Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction (Review)

Good Morning, how are we doing this bright, brilliant and brrrrr…moring?

This morning we are continuing in our series called Ekklesia where we are looking at the beginnings of the Church, the beginnings of the Unstoppable Movement of God.

We have seen how the Church was not an after thought but it was always a part of the plan that Jesus put in place.

He is building His Church…and our responsibility is to faithfully follow His lead.

Before He ascended into heaven, He gave instructions to His followers to return to Jerusalem and wait for the power that they would need to do what Jesus had co-missioned them to do.

And then that power came.

Like a rushing wind it came and fell on each of the followers of Jesus and they immediately they were faithfully telling the world about Jesus in magnificent and awe inspiring ways.

Then Peter stood up among all the people and preached the very first sermon and their little group went from about 120 people to more than 3,000.

People from different regions and cultures all heard, responded to and then brought the “life-giving message of Jesus Christ” back home with them.

But many of the Christians remained there in Jerusalem where this wonderful revival broke out and it had all the components that we would expect of a revival.

The people were not only getting themselves to Church each week, they were faithfully meeting for Bible studies in their homes during the week.

They were praying together and giving generously to anyone who had need.

It was an amazing time and everyone was wondering what God would do next?

Then one day, as two of the Apostles were heading into the Temple a lame man asked them for mercy - he meant in the form of a few coins for his cup but in the name of Jesus they gave him much better.

The gave life to his limbs and he leapt up and followed Peter and John into the Temple where he caused quite a commotion because people saw this man that they recognized as the crippled man who once sat outside the gate and now he is in Temple healed, whole and complete.

When the crowds gathered around the Apostles they were quick to correct any misconceptions about their role in the healing.

Sure they were there and they spoke the words, but it was the name of Jesus that made this man whole.

The same Jesus whom they had called to be killed by the hands of the Romans because they did not recognize Him as the “Messiah” that their forefathers had prophesied would come.

And against that bad news, there was still very “good news”.

None of this caught God by surprise and He has worked all things out so that the suffering and death of His anointed one would bring forgiveness and life to His people.

Because this Jesus is no longer dead, He has risen from the dead and when we put our faith in Jesus, we can too.

Tension

And that is where we ended the message last week - followed by the blessing of Curt and Cheri’s baptism.

But for this week we are going to look at how the Apostle’s message was received.

All we said last week was that crowds and the religions leaders responded very differently.

Isn’t it amazing how two groups of people can hear and see exactly the same thing and yet take away a very different message.

I don’t know if you have experience this much, but in my life it seems that this often has a lot to do with what each group is expecting of both the message and the messenger.

You see the crowds who were gathered at the Temple were expecting meet God there in a powerful way so they heard in the miracle and message of Peter the good news that God is on the move and that He has provided for them their long awaited “Messiah” in Jesus of Nazareth.

But these corrupt religious leaders saw and heard something very different.

They expected the people to be coming to the Temple to learn from them and so they saw in this miracle and message a disruption and threat to their positions of power, prestige and profit.

So open your Bibles with me to Acts Chapter 4, page 911 in the Bibles in the chairs, as we will discover that opposition to Word, will and worship of God has been a part of the legacy of the Christian Church since the beginning.

As you are turning there I will pray.

Truth

Our first theme that we will uncover this week is that...

We should expect opposition when people come to faith in response to our bold witness (Acts 4:1–7).

Why were they greatly annoyed?

1.

They were teaching the people It wasn’t necessarily what they were teaching, but that these unskilled ordinary men thought that they had any right to be addressing the people in the Temple at all.

They were the teachers, thank you very much, and to have these common men come off the street and think that they had anything worth listening to was a threat to their authority structure

2. They were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead Not only did they have no “right” to be teaching they were teaching something that threw a monkey wrench into everything they stood for.

Remember the Sadducees were the ruling class of religious leaders who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and this folded very well into their “You only live once, so live it up” mentality.

Any claim that someone had risen from the dead threw shade not only on their beliefs but on the way they were justifying all their compromises.

So what did these leaders do?

They did what any authority does when they have no answers for ideas that challenge their authority...

(It is just too bad that this old book doesn’t speak into things that we deal with today…)

So Luke tells us that the Apostles are now in jail and then he shares this really interesting statement that I think is meant to help us to get a picture for how the Christian Church has in just this short period of time become something that had to be reckoned with.

