Proclaim 2: Witnesses of Power
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Acts 4:1-14
N: Flyer for Donna’s Concert
Opening
Opening
Good morning, church family and those who are our guests this morning, both here in the building and online! Thank you praise band for leading us in musical praise and worship this morning, and I also wanted to thank our AV guys for their consistent dedication to Sunday mornings and so many other things, a job that has gotten more complicated with the addition of streaming this last year. Thank you, guys!
I need to take just a moment and humbly ask for your forgiveness on something. On Friday, I read through the letter that I sent out regarding the retirement gift idea for Larry and Camille (our pastor emeritus and his wife, who was our school administrator for many years) with fresh eyes, and I discovered that there were two things that I meant to say in that letter that I didn’t say, and since I didn’t say them, the letter might give some the wrong impression. First, I said in the letter that I was asked to find out what would be most practical for Larry and Camille in their retirement. I asked, and they answered. At the time, none of us had any clue what that might cost. The figure that I said in the letter—that a “round” figure to redo the floors in their house could approach $30,000— was a figure that I came up with through talking with Wayne Tedford, who is a general contractor, and who helped me guesstimate the total cost of the project if he were doing a bid for that scope of work and materials. Larry and Camille had no idea what redoing their floors with minimal transitions might cost, nor did I tell them before I wrote the letter. Second, please understand that ANY amount that they receive will be a blessing to them to this end, and I wasn’t setting $30,000 as some kind of “goal.” I was just generalizing what redoing their floors MIGHT cost, so that everyone—school and church folks alike—would know what the reality could be, not to coerce anyone into giving that much. The way my letter read was not completely clear on these two points, and I ask for your forgiveness for any confusion or consternation that might have caused.
OK, with that being done, I wanted to take a moment to remind the church family about our weekly Prayer Meeting, which has been in the choir room at 5:45 on Wednesday evenings. We strive to spend half of our time or more actually praying together, and we are usually done between 6:15 and 6:30. This past Wednesday, we started looking at the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 as our model, and we will be doing so for a few weeks at least. If you are available at that time, please come and join us for corporate prayer.
Finally, this week and next are the last two weeks to give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. You got to see a video about John Valdez, a church planter here in New Mexico, up in the four corners region of the state. Remember that every dollar that is given to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering goes to help church planters and missionaries throughout the U.S. and Canada. Our goal for this offering as a church for this year is $15,000, and as of last Sunday, we have received $14,945.25 (I think). Thank you, church, for giving so generously to reach this goal!
Last week, we started what will be a seven sermon series in the book of Acts, which we are calling “Proclaim: The Gospel Has Come.” In this series, we are considering what seven sermons in Acts tell us about what the first church believed about the Gospel and how that defined what they said and did, and then asking what that means for us today, and how it speaks to us about how we interact with/engage our world with the Gospel message. We saw last week in chapter 2 the first sermon in Acts, and we saw that the first church were Witnesses to the Resurrection. Our focal passage today is Acts 4:1-14. Let’s stand together in honor of the Word of the Lord as we read it together:
1 While they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them, 2 because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 So they seized them and took them into custody until the next day since it was already evening. 4 But many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. 5 The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem 6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high-priestly family. 7 After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them: “By what power or in what name have you done this?” 8 Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders: 9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was 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 and whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing here before you healthy. 11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” 13 When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus. 14 And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in opposition.
PRAYER
I want to open this morning with an excerpt from the book, The Great Hymns of the Church, Their Origin and Authorship, by Duncan Morrison, published in 1890, about the last song we sang this morning, the hymn “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”:
Rev. E. P. Scott, while labouring in India, saw on the street one of the strangest looking heathen his eyes had ever lit upon. On inquiry he found that he was a representative of one of the inland tribes that lived away in the mountain districts and that came down once a year to trade. Upon further investigation he found that the Gospel had never been preached to them and that it was dangerous to venture among them because of their murderous tendencies. He was stirred with much desire to break unto them the Bread of Life. He went to his lodging place, fell upon his knees and pleaded for Divine direction. Arising he packed his valise, took his violin with which he was accustomed to sing and his pilgrim staff, and started in the direction of the Macedonian cry.
