tell you one thing that has never happened to me, and that is, I’ve never been stoned. To be clear, I mean that in the literal sense with real stones. I thank the Lord He has shown me that I don’t have to put something into my body to make me feel better about my life and have purpose. I didn’t always know that, but now that I have found God, I have found life! But, I have never been stoned!

I have never had anybody want to physically harm me for proclaiming the Gospel, as far as I know anyway. Now, sometimes I wonder if I should feel good about that, or not. If God gives me 30 more years here, do I want to be able to say, I have never been stoned, or something like it? The reason I say this is because, some of the best preachers of Gods’ Word ever, were stoned, or killed for it some how.

The first person we see this happen to is Stephen. He is the first Martyr of the church. We know this, but do we know why he was killed? If we don’t know why, we don’t know Stephen. Stephen died because he preached Jesus! If he hadn’t preached this sermon, he wouldn’t have died. I used to preach for a living, for almost 18 years, and when I read this, I wonder, have I ever preached a sermon worth dying for?

This is Acts chapter 7! He gives a history of the Jews and calls them all to repentance and we can see the outcome. I’m not sure exactly why, but most of the time when people study Stephen they skip the sermon and go right to the end. It’s old history and we don’t want to bore people, we hear. There is only one reason why Acts 7 could be boring and that is, if we’re not committed enough to die for something. If you’re committed to God, you can’t be bored by a sermon a man dies for.

Remember now, as we look at this, Luke is using Stephen to show Theophilus how Christianity went from a Jewish sect to a universal kingdom. Up until now nobody had the courage to say God wants to reach all the world and all the people. Stephen is the first one to incur all the wrath of the common folks; up till now they liked what Christians were saying, until Stephen, why? Now, he is saying what they don’t want to hear!

Stephen says Jesus’ Messiahship is more radical than we all first thought. God wants us to go into all the world! Judaism is not Gods’ way of reaching the world, He has a new covenant, a new system, a new way to seek God and they didn’t want to hear this. So, they killed him for it. Not only that, but they drove everybody who believed as he did out of the city.

This event marked a persecution that broke out against the church. Who exactly were driven out of the city? Just people like Stephen. The Apostles remained in Jerusalem; they weren’t driven out. Who was driven out? It was those anti-temple, anti-Law, anti-Moses, Greek speaking Christians like Stephen that were driven out.

Note chapter 11: 19-20, “19Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. 20Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.” Most of the time the church has taught that Cornelius was the first Gentile convert, but we can see these are the first and these folks specifically are the ones who reached them.

People like Stephen who had been driven out of Jerusalem preached to Greeks in Antioch. Hey listen, the next time you hear of someone being criticized in the church for preaching a challenging message that goes against the old paths, remember; we Gentiles owe our salvation to people like Stephen who challenged the old paths and said what the church didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear.

He’s being brought before the Sanhedrin and is charged with the big 4! Blasphemy against God, against the Law, against Moses, and against the temple. Now, Roman law forbade execution by anybody but them. There was one exception; the Romans did give permission to execute someone if they came to destroy the temple. Stephen is literally preaching for his life. He is charged with preaching a doctrine that will destroy the temple.

This liberal whacked out preacher, if he doesn’t stop people will end up turning away from Judaism, they will turn away from following the Law, and the temple will be destroyed, or as good as, because it will lose it’s importance. If he’s convicted of this, he will be killed. He is preaching for his life. So, it’s a great sermon and we can’t improve on it, but we do need to look at it. Try to see as the Jews did and you’ll get more out of it.

Verse 1, “1Then the high priest asked him, "Are these charges true?” Stephen’s defense is to give a detailed discussion of the Jews favorite subject. What did the Jews like to talk about more than anything else? Themselves, and they still do! Their ancestry, history, and the whole story is their pride and joy. They just know they will be saved because of their history!