The presence of the Church that Jesus is building already cannot be easily dismissed as some sort of a fringe movement - the Unstoppable movement of God is spreading like wildfire and the religious leaders know it.

So...

To get an idea of what Peter and John have walked into here, it may be best to see this as something like standing before all of Congress, the Supreme Court and the President and Vice President of the United States.

These were all the power players of the day and Luke is careful to tell us that even the big wigs are present for this examination.

It was a very big deal.

These fishermen turned Apostles are now standing before the most powerful men in their world - all because they were faithful to bear witness for Jesus.

They knew to...expect opposition when people come to faith in response to our bold witness.

But they also knew that...

We should expect the Holy Spirit will empower us in the face of opposition.

(Acts 4:8–12).

If I was going to fill in the blanks of this theme on my own, I would tempted to want to say that “We should expect that the Holy Spirit will PROTECT us FROM the face of opposition.

But hear me Church - God never promises that - but we can expect the Holy Spirit to empower us when we face such things.

That is exactly what Peter did...

I have to stop here to point out two things.

First of all, we see how the Holy Spirit has led Peter to be respectful to their positions of authority, even though he later expresses sharp criticism of their actions as leaders.

In other words, even when we have little respect for the behavior of a particular leader - we can still show respect to the position.

And I am saddened to see how many Christians have lowered themselves to a place where they don’t seem to think that they need to do this.

I don’t see how it helps to disrespectfully criticize a leader for not being respectful of the position they have been given.

We should always look for a way to show respect for the office, even when we don’t see much to respect in how a particular leader is filling it.

But secondly, I have to point out that the word “examined” here is the word ἀνακρίνω (anakrino) and it is a legal term referring to someone who is being judged for a crime that they committed.

So Peter begins with respect for the office, but then in effect He says “Are we really being tried here for the crime of doing a good deed to a crippled man?”

Is that what these criminal proceedures are all about?

Still, he continues because this is a great opportunity to be a witness for Jesus as the Christ!

So he says:

These were bold words to speak to a powerful audience like this.

To lift up the name of Jesus above the Chief Priests and the rulers of the Law was dangerous territory.

Not only that, but Peter is saying that the name of Jesus has the kind of power that has only, to this point, been ascribed to the name of God himself.

Only the name of Jesus has the power to save us?

That is huge, but what can these men do?

They are politically minded leaders and the evidence of this power was there for all the people to see - the lame man was healed!

And if you are trying to con people with a form of spirituality that you don’t really even believe in then the thing that you fear the most is when the real thing shows up.

And Luke has already told us how Jesus knew that this would happen.

From the Gospel of Luke we can read of Jesus’ instructions when He said...

And again later in Luke 21 it says:

And that is exactly the position that this Council found themselves - they could not contradict the words and wisdom that the Holy Spirit worked through Peter:

This brings us to our third and final theme for the week:

3. We should pray expectantly for continued boldness in the face of opposition and threats.

(Acts 4:18-22; 29-31)

Remember these men were there being “examined” or “judged” by this council, but at the end of the day their answer was “If it comes down to a choice between obeying God or obeying you - we are going to obey God”.

This has been a “go-to” verse for many of us over the past couple years as we have had to grapple with many new commands and mandates from the authorities in our lives, but something to keep in mind is that the Apostles are not saying, “You can’t do anything to me, because I am obeying God”.

The Apostles knew that these men had authority “under God” to execute a measure of judgement, but they chose to obey God despite the risk.

As we continue to study the book of Acts we will see how it didn’t always work out this way, but for this time, the political pressure kept the council to only threats.

And then the Apostles returned to the Revival and reported everything that had happened to them.

And you know what happened... - They all packed up their belongings and got out of Dodge…?

- They cancelled their internet, threw out their phones and went and hid in the woods…?

No. none of that.

They prayed.

And they didn’t pray that God would take them from the struggle, but that He would keep them bold in the struggle.

Moving down to verse 29 we read:

We should expect opposition when people come to faith in response to our bold witness.

Acts 4:1-7

We should expect the Holy Spirit to empower us in the face of opposition.

Acts 4:8-12

We should pray expectantly for continued boldness in the face of opposition and threats.