Sermon Tone Analysis

(Take Poll for Spring Series) If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it.

We’re going to be in Acts 4 and 5 today.

I want to ask you all this question: What is the difference between confidence and boldness?

There is a difference, so it isn’t a trick question, what’s the difference between the two?

Confidence is internal, it is a feeling of trust in something or someone.

We actually get our word for confidence from two Latin words “Con Fide”, which means with faith.

Confidence is internal.

Boldness I believe, is expressed externally.

Boldness drives the actions of the individual.

Now let’s narrow that down to our faith.

How does confidence and boldness work together in our Christian life?

Our confidence is the faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His fulfillment of promises and our trust in Him to work all things for His glory.

Our boldness is an expression of how we live out that faith and confidence in Christ.

What we are going to read today in Acts is where confidence and boldness comes together to make an effective Christian.

We are going to see that in the lives of Peter, John, and the other Apostles and then I want us to apply what we see in them to ourselves.

Acts 4 continues immediately after what we read in Acts 3 last week and in verses 1-4, we see that as Peter and John speak to the crowd that has gathered at the temple, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the sadducees come down and they are fuming at what they are seeing and hearing because the Apostles are telling the crowd of Christ’s resurrection.

In verse 3 they throw Peter and John in prison overnight but despite this, there are many that believe the Gospel after this and Luke writes that the number of Christians grew to about 5,000.

We’ve got a lot of verses to look at so let’s go ahead and look at Acts 4:5-30

Where does the Christian’s Power and Influence Come From?

This may be a simple question for some of you, or maybe not, but where does the Christian’s power and where does the Christian’s influence come from?

One thing that has broken my heart is how little influence Christians seem to have in the world today.

Christians have changed the world.

Christians have ended slave trades, built hospitals, brought forth great institutes of higher learning, they have fed the hungry, helped the hopeless, and have been some of the most influential minds and thinkers of the past 2,000 years.

Christians have been people that have put their foot down against injustice, how boldly stood out for holiness, so let me ask this, what has happened to us?

Where is the power?

Where is the boldness?

Where is the global-changing, soul-stirring, hope-giving, power of the Church?

Let me tell you where I think it is, it’s in the wrong place.

The Christian’s power and the Christian’s influence does not originiate in them.

If you want to make a difference in the world that will outlive you and last for eternity, you need the power of Jesus Christ, plain and simple.

Do you want to make a difference in the world?

None of us should be able to look at the state of things in the world and be happy with what we see.

Sin is untamed, wickedness is all around us and the Church needs an answer to this.

I have told you pretty much every week that you have not been saved to sit on your couch.

You haven’t been saved to watch the world go to pits.

How wicked must we be to think that just because we have been saved that we can coast to eternity while the lost remain lost?

God forbid we do that and I don’t care how old you are, if you are a Christian, empowered by the Spirit of God, you can impact the world around you.

What is Peter’s answer to the question of where the Christian’s power and influence comes from?

It is this, Acts 4:8-12

What is the answer?

Jesus Christ, beginning, middle, and end.

Christians with a big view of God, make a big impact on the world.

Now notice quickly how significant this is for Peter.

Peter could have ended his answer in the middle of verse 10. “What power or name did you do this?”

Peter could have just said, “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” but there isn’t a period at the end of that, there’s a comma.

Peter, filled by the Holy Spirit, does something that he would not have done in the Gospels.

Peter takes this moment to preach to the wickedness of the world.

He takes this moment to point to Christ with extreme boldness.

Keep in mind, Peter’s first response in the Gospels to opposition is fight or flight and he really does both!

Not here though.

Why?

Because the Holy Spirit alive and breathing within the heart of the believer changes them to their innermost being.

Believers with the Holy Spirit do big things, with great boldness, in response to what the Lord is doing in them and through them.

Peter saw this moment as the greatest opportunity in the world to tell these people about the Gospel because look at who is there!

You have some incredibly influential people there and Peter thinks, “I gotta take this opportunity because I might never get it again!”

And that is why he preaches to these people and doesn’t just answer their question.

If you are a Christian, you need to look at every situation that you find yourself in, with the same eye as Peter.

You may never see these people again!

So you need to make the most of the appointments that God is bringing to your life.

You have to be faithful and you just have to trust God with the results.

Where is your power going to come from?

Where is your influence going to come from?

True lasting power and true lasting influence comes from no other name but Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

The more you rely on your own power, the more the Church believes that it can change the course of human history by a purely man-made power, the less of an impact the Church and you will have on those around you.

G.K. Beale said, “One of the greatest obstacles to the spread of the gospel is the church itself.”

How do you think the world will respond to Christ-empowered, bold witnesses of the Gospel?

We find that answer also in Acts 4. Look again at Acts 4:13-14

The World Cannot Deny What is Happening when Christians are Bold

The world cannot deny what is happening when we Christians are bold.

What can the world say against Christians that are boldly living out their faith?

What wrongdoing can they charge you with?

Nothing!

If you are living out your faith, you will be fighting for morality, you will be pushing for justice, you will be loving your neighbor and praying for those that persecute you.

What charge can they make against us?

When Christians are living with Christ as the focus of all that they do, the world will be totally unable to make any charge against us.

Look at what the leaders say in Acts 4:14-16

They couldn’t deny what happened, it was standing right in front of them!

What were they going to say to the Apostles?

Don’t help people?

That would go totally against their own Law!

What could the say?

The only thing they could say was, “Don’t preach about the name of Jesus!” How do Peter and John answer?

The only way that they should!

Acts 4:19-20 “But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.””

Faithful Gospel witness is going to require boldness from each and every one of you.

Peter and John saw firsthand what Christ was capable of doing, they knew Him, the loved Him, they saw that He really made a difference, to not speak of what they had seen and heard would be to deny Him entirely!

Are you going to deny your Lord by staying silent?

You can’t!

Many within the Church has done that far too long!

May we all be like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:16 “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting.

For necessity is laid upon me.

Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

Do you want to make a difference in the world?

Do you want to be salt and light in a world that needs it?

Be bold!

The great missionary William Carey famously said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

Why should we?

Because our God is an awesome God! Paul says in Ephesians 3:20-21

Ordinary People Praying for Extraordinary Things

I mentioned this last week, God can do extraordinary things through ordinary people.