Acts 4:13-22

Acts 4:13–22 ESV

13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. 14 But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. 15 But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, 16 saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 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, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 21 And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

There are a few things that really stand out in this text tonight....

Before I get to those, I want to remind you what has been happening, and leading up to this point in the text.

A few weeks ago we began to read about this lame beggar who had been healed, a man who we talked about had probably been one of the people you see at the same place each and everyday begging for provisions so he could survive. and Peter and John came by and gave him a gift better than silver and gold, they gave him by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus the ability to walk. And in doing so Peter preached a powerful message which highlighted the Old Testament, and called for their repentance, so that they would have forgiveness of their sins. Last week we saw they were questioned in great detail about all this, ultimately leading to them telling them. There is salvation in no one else under heaven given among me by which we must be saved.

As we see in the text today they saw the boldness of Peter and John..

These men where not afraid to preach about Jesus… despite the fact that these men were uneducated in there eyes. Remember Peter and John are dealing with 71 of the most powerful educated men during that time, and there impression of them was these men are not educated like us, they are just regular people.

And I want to stop here for a moment, and high light something that was distinct to them and that was the fact that they had been with the Word of God as it states in John 1 for 3 and a half years the greatest of all teachers, and being with him was going to trump the many years of studying the law without God.

Now I love theological teaching, I have a bible college degree, and a Masters of Divinity Degree, but all that was for me, was a chance to draw nearer to Jesus, you don’t have to go to school for many years like me to be close to Jesus, but you do have to be a student of the WORD to draw close to him, there is no exceptions on that truth.

In fact I read this yesterday, and I thought it was sooo good. Seminaries, however, can be a great aid to the church. We must not forget that Peter and John were discipled (or mentored) by Jesus. He taught them through his life and teaching, so that when the Sanhedrin heard them, they took note that they had been with Jesus. They lived with him for three and one-half years—more credit hours of study than a basic seminary degree! Paul did the same thing with his “traveling Bible school,” where he taught his younger assistants.

And this is what a seminary should seek to do: to have teachers who will mentor students by being with them and teaching them, just as Jesus did with his disciples. If teachers fail in this regard, then the seminary fails in its task of preparing men and women for ministry. Some teachers do little personal work, though a seminary is rife with students needing personal counsel. Though the heart of ministry is working through committed teams, these teachers do not model team ministry in the way they relate to other members of the faculty. This type of seminary we do not need. A seminary where the teachers truly mentor the students can become a great asset to the church by sending out effective men and women.

Going back to the text there is the key saying here, They recognized that they had been with Jesus. ( That is what I want to be known for )Our lives should radiate the fact that we have been with Jesus, they walked with Jesus, were taught by Jesus, and were able to be in the situation they were in, because they were so close to Jesus. We can be the same way as well, but in order to do that we have to bury ourselves in scripture, and prayer.

And the great thing about this text, is the healing of the man, by the power of Jesus was their testimony of the message they proclaimed.

The man who had been healed is standing with them all healed, I think about our own times, and see the value of changed hearts, with the power of the message, the greatest power is going to be the message, and the one the message is in, but the great evidence of that is changed lives, there was no denying the fact that something was different about Peter, John, and the man who had been healed, the text even says they had nothing to say in opposition to them, the evidence was to overwhelming.

So they told them to leave, and asked what should we do? As they talk they say pretty much this sign is to powerful to overcome, the evidence is to clear. We cannot deny it like they tried so hard to deny the resurrection of Jesus if you remember. So what we are instead going to do is warn them dont talk about Jesus anymore. So they call them, and tell them look we dont want you mentioned the name of Jesus anymore..

Have you noticed that people really do have just a few responses to the name of Jesus? Its not like other things, its so often a overwhelming joy, a story of some sort or a disgruntled ugh, you dont see a-lot of middle ground with Jesus..

But here in the text we see a powerful bold response of someone who had been with Jesus..

Acts 4:19–20 ESV

19 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, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

So we began to see the early church have this power struggle against the authorities, that we even see today..

And there is a question that we must ask ourselves as citizens of not only heaven, but this world and that is when is it ok to say no to government?

Let me read something to do you to help you decide that for yourself.

Acts Holy Allegiance

Peter and John were in the worst possible ethical conflict, one between ruling authorities. Children ask their mother if they can go to a movie, and when the mother says no, they go ask the father instead. They attempt to set one authority against the other. It rarely works because the father usually says, “Go ask your mother.”

Consider soldiers who had participated in genocide and later went on trial for their war crimes at Nuremberg. When the court interrogated them, they all said, “I was only obeying orders.” The court refused to uphold that excuse and said the soldiers were required to disobey the magistrate rather than commit genocide.

Martin Luther King knew the law. He knew that any statute published by any state in the United States was challengeable by the Supreme Court if it violated constitutional rights, and so with passive resistance he went ahead and broke the law in order to get before the Supreme Court, a right provided to him by the higher magistrate with respect to the lesser magistrate.

The conflict of such situations at times can be unbearable. Here is how the Apostles handled it: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge” (v. 19). Only a few weeks had gone by since the Apostles had heard the words of Jesus that we call the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). Jesus gave to Peter and to John and to the entire church of the first century a mandate. It is our mandate too. If any authority under heaven comes to the Christian and tells him he may not pray, or preach, or worship, or tithe, or do any of the things God commands, that Christian not only may disobey, but he must disobey.