As he bade his fellow missionaries farewell, they said, “We shall never see you again. It is madness for you to go.” For two days he travelled, scarcely meeting a human being, until at last he found himself in the mountains surrounded by a crowd of savages. Every spear was pointed at his heart. Not knowing of any other resource he tried the power of singing the name of Jesus to them. Drawing forth his violin he began with closed eyes:
“All hail the power of Jesus’ name! etc.”
Afraid to open his eyes he sang on till the third verse, and while singing this verse —
“Let every kindred, every tribe, etc.”
he opened his eyes to see what they were going to do, when, lo! the spears had dropped from their hands and the big tears were falling from their eyes. They afterwards invited him to their homes, an invitation which he gladly accepted. He spent two years and a half amongst them. His labours were greatly blessed, and he had so won upon their affections that when he was compelled to leave on account of impaired health for this country, they followed him for thirty miles. (The Great Hymns of the Church: Their Origin and Authorship, Duncan Morrison, Jan 1890, Hart & Company)
There is power in the name of Jesus. And I think that for most of us, we can say that without reservation. We know that it’s true. We see the acts of Jesus in our Scriptures, the way that He worked as He walked on the earth. Maybe we have experienced the incredible power of Jesus in a very evident, practical, tangible way like the story I just shared. We have experienced His power in our own lives.
There is power in the name of Jesus because Jesus has all authority, because He is the Lord:
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
In our focal passage this morning, we see the early church as witnesses of the powerful name of Jesus, and how that witness impacted the world around them for the Gospel. In this passage in Acts, we see the proof of the Gospel, the power of the Gospel, and the people of the Gospel.
1: The proof of the Gospel.
1: The proof of the Gospel.
While our focal passage this morning is found in chapter 4 of Acts, we need to keep chapter 3 in mind as we consider it. Chapter 3 of Acts is sometime after the Day of Pentecost that we looked at last week, and chapter 3 completely focuses on the healing of a particular paralyzed man and the preaching that Peter does after that healing. We aren’t going to be able to understand what’s happening in chapter 4 without some of chapter 3, so allow me to summarize:
Peter and John come to the temple, and a paralytic asks them for money. But then in verse 6, Peter declares,
6 But Peter said, “I don’t have silver or gold, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!”
This man’s legs are made whole, and he stands and jumps and leaps around and everyone who sees it is shocked. Peter says that it is faith in the name of Jesus that brought this miraculous healing:
16 By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you.
And Peter preaches the Gospel message to the people in the Temple, and they can see that the paralyzed man is right there, clinging to Peter in front of all of them.
Stories like this one in the Bible sometimes cause us to struggle a little. We have those in our lives who have serious health struggles, whom we pray for in faith, and we don’t see this kind of miraculous healing. “If the name of Jesus healed that guy, why haven’t I seen that same kind of healing, even though I’m asking “in Jesus name?”” This is a struggle for many of us.
But remember that last week, we saw that Jesus was attested to by God through miraculous signs—that those things were evidence of who He is and of His power.
22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know.
The miracles, wonders, and signs testify (attest) to who Jesus was in His earthly ministry. The miraculous things that Jesus did were the evidence of who He is, and while they brought blessing and hope, Jesus’ ultimate mission was proved by signs, not defined by them. The healing of this paralytic is a sign of the truth of the Gospel, not the message of the Gospel itself. Keeping this in the frame of our thinking is vital for us to not mentally turn Jesus into some kind of miraculous vending machine. The greatest joy is to have Jesus Himself, not what we think He can give us.
So this sign was given in that place at that time so that the message of the Gospel would be proved true in the sight of these people, so that as Peter preached for them to repent, they would respond in faith, trusting Jesus for their forevers, not just their right nows.
Similarly, when believers share our own personal stories of how God has miraculously worked in our lives, we testify to or attest the truth of the Gospel message: that Jesus died for us to take the punishment that our sins deserve, so that if we surrender to Him in faith, trusting Him alone for our salvation, then we are forgiven of our sins through Him, and we also have the promise of eternal life because Jesus defeated death for us. Our salvation testimony is the story of how following Jesus has affected our lives. Our testimony isn’t the Gospel itself—our testimony points people back to the Gospel.
And please understand that Jesus is God, and He can do whatever He wants to do whenever He wants to do it. And because of that, we should absolutely go to Him in prayer, asking Him move and work and heal and deliver and bless, in faithful trust that He can and will do those things. He still does miracles! But the priority should be that we want Jesus more than we want anything that He could give to us, and that we are submitted to His will for our lives in whatever comes our way. This is the path of the disciple.
