Acts 4:1-12

Pray Agape equips its people.

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Acts 4:1–12 ESV

1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. 5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

There are a few things I want to talk about tonight, and they were really sparked by my study for tonights text..

The first is this idea of Tolerance.. Let me read you something I found really good.

Acts Tolerance

The primary sin of fallen humanity, as Paul tells us in Romans 1, is that we universally take the plain, manifest revelation of God and exchange that truth for a lie and turn our attention to idols. For that, we expose ourselves to God’s unmitigated and just wrath, because to trade in His glory for an idol is the supreme insult to His holiness. The only other insult that comes close is to mention the name of His only begotten Son in the same breath with that of Buddha or Confucius or Muhammad, who are idols, not sons of the living God. Nevertheless, there is nothing in our culture today more intolerable than exclusivity, than to meet with the Christian assertion that there is only one way to God. Only a handful of professing Christians in our culture will stand up publicly and say there is only one way to God and that way is through Christ. The rest, by denying that principle, are guilty of nothing less than treason to the Son of God.

Second Idea is their is only one way to God. One of my college professors had been a war correspondent, and she was openly hostile against Christianity. She knew I was a Christian, and one day in the middle of class she said to me, “Mr. Sproul, do you think that Jesus is the only way to God?”

Everyone turned and looked at me; they couldn’t wait to hear how I would answer.

I thought, “What do I do now? If I say, ‘No, I don’t believe that He is the only way,’ I will publicly deny Him. If I say, ‘Yes, He is the only way,’ then the wrath of the teacher is likely to descend on me, and I’ll know the scorn of my classmates.” So, cleverly, I answered with my hand in front of my mouth, “Yes.” I mumbled my reply, hardly like Luther at the Diet of Worms.

She said, “Speak up! I didn’t hear what you said. Do you believe that Jesus is the only way to God?” I had to face the music. I said, “Yes, Ma’am, I do.”

She looked at me and replied, “That’s the most bigoted, outrageous, narrow-minded, arrogant statement I’ve ever heard in my life.” I sank down into the chair in an attempt to find protection.

She finished the class, and as we were leaving she stood at the door. She had mellowed a bit after publicly humiliating me. As I passed, she said, “I guess I was a little rough on you today. It wasn’t nice to do.”

I said, “Yes, Ma’am, you were.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t believe how any intelligent person could be so narrow and bigoted as you are.”

I said, “Can you believe that I could be foolish enough, even though I’m educated, to come to the conviction that Jesus is at least one way to God?”

“Yes, I can understand that,” she said.

I told her what Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), and then I asked her, “What could be more arrogant than a disciple of Jesus challenging his Lord’s teaching on the way of salvation? I believe it because He said it.”

“Yes, I see that,” she said, “but I still don’t get it. How can you believe in such a narrow God?”

I said, “For the sake of argument, suppose that once upon a time there was nothing, no universe; the only thing in existence was God Himself. So God created everything, and from all the creatures He made, He took one—man—and stamped Him with His divine image. He blessed mankind and called them to mirror His righteousness. Yet soon after, they believed the Serpent, who gave them the promise that they would be as great as God. They were involved in cosmic revolt from the outset. Wouldn’t God have been perfectly just to simply destroy all of mankind?”

She said, “I suppose so.”

“But He didn’t do that,” I continued. “Instead, He gave them a promise of mercy and forgiveness. He promised a Messiah who would come and bear their sins for them. Later He called the people out of darkness, out of slavery. They had become impotent before the mightiest ruler in the world, the pharaoh, but God made them His people and gave them His law, the first of which is exclusive: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ Later they bowed before the Baal and the Ashtoreth and all the rest of the pagan deities of their day, but still God didn’t destroy them. Instead, He sent them His prophets and called them to come back to Him, as a father calls a wayward child to come back. But they greeted the prophets with stones, and they killed them. Finally, to show His great love, God sent the eternal second person of the Trinity, His only begotten Son, and let Him take on the cloak of human flesh and live in the midst of this corruption and endure the punishment on the cross that the whole world deserved. He offered His only Son to people who were hostile toward Him, and the people killed His Son. Nevertheless, God said that if you’ll just put your trust in His Son and honor Him, then He will forgive every sin you have ever committed. He will give you everlasting life in a place where death is exiled, in a place where there is no night, no sin, no pain, and no harm. He will give you joy and happiness such as no creature has ever contemplated. All you have to do is honor His Son and Him alone.”

I told all that to my teacher, and then I asked her, “After hearing all that, could you still stand before God and say, ‘That’s a very nice story, but what’s the big deal about Jesus? You haven’t done enough. Why didn’t You give us twenty saviors? Why should it bother You whether I put my trust and devotion and admiration and adoration on Christ or on Muhammad?’ ”

Would any of us ever dare to say before Almighty God, “You haven’t done enough”? This is what Peter’s speech was about that day at the temple when the highest court of Israel sat in judgment on the Apostles and said, “By what power or by what name have you done this?” (v. 7). Peter replied, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole” (vv. 8–10).

The Apostles had healed by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the One whom the people had crucified but whom God had raised from the dead. Why? So that all Israel might know that this is the only name there is under heaven through which men may be saved. If you are a Christian, you should be prepared to die for that affirmation. If you are not, you are playing at religion, and you have missed the Son of God.’

one last thing… Cornerstone Since ancient times, builders have used cornerstones in their construction projects. A cornerstone was the principal stone, usually placed at the corner of an edifice, to guide the workers in their course. The cornerstone was usually one of the largest, the most solid, and the most carefully constructed of any in the edifice. The Bible describes Jesus as the cornerstone that His church would be built upon. He is foundational. Once the cornerstone was set, it became the basis for determining every measurement in the remaining construction; everything was aligned to it. As the cornerstone of the building of the church, Jesus is our standard of measure and alignment. The book of Isaiah has many references to the Messiah to come. In several places the Messiah is referred to as “the cornerstone,” such as in this prophecy: “So this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed. I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line’” (Isaiah 28:16–17). In context, God speaks to the scoffers and boasters of Judah, and He promises to send the cornerstone—His precious Son—who will provide the firm foundation for their lives, if they would but trust in Him. In the New Testament, the cornerstone metaphor is continued. The apostle Paul desires for the Ephesian Christians to know Christ better: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19– 21). Furthermore, in 1 Peter 2:6, what Isaiah said centuries before is affirmed in exactly the same words. Peter says that Jesus, as our cornerstone, is “chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4). The Cornerstone is also reliable, and “the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (verse 6). Unfortunately, not everyone aligns with the cornerstone. Some accept Christ; some reject Him. Jesus is the “stone the builders rejected” (Mark 12:10; cf. Psalm 118:22). When news of the Messiah’s arrival came to the magi in the East, they determined to bring Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But when that same news came to King Herod in Jerusalem, his response was to attempt to kill Him. From the very beginning, Jesus was “a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall” (1 Peter 2:8). How can people reject God’s chosen, precious cornerstone? Simply put, they want to build something different from what God is building. Just as the people building the tower of Babel rebelled against God and pursued their own project, those who reject Christ disregard God’s plan in favor of their own. Judgment is promised to all those who reject Christ: “Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed” (Matthew 21:44).