In the ethics class offered at our seminary, we provide a simple principle. It is simple in the sense that anybody can understand it; however, the application of it to concrete circumstances is often excruciatingly difficult. The principle is this: we are always to obey those in authority over us, unless that authority commands us to do something that God forbids, or forbids us from doing something that God commands.

If a husband says to his wife, “I want you to earn some extra income for us by turning to prostitution,” not only may she disobey him, but she must disobey him. Conversely, if a woman is married to an unbelieving man who says to her, “You may not go to church on Wednesday night and join the choir,” what should the wife do? She should stay home, because God nowhere commands women to sing in the choir. I plead for it, but I cannot command it. But if the husband says to his wife, “You are not permitted to go to church on the Sabbath and join the corporate worship of the people of God,” not only may she disobey him, but she must disobey him, because God commands her to be in the assembly of the saints.

As you can see, applying this principle can be painful and very costly when we are caught in this vice between two differing authorities. We can never use the excuse “I’m just obeying orders” as a license or an excuse for sin. The other side of it is this: just because God gives us the right and responsibility to disobey when an authority over us commands us to do something He forbids or forbids us from doing something He commands, that is not a license to be disobedient whenever we happen to disagree with the authority or whenever the authority is exploiting or afflicting us and bringing discomfort or inconvenience. Joseph and Mary were inconvenienced when making that arduous journey to Bethlehem, but they submitted, because God never commanded that Joseph and Mary be comfortable or wealthy or popular.

The general principle is that we bend over backwards to be submissive, but we stand with ramrod defiance when the magistrate commands disobedience to God. That is why it is very important for us to understand, in our daily lives, what God commands and what He forbids; otherwise, we are like sheep without a shepherd, and we go along with what Nietzsche called a “herd morality,” doing whatever anybody tells us to do, when, in fact, there are times the Christian has to say no.

There is a reason why the blood of the church became the seed of its growth in the first century—the many who would not submit to the tyrants who told them to deny faith in Christ. With Job we have to say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). I urge you to be prepared for that time when you have to choose obedience to those who command sin or obedience to Christ.

See we have to be like Peter and John, and say we only preach what we have seen in and heard from the scripture, and to go against Jesus is to go against the one who saved us.. And there are going to be point in your life where you are going to have to do that very thing, and it might cost you something..

One guy I was reading this week said there are several things we can take away from this passage..

It would be a disservice to you if I did not share them with you… • An anointing with the fullness of the Spirit (v. 8).

• Courage (v. 13). The noun translated “courage” (parresia) and its corresponding verb (parresiazomai) appear twelve times in Acts—generally in close association to preaching the gospel to Jews.11 The death and resurrection of Christ and his uniqueness as the source of salvation were offensive to the Jews, but the early Christians had the inner motivation to persist in this work. In today’s society we need a similar courage as we face similar challenges.

• The desire to use every opportunity to share the message of the gospel. Peter and John were being tried before a council, but their aim was not just to get off the hook. They used the opportunity to declare the gospel. This became a hallmark of Christian witness in Acts and in the history of the church. The gospel is such urgent news that we must use every opportunity we have; indeed, we must seek opportunities to get the message across.

• The nearness and similarity to Christ that Peter and John exhibited. Peter and John spoke with the boldness of Jesus, they performed miracles like Jesus, and they knew the Scriptures as Jesus knew them. The Sanhedrin took note that they had been with Jesus and presented that as the explanation for their unusual behavior (v. 13). We tend to become like those with whom we spend extended time. A girl came to her pastor and said that she thought she was filled with the Spirit, but she did not see the fruit of the Spirit in her life. He asked her what type of devotional life she had. She said, “Hit and miss.” He asked, “Do you have your meals that way?” She said, “I did once, and I nearly lost my health.” She got the message! If she wanted to be like Jesus, she had to be with Jesus.

Coupled with spending time with Jesus should be a deep desire to be like him (Phil. 3:10–14). This is the aspiration that Jesus advocated in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). Such aspiration comes from a passion for Christ. Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), the founder of the Moravians, had as his motto: “I have one passion only: It is he! It is he!”

• Loyalty to God. Peter and John chose to obey God even if it meant incurring the wrath of the most powerful people of the time (vv. 19–20). Shared this on facebook yesterday, but its to good to not share again.. The fifth characteristic of significant service is loyalty to God, even at a risk to personal safety. H. G. Wells has said, “The trouble with so many people is that the voice of their neighbors sounds louder in their ears than the voice of God.”14 William Barclay refers to a tribute once paid to the Scottish reformer John Knox (1514–1572): “He feared God so much that he never feared the face of any man.”15 An incident from the life of D. L. Moody well expresses the attitude we should have. When he was young, an Irish friend named Henry Varley told him, “Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.” Moody was startled by the statement. He kept thinking about it for days. He reasoned: “A man! Varley meant any man. Varley didn’t say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else. Just a man. Well, by the Holy Spirit in me, I’ll be that man.”16 This is passion: loyalty to God.

• Confidence over the gospel. Peter and John said that they had no choice but to share what they had “heard and seen” (v. 20)—the facts about the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and teaching of Christ (see 3:14–15). This was the heart of the basic kerygma. When we witness for Christ, we are witnessing to these objective facts. Unlike the apostles, we were not there when these events occurred, but we believe that they took place as recorded in the Gospels. The Gospels give us an impression that Jesus is unique and that the events of his life are of eternal consequence to the whole world. We believe this record, and thus twenty centuries later we can also affirm the uniqueness of the message of Christ.