Verses 2-8, “ 2To this he replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.
3'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you.' 4"So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. 5He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. 6God spoke to him in this way: 'your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,' God said, 'and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.' 8Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.”
Here, he only says what they already know very well. Why, say what you already know? Stephen is trying to show it’s ridiculous to charge him with blasphemy against God; nobody loves God here more than I do.
Verses 9-16, “9"Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him 10and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. 11"Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. 12When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit. 13On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family. 14After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. 15Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. 16Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.”
Now, to some that sounds a bit boring, so why go into this kind of detail? Stephen has a very good reason and of course he knows what’s coming at the end of his sermon, so he’s making specific points to remember. If you’re a Jew, you may be picking up on what he’s doing already. For one, he’s showing his advanced knowledge in the scriptures, second he is showing his deep-seated reverence and faith in God.
It’s ridiculous to accuse Stephen of blasphemy against God, because he mentions God specifically 19 times in this message and it’s always in the highest regard and honor. The God Stephen loves is a God who controls the universe, a God who moves and shapes human history so His purposes are accomplished. The God Stephen loves is the God who tells Abraham, you’re going to have a child when he’s already old and didn’t have any yet. This is no accident and neither is God sending these people to Egypt, because there was a famine. The people were mistreated for 400 years and Joseph was no accident!
When Stephen talks about history, he writes right on top of it the heading, God did it all! So, they can see he loves God, so here comes the next charge. You blaspheme the Law! You say, Jesus is greater than Moses!
Verses 17-37, “17"As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. 18Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. 19He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die. 20"At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father's house. 21When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. 23"When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.
24He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?' 27"But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'who made you ruler and judge over us? 28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?' 29When Moses heard this; he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. 30"After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice: 32'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. 33"Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.' 35"This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?' He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert. 37"This is that Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.' 38He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us.”
They said Jesus of Nazareth is against Moses and will destroy the temple, but Stephen says, Moses predicted Jesus of Nazareth would come. You accuse Stephen of dishonoring Moses by believing in Jesus, but Stephen is saying he honors Moses because he believed Moses when he said Jesus would come and I must believe and listen to Moses. I believe in the fulfillment of the prophecy Moses made.
Moses said God would raise up a prophet just like me and just like He raised me up, He raised up Jesus, so Moses and Jesus are alike. Didn’t you hear Moses say, He was sent to be a deliverer and that Moses tried to reconcile his brethren, but they refused him who God sent to deliver? They ran him off saying who made you ruler and judge and you did the same thing to Jesus.
If you were a Jew, you would have picked up on this and you’re getting a little angry right now, because you know he is saying you did the same thing to Jesus the folks did to Moses. They say, you oppose Moses, Stephen says, no I don’t, you’re opposing him. You oppose Moses because you are doing to Jesus what you did to Moses, because Moses told you to look for Jesus and to listen to everything he said.
Stephen is saying I love God more than you do, I honor Moses more than you because I do what He says, which is I worship Jesus. Okay, well then you are on trial for being against the Law then! Verses 38-43, “ 38He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us. 39"But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40They told Aaron, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don't know what has happened to him!' 41That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made. 42But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: " 'did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? 43You have lifted up the shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile' beyond Babylon.”
What’s Stephen up to? Does he sound like a man who doesn’t respect the Law? Stephen says the Law is the living oracles of God! The Law was given by God, mediated by angels, and handed down to Moses. At the same time Moses was receiving the Law, your fathers were breaking it. Your fathers were law-breakers all the way from the wilderness until they were sent to Babylon! Your fathers broke the Law and then judged others for not keeping it.
Stephen is saying you don’t have the track record to put me on trial for breaking the Law, because you’re just like your fathers. You don’t keep the law, your fathers never kept the Law, and you’re now putting me on trial for what you’re guilty of! Now, you are getting really mad, if you’re Jew! I mean spitting, mean mad.
I respect God more than all of you do, I honor Moses more, and you don’t and you’re all a bunch of law-breakers! Now, what do you have left? Well, the final nail in the coffin is, the Romans said we could kill anybody who is a threat to our temple and you have threatened the temple. If we let this stand, people will quit coming to temple and it will end in ruins. The temple is where God lives and anybody who destroys the temple is trying to destroy God!
Verses 44-50, “44"Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45Having received the tabernacle; our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David; 46who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47But it was Solomon who built the house for him. 48"However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: 49" 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord? Or where will my resting place be? 50Has not my hand made all these things?”
The major problem is, the Jews had come to the point where they worshipped the temple more than God. They made this place a permanent institution that forever halted the plans of God. God can’t go anywhere else because His temple is here and He must stay here. Stephen is saying, where did that idea come from? God says the earth is his footstool, the heavens my throne! He can go anywhere in this earth or universe He wants to. When Solomon built the temple, God was saying, how can a building hold me?