Transition
Transition
Back to our text for this morning, we see that the leaders of the Temple had a problem with what Peter was doing, and they take action to stop him:
1 While they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them, 2 because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 So they seized them and took them into custody until the next day since it was already evening.
The Sadducees were (interestingly enough) the Jewish fundamentalists of their day. They refused to accept the oral traditions of those “liberal” Pharisees (funny that that’s how it was, right?), and they refused to believe in the spiritual realm of demons and angels, did not believe in immortality for humanity, and did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They saw the Messiah as an ideal or a concept of national deliverance, rather than as a Person who would actually come to deliver Israel.
The captain of the temple police was a priest who was tasked with protecting the sanctity of the Temple, and he had the authority to arrest people for violation of Temple regulations. The priests at this time were appointed by Rome, and were a sort of land-owning Jewish aristocracy, so they had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Their problem with Peter was likely much more political than theological: Since Peter and John were preaching about the resurrection of the dead, proclaiming that Jesus had risen, this likely all sounded very “Messianic” to them, and Messiah talk sounded like messing things up.
So Peter and John are suddenly arrested for preaching a message that annoyed the Sadducees, and they are thrown into jail for the night.
They interrupt the message, but that doesn’t stop God’s saving grace from doing its work:
4 But many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
The day of Pentecost, it was 3,000. Now, there are 5,000. That’s because of the power of the Gospel:
2: The power of the Gospel.
2: The power of the Gospel.
The next day, Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish high court. It consisted of 71 Jewish men from the priesthood, the leading elders of the Jewish people, and the scribes, who at this point were likely Pharisees.
5 The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem 6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high-priestly family. 7 After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them: “By what power or in what name have you done this?”
One thing to keep in mind as we see this: Annas and Caiaphas were the two high priests mentioned at this hearing. Annas is Caiaphas’ father-in-law, and it seems that he may have been the one pulling the strings here, as seven of his relatives served as high priest after him. But Annas and Caiaphas were both a part of Jesus’ trial. Essentially, Peter and John are being tried by the same court that had condemned Jesus to die. This is not a “no-risk” situation for the apostles.
They call in Peter and John, with the question, “By what power or in what name have you done this?” The hope is perhaps to discredit the miracle, and so discredit the message that followed after it. But in asking this question, they essentially invite them to preach. So Peter does boldly, moved by the Holy Spirit, saying that the name and the power through which the healing had happened were one and the same:
8 Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders: 9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was 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 and whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing here before you healthy. 11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.
Much of this message is carries the same points as what we saw last week: Peter proclaims the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the reign of Jesus. But in doing so, Peter this time quotes from Psalm 118:22, showing these Jewish leaders that they were the ones who were in the wrong, because they are the “builders” who had rejected the Messiah:
22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
They had crucified the Messiah, and now through His death, resurrection, and reign, Jesus had become the cornerstone, the foundation and guide, for the people of God, the church. Everything was to be built upon His ministry and message: everything was to be built on the Gospel. And Peter ends his declaration with a statement of the power of the Gospel in verse 12:
12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”
When Peter said this, we was making a very clear statement about who Jesus is. He was saying that Jesus is God. Certainly, all of the Sanhedrin would have remembered the words of Isaiah 43:11:
11 I—I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no Savior.
Only God saves. And salvation is only in the name of Jesus. So Jesus must be God. And it isn’t healing that we find as the point of the power of the Gospel, but something bigger. Something deeper. Something permanent. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation, according to this passage, and Romans 1:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
Jesus is the only way to be saved. It is only because of what He did in taking our place that we can be forgiven. It is only in Christ that we are delivered from sin. It is only in Jesus that we have hope for eternal life. And this Gospel is for everyone who would believe in Jesus. That saving power is accessible to any who would lay down their rights to themselves and surrender in faith to the Lord.
We have a task ahead of us, church. A task to declare our witness to the power of the Gospel—that Jesus saves, and that there is salvation found in no one else. That He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him. That He is our Lord, our Master, our Savior, and our King. Humanity isn’t going to fix itself. It’s hopelessly broken. We need the power of the love of God proven and given in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to change the world. Live out the message of the Gospel at all times, and as God gives you opportunity, share the message of the hope of the Gospel.
