Sermon Tone Analysis

What comes to mind when I say the word “power”?

When we talk about powerful people, we typically think about kings and presidents and CEOs and media moguls.

When we talk about powerful companies we think of large multi-national conglomerates.

But that idea of power even creeps into our thinking about the church, doesn’t it?

When many people think about powerful churches, they tend to think about mega-churches with TV personality preachers and tens of thousands of attenders.

We’re taught today that power is about platform and the larger your platform is, the more powerful and influential you’ll be.

But our passage this morning shows us a better way.

Our passage shows us that power doesn’t come from your platform or personality.

Power comes from a Person who laid down his life and took it up again.

Let’s take a look at our verse again:

ACTS 4:33

At the time of our passage, the apostles would have been the last people you would have thought of as being powerful.

For close to three years, they had followed Jesus.

They messed up a lot along the way, but each of them had boldly proclaimed that they would follow him everywhere—even to the point of death.

But when crunch time happened, what happened to their boldness?

It went away, didn’t it?

When the going got tough, the tough apostles bailed.

Under the intense pressure of a little girl’s accusation, Peter withered and denied even knowing Jesus—three times.

We give him a hard time for that, but at least he was close enough to Jesus to deny him.

Everybody else but John ran away and hid when they came to take Jesus away.

As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that only John and a handful of ladies were actually at the scene of the crucifixion.

That doesn’t sound like a group of powerful people, does it?

Judas was powerful.

He showed his power when he led a battalion of Roman soldiers into the Garden of Gethsemane to capture Jesus.

The Jewish leader Annas was powerful.

He showed his power by falsely accusing Jesus and tying him up and slapping Him around.

Caiaphas the High Priest was powerful.

He showed his power by accusing Jesus of blasphemy and sentencing him to die.

The Jewish Sanhedrin was powerful.

They showed their power by spitting on Jesus and beating on him with their fists.

Herod was powerful.

He showed his power by treating Jesus with utter contempt and dressing him in a royal robe to mock him.

Pilate was powerful.

He showed his power by choosing to release a murderer instead of Jesus.

He showed his power by having Jesus brutally flogged.

He showed his power by having Jesus mocked and spit on and by having a crown of thorns placed on his head and beaten into his skull with a reed.

And ultimately, Pilate showed his power by sentencing Jesus to death by crucifixion.

The Roman soldiers were powerful people.

They showed their power by flogging Jesus.

They showed their power by forcing Him to drag the instrument of his death through the streets of Jerusalem.

They showed their power by nailing Jesus’ hands and feet to that cross.

They showed their power by thrusting a spear into his side.

There were lots of powerful people displaying their power that day.

Peter and John and the rest of the apostles weren’t among them.

They were frail.

They were weak.

They were broken.

They were helpless.

They were empty.

Have you ever come to a place in your life when you realized your frailty?

Have you ever come to a place in your life where you realized that all your attempts at power have just resulted in weakness and brokenness and helplessness and emptiness?

No one wants to feel weak and broken and helpless and empty.

Deep within each of us is a desire for power.

So what happened in the lives of the apostles to move them from great weakness to great power?

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus happened, that’s what!

Peter moved from denying Jesus at his trial to testifying about Jesus and his resurrection.

The only way that could happen is if the resurrection is real.

John moved from weeping at Calvary to testifying in Jerusalem.

The only way that could happen is if the resurrection is real.

Thomas moved from doubt and cynicism to declaring Jesus as his Lord and God.

The only way that could happen is if the resurrection is real.

What we’re celebrating here this Easter Sunday is the fact that the resurrection is real and Jesus is alive.

But we don’t just celebrate the resurrection once a year on Easter.

We celebrate the resurrection each Sunday when we gather together.

For over 2000 years all around the world, believers gather together and worship a risen Lord.

That can only happen if the resurrection is real.

With great power the apostles testified to that fact.

And we’re going to testify to that fact here this morning.

Listen to me—the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most attested fact in all of history.

First, we have the testimony of Scripture.

TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE

Each of the four gospels proclaim the resurrection from a slightly different viewpoint.

Each of them includes different details.

Over the years, some people have looked at those as contradictions or evidence that the stories are made up.

But the reality is—the fact that each of the accounts is a little bit different only proves their reliability.

Ask any law enforcement officer about what it’s like to question people about what happened at the scene of a crime.

They get real suspicious when witnesses’ stories line up too closely with each other.

That usually tells them that they got together and came up with the story they wanted to tell the police.

Real, unfiltered testimony varies between different eyewitnesses.

They can all be telling the truth, but different things impact each of us in different ways.

We tend to focus on different aspects of the same event.

And that’s exactly what happened with the Holy Spirit inspired accounts of the resurrection in the four gospels.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John focused on different aspects of the event than Matthew did.

And Matthew focused on different things that Mark did.

And so did Luke.

But rather than cast suspicion on the truthfulness of the resurrection, those differences reinforce their reliability.

The resurrection is real and the Bible testifies to it.

But if the testimony of Scripture isn’t enough for you, we also have eyewitness testimony.

TESTIMONY OF EYEWITNESSES

In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Paul gives a nutshell version of the gospel.

He wrote, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” Did you catch that?

Paul is reminding the church at Corinth that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at one time after the resurrection.

Listen—if you want to make something up, don’t claim to have witnesses.

And if you do claim to have witnesses, make sure you only have a few so you can all get your story straight.

Even better—if you make something up and claim to have witnesses, make sure they’re in the witness protection program so nobody can find them and debunk your story.

Paul said that there were over 500 people who had seen the risen Lord.

And most of them were still walking around when he wrote the letter.