If I’m guilty of knocking the temple, then I’m guilty of what God told David and Solomon. All the way up until the time of David we didn’t need a temple. God doesn’t need a house! But, you say he must stay here and here only.
Now possibly, if he had stopped here, he might have gotten out alive. So, how does he end? He decides his best defense is to attack! How would you like to have your preacher end his Sunday sermon this way?
Verses 51-53, “51"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
Let me tell you, he had to say these last words fast because they were crawling over the pews to get to him for this. They were picking up rocks as fast as they could. He dies to say these words. Now our problem because we’re Gentiles, we can’t see why they got so angry. Let me attempt to re-write this sermon so you’ll understand and I’ll do some play acting here, so maybe we’ll feel it a little more. You’ll be the Jews and I’ll be Stephen and put this in more modern terms and give you the gist of what He’s saying. Be prepared to tell me how you honestly feel after.
Now, play along, cause I don’t know how this is going to work, I’ll just basically make 2 points, the first is to say you restrict God because you don’t know your history. Now, if you’re a Jew that doesn’t make you feel good, because that’s your pride and joy. Secondly, I’ll say, you reject Jesus because that’s been your history all along. Okay, play along, close your eyes and when I say, you can open them again. Remember, I’m not Tony, I’m Stephen and you’re all Jews meeting at temple. Okay, open your eyes and look at me.
You bunch of hypocrites, so proud, so arrogant in your religion and you have the audacity to put me on trial saying I don’t love God, I don’t love Moses, I don’t love the Law. You think you know everything this book has to say and you don’t know this book at all! If you knew your history you wouldn’t try to localize God and make Him live only with you in your place and no other. You would care about other people in the world. You all are putting me on trial because I tell you God loves all the people of this world and not just you.
You think God only lives in one little country, in one little town, one little place! If you knew your history you wouldn’t be so stupid. Where was Abraham when he was called? Mesopotamia, not here in Israel! When did God call Moses? When he was out in Midian, not here in Israel! Where did God do great wonders and signs? In Egypt, not here in Israel! The Law you say you study so much, where did God give it? At Mount Sinai, not here in Israel!
God has done some of His very best work outside of Israel, why do think this is the only place He can live? You proclaim this is the land of Abraham, but Abraham didn’t own a single foot of this land, but he did have a relationship with God. You don’t have to live in Israel to have a relationship with God. You’re so arrogant! You think you own God! Your own history tells you He works where He pleases, with whomever He pleases, whenever He pleases.
I’m not surprised you reject Jesus; It’s what you have always done. Why did you reject Joseph; why did you sell him? Because you envied Him! This is the same reason you reject Jesus. So what did God do with Joseph? He sent him to the Gentiles to make him Lord of the Gentiles just like he did with Jesus. You went to see Joseph the first time and didn’t even recognize him. God is going to do the same with Jesus. You’ll come to realize he is the Messiah, but you’re too stiff-necked to see Him now, but you will some day.
You did the same thing to Moses, He came to reconcile you and deliver you and you kicked him out. You do the same to Jesus. You say the same thing to Him; you did Moses, who made you ruler and judge? God did, but you refused to see God and obey. Name me just one of the prophets who talked about the coming of the righteous one you people didn’t kill. During this whole time you went to church and studied your law. You hypocrites! You righteous phonies!
You say if Jesus were the Messiah you would have recognized Him, hey, you haven’t recognized one of His servants yet. So, why should I be surprised that you still don’t see Jesus is your own Messiah? You’re just a bunch of proud arrogant religious people who think you’re the only ones that know about God. You don’t know God.
Let me tell you, God has plans for this world, all the people of the world, and He’s going to go ahead and do them even if you don’t understand them or know them. You can’t stop God, no matter what you say or do! Well okay, how does that make you feel? Aren’t you glad you came to church today?
Aren’t you glad the church today doesn’t have any such problems? Aren’t you glad we never talk like we’re the only ones who know anything about God? Aren’t you glad we never act like we’ve got it all figured out and everybody else is just stupid? Aren’t you glad we never get on any preachers, or church leaders for telling us to repent, because we’re so proud and arrogant? Boy, I’m so glad we’re not like those Jews at all, aren’t you?
Conclusion: Application
1. When you study the scriptures see Christ! I want you to be a student of the scriptures. Someday they may put you on trial and I want you to be able to do just as Stephen did. Not, talk about philosophy, or theory, but talk about the scriptures, be able to tell our history.
We need to study the old and new, and see God at work in all of human history. Every chapter points to Jesus! If you truly study scripture and get it, you have got to see Jesus.
2. When you study the scriptures see yourself! We have the same problem Jesus faced. We’re real good at knowing what somebody else needs to know, but we have a problem seeing ourselves. We need to train ourselves to ask ourselves first, before we think of others, what do I need to learn, what do I need to change.
The most common expression I’ve heard after preaching a sermon or listening to one is, I wish so and so was here to hear that, they really needed it. Have you ever asked yourself, what do I need to get out of this? If you haven’t then you’re just like the Jews, who study to hear about somebody else’s problems, mistakes, and sins, but you don’t see that you have problems, mistakes, and sins you must deal with; before you’ll ever be able to help your brethren with theirs.
We study too often so we can show others their faults and we miss the truth ourselves, just as did the Jews before us. That’s why they stoned Stephen, because he dared to say, you’re making the same mistakes your fathers did. He dared to say, God doesn’t want you to just know and repeat facts, He wants you to change your life.
Before we judge those who stoned Stephen we must see that all of us have a blind spot we don’t want to look at. We do our best to not look at ourselves clearly, but if we aren’t willing to look deep and deal with our own sin, then we aren’t in a position to judge the Jews, or anyone else. Truth is to be used to change people’s lives; yours first then others.
If you aren’t willing to deal with people, as did Jesus and Stephen you are in no position to condemn anyone. They both were willing to die for those they spoke to, that they might hear the truth and change their lives, so salvation could come. They loved those they spoke to with their lives.