And before you think that you don’t have what it takes to tell someone else about Jesus, consider our last point:
3: The people of the Gospel.
3: The people of the Gospel.
We tend to really put guys like Peter and John up on a pedestal. I mean, after all, they’re saints. Like saints saints. We have streets named after them (San Pedro and San Juan). We look at what they did, starting the church, writing a gospel, several epistles, and the book of Revelation between them. These guys really knew their stuff and made a difference in their work for the Kingdom.
But we can’t forget who these guys were when they were called. They were ordinary, everyday, blue-collar guys. They were fishermen. And the fact that they were so ordinary completely confounded the members of the Sanhedrin:
13 When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus. 14 And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in opposition.
Peter and John were bold in their reliance on God’s Spirit, bold in their focus on the Gospel, bold in their proclamation about Jesus. And what qualifications did they have for doing these things? Did they have a special pedigree, like the high priests had? No. Had they sat under the finest rabbis in the land? No. Did they own land and have a bunch of money? No. Instead, they had one qualification that the Sanhedrin as far as they could tell (and they didn’t see it as a qualification, just a “reason”): they had been with Jesus. And the Jewish leaders couldn’t argue against what had occurred. The healed man was standing there with them. He stood either as a witness or as a support for these two men through whom He had come to know the Lord.
Peter and John were living out what Jesus had promised them would happen when they were filled with the Holy Spirit in the future:
11 Whenever they bring you before synagogues and rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how you should defend yourselves or what you should say. 12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what must be said.”
These guys walked with Jesus, were filled with the Spirit, and then proclaimed the Gospel because they knew it was the truth. And God worked in their lives to bring people to Himself, because that’s what He does. And He’s not done doing that.
You don’t have to have a seminary degree or a bunch of fancy training to tell people about what Jesus has done in your life. You don’t need a slick presentation or a bunch of memorized verses to share about your own salvation. I think that so often we get intimidated out of sharing the Gospel because we think that we have to have all of the answers. We don’t. Or we think we have to have some amazing testimony. Did Jesus save you? Then you have an amazing testimony, because getting rescued from a path bound for hell is amazing.
We’re called to live in a way so that we bring honor, glory, and truthful representation to the name of Jesus, and that’s a huge part of sharing the Gospel. Notice how Paul said this in Colossians:
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
All of us who are in Christ can choose to live to do everything in the name of the Lord and to do so with gratitude for what He has done for us, trusting in His Spirit to guide us. And as you do that, and as you love your friends and family well because of it, and as you show God’s grace to your neighbors because of it, and as you walk in holiness because of it, you will show people how beautiful Jesus is. And you’ll grow in your confidence in telling people about Jesus, because you will know what God has done for you, all by His grace, so you have no reason to fear sharing the hope of the Gospel.
Tim Keller, in his commentary on Acts, wrote about the beauty of the unqualified nature of the work of God in the Gospel:
“But the reason they were astonished was because they did not grasp the Gospel. The Gospel is that one’s past record is never pristine (it is full of selfishness, pride, and sin), and that therefore “ordinary men” can be saved and chosen and gifted by God for service. Peter and John have this confidence because they have received their position with God and their position in His service all by grace.”
— Tim Keller, Evangelism: Studies in the Book of Acts
But I want to add one thought to this point before I close. There might be someone in this room who God is calling into that full-time ministry arena. Maybe as a missionary. Maybe as a pastor. Maybe as a Bible study leader. Don’t stifle the work of the Spirit. Listen and respond to what He is doing in your life.
Closing
Closing
There is definitely power in the name of Jesus, and we are called to be witnesses of that power, people of the Gospel, because there is going to come a day when no more proof will be necessary.
9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Salvation: the power of the Gospel.
Church Membership
Call to Ministry
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Two summer missions trips for our students this year: High school to the NMBCH, and then all students will have the opportunity to serve at a VBS in Roswell at the end of July. M&M tubes: out on the tables in the foyer, grab one as you go. Fill it with quarters as you have opportunity (each holds about $14 worth), and bring it back to support the students in their mission work this summer.
Grad Sunday: May 2, reception in FLC from 2-4 pm.
Bible reading: Acts 7 today.
Instructions
Benediction:
23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.